Top 10 Lists for the Trip (according to Bo)

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!)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Day 21 – Sunday, August 9 (Drive from Grand Canyon to Santa Fe, NM - via Petrified Forest NP)

Vicki and I got up early this travel morning in order to watch the sunrise over the Grand Canyon. We got up quickly and dressed in the chilly pre-dawn at 5:15 to get to the overlook nearest us before the 5:40 sunrise. Several dozen people had already gathered at the overlook we chose, and we were both struck by the religious quality of the quiet that pervaded the gathering of people from many different nations who had come to watch the dawning of a new day. The moment the sun ignited the canyon rim to the east of us, everyone voiced an involuntary “ahh!” that transcended all of our language differences.

We felt we did not miss worship this day – and Vicki texted Ruthann, who would be preaching at Skyline soon, three hours ahead of us in the east, to assure her of our prayers and to tell her about the worship we had been involved in before the sunrise, as strangers assisted each other taking photographs of families and couples, accompanied with expressions of gratitude in many languages. We walked thoughtfully back to the van and drove back to coffee, breakfast and packing up to go.

After letting the kids sleep in a little, we pulled away from site J-66 at 9:45, driving south 50 miles to I-40, where we turned east for the final week-long leg that will take us home. We have much enjoyed the fantastic sights this trip, but we will be grateful to return home to friends and familiar places and patterns of our lives. By the end of the day, we will have traveled 3800 miles, not including another 1100 miles while sightseeing. And we will have another 2000 miles to go.

Today’s trip is a bit longer because of the lack of AC as we cross the desert in 95 degree heat. On the bright side, we are driving much of the old historic Route 66, and we play oldies above the roar of the wind with the windows rolled down in order to get into the spirit of America’s Highway. When we pulled off of I-40 at Holbrook, AZ, to make a side trip through the Petrified Forest National Park, we passed the Wigwam Motel (with rooms in the shape of teepees) and went nuts laughing and trying to get a picture.

The Petrified Forest was fascinating, if hot. Joy looked after Skye while we strolled through 200 million year old trees that had been gsathered by an ancient river and turned to quartz when they were covered with sediment and volcanic ash, and then broke apart and exposed in the uplifting of the Colorado Plateau beginning 60 million years ago. We also stopped to see 1200 year old petroglyphs in an area dubbed “newspaper rock” because there were so many of them. Then we drove through the painted desert before resuming our trip east on long, flat I-40.

We arrived at our campsite outside of Santa Fe just before the office closed, and set up in a record 15 minutes in order to get to an area restaurant called Harry’s Road House that served up some wonderful Mexican food. We watched the moon rise on the short drive to our new home for the next 36 hours, and made some online updates for the first time since Moab, thanks to the WiFi at the campsite.

Day 20 – Saturday, August 8 (Grand Canyon 3)

We all got up whenever and enjoyed a lazy morning of reading and steel cut oatmeal before saddling up for a hike into the canyon on the Kaibab Trail, 1.5 miles down and 1.5 miles back up. Joy stayed back reading because she wasn’t feeling too well. Skye hung out with her because dogs aren’t allowed below the rim. We each took a pair of liter bottles of water with us, some trail mix and granola bars, as each of the trails posts a sad story at the trailhead about a 24 year old Boston marathoner who died on one of the longer trails because she and her friend neglected to take enough water and separated when they got in trouble.

We took the shuttle because they don’t allow cars to drive to the trailhead, and stepped off around noon. The views were spectacular, except for the panting, gasping refugees who straggled up the trail as we strolled down. We exchanged no words but their eyes told a weary tale. Along the way, we stopped every 15 minutes for water and tried to limit our picture taking lollygagging. Okay, I tried to limit it (as the chief picture taking lollygagger). We passed work crews from the Civilian Conservation Corps busting up rocks and working on the trail.

The breeze felt good, as most of the trail was fully exposed to the sun. it was hotter below the rim, but only about 85 when we reached our destination a mile and a half below the rim, a place called Cedar Ridge that offered unobstructed views on all sides. It took us about 45 minutes. We sat down under a shrub/tree and fought off the shameless begging squirrels while we snacked, before walking out to the end of the point of land that offered a panoramic view of the canyon. After taking a bunch of pictures and taking in the view, we saddled up and started the 1140 foot climb back to the trailhead and shuttle stop.

We took lots of pictures and rested every 15 minutes, so the climb back wasn’t as horrible as the gloomy looks on the hikers’ faces had suggested. We saw trees and plants growing out of cracks in the rocks, and passed streaks and layers in rocks formed tens of millions of years ago, when the Colorado Plateau was an ancient seabed and seashore. On we climbed and skipped the last rest stop when we could see the trailhead, which took us just over an hour to reach. We resisted the urge to celebrate with high fives all around with the other hikers, and simple climbed back into the shuttle for the ride home to a shower and nap!

