All posts by travelingdad

adventure, Attractions, Colorado, featured, Nature, Outdoors, People, weather, wildlife

Rocky Mountain High, in Colorado…

July 5, 2014 travelingdad 2 Comments

(This is a catch-up post. We had such a good time in Parker, and such a hectic schedule after, I am still trying to get us current. As you may have noticed yesterday, we have a bit of time on our hands now. We left Denver heading east on Memorial Day. )

We have not actually spent the last six weeks in Moab. We did raft the mighty Colorado on a day-long expedition out of Moab.

From Moab, our little rig, with our Dodge Caravan as always in tow, chugged up Wolf Creek Pass in southern Colorado, after a day at Mesa Verde National Park.

We had visited the cliff dwellings before, and they seemed none-the-worse for wear in the last ten years.

The older I get, the harder it is to get my head around building something that lasts for centuries, with one’s bare hands. I wonder if the Puebloan who arose one June morning around the time Chris Columbus was cajoling Queen Isabella for cash thought over his breakfast of arrowroot and water about how to select rocks and mud that would support his dwelling roof through the bronze age, the industrial revolution, space exploration, and Miley Cyrus.

Probably not.

From Wolf Creek Pass, way up on the Great Divide, we found ourselves truckin’ on down the other side, and into Alamosa. On the way in, we passed the motel-in-the-drive in, a quirky establishment I stayed in in 1969 on a trip with my Aunt Kathy, and where Jen and I stayed again on a Colorado trip about ten years ago. In 1969 I saw the original True Grit there, with John Wayne and Kim Darby.

The next day we waxed up our boards and headed for Great Sand Dunes National Park, to show Coloradans how the coast dwellers play on running water. At the base of the Dunes is a river that runs about 200 feet wide and four inches deep—when it runs at all. In the lee of snow-capped Rockies peaks, my middle son demonstrated skimboarding. It’s probably been done there before, in this geological oddity–miles of sand beach in search of its ocean, now a thousand miles away. But it sure was fun to watch middle-son frolic.

We left Moab for the most intense part of the drive so far. In southern Arizona, just beyond the area of Mesa Verde in the southwest part of the state. Though we hadn’t planned to go to Mesa Verde, we hadn’t planned on Arches either, and once we realized how close we were, well, how could we not revisit the ruins of our ancient kin?

From the Great Sand Dunes, we pointed north for a week of R&R with brother Mike in sunny Parker, Colorado, and some repairs on the Caravan. We all breathed a collective sigh of contentment. For the first time on the trip, we were headed for a destination we knew well–my brother’s comfortable, spacious home.

We backtracked the second day to the Cheyenne Zoo, on the east slope of Cheyenne Mountain overlooking the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs. We got there just in time to experience a hellacious hailstorm, and still carry the pockmarks on the Dodge to remember it by.

The next day we paid a visit to the very cool Denver Museum of Nature and Science and were again patting ourselves on the back for buying our Museum membership back in Dallas at the Perot Museum.

Mike has never been one to let the grass grow under his feet, and while we were in town, in one memorable day, we drove to Boulder to tour the Hammond’s Candy Factory in Denver, then to tour the Celestial Seasonings Tea headquarters on (of course! Sleepytime Drive in Boulder, and then to The Boulder Dinner Theater featuring Shrek! The Musical!

The Hammonds candy tour will be remembered best for the moment when 20 cell phones sounded simultaneously in the tour group to warn of an approaching tornado. We chatted up the employees while huddled in the ladies room, waiting for the all-clear signal. We also loaded up on candy, to show our appreciation for the free tour, and to support local merchants.

The Celestial Seasonings tour featured a variety of tea samples, including ones we hadn’t heard of, and we bought several boxes at below-retail. Then we were off to the dinner theater with Uncle Mike, and cousins Matt and Jenny, for a night of laughs, thrills, and very touching moments.

Next day, we boarded the Georgetown Loop Railroad for a short but wonderful excursion from Georgetown, CO up Clear Creek in the Rockies Front Range to the town of Silver Plume.

