Michelangelos, Missiles, and Mauvaises Terres

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So far, South Dakota is pretty great.

I mean, sure, there’s a lot of nothing here. Grassy prairies stretching as far as the eye can see, without even a tree or ramshackle old barn to break the horizon between land and sky. But we’ve also discovered a lot of something here… and some of that something is, well, really something.

Big Thumbs Up for Big Sioux

Our first two nights in South Dakota were at the Big Sioux Recreation Area outside of Sioux Falls. This is a really pretty campground just a few miles from the largest city in the state. We had a nice, tree-shaded site that backed onto a walking and biking trail on the bank of the Big Sioux River. As we pulled in, there was a feral cat strolling down the trail, so Zora naturally spent the next two days monitoring all passersby for additional feline activity. Alas, we never saw kitty again.

The falls in Sioux Falls.

We were staying for two nights, so we spent the better part of Tuesday exploring the city of Sioux Falls, the centerpiece of which is the park with the waterfalls that give the city its name. It’s a beautiful spot with rolling green hills, the ruins of an old stone mill, and of course the river tumbling over a series of rocky terraces. We spent a couple relaxing hours there, had lunch, and then googled “things to do in Sioux Falls.” We learned that there are two bronze casts of Michelangelo sculptures in town: Moses (original sculpture in Rome) and David, which we had seen a few years ago in Florence. So we decided to visit them.

Moses, horns and all.

David checks out the Sioux Falls skyline.

The Moses casting is on the campus of Augustana College (go Vikings!). It’s especially interesting because Big Mo has horns. No, not musical instruments, but real devil or goat horns on the top of his head. According to Wikipedia, this is the result of a translation error in the Latin Vulgate Bible, where “his face shone” (after meeting God) was mistranslated as “his face had horns.” Pretty big error, huh? Makes you wonder about some of the other stuff in that old book so many people seem to rely on for direction.

After checking out horny Moses, we drove across town to see David’s, um, man parts. Rumor has it that his unmentionables, even undersized as they are (cut the guy some slack for shrinkage, he was squaring off against a giant!), caused quite a stir when the bronze casting of Michelangelo’s marble original was unveiled in Sioux Falls in the early 1970s.

A Different Kind of Silo

This launch facility is closed, but hundreds of others are still operational—and still using 1960s vintage equipment. What could possibly go wrong?

After two nights at Big Sioux, we drove due west on I-90 toward the Badlands area, with a brief stop to gawk at the Corn Palace in the town of Mitchell. We’d seen a lot of grain silos in the Midwest, but now we were headed to a Minuteman missile silo. I had a reservation for a tour of an ICBM launch facility that had been preserved as tourist attraction after the START arms reduction treaties of the early 1990s.

It was an interesting experience, stepping into the underground control room where “missiliers” had been just a couple key-turns away from annihilating the world I grew up in (although I learned that actually two separate launch centers had to independently receive and confirm launch commands in order to initiate Armageddon). The entire facility has been preserved exactly as it was on the day it was deactivated in 1993, right down to the issues of Newsweek and Time in the Day Room with cover photos of David Koresh and the burning Waco compound.

It was the last tour of the day and I was the only American in the group, so I got to help the ranger take down the American flag at the launch facility while the tourists from Europe and the couple from Saskatchewan snapped photos.

Baking in The Badlands

Those sure are some baaad lands.

After pondering nuclear desolation at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, we headed a few miles down the road to a landscape that looked like the apocalypse had already happened there: Badlands National Park. The area got its name from French trappers, who called the canyons full of wrinkly and pointed rock formations “mauvaises terres a traverser,” or “bad lands to cross.”

Maureen was relieved when we pulled into our campsite, because it meant she didn’t have to listen to me sing the same Bruce Springsteen song over and over anymore, as I had for the past few hours. The campground was nothing special—just a loop road with wide spots to pull over on the shoulder of the pavement. And our assigned site was smack on a small hill, which made for some white knuckle moments unhitching the trailer and hoping the wheel chocks would win out against gravity. Plus, it was 90 degrees with no trees for shade anywhere in the campground.

The rest of the park was fantastic, however. Zora and I saw a really informative ranger talk about prairie dogs (Maureen was battling some kind of flu) the first night, and then saw hundreds of actual prairie dogs the next day on a drive through the park. (The little stinkers didn’t seem impressed when I shouted at them with trivia from the ranger talk the night before: “Do you guys know that scientists regard your vocalizations as a sophisticated language that allows you to alert each other about the specific appearance of potential threats near your burrows?”) We also saw amazing, multicolored mounds and spires of layered rock, a coyote stalking a buffalo, and a bighorn sheep. But Zora really only cared about those damned prairie dogs.

Iowa: The Smash Hits

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For the part of this trip when we weren’t supposed to be doing much, we sure did a lot. We spent a full week in Iowa, and I do mean a full week. Honestly, at this point I can’t even remember what happened when—so rather than trying to sum it all up chronologically (in what would certainly require a six disc box set collectors’ edition) here’s a convenient “Greatest Hits” album with the B-sides and filler tracks omitted.

Ready to rock? Then let’s press “play.”

Track 1: The Fair

Tells you everything you need to know about the cattle barn at the Fair.

Any “Best of” album worth its name needs to start with an undisputed, top-of-the-charts hit. And when it comes to August in the heartland, that means the Iowa State Fair, baby. Live animals, thrilling rides, fried food, oversized beers, even more oversized people—the Fair has it all.