Later in the afternoon, we hit the grocery store for snacks for our road trip tomorrow. The AC is not working in the truck again, so the 500 mile trip to Santa Fe might be hot and windy. Who knows? Maybe the dye they put in the coolant in Moab will help the next repair tech actually locate the leak in our system. If that’s all that fails mechanically this trip, we will count ourselves blessed.

After supper, we took the shuttle to the Bright Angel Lodge and hiked a half mile to the trailview overlook to take some pictures of the canyon as the sun set on our last evening here. The crowds made it feel a little like we were back at DisneyWorld, but once we got away from the bus stop to Hopi Point, we had to share the trail only with straggling pairs of young lovers drinking in the ebbing light of the day. After we got back to the trailer, we looked at the pictures we have taken for the past three weeks and went to bed.

Day 19 – Friday, August 7 (Grand Canyon 2)

We awakened to a slow and sleepy morning. I enjoyed coffee and the last of an Agatha Christie novel (and a couple of blog entries, even though I won’t be able to upload them until later). The night got down to 55, but we are all toasty in our bags and glad not to have to deal with the fires of hell in the desert. After everyone got moving, we enjoyed a big breakfast of bacon and pancakes before gearing up for a hike along the rim trail, one of the few places in any National Park that we could take Skye-Boy along with us.

We hiked a mile from the trailer to get to the rim trail and then another seven miles along the trail to Hopi Point and back to the bus stop at the Bright Angel Lodge. At first, we had to weave our way through throngs of people who had driven to the viewpoints, but gradually the crowds thinned out, and we shared the trail with few others who were making their way along the paved trail that followed the south rim for 12 miles or so.

All along the way, we couldn’t take our eyes from the vast expanse that opened up below us. At times, the trail would veer away from the canyon, but often, we skirted the precarious edge of sheer cliffs down into seeming oblivion. Every step of the way screamed for a picture, but we knew that no picture could hope to communicate even a tiny percentage of what we were witnessing. So we walked on, past brass tabs embedded in the asphalt every yard that represented a million years of time in the history of the Colorado Plateau.

After threading our way to a couple of breathtaking overlooks, we emerged into a midway that ran beside the Bright Angel Lodge (and visitor’s center, souvenir shops, and restaurants). The pathway widened for the swell of people, many of whom oooh’ed and ahh’ed over Skye. After we squeezed through the crowds licking their ice cream cones and snapping pictures of the canyon, and passed the famous photographer’s studio built onto the side of the canyon, the trail steepened for a bit before leading us to a series of majestic overlooks, the last of which was Hopi Point, extending into the canyon and offering a panoramic view that left us all awed and reverent.

Well… some of us were reverent. Joy is getting more than a little tired of my “these rocks tell a timeless story…” riff whenever we get near the canyon. She insisted on filming a spoof of my standard geology lecture at Hopi point. With six and a half miles under our belts and another three and a half to go, I decided to humor her. Other than a couple of kids trying to kidnap Skye-Boy, the stop at the last overlook was uneventful.

We backtracked the last mile and a half to the bus stop, where Vicki, Joy and Eli rode the shuttle back to the campsite. They don’t allow dogs and Dads on the buses, so Skye and I walked another 2 miles back to the trailer. Everyone took a nap and chilled out before supper.

The fridge decided to stop working, so we got more ice for the cooler. After five years, the trailer has held up very well, and I have no doubt that we will be able to repair the fridge when we get home. After cleaning up for supper, we drove about 10 miles south of the park to a little tourist trap called Tusayan to see an IMAX movie about the canyon. It gave us a chance to fly through the canyon and to take a virtual whitewater rafting trip along the Colorado. We drove home and crashed.

Day 18 – Thursday, August 6 (Grand Canyon 1)

We got up, as usual, without an alarm clocks and when we felt like it. That’s been fun for the past few weeks. No trains to catch, no appointments and no schedule. After breakfasting on oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon and bagels, we walked to the entrance of the camp to catch the shuttle bus to the visitor’s center, where we walked to the rim.

I have seen the Grand Canyon twice before, from this vantage point. The first time was on a Glee Club trip to Arizona during my senior year, and the second time was the following summer, as Vicki and I took three weeks to get across the country along I-40 to our first duty station in San Diego. The flat plateau falls away with a suddenness that takes my breath away every time. My eyes struggle to take in what it is I am seeing – the dizzying depth to the ribbon of Colorado River peeking up from below, the miles of hazy distance to the higher north rim, the rich tapestry of geological complexity and color in layers and patterns on the weblike maze of sheer and sloped surfaces. And the absence of sound. Because there is nothing to echo sounds back to me. Sheer silence, enfolding me as my eyes resign themselves to comprehending the whole, and follow the graceful flight of a condor, wheeling on the wind seemingly miles below where I stand with others, transfixed.

