Top 10 Things I will Not Miss About Traveling
10. The hundred yard dash to the potty (in the darkness at 2 am)
9. WiFi that doesn’t reach the trailer, and when it does, has the bandwidth of a silly straw (with a spit ball stuck in it)
8. Searching for travel stickers in places that don’t have them – or finding too many stickers (and having a hard time choosing the right one)
7. Arriving at each new campsite and building our house
6. Breaking our house down a couple of days later when we leave
5. Sand in our beds
4. Grizzly Bears in our campground at night (Yellowstone)
3. Traveling companions who do not appreciate statistics as much as I do
2. The nefarious pop-up gnome that hides our glasses, cell phones, keys, chargers, iPhones and iTouches under the cushions and mattresses
1. $1250 air conditioning in the van that you turn on by rolling the windows down
Top 10 Trip Memories
10. High fiving each other as we crossed the 10,000 foot Powder River Pass in Wyoming, as Boston blared on the speakers
9. Watching “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” in Fort Smith, Arkansas and having the theater to ourselves (AC, pop corn and Coke!)
8. The thrill of accelerating to 120 mph in 4 seconds at Cedar Point, Ohio after waiting 90 minutes in anticipation (also relaxing where we got the sign made later that day)
7. The feel of the wind and the beauty of the prairie sunset at Pipestone, Minnesota
6. Enjoying the natural hot tub where the hot springs mingled with the cold Gardner River – and Huckleberry ice cream afterward (Yellowstone)
5. The wonderful meal at Harry’s Roadhouse moments after we arrived in Santa Fe
4. The hike through Biscuit Basin and to Mystic Falls our first day in Yellowstone
3. Enjoying the outdoor concert the Pleasure Pilots played while everyone danced on the Plaza in Santa Fe
2. Hiking that beautiful section of the Mickelson Trail with Jim and David in the Black Hills of South Dakota
1. Watching the sunrise with Vicki and the international collection of “worshipers” at the south rim of the Grand Canyon, Sunday morning (we all said "Ahh!" in a common language at the magic moment)
Top 10 Quirky Things We Saw on the Trip
10. The old-school aqua/deep blue Winnebago’s out west
9. The Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere in Groom, Oklahoma
8. The stinkiest porta-potty in the world near our campsite in Baraboo, Wisconsin
7. People trying to pet bison along the road in Yellowstone despite numerous warnings about bison goring and killing tourists
6. People hiking in the Arches National Park desert in sandals and miniskirts (the rangers were rescuing one of them the last night we were there)
5. Rain/dust storm combos in northern Arizona (twice in one afternoon)
4. Cereal that climbed to $7 a box as you got farther away from civilization
3. A motorcycle with a dog cage strapped to the back seat with a rat dog riding calmly behind the driver (somewhere in Wyoming)
2. Skye-Boy spontaneously pooping in the back seat and crawling into Vicki’s lap (she was driving) on I-40 somewhere between Memphis and Nashville (he had tried hard to tell us, but we thought he wanted water - and when you gotta go, you gotta go)
1. The weirdo taking pictures after dark at Grand View Point Overlook in Canyonlands National Park (oh, that was me!)
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Day 27/28 - Saturday, August 15 and into Sunday morning (Nashville and the Long Drive Home)
We slept in late and relaxed and read for most of the morning at the campsite in Nashville. Having decided to make the 800 mile drive home tonight from sunset to mid-morning tomorrow, the priority for today is to rest and prepare to make the long drive home safely. Perhaps it was because the AAA TourBook offered little high praise for sightseeing in Nashville (the best of the bunch was the science center), the fact that a drive would have involved an hour and a half round trip, or the fact that we are done with sightseeing and ready to go home, but all of these reasons may have contributed to our decision to spend the day reading and napping before supper, breakdown and hitting the road for the last time this trip.
The weather was hot and humid, but the AC in the trailer kept things comfortable. I finished “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White that Josh lent to me, bringing my trip total to four books (a distant second to Joy, who polished off half a dozen or more this trip). She had a nasty habit of glumming onto whatever books Vicki or I happened to be reading. We’d “lose” them and find her curled up with them. Great minds must think alike =)
After the book, I took a nap with the goal of dreaming – got a couple of hours in and a weird dream before supper. My sunburn from our pool day in Arkansas still hurts (my pride more than my body), but I slathered on some aloe gel we bought last night and slept on my back. After supper, we cleaned up and went about our various packing chores. Vicki filled up the van at a gas station nearby and I filled my thermos and travel mug with coffee that needs to be chewed first. By 8:15, we were buttoned up, hooked up and rolling slowly out of the camp and onto the highway. Vicki took the first leg, while I tried to get some sleep. The sun had just set and it was 80 degrees outside; we ran with the windows down.