Mid-trip, we climbed off for a mine tour of the old Lebanon Silver Mine that turned out to be a real treasure! The guide was a lifelong resident of Silver Plume, and she really knew her mining stuff! She was a delight, and answered every question with wit and a deep knowledge. We also learned about the miners’ lunch–pasties–which we had a chance to sample later in our trip.

Trudging out from our day (one hour, fifteen minutes) in the mines, we were of course, ravenous. So next stop was for Mountain Pizza in Georgetown. Yes, pizza by the pound. Coming back into Parker, we stopped by Littleton in a driving rainstorm to snap a picture of the house on Josephine Way where I spent my fifteenth summer. My brother pointed out Columbine High School, three blocks from where I’d lived. Columbine has always had a connection for Jen and me. The tragedy started the week we married, in 1999, and sadly, continues every several weeks or so that schools are in session.

In America.

We wrapped up Colorado with a street festival in Denver on South Gaylord Street. For all your income tax needs, stop in at Mike Downs, CPA, 1040 Gaylord Street. 1040. Get it? The Festival was followed by a splendid cookout in Boulder at Matt and Jen’s, where we met their newest family member, and desserted on Chocolate Mousse cake from Carlo’s Bakery in Las Vegas. (Yes, the boys and I went back after all and bought a cake, froze it, and toted it to Colorado with us!)

Colorado is the one state west of the Mississippi where we feel at home already. We spent two weeks there nine years ago, and again two weeks three years ago, and if it wasn’t so far from the ocean, we would strongly consider calling it home.

adventure, featured, Nature, Outdoors, People, South Dakota, Uncategorized

While it Wasn’t on our Schedule…

July 4, 2014 travelingdad 1 Comment

As the immortal bard John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans.” On Wednesday, at 12:23 pm Central Time, as we drove from Mitchell, SD to our next camp in Hot Springs, SD, our motor home broke down just before exit 225 on I-90. It went into what is called limp mode. It is hard to imagine a more apt technical term.

We limped off the interstate in the general direction of a gas station at the top of a hill on Highway 16. We never reached the top. What followed was a series of calls, starting with the Good Sam Roadside Assistance dispatch. Phrases like, “holiday week, ” “remote location,” “limited options,” sprinkled the short conversation between interminable hold periods.

Other things happened too. Two motor homes and a guy in a pick up truck stopped to make sure we were okay. Jordan was dispatched by Sam from Charley’s Auto Service in Kennebec , nine miles back, to see if he could determine if it was worth hauling us to his shop. He couldn’t, but not for lack of trying.

It is one of those mysterious events that befall vehicles, that I stopped worrying about at some point in the last 3,500 miles or so. We have covered almost 30 states without so much as a hiccough from this faithful lumbering beast, and now a baffling, and possibly very expensive, ailment has her functioning perfectly as a camper and not a whit as a conveyance.

We were immediately befriended by Beth and Lauren of the New Frontier RV park in Presho, SD. They enlisted a neighbor, Scott part-owner of Hutch’s Cafe & Lounge in Presho, to tow our motor home with his pickup truck the half-mile or so to the campground. Wouldn’t take anything but thanks for the effort. We can’t get anyone to look at the motor home until Tuesday, July 8. In Chamberlain, forty miles back.

Now I remember why I love blogs. It’s the immediacy. The “this is what’s happening now, won’t it be interesting to see how it turns out?” emotion of the moment. Funny thing, last time I felt this way was when our car broke down in San Antonio. There is a moral there.

Beth and Lauren have invited us to a Fourth of July picnic tonight in camp. Not sure what we’ll do. It is a beautiful, idyllic setting, and quite peaceful.

I keep thinking of the thousands who’d planned to spend their Fourth on the Outer Banks, and the wrenching experience of forced evacuations for Arthur. We hope everyone is safe, somewhere. Keep low, Jimmy B, since I am sure you stayed on the island.

Give me Presho, and the strong sense that, just today, the nation’s birth day, we are right where we are supposed to be. Happy Independence Day, to friends and loved ones near and far. Be safe, be well. Be grateful.