We take a few pictures, halfheartedly, because we think we should – all the while knowing that nothing, absolutely nothing, will be able to communicate what swallows up the landscape before us to the horizon. I have felt small in the remote parts of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from land, with only the stars for company. This Canyon makes me feel smaller, more reverent, because it allows me to see the wheeling of millennia at a glance, and reveals what I have dumbly called terra firma to be as undulating and as tempestuous as any ocean.

We stumbled our way back to the visitor’s center, where we fell immediately under the spell of “Ranger Ron” as he performed for us the drama of the four things you need to make a Canyon grand. Ron sported a Jeremiah Johnson bush beard, had trained as a pastor in Illinois (he told us afterward), but had ultimately decided to preach geology. And preach he did, waving his arms, flashing his eyes through gold rimmed spectacles, and putting all other pretender canyons (“of something or other”) in their place. We were sad when his 30 minute talk came to a close, and the gathered crowd exploded in applause.

And the four things you need to build this Grand Canyon (not found anywhere else in the world): (1) layered rock; (2) elevated as a plateau, not a mountain which is far more typical; (3) carved deep by a river; all of which occurs in a (4) desert climate, where flash floods can scour the sides of the canyon with tumbling rocks and mud. I got Ron’s autograph in my Junior Ranger booklet, enduring the merciless ribbing from Joy and Eli, after which we were all inspired to grab several books on geology in the bookstore. My favorite was one on the Colorado Plateau, which we have been navigating across for a week now, and which dates back geologically nearly 2 billion years!

We took the shuttle back to the grocery store and got some supplies before walking back to the camper to enjoy lunch and a nap! The wind was whipping hard and Eli and I rolled up the awning after listening to it thrash about (it was tied down, of course). Joy wasn’t feeling so hot, so we left her and Skye in the camper while the rest of us went to the Tusayan Ruins and museum, the remains of an ancient (1400 years ago) pre-Peubloan people who inhabited the canyon area for about three centuries before migrating elsewhere. The ranger there (Pat) gave us a great talk about what you could eat, make, and medicate yourself with using the plants that grew on the rim of the canyon, including the yucca and agave plants (needles, threads, ritual shampoo, ointments and tequila!), juniper trees (baskets, sandals, berries – when ripe – tea to soothe a sore throat, bed lining… and diapers – ouch!) and pines (from which they harvested pine nuts, Scott!). We rubbed sage in our hands and enjoyed the delicious smell, and walked through ruins excavated when the CCC found a bunch of pre-cut rocks to make walkways with.

After supper, I walked Skye-Boy to the rim of the canyon, about 20 minutes north of where we camp. I knew we were too late for the sunset but the canyon was still beautiful in the twilight, and the breeze felt magical as we walked several hundred yards along the profound stillness of the rim. Before we walked back, we sat together on an outcropping of rock high above the canyon floor and watched the moon rise over the canyon rim, an explosion of light that resembled a sunrise – except for the fact that the surrounding Sky did not get the light up memo. We walked back in the gathering darkness, our path lit by the full moon, and enjoyed another good night’s sleep.

Day 17 – Wednesday, August 5 (Drive to the Grand Canyon)

We awoke today to pack and drive our second shortest distance of the trip, 350 miles from Moab to the Grand Canyon – this after the two longest driving days, of 560 miles a piece (our average is 450). The clouds took the brunt of the sun’s heat, blessing us with shade as we stowed, folded and secured everything. The WiFi at the campsite was spotty, and Vicki needed to pay our monthly bills online, so we drove the 10 miles south into Moab and set up shop in the parking lot of the Daily Grind, enjoying coffee and smoothies while Vicki made sure our bill collectors were satisfied. After she finished, I uploaded a few of our pictures and we got away at 11.

I asked the woman at the coffee shop how she got to Moab. She said it was a long story involving an ex, and that she was originally from Canada, but that she had some great friends and had gotten used to the heat. She also told me that early October wasn’t a bad time to visit – with highs merely in the 80’s. From what we saw, the heat of August did not seem to deter many people from hiking, taking pictures, and seeing the Arches.

One thing I haven’t included much about in this blog is the all-star international cast of tourists from Europe and Asia we have seen since crossing the Mississippi – both at the parks and in the campgrounds. Lots of French, British, Italian, German, Swiss, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Indian, and some other languages we can’t place. Many of them fly to the west coast and rent Class C RV’s, then make a three-week odyssey through the signature national parks in the west. It’s fun to hear all of the different languages as we hike and sightsee.

Joy read the travel blogs and has decreed them boring beyond belief. I will, in deference to her, forego the usual tallying of the altitudes and statistics of this trip, although her opinion in this matter smacks of someone who watches more movies than engine temps and fuel gages while traveling. I will say that we climbed from 4500 to 7500 feet on this trip, and that we have no more high mountain passes to navigate from here on out.