We made two trips to the fairgrounds while in Des Moines, and now I’m worried about exceeding the gross weight capacity of our truck and trailer. My personal calorie tally goes like this: large super-chilled 27-degree beer, Bauder’s peppermint ice cream fudge bar, sausage grinder, two giant State Fair Ales, flash-frozen “Nitro” ice cream, several chocolate chip cookies, cheese curds, and an entire roll of Tums. (I know: a pretty weak showing. At almost 50 years old, I think I’m losing my edge.)

We also saw the draft horse competition, quilting exhibit, champion hog and bull, sheep shearing, reptile house, giant yellow slide, chairlift ride, and of course the famous Butter Cow ™. Not a bad cross-section of what the Fair is all about. Thank God we have 12 months to recover before the next one!

Track 2: The Big Pan

Pan-handlers.

The second track on a greatest hits album needs to build on what came right before it. So let’s jump out of the Fair and into the frying pan—in this case, one bigger than the spare tire on our camper.

We had a blast visiting Aunt Susan and Uncle Stretch in Charles City (“Chucktown,” to all you heartland hipsters), especially Sunday brunch at the beautiful farm of their friends Jon and Ann. Using a skillet that literally required a small army of men to stir the potatoes and eggs, the breakfast club cooked up a feast fit for, well, a large army, and we were delighted to enlist. Honestly, that much food was the last thing I needed after the Fair, but I managed to find the stomach space somehow.

Track 3: Do You Raku? We Do!

Do I look like I know what I’m doing?

Maureen’s Uncle Stretch is a former art teacher and current artist who does a lot of cool work in raku, most commonly used in pot-making but which allows a wide range of “expressions in ceramic,” as some gallery catalog somewhere almost certainly puts it. While in Charles City, we got to help fire some tiles from a piece Stretch was working on, and it was a blast (as in “blast furnace”) to see how the 1800 degree heat in his driveway kiln transformed the dull, glazed clay into something beautiful.

Best of all, I didn’t set anything on fire (the lawn, the garage, the neighbor’s cat) that wasn’t supposed to be!

Track 4: Aunt Teresa’s Peppers

Little red and green bundles of deliciousness.

OK, it’s time to take things downtempo a bit. After the artery-clogging “Fair fare,” the eighth wonder of the world that was the big pan, and the driveway inferno of raku-making, let’s sing a sweet ballad about thin-skinned Italian peppers.

Aunt Teresa’s peppers have been immortalized in the Decorah Seed Savers Vault. This is great for future generations, but I can’t help view each locked-away seed as a lost opportunity for me to eat a delicious fried pepper. That said, I did get to enjoy plenty of peppers on this trip, as Jim had just picked a big batch from his garden, and Susan had some bright red ones growing in her yard, too. Best of all, I got to watch the pepper matriarch hherself, 92-year-old Aunt Teresa, say “good morning” to her crop of red and green beauties next to her porch (she maintains that a warm daily greeting is key to growing great peppers, and who am I to argue?)

Track 5: Eclipse Glasses on a Cloudy Day

As it vanished behind the moon, the sun was laughing at us.

Every greatest hits collection has at least one disappointing track that doesn’t quite measure up to everything else. For our trip to Iowa, that was the great eclipse of August 2017.

The day started strong, with a bike tour of sculptures along the banks of the Cedar River in Charles City. The art was interesting, the trail was flat (because: Iowa), and most importantly I looked very sporty on Aunt Susan’s bright pink 3-speed cruiser. We even scouted out a good spot to watch the moon devour the sun later that afternoon.

Things went downhill from there (which would have been fun on the bike ride but was kind of a bummer for eclipse-watching). Clouds had been hanging around all morning, and thickened to a gray curtain just in time for the big solar show. We did manage to catch a few fleeting glimpses of the crescent sun through our ISO-certified protective eyeware, but that was it.

Track 6: All Together Now (ensemble)

Time to finish strong and close out this album with the biggest hit of our Iowa trip: all of the family and friends—new and old—we only get to see on rare occasions like this. I don’t know if the cliche is true that everyone in the Midwest is unfailingly nice, but this group certainly is incredible.

Maureen watches her family watch the Iowa Cubs.

First and foremost are our hosts—Maureen’s dad Jim in Des Moines and Aunt Pat at the farm in Waukee, then Aunt Susan and Uncle Stretch in Charles City. Thank you for housing us, feeding us, entertaining us, and generally putting up with us. (Zora barks her full agreement at this!)

Then there are the “usual suspects” we always look forward to reconnecting with when we come to this part of the country: Patrick, who Zora loves more than anyone on earth; Uncle Phil, who makes a damn fine bratwurst burger; Maggie, who we can’t wait to see in Santa Fe next month; Andy and Christine and Ellie, who treated us to a (very) happy hour at Eatery A; Jim and Gail Brick (happy birthday, Gail!), who better start planning their next ski trip to New Mexico; Judi, who is just as elegant dancing on the Bill O’Reilly stage at the Fair as she is strolling the boulevards of Paris; and Kevin, Laura, and the always awesome (and also alliterative) Ava, who made Friday at the fair extra fun and extra filling.

Finally, there are the surprise visitors we didn’t expect to see in Iowa, like Nikki Tygard and Jo Butler, and new friends we made on this trip like Diny and Jan and Nancy in Des Moines and Dan and Sarah and Jon and Ann and Marilyn and Joe and Margo and Andrea and everyone else in Charles City.