And pass the potato salad!

adventure, Attractions, Nature, Utah

Arches and Big Water

June 23, 2014 travelingdad 2 Comments

From the land of hoodoos, we headed toward Denver, then dropped down again into southern Utah, to a quirky, high-energy town called Moab. This was our center for Arches National Park, and rafting the Colorado. We were far above the Grand Canyon, so no worries there.

Arches is another playground of the Divine, an eerie, haunting, and yet whimsical distortion of the ground under our feet. Or more precisely, the rock under the ground under our feet.

Formed in several different ways, the Arches are living things. Or at least in a constant journey somewhere between birth and death. While there are 1,200 arches in the park (many far out of sight of all but the most adventurous), once one understands the process of formation, one can actually see birthings and death throes of arches. The trick is to see in geological time.

Talk about humbling. To photograph something, to stare at it, when to it, I am less substantial than last week’s clipped fingernail. But enough zen.

We did several hikes in Arches, and also connected with a really fine outfitter in Moab. Since five-year-olds were allowed on the river–okay , we hoped they wouldn’t card our four-year-old–I thought, how bad can it possibly be? I groused about the need for a guide, but Jen was insistent. Wives are so wise.

We had a wonderful ride, and the two older boys traveled the whole trip in a double duckie–a kind of inflatable kayak. It was for the use of anyone in our raft, but the guys were having so much fun I think no one wanted to displace them, which was kind of our rafting mates.

We had a wonderful picnic lunch mid-day at a small rocky beach. Our guide knew the river well, and did a great job of chatting us up during the trip about the wonders of southern Utah. We were sold, and Moab is an amazing, quirky village in the red high desert. But we had only one day to enjoy the surroundings, after losing a day waiting out snow.

We would love to return one day to the Moab area. It would be an awesome place to have a family vacation, but it is probably a bit more crowded in the summer. Everything is a trade off, and Moab is a long way from Maryland, but it has a great deal to recommend it.

Onward to southern Arizona!

Uncategorized

Lost and Alone on Some Forgotten Highway…

May 29, 2014 travelingdad 6 Comments

At the intersection of Interstate 70 and Baltimore’s 695 Beltway, there is a sign proclaiming Cove Fort: 2,153 miles.

One day when I was a wee lad, my father took me out to the driveway of our court in old town Greenbelt, MD. Of course, then it wasn’t known as old town. Putting his arm around my skinny shoulder (I said this was a long time ago), he said to me “Son, step out on this road, and it will take you anywhere. A lot of men over a lot of years have gone to the trouble to lay it down so you can get anyplace you can imagine. It changes names, but it is all the same road. Your road.”

At least that’s how I remember the birth of my fascination with the road.

From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig to Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon, From Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again to Arlo Guthrie’s City of New Orleans, and Travels with Charley by Steinbeck and Me and Bobby Mcgee by Kristofferson as sung by Pearl, and KIng of the Road by Roger Miller and Kerouac’s On the Road and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe and The Adventures of Huck Finn by Clemens and Eighteen Wheels by Kathy Mattea, and Toby Tyler by James Kaier and Lord of the Rings by Tolkien and Ventura Highway by America and By My Side from Godspell and Somewhere over the Rainbow by Arlen and Harburg as sung by Garland, Patti LaBelle, and, of course, Iz, and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Doug Adams and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins–well, it’s nice to know the yearning for the mystery of the road is fairly widespread.

Let’s not forget Country Roads and Back Home Again and Sweet Surrender by the incomparable John Denver. Do you have your own favorite book or song of the road?

And the lesson often seems to be that, at the end of the traveling, one really, truly finds home.

Of course one has to go, anyway, to discover that.

I’d often wondered where Cove Fort was. In a different, long-ago world, I hitchhiked every inch of I-95, and I-70 as far as East St. Louis from Baltimore. But never Cove Fort. On a quiet, sunny morning from Cedar City to Moab, we chugged on through Cove Fort. Nothing but sagebrush and rocky escarpment.

