The RV Chronicles

New Job

2009-12-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Started my new job last week at Exloc Instruments www.exloc.com and pretty excited about it!

Tuesday & Wednesday, November 10th and 11th

2009-11-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

Tuesday-Wednesday, November 10th &11th

Allen and Kathryn are looking forward to their own beds. Frankly, Sarah and Taylor could go around again. Sarah is a singing woman. When she has a song in her head, she sings it over and over (and over and over and over). Today she was alternating between Peter Gabriel and Daughtrey. “Sir’, she said, ‘Grab your things, I’ve come to take you home…” and “ I’m going home, to the place where I belong…” She is not ‘all done’ with this trip but I think she is ready to see her friends and family.

On I-85 at the Virginia line, ,I was tempted to stop and kiss the ground. I settled for a quick genuflect instead. When you cross into God’s country after being gone for a long time, it is a moving experience, you realize.

The girls jumped up and down and we all shared a round of high-fives. Allen’s cousin Lloyd lives there with his family and they have two boys who are just slightly younger than our girls. Sarah and Laura have always gotten along famously and the girls maintained their track record of doing nothing to draw attention to themselves. They played with their Bo and Lawson nonstop for two solid days. We arrived on the front edge of Tropical Storm Ida and it has rained for the last two day, with the expectation that it will continue to rain for two more. We never left the house and yet the kids never stopped playing. They were exceptional. Not a single argument. We woke up the morning of the 12th with school cancelled due to flooding. Leaving Norfolk was a little frustrating due to tunnel closings and flooded streets but we managed. ETA-Tappahannock is around 2pm (we stopped for home-school at the Panera at Hampton Colliseum).

This is our final post and the end of the voyage. I have enjoyed writing the blog and I hope you have enjoyed reading it. To our friends and family, thank you so much for your prayers and well wishes. To the folks we don’t even know who are still following along, thank you for joining us. I hope we have inspired you to take a trip like this of your own.

God Bless You!

Allen and Sarah

As we close, we have some statistics and fun facts to share about the trip and the RV:

RV Specifications:
- 32’ long and 8’ wide
- 18,230 pounds
- Acceleration 0-60 in 12.8
- 75 Gallon Fuel Tank
- 80 Gallon fresh water tank
- Sleeping capacity for 4 adults and 4 children
- 10 gallon hot water heater
- 2’ by 3’ shower stall

Trip Details:
- Travelled 10,748 miles in the RV
- Travelled an additional 2,200 miles in the towed car
- Burned 1,630 gallons of gasoline in the RV. Burned about 90 gallons in the towed car.
- Average fuel economy ~6.5 mpg
- 23 States visited.
- 13 National Parks
- 4 Great Lakes
- One minor incident (hit a street sign with the RV’s mirror)
- One minor fire (fire alarms worked perfectly)
- Memories for a lifetime

Word of Advice: Go do a trip like this. Pehaps a little smaller scale or a shorter duration but go see this great beautiful land of ours. You won’t regret it!

Saturday & Sunday, November 8th & 9th

2009-11-12T09:13:00.000-08:00

Saturday & Sunday – November 7&8

We got to Fuquay-Varina (ever notice how the North Carolinians like to hyphenate their town names?) just after lunch and settled in for a great visit with old friends. The kids disappeared and we basically didn’t see them again until dinnertime. One sure way to make sure your kids play nice is to keep them locked in a rolling fiberglass box for a couple of months. That way, when you let them out, the last thing they want to do is have anything to do with their parents. They play nicely and everything. Try it!

The adults settled down in the family room to catch up and talk about the great adventure. Scott is my college roommate so we’ve known the Walkers for fourteen years. Never one to keep a party smaller than it should be, Erin invited Brad, Sarah, and baby-girl Green to keep things lively. We got to catch up, meet each other’s newer kids, rehash old jokes and stories…good times!

One thing I love about the Walkers is that they like complicated plans as much as the Taliaferros. There is no plan which cannot be augmented with more logistics and complexity. Erin and Scott had been promising that their daughter, Ainsley, could go visit Erin’s cousin in Charlotte and through twists and turns, determined that this was the only weekend it could work out. Additionally, Erin had a business meeting in Charlotte on Monday morning so we loaded the entire contingency into the RV and drove together to Charlotte from Varina. We watched the football games at Erin’s cousin’s and then left Erin there with her luggage and loaded all the kids back into the RV for our return to Varina. It was a long day but a lot of fun to all ride along visiting together. The kids scampered into the back and watched movies.

On Monday morning we held our school at the Walkers and watched the baby while Scott ran the kids to their school. We got caught up on laundry and then said our goodbyes right after lunch.

Friday, November 6th – Winston Salem

2009-11-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

On Friday morning, we had breakfast with the Ways and then said goodbye. We had a full morning of classes with the girls and then hit the local mall for haircuts, some early Christmas shopping, and lunch. Afterwards, we went over to a big local park and went biking as a family for an hour or so.

We headed over to south Winston-Salem to see Lynn (Taliaferro) Parker and new hubby Mark. We got a tour of the house they are renovating and just had some quality visitation. They got married at the end of September of this year but we were between LA and San Diego on the RV trip and just couldn’t make sense out of the one-way tickets, red-eye flights, and rental cars necessary to effect an appearance. We settled on something special from our travels as a wedding gift and a promise to come take them flying when I get home and get current on my license again. (you have to fly regularly to take people up and I need an hour or three to catch up since being gone)

So WOW. Lynn and Mark’s place is awesome. It was constructed during WWII and because of materials rationing, was constructed largely of concrete. It is such a unique and interesting layout that Sarah and I spent the entire time there figuring out how we would organize and decorate it if it was ours. We really like the idea of renovating and refurbishing an old house. I suspect we wouldn’t like the *doing* part as much as the planning but we sure do like the idea of it. Taylor and Kathryn liked Mark’s motorcycle. They liked it somewhat less so when he started that big Harley up inside the small garage.

Thanks for having us guys!

Thursday, November 5th - Winston Salem

2009-11-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

Thursday, November 5^th

A massive landslide in western NC has closed the interstate for what is projected to be several months. We broke off onto a little two lane road to cross from Knoxville over to Asheville. It literally took forever. We trudged up and down steep hills at 35mph for hours before getting back onto civilization. I say this as if I didn’t enjoy it. I really did. As we all (but me rather acutely) become increasingly fatigued by the trip, we tend to stop enjoying what we are doing and begin focusing on the end. This is a poor way to end things and I genuinely am trying to enjoy the last week and a half but we are all tired of the travel routine. The trip on Rt. 75 was just beautiful. The trees retained a little bit of fall color which we haven’t seen or enjoyed at all on this trip and the scenery was awesome. We have seen the Rockies, the Cascades, the redwoods, the southwest desert, the great plains, and still…nothing is as beautiful as the Appalachians this time of year. While this great beautiful creation is amazing in every regard, there is nothing in this nation of ours as beautiful as when fall paints the Smokies and the Blue Ridge in the rich shades of fall.

I’m biased, to be sure and don’t even apologize for it… but I’m right.

Every now and then, you stumble into a surprisingly nice campground and you wish you had time to stay a while longer. That was our experience at Mama Gertie’s Campground in Swannanoa, just east of Asheville. Unlike most commercial locations, it is tucked in a littler ‘holler about a mile from I-40. The owners were friendly, the facility pristine, and a babbling brook ran right past the RV. We all love the sound of rain on the roof but all night, leaves were falling and produced almost the same sound. It was so peaceful and we nearly had the place to ourselves. If you ever have the chance, stay there on your way through in your RV.

We held school and then rolled for Winston Salem. Sarah’s buddy Mike Way from Physical Therapy school and his lovely wife BethAnn live on the western side of Winston-Salem and have kids just slightly younger than ours. Beth Ann’s mom was also in town so it was a full crowd. The kids wore themselves out after going for months without real playmates their own age and we had little people spread out up and down the cul-de-sac on every manner of rolling device. What a good time! If the Way kids had been given a vote, they’d have sent us on home and kept the RV. Pic Pic Pic. They climbed onto, into, and over everything in there with our kids, having a marvelous time. We herded them all out to the RV for bedtime stories and then said good night. Our kids were out within moments of lying down.

November 4

2009-11-09T07:20:00.001-08:00

Nov 4: (Sarah as today's guest author)

Oak Ridge is not only famous for the Oak Ridge Boys, but, more importantly, Oak Ridge played a pivotal role in the Manhattan Project. Oak Ridge did not appear on any map during WWII because they were secretly refining uranium. The town was built for that purpose and provided the uranium for Little Boy bomb (Hiroshima). Allen needed a break from the family (I know, you are just not sure how that could be possible) so he headed to the Science and Energy Museum. The kids had brief school and then it was time for a field trip. Sarah and the girls headed to the Children’s Museum. It was exceptional. The girls played and explored for about three hours and learned on some diverse topics in the meantime. I love that sneaky learning thing.

Allen took some time to decompress and get his head back in the game. Sarah sort of got a little break when I came home a week or two ago. We had a little chat about it and Allen reports that he is “Totally and completely done with this trip”. No surprise there. I’m amazed he didn’t pull the plug a while back. We are making tracks across Tennessee so it won’t be long now.

I do have a couple of pictures to share from our visit with the Clintons that I just got uploaded.

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

November 3

2009-11-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

Nov 3: Nashville. (Sarah writing today)

Here’s the thing, it may not be right or fair, but we are really just trying to get through Tennessee. There are cool things to see in the state. However, being completely denied by Memphis, coupled with the facts that the end is in sight and we are starting to shift thinking to back to our lives as soon as we get to North Carolina. We are basically done sightseeing and have our sights set on visiting friends & family. We just wanted to get through Tennessee. Nashville is cool, though. The morning started early with a trip to the grocery store. Kathryn declared herself ready for some Mommy/Kathryn time, so we took off together. Upon our return, Taylor greeted Sarah with a big bear hug. Kathryn watched the scene for just a moment and then yelled, “I’m coming in!” and jumped on the hugging mass. Nobody is getting affection in Kathryn’s presence without her being a part of it. Taylor tolerates to a degree, but she has gotten feistier on this trip and that is a good thing. We finished school and headed to the Opryland Hotel. We figured if we had to pick one thing, the kids would enjoy that more than the Country Music Hall of Fame or the like. For those of you who have not seen it, the Opryland Hotel has a river delta built into the middle of it. There are over seven acres of glass ceilings, walkways, and manicured gardens in the lobby. They were decorating for Christmas, which always makes spaces look even better. The kids had a ball. They were exploring the twists and turns throughout. It was a good way to burn some energy off them before we piled back into the RV and headed toward Knoxville. We got as far as Oak Ridge, home of the famous Boys.

November 1-2, 2009:

2009-11-09T07:14:00.001-08:00

November 1-2, 2009: Memphis. We wanted to show the girls a few things in Memphis. Mud Island, a riverboat cruise and a meal at Rendezvous BBQ. We were not able to do any of them. Turns out that Memphis hours of operation are pretty open during the ‘summer’, but much more restricted in ‘winter’. Also turns out that ‘Summer’ ends on Oct. 31. Also turns out that Memphis is closed on Mondays in the ‘winter’. We stayed outside of Graceland in their campground because really…how could you not stay at the King’s? Allen and I care nothing for Elvis, so we were not going to pay any extra but I guess the recession hits Graceland as bad as anywhere else. The campground was pretty decent and a few less dollars than the chain campgrounds. However, after our third stike out, we just bailed out and left Memphis. We headed for Nashville.

Friday-Sunday, November 1 – Cabot

2009-11-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

Friday-Sunday, November 1 – Cabot

[Long post. I combined three days]

We squared things away after school and made the short trip over to Cabot, AR to visit the Clinton Family. Jackie was one of Sarah’s buddies from JMU (graduated in ’94) and they recently reconnected via Facebook. We had a great time visiting, and since their two youngest children were exactly the same age as Taylor and Kathryn, they had a ball.

Their oldest is an 11 year old girl. Sarah and I got a real preview of what parenting a pre-teen is going to look like. I’m not ready but man was it a good education. I learned about teenagers and cell phones, complex and convoluted transportation plans, and how you should avoid ‘the drama’ at school at any cost.

The Clinton kids were pretty enamored with the RV so we set it up for a giant sleep over. Sarah and I had the luxury of a very comfortable bed for the first time in a long while. The kids kept each other up late and they woke up early. Kathryn didn’t even like herself by about noon on Saturday.

On Saturday, we attended a middle school track meet to cheer for Miss Clinton who came in fifth overall and first for her school. Great run!

Football is serious business in Arkansas. I saw Razorback stickers on nearly every vehicle on the road. Arkansas has no NFL presence so most folks are Arkansas fans. What puzzled me was that I was seeing those stickers on vehicles which…well… just didn’t look like they all belonged to Arkansas graduates. Turns out that everybody here is a Razorback. The fact that they didn’t matriculate has no bearing whatsoever. In fact more fans never attended that actually did. This is a little bit like West Virginia fans but the Arkansans don’t throw batteries and golf balls at opponents.

On Saturday afternoon, the good Lt.Colonel, Phil Clinton gave me a tour of Little Rock Air Force Base. Man was that awesome. I gotto see the residential sections, facilities (really cool) and then we went out to the flight line and climbed all over one of the C-130’s in his squadron. Pic Pic . I secretly made airplane sounds while I was holding the control yoke. I’d love to tell you that I need one of these but frankly, can’t afford to fill it up with gas. Just one engine is worth more than the current market value of my entire plane.

Trick or Treating was the best part of the visit, I think. The younger four kids really got into it and the neighborhood where the Clintons live is huge. There is lots of participation and almost every house is done up and giving out candy. The adults had to perform one course correction after the first house. The kids all ran up and collectively yealled, “ Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!” They (all of our kids collectively) apparently also knew another verse which doesn’t bear repeating here.

After we were back on track, Taylor and her Clinton counterpart (both age 7) strolled along chatting with the adults and each-other. Kathryn and Little Man Clinton flew along at breakneck speed. Once they got on board with the concept of a big smile, a ‘Trick or Treat” and a genuine ‘thank you’ it was almost like a race. We probably walked a mile over the course of the evening and I think everybody got a very good night’s sleep. I'll try to get some pictures from Jackie to post up here later.

The next morning, we had breakfast, packed up thanked our hosts, and headed on our way. Listen...Jackie, Phil, and family are so much fun, we invite all of our blog readers to go visit them. 

Thursday, October 28th – Little Rock

2009-11-03T07:41:00.000-08:00

After school, we headed on up to Little Rock from Hot Springs. I mentioned this on my facebook account but I have been struggling with some sort of acid reflux or something but it has gotten progressively worse. I planned to visit a doctor when I got home but the triple cocktail of prilosec, zantac, and malox were not getting it done anymore. Just outside Little Rock, we passed one of those 24 hour doctors offices. I love those things. For simple things like ear infections, these places are great. You can be seen within an hour or so. They cost about $100 and you are on your way.

You know how sometimes you meet a service provider who does not inspire confidence? That was the doctor. He shambles on in and flops down on the little round doctor chair. “Whew are we busy today! Naw ‘aight boy waz yeh prollem?”

I could give you the blow by blow but it would take too long. Basically, when I laid it out, he interrupted me to tell me how bad *his* acid reflux is. We reached an accord when I got him to admit that the treatment for an esophageal ulcer is a course of anti-biotics. I also reasoned that if I don’t have an ulcer, the drugs won’t hurt me so he may as well give me the drugs. I literally blew his mind with this rationale.

“Yeh sure you want to take them antibiotics? They could be right spendy”

[ oh? How much? ]

“Might be eighty doller”

[ I’m 36 and I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and I’m miserable. Write the prescription. ]

He shambled off. I thought the excitement was over. I was wrong. So then he comes back and I kid you not…he has a book called ‘Common Diagnoses’ and starts thumbing through it and mumbling. He had his bent up reading glasses shoved up on his close cropped hair and looked for all the world like a shade tree mechanic perusing a parts catalog.

“Thar. I reckon this one is about right for ‘yeh.” He copies out of the book for a few minutes. “now yeh take them and go see yer doctor when yeh get home.”

[ ok…. ]

“G’luck boy”

After my veterinarian ..errr…doctor visit, we continued on up the road to Trail’s End RV Park. Did I mention that it has been raining? This place turned out to be not an RV park but a swamp with regularly spaced electrical boxes. Nice enough people. Don’t stay here in the rain. I had to stand in three inches of water to hook our 30-amp electrical service. I was *very* nervous. A run to Walmart for sub-standard merchandise, prescriptions, and fascinating people watching rounded out our day. At Walmart, I saw an entire family shopping via battery-powered scooters. I don’t mean three people walking and an elderly person riding. I mean there was a family of five from age 30 to 70 riding around like a motorcycle gang. Of all the days to leave my iPhone and my camera…..

Tuesday/Wednesday the 26th &27th

2009-10-31T07:12:00.001-07:00

Tuesday/Wednesday the 26th &27th

What can I tell you. It poured rain. I don’t mean there were intermittent showers. I mean it *poured* for two straight days. We have a little rule in these situations. Don’t stay at a campground with nice playgrounds and upscale facilities. You don’t use them because it is raining. Everybody stays in the RV and has quiet time or reads or watches a movie. Having had some form of rain for about nine days now, we have this part down pat.

So we’re in Hot Springs. I literally have nothing interesting to tell you. I love me a good pawn shop. Lots of those but Sarah’s not into used hunting gear and Fender guitars. We went to ‘Stubby’s’ Barbecue in Hot Springs. They have a big old sweaty guy cutting up pork over a brick pit inside the restaurant. This is a good thing. Trust me.

Would you want a trim little fellow saying, “Welcome to Stubbys. May I interest you in a lovely rack of ribs cooked with by traditional methods? or perhaps some free range chicken from our old-world brick oven?” Of course not.

When you go to a *real* barbecue place in Arkansas called ‘Stubbys’, you want a big ‘ole boy with a filthy apron to set down his cigarette and slap ribs on your paper plate with a pair of black iron tongs the size of garden shears. Then you want him to say, “sauce?”. When you say ‘yes’, you want him to pick up a huge ladle and dump about a half-quart of sauce over your ribs. A ‘yes’ to the bread? question will yield you two slices of wonder bread which are now floating in the puddle of sauce on your ribs. I could tell you what came out of the pot when I said ‘yes’ to the beans but you wouldn’t believe me.

Stubby’s Barbecue in Hot Springs. Downright awesome. I’ve eaten ribs all over Virginia. I don’t think they are even close to Stubbys. I rarely reach the conclusion that anything is better than what we have back home but these ribs were an order of magnitude better. Stubbys has been cooking ribs in Hot Springs for 57 years without changing ownership. They know about some pork.

Rain and more rain. We elected not to go to one of the hot spring spas. That’s typically not something you take your kids to. I’ve never been to an old school mineral bath but you know…I’m still pretty sure I wouldn’t take kids. No telling what you might see in one of those places.

Monday, October 26th – Cooper Lake to Texarkana

2009-10-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 26th – Cooper Lake to Texarkana

We woke up in the pouring rain to find that Lake Cooper was making serious progress towards the RV. Big Bill was sitting on an elevated concrete pad so there were no worries but that lake was going to get the vehicles but it really was advancing up the shallow slope. 36 hours of steady rainfall will do that. I know that some parts of eastern Texas are prone to flooding and I figured it was best to get out of there and back onto a four lane road after school.

Homeschooling has been challenging for us. Not being teachers by trade and really not liking children much has been tough some mornings. Every now and then, though, the kids do something that makes the effort seem more worthwhile.

“Kathryn, tell me the word on this flashcard and then use it in a sentence [ the word was ‘look’ ]

 She looks up at me and then pronounces it “Luke” with emphasis on the double-o.

We’d just talked about the double-o sound but I wasn’t sure she had it so I asked her: “Can you use it in a sentence?”

 ‘Knock Knock’ [ who’s there ] ‘Luke’ [Luke Who?] ‘Luke out below, Daddy!’ (with full dimple regalia)

This is why I don’t like kids.

It was only 90 miles to Texarkana and we really could have traveled a good bit further but the next town was Hope, AR. This is the boyhood hometown of Bill Clinton but it had no camp facilities whatsoever. Beyond Hope, our next option was Hot Springs and that would have kept us on the road for another two hours so we just stopped in Texarkana right after lunch.

First stop was the mall where we let the girls run off some steam. The economic downturn looks like it hit Texarkana Central Mall like a sledge hammer. There were several empty stores and the place looked pretty tired. Sears was setting up 6’ tall plastic trees which wiggled and sang Christmas carols. We haven’t even had Halloween yet! I guess that in a year like this, you want Christmas shopping to get going right away. Seemed kind of sad to me, really.

The kids went nuts in the children’s play area for about an hour. Then we drove the RV over to the grocery store. Sarah declared herself ready for a glass of wine. I couldn’t find that department in the Albertson’s Grocery and asked somebody. Giving me a very puzzled look, the girl said, “Well this here is a dry county. We ain’t changed.” By ‘changed’ she meant back in 1933 at the end of Prohibition. I was astonished. Then the girl leaned over in a conspiratorial tone and said, “but if ya drive down tha’ road ‘bout three mile, you cross inter Arky and she’s wet over thar.”