We drove today through the usual road construction, one-lane sections and dirt roads, but take those little snags in stride by now as part of the package. At the border of Utah and Arizona, we passed through Monument Valley – littered with more buttes (tall and narrow) and mesas (short and wider) than you could shake a stick at, as well as a lot of flea market looking roadside stands offering trinkets for tourists passing though on desolate 163, where the closest thing to civilization for a hundred miles was a town called Mexican Hat on the San Juan River, named after a rock formation nearby.

In Arizona, the landscape turned to rolling, grey desert as we drove through collections of dwellings with names like Kayenta, Tsegi, Cow Springs, Rare Metals, and Tuba City (State 3A Football Champs a few years back, the faded sign proclaimed), where we filled up. Along the way, we drove through a couple of combination sandstorm/rainstorms – and I can’t explain them other than using those words (but there was more sand than rain). We also saw lots of poverty along the road. We made a bathroom pit stop at a McD’s in Kayenta and saw a couple of dogs herding a dozen sheep through the parking lot (filled with beat up pickup trucks and Escalades (with out of state tags). We saw few trees and even less grass. And most rivers and creeks in this area of the country are called “washes” because the only time water flows in them is after a rare rain.

We arrived at the park entrance around 5:30 and took our first look at the vast, hazy canyon a couple of hours before sunset, as a thunderstorm rolled in from the west. We learned that the park sticks with Pacific Standard Time when Daylight Savings Time is in effect, so we gained yet another hour on this leg of the trip, the farthest west we will travel. We drove 30 miles or so along the rim, stopping once more for pictures, before finding the campsite in Grand Canyon Village and setting up in a hurry moments before the rainstorm hit - driven sideways by the wind! We also learned that our reefer is not working – so we transferred everything to the cooler.

The rain didn’t last for long, and we enjoyed a good supper and the sound of the crickets as we relaxed, caught up on reading and planned our next day. We hadn’t yet adjusted to the new time zone, so we climbed into our bags early - the low got down to the mid-60s, a veritable ice age after the fires of Moab.

Day 16 – Tuesday, August 4 (Arches National Park - Moab, Utah)

We got up early and got to the Arches NP just after 8:15. Turns out it wasn’t early enough (to avoid a nasty run in with Mr. Sun – but more on that later). We stopped for a little bit at the visitors center, and found out more about the park. Turns out this part of the US (southern Utah, Colorado, and northern Arizona and New Mexico) was heaved up 5000 feet about a gazillion years ago, after serving repeatedly as a huge prehistoric sea bed (think lots of salt). Eventually, a dome of salt formed under a layer of sandstone, and when water worked its way through cracks in the sandstone, it eroded the salt and the rocks above collapsed and eroded. What got left behind (for us to marvel at) are giant “fins” of red sandstone, much of which got eroded into arches and as many shapes as the human mind has the capability to imagine and label (everything from organs to gossips to Park Avenue).

We drove 15 miles through these “fins” that sliced hundreds of feet above an ancient landscape (that included petrified sand dunes) and found a parking spot at the Wolfe Ranch/Delicate Arch Trailhead. It was only a mile and a half to the arch, but the signs said take at least a quart of water per person, and to expect strenuous climbing and part of the pathway along a cliff edge. It was 10 am and already nearly 100 degrees when we stepped off toward the Wolfe “Ranch” (more like an outpost on the moon, really) and the famous arch featured on all of the Utah license plates.

We wondered who could have endured the harsh life of a ranching family in the middle of nowhere. The little one room cabin and half buried stable look remarkably intact, so their remarkable courage is all the more evident, given their Spartan living conditions. Just beyond the hut were some Ute petroglyphs – which were cool, even though everything else was baking. We kept walking. And walking. Over a half mile of barren rock we climbed upward – and then we walked another half mile along the ledge of a drop-off toward the famous arch. We stopped a couple of times to drink our very warm water and rest, but rounding the corner and seeing the arch was worth the trouble, especially because of the breeze that cooled our sweaty foreheads.

Though we enjoyed looking smugly at the people climbing up as we walked back down, the hike robbed us of any spunk we had left for seeing the rest of the park in that heat, so we drove to Moab to find a Subway – which we did – before heading back to camp and siesta time. The wind kept me on my toes, repeatedly blowing off the reflector shields, but I finally found the magic and enjoyed a wonderful nap. After an early supper, we returned to the Arches and drove to the trailhead that would take us to see the Landscape Arch, a narrow 300 foot arch that shed 60 tons of rock in 1991 and is now barely 6 feet wide at its narrowest spot.

Along the way, we saw the Pine Tree Arch and walked between the huge, silent fins. The setting sun looked beautiful on the rock formations along the mile long path, and we enjoyed looking at the narrow, thin arch that will probably succumb to gravity soon. We waited and waited, to no avail =) As we walked back to the van, we heard a bunch of coyotes howling to mark the setting of the sun, and saw one of the lion mice scurrying across our path, probably in search of a scorpion whose head it could enjoy for supper.