I am sorry to report that in Cove Fort, Utah, there is no corresponding sign reading, Woodlawn, MD Park & Ride: 2,153 Miles. Nothing marks the western terminus of one of the great engineering marvels of the modern age.

I was tempted to wake the kids anyway. But it will keep til we get to Greenbelt. It’s the same road.

adventure, Attractions, featured, Outdoors, Utah

The Straight Up Land

May 27, 2014 travelingdad

One of the rangers in this extraordinary country in southern Utah said the Native Americans referred to the surroundings as the Straight Up Land. It is easy to see why.

To me, visiting Zion is like being down in the Grand Canyon. Of course it is not as big, but maybe that’s the point. The way to reduce the Grand Canyon to manageable size, in my experience, is to go in. Not far. Just a little walk is all it takes, but it’s a way to begin to bring its immensity to scale.

In Zion National Park, as in Yosemite, you spend most of your time, if you follow the standard approach, looking up from the valley floor. Zion has a great shuttle system to control the flow of visitors inside the park. Though we groused at first–we usually skip them when they’re optional–we loved the shuttle. We could get off and on to do short hikes whenever we pleased, and the shuttle ran often. Thankfully, it also had a sun roof, since one spends a great deal of time in Zion looking–right–straight up.

We also saw an elk, who was less impressed with us than we of him. Or her.

The next day, we visited another product of the unique gyrations of the Colorado Plateau over the last 60 million years–Bryce Canyon National Park. There, a perky young ranger at the information desk assured us that the Queen’s Garden was an easy hike for a four-year-old. Fun for the whole family, she beamed!

photo(81) — The hoodoos: perpetually on watch.

Bryce Canyon, the land of hoodoos and other whimsical feats of Ma Nature. Zion and Bryce would both be on our list of recommended parks. Not too far apart, but different as night and day. And both worth a trip off the beaten path to explore.

We now have a rule that before we ask about hiking trails for youngsters, we ask if the rangers have children of their own. We also have decided that when the park service labels a hike moderate, the designation is to make a point about how out-of-condition most of us are. I get that.

adventure, Attractions, Nevada, weather

What Happens Here Stays Here!

May 25, 2014 travelingdad 2 Comments

Rolling into Las Vegas from Pismo Beach, we traveled past the spot where James Dean’s life ended so abruptly in his sports car, Little B******.

Driving across the eastern part of California, leaving the coast, is a quick change from the energy and excitement of the ocean to the tranquil, measured rows of grapevines, orchard trees, and vegetable crops. The transition is not unlike crossing Routes 50 or 99 from Ocean City back onto the Eastern Shore. Worlds so close, and worlds apart.

One thing about driving in to Vegas–it was, granted, a Saturday–is that first, it is a long way from anywhere, and second, a lot of people were heading there.

photo(64) — Welcoming the Downs Travelers!

Las Vegas’s only campground-on-the-Strip really is just behind Circus Circus, at one end of the famous Strip. There, we spent a sinfully expensive day–I guess I can tell YOU–in the Adventure Dome. It was decadent–at least for us–and very, very fun!

In Vegas, we also caught the Water Ballet at the Bellagio and the Volcano at the Mirage, as well as the gondoliers at the Venetian. The Venetian is where we also searched long and hard for Carlo’s Bakery (of Cake Boss fame). We found it, but the line was way way too long!

photo(66) — Number Three in Vegas! Well, not quite.

Back on the strip, the night time crowd was thick and wired. Adding to the concoction was a devil wind, with gusts up to 60 miles an hour! We finally caught a transit bus back to our end of town.

We stayed one extra day in Las Vegas, because our next destination, Cedar City, Utah, was forecasting snow on the day of our scheduled arrival. We took advantage of the extra time to drive the short way to Hoover Dam. The tour took us deep below the road (and the lake’s surface!).

The dam is a silent, soaring tribute to the thousands of nameless men who took the only job they could find in an unforgiving desert at the nadir of the American Dream. In its vastness, it is reminiscent of the Grand Canyon’s capacity to short-circuit your depth perception with devilish and deadly ease. In its technical genius, and its sheer audacity in pulling the skirt tails of Mother Nature, it reminded me of the Confederation Bridge, separating New Brunswick from Prince Edward Island, Canada. Monumental works of man that seem somehow to eyeball Mother Nature.