All of you are what makes Iowa truly home for Maureen, and makes it feel like home for me (and Zora). As we crossed the border into South Dakota last night, we were excited about starting the next phase of our adventure, but sad to be leaving Iowa and all the wonderful people we saw there last week in our rear-view mirror.

Santa Fe to Des Moines, via Charlottesville

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On the afternoon that a bunch of white supremacist idiots marched in Virginia and murdered a young woman named Heather Heyer, I found myself crossing from New Mexico into Oklahoma, the state where a smaller group of white supremacist idiots killed 168 people in 1995. From a forensic perspective, there’s no direct connection between these two events 22 years apart. But they were both very much on my mind Saturday afternoon, as I began a trip that would criss-cross almost 3,000 miles of a nation that seems to be tearing itself apart.

The spreading fissures in American society weren’t obvious from the highway at 65 miles per hour—certainly not as much as last summer, before the election, when political signs were everywhere in Oregon and Washington and Montana. Everyone I interacted with on my three-day drive to Iowa was pleasant and polite (well, except for the overwhelmed Dairy Queen cashier in eastern New Mexico cursing “all the Texas idiots” lined up at his drive-thru window). Of course, as a middle-aged white guy with a pickup truck and a cowboy hat, I wasn’t exactly venturing into hostile territory.

Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain

The red-rock hills between Santa Fe and Las Vegas (the one in New Mexico, not the one in Nevada—although what happens there stays there too, mainly because nothing ever happens there) quickly gave way to the grasslands of northeastern New Mexico and the Oklahoma panhandle. My first overnight was in Guymon, birthplace of Mike “Heckuva Job Brownie” Brown, who oversaw the botched response to Hurricane Katrina for G.W. Bush. I spent the night at the Corral RV Park and Drive-in Theater, but the movies had stopped for the season a week earlier and my only entertainment was the whistle of passing freight trains all night long. (I learned that the final film had been the apparently execrable “Emoji Movie,” so perhaps I lucked out with the trains instead.)

All we are is dust in the wind

I rolled out early Sunday in a heavy downpour and gusty winds, both of which stopped by the time I crossed into Kansas 45 minutes later. There’s a lot of Kansas to look at as you drive diagonally from southwest to northeast, and most of it looks exactly like the rest of it. I camped that night at a pretty Army Corps of Engineers park outside Emporia, which had more trees than I’d seen anyplace else in Kansas and more freight trains than I’d heard the night before in Oklahoma.

My dog Zora, who is deaf as a tree stump and slept through all the train whistles, absolutely loved our grassy campsite by the lake and gave me a skeptical look as I urged her back into the truck Monday morning for yet another long day of driving. We managed to get briefly lost in downtown Topeka trying to avoid the toll road, but eventually made it across the Missouri River in Atchison and into The Show-Me State.

The buck stops here.

Missouri didn’t have a lot to show me that seemed much different from what I’d already seen in Kansas, so I passed the time wondering if, given my route, the trains that had kept me up both nights were on the famous “Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe” railroad. That got me thinking about Judy Garland who, not surprisingly, seems to keep coming up in Kansas—I had passed a replica of Dorothy’s house from The Wizard of Oz the morning before in Liberal—and before I knew it I was in Iowa.

Two days later, I’m still here. The trailer is parked out at the farm of Maureen’s Aunt Pat, and Zora and I are enjoying a respite from the road at my father-in-law’s house in Des Moines. Tomorrow and Friday promise visits to the Iowa State Fair to see butter cows, smell the swine house, and eat trans fats, before Maureen joins for the next leg of our trip.

We got trouble with a capital “T” that rhymes with “D” and that stands for Dog.

That promises to be a somewhat more interesting journey than the trip documented above, featuring stops in the Badlands of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore (which will offer an interesting opportunity to reflect on what “presidential-ness” really looks like), and the Black Hills. I’m just hoping it doesn’t feature too many more campsites next to the railroad tracks.

Westward, ho!

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NOTE: This post was written on May 13, but was “embargoed” for a few days to preserve the surprise of a birthday visit to Maureen’s sister in Santa Cruz. More on that soon…

Our bitchin’ campsite in Joshua Tree

It’s a cool morning in Joshua Tree National Park and I’m savoring the chill, aware that it won’t last long. By 8 am the sun will clear the Pinto Mountains to the east, and start to warm the desert plain. By 9, it will be hot.

We spent the last two nights at Belle Campground, a pretty and peaceful spot among the park’s namesake trees and jumbles of ecru granite. There are only 18 sites, and the campground was full both Thursday and Friday. Had we arrived even an hour later, we might not have secured a spot. But we got a good one—site 10—big enough to park our truck and trailer, and I’m extra glad we chose Belle after attending a ranger talk at the much larger Jumbo Rocks Campground last night about desert tortoises (or “sea turtles”, as the adorable toddler in front of us kept calling them, much to the amusement of the ranger and the small knot of campers around his laptop). Jumbo Rocks was packed with people and vehicles, and buzzing with the chaotic energy that generates whenever crowds of young people gather in one place on a Friday night. I might have preferred that vibe 15 or 20 years ago, but now—with less than four months until I turn 50— I’m much happier to pass a peaceful afternoon among the rocks and trees, and a restful night beneath the stars.

I have wanted to camp at Joshua Tree for a long time, ever since my first drive through here 15 years ago. That trip to the Mojave shortly after relocating from Boston to California was when I first fell in love with the desert, culminating a decade-and-a-half later in a move to Santa Fe, NM. Southwestern landscapes seem simultaneously vast and intimate in a way no other terrain does. Climb up a rocky hill, and you can see for miles in all directions. Scramble back down, and the desert shrinks to just what is immediately around you. You can walk around a pile of rocks or pass through a stand of mesquite, and the scenery will change entirely—almost like a film studio backlot where turning a corner takes you from one movie set to another.