Driving at night through Nashville was beautiful. The Titans were playing Tampa Bay in a pre-season game before 65,000 people and the stadium was beautiful as we passed by on a stretch of I-24/40 that paralleled and then crossed the Cumberland River as it wound its way through the city. By 11 pm, we drove through Knoxville and veered onto I-81, which shadowed the Appalachian Mountains before crossing them in Virginia. When we got to Kingsport (where my Uncle John and Aunt Mary lived for many years), we stopped to fill up and switch drivers. As I pulled back onto I-81, it was just after 1 am. A few minutes later, we crossed into Virginia and lost an hour as we crossed into Eastern Standard Time.
I can’t resist saying that we crossed the Appalachians at around 2400 feet. The van did fine, and I didn’t fuss for the sake of the sleepers (and because I’m not as worried as I used to be). I drove by the light of the rising, waning moon that we have watched grow from new to full and wane back to a crescent throughout this trip. The temperature got to a comfortable 66 outside as Sunday morning dawned over the Shenandoah Mountain Range to the east. Moments after sun poked its head over the mountains, we stopped to fill up again in a hamlet called New Market, near Luray Caverns (we went there on our 10th anniversary). We had knocked out 600 miles and had a mere 200 to go.
There was some talk of breakfast, but we were all too excited about getting home after so many weeks away. We drove on familiar highways around Washington and through Baltimore and celebrated as the mileage count dwindled and we exited 95 at 279 and crossed into Delaware. Minutes later, we backed the trailer into our driveway as Ruthann was leading the service at Skyline, and hugged Nicole in the front yard. A half hour after we had cut the engine off, we were crashed in our beds – without having to set up our house. Home is the campground we’ve been looking for.
Total mileage for the trip: 5914 miles of travel (500 miles average) and 1299 sightseeing miles (75 mile average), for a total of 7213 miles
We spent 130 hours in the van this past month and burned nearly 400 gallons of fuel.
No doubt, we will not forget this trip for the rest of our lives. Thanks for reading.
The weather was hot and humid, but the AC in the trailer kept things comfortable. I finished “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White that Josh lent to me, bringing my trip total to four books (a distant second to Joy, who polished off half a dozen or more this trip). She had a nasty habit of glumming onto whatever books Vicki or I happened to be reading. We’d “lose” them and find her curled up with them. Great minds must think alike =)
After the book, I took a nap with the goal of dreaming – got a couple of hours in and a weird dream before supper. My sunburn from our pool day in Arkansas still hurts (my pride more than my body), but I slathered on some aloe gel we bought last night and slept on my back. After supper, we cleaned up and went about our various packing chores. Vicki filled up the van at a gas station nearby and I filled my thermos and travel mug with coffee that needs to be chewed first. By 8:15, we were buttoned up, hooked up and rolling slowly out of the camp and onto the highway. Vicki took the first leg, while I tried to get some sleep. The sun had just set and it was 80 degrees outside; we ran with the windows down.
Driving at night through Nashville was beautiful. The Titans were playing Tampa Bay in a pre-season game before 65,000 people and the stadium was beautiful as we passed by on a stretch of I-24/40 that paralleled and then crossed the Cumberland River as it wound its way through the city. By 11 pm, we drove through Knoxville and veered onto I-81, which shadowed the Appalachian Mountains before crossing them in Virginia. When we got to Kingsport (where my Uncle John and Aunt Mary lived for many years), we stopped to fill up and switch drivers. As I pulled back onto I-81, it was just after 1 am. A few minutes later, we crossed into Virginia and lost an hour as we crossed into Eastern Standard Time.