Day 15 – Monday, August 3 (Rest, Refit, Repair and see a little of Canyonlands in the evening)

As harsh and lonely as the landscape around us is, we watched the sunrise to a land that is also stunningly beautiful. The mesas, buttes, and mountains that rise majestically upward from the high (5000 feet above sea level) desert are dressed in vivid colors instead of vegetation, and the rocks and formations lend themselves to all kinds of musings about what kind of shape you happen to be looking at.

And then the sun rises higher.

This is the desert, so the night got down to 66 or so. But hold onto your hat when the sun gets serious about its business. How hot did it get? By 2 pm, our thermometer, nestled in the shade of one of the bunk ends, was reading 109. Yeah, yeah, we know, it’s a dry heat. But opening the trailer door felt like entering a blast furnace. And the light was the kind of intensity that made sunglasses an absolute necessity. It’s the kind of heat that demands your full attention. I attached our sun reflector sheets onto the pull out sections of the trailer and thanked God (and Vicki for putting her foot down and demanding it) for the AC in the trailer, which dropped the temp down to a bearable 85.

We had planned for one of our two days here to be a rest and refit day. When the AC in the van quit yesterday, we were glad for the chance to get it repaired. I looked through the Moab Yellow pages, held my breath, and made the call to a AAA-recommended repair shop. We had 7 ounces of Freon left (out of 45), so they recharged the system. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find the leak. I had them change the oil and top off fluids. The bill was just under $200, and the AC will get us through the desert. While they repaired the van, I read Agatha Christie in the hot shade of a tree outside the shop.

While in Moab, I got the van washed and bought some groceries, then headed home, where Vicki was washing a couple of loads of laundry and reading, and Joy and Eli were in the pool. The gusty wind had ripped the reflector sheets off of the trailer, so I bought some more and applied more clothespins. After lunch, we enjoyed an afternoon siesta while the AC in the trailer held off the dogs to the tune of 89 degrees. We enjoyed the downtime, reading and relaxing in the “cool”, and had tacos for supper.

After supper, we drove 35 miles into Canyonlands NP to see the canyons in sunset. They were vast and deep – beautiful, humbling, and deathly quiet. After the sun set, we drove on under the nearly full moonlight and reached Grand View Overlook. In the desert, you might not be able to remember your name, but the moon paints everything in the kind of light that paints a shadow. We could see deep into the ancient canyon floor below us, and I took several 30 second exposure shots that resulted in pictures that looked for all the world like we had taken them in daylight.

After gaping at the moonlit canyons from the overlook, we dodged howling “moose” mice scurrying in the road (they roar like lions to scare away predators and eat the heads off scorpions – they are NOT to be trifled with!) and made the 35 mile trek home, where we slept like the dead in anticipation of a hot day of exploring the Arches National Park.

Day 14 – Sunday, August 2 (Drive to Arches National Park (Moab, Utah) through five mountain passes)

Today was another big driving day. One of the tent campers said that the park rangers had driven trucks along the perimeter of the camp while beating a large sheet of metal to drive away a grizzly bear around one in the morning. We will be glad to get out of bear country. We packed out and headed south by 9:30, our typical departure time (it takes us about 2 hours to shower, eat breakfast and break down the trailer).

Eli is getting a little tired of the picture taking. After driving slowly south through another 10 miles of road construction (very bumpy dirt road), we stopped at a turnoff to get a family picture in front of the Grand Tetons while the morning sun painted them up. He told us all that Hell is a bus ride to Heaven – with the Devil as the driver, stopping to take pictures at a billion places along the way. We got a chuckle and he got no more picture stops the rest of the 560 miles to Moab, Utah (although Vicki did take a few out of the window).

After celebrating two high mountain pass crossings from the Black Hills to Yellowstone, today we took on five 7,000 plus passes – with style. After we passed through beautiful Jackson (and got a precious few moments of WiFi connection time at a McDonald’s), Wyoming kissed us good-bye just south of Afton on Highway 89 at the 7,610 foot Salt River Pass. Then we crossed the southeast corner of Idaho, but not before the van pulled us across 7,000 foot Geneva Pass east of Montpelier. We crossed into Utah, drove south along Bear Lake on the Oregon Trail Historic Highway, got some gas at Garden City and climbed up 7,500 foot Bear Lake pass. Then just before we entered Brigham City, we crossed over the 7,000 foot Sardine Pass, and hit our first four lane highway in over 200 miles.