That cinematic analogy is an apt one for Joshua Tree, so close to Los Angeles and almost certainly the filming location for some of the westerns I watched Sunday mornings on Channel 56 while growing up in Boston. (Although the spiky, many-limbed trees look more like alien monsters I’d see later Sunday afternoons on the same channel during “Creature Double Feature.”) We toured the northern and western areas of the park yesterday, and while Maureen stayed with the dog at the truck I was able to squeeze in a few short hikes. Just a few miles apart from each other, they offered radically different experiences—from the sandy hollow at Indian Cove, to the boulders and palm trees at secluded Hidden Valley, to the flinty high desert trail above Desert Queen mine.

“Standin’ on a Corner” Park in Winslow, AZ

We arrived here Thursday afternoon from Winslow, AZ—which, despite the song, is not actually such a fine sight to see. There is a small plaza with a flatbed Ford parked nearby, and a restaurant across the street with outside speakers playing The Eagles and Jackson Browne non-stop. But the town itself is, like much of backroads America in 2017, mostly empty storefronts and slightly crazy old people wandering around and grimy cars with Trump/Pence bumper stickers parked in front of even grimier bars with Coors Light banners flapping in the breeze.

The plateau east of Flagstaff where Winslow sits is flat and featureless, except for a huge hole in the ground where a meteor smashed into the earth tens of thousands of years ago. We passed our first night in an RV park owned and operated by the same people who run the meteor crater as a tourist trap, but we arrived too late to see the crater before they locked the gates. The RV park was very nice, but word on the street is that the meteor crater itself is kind of a rip-off ($20 a person to look into a dry, dusty hole full of nothing).

Rainy afternoon in Petrified Forest National Park

We had spent that afternoon driving from Santa Fe in the rain, with a long detour through Petrified Forest National Park. Despite the cold, damp weather, we enjoyed the scenic driving loop that overlooked the Painted Desert and offered glimpses of Native American petroglyphs and the stony stumps of petrified trees. Petrified Forest may be the perfect national park for a day when you really don’t feel like getting out of your car much, since all the major sights are right by the road.

Joshua Tree, on the other hand, is a park that rewards a bit more exploration. We’ll need to come back sometime without the dog, so we can get further off the road and into the desert landscape. But for now, we’re packing up and hitting the road for a night in Santa Barbara, and then on to Santa Cruz for a surprise birthday visit to Maureen’s sister, Mary Clare.

Nearing the end of the road…

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Three weeks ago, we pulled out of Moss Beach and shifted this trip into drive. We return our rental trailer at 2:00pm tomorrow, bringing our “R-podyssey” to an end.

Checking out an older model RV at Bodie Ghost Town in the Eastern Sierras.

Checking out an older model RV at Bodie Ghost Town in the Eastern Sierras.

If you’ve read our previous posts, you’re aware that things haven’t exactly gone as planned. The big headaches–Zora’s gastrointestinal issues, the recurring “check engine” light, Maureen’s eye infection–have been well documented. So have at least some highlights of our trip: camping by the sea in Oregon, visiting family in Idaho, and staying in beautiful parks like Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton.

But when I read back over what I’ve written, it doesn’t really capture the whole story. Every day of this trip has been so full, and this blog barely touches the surface of what we saw and experienced. So, in our last few posts, we’ll share a few observations, adventures, and misadventures that we haven’t talked much about until now.

Let’s get the ball rolling with…

Top 5 Things We Wish We’d Known Beforehand

  1. Pack less. Much less. What the hell were we thinking? I brought four pairs of shoes, including cowboy boots, and all I’ve worn is my hiking sandals and shower shoes. We’re bringing back two big Tupperware bins of food we never used. And when exactly did I expect to fly the two drones I packed?

  2. Follow the Rules of Threes. An RV podcaster I listen to has what he calls “The 330 Rules”: Don’t drive more than 330 miles in a day, and stop driving by 3:30 pm. We’ve embraced these guidelines, after realizing that long days and late arrivals suck. To them we would add a third rule: Unless you’re just passing through, stay in any campsite for at least three days. It’s so much more relaxing than having to hitch up every morning. Of course, that means focusing on a smaller area of the country, vs. trying to see too much in a single trip.

  3. You can go a long way without hookups. When I planned the trip, I expected we’d need to recharge batteries, refill water, or dump sewage tanks every 2-3 days. That’s one of the reasons my itinerary had us changing campsites every day or two, and choosing places because they had hookups, not because they were beautiful spots to camp. The truth is that we never ran the battery below 2/3 full, and only needed to dump and refill tanks weekly. Next time, we’ll stay where we want and prioritize hookups only when we really need them. (Disclaimer from Maureen: Having electrical hookups to run the air conditioning during the hot weather at the beginning and end of our trip was really nice!)

    Hiking with Zora in the Bridger-Teton National Forest outside Grand Teton.

    Hiking with Zora in the Bridger-Teton National Forest outside Grand Teton.