In the realm of sheer solidarity of national will, Hoover Dam and landing on the moon, for my money, are the two biggies. The sad thing for me is that initiatives requiring that much across-the-board support are impossible in my lifetime. And impossible at the one time when we are really called on to face some really epic problems as–well–as astronauts on Spaceship Earth.

I should’ve checked on the Vegas odds while we were in town. I hope my bet is wrong.

adventure, California, Nature, wildlife

Those Traveling Seals!

May 24, 2014 travelingdad 2 Comments

California’s Central Coast neatly divides Northern and Southern California, culturally as well as geographically.

photo(63) — Elephant Seal Beach, aka Piedras Blancas rookery

One site that was recommended by brother Mike (who knows the area well because son Matt graduated from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo) is the Elephant Seal Rookery , several miles above San Simeon on California Highway One. The Elephant Seals used to use this desolate stretch of coast for centuries for their land-based activities, then simply stopped coming.

In 1990, the seals returned, and now thousands of them call it home during the mating, molting, and birthing seasons, for 2-4 months a year. Here is son two’s take on our visit:

The elephant seal beach was really cool. There were a lot of them, like thousands. All of them were molting, which means their skin was peeling and the seals were fighting, which was really cool. The reason they were fighting was for breeding rights. The alpha male battles other males to see who will be the alpha male and there are other battles between the beta males.

Okay, not a lot of fighting in the photo, because they also don’t eat while they are out of the ocean shedding. But the fights we saw were cool. The seals migrate as much as 3,000 miles a year, and dive thousands of feet to feed. While we have covered a lot of miles, this is really our once-in-a-lifetime. The seals do it every year! We also have not had to deal with orcas trying to make us a meal!

We also visited Moonstone Beach, in a gusting, cold wind, to lay on the warm rocks and pick over the mountains of smooth, tiny pebbles that form the beach of this quiet enclave.

With its rolling hills and industrious farms, the Central Coast is a place we’d love to return to. A unique, and very Mediterranean feel!

adventure, Attractions, California, Outdoors

California Dreamin….

May 14, 2014 travelingdad 4 Comments

Approaching San Diego from Phoenix, one has an impression of California much different from popular culture. Which probably makes the descent into San Diego all that much more dramatic.

We were like lemmings on the left coast–constantly drawn to the sea. We hit Coronado Beach, Mission Beach, and Glorieta Beach–where son number one encountered the sting of a ray! Best treatment–and his case thankfully was mild–water as hot as you can stand, for several hours, to soak the foot. I’ve never known anyone else to get stung by a ray, but the lifeguard said he’s been jabbed twice in 30 years, and my oldest, after all, suffered a snakebite when he was eight, so if it’s going to happen to anyone…

Driving California roads, certain songs reverberate on an endless semiconscious loop–America’s Ventura Highway, the Beach Boys Surfin’ USA and California Girls…okay, anything Beach Boys. It Never Rains in California. And, of course, California Dreamin’. Every town and city name seems familiar, somehow. Mulholland Drive. Topanga Canyon. Redondo Beach. San Onofre.

Spanking clean shores, crisp and frigid water that still beckons. One day the kids rented wet suits and boards in Pismo Beach. The water temp was the same as the air–55. And that felt like the speed of the winds straight offshore. But it’s California, after all. Who can resist?

We made the pilgrimage in Pismo Beach to the Splash Cafe, home of some incredible Clam Chowder. In bowls, or better yet, bread bowls, baked daily!

We also hit the kids’ first Drive In, and under chilly skies and a bright, familiar half-moon, cuddled up in camp chairs for the three-hour Spiderman II at the Sunset in San Luis Obispo.

All this, of course, after road school, which runs religiously every morning here in the cool travel coach!

Pismo marks the furthest point on the trip so far, at just over 2,700 miles from our Eldersburg roots, and the start back across this amazing country.