We drove south along I-15 along the eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, and hit 70 mph (the speed limit was 75) after averaging 40 mph for over five hours in the mountains. Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1989, Vicki and I drove our little Honda Accord for three weeks along I- 80 from San Diego to our next duty station in Newport, Rhode Island, stopping for a couple of hours in Salt Lake City to see the Mormon Tabernacle. Little did we know we would get to drive across 80 (on 15) on a hit summer a couple of decades later with Joy and Eli on a similar summer odyssey.

South of Provo, we turned southeast on Highway 6 and began a relentless 40 mile climb to 7,500 foot Soldier Summit, our last hill of the day. Along the way, we noticed that the air conditioning was not working any longer – and the temp was 101 degrees. We rolled down the windows and enjoyed the fresh, hot Utah mountain air! We were low on gas and when I say there was nothing for miles I mean that in the sense of the wild west. At the summit, we thanked God for a gas station and poured 24 gallons into the belly of the beast. But here’s a bit of travel trivia: we got the second best gas mileage of the trip (21 mpg) on this day of five mountain pass crossings. Lots of downhill plunges in second gear account for that number.

After supper at Wendy’s in Price, we drove the last 100 miles through a desolate, lonely country where houses were scarce and the landscape harsh and forbidding. A post card here says “Howdy from the Middle of Nowhere” and they’re not kidding. At the Arches National Park, we learned that this area was one of the last to be settled by non-native people – in the 1890’s – because it took us that long to find anyone crazy enough to want to live here.

We pulled into our campsite around 9:30, set up quickly as usual and crashed hard. It was 70 or so outside, and we had an idea the next day would be hot, but we were glad to be done with traveling for a couple of days.

Day 13 – Saturday, August 1 (Yellowstone 2 – Yellowstone Lake, Canyon & Falls, more Geysers, and Mammoth Hot Springs)

We got up early today for what (we hope) will be the longest touring driving day of the trip: just over 200 miles (at 35-40 mph!). Because of the sights, we weren’t concerned about the driving distance or the time, though. Vicki had planned an ambitious schedule for us – the only thing we decided to forego was the half-day hike she had planned for us to take to the top of Mt. Washburn.

Yellowstone is truly a huge park. Eli saw in a guidebook that the park is either a little bit larger, the same size, or a little bit smaller than the state of Delaware =) There are five 5-30 mile entrance roads from all points of the compass and the northeast that connect with two loops of about 60-80 miles, set on top of each other (a north and south loop) like a figure eight. Our trip took us around the outer edge of both loops (we entered from the 22 mile south entrance road), along the “Grand Loop”, following the edge of Yellowstone Lake on the south to within a mile of the north entrance to the park, in Montana. Big, big park.

What struck us all as we traveled today was the extraordinarily diverse topography of the landscape, which took us from forest-bounded mountain rivers to steaming geyser basins on a wide lakeshore, to cool pine forests, vast canyons and waterfalls, and flat, open prairies, all within a few miles of each other. Driving south from Mammoth Hot Springs, we watched the late afternoon sun set the sheer rocky cliffs of 8600 foot Bunsen Peak on fire as we switchbacked our way along a gorge, before emerging though the “Golden Gate” into an open grassy plain so instantaneously that it seemed like magic.

We started the day walking another boardwalk over a steaming West Thumb Geyser Basin along the West Thumb Bay of lake Yellowstone (the steep-sloped, deep bay had been formed by a volcanic eruption 25,000 years ago). Then Vicki steered us toward a pretty mile hike to a natural bridge (by Bridge Bay), where we saw scads of chipmunks. Along the way, we stopped for three elk to cross the road.

From the top of the lake (Fishing Village), we traveled a few miles north to Mud Volcano, a geyser that blew itself apart in the late 1800s, and listened to the huffing and puffing of the aptly named Dragon’s Mouth, an underground geyser that you could hear through the mouth of a cave. Just before the Mud Volcano stop, we took some pictures of a couple of bison grazing on the far shore of the Yellowstone River. As we drove north through Hayden Valley, we saw a herd of bison so large that I couldn’t take my eyes off of them, until I ran off the road briefly =) Turns out, that’s a big problem driving through Yellowstone.

We followed the river north to Canyon Village, where we crossed it to drive to Artist Point to gasp at the lower falls. Though Joy and Eli were not fond of my efforts to get a couple of family pictures, we were all suitably impressed by the 300 foot waterfall cascading into the 1000 foot canyon. The Yellowstone River, which feeds the falls, starts just south of the park and flows 600 miles to the Missouri River in South Dakota – it’s the longest undammed river in North America. The 20 mile long “grand” canyon of Yellowstone is another new addition to the park, only 10-14,000 years old.

After stopping to walk to the brink of the 100 foot high upper falls, we found a quiet picnic spot under the tall pine trees. We continued north beyond the caldera boundary, through the 8859 foot Dunraven Pass and had to settle for a view of (as opposed to a hike to) 10,243 foot Mount Washburn, the highest peak in the park. Vicki pooched her lips and said she might as well have brought her sandals instead of her hiking boots. We’ll get her a suitable hike soon! Just past the Tower-Roosevelt junction, we stopped to see the petrified tree, frozen in time in a lava flow 50,000 years ago. There were three trees, but souvenir hunters carried away two of them before the park fenced in the last one. Eli got pretty angry about it!