  4. National Parks for cars, National Forests for dogs. The scenic National Park roads (Going-to-the-Sun in Glacier, the Yellowstone and Grand Teton loops, Tioga Road at Yosemite) were gorgeous, with breathtaking views at every turnout. I’m glad we drove them. But our two best hikes of the trip were both in National Forests, where Zora could join us and we had the trails almost entirely to ourselves. And we saw a lot of National Forest campgrounds that seemed just as nice as some of the places we stayed in big parks like Glacier and Yellowstone. We’re currently in a KOA (see item 3 above) an hour from Yosemite, but on the drive down to that park yesterday we passed several lovely National Forest campgrounds that had plenty of sites available. Next time…

  5. People are mostly terrific. We’ve enjoyed meeting people from all over the country, and our campground hosts and campsite neighbors have been universally friendly (or at least not actively unfriendly). I’m sure that many of them have wildly different world views from our own–as soon as we left the Pacific coast, we saw an awful lot of Trump signs and Ten Commandments billboards. I also realize that we’ve been afforded more than a little bit of white privilege, and travelers who don’t look the way we do might get a very different experience. But, in such a grim and gross political environment, it’s been heartening to to see so much basic human decency.

In our final posts, we’ll share the top 5 (and bottom 5) memorable moments that haven’t made it into this blog so far, as well as some of our favorite photos from the trip–although that might have to wait for something better than rural KOA wifi!

Serendipity as a travel strategy

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When it comes to travel, I’m a planner. I spend months researching destinations and accommodations, secure reservations far in advance, and generally am most relaxed when sticking to an itinerary. In the immortal words of Colonel “Hannibal” Smith, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

So this trip has pushed me wayyyyy outside my comfort zone. It started on day one with the “check engine” light, which forced us to spend several hours in a Yuba City repair shop and arrive at our first campsite much later than planned. At Glacier, Going-to-the-Sun Road (which I’ve wanted to see since I was 10 years old and studying a map of national parks) was closed. Before we could get to Yellowstone, we spent some more quality time at an auto repair shop. And then the plan really came apart between Zora’s stomach problems and the crazy heat covering most of the Southwest.

But, in a strange way, all my planning before the trip actually prepared me quite well to handle the unplanned during the trip. Most of the RV bloggers I read (see here, here, and here) relish the ability to travel wherever the wind blows with very little advance planning. So tossing our itinerary out the window (metaphorically–we’d never litter!) has actually made me feel like a more authentic member of the tribe.

OK, so I haven't completely given up my research and planning...

OK, so I haven’t completely given up my research and planning…

Sure, I’m bummed about not making it to Moab, Bryce Canyon, and the Extraterrestrial Highway. But those places will always be on the “next-time” list, and because we didn’t go there, we did make some great discoveries like the EBR-I Atomic Museum, Craters of the Moon, and the sweet KOA in Arco, ID, as well as the campsite we’re in right now: South Fork Recreation Area outside of Elko, NV.

Instead of spending $50/night at an RV park in 110+ degree heat at Bryce, we spent $14 for a gorgeous, lakeside campsite here. Instead of having to keep Zora on the paved roads in the national park, she’s been able to run free in the desert landscape behind our site. There were no electric hookups to run the air conditioner, but we didn’t need electricity because it was cool enough to sleep with the windows open.

So now what? We’re headed to a campground in Coleville, CA, for the last three nights of our trip. From there, we should be able to visit Yosemite, or Lake Tahoe, or the ghost town at Bodie… Or not. We can do whatever we want, including doing nothing at all, because that freedom is part of what makes traveling like this so special. I get that now.

The Arco KOA is A-OK!

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Just a quick update on our increasingly erratic progress: We decided to keep north of the Heat Dome™, and are currently at a KOA campground near Craters of the Moon National Monument.

This is our first real commercial RV park since night one of our trip. And it’s kind of awesome. Don’t get me wrong: the state and national parks we’ve stayed in have been beautiful and really, really nice. But they don’t have ice cream socials, free waffle breakfasts, and swimming pools.

Random Updates

Zora seems to be doing a little better, but is still no fun to pick up after when she poops.

This place is still slightly radioactive, but so what? It's not like my hair is going to fall out.

This place is still slightly radioactive, but so what? It’s not like my hair is going to fall out.

Did you know Arco, ID, was the first town in America to get electricity from nuclear power? There’s actually an atomic museum near town where you can visit the EBR-1 experimental breeder reactor (no longer in use).

Maureen has come down with some sort of eye infection, and is currently visiting the local clinic. So now the dog, the truck, and Maureen have all had some sort of breakdown on this trip. I wonder what’s in store for me in our last few days…

Changing priorities, changing plans

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This was supposed to be the post where we talk about our adventures in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. And our original itinerary had us in Utah tonight and for the next 4 days. But our trip has taken another turn, and we’ve had to turn with it.

She's enjoying the Grand Teton view, but her guts are a mess.

She’s enjoying the Grand Teton view, but her guts are a mess.

Zora’s tummy issues have persisted to the point where we took her to the vet in Jackson yesterday. She tested positive for a couple microbes, including giardia. They put her on a bunch of antibiotics, but so far there’s been no improvement. In fact, it’s getting worse and she’s starting to pass blood.

So we’re spending a couple more days here in Grand Teton, to be near the vet we found in Jackson. Then we’ll go to Salt Lake City where there are plenty of other vets if we need one. If she’s not better by Tuesday morning, we’ll jump on I-80 and head back toward home earlier than planned.