Stopped into a church, I passed along the way…

adventure, Arizona, Attractions

From the Ashes…and into the Abyss

May 8, 2014 travelingdad 2 Comments

We rolled down into the Valley of the Sun over the Mogollon Rim out of Payson, one of the more spectacular routes to enter the Phoenix area. The mountains to the northeast of Phoenix are mantled in pine forests in cool, crisp air that is the opposite extreme from Phoenix itself. Which is why Phoenicians escape to Payson, Christopher Creek, and points north and east in the broil of summer.

On our anniversary, we drove up through Flagstaff from our campground in Apache Junction, to join the large mid-week crowd on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. We originally planned to hit the north rim on our way back from San Diego to Maryland several weeks from now, but then learned that not only were dogs not allowed, but the north rim isn’t even open until May 15!

At the South Rim, we picked up a morbidly fascinating book entitled “Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon,” which details the various ways loads of humans have died at this national park. If you’ve been, you can perhaps appreciate the feeling that you need to go either for an hour or a month. In the first instance, you can say you were there. In the second, you can experience the full majesty of the place. Or at least a tiny slice of it.

As I talked to my cousin Jason about the disorienting experience of standing on the edge of a precipice so high that perspective is hopeless, he reminded me that the tourist planes and helicopters, which seemed like tiny birds in the deep immensity of the Canyon, no longer fly into the gigantic abyss. Without those objects to lend perspective, it is easier to see how some poor souls who have simply dared to stand at the edge with no guard rail, the next moment plunged inexplicably hundreds of feet to a messy but instant demise.

The canyon also demands time, I think, because it becomes more compelling in my memory as you step below the rim on one of the trails and begin to descend. And it becomes more magnetic, siren-like, the further you go.

In that sense, canyoneering is completely opposite mountaineering. When you climb, all the hard work is in the first half, and what you can mount, you are reasonably sure you can descend. The Canyon, though, saves its greatest challenge for your return to the surface–the only area that the vast throngs of visitors ever experience.

The book also documents the erroneous belief that for a generation or two raised on Disney and innumerable man-made attractions, surely if you get in trouble in a National Park, someone will stop the ride long enough to rescue you.

If you plan a trip to the Canyon, or just enjoy the great outdoors, consider reading Over the Edge... it is an object lesson on nature’s promise that while stunning, the natural world also proves that what can go wrong will go wrong. At the worst possible time.

Arizona, featured, weather

Sprints and Marathons

May 1, 2014 travelingdad 5 Comments

Phoenix is a shimmering, simmering city in the Valley of the Sun. Its weathercasters spend ten seconds on local weather, and then describe in gruesome detail the weather in the rest of the country. Phoenicians will tell you its a dry heat, and it really only feels like the anteroom to hell for two-three months a year.

Thirty years ago, on the eve of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, I left Phoenix to return to Maryland. I’d been here almost four years, first a a house painter, then as a Front Office Manager at the Sheraton Scottsdale. Long story.

The day after we arrived in the Valley, we enjoyed a picnic lunch with Lauren, our transplanted cousin and niece, who unfortunately was flying east later in the day, for a funeral.

We also renewed acquaintance with Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Mark of Mesa, and with cousins Jason and Kim, and their very cool kids Alex and Max.

When we are on the road, day after day, the five of us, there are moments when it is just so fine to see a familiar face. As we sat in Kim and Jason’s beautiful, giant toyroom-of-a-house, we all relished the complete normalcy of an evening IN. We have met up with long-lost relatives in restaurants, and it’s not the same. Live and learn.

One thing to be wary of in our extended trip is the pace. When it starts to feel like we are leaping from the car, snapping photos, and leaping back in, it’s probably time to slow down and take a campground day. It is a tricky balance. My tendency is to want to see it all, since “when will we be this close again?”

But six months is a marathon, not a sprint, and life in 192 square feet requires accommodations all around. So we have been learning more about each other, as we’ve motored west, and we quietly often beam with pride at how the kids roll with the punches. They live in the present and speak with an honesty that often serves to instruct the “teachers.”

Cool Travel with Kids