I can’t resist saying that we crossed the Appalachians at around 2400 feet. The van did fine, and I didn’t fuss for the sake of the sleepers (and because I’m not as worried as I used to be). I drove by the light of the rising, waning moon that we have watched grow from new to full and wane back to a crescent throughout this trip. The temperature got to a comfortable 66 outside as Sunday morning dawned over the Shenandoah Mountain Range to the east. Moments after sun poked its head over the mountains, we stopped to fill up again in a hamlet called New Market, near Luray Caverns (we went there on our 10th anniversary). We had knocked out 600 miles and had a mere 200 to go.
There was some talk of breakfast, but we were all too excited about getting home after so many weeks away. We drove on familiar highways around Washington and through Baltimore and celebrated as the mileage count dwindled and we exited 95 at 279 and crossed into Delaware. Minutes later, we backed the trailer into our driveway as Ruthann was leading the service at Skyline, and hugged Nicole in the front yard. A half hour after we had cut the engine off, we were crashed in our beds – without having to set up our house. Home is the campground we’ve been looking for.
Total mileage for the trip: 5914 miles of travel (500 miles average) and 1299 sightseeing miles (75 mile average), for a total of 7213 miles
We spent 130 hours in the van this past month and burned nearly 400 gallons of fuel.
No doubt, we will not forget this trip for the rest of our lives. Thanks for reading.
Day 26 - Friday, August 14 (Arkansas to Nashville, Tennessee)
After going to bed fairly early last night, we woke up at 3 am and packed up the rest of the trailer (we had pre-packed everything we could the night before) in order to hit the road by 4 am. The idea was to get as much driving in as possible before the sun got down to business on us. We were all like a family of mice scurrying around in the darkness prepping the trailer for takeoff. The drill has become second nature to everybody – the darkness did not slow us down – and we went from sleeping to on the road in half the time it usually takes us (Mr. Sun has a way of motivating you).
What a pleasure it was to drive in relative cool (temp was 68) for a while. We knew we would be driving until just after noon, but the pre-dawn hours were a blessing as everyone except the driver slept in the cool. We were 150 miles down the road before the sun blazed up over Little Rock as the commuter traffic thickened around us. All along the highway, a thick mist hung over the fields, rivers and lakes. We filled up outside of town and watched the temperature rise with the sun.
By 9 am, we crossed the Mississippi into Memphis, Tennessee, 300 miles into the 540 mile trip, and the temp had already risen to 86. As we drove through Memphis, we listened to the King sing "You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog" and "Love Me Tender". The Tennessee welcome sign is mounted on the middle of the bridge across the Mississippi. When we stopped for gas and breakfast/brunch outside of Jackson, an hour later, it was 95, with two hours to go. We laughed (gallows humor) as we waited in the drive through at McDonald’s for our sausage and egg biscuits, and compared the humidity and heat to an elephant sitting on us. Joy was sad to have slept through Memphis. I was sorry not to have wakened her. We rolled into Nashville at noon, but our campsite was across town, which took us 45 more minutes to negotiate.
We set up quickly and turned the AC on the camper – thankfully, it works! After our usual quick set up, we crashed for a nap in the cool air. Before we lost consciousness, all of us decided that the only flaw in our plan is that we had not gotten up early enough. With only 800 miles between us and home, we will skip an overnight in Virginia and drive straight through from sundown to sunup tomorrow night and Sunday morning, alternating drivers to keep us fresh through the night.
Between now and then, we have a little time to enjoy Nashville and rest up for the final leg of our 6000 mile odyssey. Actually, “enjoy Nashville” takes on a different kind of meaning at the end of the trip. At the beginning, it would have meant driving all over the place, seeing the sights and taking lots of pictures. After 4200 miles on the road, plus another 1300 sightseeing, we enjoy Nashville (or any city) mainly by chilling out and getting ready to go home.
For supper, we drove one exit south to enjoy a meal at Cracker Barrel, after which we browsed the store and headed across the street to Kmart to purchase the fifth Harry Potter movie (Vicki hadn’t seen it yet) and one of those spray bottles with a fan on it. A woman in the parking lot was looking for some twine to secure a wicker chair she was so proud of snapping up for $60 – she reminded us too much of Grandma (and I was going to buy her some twine before another woman found a bungee cord to give her). We enjoyed the movie together back at the campsite while it rained a little and went to bed.
What a pleasure it was to drive in relative cool (temp was 68) for a while. We knew we would be driving until just after noon, but the pre-dawn hours were a blessing as everyone except the driver slept in the cool. We were 150 miles down the road before the sun blazed up over Little Rock as the commuter traffic thickened around us. All along the highway, a thick mist hung over the fields, rivers and lakes. We filled up outside of town and watched the temperature rise with the sun.