This hasn’t exactly been the fun and relaxing adventure we envisioned. But we can’t say it’s been boring…

Moving at a Glacial Pace

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NOTE: This post is now almost two days behind “real-time.” We did finally make it to Yellowstone and then Grand Teton, where we are camping for the next few nights. Details on that in our next post, but first here’s yesterday’s news…

We just spent a restless night in the parking lot of Randy’s Auto Repair. Between the drunk guys coming in and out of the sketchy apartment next door, the impressive thunderstorm at midnight, and a dog with a bad stomach, it was hard to get much sleep.

We’re scheduled to have our fuel pump controller replaced this morning, but it’s after 10 am and our truck is still sitting in the lot waiting for the mechanic. While we suffer through this lowlight of our trip, we’re reminiscing about some of the recent highlights…

The Idaho Riccellis

The Idaho Riccellis

Sleeping in a real bed!
Thanks to the hospitality of Maureen’s relatives Tony and Celine, we spent Saturday night in their gorgeous home in wayyyyyyy northern Idaho. We enjoyed a comfortable mattress, real showers, and a huge homemade breakfast. Zora loved digging for gophers in the woods surrounding their house, and Tony even had an electrical hookup for our trailer!

Gorgeous Gorges in Glacier National Park
Glacier was the definite highlight of our trip so far–not that there’s been a ton of competition for highlights lately. We had a beautiful campsite (A35 at Fish Creek Campground, if you’re making plans), the weather was great, and the park is beautiful. I suppose the curmudgeon in me (it’s genetic on the paternal side) could complain about Going to the Sun Road being partly closed, but there were so many other beautiful things to see.

Cool Caves and Corny Comments
At what was supposed to be our only stopping point en route to Yellowstone, we camped at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park. It was a raw and rainy day, so heading 350 feet underground into the caves seemed like a good idea. The experience itself was even better.

Our guide was friendly and enthusiastic, which almost compensated for her endless string of awful puns and jokes about caving (“watch out, there’s lots of head-banging hard rock down here”). We saw an active colony of Townsend’s big-eared bats, enjoyed colorfully-lit stalagmites and stalactites, and squeezed through claustrophobic rock passages into large underground rooms.

We woke up to a cold-but-sunny morning and got on the road early to try and get to Yellowstone before noon. And then, at a rest area 40 miles outside the park, that damn “check engine” light came back. So here we are, a day later, just a mile outside the west entrance in a repair shop parking lot, waiting to un-pause our vacation once again.

Oh yeah, and the dog still has awful diarrhea.

The scenic beauty of Yellowstone

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Who needs Old Faithful when you've got Randy's Auto?

Who needs Old Faithful when you’ve got Randy’s Auto?

Instead of Madison Campground in the park, we’re camping in the parking lot of a repair shop in West Yellowstone.

I’m not sure how to review that on Yelp! So far I’d give the mechanic high marks for skills and service, but as a campsite they leave something to be desired.

The full Seattle experience

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It was sunny while it was raining. Mike drank a lot of coffee. Everyone under 40 was vaping and wore flannel and beards (even some of the women). We saw guys throw fish at each other.

We really liked Seattle. People were friendly and there were so many interesting things to see and do. The drizzle didn’t bother us, because it felt like an authentic part of the Puget Sound experience. Even the state park we stayed in was nicer than we’d expected from the online reviews.

A change of plans

We just drove 5 hours across Washington, and I’m writing this from a pretty little park by the Spokane River. Our original itinerary had us staying here tonight, but we’ve received a generous offer to visit Maureen’s cousin Tony and his wife Celine at their home in Nordman, Idaho. It means a couple more hours in the truck tonight, but it gets us a bit closer to Glacier for our drive tomorrow.

Saturday afternoon rush in Ritzville.

Saturday afternoon rush in Ritzville.

The drive here was more interesting than we’d anticipated from the map. Snoqualmie Pass in the fog and rain was kind of terrifying with a trailer, and the Columbia Plateau of central Washington was a treeless expanse of basalt spreading out to the horizon in all directions. We stopped for lunch in the friendly, but dying, town of Ritzville about an hour out of Spokane where I think we met the entire population in our visits to the diner, antique stop, and whiskey distillery(!).

Now we’re just chillin’ at our non-campsite until we connect with Tony and head into Idaho. Hey, we get to sleep in a new state tonight–cool!

Going… going… Oregon

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The consensus among RVers is that Oregon has some of the nicest state park campgrounds in the country. As temporary members of the RV community, we’ve now camped in three Oregon parks and I think it’s safe to say that we’ve jumped on the Beaver State bandwagon.

While researching this trip, I became obsessed with reading RV park and campground reviews. I even Googled for specific campsite numbers to see what people had to say about the ones we’d reserved. So here’s my chance to return the favor, with some reviews of our camping experiences in Oregon before we head north into Washington tomorrow:

Valley of the Rogue State Park (Gold Hill, OR): Site F12

Transportation options at Valley of the Rogue.

Transportation options at Valley of the Rogue.

It was 95 degrees when we pulled in, the truck had strained over a series of mountain passes on Highway 5, and we were nervous about taxing the engine after what had happened the previous day in Yuba City. So we weren’t exactly in the most relaxed frame of mind to appreciate this pretty and peaceful park. But Valley of the Rogue turned out to be a great place to stay.

Zora on squirrel patrol.

Zora on squirrel patrol.

Our site was spacious and well-separated from our neighbors. The other loops in the park have sewer hookups, but we didn’t need that on day 2 of our trip and we were glad for the extra space in Loop F as compared to the more tightly-packed campsites in other sections of the park. We plugged in the trailer and fired up the air conditioning.