Our next stop was Mammoth Hot Springs, the park headquarters, where we watched elk graze in the yards of the former army housing buildings. After poachers took over the park, the government literally called in the cavalry. Their presence in the first national park is the reason why the park service wears uniforms. After walking the boards of the lower hot springs terrace (the springs have ceased flowing since 1988), we changed into our bathing suits for one of the best parts of the trip.

Just north of Mammoth Hot Springs, the 170 degree underground springs flow into the frigid Gardner River. We crossed into Montana and walked a half mile to the junction of hot springs and river to join others basking in the natural hot tub for nearly an hour. It may have been Joy’s favorite part of the trip. After tubbing (naturally), we changed and enjoyed Huckleberry ice cream before driving the 90 miles back to our camp, past more bison, elk, and geyser basins than you could shake a stick at.

Long, but wonderful day.

Day 12 – Friday, july 31 (Grand Teton Sightseeing)

We woke to a bright morning and enjoyed a big breakfast of pancakes before starting out on an driving tour of the Grand Teton Range. The weather prediction called for rain, so we decided to postpone more hiking in Yellowstone until Saturday, when the weather would be clear. As it turned out, it did rain, but not on us. We saw it passing over the Teton range (they call them the Cathedrals – and they named them correctly), and we got a sprinkling, but the weather out here moves and changes fast.

We endured a 30 minute delay through another gauntlet of road work on the road south from our campsite, and then stopped first at Colter Bay. The Teton range, even on this hazy day, took our breath away. A film at the Colter Bay visitor center explained the geological fireworks responsible for heaving the mountain range 13,000 feet above sea level and far above the sinking valley floor, where the Snake River winds its way slowly through the plain. The mountain range, Jackson Lake (named after a famous fur trapper), and the endless plain at the foot of the mountains drew our attention from many vantage points throughout the day.

We spent a lot of time at Colter Bay, where we bought a slew of souvenirs (including a Stetson for me!), saw an orientation film, and toured the fascinating Indian Arts Museum. The highlight of the latter exhibit was watching a woman weave a cloth on a loom. We watched entranced for nearly half an hour as her weathered hands worked their magic, asked a few questions, and imagined what it would have been like growing up in her tribe, watching and learning as she weaved, and listening to the stories she would have told us while she worked.

After a picnic lunch at one of the many roadside views, we drove up to the top of Signal Mountain for a 360 degree view of the Teton range and the valley below. Joy and Eli were getting a little tired of the picture and viewing fest, so the rest of the drive was pretty uneventful – though we did see a herd of bison and pronghorn deer en route back home. The road work wasn’t difficult to navigate, though the van got a new coat of dirt and grime (we followed a truck spraying water on a dirt road for 10 miles), and we got back for supper around 6 pm.

Tomorrow, we plan an ambitious day of touring over 200 miles in Yellowstone, including a swim at mammoth Hot Springs, 100 miles to the north. This has been a different kind of day on the road – beautiful, but not very interactive. We are surrounded on all sides by beauty that defies our ability to describe.

Day 11 – Thursday, July 30 (Yellowstone 1 – Old Faithful, the Upper Geyser Basin, and Mystic Falls)

We slept in today after going to bed after midnight last night. After a perfunctory breakfast of yogurt and coffee, we headed north into Yellowstone, through 25 miles of road construction which allowed us to take our sweet time and get lots of pictures of the Lewis River. Our main goal for the day was to see Old Faithful, and the famous geyser (known as the Statue of Liberty of the West) did not disappoint us. After wading through the crush of people near the geyser, we hiked a mile to an observation overlook where we watched Old Faithful, Grand Geyser, and Castle Geyser erupt simultaneously.

We walked back down into the maddening crowds for a foray into a cafeteria and gift shop (where Joy spotted some nifty stickers for the pop-up) , then we drove to the Upper Geyser Basin, also known as Biscuit Basin, where Vicki had picked out a 4-mile hike to Mystic Falls for us. I was not prepared to be as fascinated as I was with the sight of water bubbling out of the earth from bottomless pools of water colored opal, turquoise, and sage. We walked on a raised boardwalk through the Biscuit Basin through a landscape unlike anything I have ever seen before, gaping at the boiling water bubbling up from the cauldron below, and then embarked on our hike to the falls.

After the unearthly landscape of Biscuit Basin, the trail to Mystic Falls through a reforestation of Ponderosa Pines (so much of Yellowstone forests are recovering from the great fire of 1988, which destroyed over a third of the park) guided us through much more familiar territory. We hiked along a river for awhile before rounding a bend that revealed the Mystic Falls – where we stopped to gape and take a bunch of pictures. The falls were beautiful and wild, but what made them unique for me was the steam vents that bordered them at intervals.