[Bless you, child.]

We went on and did our grocery store stock-up (as much as our dormitory sized refrigerator allows) which means four yogurts, a half gallon of milk, and a bag of grapes. Then we headed back out to I-30 for the trip across town. Rt. 59 is the state line between Texas and Arkansas. Southbound, with Texas on the right and Arkansas on the left, it was funny to see how businesses situate themselves to take advantage of different state laws. On the right side of the road was nothing but banks, car dealers, and fast food restaurants.

On the left (Arkansas) side was nothing but restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores. I guess if you have a choice in location, you wouldn’t put your bar or convenience store where alcohol isn’t served. It was just sort of odd. Anyway, Sarah was proposing spaghetti and she likes to put a dollup of red wine in the sauce so I walked over to Walmart to get a bottle. I ought to have known better. Walmart had six bottles of wine. Five of these bore the label, “contains natural and artificial flavors”. In a separate set of shelves, they had a ‘Bottled in Arkansas’ section. Arkansas is respected for lots of things…producing Bill Clinton, the mineral baths in Hot Springs, quartz production. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t pour Arkansas wine onto a burning man for fear of making things worse. Sarah will have to do without.

On a whim, I walked a block or two and found an Albertson’s. Like Walmart, Albertson’s had a full length aisle with about a hundred different options for Budweiser, Miller, and Coors in every serving size, flavor, and quantity imaginable. Their wine selection was identical to Walmart’s with the exception of a very respectable wine cooler section. Wine coolers are the wine world equivalent of Taco Bueno. Just say ‘No’.

We did indeed sleep in another Walmart parking lot. I’m working up a good essay about Wally-World but am not ready with it yet. Off to Hot Springs in the morning!

Saturday & Sunday - 24th & 25th

2009-10-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning I took the kids over to Great Wolf Lodge and checked in for one night. It was gray and cool in Dallas and since camping right in the metro area is already expensive, I may as well spend a few extra bucks and have some fun with the girls while Sarah was out. What can I say? We spent all day in the wave pool and on the water slides. The hotel does a Halloween contest thing each night leading up to Halloween so we got dressed up with about 500 other little kids and marched all over the hotel on a ‘treasure hunt’.

Sunday, we went to church at Fellowship Christian. 25,000 regular attendees. About 5,000 at the main campus for each of the three services and another 10k between the satellite locations. Their ‘Kids Church’ facility was every bit as big as the little Baptist church I grew up in. The kids had their own sanctuary, band, café, and so forth. Just amazing! The pastor, Ed Young, was a bit of a character and the sermon a bit unorthodox relative to my own experiences but it was excellent nonetheless. If you are ever in Grapevine or North Dallas on a Sunday morning, you ought to go see this place.

We collected Sarah at the airport and headed east. The girls nearly tackled her when she arrived at baggage claim and spent the rest of the day talking over and interrupting each other to talk to her. They had a great time over the weekend, but were glad to have their mommy back. Sarah was equally excited to be back. I told her that we moped around and cried every morning because we missed her so much. She reports having had a great time but was disappointed with how few people she really got to have a good long chat with. I get the impression that she is busy filling her mental calendar with new social appointments. We camped in a delightful state campground called Sulphur Springs along Cooper Lake. It poured rain the entire time and although we didn’t get to do anything outdoors, I could tell it was the kind of place we would definitely choose to visit again. I cannot get over how in Texas, they have strict rules about public possession of alcohol but no rules whatsoever about public possession of firearms. I’m not complaining…just fascinated.

Friday, October 23rd - Arlington

2009-10-28T13:22:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 23rd - Arlington

I packed the kids off to the museum complex in south east Dallas. They have a science museum, aquarium, history, and other facilities at the Cotton Bowl/Fairgrounds. The girls had a bang-up time in the kids section. They dug fossils (pic), observed radiant body heat (pic), and felt what a sneeze feels like from a giant nose. I found the anatomy of vomit rather amusing. The machine made all kinds of gurgling sounds and then spit a cloud of foamy water into a clear plastic tank. Pic. Odd thing to put in an exhibit, frankly.

We took a quick poll for dinner and the girls opted for Italian. Since it was 5pm and we were about 30 miles from camp at rush hour, we opted for a leisurely dinner. The girls were sort of quiet and I think they were really missing their mother.

We went back and collected the RV where I left in the Bass Pro parking lot (love Bass Pro) and continued a few miles north to Lewisville City Park on Lake Dallas. I know that a few serious RV-ers follow this blog. Put that one on your must-visit list. A great bass lake, free wifi, and a very clean, orderly campground right on the water. Look at the picture I took from the front window of the RV on Saturday morning. Pic

You know, this has been an interesting trip in so many ways. I think we’ll all get different things out of it but man, what a sweet family time. Those of you who are married will appreciate this. The first few years of married life are pretty sweet, right? You have two incomes and usually, you have a little disposable income. You go to lots of weddings. You stay out late. You go to movies and get a tub of popcorn. You travel. Things are pretty sweet. This carries on for a year or four, right? Two incomes, developing ‘couple friends’ and sort of setting up life together.

Then the kids show up. That is when things get all jacked up. You get caught up in kid stuff. You go to work with a faint whiff of sour smell you can’t place until somebody comments on the pile of spit-up on your shoulder. You know what I’m talking about. Your world revolves around feedings, then play dates and mountains of very smelly garbage, and so forth. Your spouse can seem more like a roommate than your bride and life can get in the way of *living*. With me?

This trip has been a complete break from this mode of thinking. I jokingly called it the ‘life reset button’ some time ago but that was pretty accurate. We unloaded mountains of ‘stuff’ that we really don’t care about. We sold stuff on Craigs List and took several loads to Goodwill. We partially packed up and rented the house. The cars are with family members who actually had some need of them, and we left. The ‘Life Reset Button’.

It took us nearly half the trip to rethink how we communicate, support each other, and respect each other’s priorities, personal time, and approaches to problem solving. In some ways, we’ve gotten another shot at the early years of marriage. It has been such a sweet time. I’m telling you folks, take a trip like this. It’s not about seeing the amazing sights (although that is pretty cool). It is more about taking that time to reconsider the priorities…and to work on yourself some.

Once Sarah returns, the sightseeing is basically over. We will continue eastwards to see some friends in Little Rock. Then we will roll right on into North Carolina via Tennessee and the Smokey’s. After seeing some friends and family in NC, we will travel the last couple of hours to my folks home in Tappahannock for a leisurely Thanksgiving break.

Thursday, October 22 - Arlington

2009-10-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 22nd – Arlington

This was the big day when Sarah abandoned us in a Texas Trailer Park (as I told my facebook friends). We got the kids up early and did an abbreviated school morning before hopping in the car for the trip up to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. DFW, by road, takes some getting used to. Here’s the dirty trick: they use *left* exits off the main express road through the airport. On my first pass, I was looking for a right exit…where all exits should be. Not at DFW though. Left exit down and into a parking deck which is situated between the southbound express lanes and the northbound express lanes. DFW also has a set of taxiways which are situated *above* the road you are travelling. At the right moment, you can look up to see a 747 pass directly over your head. Very odd visual there. That is a quarter million pounds of fuel and shrieking, hot engines about fifty feet over your head.

Sarah gave us all hugs and kisses, then jumped out and was gone for 72 hours of R&R&R (the last R being ‘reunion’). It was quiet in the car on the way back to camp. I told the girls that Mommy didn’t love us anymore. We all cried some.

A few minutes later, the magnetic light assembly flew off the car and began dragging under the vehicle. (That’s what I get for talking bad about Mommy, huh?) You know how economic decisions come back and get you sometimes? Well when we bought the RV and bought this Saturn for towing, we had to make a choice as far as how to operate the turn-signals and brake lights because for all intents, the tow vehicle is merely a trailer. My options were: Pay about three hundred dollars for a mechanic to install a connector and diode to integrate the RV’s light system with the car’s ….or pay $49.99 at Walmart for a set of magnetic lights which stick onto the top of the car. Come on. You know what you would have done. Pic

Well the downside is that with a big enough pothole, at Interstate speed, and a stiff head-wind, one light came loose. Once it flew loose, the momentum snatched the other magnetic light loose from its spot. Now I had a twelve foot cord leading to a two pound light which was holding another three foot cord and another two pound light at the far end. This whole assembly was whipping down the side and underneath the car. You never heard such a racket. With traffic on both sides, it took several seconds to find a break in the right lane and get off onto the shoulder. What a daggone mess. Wires and shattered lenses and stuff everywhere. Do operators use magetic lights. NO. So my $49.99 purchase turned into a $99.98 purchase. If I lose another one on this trip, the cost plus the aggravation will be getting dangerously close to a break even versus getting it done right the first time. Some days I think we are getting better at this RV-ing thing. Some days I just shake my head. With the lights off, I realized that the dust storm had left a ring of little red grains of sand. With the tiny movement of the magnetic bases over time, the top of the car is now all scratched up where the lights have been sitting. So including the paint damage, using a $49.99 light system from Walmart has cost well more than getting the job done right to start with.

After finishing school, we ran some errands and settled in to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The girls loved it. I focused on another task. You see… last night for entertainment, Sarah logged into my personal Facebook account and put some nonsense in there about how I was devastated that she was leaving and had been crying at night. For those of you who know Sarah, this is par for the course. Given the choice of doing something sweet or messing with you…well you know. The ridiculous thing was that people started commenting on my facebook profile about my crying over my wife going to her HS reunion. Know what she did just before leaving? Changed her password so I couldn’t retaliate.

I work on computers for a living. I’m not nearly as technical as many folks I’ve worked with but I learned a few things and it took me about fifteen minutes to get into her FB account. Then I went to town, masquerading as Sarah. I told Jackie Clinton that “I lost a bet with Allen and had to shave my head. Please don’t stare when we arrive at your house next week”. I probably posted, commented, or uploaded about fifty things all posing as Sarah. I had a ball, sending messages to high school friends, commenting on other people's pictures and so forth. Later that evening, Sarah called. Facebook sends you a notification to your email address when you post something. Sarah inbox was inundated with Facebook Notifications. “Been busy haven’t you?” she asked. [Yep] “Ok, you won the battle but not the war, Taliaferro”. Ha!.

Wednesday, October 21st – Waco to Dallas

2009-10-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 21^st – Waco to Dallas

We woke up in the pouring rain this morning. Central Texas has been suffering through a pretty bad extended drought and it shows. I was glad to see the rain and trudged along from Waco to Dallas at fifty miles an hour in a constant heavy downpour. We don’t have weather like this on the east coast. Normally in Virginia, you get bands of rain coming through and you might get an hour or two of light rain and then it moves on up from southwest to northeast and across the Chesapeake. In the summer, you might get a little thunderstorm cell which boils up and races along the same path. You might even get a whole day of rain with occasional squalls. I have never seen a continuous day of gushing.

We knocked out the school work and I briefly considered another shot at that monster catfish from the day before. I knew the girls weren’t going to be game to stand in pouring rain so we packed up after putting away the books and hit the road.

Texas does something funny with their interstate highways. In Virginia…I’ll use Interstate 81…you drive along until you reach the desired exit. Then you exit on the right and then drift along the ramp, either up or down, to the intersection. No so in Texas. Here, you exit onto a one-way access road which runs parallel to the Interstate. There you are able to access the gas stations, restaurants, and so forth. Additionally, these access roads tend to be one-way. Thus, if you want to eat at the Cracker Barrel (because you love consistency) and it is located on I-35 South, you must leave I-35 North and zip down onto the access road. There, you drive along for a mile or three until you reach an overpass. Crossing over the main interstate, you then turn onto the southbound access road and retrace your steps on the opposite side of the highway to your destination. Sounds reasonable, right? I’m not criticizing. It was just weird and took some getting used to. Want to know the pitfall? If you want to stop at a pawn shop, for example (I love a good pawn full of guns and guitars) and miss the parking lot, it could cost you three miles of driving find an overpass and try again.

The rest of the day was pretty dull. We got to our campground and set up in the pouring rain. We each curled up with a book and took some down time. Simple dinner in the RV and over to the mall in Arlington for some icecream. I’ll say this for Texas. They don’t do anything on a small scale. This mall was the size of Tyson’s I and Tyson’s II together. It featured all for the normal department stores, plus one of the big-box sporting goods stores and a full size ice rink inside.

Tuesday, October 20th - San Marcos to Waco

2009-10-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 20th – San Marcos to Waco

We had originally planned to stop in Austin and poke around a bit. After checking some campgrounds, we determined that the ones which were convenient to I-35 were all pretty expensive. It seems that in Texas, they love the descriptor “Resort” and automatically append this adjective to any lodging which is priced more than it really should be. In my mind, “Resort” has a specific and consistent definition. I cannot and should not be mixed with other unrelated things. For example…”Joe’s Resort and Gentleman’s Club” is neither a Resort, nor a club for gentlemen. Nor, should any establishment called the “I-35 RV Resort” bear such a name. If you are on I-35, there is nothing resort-like about your property. Come on Texas. Work on your vernacular.

We ended up at a nice family owned RV ‘Park’ which was also about fourteen inches from the Interstate. Very, very nice people though. It is always a good sign when the proprietors reside is a large, well kept brick rancher and situated alongside the campground area. They had a bunch of ponds on the property and I got to thinking about fishing.

I have about five fishing poles onboard and I have yet to really put them to good use. I discovered in my travels that states like spending money and over time have essentially found a way to tax anything even remotely fun in order to pay for unrelated spending. If I had purchased the minimum fishing license (like a 3 to 7 day non-resident) in each state we visited, I would have spent over $400, not counting the tackle necessary to attract the local fauna. I count my fishing poles at the top of the list of useless junk we have on board. If you ever set out on an RV trip, give me a call. I’ll save you a bunch of money, space, and time.

Well anyway, I went on back into the office and asked if I could take my little girls fishing. Not only did they say ok, they agreed to come out and toss some AquaFeed to get the fish “stirred up real good for ya”. The only condition was that I had to use an unbarbed hook. Apparently these folks produce large catfish and bluegill for stock in local private waters. So out we went. With bits of bread balled up on a large hook, it really wasn’t fishing. Just catching. I didn’t have any interest in pulling up a nasty old catfish but I want the girls to learn to fish and enjoy it so what we caught didn’t really matter.

Well after two or three fistfuls of AquaFeed, the water was suddenly boiling with fish. We had been warned that there were some big old cats down in the bottom but we were sort of unprepared for what happened next. Taylor was pulling bluegill out one at a time while I baited her hook and removed the fish. Pic1 Pic2 Pic3

All of a sudden, the pole bent right in half and she started an slow-motion forced march, right into the water. Just as her feet went unwillingly into the water, the line snapped. I won’t tell you a big fish tale but I can tell you that it takes a respectable catfish to drag a 47 pound kid into the water and then snap an 8 pound test line cleanly against a light drag. The owner who was sitting up the hill in her golf cart started laughing. Apparently, this is what they do to tourists for entertainment.

Not to be bested, we caught the next catfish which was about four pounds and another couple of bluegill. Just about the time Taylor was starting to get bored, I heard the wheee-wheee-wheeeeeee of a rapidly spinning drag on her fishing pole. I spun around to see Taylor starting another march into the water. I gotta hand it to that kid. She is a literalist. Words mean what they mean and nothing else. When Daddy told her “do not let go of my favorite pole,” she was prepared to take a deep breath and go for a ride. Rules are rules, you know. Well just as I reached her, the fish gave a huge jerk and the line broke. I just barely caught her shirt to prevent her going on into the water. Ever heard the term “Here there be monsters?” In a little roadside pond in central Texas, it was true.

Nite!

Monday, October 19th - San Marcos

2009-10-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 19^th – San Marcos

This may have been the worst day of school we’ve had with the kids. Just about everything went wrong. First, we didn’t wake up on time and started late. The kids also started very slowly and it was painful to get them fed, dressed and ready for school. Whereas we normally start school before 8am and are done by 10:30, it took almost until noon to get through the day’s lessons. Nobody was happy when we finished.

Well Taylor had been asking for some ‘Daddy Time’ which is what we call the undivided one on one time with our kids. This really is important to them and we try to pick out fun activities without the distraction or competition of a sibling. There was a canoe rental place next door to the campground and for $25 bucks, they will rent you a canoe and drop you off either 2, 5, or 7 miles away. You then get to enjoy an unescorted float with the current of the San Marcos River back to the campground. It is a very sweet trip.

Well old Taylor said she was interested in going with me but over the course of an hour, slowly changed her mind and eventually opted to go with Mommy on errands. I was devastated. Canoe trip with Daddy or groceries? Seriously? That is such a no brainer and I kinda got my feelings hurt but I went on over to the canoe place and rented a solo kayak instead. The girls ended up getting their toes painted which they enjoyed, I guess. Still wasn’t as cool as a canoe trip…

Me, I got one of the most memorable experiences I have had in this whole trip. A flash flood in the area had dumped some trash unexpectedly into the upper stretches of the river but a cleanup crew was being organized to straighten things out. In the meantime, I had a fantastic ride. There was just enough speed to the water to make a few sets of riffles without really risking a capsize. I had to portage around a flood control dam Pic1 Pic2. See the "Danger - Keep Off" warning? You can safely ignore those when you are this guy: Pic Generally, a wonderful trip and a whole heck of a lot better than toe painting. At the end of the trip, I had a really nice chat with the owner of the business. He has a huge warehouse (perhaps 4,000 sq feet) full of canoes. That is his new, for-sale inventory. Outside, he has about twenty five canoes and about the same number of kayaks. I asked him about how he got into this his story absolutely captivated me.

He was a regional director for a mental health management company and travelling a lot. After several years, he was burnt out and not spending enough family time. He came home to a pregnant wife and said, “I can’t do it anymore”. She said, “well honey, you should quit then and do what you love.” Now seriously fellas….think about that conversation. I had that talk once with my wife and she was really supportive. If you can come home and tell your stay-at-home girl, “I don’t want to work there anymore” and she is supportive of an immediate resignation, you have an awesome wife.

Well anyway, after poking around for a couple of weeks on his job hunt, he called an old friend and said, “I’d like to buy a canoe so I can spend some solitary time and take my older child canoeing. His friend replied, “how about you rustle up a twelve grand and I’ll sell you twenty canoes and a going business”. That was twenty five years ago. He is the largest canoe and kayak outfitter in central Texas now. WOW! It just goes to show that if you trust God to be in charge, amazing stuff can happen. That was his direct comment but I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently. I like being in charge but sometimes I’m not very good at it. This guy took a leap 25 years ago. He’s put three kids through college, squared away his retirement, and goes to work in a pair of cutoffs. He leads boy scouts, corporate groups, civic clubs and weekend warriors down the same seven mile stretch of river and knows it intimately. What a rewarding career change! Just goes to show you that if you are miserable in your job, better options are out there if you have faith and courage.

I must admit that the girls were particularly proud of their purple painted toenails. I don’t know whether one tomboy is too much to ask or if I really have a lost cause on my hands. Time will tell. While Sarah is out of town, I’m going to take them to the Fort Worth Gun Show. That is the real litmus test.

We are planning to stay a second night here at Pecan Grove and will head north in the morning after school.

Sunday - October 18th - San Antonio to San Marcos

2009-10-21T07:47:00.001-07:00

Sunday, October 18^th – San Antonio

We kind of had it in mind to visit Cornerstone Church in North San Antonio but changed our minds at the last minute. We were east of town and it didn’t make any chance to go up there and then come back to the campground. The church has 19,000 regular attendees and I didn’t want to take the RV into that zoo. Additionally, Sarah likes her upbeat church music and doesn’t really like moaning through the oldies from the hymn book, which Cornerstone is prone to do sometimes. Lastly, I judge books by their covers. Not fair or reasonable but when it comes to a church’s website, I need the website to function. It is one way that I help determine whether the leadership has their act together. Well guess what? Half of Cornerstone’s website was broken! You couldn’t get directions or a mailing address from their website. It was ridiculous. That church has about fifty staff members and they can’t even run their website.

With all these things in mind, we decided to bail on Pastor Hagee and a congregation larger than the population of my home county.

A little poking around on the Internet yielded a church called ‘North Rock Church’ which is meeting in a local elementary school. To be perfectly candid…. it was absolutely awesome. It’s funny how a motivated congregation can really get some stuff done. There were greeters in the parking area. A second greeter was stationed inside to help us find our way and get our kids over to the kids program. Coffee and pastries. The lady at the coffee buffet immediately took us for visitors and chatted us up, Texas style. By this, I mean that she wanted to get into who we were, where we were from, where we were going, how we like Texas, and if we want to join them for a “big ‘ole chili lunch after the service”. The message was excellent as well. North Rock existed only as a concept on a piece of paper in January of this year. This past Sunday, they had 100 people. Now how come a startup church like North Rock in Austin can go from zero to 100 attendees in nine months when other churches haven’t moved the needle in ten years? I guess there are lots of reasons but motivation and collective effort play a big role.

After church, we hit the road for San Marcos, a small town about a half hour south of Austin and camped for the night at a really nice place called Pecan Grove Campground on the San Marcos River.