After cooling off a bit, we tried exploring the park. There’s a trail that runs several miles along the Rogue River to the town of the same name, but the air was too warm for the humans and the asphalt was too hot for Zora’s feet so we gave up on that mission pretty quickly. We also abandoned our plans for a campfire dinner, and settled for another night of cold cuts in the trailer. With our radius of exploration diminished due to the heat, we investigated the showers and toilets in the park—which were clean and comfortable.

Sunset Bay State Park (Coos Bay, OR): Site A26

Cool coast, here we come!

Cool coast, here we come!

We’d had it with the heat wave and were up and out early, heading west toward the ocean. The road over to the coast was gorgeous, winding through forests and farmland along the path of the Coquille River before ending at Highway 101 in the pretty but sleepy town of Bandon.

We checked out Bandon Harbor a bit, but quickly ran out of things to do there and decided to have a picnic at Face Rock State Park. Smart choice! We had this beautiful beach mostly to ourselves, and Zora splashed in the ocean while Maureen and I admired the impressive collection of sea stacks offshore. After a windblown lunch on the cliffs overlooking the beach, we were on the road again, up the coastline a bit toward Coos Bay.

Plenty of bay, but not much sunset.

Plenty of bay, but not much sunset.

Our destination for the night was Sunset Bay State Park on Cape Arago: another nice Oregon campground with large, well-secluded spots. Our site had a significant slope, so we had to bust out the leveling blocks to avoid listing like a drunken pirate.

Smoked Mike, with a side of grilled chicken.

Smoked Mike, with a side of grilled chicken.

Here at the seaside, it was finally cool enough to turn off the air conditioning and do some exploring. We hiked a couple miles to the botanical gardens at Shoreline Acres park, which were off-limits to dogs. So Maureen checked out the flowers while Mike and Zora hid out from the park rangers on the trail behind the parking lot. Except for a couple of old ladies sniffing their disapproval of Zora, we successfully avoided the dog police.

We’d had it with cold cuts, and were relieved it was finally cool enough to have our first real campfire! We bought two bundles of wood from the gregarious park hosts (she was exceptionally chatty and he was either deaf or faking it as a survival skill) and grilled up tasty but smoky chicken, with smoky s’mores for dessert.

Cape Lookout (Tillamook, OR): Site D4

We took our time getting ready and stopped at Safeway on the way through Coos Bay, so it was noon by the time we got back on 101 North. The road weaved back-and-forth between coastal cliffs and inland woods, passing through a series of towns with names like Faulkner characters (Florence, Heceta, Yachats).

We stopped in Newport for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the working harbor, which felt (and smelled) a lot like Princeton Harbor back in Half Moon Bay. Newport has seen its share of marine tragedies, and the people and vessels lost in shipwrecks are memorialized with plaques on the sidewalk. For a small town, there were a lot of names in the concrete.

Maureen and Zora on the beach.

Maureen and Zora on the beach.

That brings us to where we are now: Cape Lookout State Park outside Tillamook, OR. This is my favorite park in terms of location and things to do, but the campsites are smaller and more tightly packed than other places we’ve stayed. (This seems like a good time to commend Maureen for her trailer-backing skills; threading the needle into our current site was quite a maneuver–one which she handled flawlessly and to the applause of the other campers around us!)

It’s cool and gray today, which reminds us quite a bit of home. We’re not leaving until tomorrow, giving me plenty of time to write this lengthy post on the iPad, while Maureen does some sketching and collaging–also very reminiscent of our lives at home!

Broken thermostats and busted plans

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This post is brought to you by C&M Auto in Yuba City, CA

Everything was running like clockwork. Until it wasn’t.

We left Mike’s parents’ house in Napa at 8:15—as scheduled. We got to the trailer rental place in Placerville at 10:15—as scheduled. And we pulled out for points northward before noon—as scheduled. And then the unscheduled started to happen.

We tested the anti-sway hitch and trailer brakes on steep, winding Highway 49 through Auburn, then vectored northwest into Marysville. We decided to embrace our new RV lifestyle with a stop at WalMart for groceries. And then (cue dramatic music) it happened.

The “check engine” light icon is small and easy to overlook—kind of cute, even. But few things have as much power to fill a man’s soul with dread, especially on day one of a planned three-week camping trip. I briefly considered ignoring it and hoping it would eventually go away, but Maureen was having none of that. We pulled over and she got on the phone to AAA, who steered us to a shop across the river in Yuba City called C and M Automotive (cue choir of angels singing “Hallelujah”).

On the Boulevard of Broken Hearts.

On the Boulevard of Broken Hearts.

It was 4 pm on a Saturday when we limped into their parking lot. The manager on duty got his code reader out and diagnosed the issue as “P128A” which, if you’re keeping score at home, means “cylinder head temperature circuit intermittent/erratic.” In layman’s terms, that means “bad things will happen if you keep driving—especially in this 98-degree heat.” Then he told us that they were about to close, and wouldn’t open again until Monday morning.

Yuba City was not exactly on our bucket list, something Maureen’s crestfallen expression made clear. The manager held firm that there was nothing he could do, but the owner—heroic Juan Pablo—took pity on us and agreed to try the one thing he could do that afternoon: replacing the thermostat. So we sat inside their air conditioned waiting room while he ordered the part from a nearby store, installed it, and ran some checks. He was cautiously optimistic, but everything depended on the final trial by fire: a test drive to see if the check engine light would come back on.