By 9 am, we crossed the Mississippi into Memphis, Tennessee, 300 miles into the 540 mile trip, and the temp had already risen to 86. As we drove through Memphis, we listened to the King sing "You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog" and "Love Me Tender". The Tennessee welcome sign is mounted on the middle of the bridge across the Mississippi. When we stopped for gas and breakfast/brunch outside of Jackson, an hour later, it was 95, with two hours to go. We laughed (gallows humor) as we waited in the drive through at McDonald’s for our sausage and egg biscuits, and compared the humidity and heat to an elephant sitting on us. Joy was sad to have slept through Memphis. I was sorry not to have wakened her. We rolled into Nashville at noon, but our campsite was across town, which took us 45 more minutes to negotiate.
We set up quickly and turned the AC on the camper – thankfully, it works! After our usual quick set up, we crashed for a nap in the cool air. Before we lost consciousness, all of us decided that the only flaw in our plan is that we had not gotten up early enough. With only 800 miles between us and home, we will skip an overnight in Virginia and drive straight through from sundown to sunup tomorrow night and Sunday morning, alternating drivers to keep us fresh through the night.
Between now and then, we have a little time to enjoy Nashville and rest up for the final leg of our 6000 mile odyssey. Actually, “enjoy Nashville” takes on a different kind of meaning at the end of the trip. At the beginning, it would have meant driving all over the place, seeing the sights and taking lots of pictures. After 4200 miles on the road, plus another 1300 sightseeing, we enjoy Nashville (or any city) mainly by chilling out and getting ready to go home.
For supper, we drove one exit south to enjoy a meal at Cracker Barrel, after which we browsed the store and headed across the street to Kmart to purchase the fifth Harry Potter movie (Vicki hadn’t seen it yet) and one of those spray bottles with a fan on it. A woman in the parking lot was looking for some twine to secure a wicker chair she was so proud of snapping up for $60 – she reminded us too much of Grandma (and I was going to buy her some twine before another woman found a bungee cord to give her). We enjoyed the movie together back at the campsite while it rained a little and went to bed.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Day 25 - Thursday, August 13 (Lake Fort Smith State Park in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas)
We enjoyed a big breakfast of bacon and eggs (and coffee for me), and then commenced to read and enjoy the morning in this brand new state park. Everything is clean and shiny – the visitor’s center smells like a new house – and the bathrooms are pristine. I drove down to the marina to check on boat rentals, but the no swimming policy (Lake Fort Smith is a reservoir for Fort Smith) convinced us all that we needed to spend the day at the pool, which we did.
We took snacks, drinks, and paperbacks to while away the time we weren’t swimming, and alternated between reading, napping, swimming and snacking, from noon to five (tuff day). Some of us (me) spent a bit too much time in the sun without the benefit of sunscreen, but we all enjoyed the lax lifeguards (I could toss Eli as much as both of us wanted) and the refreshment of the water before returning to the trailer for a wonderful supper of beef, potatoes and salad.
After supper, we packed a lot of things we usually wait until morning to do, as we plan to rise at 3 for a 4 am departure for Nashville (and hopefully a cooler ride). We’ve got 520 miles to go and the GPS says it will take us 8 hours. Vicki looked up some info on Nashville in our AAA Tourbook, but we’ll have lots of time to finalize plans on the road. We’re tinkering with the idea of a waterpark or touring some of the famous music sights. Along the way there, we will pass through Little Rock and Memphis on the mighty Mississippi (we last crossed the river in Minnesota, 3 weeks ago!).
We’re 1300 miles from home and we can taste it!
We took snacks, drinks, and paperbacks to while away the time we weren’t swimming, and alternated between reading, napping, swimming and snacking, from noon to five (tuff day). Some of us (me) spent a bit too much time in the sun without the benefit of sunscreen, but we all enjoyed the lax lifeguards (I could toss Eli as much as both of us wanted) and the refreshment of the water before returning to the trailer for a wonderful supper of beef, potatoes and salad.