Saturday, October 17th - San Antonio

2009-10-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 17th – San Antonio

We are camped in the KOA – San Antonio which is on the east side of town near the AT&T event center. The campground is upscale and very well maintained. Don is in charge here. He is not an owner but he is 89 years old and has been working at this KOA for 25 years. Don thinks that dang kids (like myself ) don’t know anything about camping, driving, or RV operations in general. He had to take over the propane tank filling. I was doing it wrong…which means I have been doing it wrong for three months. He led me to my camp spot but stopped his golf cart three times to gesture wildly at the low hanging branch, the tree on the inside of a tight turn, and another RV that was parked close to the driveway. He did not like the brand of waste water hose I have. “Them Rhino-Hose thangs ain’t no count and ‘jes cost too much”.

He supervised the positioning of the RV in minute detail. When I thought I was done, he yelled “pull her up some. Y’aint in der fur enuff”. I obliged by moving up about six inches. He promptly yelled “you dun gone too fur”. Don is an Operator Emeritus. Here is Don in full effect. Pic1 Pic2 Pic3 .

After checking in at the camp store, we elected to ride the local bus down to the Riverwalk and the Alamo. Typical city bus but it was $3.30 for all four of us with delivery right to the front door of the fort.

It was interesting to visit the fort and watch the re-enactment movie. Pic I do appreciate the fact that men aren’t allowed to wear hats inside and photography is forbidden. What a great show of respect. The girls weren’t really interested in the displays or engaged by the maps and old buildings. We took them to an interpretive narration in the cavalry courtyard and then headed over to the Riverwalk.

Kathryn *had* to go for a boat ride so we took a narrated tour through the downtown by riverboat. For those of you who didn’t know, the city diverted part of the river into a large circular canal through the heart of downtown. Restaurants, art galleries, and hotels line the canal on both sides. You can find everything from five star dining to Tex-Mex and ice cream shops along the river. This is a great romantic weekend destination. For the ultimate, you can rent a riverboat and enjoy fine dining with white glove service on a riverboat. Each course of the meal is timed with a lap around the river. As the barge passes your restaurant, runners bring out the next course and your personal on-board waiter serves as you motor quietly along. Nice!

We gave the girls a choice between a seafood dinner (Taylor’s request) and a more conservative meal (burgers or barbecue plus we can go out for dessert) Kathryn wanted “fancy” without ice cream. Taylor talked her sister into a less expensive meal with ice cream afterwards. We managed to score a waterside table at a barbecue joint and enjoyed the scenery and people watching. In Texas, you have to specify pork ribs. Otherwise, a ‘rib platter’ means gigantic beef ribs. This restaurant served “Brisket”, “Ribs”, and “Pork Ribs”. Where the menu said “bread”, they meant two jumbo slices of white sandwich bread.

The ice cream shop was fancy. They didn’t have any ice cream. They had Gelato and Sorbet. Kathryn insisted she was going to have watermelon sorbet. I have to give her some credit. She didn’t like it one bit but she soldiered on until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Then she began offering “a taste of hers for a taste of yours”. Clever kid. She’d grab your cup and go to town until you took it back. Then she’d gush about how much she liked your ice cream and ask how you liked hers. She eventually absconded with her mother’s gelato and finished it off before getting caught.

We made our way back to the bus stop around 7:30pm after a quick stop in a Texas Tourist shop. I just had to get this picture. Sarah was suckered by a Jackalope story when she was little and had to endure the embarrassement of her whole third class laughing at her when she mentioned the jackalope as an animal that lives in the southwest.

Well the bus stop featured a different crowd than the crowd we rode in with. Quite different. Not surprising that we only had about twelve dollars and not an ATM in sight in any direction. that is how we roll. Twelve bucks won’t swing a cab ride even halfway home. We waited with the crowd. When the bus arrived, I can only describe the scene as diverse, eclectic, and um…rough around the edges. This group was also rough right up the middle and inside out too. The language was colorful and vibrant. We rode along in silence. Nobody talked to us. I was glad.

About the time I was starting to get nervous, the bus driver hollered “Campground” and we were out of there lickey split. G’night!

Friday, October 16th - Kerrville, TX

2009-10-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yahoo Hall of Famer - Passed this guy on the way out of the campground in San Angelo. I just had to take a quick picture. Pic1 Pic2. So many things to appreciate. Its like a Ponderosa Buffet for the eyes. I award high marks for the canoe. Nothing says, “good ‘ole boy” like a beat up aluminum canoe. The aluminum says that you appreciate vintage quality and have not sold out to Kevlar and Polyethelene. The rear air conditioner is a Kenmore, secured with duct tape. This is both practical and economical. The chainsaw-art bear is a bit of a puzzler. It makes a nice touch but seriously…it has to weigh 200lbs. I’m afraid that I am a little too practical to carry a chainsaw bear around, despite its obvious value as a camp status symbol. The spotlights coming out of the bear’s ears are strong. Very strong. It shows that this gentleman doesn’t just have flair. He has panache. Many Yahoos try for panache. Few properly achieve it.

Given that you can only camp here for 12 consecutive days, this seems like a lot of effort. Some people are slaves to fashion. This guy is slave to camp-panache. I applaud him. This campground has a strict ‘scooper’ regulation for dogs. This guy’s campsite was littered with dog bombs. In fact the dog had run out of places to bomb and had moved on to bombing the road in front of the camper. Real Yahoos do not scoop. Ever.

We hit the road for San Antonio but got a little side tracked. The airplane in which I am a part owner is a Mooney. Corporate headquarters for Mooney Aircraft Corporation are in Kerrville, TX and as we passed through, it occurred to me that it would be really fun to visit the factory where my plane was built, 45 years ago. We rolled on up to the gate post Pic and were met by a very friendly guard who informed us that Mooney laid off everybody back in November of last year and mothballed the place. A few dozen employees keep the lights on and assemble a few spare parts. He was really cool about it and let me use his guard shack phone to speak to a sales rep in a different part of the factory. The lady explained that with the facility shut down, they had also ended the factory tours and were not staffing the reception center. What a major disappointment! Picture from the road.

Going to see the Alamo tomorrow!

Tues to Fri - HobbsNM to San Angelo TX

2009-10-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

Tues to Fri., October 12th to 16th – Hobbs to San Angelo

This has been a pretty uneventful trip and so I decided to consolidate a couple of days. We have been working very hard to get the girls onto their school schedule, which we will start promptly upon our return. We drag them out of bed around 6:30 and eat breakfast. This is tougher than it sounds unless you have or have had young children and hauled them across several time zones.

On Tuesday evening, we caught up with one of Sarah’s old co-workers from Culpeper Hospital. Kathy was great company and as you know, Sarah is an off-the-charts extrovert and she was able to chew somebody’s ear besides mine. We stayed in a state park just outside of Hobbs. Every now and then, you hit the jackpot on campgrounds. This was one of the nicest places we have stayed. They had a big playground, a mile or two of bike trails, a fishing pond, and wifi, all for $18. As Taylor said, “that is so totally our price”. Sarah’s “mini-me”!

We did school on Wednesday morning and drove across the west Texas plains to Big Spring, Texas the next morning. You can’t really tell if the area is pretty because all you can see in every direction is miles and miles of oil derricks. They all look about like this Pic and are situated about a half-mile from each other along the highway. You literally pass two every mile, on both sides of the road and stretching to the horizon both north and south away from the highway. I once heard that you can tell how west Texas is doing by driving down this road. If the derricks are pumping, things are good. If the derricks are all stopped, things are bad.

Wednesday night, we camped in a run down little RV park near the big refinery on the east side of Big Spring. The lady who owned the park was nice enough. She kept calling me ‘hon’ and chain smoking Virginia Slims. I’ll say this for Texas….people are really nice. I think Texas is tied with Wyoming for nice people. We went to Walmart. Walmart never fails to disappoint on some level. This is kind of why we go. We have a touch of morbid curiosity. This time, we came down with a case of fruit flies. No sooner did we pack the cabinet with bananas and avocados, we had a fruit fly hatch in the RV. We have nasty little flies everywhere. Hovering across the windshield while you drive, in the bathroom, sitting on every wall….dang Walmart. My buddy Marvin Martz simply swore off Walmart. He won’t go in there and he’s a happier, healthier person for it. That’s the path of wisdom right there.

Thursday, we got up, did school, and moved about an hour and a half southeast to San Angelo, TX. I’m beginning to like Texas a lot. We are staying at the state park on Fisher Lake. Now unlike every other state park we have camped in, the rules in this campground do not say anything about firearms. I’m not saying that I walk around brandishing. I’m just saying that being armed is not specifically prohibited. Here in Texas, you can strap on your six-shooter and walk around the park but you better not walk around with alcohol. They don’t tolerate that kind of behavior. I like it.

My father in law once lived in Texas as a kid. His quote the other day was, “Texas is a member of the Union because they *want* to…and they can change their minds at any time.” Seems to fit. One thing that bothers me though, there is an unreasonable amount of Dallas Cowboy paraphernalia everywhere. Yard ornaments, flags, mailboxes, etc. We feel like pilgrims in a pagan land. Yes, Pastor Donahue, I’m talking to you.

We are headed to San Antonio tomorrow and will have some more to share and talk about then. Three or four days of pushing on down the road doesn’t make for very interesting blogging.

Monday, October 12th – Carlsbad, NM

2009-10-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 12^th – Carlsbad, NM

We got up early and hit the Ford dealer in Roswell, NM for an oil and filter change in the RV and in the Generator. $66 all-in. I can’t do it myself this cheap. Two genuine Motorcraft filters and nine quarts of oil!

Then off to Carlsbad.

We have been getting tired of the incessant brown-ness of the Southwest. It was nice to start to slowly see some color. This part of New Mexico is in the Chihuahua desert which gets about twice as much rain as the Colorado and Mojave deserts.

After lunch, we headed into Carlsbad Caverns.

I could tell you about all the formations but really couldn’t do it justice. The pictures I took didn’t come out so well in the extremely low light so lets just say that it was spectacular. We walked almost three miles, all told. Sarah and I figured that we weren’t getting enough exercise, collectively so we didn’t take the elevators into the cave. It took almost a mile of steep descent on foot to reach the lower cave area, about 750’ down. Then the walk through the main caverns area is nearly a mile long. A second loop of just under a mile stretches back into another section of the main cave.

I have been to Luray Caverns before and those, I think are a bit prettier because there is more water in the cave. The higher water flow leads to larger, more developed formations, more pools, and more diversity of features but you can’t beat Carlsbad for size. In the center of the main room, a full size cellular tower would easily stand up without touching the ceiling. The main chamber of the cave has been measured at over 600,000 square feet of space. It is very very big.

The cave is limestone and was formed from massive coral reef formations along an ancient interior sea bed. You drive across a large flat plain approaching Carlsbad and then steeply up the limestone ridges to the visitors center which is above the cave. Deep underground, (1000’ feet at the deepest part) explorers are still finding new areas and continuously digging out fossil shells from the ancient reefs. From the terrace at the Visitor's center, you can visualize how it must have looked. The flat plain looks for anything like a seabed and the ridge of hills upon which you stand can easily be made out as reef near the 'shore' to the west.

I tried to get some good pictures in the cave but most didn’t turn out. This is called ‘Lion’s Tail’ which is quite accurate. This one…well…umm….Pic. Sarah rolled her eyes as I pulled out the camera. "I knew you couldn't resist taking a picture". [Yup]

Very few of the other underground photos turned out.

We finished the tour around 3:30 and went back to the RV to rest up. At 5:45, we went back to the cave to wait for the flight of bats. Here’s the link. The numbers were down significantly due to the time of year but the flight was still really impressive. A few dozen came out around 6:10pm and then slowed to onesy-twoseys.

All of a sudden around 6:15 a black wave came boiling out of the cave. Since the mouth of the cave is nearly vertical, the bats fly up the tunnel to the mouth and then spiral counter clockwise to get their bearings and gain altitude. Then they all stream over the rim of the cave headed southwest. The observation area is set lower than the rim so the bats partially circle over the audience. A ranger is on duty to ensure that absolutely no electronic devices are turned on. Photography, video taking, and cellular phones are strictly forbidden so I don’t have a picture for you. For me, this event wasn’t like being surrounded by a hundred bison in Yellowstone but was special nonetheless. About a hundred and fifty people sat on stone benches in absolute silence while the bats flew over and around us.

I heard someone ask the ranger how many there were and she shrugged. All we got was that the population was ‘light’ at this time of year. Research and tracking suggests that the cave has both a native population and it also serves as a migration stop for the Mexican Freetail Bats.

Sunday, October 12th - Roswell

2009-10-13T13:04:00.001-07:00

Sunday, October 11th – Roswell

We poked around on the internet and selected Grace Community Church to attend. Nice folks, good music, good sermon. Since Sarah and I both play some music, we like to see what other churches are doing with their music programs. Grand pianos are sort of tough to work into a contemporary band but this group did it and had a strong vocal team to back up the lead singer. I particularly liked the audio visual system and have been thinking about how to fit this in to what we are doing at home.

After church, we headed over to the mall. I think I mentioned a while back that as far as the kids go, we do not have one single pair of shoes that we started this trip with. Well now Taylor doesn’t have any pants that fit either. She has also outgrown all of the warm-weather dresses, skirts, and stockings she brought. These kids didn’t grow at all in the six months leading up to the trip and both of them have gone up two sizes across the board in like two and a half months.

The afternoon turned cool and blustery so we settled in to watch a movie when we got back to the camper. Around 4:30, the power flicked off. I stepped out to see if we’d tripped a breaker and was amused to watch another 25 people, almost simultaneously, step out of their RV’s to check their campsite breakers too. It was pretty funny. Then since nobody had power, strangers from all over the country stood around and visited for about an hour.

I had a great chat with a gentleman named Mark from Clarksburg WV. He and his wife, who has some mobility problems, travel by RV because they like to see the country and the RV works well around her needs. They have been all over the US about four times and thoroughly explored the Canadian Rockies and much Alaska that can be reached by road. It was a lot of fun and he said something that grabbed me. “You have to take advantage of the time you have together. RV-ing is something we can do together and see some amazing things.” I let that thought percolate some.

A little while later, my father-in-law took a header off his horse while he was galloping along a trail back in Maryland. He’s fine thankfully but he did get knocked out and had the distinct pleasure of laying on a gurney and wearing a CT machine for an hour or so to be sure things were ok. It was in that moment when my mother in law called, I had a bit of clarity on why we are taking this trip. You know, we are always one phone call, one diagnosis, or one accident away from a major change in our lives. How many times have you said to your spouse: ‘when we retire’ or ‘when we have more money saved up’ or ‘when the kids are through college’ or merely ‘next year’?

Sometimes you have to just step up and say, “this time is precious and tomorrow is not in our hands”. I had a cousin tell me the other day that they are thinking about a similar trip. Please do it. Pick up a calendar, mark off some time, and make it happen just as soon as you can. Say to yourself, “this marriage is important, this time with our children is a one-shot deal, and this time in our lives cannot be replicated.” There is a button at the bottom of the blog to send us an email if you want to discuss it further. A trip like this is not as daunting as you might think.

God Bless and Goodnight.

Saturday, October 10th – Albuquerque to Roswell

2009-10-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 10^th – Albuquerque to Roswell

This will be a pretty short entry. It was in the upper 30’s in Albuquerque on Saturday morning. Sarah and Taylor got up at 5am and bundled up to go see the dawn patrol launch at the fair grounds. The dawn patrol involves launching about a half-dozen balloons very early to get an accurate read on the winds at different altitudes so that the pilots have the most up to date forecasts.

Kathryn and I rolled out about 6am and met Sarah and Taylor who were freezing to death and we all watched one of the last events called the ‘Mass Ascention’. That is where every balloon at the event is inflated on the field and released in rows. Several hundred balloons participate in this event, including all of the special shapes which I mentioned in an earlier post. It is just amazing and I tried to do my best with the camera but pictures really don’t do it justice.

Around 9am, we headed back to the RV and packed up. I promised you a couple of pictures of this campground. Check it out: Pic1 Pic2

After an uneventful ride, we arrived in Roswell, NM around 2:30pm. We did pass one interesting thing on the way. I was too slow with the camera to get a picture of the bronze placard but our route took us within ten miles north of ‘Trinity Site’ which is about six miles directly behind the low brown hills in the foreground. This is where Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project team exploded the first nuclear bomb prior to dropping the Little Man on Hiroshima. The green glass which was formed throughout the immediate blast area by the intense heat is sold in little curio shops along the highway and called ‘Trinitite’.

We camped just outside of Roswell at a really nice state park called ‘Bottomless Lakes’.

I don’t know about the rest of Roswell but the part we saw on the way in to town was pretty bleak. There were probably two miles of mostly boarded up stores, junk shops, abandoned factories, tattoo parlors, and the like. Roswell looks to be a city on the decline. There were about a dozen shops on main street which all looked pretty much like this one. Pic. If you didn’t know…Roswell is the UFO capital. This is where all the crazies congregate and where all the little green men come to conduct experiments on humans. After consulting with some locals, we elected to skip the UFO museum.

Friday October 9th – Albuquerque

2009-10-11T12:03:00.001-07:00

Friday October 9th – Albuquerque

We were at the fiesta grounds early Friday morning for an event called the ‘Special Shape Rodeo’. The vast majority of the balloons here are your standard mushroom shaped hot air balloon. However, there are a significant number of oddball shapes and famous characters which are part of the ‘special shape’ class. They do a mass launch around 7:00am of all these oddball balloons and it is pretty impressive to watch. The perennial favorite is a Darth Vader helmet but there quite a few interesting ones. A Pepsi can, a German team flying a beer stein, a Belgian team flying something that looked like a Faberge Egg. Very very cool.

I think the girls liked this event the best because they were able to recognize cartoon and fairy tale characters. Picture, Picture, Picture

OK. I have gone a few days without ranting or complaining about anything and I’m ready to bust. You’re going to love this. Ready?

There is an ongoing problem with a couple of local Indian tribes. It seems that while this festival is dumping mountains of money into the local government coffers (which is primarily spent on education), a few local tribes which shall remain unnamed here, see this festival as an opportunity to take advantage of visitors.

The whole point of this festival is to celebrate unpowered flight. Over a hundred thousand visitors come in to town over the course of the 9 day festival. Hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, gas stations and so forth all raise their prices in order to capitalize on the event. Want to know what these tribes do to capitalize on the event? They impound any hot air balloons which land on their sacred tribal lands.

This makes me so mad, I want to set something on fire. Can you believe that? A balloon gets into trouble and lands out in the open desert somewhere and the tribe which claims the land will take the balloon, basket and equipment and ransom it back to the owners. They allege a ‘violation’ of sacred land. You like that? Now I'm going to blow your mind. Ready? This is the same land which features this structure: Pic1 Pic2

Do you know what that is? A CASINO! So lets review. The tribe does not want any hot air balloons touching their sacred lands because a hot air balloon pilot might desecrate the land. So what does the tribe do? They built a casino in a large tent to make money off of all the visitors to the balloon festival. Them's the facts. What do you think of that?

I actually wrote a two page ‘scorcher’ that stated exactly how I would handle the situation. I gave it some thought and then deleted it. Sometimes when I’m really ticked, I can let it go after I have had the opportunity to get it all out on paper. Now I’m just annoyed. I have decided, like my Granny says, to “save my manners”. Let’s just agree that if I was in charge of the Bureau of Indian affairs, things would run a little differently.

Send me an email. I’ll give you an earful but suffice it to say, the federal government’s attitude towards American Indians matters needs some serious overhaul.

Thursday, October 8th – Albuquerque

2009-10-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 8^th – Albuquerque

We are at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. Folks, you would have to see this place to believe it. An entire city is so deeply invested in this festival that they close school so that their school buses can be commandeered to move people and the schools themselves used for satellite vehicle parking. I don’t know that I have ever seen anything like it. The estimated crowd is projected to be around 100 to 150k spread out over 9 days. Nobody really knows how many people actually come because there is no way to know how many people are here for multiple days versus a single visit.

What I still cannot get over is the level of organization and the literal army of volunteers who turn out to make it go. The city bought a 350 acre parcel along the Rio Grande and converted it into Fiesta headquarters. They developed interstate interchanges and mass parking areas and so forth to handle the crowds. It is truly amazing. Fleets of school buses move people continuously from 4:00am until 10pm. The nature of hot air ballooning in this area is that you launch just before sunrise and recover around mid-morning because once it gets to be around 9:30 or so, the wind kicks up and causes lots of problems for the pilots.

Most of the daily visitors are there before 6:30 and the vendors serve breakfast rather than lunch and dinner. The mass launches usually go off around 7:00. Starting at 8, they hold special events for the balloonists. Today, they erected five bamboo poles and put an envelope full of cash on the top of each pole. Launched from a mile away, the pilots try to grab an envelope as they drift by. Sounds easy until you remember that these things have no steering mechanism and there are 60-80 other balloons who also want to try and recoup their travel and propane expenses. If you agree that ‘rubbin is racin’, you would like this event. It was pretty wild.