Maureen and Zora volunteered to take on this dangerous mission, while Mike stayed with the trailer. The instructions were incredibly specific: keep it between 55 and 60 for exactly five minutes, and then let the truck coast to a stop. I tracked her the entire way using “Find My Friends” on my iPhone, waiting for the little blue dot representing Maureen to prematurely U-turn back toward the garage.

20 minutes later, the drive crew returned with big smiles and thumbs (or paws) up. We gave Juan Pablo our profusive thanks, hitched the trailer back up, and were on the road again.

I hadn’t exactly planned for our first time setting up camp to happen after dark, but that’s how it went down. We arrived at Antlers RV Park at 8:45 pm, and backed into our spot in the day’s last gloaming. Instead of enjoying happy hour in our camp chairs at the site, we fumbled inside the dark truck bed to find our essential gear. Instead of our planned taco dinner, we ate cold cuts and fresh-pack salad at midnight.

But none of us had any complaints, since the alternative was boondocking in an auto repair shop’s parking lot in Yuba City.

Wheels up

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A wise man once wrote that “the most important ingredient in any successful endeavor is preparation.”

OK, so that wise man was me. But I’m sure a quick Google search would reveal that many more celebrated and better documented wise men have said something similar—especially when you consider that it’s a pretty bland sentiment.

Preparing for this trip involved a lot of secondary research: reading about travel trailers, looking at campground maps, pinpointing the exact location of Oregon’s best microbreweries, etc. But I also engaged in a bit of primary research, finding an even smaller and more crowded tin can to squeeze myself into than the R-Pod we’ve rented for the next three weeks.

One Hundred Sierra Papa on approach into Paso Robles.

One Hundred Sierra Papa on approach into Paso Robles.

My friend Richard is a pilot with a 4-seat Bonanza aircraft. Another friend, James, is the wine-buyer for a chain of Bay Area supermarkets. It’s less clear what special skills I could contribute, but fortunately Richard and James have known me long enough to have limited expectations, and they invited me along for a flight to the Paso Robles wine country.

We left San Carlos airport on a recent cool and foggy Friday morning, emerging from the clouds over Salinas and enjoying a smooth descent into warm and sunny Paso Robles. As Richard taxied to a stop, a limo pulled up next to us on the tarmac and I briefly felt like a major celebrity (or at least like a minor Kardashian).

James had planned a full itinerary of wine-tasting for us, and we weren’t flying back until noon the next day so the overindulgence started quickly and escalated even faster. (But hey, that was also important research for the next three weeks of vacation, right?) We got the ball rolling at Tablas Creek, which produces Rhone-style wines using cuttings imported from Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Adding to the “Frenchness” of the experience was the icy glare and contemptuous sniff our Parisian pourer gave us when we started munching a bag of pistachios at her station as we sampled. We had little choice but to placate her by buying a bottle of rosé to enjoy with a picnic lunch on their patio.

Daou Winery is definitely a place to "revisit."

Daou Winery is definitely a place to “revisit.”

Next, we moved on to Daou for a VIP tasting on their hilltop terrace. The views and wines were both lovely, and we took ample advantage of the offer to “revisit anything you like.” (“Revisit” is such a wonderfully pretentious wine euphemism for “barkeep, I’ll have another.”)

Our third stop was Justin, where we got a private tour of the facility and a complimentary tasting of some great Bordeaux blends. And this is where things start to get a bit hazy. I know we left Justin with several bottles. I know we enjoyed two of those bottles at dinner. And I know we were all back in our hotel rooms by 8:00 pm before the sun had even fully set. But any concrete details about the end of that day would would require piecing together fragmented memories, forensic analysis of our iPhones, and perhaps a careful reading of the local police log.

The next morning came way too early, breakfast at the hotel diner was way too greasy, and the flight back was way too bumpy. It was a while before I even wanted to look at wine bottle again (a condition, I’m happy to report, which eventually subsided). But it was a fun day and a great way to kick off a summer of adventure—one that continues today when we hitch up our trailer and head north.

Road ready

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Our planned route. Numbers indicate planned stops or campgrounds.

Our planned route. Numbers indicate planned stops or campgrounds.

Maureen, Zora, and I are about to become canned goods.

Tomorrow we start a 3-week camping trip, driving our truck and towing a rented travel trailer. That means 300+ pounds of human and 85 pounds of canine sharing 144 square feet of living space for 3,000 miles and most of June. Talk about family bonding.

Our planned route takes us through Northern California, up the Oregon coast and all the way to Seattle. Next, we head east to Glacier National Park, south to Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and finally into Utah’s sandstone country before turning back west into California.

We started planning this adventure back in January, so I feel surprisingly well-prepared (famous last words, I know). We’ve already reserved most of our campsites, scrutinizing Google Earth to pick the best spots. I’ve read countless RV forums and blogs to familiarize myself with everything from the pros and cons of sway-control hitches to the finer points of dump station etiquette. And we’ve (over)loaded the truck with every imaginable necessity, luxury, and distraction. This is a far cry from most of my prior camping experience, on canoeing or backpacking trips where weight was limited and space was at a premium!

So wish us good weather, no flat tires, and minimal drama involving bears, mosquitos, or marital discord. And if you haven’t heard from us after a couple weeks, send one of those rescue dogs with a cask of whiskey around its neck. Or just send the whiskey—we’ve got plenty of dog already.

There’s no place like home

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Um, so sorry we missed your birthday America. And maybe this is an awkward time to tell you that we’ve kinda been seeing other countries for a couple months. But you really look great, and it just feels so natural to be with you again.

P.S., Got any decent beer in the fridge?