After supper, we packed a lot of things we usually wait until morning to do, as we plan to rise at 3 for a 4 am departure for Nashville (and hopefully a cooler ride). We’ve got 520 miles to go and the GPS says it will take us 8 hours. Vicki looked up some info on Nashville in our AAA Tourbook, but we’ll have lots of time to finalize plans on the road. We’re tinkering with the idea of a waterpark or touring some of the famous music sights. Along the way there, we will pass through Little Rock and Memphis on the mighty Mississippi (we last crossed the river in Minnesota, 3 weeks ago!).
We’re 1300 miles from home and we can taste it!
Day 24 - Wednesday, August 12 (Drive from Canute, Oklahoma to Mountainburg, Arkansas)
Short drive today, but a long trip.
We are now back in the land of low elevation and high humidity, and the lack of AC is a real drag that takes its toll. Normally, when I drive any length of time, I enjoy listening to music, being with my thoughts, or talking with Vicki or the others. For over half of our 6000 mile trip, we have had to endure the blast of 95 degree wind to avoid sweating to death in the oven of our van, which means sweating for 6-9 hours while listening to a hurricane. And this after spending $1000 before and $200 during the trip to make sure the AC was in good shape. Today we realized that we will have to make some adjustments in the east, like traveling early (starting at 4 am) to avoid the highway during the hottest hours of the day.
The day began easily enough, sleeping in late (as usual) and enjoying a leisurely breakfast (oatmeal and bagels). We were blessed to have a shaded campsite, and didn’t get away until 11:00. After passing through Oklahoma City, we stopped for lunch and gas in Shawnee and I got pretty cranky with everyone. As we got back on the highway, I knew the heat had something to do with my attitude, but it was more than that. Interstate 40 through Oklahoma runs near the terminus of the infamous Trail of Tears, and is littered with names of tribes uprooted from their homelands in the east, from the Seminole to the Cherokee. Today, the highway is also littered with billboards for the many casinos.
Then and now, this road is paved with broken dreams. So I think it was more than the heat that got to me.
We also passed lots of towns that claimed notoriety based on famous sons and daughters. Yesterday, at the end of the trip, we saw a sign that let us know Elk City was the birthplace of Susan Powell, the 1981 Miss America winner who went on to have a career in opera. Today, we saw a sign that proclaimed Weatherford as the birthplace of Thomas P. Stafford, the astronaut who made the first flight of the lunar module to the moon in 1969 and commanded the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. And as we passed Okemah, 70 miles east of Oklahoma City, a sign let us know that we were passing the birthplace of Woody Guthrie, a folk musician nicknamed “the Dustbowl Troubadour” who wrote “This Land is Your Land”.
Just after 3 pm, we crossed into Arkansas and turned north on 540 for the final 15 miles to Fort Smith Lake State Park, at the western edge of the Ozark Mountains. We set up quickly and had supper before driving to Fort Smith, 30 miles southwest, to buy groceries and to find a theater showing the sixth Harry Potter movie. We got the groceries, but the GPS flubbed the first theater address (it routed us to a golf course!). We had a backup plan, and drove further south, across the Arkansas River, through the weather beaten town of Fort Smith, and found the Carmike 14 off Waco Street, where we got the whole theater to ourselves for the 8:00 show. We enjoyed the movie, popcorn and Coke and got back home just before midnight, where we crashed for another night under the stars.
We are now back in the land of low elevation and high humidity, and the lack of AC is a real drag that takes its toll. Normally, when I drive any length of time, I enjoy listening to music, being with my thoughts, or talking with Vicki or the others. For over half of our 6000 mile trip, we have had to endure the blast of 95 degree wind to avoid sweating to death in the oven of our van, which means sweating for 6-9 hours while listening to a hurricane. And this after spending $1000 before and $200 during the trip to make sure the AC was in good shape. Today we realized that we will have to make some adjustments in the east, like traveling early (starting at 4 am) to avoid the highway during the hottest hours of the day.
The day began easily enough, sleeping in late (as usual) and enjoying a leisurely breakfast (oatmeal and bagels). We were blessed to have a shaded campsite, and didn’t get away until 11:00. After passing through Oklahoma City, we stopped for lunch and gas in Shawnee and I got pretty cranky with everyone. As we got back on the highway, I knew the heat had something to do with my attitude, but it was more than that. Interstate 40 through Oklahoma runs near the terminus of the infamous Trail of Tears, and is littered with names of tribes uprooted from their homelands in the east, from the Seminole to the Cherokee. Today, the highway is also littered with billboards for the many casinos.