We were up and out around 5:45 to get there but with the efficient bus system, we were walking through the gates in less than ten minutes after stepping out of our RV. It was just awesome. Check out my coffee holder: pic

In talking with the officials, we learned that if you arrive early, you can volunteer for either a ground crew or a chase crew. The ground crew helps set up the balloon, position the inflation fans, and hold the ropes. The chase crews…well you can probably guess. They have a tough assignment. When there are a hundred balloons in the air, they come down all over kingdom come….and in fact, they did. Walmart parking lot, the Interstate, on top of an apartment building. One balloonist came down into high voltage powerlines and just sat in the basket waving to people until the linemen showed up in bucket trucks to free him. Given the option, I would probably go with the Interstate landing. A few landed in the Rio Grande. This far upstream, it is knee-deep so that wouldn’t be too bad but I’m sure it is cold.

The girls walked around with complete amazement on their faces. You know, I think this is why we are here. All day today, they stood with open mouths saying, “wow” or “amazing”. We let the girls get their faces painted by Jingles the clown lady. Jingles has been sitting in the same booth and painting children’s faces for over twenty years. She has a clown RV, drives a MiniCooper done up like a clown, and everybody local we’ve met knew who she was. She told us that she has not missed a Balloon Fiesta in thirty years. This is even better than my Cousin Kenny’s Gold Cup record. Pretty impressive.

I meant to mention…the spectators are allowed and even encouraged to get involved. It is quite common to walk past a crew and have somebody say, “hey can you help hold this line”. There are no fences anywhere. You may walk among the crews, talk to pilots, and if they aren’t too busy, get into a basket for a minute. I cannot offer a more glowing endorsement of this event. You must go sometime. Take any kids you can find, even if you have to borrow some. Balloon Fiesta is just that awesome.

Wednesday, October 7th – Durango to Albuquerque

2009-10-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 7th – Durango to Albuquerque

We finished school mid morning and hit the road to Albuquerque. It was kind of a slow day. We picked up our mail drop from home in Farmington, NM, refilled the propane tank, and drove down to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta. Tomorrow’s post is going to be pretty cool, I am certain. Today was routine stuff.

One interesting thing: in a three hour trip, we only saw twelve total road signs without bullet holes. I have deeply mixed emotions about this. The perpetual child in me wanted Sarah to pull over and let me go ahead and tap the ones that got missed because I hate inconsistency. (Now that we’re not in California now, I can also admit to owning a handgun). On the other hand, it’s quite a testament to the local population that they would apply themselves so diligently to the task. If I hadn’t grown up in Essex County, Virginia, I would ask why people in New Mexico just don’t go to shooting ranges but I already know the answer.

We rolled on in to the Balloon Fiesta RV parking lot in Albuquerque mid afternoon and they had a few spots left. These are ‘dry’ meaning no water or electric service but we are about three minutes shuttle bus ride over to the Fiesta. At the check-in lane, a fellow came over to say hi because he saw our Virginia tags. It turns out that he is a Director at Shenandoah University and flies a Piper SuperCub and a twin engine Piper Seneca which he keeps at the Winchester, VA airport. What a small world. My buddy Rusty used to be a mechanic in Winchester and did business with this gentleman. (you need to say, “small world”). So here we are in Albuquerque New Mexico and the only other Virginian we’ve met knows some of Sarah’s old instructors and knows the co-owner of my airplane. How random is that?

Last item. I knew this campground was big. It wasn’t until I got on the roof and took a picture that I realized *how* big. There are about 1400 RV’s in this campground alone, with another 300 RV’s in the premium and VIP parking areas. Picture here (once uploaded)

Tuesday, October 6th – Mesa Verde to Durango

2009-10-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 6th – Mesa Verde to Durango

(technical note: this campground will not allow mass picture uploads via wifi. I’m posting the blog but you may have to check back for the pictures)

We got up after another restless night (7000’ elevation at Morefield village) and hit the books early. We turned out early and finished school around 11am. The girls really wanted to visit the gift shop so we stopped there and decided to go ahead and have lunch in the cafeteria while we were there.

Afterwards we drove back to the museum and hiked down to another cliff dwelling site called ‘Spruce Tree House’. It was very similar to the site from yesterday but featured a room you could climb down into (open to the public, I mean). All of these Puebloan sites have sunken round rooms which you enter by ladder. Remember me commenting about how the location was a head scratcher due to lack of water? These sunken rooms, called ‘Kivas’ are entered by climbing down the ladder. Interestingly, these ladders are located in the center of the room and the fire is situated below the fire. To enter, you climb down through the smoke from the fire and at the last moment, jump off the ladder to the side so that you don’t step into the fire.

It reminds me of the old Far Side cartoon showing three cavemen holding drumsticks in the fire with their bare hands and one innovative guy putting his meat on a stick to cook it. I know I shouldn’t pick on aboriginal people but you have to love the visual. ‘Hey, kid, take Grandpa some bread and be careful when you climb down into his kiva. Your sister caught on fire yesterday because she didn’t jump off the ladder in time.’

It was a mile round trip but the walk back up the canyon was pretty brutal. At least the park service had benches every fifty yards or so and the path was paved. There were signs everywhere telling you not to even *think* about going down there unless you were sure you could handle the 7100’ elevation and steep grade. I had one ranger laughingly tell me that they let people do what they want but a helicopter ride out of the canyon runs exactly $15,000.

The girls took their turn on the grinding stones. The archaeologists think that a significant number of these people died of massive tooth infection. Want to know why? Because when you use sand stone to grind corn against another piece of sandstone, you get tiny sand grains in your flour. The skeletal records suggest that the silica in their primary food of ground corn wore the enamel off everybody’s teeth by the time they were 30. Crazy.

We headed on out of Mesa Verde in the early afternoon and drove down to Durango. What a great little town! Of all the nice towns we’ve visited, this one is the winner. Friendly residents, nice selection of restaurants, and lots of things to do. Durango features an old timey steam locomotive which runs daily from Durango to Silverton. We discovered this completely by accident when the steam train rolled directly past our campsite around 8:30 in the morning. Check out the pictures! Pic1 , Pic2. Seriously, go visit Durango sometime. You’ll absolutely love it.

Monday, October 5th – Mesa Verde

2009-10-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 5^th – Mesa Verde

Every now and then, all of the pieces are in place and you have the most amazing day. That was today. We finished with school around 10am in the town of Cortez, CO. Cortez was a better location than we’d initially hoped because the campground was just nine miles from the gate of Mesa Verde National Park. We got there in less than fifteen minutes and proceeded the 15 miles up to Morefield village which contains the campground, store, ranger station, and gas station.

Our only disappointment with the campground was that none of the spots in our section were level. The RV has a set of hydraulic leveling jacks but they can only overcome moderate terrain variations. If the left wheels are more than about 12 inches higher than the right wheels, you are going to be out of luck. We cheated a little. I got out the shovel and dug holes for the right side wheels and then had Sarah back into the holes. The process took longer than it should have because the ground was very rocky and we’re back up at 7000 feet. I’m sure a ranger would object to two large holes in the gravel campsite, but our slides won’t operate unless the vehicle is somewhat level.

We ate a quick lunch and headed out to the visitor’s center. Mesa Verde is a bit unique in that the National Park Service’s function is really to facilitate archaeological sites, not to supervise hikers and administer camping areas. What you do at MV is to purchase tickets for different guided tours. Then you drive out to the site and are met by a ranger who takes you through the exhibit. The groups form and leave every hour on the hour. Being somewhat ‘particular’, (Sarah has another word) I really liked the organization and management.

Given the early afternoon hour, we decided to just buy one set of tickets for Cliff Palace, which is among the largest cliff dwellings and is the one you usually see in your school books. It was about a fifteen minute drive down to Cliff Palace from the visitor’s center and the girls were getting excited. The tour forms up on a balcony which overlooks the cliff dwellings and we got some nice pictures. Kathryn immediately announced she was cold and directly requested my fleece jacket. (This guy took the tour with no jacket.) With the tour starting shortly and the RV located almost a half hour away, there was nothing to do but give it to her.

The tour started by descending a steep staircase cut into the rock which the girls really enjoyed and then we got an introductory lecture from the ranger. I personally wish it had been a little more detailed and tailored to an older audience. The ranger did do an admirable job of providing simple explanations such that Taylor was able to get quite a few things out of it. Kathryn wanted to chuck rocks over the edge. I don’t know which one I’m prouder of. (This is abysmal grammar, I realize but: ‘Of which I am prouder, I do not know.’ sounds so prissy)

The tour lasted about an hour which was about fifteen minutes too long for Kathryn’s bladder so Sarah got to see an archeological spot that wasn’t on the tour. They rejoined just as the lecture finished and we climbed a series of steep ladders back out of the cliff site.

We hit the museum down the road from Cliff Palace to watch the half-hour movie and then walk through the museum. The girls tolerated the movie which was terribly dry but they had a good time in the museum looking at the jewelry, hunting equipment, and pottery exhibits.

The ruins were kind of interesting but within a few minutes of arriving on the site, you begin to appreciate the untenable nature of the location. There was no water within a quarter mile. Water from above must be carried down the cliff face about 150’ using hand-holds in the vertical sandstone with a maximum of five gallons per trip. They had not developed a pulley or derrick to lower water mechanically. Alternatively, water from the valley below must be carried up about 300’ using steep, narrow paths. The sanitation plan was to carry chamber pots up the hand-hold ladder and dump them into small corn fields. There were about 100 people living at Cliff Palace. That is a lot of latrine pot trips up the cliff. Spills were rather messy. I know it’s easy for a 21^st century man to say, “bad design”. But seriously, aboriginal people….no water nearby and a chain gang of earthenware latrine jugs? Bad design.

All in all we had a lot of fun today, visiting the site. Our girls got a big, big charge out of the steep steps and ladders. pic1 pic2 pic3 I really do recommend a visit. It is pretty amazing to see what a stone-age tribe built using rudimentary pieces of bone and granite as tools.

Today’s educational tidbit: ‘Mesa Verde’ does not refer to the cliff dwellings you see in your history and social studies books. MV is a single, distinct vegetation topped mesa in the area. (picture) There are over 600 structures from the time period throughout the valley. Very cool.

Quick physics lesson. If you buy Ranch dressing in the squeeze bottle and you last used the ranch dressing at 2000’ elevation, don’t open it again when you are at 7200’. Things can get dicey. I could paint you a picture but let’s just say that Kathryn had an unplanned bath after dinner. She got drilled in the face, hair, chest and both arms. “Upset” does not even begin to come close to describing how badly she went to pieces. I was nearly in tears. She kept screaming “ITS NOT FUNNY” and…well…she was wrong.

G’night!

Saturday & Sunday the 3rd & 4th- Page

2009-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday & Sunday the 3^rd & 4^th- Page

Saturday, I pulled the plug. We have a basic rule on this trip that either parent can veto ‘the plan’. Yes, I’m referring to the plan we never seem to have but you know what I mean. If one of us wants to do something, the other can say no and the proponent has to strike the plan and come up with a new one. This prevents me from being a tyrant. It prevents Sarah from pursuing absurdly optimistic goals and schedules. It’s a good system.

Well it was 5pm last night when Sarah said, “well…we gotta get gas, grocery shop, refill the propane system, and then drive to Mesa Verde. I exercised my veto right then. Mesa Verde is a full four hours away, under perfect circumstances. Perfect circumstances don’t exist with two small children, driving a 32’ RV, and pulling a car. She looked sort of shocked but graciously folded and we found a local campground.

On Saturday morning, I awoke in a lot better shape. Page, AZ is still about 5200’ above sea level but 5200 is a lot better than 8500'. A lot better.

Sarah took Taylor out for breakfast while Kathryn and I did some chores in the RV and had breakfast together. After breakfast, I broke down the camp and drove over to the wastewater dump station in the campground. There was a padlock on the cover which is something I’ve haven’t encountered before. Our camp fee includes water and electric on the site. In every other campground, waste water dumping is free and you usually do this as you leave. You can also opt for a “full service” campsite where you are tapped directly into the waste water system on your campsite and don’t have to go dump. Heretofore, the options have been: (a) water and electric with a common dump station near the exit and (b) your own sewer tap at your campsite for an additional fee. I marched over to the office to get it unlocked.

[Hey, I need to dump and there is a lock on the hatch]

Grumpy Lady: “We charge you $4 to unlock and use the drain”.

[seriously?]

“Yep. That is our policy”

[Well look…I don’t need to dump sewage. Just the grey water tank] (fyi to the readers, grey water is a separate holding tank which catches the soapy water from the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Legally, you can dump grey water just about anywhere. Its just soapy water, after all and I'm seriously toying with dumping it around the tree at our campsite. )

“It is $4 no matter what you dump, per dump”

Now I’m annoyed but what can I do? I decide to take the high road and hand over my credit card.

She flicks it right back to me. “$8 minimum for credit card purchases. Why don’t you buy some sodas or groceries?”

I grit my teeth, collect the card, and leave. I’m certainly not going to buy sodas for a buck-fifty each or a gallon of milk for five bucks just to reach the minimum.

I walked back to the RV and dump out the change bin. About that time Sarah got back and asked why I was stacking small change on the dashboard. I told her I was going to raise four bucks from our loose change collection. She started to hand me four singles from her wallet but I declined. She stared for a moment and then said, “oh, you’re going to be that guy, huh?” [Yes. Yes I am]

I walked back to the office and handed that lady $4 in pennies and nickels. She and I won’t be exchanging Christmas cards. She glared at me and slapped the key on the counter.

I marched back out, unlocked the hatch, and dumped the RV’s waste system. I didn’t want to deal with that lady again so I sent Sarah over to return the key. I hate pettiness. If you need to charge a few bucks more for whatever reason, just raise the nightly fee. This is just like going to a hotel and after checking in, discovering that there are no pillows in the room. When you call the desk, you discover that there is a $2 up-charge per pillow. It’s common. Would you happily pay extra for silverware or water in a restaurant? Nope.

We spent the rest of the day catching up on laundry, reading, and relaxing. I say ‘we’. I spent the rest of the day fuming about the $4. As you can tell, it’s the principle with me.

Sunday –

We got the RV squared away and packed up and headed to Faith Bible Chapel in Page, AZ. Good music, good sermon. Nice folks.

Afterwards, we hit the road for Mesa Verde. We figured we’d be there by about 3:30pm. Best laid plans, right?

It was really windy so I got a weather report on my cell phone which reported: “Wind south-southwest at 35mph, gusting 55 to 65mph. Areas of reduced visibility due to dust storm”. You don’t see that in a Virginia forecast…ever.

For once the weather service got it right. We start down the road and the RV is rocking like crazy. I dropped old Bill down to 45mph, set the cruise, and off we went. A 180 mile trip at 45mph. I remember remarking to Sarah as we rode along that I couldn’t believe all these people barreling past us doing 65-70mph in the wind and dust. It wasn’t just passenger cars either. I had RV’s the same size and bigger who appeared unconcerned by the wind.

We had two interesting ‘events’ on the way. The first occurred when we dropped down into a canyon and the wind seemed to die. As I rolled across a little bridge, we switched from a sheltered section of road to a fully exposed one. The next gust blew the RV right across the yellow lines but thankfully, nobody was coming. I was down to 40mph and actually expecting the gust it but it still slid us over about 8 or 10 feet. The other event happened when we crossed around the end of one of those giant red mesas that you see in your geography book. We went from merely dusty to completely obscured vision in about five seconds. It was literally like getting caught in a blinding snow storm or fog on Afton Mountain west of Charlottesville. I dropped down to about 15mph, flipped on the hazards and just eased along. There wasn’t any shoulder to get off and stopping in place would just ensure that we get rear-ended. Nothing to do but roll. Thankfully pretty much everybody else did the same thing on this two lane road and we passed through the storm without incident.

Have you ever heard the political correctness police screaming that you can’t call a sports team “Redskins” because it is culturally insensitive and calling somebody a Redskin is the social equivalent of using the ‘n’ word? Well GUESS WHAT? Here is the sign in front of the Navajo Indian Reservation High School in Teec Nos Pos, AZ. The logo looks suspiciously like the old Washington Redskin logo but I digress. So if the Navajo’s can call themselves Redskins, where does an enlightened member of the Washington Post editorial staff get off saying that this is not acceptable?

OK. Something really sad to relate. Remember my marveling at all the folks flying past us? About four miles before we reached Four Corners, I was passed by a pair of ambulances, rescue crash truck, and a pair of AZ state troopers at high speed. A few moments later, we arrived at a very, very nasty crash site. Somebody in a compact car tried to pass on a double yellow line and met an Expedition head on. Both of them were running at high speed across the desert and they met right where the road dipped into a little canyon. I started to walk up there and offer some assistance but EMS responders don’t usually like civilians getting involved after they arrive. Also, I was certain that there was at least one fatality and I just didn’t want to see that.

The fatality was one of the vehicles which blew past me about 20 minutes prior. Very sad. In this picture, you can see the black Expedition off to the left. It rolled several times. We ended up sitting here for about an hour before traffic started moving again. I sent the girls to the back of the RV to play hide and go seek as we passed the accident vehicles. This was a good call. I won’t describe the scene here but I’m relieved that they didn’t see it.

We swung through Four Corners just before they closed. Four Corners is a dump with a capital D. There is a nice monument there but it is surrounded by Navajo junk shops. All of the junk shops and vendor stalls look like they were built out of broken down pallets. It literally looks like a third-world shanty-town. The Navajo Nation also charges $3/per person to enter. Sarah said she wasn’t going to pay and we could just turn around. Luckily, since they were closing, they didn’t charge us to pull in, take a quick pair of pictures, and pull out.

We continued another hour up to Cortez, Colorado and camped for the night. Mesa Verde Tomorrow!

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Friday, October 2 – Jacob Lake and Grand Canyon

2009-10-04T19:51:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 2 – Jacob Lake and Grand Canyon

Something was seriously wrong at Jacob Lake. I woke up every 20 minutes like clockwork throughout the night. I couldn’t breathe each time I’d startle awake and when I’d start to drift off, Sarah would toss and turn. A few deep breaths and I’d start to drift off again…just to start the cycle over. It was misery.

Both girls were extremely restless as well. We couldn’t figure it out, nor could we get ourselves going in the morning. At one point in the night, I was beginning to think we had a gas leak or something in the RV. I could only get comfortable if I stretched out and took long slow breaths. I won’t use the word scared but really really uneasy. We were exhausted and couldn’t get it together enough to trouble shoot. I checked the Co2 monitor we have in the RV twice and both times, it showed ‘green’, meaning safe.

It wasn’t until morning when we woke up and pulled out of the campground that we figured it out. About a mile or so outside of the campground, we passed a sign which read, “Elevation 8500”. No oxygen. Really, the tipoff should have been that our last fill up yielded a paltry 4.7 miles per gallon. Big Bill doesn’t like oxygen deprivation either.

Deserts are dry. High elevations lack O-2. High deserts are simply misery. Everybody had bone dry sinuses which kind of burned with each breath and a slight headache. It didn't take much exertion to get winded, as we found out later.

Jacob Lake was only about 45 miles from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (8827'). We arrived there around 8am and had breakfast before walking down to the visitors center. Sarah convinced us to listen to the geology lecture by a ranger who looked a great deal like my Uncle Peter. Pic. He talked (the ranger, not Peter) in a monotone about sedimentary rock layers inside the Grand Canyon for a half-hour. It was painful.

The park service has a nice half mile walk right along the rim which we enjoyed. Taylor and Kathryn are big on climbing rocks so we hauled ourselves up a few boulders near the edge and took some pictures. ( pic1 pic2 pic3 )The GC pictures start here in the online album. After about a half hour, the girls tired of the views and throwing rocks off the edge just to watch them fall. I should note that guys never get tired of chucking large rocks off a 3000 foot cliff. Girls basically don’t get this. Taylor and Kathryn were only doing it because I was hurling football sized rocks over the rim but I don’t think they got it either. Basic chromosome difference.

We rolled out of the Grand Canyon North rim around noon and headed to Page, AZ. We found a campground and crashed early. On the way, we descended down into a huge valley near the 'Vermillion Cliffs'. Very pretty! You can't tell from this picture but they are several hundred feet tall and directly adjacent to a pancake flat plain.

Thursday, October 1 – Zion National Park

2009-10-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 1 – Zion National Park

Up, schooled, and ready to roll at 10am. I love it when a routine starts to come together. We headed up I-15 towards Zion National Park. We arrived at Zion at 2pm and surprise, surprise…all camping spaces are taken. Sigh. We just don’t want to lock into a schedule several weeks out because if anything happens or if we want to modify the plan, many campgrounds won’t do refunds. Zion was booked weeks ago, since this is their busy season.

The ranger recommended that we try one of the privately owned campgrounds on the other end of the park, just outside the gate. We looked at each other and shared a nod. Then the ranger says, ‘well there is no charge for park entry since you have your National Park Pass but we will have to charge you $15 because of your RV.”

[oh really? How come?]

“Because you brought an oversize vehicle, we have to escort you through the tunnel up on the pass. $15, sir.”