We continued to climb to the top of the falls and kept ascending to the top of a ridge that gave us a panoramic view of all of the geyser basins toward the south. Along the way, we ran into an Italian woman who was looking for her husband, who had ventured off into the scrub pines along the ridge to take a leak and then had not returned for 20 minutes. She was beginning to get worried, she told us. Just as I was beginning my search for the man, Vicki remembered seeing a fellow who was calling out a woman’s name as he hiked down the trail. She described him to the woman who was very relieved to know her husband was probably just ahead of her on the path instead of lost in the woods.

Even though we had only driven 50 miles into the park, road construction for the first 25 miles made for a 90 minute return trip, and when we got back to the van at 6 pm, we decided to return to our trailer and have supper. Vicki cooked ham on the grill (it’s bear country) and after supper, we enjoyed s’mores and songs by the fire (our first since starting this trip).

Day 10 – Wednesday, July 29 (Travel to Yellowstone NP via Devil’s Tower)

We said good-bye to Jim and David and hit the road at 9:30 under overcast skies but no rain. By the time we got to the Wyoming border it was raining hard and cold – 50 degrees and windy – so we weren’t too hopeful we would be able to see Devil’s Tower from a distance (we planned a side trip en route to Yellowstone). As we headed toward the famous monolith (remember Close Encounters of the Third Kind?), the clouds cleared away and we saw the tower from a distance of about 18 miles. As we got closer, Devil’s Tower got more impressive, rising 800 feet above the valley below where the Belle Forche River continues to slowly cut its way through the prairie.

We didn’t have time for a hike, but Vicki got another NP passport stamp and we walked around the base of the tower and took some pictures before heading back to the souvenir shop and restaurant at the entrance. Vicki and Joy made my day when they found stickers for the trailer – including one for Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills! Finally, the sticker drought is over. We had lunch while the rain came down in sheets (the clouds returned), mixing with the crowd of bikers headed for Sturgis, and climbed back into the van for the long, long trip across Wyoming.

Everything I had ever read on RV boards online warned me that the van would not be able to handle a serious mountain pass. Because of lower air density, the engine loses 3% efficiency every 1000 feet above sea level (which means a 10,000 foot pass robs the engine of a third of its pulling capacity). Since crossing the wide Missouri River in South Dakota, we had been traveling at 4000 and 5000 feet, but we faced two 8500+ mountain passes on this leg of our journey – and I had been worrying about them virtually from the moment we conceived this summer odyssey. Vicki and I almost had to get out and push our little Honda Accord when we crossed the Rockies the summer of 1989 when we drove from San Diego to Rhode Island, and memories of that near miss gave me the shivers when I thought about the van tugging the trailer over a serious mountain.

Our first challenge was the Powder River Pass, at 9,666 feet above sea level. I had purchased a truckers guide to mountain passes in the west and decided on rerouting us to take this pass on Wyoming Route 16 instead of taking on two passes to the north (one of which was named “Oh My God Hill”). We got off I-90 for gas at a little town called Buffalo while the Bighorn Mountain Range loomed ominously above us. My first good omen was the sight of a mini van pulling a pop up at the gas station – they had just finished crossing the pass. If they could do it, then so could we.

The climbing started right away, 25 miles away from the pass. I played Boston for the crossing, while the van labored in second gear and the engine temp climbed to 70% - but held steady. The hills began to roll up and down, and as Boston played “Don’t Look Back” and “Longtime – Foreplay”, the crossing of the nearly 10,000 foot pass was almost anti-climatic – attended with high fives all around. Going down was also a challenge, but the second gear held us to a safe 40 mph and allowed us to slow to 25 for a couple of hairpin (hair-raising) turns without burning up the brakes as we gasped at the 350 million year old rock formations and peaks above us – and wished the RV’s growling toward the pass good luck.

By comparison, the second challenge – the 8,600 foot Sylvan Pass in Yellowstone NP – was almost a foregone conclusion. The bigger challenge was completing the long, long journey of 566 miles with a 2 hour side trip to Devil’s Tower, which we did as the sun set on Yellowstone.
We passed a rodeo in Cody at 8 pm, and spent the next 125 miles working our way up the mountains, into and through Yellowstone Park, which is far, far larger than any National Park we’ve ever seen. We drove over 80 miles from the East entrance to the South entrance of the park, watching the sun set and then winding our way through the darkness. After a very long day, we found our reservation and site number taped next to the “Full” sign at Flagg Ranch, and set up in the darkness at 11 pm. We climbed into our sleeping bags as the coyotes howled and the temperature dropped to 34.

We’re finally in Yellowstone. What an awesome day!