Then and now, this road is paved with broken dreams. So I think it was more than the heat that got to me.
We also passed lots of towns that claimed notoriety based on famous sons and daughters. Yesterday, at the end of the trip, we saw a sign that let us know Elk City was the birthplace of Susan Powell, the 1981 Miss America winner who went on to have a career in opera. Today, we saw a sign that proclaimed Weatherford as the birthplace of Thomas P. Stafford, the astronaut who made the first flight of the lunar module to the moon in 1969 and commanded the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. And as we passed Okemah, 70 miles east of Oklahoma City, a sign let us know that we were passing the birthplace of Woody Guthrie, a folk musician nicknamed “the Dustbowl Troubadour” who wrote “This Land is Your Land”.
Just after 3 pm, we crossed into Arkansas and turned north on 540 for the final 15 miles to Fort Smith Lake State Park, at the western edge of the Ozark Mountains. We set up quickly and had supper before driving to Fort Smith, 30 miles southwest, to buy groceries and to find a theater showing the sixth Harry Potter movie. We got the groceries, but the GPS flubbed the first theater address (it routed us to a golf course!). We had a backup plan, and drove further south, across the Arkansas River, through the weather beaten town of Fort Smith, and found the Carmike 14 off Waco Street, where we got the whole theater to ourselves for the 8:00 show. We enjoyed the movie, popcorn and Coke and got back home just before midnight, where we crashed for another night under the stars.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Day 23 - Tuesday, August 11 (Drive from Santa Fe to Canute, Oklahoma)
This is the part of our trip that abounds in long driving days and comparatively few play days. Yet the drive is often a memorable part of our travel experience, and not merely a nuisance to be endured. While it's true that the AC has been inoperative since Salt Lake City (but for a brief - and expensive - respite between Moab and Grand Canyon), we have each made our peace with the experience of the wind roaring past the open windows at 70 mph for hours on end. We're not sure what we're going to do when it rains, but as we parallel the historic Route 66, we feel a kinship to those earlier explorers who braved the territory without the buffer of air conditioning.
Truth is, we can live without it. And this morning, we learned that we are going to live without it for the rest of the trip. The shop I drove to at 7:30 this morning in Santa Fe found the leak: a couple of O-ring seals in the condenser. To replace them requires several hours of labor, and since we had the AC system overhauled for this trip, I believe the repair might fall under warranty in Wilmington. At any rate, we did not have time to wait out the lengthy repair, so we opted to mush on across New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma sans chilled air.
And we survived.
We had lunch at a Micky D's in Tucamcari, New Mexico with a bunch of folk headed for Fresno, California on a Trailways Bus. Then we drove into Texas and a new time zone - as well as totally new topography. Gone were the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona (as well as 5000 more feet of elevation above sea level). Texas was flat as far as our eyes could see. We passed loud and proud Christians - notably a "Jesus is Lord (not a cuss word)" Truck Stop, the "Largest Cross In The Western Hemisphere"(!) and a silhouette of a cowboy kneeling before a cross. Though we blasted through towns with names like Conway, Groom, Wildorado, and Gruhlkey, it took a while to drive through Amarillo, home of the 72 ounce free steak (free, that is, if you can wolf it down - along with shrimp cocktail, salad, roll, and baked potato - in 60 minutes without throwing up!).
We gassed up at Shamrock, Texas, and got some ice cream, 65 miles from our destination. The 21 gallons of gas brought our total for this trip to 290 gallons, or $750 at an average $2.55 per gallon (more in the west). We've averaged just under 18 mpg tugging the trailer up and down mountains for lo these 5443 miles (with more than 1600 to go!). We made it past a last bit of road construction and pulled into site #42 at the KOA between Elk City and Clinton, Oklahoma, where we'll bed down for the night.
Vicki fixed a great supper of ham and sweet potatoes on the grill, and green beans, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset "sooner" than we thought possible (heh, heh). Tomorrow it's back on the road for a short leg to Lake fort Smith State Park in Mountainburg, Arkansas (a piddly little 300 mile jaunt), and a day to explore the Ozark mountains. Then on to Nashville, Virginia, and home!