I hand the money over and off we go after unhooking the tow car. Taylor opted to ride with Mommy in the car so Kathryn and I had some quality time as we drove up the mountain. When we get there, I discover that the “escort” involves the ranger calling on a walkie talkie and getting the ranger at the other end to stop oncoming traffic in the 1-mile tunnel for a couple of minutes.

There were four RV’s behind me so for the eight minutes that they had oncoming traffic stopped, they netted $60. The ride though the tunnel was *wild* though. The lanes were about 12’ wide with no shoulder so the tunnel was exactly 24’ wide. In order to enjoy the maximum height which was 9” higher than this RV, I had to stay dead center of the road, right down the yellow line. Any drift of more than a foot or two and the downward sloping arch of the tunnel would clip one of the rooftop AC units.

When I got to the other end of the tunnel, there were five more RV’s who required “escort”. Isn’t that a load of nonsense? In a fifteen minute cycle, the “escort” program earned $150 for the park.

Zion had some beautiful sights and it is fairly small relative to some of the other national parks. I’d go back and take advantage of the trail rides on horseback or do some climbing but it wasn’t really a ‘small kid’ type venue.

We strolled around a quaint little town named Kanab, UT. There wasn't much in the way of camping in Kanab so after dinner in a 50's style diner, we made a pot of coffee and drove along into the evening down to Jacob Lake, AZ.

Wednesday, September 30th – Las Vegas

2009-10-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 30^th – Las Vegas

Up early and knocked the school out by 10am. Both girls are doing well and as far as we can tell, are caught up with their peers at St. Lukes.

We drive directly out of that lousy non-internet providing RV park and drove a couple of miles northeast to the Hitching Post RV Park. They are really nice folks with great wifi and a very nice laundry facility. Mount Laundry had grown large enough to hide a linebacker so we ran about five loads to catch up and then headed for Vegas. Many Vegas shows dump their unsold ‘same day’ tickets to a wholesale vendor called Tix4Tonite. This is a lot like the TKTS booth in Times Square and you can save about 50% off the face price. We got tickets to a matinee magic show featuring a guy named Nathan Burton who looked exactly like Tom Arnold.

We packed (what we thought was) a minimum of clothing and we’d started to look a little tattered. I spilled bleach on one shirt. Sarah tore one of hers and so we went to that great American lie called the “outlet mall”. An outlet mall used to be where they sold closeouts, factory seconds, and salable returns. Nowadays, an outlet mall is where the manufacturers produce a lower grade product, price it as if it was the same product at the retail shop, and then “discount” it about 40%. You can’t shop apples and oranges but by golly, you are getting 40% off brand name apparel so you buy a whole trunk full of stuff. The psychology is quite fascinating, frankly.

Saw this as we left the outlet mall. Pic That is a trailer made entirely out of duct tape. The owner then ran two blue strips of tape down the top to make what appear to be racing stripes. Yahoo, first class.

We headed on back to the Flamingo for the show. Now anybody who has been to Vegas knows that you cannot do *anything* without crossing the gaming floor. You can’t go to the bathroom, get something to eat, or go to a show without crossing the floor. This is so annoying but there is no helping it. The smaller theater at the Flamingo and the matinee show time allowed us to get very good seats. We were probably thirty feet from the performers the whole time. It was awesome. There were several of the stunts you would expect and quite a few that really had you scratching your head afterwards. Good stuff.

We ate dinner at a buffet on the strip. Taylor was really in to the chocolate fountain and really didn't want to leave. They feed you pretty well and get you through quickly for obvious reasons. We set out to ‘stroll’ over to Treasure Island so that we could watch the big outdoor pirate battle in front of the hotel but the wind was blowing really hard and the show was cancelled. Then we attempted to ‘stroll’ over to the Bellagio and see the giant water fountain show. I say stroll because you look at the map and think, ‘hey, Treasure Island is three blocks down on the left’. The problem is that those three blocks are each a quarter mile wide. Your sense of scale is completely out of wack in Vegas. As we headed towards the Bellagio, Taylor hit the wall so we just went back to the car and called it a day.

By 8pm, both girls were completely out and by 8:30, so were the parents.

Tuesday, September 29 – Laughlin toLas Vegas

2009-10-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 29 – Laughlin toLas Vegas

We got up really early and hit the books before 7am. That let us roll out of Laughlin around 9:30 with all of our schooling done for the day. We drove directly to the Hoover Dam near Henderson. What an amazing facility! I am sure that there are bigger and more impressive hydro and flood control dams out there but this was the biggest I’d ever seen. They are also building a huge new bridge over the canyon so that the road over the dam will only be a secondary road.

What I liked most was the hands-on visitor’s center with exhibits for the kids. The girls were too young to see the inner parts of the dam so we had to skip that tour but they were allowed to visit the power plant on the Nevada side.

We learned that nobody actually knows how many people died from construction. 96 died onsite from dynamite, falling, suffocation, etc. Many, many more died because the doctors at the time were instructed to put cause of death as ‘Pneumonia’ for anybody with fatal respiratory trouble to avoid an insurance claim who died offsite. Sarah is still railing about this. In fact, we cannot discuss anything about the Hoover Dam without revisiting the depression-era lack of worker rights. My favorite part of the Sarah rant…”you know that those companies must be run by Republicans to cheat those worker’s families like that”. Bless her little bleeding heart! (this is why I keep hiding her voter registration card and telling her that our polling place has changed)

As we left the visitor’s center, we told the girls that we were now going to walk to Arizona. Kathryn burst into tears and said that somebody would take our RV and it would be hot and we might get lost. We ignored her and marched along while she grumbled, argued, and said that she didn’t like Arizona and wasn’t going to go to that place. A few moments later, we reached the placard in the middle of the dam and told her that she had walked to Arizona. “Well let’s go back. I don’t like it here”. That kid will do anything to win an argument.

We rolled out of there in the early afternoon and headed to Vegas. Sarah picked out a decent sounding place from the directory we carry. She drove and I walked in to register and pay. After we got into our spot, I couldn’t get my laptop to connect to their wifi. The signal was really weak so I walked back to the office.

“I’m having trouble connecting to your wifi. How do I connect”

‘Well Sir, we don’t offer WiFi’.

“Oh. Well where is your business center for me to hook up”

‘Sir, we don’t have a business center’

“Ummm…Your full page ad in the RV directory says that you offer Internet Access”

‘Yes sir. There is an active phone line at your camp site with free calls to local numbers’

“You say that you offer Internet Access. Pray tell, how do I access said Internet?’ [ my sarcasm meter is not pegged but it’s a good solid 7 out of 10. ]

‘Right, you get a piece of phone cord and run it from your laptop out to the jack near your campsite’

“so if I am a member of the 21^st century and have no modem, how would I go about getting online?”

‘Drive to a shopping center about a mile down the road and go to the bakery’.

"So you don't really offer Internet Access."

I got a nice glare. She got a doozie in return. We won't be exchanging Christmas cards.

I briefly considered burning the place down. I am a digital junky. I have a 1’s and 0’s problem of the first order. Providing Internet Access is NOT the same thing as offering dial tone. I don’t have a dial up account. I haven’t in about five years. Even if I had a modem (which I do not), I still do not have a dial up provider in Las Vegas. The phone line at the campsite is also disabled for long distance calls. This is an RV park. Nearly every single RV here is from out of state. What is wrong with these people?

I decided right then that we were not staying, despite our proximity to the attractions of Vegas. It was absolutely infuriating. The other obnoxious thing was that the lady at the counter (a) would not consider a refund…despite Internet Access being the only deciding factor for her RV park and (b) she got a little snotty when I said that a phone jack does not constitute ‘Internet Access’.

We hit the grocery store and went to bed.

Monday, September 28th – Joshua Tree to Laughlin, NV

2009-10-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 28^th – Joshua Tree to Laughlin, NV

We knew that it was going to be a scorcher in the desert today, so we were out of the campground by about 8:15. Just down the road from our camp was Cottonwood oasis. It was very odd to see gigantic palm trees and lush vegetation down in a little canyon, surrounded by rock and scrub desert. As we walked down the path, we scared up a large covey of black headed quail and a pair of jack rabbits. I knew what an oasis was, but never seen such a sharp contrast. It was like…desert, desert, desert…LUSH vegetation. Very odd.

The park is dotted with old mine workings from the turn of the century. You can explore them at your own risk but none of my girls were interested in old silver and gold mines so I’ll have to come back with rope, harnesses, and some friends who are strong enough to haul me out of some death trap in the ground. Pics of the Silver Bell Mine. #2

We rode up to Keys View which had a beautiful overlook of the Coachella valley. From up there, you are looking at the San Andreas Fault line for about thirty miles in each direction. I think this was one of the prettiest views we’ve seen on this trip. On a clear day, you can see down to the Mexico border, about fifty miles away. Unfortunately, smog from Los Angeles was blowing through the valley and the view was obscured. It was still very pretty though. You can see hundreds of wind turbines down on the valley floor to the northwest and the Salton Sea down to the south.

Joshua Tree has significant rock formations which are blonde colored granite squares and look like giant piles of children’s building blocks stacked in a haphazard manner. I took a few minutes to climb one just because it was there. They look out of place against the surface scale rock which is dark brown and gray.

Lots of Cholla cacti and Joshua Trees everywhere. I thought Joshua Tree referred to one big unique plant which graced the U2 album cover in the 80’s. No so. The park is littered with them in every imaginable shape and size. They live to about 300 years old and max out about 40’ tall.

We left through the north gate near Amboy and turned onto Historic Route 66 eastbound. This was a complete accident since I though 66 didn’t begin until you got to Arizona but there was one of these [ pic ] painted onto the road every few miles. There were lots of motorcycle riders cruising along this famous stretch and we passed two old ghost towns along the highway.

I learned a new concept: Shoe Tree. I thought this was just an oddity which can be explained with a shrug and the words “typical California” but apparently they occur in other parts of the country too. What really had me puzzled, though, was all the underwear up the tree with the shoes. Now do you suppose people carry extra underwear with them and fling it up the tree? Or, do you suppose people shucked off their britches, tossed them up a tree, and then continued on their way? The shoes are odd enough but the underwear?

A little while later, we passed a platoon of marines sitting in the scrub by the highway as we passed near Twenty Nine Palms Desert Warfare Center. I honked and gave a cheerful wave. They gave us a friendly wave back but they looked pretty unhappy. It was only 102…. Seriously though, seeing guys in desert warfare training make me appreciate what they do even more. They were at least 20 miles from the nearest town and I don’t suspect that they were expecting a lift.

As we approached the ghost town of Amboy, we crossed a dry lake bed which was covered with salt. I had to have a picture of that so I put on my shoes and ran out onto the salt bed. I nearly passed out. It was hideously hot. It was so hot that you almost couldn’t catch your breath. With each step, I would break through the salt crust and wet black ooze would squish up through the hole. If you ever find yourself stranded on a salt desert in the Mojave…good luck with that.’’

Sarah dug up a resort hotel in Laughlin NV on the Colorado River and we pulled in later in the afternoon. We picked it because it advertised “Pool” and “Free Wifi”. Sarah was also very attracted to the $18/night camping fee. Well it had been a hot ride across the desert so we got ready for the pool and took a lap around the park looking for the pool. No dice. Want to know where the pool was? At the casino, despite the campground’s advertisement of “a large pool”. So we drive over to the casino. It turns out that the only way to get to the pool is via the gaming floor. So Allen, Sarah, Taylor, and Kathryn all smeared in suntan lotion and wearing nothing but bathing suits marched right past the slots and tables, carrying towels and floats.

It was a nice scene but nobody blinked so I guess it happens regularly. Out we went to the pool where we discovered that you have to swipe your room key to get the gate open…which the campground did not supply. Sigh. We ended up waiting until somebody left and feigned looking for our key cards as we slipped through the closing gate. We ended up having a great time for an hour or two.

Sunday, September 27th - Joshua Tree

2009-09-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 27^th – San Diego to Joshua Tree

Today, we had to get up, eat breakfast, get the RV, and go to Joshua Tree. Simple, right? No. You know how the simplest freaking task turns out to be a complete zoo? That was Sunday. It wasn’t a *bad* day, just a zoo.

It started at 4:30am. My in laws canceled the airport shuttle and opted for direct car service to the airport. The lady at the desk forgot to put in the cancel order so the bell hops kept calling us about every five minutes to tell us that the shuttle was waiting. Each time, a different voice would come on the line and repeat the same thing. Unfortunately, one doorman wouldn’t tell the next one and so the phone would ring again a few minutes later. We tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t. A good way to start the day, no?

On the farm, we used to joke about not being able to fix a problem until we fixed the machine that we needed to use in order to fix the problem. (For example, you have to fix the battery charger before you can charge the batteries before you can start the combine). Well, we tried to deplete all the consumables in the RV before we took it to the shop for four days. Makes sense, right? We still had some stuff in the fridge so we left the gas running to keep the fridge cold. When we got to the RV, the fridge was still cold, thankfully, but the propane which runs the fridge was nearly exhausted. We also depleted the water in the fresh tank so that we wouldn’t have a tank of stale water when we got back. So when we retrieved the RV, it had no propane, no water, no gas, and no food on board. Penelope’s turn signal still wasn’t working either. A simple two and a half hour trip ended up taking about four and a half hours and involved five stops.

Joshua Tree National Park is one of those places where you cannot get there from here. You have to go somewhere else first. Sort of like Walkerton, VA or Annapolis, MD. You can’t just go directly there. You have to hurdle a complete rigmarole of poorly marked roads first. Rigmaroles in Southern California have the added benefit of a lot of traffic, a lot of drama, and a complete dearth of driver courtesy. (well...going to Annapolis also features the lack of courtesy)

When we arrived, we discovered that the campground only had one other couple at the far end, about a quarter mile from the site we selected. I need you to get the visual. The campground has about a half-mile loop across rolling scrub desert. The vegetation is 8-12’ with lots of cacti and sagebrush about waist high and scattered garbage-can sized rocks. We couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see us. We are trying to have a wilderness experience, after all.

While the girls set up camp, I climbed up on the roof of the RV with a mop and bucket to clean off a section of filthy roof. After dinner, we put the kids to bed and climbed up there to look at the stars. It was just amazing. Just when I was thinking that it couldn’t get any better…an RV pulled into this completely deserted campground and took a spot less than 100’ from us. They proceeded to bang about, talk loudly, and set themselves up. *I* obviously didn’t want them there. What I want to know is why they wanted to be that close to *us*. The campground was clearly deserted so why would you park next to somebody?? I bet you there were still a dozen campsites where they could have parked and not been able to see us or the tent campers at the other end. People, this is the Mens’ Room equivalent of taking an adjacent urinal when you have five other options. It is extremely bad form. Ladies, you probably won’t grasp this concept. Just trust me. Men, if you don’t know anything about camping and decide to take up the lifestyle, do not pitch your tent or park your RV next to anybody else if you can avoid it. Nobody drove a hundred and fifty miles into the wilderness to sleep within spitting distance from somebody they don’t know.

With the mood ruined and the moment gone, we just watched shooting stars, high flying planes, and stars through the binoculars. It was just amazing to just lay there and watch the sky. You could clearly see crater impacts on the moon with the binoculars and actually make out the largest craters with the naked eye. I’ve heard people say that you could just reach out and touch the stars. Well it wasn’t quite like that, but what blew my mind was how I would see a star I wanted to study through binoculars and then not being able to find with the glasses because I could suddenly see another thirty stars in the same field of vision. That was the most impressive thing to me. On the downside, it is hot as heck. The coach barely remained tolerable running all three air conditioners (two on the roof powered with the generator and the regular one on the dashboard). However, within an hour of the sun going down, the temp had dropped about 20 degrees and by early morning, it was a very pleasant 65.

Saturday, September 26th - San Diego

2009-09-29T08:43:00.001-07:00

Saturday, September 26th – San Diego

Saturday, we hit the San Diego Zoo. Folks, the SD Zoo is just awesome. It is way better than the Woodley Park Zoo in Washington DC. The exhibits were very well organized and they had some animals which cannot be seen anywhere else. They even had a California Condor, believe it or not. I thought they were extinct but due to San Diego Zoo’s work, there are about a hundred or so in existence now with half of those in captivity. We didn’t get to see the gorilla baby or the panda baby. You can only see them online but that’s understandable.

The surprising thing is that there is about three hundred feet of elevation change throughout the zoo. This leads to lots and lots of steep inclined walkways and steps between exhibits. The zoo has invested in some very efficient transportation systems. You can take an express bus which simply goes all the way around the park without stopping. Local bus service will drop you at any of the themed villages throughout the zoo. An overhead cable tram will take you the length of the zoo and drop you at the far end, giving you the option to walk back through a number of different exhibit areas. It was very well done and I cannot say enough about how well it was organized.

After three days of go-go-go, the girls were starting to wind down a little. By about 3pm, the girls didn’t like anybody, including each other. We left the zoo and headed down to the downtown San Diego waterfront.

I think that one of the most important products of this trip will be a big list of things we want to go see and do again. San Diego is no exception. I would very much like to go back and hit the zoo. We saw about a third of it. I would also like to see the US aircraft carrier Midway which is now a floating museum in the harbor, much like the Intrepid in New York harbor.

We went to a nice restaurant on the harbor in downtown where Kathryn went to sleep at the table. The girls went for a ‘Cinderella’ carriage ride around the park with Grampa (see the pictures) and we had them in bed by 8pm.

Last thought: I’ve never been on a cruise before so I don’t have any perspective on that. While we were driving along the waterfront, I saw the Golden Princess at the dock. That thing is just amazing and so I did some research on it. 2600 guests, over 1000 staff. I can’t even get my head around this. 951 feet long and 109,000 tons. Construction cost was $450mil. Wow! Ship Pic

Friday, September 25th, San Diego

2009-09-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 24th – Sea World

Took the kiddos to Sea World. If you have the opportunity some time, its worth a visit. Yes, we saw Shamu. He looked a great deal like Shamu in Orlando and, I understand, also a lot like Shamu in San Antonio. Hey. A good brand is a good brand. I saw lots of kids marching around with stuffed Shamu toys.

We saw the sea lion and seal show. The sea lion got sort of uncooperative about halfway through the show which I found amusing but the staff was pretty good about covering it up and the critters probably do this from time to time.

Sea World has a gigantic tower in the middle of the park which is basically a glass box which slides up the tower a couple hundred feet and you sit in side and look around. It reminds me of a skinny, short version of Seattle’s Space Needle. Well Taylor wanted to ride it and when we got over there, it was an extra charge. You know, I understand the economics but you just have to wonder which ILMBA (Ivy League MBA) thought that what they should do is charge for new attractions to help pay for them, even in the park where you pay a single entry fee. It’s a slippery slope back to the carnival strategy of paying per-ride. It just sort of annoyed me, I guess.

The girls burned out about 3pm so we headed back to the hotel for showers and dinner at Buca di Beppo. Buca is great. Good food, friendly staff, meals served family style. It was a bit overdone with the Italy theme. Eventually, you get all Italy’d out. I hope I don’t offend any of my Catholic friends with my next comment but one of the big tables in the center of the restaurant had a full size bust of John Paul II inside a glass box, attached to the table. This is creepy. Sorry folks. No excuse for a pope in a glass box in the middle of my dinner table. He was even on a revolving thingamabob. This is ostensibly to be able to pass the pomodoro rigatoni to the guy around the table but nobody wants the pope swirling around making eye contact with you, while you eat. This is not valid, even if you are a practicing Catholic.

Thursday, September 24th - San Diego

2009-09-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 24th – San Diego

We went to Legoland. I was pretty skeptical of any theme park based on Legos. I’ve been to Disney. They have a rich collection of characters, story lines, themes, and so forth upon which to build a set of theme parks. Lego has a lot of little plastic pieces which destroy vacuum cleaners at the rate of about three per minute, around the clock. The only person you hate more than the one who gives your kid a super-soaker, is the person who gives them 500 little Lego pieces. I digress. We went to Legoland.

I was very pleasantly surprised at the variety of activities and rides. It was very much designed for younger kids but there were enough things to do to keep them interested. The food was also excellent. I’m grading on a curve but compared to Kings Dominion or Cedar Point, it was like the Four Seasons. In particular, I like the fact that the spectators are invited to man the water cannons and shoot people on the water rides. What a great concept!

The miniature cities all done up in lego blocks was also pretty interesting. I mean, the second you see the minature city, you recognize it. The miniature Chinatown in San Francisco was just perfect. Very cool!

For whatever reason, Volvo is a major park sponsor. Look at this Volvo XC90 made entirely of Legos. You are going to love this…if you go to Legoland in a Volvo, you get preferred parking. Right up front. Nothing more annoying that watching a Volvo wagon in front of you go through a special gate and roll right up to the front, beneath the sign which says, “Legoland especially welcomes visitors in Volvos”. Fascinating. They still rip you good on the parking fees but you don’t have to walk very far.

The girls gave out in the middle of the afternoon and we headed on over into the old town part of La Jolla for dinner in a very nice little seafood restaurant overlooking the bay and ocean. The view was stunning. The food was excellent. The girls were fading pretty hard by the end of dinner but held it together and did us proud. Well behaved kids are a blessing.

That reminds me: I have something to tell you and you might not like it. I’m ok with that. Don’t go hating on the messenger. Here goes. If you take your kids out to a nice restaurant and they are yelling, whining, getting out of their seats, or running around…. you blew it. It’s not the kids fault. It’s yours. Yep. Yours. Ever see a dog trial where the dogs behave perfectly and runs the obstacle course and follow all the commands and stuff? Let’s agree that it’s not because the dog is “smart”. It is because the dog is well trained. Kids are absolutely no different. Does that though offend you? Good. I don’t care what school of though you subscribe to. Kids do what you teach them. If you let them run wild at McDonalds and Pizza Hut, they are going to do it at nicer restaurants too. If you tell a kid that they have to behave in restaurants and you stick to your guns, they will do you proud when you take them somewhere nice. Trust me on this. If you kids are running around like nuts in a nice restaurant, you have to punt. Take them back to Denny’s and start over. Knife, fork, napkin, talking quietly. If you don’t, you are destined to be perpetually frustrated when eating out and the kid genuinely won’t know why.

My kids do great in restaurants. I’m not bragging. I’m telling you that consistent, gentle correction and regular practice work wonders.

Wednesday, September 23rd - San Diego

2009-09-27T10:06:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, September 23 – Oceanside to San Diego

It was a pretty quick trip down to San Diego. A little aggravation when we pulled out of the RV park. Remember my saying that we dragged the wire for the tow vehicle? Well my repair didn’t take. More specifically, the expensive repair plug from West Marine didn’t’ work. When I tried to open up the little junction box where the wires crimp together, the tabs broke off and the whole thing disintegrated in my hand. Exasperated, I proceeded to rip the whole thing apart and start over in a gas station on the side of Pacific Highway. 20 minutes later, I ascertained that I had a bad bulb in the turn signal. There are so many lessons in all of this... I don’t know where to begin: (a) Instead of sticking some external magnetic turn signals on the car, I could have spent the money to connect directly to the car’s own signal system. (b) Instead of some $29 magnetic turn signals from Walmart, I could have bought some higher quality components. (c) Check things over more carefully before driving away so that we don’t drag the connector on the ground (d) Hold West Marine accountable for selling junk. (I do acknowledge that the so-described junk is water proof and vibration proof. It’s just not Allen Proof…which is all that counts). (e) Yelling at your wife technically won’t make the situation better. It also leads to other consequences I won’t describe here. Need I go on? I think ‘a’ thru ‘c’ are the key points.

We made it to Miramar in about 45 minutes. For you Tom Cruise fans (I am absolutely not but some of you have lower standards than I do), Miramar is the alleged setting of the movie Top Gun. Sure enough, when we stopped in at La Mesa RV, there were a pair of F-18’s maneuvering at low altitude over the base. I could have sat there all day watching them because they kept circling in formation. So cool… but duty and short people called.

Its funny how your experience with a single individual can color your opinion of an entire organization. This is so important to remember in life. If you decide that a salesman is a jerk or a service manager is excellent, you will judge a large company on that single interaction. This is also true at church. Keep it in mind.

Our service rep at La Mesa, Jeremy, did an awesome job of looking over our list of concerns and most importantly, he set expectations so we could plan our weekend. The RV had developed an obnoxious problem of refusing to air condition the back half of the coach. Front half would freeze you and the back half wouldn’t put out any cooling. It only popped up about three days ago but I did enough fault isolation to know it was either the “smart” power management system or the compressor going bad. Also the slide-out mechanisms had developed some bad seals. They weren’t leaking water but had pieces of rubber poking out. Anyway, old Jeremy got us all straight and took care of things promptly and efficiently. Now I am a huge fan of La Mesa RV and I only met one person. Remember this.

We found an inexpensive hotel down on Mission Bay for the night. The room was inexpensive (via Hotels.com). The parking was $25/night. I nearly stroked. My temptation was to find some street parking but the bikes are on Penelope. Four bikes plus the rack itself is worth considerably more than $25. I pay the rascals and put the car in the garage under the hotel. Grrrr. Then we went out for haircuts and ice cream. A haircut in San Diego is not like Jimmy’s Barber shop in Tappahannock. You can trust me on this. A lady with spikey hair and a lovely fish-scale tattoo pattern up both arms welcomed us to the salon. She was also pierced. No, not her ears. She had a ¾” wooden dowel through both ear lobes. It was the diameter of your finger. She also had a fairly substantial piece of stainless steel anchored in her cleavage. It was pierced in there some kind of way. On first take, you’d think it was a necklace pendant but there wasn’t any necklace. You should have seen it. I have been trying to take pictures of interesting things on this trip for you but really…..how would I take that picture without getting smacked?

The inlaws arrived around 6pm and we all went out for sushi. I’m proud of the fact that my kids like trying new foods. I guess I should clarify that. I’m proud of the fact that Taylor tries new foods. I am proud that if you hold Kathryn down and tie her hands together, she will also try new foods if she is starving. We got them to make up some good old fashioned fried rice and Kathryn nibbled her way through it.

Tuesday, September 22nd - Oceanside

2009-09-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 22nd - Oceanside

Some days, you have a wonderful time with the family. Some days, you grind your teeth and in the end, you have to give up because you have hit rock bottom and the hole is filling with water.

When we arrived in Oceanside, Sarah announced that we needed some pool floaties for the girls because we have hit several campgrounds with pretty deep pools. She set off on foot to find something. About a half hour later, the phone rang. “Hey whatcha doin?”

“Nothing my dear, why?” Glad she couldn’t see the smirk. I just knew she was lost somewhere.

“I’m a long ways away and need a lift.”

I laugh and rounded the girls up to go rescue Mommy. To be fair, she wasn’t lost so I didn’t have the satisfaction of a rescue. I have to confess that I rushed around to get tidied up and secure the tow hitch. What I didn’t do is double check the light connector. When we unhooked, it got hung up but not secured firmly. I know better. That thing has gotten off and under the car once before. By the time I picked up Sarah and listened to her rant about a beach town with no beach shops, and then drove over to Target, the light plug and wire were thoroughly trashed. (this is the wiring for the ‘trailer’ lights on the car when it is towed)

I gnashed my teeth. On the way home, we passed a West Marine. They usually have a good selection of trailer wiring kits. West Marine automatically means the item costs 75% more than it really should but you have to calculate what a traffic citation or an accident would cost. I sigh and shuck out $15 for a lousy 4-prong plastic trailer light plug.

No floaties available anywhere though. We are in a tropic beach town. It is warm all the time. In my mind, this should mean an abundance of beach shops full of floats, boogie boards, and beach knick-nacks. Dumb. We are 15 miles from San Diego and we couldn’t find a beach chair if our lives depended upon it.

The girls are doing better and better in school. Kathryn has a whole pack of sight words and is nailing them. Taylor hates writing in complete sentences but will do it with some prodding. She has a solid grasp of the long addition but man does she detest writing all of her science and social studies answers in complete sentences.

School today was a fair bit better though. We each grabbed a kid and then set off on different tasks after school. I took Kathryn to Wal-Mart. Bad Parent Alert. She insisted on pushing the cart. This was a very old Wal-Mart with push-pull doors. I reached the door ahead of Kathryn to pull it open. As I swung the door outwards, Kathryn wheeled the cart into the opening door. WHAM. That cart recoiled backwards and the push-bar was exactly at mouth level. We had blood, loose teeth, and screaming sufficient to summon a couple of blue vested workers. She’ll live and the teeth will probably tighten back up but oh man was that kid mad at me. I explained it was an accident but she told me I was a “BAD DADDY”. It’s hard not to laugh when she does this. She’s trying to help me understand how mad she is and I’m trying not to laugh. Not at her hurting but at being called “bad daddy”. Funny kid! I also dropped Sarah’s bike off at a local bike shop. It doesn’t like riding behind the RV any more than Penelope does. I bought that bike for her birthday just before our wedding and it was way over due for a tune up. $69 later, the gears shifted and I noticed that the grinding noises were gone. I should have suspected it was in bad shape. When the tattooed kid with gi-normous pegs through his earlobes looked at the bike, he made a face like he smelled something bad. Its shiny and working perfect now!

Later in the afternoon, we got the girls all bathing suited and sunscreened for the beach. All of a sudden, Kathryn broke down sobbing and said that what she wanted was a nap. You could have knocked us over with a feather. This is the kid who will fall asleep on a roller coaster before she will admit she is tired. Sarah shrugged and tossed her into her bunk. Taylor and I took bikes to the beach. The water is still pretty cold but I went out to play in the big surf while she made whipped up exotic chocolate (sand) creations. When I got out of the water, I had to taste the “mocha fudge bonbons with hints of caramel” that she had made. What an imagination.

We callously broke the “all bike riders MUST wear helmets” signs we saw everywhere. If you are going to break the law, you have to plan ahead on your defense. If detained, I was going to say, “We frum Vajanya and we nermally use half-watermelons for helmets”. I didn’t get pulled over but kind of wanted to… just to see what the officer would say.

I also repaired the wiring mess I had on the front end of the car. Ready to go to San Diego tomorrow morning!

Still alive

2009-09-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

We are still alive. The rv is in the shop for some scheduled warranty work. Our hotel charges $12 for in room Internet access and I cannot put up with that. Blogging via cell phone has some obvious limitations(this has taken ten minutes to type). Look for several days worth on Sunday. Hope y'all are well.

Saturday/Sunday – 19th and 20th – Anaheim, CA

2009-09-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday/Sunday – 19th and 20th – Anaheim, CA

The nice thing about home-schooling is that you can set the schedule. The nice thing about having a 5&7 year old is that they never know what day it is. Given the impending Grandparent visit next week, we decided to have school on Saturday. I think the kids secretly knew because we didn’t get anything done.

We packed out of the lion infested valley and beat it for Anaheim, intentionally selecting 10am on a Saturday morning as our supposed 'optimal' travel time. It was only about 50 miles and was about the most unpleasant driving of the whole trip. Folks, DC traffic is legendary and it cannot even compare with LA traffic. These people come off so relaxed and pleasant but underneath, there is a simmering road rage which takes normally pleasant people and turns them in to homicidal maniacs. I have had folks whip into a parking lot as I try to exit, causing both of us to jam on brakes. I can’t make the wide sweeping turn to exit and they can’t get around the tow vehicle so we both sit there and blow horns at each other. Lovely...and not an isolated incident. You want to reduce violence? Stop letting crazy people drive 6500lb SUV’s at 90mph on 12 lane freeways.

I bet you there a dozen instances where I put on my turn signal and somebody accelerated to close the hole which I needed in order to move over. I don’t mean they wouldn’t back off. I mean they shifted so that they could race forward to cut me off. I have a new strategy for driving around here. I put on my turn signal and move on over. Period. Sometimes I don’t even use my rear-view mirror, just to keep things lively. We have a grand total of $2500 invested in the tow car. It has over a hundred thousand miles and has plastic body panels. What I do now is look for a Lexus or Mercedes, pull up even to it, and just come on over. This strategy has worked in the most surprisingly efficient manner. No problem at all now. I usually get some friendly sign language. I am ok with this. Lauchlin, our insurance agent, probably isn't. If you see him around Culpeper, don't mention this part.

The campground in Anaheim is awesome. As we pulled in, we noticed oranges on the trees in the campground. I went back to the office to ask if we could pick and found that not only was it ok, they had a map of what fruit was available throughout the park. They have Valencia and Navel oranges, limes, lemons, and tangerines. How awesome is that? We went out and picked a dozen ripe Valencia oranges and squeezed them for breakfast the next morning. The juice was, in my brother-in-law’s words, “money”.

On Sunday, we went to Saddleback Church in Lake Forest. If you have never been to a mega church, let me tell you…it is something else. Some churches have visitor’s parking. This church had a visitor’s welcome center, parking lot, and bus service to the front door. We were met by someone who told us what to expect, answered all our questions, and helped us get where we needed to go. Anyone traveling to Saddleback via the welcome center gets one of the best donuts I have ever eaten. A local coffee shop provides the donuts and fresh coffee for the 9 and 11:15am service visitors. The donuts were also, “money”.

When we got onto the ‘campus’ (I have no other word for it), we discovered that there were about ten themed worship experiences. You could attend a traditional service with some good old fashioned hymns. They had a country and western theme, hard rock/heavy metal, and so forth. Each venue had its own worship format for about 25 minutes and then the sermon was simulcast into each venue from the main sanctuary. We opted for the main sanctuary and sat with 3500 other people to hear the morning message.

The senior pastor, Rick Warren, was out of town but joined the service for a few minutes via a pre-recorded video to talk about the fall programs and a few other administrative items. His brother in law handled the preaching on the book of Matthew.

Just some rough math…at the Lake Forest campus alone, there are four services, with attendance reaching several thousand per service. Additionally, Saddleback Church has multiple remote locations throughout southern California which also do their own worship formats and then take the simulcast from the main location in Lake Forest, CA. The pastor noted in his opening remarks that approximately 35,000 folks had signed up for bible studies for the fall season. Can you imagine? Average weekly attendance runs a steady 20,000 across all campuses.

The business guy in me really was enamored with the logistics and execution necessary to get 35,000 people organized and where they need to be. To have a welcome center for visitors where they can meet you and find ways to connect you into the congregation was just amazing. Then there were entire fleets of shuttle buses and parking crews to manage traffic. The electronics and sound system just defied belief until you saw them. Amazing in every regard. The church had two beautiful stone pools which were used for baptism and both had a line of people waiting after the service this morning. The whole experience was just amazing.

We headed back to the campground and hit the pool where we met a really nice family from Syracuse, NY. They are on the road for six months and, interestingly, their route has roughly mirrored ours across the country. We were able to compare notes on the different national parks and activities along the way. Very nice to meet Lev, Andi and the kids!

Lastly, a word of condolences for a very dear friend, Jeff Armor, who just lost his mom. Jeff, Liz, and Jenny, we miss you guys terribly and grieve with you.

We are off to San Diego tomorrow.

Friday, September 18 – Presidential Library

2009-09-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 18, 2009 – Presidential Library

We went to the Reagan presidential library today. I had wanted to see the facility since I read that the Air Force was donating a retired Air Force One jet to the library. There are over a dozen presidential libraries and this is the largest of them. The archives hold over 1.6m pictures and 60m pages of orders, memos, letters, and the like. The crown jewel of the collection is, of course, Air Force One, but anyone over the age of about 35 will remember many of the displays. On a side note, Air Force One was flown to San Bernardino, disassembled, and hauled through town in the middle of the night and down the I-5 to Simi Valley. The plane was then reassembled inside the unfinished library building. You would have to see it to believe how massive that job must have been. This is the plane which flew Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and H.Bush as the primary service jet. It also supported presidents Clinton and W. Bush as a backup or in special situations where the normal AF1 Boeing 747 was too big to land. It was permanently retired in 2002 because it needed several hundred thousand dollars of work to remain airworthy. Rather than destroy it, Tail Number 27000 was granted to the Reagan library on permanent loan. Pic . We went all through the plane but pictures are verboten.

The facility was just amazing. Other noteworthy things include a section of the Berlin wall which was donated by the German government to the libaray. One of eight remaining deactivated nuclear cruise missiles called the Gryphon is in a gallery with pictures of the 1987 START treaty signing on the wall. What an amazing, if ugly, piece of history. The Soviets were so unnerved by its mobile capability that they agreed to the destruction of their own mobile nuclear arsenal if we would do the same.

Walking through Air Force One was my personal highlight though. We also enjoyed seeing the perfect replica of the Oval Office, right down to the error made by the carpet maker in applying the presidential seal. I convinced the docent to let me take a picture after I assured him I would de-activate the flash. It’s a little dark, unfortunately. A 3/4 scale version of the Rose Garden and the South Lawn of the White House are also situated on the grounds.

Directly beneath Air Force 1, is the retired Marine 1 that Reagan and several predecessors used, along with a limo and secret service vehicles which were acquired at the time of their disposal for the library’s collection.

All in all, a very worthwhile visit. The President’s grave, here, faces west to the setting sun over this vista. Pic. I highly recommend your visiting.

Now for the funny stuff. Sarah and I are sitting here after dinner and we are trying to decide where to go tomorrow as we continue to migrate towards San Diego to meet up with her parents.

She has the big catalog of campgrounds and we are trying to find something near Lake Forest. She says, “hey, the prices are *really* good on this one and they have wifi and claim a full roster of fun activities. Could you google Glen Eden Campground and see if it looks interesting?”

I’m not sure ‘interesting’ is the right word: Here is what the introduction on the website says, “Glen Eden is Southern California's premier family oriented nudist resort and RV park.” Half of you are a little embarrassed. The other half of you want to know if we are going. We are not, although Sarah was kind of torn because the website had an online coupon for ‘first night free’. A family oriented nudist resort! We have worked so hard to get the girls to grasp the concept of privacy. I think we’ll pass.

She giggles herself to death. “OK sweetie. Try Glen Ivy Campground.” The website looks ok. Because of our experience in Northern California though, I check the online reviews. This first one caught my eye and it became my turn to laugh:

Online Review: “We were there in August of 2009. The office staff was quite friendly and helpful. The campground has a few free wireless internet ‘hot spots’ in the park so you can get your Internet. The restaurant has limited hours and full-time bar and pool room so there is stuff to do. The two swimming pools and hot water Jacuzzi are nice. During our stay one of the park residents shot his pistol twice, hitting another trailer. He was subsequently shot by the Riverside County Sheriff's SWAT team. Everyone was helpful and offered their RV for us to stay in during the 9 hour standoff when we could not get to our camper. Residents bought us free drinks and snacks, and apologized for the incident. Other than that, it was a pleasant stay.”

I could wind up the grandparents by saying that we are going to stay there because of the attractive pricing but it’s not as much fun if I can’t be there to watch the fireworks.

We’re staying at a much more expensive place but there haven’t been any shootings and they don’t have naked old people playing shuffleboard next to the pool. Deep down, I’m a little disappointed but we are going to do the right thing. J

Thursday, September 17th Visalia to North LA

2009-09-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 17^th Visalia to North LA

This will be a quick one. We got up, did school, and then took off to the KOA campground just north of the LA Metro in a community called Santa Clarita. The trip was an uneventful ride through the San Joaquin valley and we arrived around 3pm.

I have an observation and I am not waxing political when I say this. I cannot understand how a state with this wealth of industry, oil, natural gas, and gross agricultural output to rival Nebraska and Kansas…can be bankrupt by more than the entire operating budget of Virginia. Can somebody explain that? …and should you take a pass at it, please don’t tell me that the housing boom did it. That is a lazy, cop-out answer. I am opening the forum up to your answers and whatever you put, please check back because I will challenge any wild assertions.

Two last things. Some of you may have caught the segment on the California Wild Fires and the folks who run a big-cat rescue. These people work with SPCA, Game Wardens, Departments of Natural Resources, and so forth all around the USA to collect and protect exotic large cats. They get animals which are confiscated from smugglers, roadside circuses, and nut-job private citizens who think it is fun to own a Bengal tiger until the tiger eats your Labrador and the neighbor’s kid. If you didn’t catch the show, here is a background on the operation. Well they are *next door*. When we check in, the owner of the campground says and I quote, “Now there is one other thing… and I want to assure you it is very, very safe….should you hear a lion roaring, you needn’t worry. That big-cat sanctuary and rescue is next door but the animals are well fenced and the facility is monitored by the State”.

Do you appreciate the irony of a bankrupt state full of hyper-aggressive drivers ‘supervising’ the management of tier-1 predators next to a campground?

The only good news is that there is a riding stable with some fairly worn out looking nags between us and the cats. I figure they will stop in on the way over. I also have something else that would discourage them from eating us but I’m not going to blog about it until I leave the People’s Republic of Callie. Steak knives are illegal here because people might stab each other.

Last thing: We were getting situated and the girls were scampering underfoot so we sent them to the play ground which is about 50 yards away with clear line of sight to the RV. A little while later, they come in to change for swimming. I direct them to both use the bathroom. Taylor says, “Well we don’t have to”.

Yeah. No kid does until you are in the least convenient spot. I say, “well go anyway”.

Kathryn pipes up, “We JUST went”.

I said ok and went on tidying up the camper until something clicked a moment later. “Wait, girls. We drove for an hour and when we arrived, you went straight to the playground”.

[Taylor] “yeah well we already went.”

[me] “well you didn’t go in the RV so where did you go?”

[Taylor] “Daddy, we went in a private spot”. I have noticed that Taylor is in to ‘private’ right now. Fathers like it when their daughters are in to ‘private’. Private is good.

Something still didn’t ring right for me so I tried again. “Taylor, did you go to a *potty*? “ …there was a long pause. She hates it when I ask detailed questions. Unique to my daughter? Nope.

“Daddy, we were private”. Some extra emphasis was added this time. She would like to move the conversation onto safer ground. I can tell when I have my quarry cornered and I begin circling for the kill.

“Taylor, did you tinkle outdoors in public?”

“Daddy, we were out doors but *not* in public. It really was not public”

[I’m amused and intensely curious. She is really wanting to be somewhere else right now. She attempts a subject change again. I tell her to hang on and I step outdoors].

I come back in. “Taylor, did you tinkle on the playground?”

She was good and truly caught now and I know she won’t fib. “Yes but it was totally OK”.