As I close today's blog entry, I can hear the sounds of trucks rolling along I-40, not more than several hundred yards from where we have set up camp. It's just as well, for this memorable month, the highway has become our home. The highways we have traveled have opened up a storehouse of treasures across America this summer, as we have driven past (and marveled at) endless lakes, breathtaking mountains, and vast prairies and fields. We've been able to stop and savor a small percentage of what we have driven past along the way. I have been reminded on this trip of the riches that abound in this country - far beyond the time any of us are given to explore and appreciate them.
Day 22 – Monday, August 10 (Old Town Santa Fe, NM)
Today was another rest and refit day for the first half of the day. We enjoyed a big (for us) pancake breakfast, after which I found a place to look at the AC leak in the van. I was too late in the morning for them to look at it today, so Vicki and I decided to get the van looked at early tomorrow morning before we leave for Oklahoma. While Joy and Eli read and relaxed, Vicki and I sorted, washed and dried three loads of laundry – the fourth time we’ve done laundry this trip.
The campsite here is dusty and beautiful. At night, we can see the dusty streak of the Milky Way before the waning but still strong moon rises over the trees. Vicki has been reading about the town of Santa Fe, home to 60,000, which perches on the 7000 foot high foothills of the Rockies, and which claims to be the oldest capitol city in the country (ca. 1610). After we finished the laundry, our books (and Joy and Eli complete a photo and video montage), and lunch, we piled into the van for a trip to Old Town.
Don Pedro Peralta, the Governor-General, surveyed the site and named the city “La Villa Real de Santa Fe de St. Francisco de Assis" which means "the royal city of the holy faith of St. Francis of Assisi” as Spain's new capitol of Nuevo Mexico. The Spanish called the original inhabitants (who had lived in the area since 1000) Pueblo, which means “town” or “town dweller”. To this day, the architecture of much of the city apes the tan masonry dwellings used by the “Pueblo” natives centuries before Spain claimed the area. Even parking garages.
The oldest part of the city is the Plaza, a park ringed by shops, outdoor musicians and vendors, and churches. We spent some time in two of the churches, St. Francis Cathedral and Loretto Chapel. St. Francis dates from 1610, though the present building (the sixth on the site, was begun in 1870). The interior reminded me a lot of St. Hedwig’s in Wilmington – a colorful journey back to a European, 19th century faith experience. We saw a rare 15th station of the cross in the nave (the one celebrating the resurrection), and a “Conquistadora Chapel” where we saw statues of Jesus that bore a Spanish influence and banks of prayer candles.
On our way to the Loretto Chapel (Our Lady of Light), we met a sculptor from West Africa who showed us his handiwork. The Loretto Chapel was built by the same laborers who constructed the final version of the St. Francis Cathedral, in the late-1800’s, for the Sisters of Loretto, whom the Bishop had invited from Kentucky to start a school for girls (which they ran for over a century, until 1968). The chapel is most famous for is miraculous spiral staircase to the choir loft, which makes two 360 turns without a center support, and dates from 1880, when a mysterious carpenter built it in 6 months and disappeared. Later, another carpenter added a handrail (I couldn’t imagine climbing it without one). We had heard about the staircase. It was definitely a thought-provoking structure (and a bargain at $3 a person!). The Loretto Chapel, unlike the St. Francis Cathedral, was deconsecrated and is under private management.
We wondered out of the chapel and through the Plaza, passing a politically incorrect monument denouncing southerners as “Rebels” (and natives “Savages” until a vandal defaced it in 1973). A bronze plaque in front of the late 1800’s obelisk attempts an apology/explanation. A band was tuning up, but we went to a Five & Dime to get water, ice cream, post cards, and chili pepper lights for the trailer (the usual). Sufficiently fortified, we returned to the Plaza and found a spot to enjoy the outdoor concert by the “Pleasure Pilots”, a jazz/swing troupe that got nearly everybody dancing before they finished. A woman near us judged that we had saved the best for last when she learned about our itinerary. After enjoying the outdoor concert in the picturesque town, she may have been right.
We returned to the van and immediately got on our cell phones (Vicki with Ruthann, me with my Dad, Joy with Abbey, and Eli with an imaginary friend) and the din was so loud we could barely keep up with the conversations. We drove to Harry’s Roadhouse and enjoyed another wonderful meal, before returning to the trailer to string up our new chili pepper lights (they look marvelous – Joy arranged a stirring red-green-yellow-red pattern) and get ready for bed.
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