I grew up on a farm and I peed everywhere. I’ll tell you about ‘going’ on the combine’s spinning countershaft sometime. It was quite a mess.

I poke my head back outside and immediately saw it. In the midst of this giant playground village type thing was a 3’ high walled section which you enter by crawling through the fort beneath the lookout deck. “Taylor, did you tinkle behind the purple walls?”

[Taylor, with trembling bottom lip] “Yes daddy but it was TOTALLY PRIVATE”.

Sarah said, “Taylor, you aren’t supposed to tinkle on the playground.”

[Taylor] “No, it was ok because the ground was already wet.”

How can you fault that logic? That we were in the middle of a desert and practically everything green must be watered, was lost on her. The playground had recently been watered and really, its all the same stuff, right?

We worked very very hard to keep it together but managed to shoo them back out before laughing uproariously.

Wednesday, September 16 – Visalia

2009-09-16T21:13:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, September 16 – Visalia

I’ve mentioned our tow vehicle, Penelope, in passing several times. The life of a tow-car is miserable. You’ve seen RV’s, right? You have the front wheels and then the rear axle is located about 2/3rds of the way back so that quite a bit of the vehicle weight is on the rear axle. Moving the axle forward some also serves to make the RV turn sharper. The consequence of this is that when you make a hard right turn, the rear end swings abruptly leftward until you straighten out. The hitch for Penelope is an additional 4’ long so Penelope essentially rides at the end of a sixteen foot whip. Can you visualize that?

Now pretend you are driving down a mountain pass and making hairpin turns and entering sharp corners. That poor car is getting whipsawed all day long. If you go over a speedbump, (slowly, as I always do), the rear end of the RV rises in an exaggerated manner, yanking the car forward. As the rear axle comes over the speed bump, the back of the RV comes down quickly and shoots the car backwards before yanking it up short again.

No matter how careful you are, and we have been very careful, the poor tow vehicle just gets beat up. Rocks fly off the rear wheels. Whenever it rains, the dirt, pollen, and dust on the roof turns to mud and flies back onto the tow car. It is perpetually filthy and there is no helping it, when half of this state is undergoing road construction. One side of the RV is coated in tar from a 12-mile construction zone last week. The good news is that the RV was so filthy that the tar didn’t really stick too badly.

On a side note, I want to thank all the folks back home for all the construction. Everywhere you see construction in California, you will also see a large billboard which reads, “Part of the American Recovery and Rehabilitation Act: Putting America Back to Work”. You like that? California is bankrupt and basically managed a 29 Billion Dollar deficit. The state is so bad off that it was paying its contractors and suppliers with IOU’s. California surely thanks the rest of America for fixing its roads. Good thing too because California raided its transportation trust fund a long ways back to keep on paying for its entitlement programs. Isn’t that awesome? They can’t live within their means so they steal their own road dollars for other programs. Then they apply for and receive federal ‘bailout’ money to fix the roads that they no longer have the money to repair. We have not travelled a single day in California without seeing one of these signs. I’ll get you a picture.

I digress. The point is that Penelope needed some love and since we had been remiss, she did what any 9 year old would do. Revolt! She shucked off her right rear tire in the most spectacular fashion. The tires were properly inflated but today on the freeway, that car unloaded the tire the way you see tractor trailers do it. The whole tread did a POW – Whap-Whap-Whap and then silence. I eased off and got out. There were two little rubber donuts where the sidewalls used to be and the tread was completely missing. I didn’t have a flat. I had a rim and two sidewalls. I did get a picture though.

The car had also developed a bad brake shimmy which started in Yellowstone and was almost certainly warped rotors. I found a local shop which was willing to work me in and they got it all straight. 1 new tire, resurfaced the rotors, changed the oil, checked the alignment. Stuff is high in California. I’m not going to tell you what it cost but I promise you that Talley’s in Tappahannock would have been a lot more reasonable. I did have a bit of a disagreement with the guy at the tire shop. He charged me a $3 tire disposal fee. I said that since I didn’t really bring in a whole tire, I should be pro-rated for the portion I brought in. Some people have no sense of humor….

Tuesday, September 15th – Visalia

2009-09-16T21:04:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 15th – Visalia

On Tuesday, we realized that the RV was something between a toxic waste dump and a federal disaster area. I am a messy person anyway. Everywhere I go, I leave stuff. My mother and my former employer both call it the “little trail of Allen.” Pencils, notebooks, shoes, pocket knives, random papers, and so forth. It is a lifelong habit and I really don’t have any plans to change. I remember things visually. You want to know where the cell phone charger is? I have a perfect mental image of it plugged into the outlet next to the sink. Unfortunately, the net result of three messy people is that you eventually can’t cope with the stuff everywhere. I know where my stuff is but I confess it is a bit cluttered. Screwdrivers in the bathroom, towels over the passenger’s seat, iPod sock drawer. You get the idea.

We decided to just make a short hop to Visalia from Oakhurst (about 90 miles south) and then lay up there for a few days while we straightened things out. We have learned from experience that on ‘down’ days, you have to stay at a decent campground so that the kids have a playground/pool/putt-putt so that they can blow off some steam too.

We arrived just before lunch and I took the girls off to run errands while Sarah worked on the RV. It literally took her three hours to get all the laundry done and clean it to her lofty standards. Not much else to report. We had another physics lesson which was a little more expensive than the last couple. ‘If you put heavy stuff into a cheap press-board drawer and take a sharp curve, the drawer will disintegrate as it fires open on the curve. It really didn’t have a lot of weight, per se. A bag of potatoes and some apples and tomatoes. I’ll fix it in the morning.

The girls enjoyed the pool and we generally caught up on housekeeping. A relaxing, chill day!

For the folks in Tappahannock, I knew you would appreciate this picture. We were travelling down the California coast last week and snapped this picture of a small town as we passed through. Take a look!

Monday, September 14th – Yosemite

2009-09-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 14^th – Yosemite

We woke up bright and early Monday morning. This was pretty easy since Yosemite management group does not turn on the propane furnaces in the Yurts until the 18^th of September. It was 58 degrees in our Yurt.

Additionally, Yurt City has a single, central bathroom and shower facility. People were talking, banging their Yurt doors, and making lots of noise well before six. The Russians next door were awake too, but I digress.

Since we had no place to stay, our modified plan of attack was to do *everything* we could stomach and then beat it out of the park for Oakhurst or Visalia. It was an amazing day. I wanted to drive up to Glacier Point which is easy to reach and has some stunning views. Due to road construction on the pass, it took about an hour or so but when we got there…WOW. As we worked our way around the foot path at the overlook, we got to a guy setting up his hang glider.

He was pretty busy so I didn’t bother him but I wasn’t going anywhere. He had mounted three video cameras on his hang glider and had a giant ‘Isaiah 40:31’ on the glider. Nothing was odd about any of this except for the fact that the glider was sitting on the edge of a cliff, 3,100 feet above the valley floor on a sheer drop-off. After about five minutes, he harnessed up, checked all the rigging, and then screamed “Hallelujah” at the top of his lungs as he jumped. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Just start with this one and go forward.

In an instant, I was no longer grieving the Yurt. You don’t see that every day and frankly, I’d have paid the $94 just to see a guy quoting Isaiah’s passage about ‘soaring on wings like eagles, held in the hand of God’ …and jumping off a cliff. I repeat: you do not see that every day.

We probably hung out at Glacier Point for a good hour and a half. Instead of being in a national park, I sort of felt like I was at Heathrow or O’Hare. There were more nationalities represented up there than in all of our travels put together. That is not an exaggeration. I recognized Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, German, and quite a few others. Amazing! There are a few pictures of particular note that were pretty cool just because of the clouds and fog rolling through the valley. I can’t come up with the right adjectives so just realize that the pictures aren’t even close to what it was like. 1 2 3 4

We got back to Curry Village and broke out the bikes for a ride down the valley on the bike path. Taylor managed a 2 mile ride on her bike and we were thrilled that she was able to hang in there. She was pretty worn out by the end, but we were very proud of her, not a single complaint.

Around 3pm, we loaded the bikes and beat it on out of there. The road down to the south gate was a bit challenging and while I missed Sarah’s company, I was pretty happy to have the car detached as she followed the RV. It took us almost an hour to make the South gate. Just before we exited, we pulled in to the Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoias. These things put the Redwoods to shame. Actually, that isn’t a fair statement. They were significantly bigger around the base but somewhat shorter. It was the end of the day and the kids were whipped so we didn’t hike through the grove. Instead, we got out and took a picture in front of the first good sized tree we saw and then left.

Yosemite is on the list of places to revisit, sans little kids.

We travelled another half hour south of the gate and found a campground in Oakhurst. Just down the road, we it a smoky little BBQ joint and I watched my elder daughter eat most of a slab of full sized ribs and a half plate of fries. I have no idea where this kid puts it. The food was excellent. You know how you always hope to stumble into a great little local restaurant but rarely do? This place was awesome and if you are ever in Oakhurst, CA, you must go here: Todds BBQ

Since nobody slept well in the yurt, we were all out by 9pm.

Sunday, September 13th - Mariposa to Yosemite

2009-09-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 13th - Mariposa to Yosemite

We woke up Sunday morning and I jumped into Penelope to run through town and see if there was a church we could attend. I found some signs to the Mariposa Christian Fellowship. We attended there and they were some of the nicest folks we’ve met on this trip. It is always great to see a congregation that has their act together on welcoming new folks and getting to know you. They insisted on taking us to lunch and for their hospitality, we are most grateful! Thank you Patricks!

We were halfway up to the park from Mariposa and as we rounded a curve. Down below, I saw a deep pool of water in the river and people swimming. Well who wouldn’t stop? This guy surely did. We had the best time splashing around for about 45 minutes. We could see little brook trout deep in the pool and some bigger fish which kept rolling over to show their bellies. No clue what those were but I’d have liked to have caught one. Did we hustle on up to Yosemite and get the camping figured out? Of course not! Pic1 Pic2 Pic3

A few miles on, we got to a massive rock slide which had destroyed the road. Check this out. We had to cross over the river on an aluminum bridge and ease along on a very narrow dirt ledge above the river, then cross back over the river on another aluminum suspension bridge. I bet you I didn’t have 12” on either side of Big Bill as we tiptoed across there. The Corp of Engineers must have loved figuring this mess out. Traffic was obviously single lane and it added a while to our arrival at Yosemite.

We got to the entrance about 3:00pm. Remember me talking about our slack planning? Today we got bit. I don’t mean bitten. We got bit.

A sign on the guard house stated that “All Campgrounds Full”. I was astonished. The ranger on duty checked our prepaid pass and wished us good day. I asked about the campground situation and whether all of Yosemite was actually “full”. He stepped back in to the guard house and then came out and said…(and I literally quote) “We say ‘full’ but Upper, Lower, and North Pines will have some space. You just need to check around.” Pleased with our luck, these four unwitting victims of the greatest lie since the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ proceeded on into Yosemite Village, which took us almost 45 minutes in the RV. We reached Upper Pines first and pulled in. Nobody was on duty at the guard house but every spot had a registered name in the big printed out roster. A sign warned us not to take a reserved spot, as we would be subject to escort out of the park. No problem. We head over to Lower Pines and found the exact same situation. Uh-oh. At that point, navigation got tough so we unhooked Penelope and Sarah buzzed around. Long story short: every single campground in the area showed ‘Full’.

Sarah came back to the RV where I was entertaining the girls and we put our heads together. To stay motivated, we needed only to look out of the RV at the giant sign which read, “Unauthorized RV Camping will result in towing and/or removal from Yosemite”. Sigh.

I called the Yosemite Campground reservation hotline. The reservationist assured me that in all of Yosemite, there was not one single campsite reservation to be had. The ‘oh crap’ feeling was settling in nicely at this point. We were no less than an hour from the nearest campground outside the park and to leave the park would involve tip-toeing the RV back down the mountain the way we came, around the landslide and almost back to Mariposa. Not only that but when we were done sightseeing, we needed to leave out of the south gate which meant up to two hours of travel back through the park the next day.

“How is that possible after Labor Day on a school night,” I asked the reservationist, “can there be no available spots???” She said that the next available campsite in Yosemite Village is on October 2nd. I barely stammered, “you have to be kidding me”. With nominally concealed annoyance, she told me that a landslide last year took out took out 40% of their lodging capacity due to de-stabilized ground and disrupted utilities and that their website clearly states the importance of reservations. “In fact,” she went on, “reservations open up five months in advance and sometimes campsites are all taken within a few minutes of the reservation system opening.” As we learned later, fires earlier in the summer had caused masses of people to re-book their travel. Bottom line is that if we come back in three weeks, we will be all set.

I took a deep breath and called the Lodging and Hotel Hotline. A cheerful fellow informed me that they had two ‘Yurts’ left in all of the park and one was less than a mile from us. “I’ll take it,” I told him. “Yes sir…that will be $92.” FOR A TENT WITH A HARD WOOD FLOOR? I nearly lost it. I asked what my other options were and he cheerfully informed me that by early evening, we either needed to have a reservation and an associated parking pass or be hooked up in a sanctioned RV camp ground. Otherwise, we had to leave the park.

I was misty eyed as I read out my Mastercard number. We headed on over to Curry Village and checked in to our Yurt. I was tempted to sleep in the RV but several signs announced that anyone found sleeping in their vehicles would be escorted out and/or towed. I shudder to think what it would cost to get an eight and a half ton RV out of hock if it was towed. More than $92, anyways.

In a generous helping of insult to injury, we saw several signs which advised that cooking in vehicles was cause for dismissal. We looked at each other and then headed to the dining room where we dropped another $58 for some painfully mediocre buffet food.

We headed to the Yurt and turned off the lights on the most expensive day we’d had in quite a while. I can only describe today a healthy dose of the ‘Stupid Tax’. I soaked in the irony of a rock hard mattress and an amorous Russian couple in the next yurt while our comfortable RV sat less than a hundred yards away in the parking lot, before falling asleep. YurtPics1 2 .

Saturday - September 12 - Napa to Mariposa

2009-09-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

Saturday - September 12^th, 2009

I promised we would do a better job with the kid’s diets. We took them to the Jelly Belly factory. That was pretty interesting. You want to help your child reach their maximum potential, right? Give each one a half pound of Jelly Belly beans. They will reach their maximum potential almost immediately...both in terms of volume and kinetic energy.

We got them up and, wisely, went ahead and had school on Saturday. The thing about never knowing what day it is does have some advantages. I only know the date because I put it on the blog and even I have to look. Nobody else has any clue so we had school. Mostly for habit forming purposes but also to get a leg up on next week because you never know what will mess your schedule up later.

We proceeded on over to the Jelly Belly factory which was just a few miles from our campground. It was a lot of fun. We did make one mistake by coming on Saturday when the production floor was shut down. They installed covered glass catwalks throughout the factory and when they are running, you can see everything happening. The girls had a ball anyway and asked lots of questions. We really recommend this tour.

They had some rather ‘exotic’ flavors available. See for yourself! Pic1 Pic2 Pic3

Afterwards, we resupplied the RV and headed to Mariposa, CA. Mariposa is the western gateway to Yosemite and we figured to relax there, go to church the next morning, and then head on to Yosemite on Sunday afternoon.

Mariposa was a little light on RV accommodations but we read that the local fair grounds would let you camp inexpensively. I now consider myself to be something of a connoisseur of campgrounds. I know a good campground when I see one. This was not a good campground. We had been on the road for several hours and were ready to stop. When we saw the giant billboard proclaiming RV camping at the fairgrounds, we exchanged a look and followed the signs.

It was grim. The campground ‘host’, if you could call him that, met us at the entrance to the lot and directed us to a spot. Then he began pressing us for payment, about every five minutes. About the time we got to Oregon, we learned that you always, always, always look the campground over before committing money. Some have been real jewels. Some have been a bit aggressive with their interpretation of ‘wifi’, ‘playground’, and ‘full electric’. Well we didn’t follow the instructions to pay before entry to the parking area and he was pretty wound up about it. I don’t know what type of people normally stay there but if he has a padlock and chain with which to imprison both my car and my RV, chances are that I’m going to pay him. I mean…seriously. I can’t speak for the fairgrounds as a whole but lot #5 was just awful. The fair had been there the week or two before so there was manure everywhere. I’m a farm kid. I’m ok with manure. I just don’t like the mass of flies and legions of ants which immediately began forced-entry operations into the RV. I could go on but you get the idea. This guy was in a full tizzy that we were going to stiff him on $23 when our home is under his lock and key. It was silly. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of him while he gave Sarah the business.

We headed on in to town and had a nice time strolling the little downtown area of Mariposa. It reminded me a lot of the old part of Kilmarnock or Urbanna, except that it was dry and hilly.

Friday, September 11th – Day in San Francisco

2009-09-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 11^th – Day in San Francisco.

We got up early and hit the books with the kids first thing. Kathryn has carefully considered this whole home-schooling thing from every angle and pronounced herself “not interested” in home school. This isn’t a surprise because last fall, she also pronounced herself “not interested” in preschool. We’ve been dragging her out of bed at the same time each morning in the hopes that we will get a routine going. Not much luck there, yet. To be fair, the “we’ve been dragging…” really means Sarah’s been dragging. We have two people who like to get out of bed at 6:15 in the morning. We have two who most assuredly do not.

Anyway, we got the kids going, fed, and into school, finishing their lessons in about two hours.

Around 10, we loaded up and hit the road for San Francisco. Traffic was still quite heavy but since there are four of us, we qualified for the HOV lanes and blew right across the Bay bridge (see cool picture of Alcatraz and golden gate in background) and into town in about an hour. Sarah kept saying that we would be glad we brought the kids at some point. Today was the day. Warm bodies to qualify for HOV. The first thing we did was park the car in the most expensive parking lot we could find. ($26 for the day) The reason we parked there is that it was close to the pier where the Alcatraz boats run. After we parked, I discovered that the Alcatraz water taxi service has moved to another pier in the time since Philip (my brother) and I went a couple of years ago. Great. Well, who doesn’t need a half-mile trot now and then?

We looked at the map, our watches, and reconfigured. After getting our bearings, we set off for Chinatown. My aunt Margy really got the girls hooked on her home-made dumplings. They have been talking about shrimp dumplings ever since and asking if we can have them again soon. We set off. Chinatown turned out to be a longer hike than I realized from Fisherman’s Wharf. We got there in about 20 minutes but we were completely out of breath and I had Kathryn on my shoulders for about half of it.

Lunch was excellent. I had done some research and was delighted to discover that we were the only Anglos in the place. Our server didn’t speak a lick of English but since we basically knew the drill on dim sum, we waited until the cart came around and pointed to the stuff we recognized and to a few things we didn’t. I’ll tell you the truth about authentic dim sum. You basically don’t want to know what you are eating. That’s the honest truth. I am not talking about the China Jade Golden Garden Emperor Palace joint where you eat egg rolls and pork fried rice. I’m talking about the authentic place where the owners of the westernized establishments go out for dinner. It was called ‘Del Ho’ and was deep in the old part of Chinatown. The best part…the four of us ate until we were stuffed on those little dumplings and the tab was about seventeen dollars *with tip*. We can't go to the grocery store, buy unrecognizable meats and veggies, cook them, and eat them for seventeen dollars so this was a heck of a good deal.

I have a confession. You know how sometimes, you set your kids up just to enjoy the show? Never, ever malicious, mind you but all in good fun? I offered each kid five bucks if they could catch a pigeon. They get an allowance each day of 50 cents and after the first week of buying gum and souvenir pencils, began to save diligently. They almost never raid their savings but a 5-spot is more than a week's allowance. That is serious cash, right there. They were gung-ho and applied themselves diligently to the task. They didn't have much luck, though. The pair of fives were safe in my pocket but man, did I have fun watching them chase pigeons. Taylor took the brute force approach, racing towards the suspicious birds and yelling. Kathryn would crouch down until she was less than 14" tall and try to sneak up on them while telling them that they were "pretty bird". Hilarity ensued. Pic1 Pic2 Pic3

Afterwards, we set sail for Alcatraz. If you have never been, they have a wonderful self-guided audio tour. Each visitor gets a little audio gizmo and it acts like a virtual tour guide. “turn right and look at the cell numbered 113. This is the cell of so-and-so. He attacked the guards on such and such a date before being subdued. Now walk towards the gate at the end of the corridor. Above you, you see the catwalk known as the …etc, etc”. It was very well done. Taylor and Kathryn were delighted because the instructions were well organized such that they could navigate easily around the prison while listening to the audible cues and hearing the G-rated narrative. The whole visit was great. I wore my Rappahannock River Oysters shirt (thanks Croxtons!) and had a lady stop me to ask about it. Apparently, she was from Danville, VA and was familiar with the River Country. She didn’t know RRO, but she did know where the Rappahannock was so we chatted for a few minutes. In San Francisco, I had somebody stop me to talk about a little area of Virginia. How neat is that?!? (this is where you mumble “small world” to yourself. Hum the song too, if you like).

Lousy traffic going home. We left Northern Virginia for this (and other) reasons. The HOV lanes helped but not enough to get us back in time to cook dinner. We fed them pizza. That way, we could balance out the salty chinese dumplings, salty pretzels, and ice cream we also fed them today. It couldn't be helped. The pizza joint had a TV in the corner tuned to the Disney channel. The kids cracked out on that until the pizza arrived. pic I don't want to hear from the grandmothers. Yes, you raised us better. OK, we'll try to do a better job....we'll start tomorrow.

Thursday, September 10th - To Napa

2009-09-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 10 – Garberville to Napa

No Internet access this morning. I woke up and resolved to get a cup of coffee, blog for a little while, check my email, read the drudge report, and then help with home-school. As the ceiling came into focus, it hit me that everything I want to do, I cannot for lack of Internet. Jeez. I'm not sure where the problem lies. Is it worse for a tourist and hospitality industry to *not* have Internet or is it worse for me to be so hard up that my morning revolves around a steady diet of 1's and 0's? Probably both. I started a wireless network business about five and a half years ago to deal with lack of service. You'd think that pretty much everywhere would have it...and certainly everywhere that depends on tourism dollars but sadly...no. I grumble. Sarah makes fun of me. I ask her why she does this. She says that each artist works in their own medium. Her medium is , in her own words, "witty sarcasm". I'm capable of a clever rebuttal. Just not early in the morning.

We wound our way down 101 through the Sierras and enjoy the beautiful scenery. A lady at the junk shop across from our campground told us that they have not had any rain in five months. I did a double take. “You meant five weeks?” She assured me that she meant five months. Unbelievable. No wonder the wild fires are eating them alive! We took a picture in front of her tree which is called "Grandfather Tree". It measures some fifty feet around its base. We don't buy anything though. I want to support her business but remember me talking about the good ole boy up the road who makes art with a chainsaw? That is what she sells in her shop. For anywhere from $300 t0 $800, you can have a chainsaw art Elvis cut into a redwood stump. Awesome, to be sure, but not my style and we don't have any more room. We can barely contain the bags of cans, bottles, and brick-a-brack aboard that Sarah intends to recycle some day.

It was about a three hour trip down into Napa. In our tour guide book, we had read that the county fairground permitted transient camping when the fair was not going. It was close to the middle of area attractions and things so we went directly there. I have a confession to make. We have been getting kind of sloppy with our trip planning. We have maintained two hard destinations with target dates to keep us on track (Seattle by September 1 and San Diego by September 24^th). Other than that, we have enjoyed the ability to say, “hey, this is cool, lets stay another day” or “hey, this isn’t so much fun, lets split early”. At the same time, it has caused both of us to develop lackadaisical attitudes about camping. Plus, it is after Labor Day and school has started. We *never* have trouble finding camping space. Thus, we have been in the habit of hitting the road and just seeing where it takes us.

Well this bad habit caught up to us today. When we arrived at the Napa Fairgrounds, the supervisor comes over and says, “can I help you?”. I gave him my best good ‘ole boy grin and said, “we’d like two nights please”. He looks at me like I am crazy and says, “we’ve been booked solid for quite a while”. I sigh. He sends us to a small campground on the outskirts of Napa which turned out to be fine but we ended up missing the tour of the Jelly Belly (jelly bean) factory because we wasted 30 minutes repositioning the RV through afternoon rush hour traffic. Good work, there Al.

You have to learn to punt on 4th down, even at midfield. We went to the grocery store and resupplied the RV. Then we headed home for a quiet movie and bedtime.

One other thing I forgot and am adding after the fact. We stopped at the Kendall-Jackson winery in Sonoma on the way down Rt. 101. Sarah says she was doing ultra critical research for her friend Val so we stopped in. The grounds and gardens are just beautiful and we took a few pictures. Check the photos. pic1 After the first picture, you can just advance through the photos with the arrow at the top. We tasted a few options and picked some to bring home. Lunch at McDonalds afterwards, just to keep us balanced.

Wednesday, September 9th - Somewhere in California

2009-09-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

This morning, Sarah and I reached the point where we were seriously looking for a toy store so that we could buy giant nerf bats and go beat each other senseless. Sarah said that I was picking on her. I accused her of trying to kill me. Both claims had some merit. At that point, we kicked the kids out and got into it. Big time. It was like a sit-down of the five mafia families of New York, up in this RV. I wasn’t keeping score but I think I lost.

Actually, I was keeping score and I did, in fact, lose. I hate losing.

The long and short of it was that neither of us had taken any quality alone time recently. Sarah proposed that I had a choice of being dragged behind the RV by my ankles down or disappearing for a couple of hours because she was “all done with my bad attitude”. I unhooked the car and went straight down to the airport which was a few miles south. I walked in and asked if a flight instructor was available. They rustled one up in about 15 minutes and when he arrived, I explained that I wasn’t a student but since I don’t have rental privileges, I wanted to hire him to sit there and let me fly. He was absolutely delighted to do so and to top it off, he is a lifelong local resident. He gave me a fantastic aerial tour of the ‘Hidden Coast’ of California.

The Hidden Coast is so-named because of the massive stretch of federal land which extends from the beach, inland for many miles. The area is unimproved and there are no roads to the water without parking and walking a long ways. On top of this, there are miles of cliffs and at high-tide, the beach disappears and waves smash into the cliffs with surprising force. Apparently the local Coast Guard Station does land office business collecting city folk who are waist deep in water and two miles from their cars. That’s a bad day, right there. One minute you are picking up shells. The next minute, you are holding your cell phone over your head to keep it dry and dialing 911.

We kept our eyes open for Gray whales but didn’t see any. The water is pretty churned up because of the shallow bottom and high surf so you can really only see them when they blow. I did get a great picture of Cape Mendocino, the westernmost point in the lower 48 states. Cool!

I got some interesting pictures of the Scientologist holocaust compound. That is how my pilot tour guide described it. He leans over and in a low voice…”Hey man…uh….you are…uhhh…not a ..uh like a Scientologist, are you?” [That’s a negative, Ghostrider].

He grins. “Ok, well they spent years digging this mountain top out and building a huge bunker. Then they put a very weird shaped building on top of it with crazy triangle roof lines and stuff. It has double concrete-and-steel blast doors too. Wanna see it?” OH YEAH.

So we make a slight detour and start doing lazy circles over the place. It was kind of crazy. The Branch Davidian thing went down when I was a teenager but I can see how this place could become one too. You have a compound with several large buildings at the foot of the mountain. The under ground bunker has paved roads down to the base of the hill and then the road narrows abruptly and turns into a dirt path. I commented on this to my guide who nodded. From the public road, it looks like a dead end dirt track to nowhere and motorists rarely venture up there. After about a mile of poor road conditions, you can see a gate post with barbed wire, cameras, and all kinds of signs telling you to get lost. After the gate post, all the roads are wide and paved up through the compound to the building on top. The blast doors are even protected by a huge balcony. I’m no expert but we are talking *stupid money* to excavate a mountain top and build a reinforced entrance to it. There was a big fuel farm. Both diesel tanks were bigger than the fertilizer tank on our family farm and that one holds 10,000 gallons. Those wacky Scientologists!! They even had a heli-pad so that they can get there quickly. Pic1 Pic2 Pic3 Pic4

I returned the plane and my guide around 2pm and hopped in the car to catch up with the girls. They were well south of me on the coast at a cheese factory. I got to hear all about making cheese but frankly, I had the better day. By an order of magnitude.

We hitched the tow vehicle back up and hit the road for Garberville. The road from Eureka to Garberville (US-101) reminded me that not all of California is civilized and urban. In fact, if you switch the redwood trees for pine trees and the hills for swamps, it is a good deal like being lost in King and Queen county Virginia for about three hours. There are also virtually no RV accommodations along this stretch. The last few campgrounds have taught us to read the online reviews so that we can get a feel for what other people thought of their stays. Thankfully, we were able to discard some of the sad little flop-house type parks along the way without stopping.

Garberville reminds me of portions of upstate New York. You have a sad little hamlet with three trinket shops, a good ‘ole boy in a roadside stand doing chainsaw art, and an ice cream & cappuccino shop which charges $3/scoop and $4/cup, respectively. Regular gas is $3.48/gallon. Internet is via satellite again tonight. The campground imposes a strict ration of 20megabytes per customer, per day. This limit is roughly equivalent to six photos from my camera.

Tomorrow, we are headed to Napa. I’m confident that our internet access and onboard wine inventory are going to improve. Our fuel expenses and lodging expenses are headed the other way. When you read this, we will already be there because I’m almost at my Internet usage limit for the day.

Good Night!

Tuesday September 8 - Redwoods and Eureka

2009-09-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

Tuesday September 8, 2009

Redwood National Forest to Eureka, CA

I think we are getting ‘National Park-ed Out’. The girls are snipping at eachother and so are we. I think we were all pretty disappointed by the campground last night and that set the tone for the next day. When I went to bed last night at 10:30, Kathryn popped her head out of her bunk and wished me good evening. She’s a nightmare when she goes to bed after about 9 or so. I knew today would be interesting. It was.

We drove down coastal highway 101 to Eureka, CA. The redwood forest lines the coast and the park is long and skinny so we were in and out of the park several times over the course of an hour and a half. The Pacific is just beautiful up here. The coast is rugged and rocky with lots of spectacular scenery. Periodically, we would hit banks of fog rolling in off the ocean which looked amazing because the tops of the redwoods would disappear into the fog. Wow.

We took some pretty cool pictures but I don’t know if we did them justice. I’ll get them downloaded when I can.

I play fantasy football. Tonight was my draft night. It is the single most important day of the season for a fantasy player. We combed the big catalog of RV parks carefully to find a campground with broadband Internet and wifi access. I needed my laptop to work perfectly for this all-important event. Most of you probably know that several years ago, some friends and I started a wireless network company. When we sold it, I went to work for the acquiring firm. Now I’m an unemployed bum and I wear a stained white T-shirt, flip-flops, and sweat pants. I still know a lot about Internet systems.

We checked in to this campground in Eureka, CA around 4pm. Once things in the camp were squared away, I had a chat with *all* of the girls about how this was really important to me and I needed to be left alone during the draft. I got my snacks, cold beverages, and I was all ready. I connected to the wifi network and immediately noticed something fishy. The response time when you click the mouse wasn’t right. Pages would pop open quickly after a pause of several seconds. Uh-oh. I got back out of the RV and immediately saw the Star-Band satellite antenna. If you are not familiar with satellite, let me just say that if need high-speed access in the worst kind of way…get Star-Band because it is indeed, the worst kind of way.

The draft went poorly for me. I got ejected from the draft system 19 times and had to log back in each time. I never picked my first three players because I was repeatedly disconnected. The system selected for me and I don’t like the picks.

After the debacle which was my fantasy draft, we rented a pair of giant tricycles which the girls have come to love. The campground in Missoula had these things and they are a hoot to ride. You lay on your back and the pedal is connected to the front wheel. Steering is accomplished by rocking your body left and right. FUN.

We’re in a transitional section of the trip. Northern California has redwood trees. We’ve now seen them. Headed south tomorrow.

Monday, September 7 - Oregon to Crescent City

2009-09-08T16:17:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 07 – Oregon to Crescent City, California

We had called (second) cousin Brett Johnson to meet us in Grants Pass Oregon for lunch. We finally got our act together and pulled out of Aunt Margy’s around 11am and hit the road for Grants Pass to meet up. We had a great visit and said goodbye around 2. It was a very pretty drive down to Crescent City via the Redwood National Forest. I know you have all seen pictures of the giant redwoods. The pictures do not do them justice. Our plan is to tour the forest tomorrow but we got a great preview on the way down the mountain on Rt.199 through the Sierras

When we crossed out of Oregon, we got boarded by representatives of the People’s Republic of California. Sarah was driving and was dragged from the vehicle and held at gunpoint while we were searched for contraband. The children were sobbing and the agents of the fascist state were on us like white on rice. I pulled out my camera to record the whole thing. Visualize trying to get out of East Berlin in the 70’s with a roll of film in your shorts.

…..I guess this is a slight exaggeration, but…..

Seriously though, we did get intercepted by agents of the California Department of Agriculture. The agent was reasonably polite but reminded me of a creepy dude I used to work with. He was also pretty clear that we didn’t get a vote in the matter. I guess I could have said no, just to see what happens. I don’t suppose they have a big room full of uncooperative Virginians in the back… but you never know. Sarah opened the side door for him and he slithered on in with a list of questions about everything edible we had on board. He opened the refrigerator and went through the crisper. Then he reviewed the fresh fruit on the counter and in the cabinets before wishing us a pleasant day and out he went. Sarah kept asking him what he was looking for but he wouldn’t say. I could tell that the supervisor *really* didn’t like me taking pictures of his agent but what was he going to do? The agent was inside my RV after all and I had not violated any law (that they are aware of, anyway.) Pic1 , Pic2 , Pic3 .

Honestly if we hadn’t been on the road for two hours and just completed a very challenging trek down through the mountains into California, I might have just settled in and given him ‘the business’ instead of some cooperation. I considered channeling my inner ‘Edward P. Day” (maternal grandfather) which would have netted me either a red faced apology from the agent…. or a night in the local lockup. (Granddad managed both at least once). He’d have gone down swinging but our alternative was a U-turn and 70 miles back to Oregon. I capitulated.

Anyway, we left the California Stasi agents behind at Checkpoint Charlie and headed on down into the redwood forest. Do you realize that a few of these trees were already tall when Christ was born? Amazing!

We’re at a small campground right on the edge of the redwood forest. They say that they have a ‘playground’ in their ad in the RV catalog. We select this spot for location, playground, and WiFi. We arrive, pay, and ask where the playground is. They direct us to a concrete pad with a basketball goal and a single horse-shoe pit next to it. Taylor and Kathryn were terribly disappointed. The wifi is marginal but works just enough for me not to put my shoes on and go looking for stronger signal.

I walk back to the office. “No Refunds”. You like that? I’m thinking about developing a bad engine oil leak in my camp site or rigging their coin-operated laundry to give extra dryer minutes.

Sunday, September 6th - Crater Lake to Cow Creek

2009-09-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 6^th – Crater Lake to Cow Creek

We all slept in this morning. The girls did because they both kicked off their covers and got cold. We did because we were out late and because we got invaded by cold little people about 4am. I don’t like cold little people. I barely like warm ones at 4am. We had a nice leisurely breakfast together and finally got packed up and under way around 10.

We arrived at Crater Lake around 11 or so. We got out and stepped into absolute misery. It was about 35 degrees and the wind was howling a consistent 30mph. Kathryn took three steps towards the observation deck at the north rim and started right back into the RV. We dragged her out long enough to take a couple of quick pictures at the overlook and then raced each other back to Big Bill. The fog was lower than the peaks and the water was choppy so that you could not see the brilliant blue at all. Even so, it was an impressive sight. Mount Mazama was about 12,000’ originally, according to geologists. When it erupted, it literally blew itself apart. In fact, the park service publication says that enough ash and magma came out of Mazama to cover the entire state of Oregon, 8” thick if you were to spread it out. I think the most captivating thing about Crater Lake is standing there and visualizing how much energy it took to turn a 12,000’ mountain into a 2,000 foot deep hole. Snow melt and rain did the rest, filling the lake with water. I really wish that the weather was better. I would have enjoyed paddling or hiking around the lake but it was brutal up there today.

Oregonian drivers are passive aggressive. They will do something rude and then smile and wave. They know they are being bad. They just don’t want you to have hard feelings about it. Nothing makes an Oregonian happier than passing you on the outside of a turn on a two lane road in a no-passing zone. At the Rim Village overlook at Crater Lake, they filled up all the RV-and-Bus ONLY parking areas with motorcycles and passenger vehicles. Small parking lots are bad enough anyway with a giant RV. When they are filled with Oregonians parking wherever the heck they feel, navigating an RV is intolerable. Picture. The white SUV and the yellow pickup are both parked directly on top of the "RV-BUS ONLY" paint. There is also a low sign next to the white car. Sigh. You might think this was a random occurrence.

I got passed on the shoulder in a 15mph zone for slowing down to cross a huge speed bump. I don’t mean the guy passed me on my shoulder. I mean he raced around me into oncoming traffic and then had to get into the far shoulder to get around. Apparently, I was not going over the speed bump fast enough. Nothing makes an Oregonian madder than an out of state visitor driving the speed limit.

One other interesting thing about Oregonians related to driving that I want to show you. They love a dumb sign. You know how sometimes you see a sign and you’re like, “no…seriously?” I’m going to show you a picture of a common road sign around here. I want you to let your mind free associate. I want you to be on the lookout for hidden meaning, innuendo, and any potential hyperbole. Ready? Picture . Now that you’ve had a moment, tell me what you think. I’m an action-oriented guy. What do you suppose my action item is when I see that? I mean..there is a monstrous pile of rocks behind the sign which is about 250 feet tall. In Yellowstone, the signs said, “Warning, Buffalo Crossing”. Lo and behold, there were like 200 buffalo. That was a darn good sign. Here, I’ve got nothing. Maybe I’m supposed to be on the lookout for native rocks enjoying their natural habitat. With the sign that close, though, I have no time to get the camera ready. Maybe it is some sort of deep symbolism and I’m just missing it. You know the taxpayers spent about $500 per sign to put those things up. I bet I passed one every few minutes for 80 miles.

We got back to Aunt Margy’s house just as the sun came out and the temperature went up by 20 degrees. Figures, huh? She entertained the girls for two hours making Chinese dumplings and then steaming them up for dinner. Dinner was excellent and the girls had a particularly good time with their great aunt. Oh! One other thing. Out here on the west cost, they have a great store that we have been enjoying. It is a chain called 'Fred Meyer'. You seriously have to visit one of these stores if you get the chance. Visualize the home furnishings of Target and the grocery department of Harris Teeter or Wegmans. Throw in two banks, an upscale hair salon, a miniature version of Best Buy, and a Starbucks and you have a Fred Meyer. Its sort of what Walmart could be if you took away the dirt, crappy merchandise, busted shopping carts, and gangs of thugs hanging out in front.

Saturday, September 5th - Diamond Lake

2009-09-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday September 5th, Diamond Lake

We visited several of the waterfalls along the Umpqua River as we headed eastwards towards Diamond Lake. Crystal Falls was the most interesting spot we visited because the river virtually disappears under the thick mat of Douglas fir roots, only to pop out again about fifty feet away as it cascades over the falls. This may be only waterfalls you can actually walk across, right on the precipice.

Unfortunately, we were in a steady driving misty rain for most of the day. We were way overdue for some unpleasant weather. We still visited several water falls but after about the third one, the girls flatly refused to come out of the RV. After touring all day, we got in to Diamond Lake Campground about 5pm.

Aunt Margy very graciously proposed to watch the girls while we went out on a date. Woo-hoo. First date night in five weeks. We headed back to the Steamboat Inn. The format is ‘familiy style’ and they serve one entrée. The lady who took our reservation asked if salmon was ok. I said it was for both of us and then asked, out of curiosity, “what if you don’t like salmon?”. There was a long pause and then she answered, “then the chef will decide something else for you to eat.” [ “Like what?”] “Sir, I have no idea and he doesn’t say. Your choices are wild King salmon, which was caught this morning or ‘something else’”. I was left with little doubt that if the chef had to fix an obstreperous diner something other than the planned entrée, it was going to be sub-standard fare at full price. [“Salmon for two, please”] “Very good sir”.

It was a neat time though. We met some nice folks from Bend, OR and enjoyed their company over the best salmon I have ever eaten. Pan-blackened and then broiled slowly. It was absolutely out of this world and I’m not a big salmon eater.

We headed on back to Diamond Lake camp around 10pm, stuffed and happy.

When you pull in to Diamond Lake camp, there is a stop sign at the guard house which was obviously closed for the night. The shades were all drawn, lights off, and the gate was propped open. Now if you are presented with a stop sign which is bolted to an obviously closed gate house and a wide open gate, does the stop sign count? Of course it doesn’t. The ranger sitting 100 yards beyond the gate house disagreed. Now if he wants to be on duty, why would he not sit in the guard house, turn the lights on, and act like he is keeping us safe. In a campground with over 200 spots, I refuse to believe that the best use of his time was to hide in a vacant campsite and monitor a barely visible stop sign which does not appear to be in play. I didn’t get a ticket which was almost more annoying. I got the naughty little boy lecture about how he could write me a ticket and he has been writing tickets tonight and could easily write me a ticket for running the stop sign. Officer Cooper, I know you are reading this. No need to comment.

I wanted to tell him that my lawyer brother could whip his commonwealths’ attorney, nine ways to Sunday, but didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I think that deep down, he sensed this intuitively, and did the right thing by letting me go.

Friday, September 4th - Umpqua River

2009-09-05T11:53:00.001-07:00

Friday, September 4th – Newport to Umpqua River OR

We packed out of Newport’s South Beach campground around 6am. It is tough to find ‘us’ time on this trip because the kids are omni-present. We’ve discovered that we get about an hour if we get up early and this has consistently been a very sweet time for us. Sarah usually gets up early and will click on the hot water heater and then make coffee. About the time the coffee is done, she’ll jump into the shower and I’ll get the coffee all fixed up. We can be on the road within about 20-30 minutes of waking up and then we get an uninterrupted hour to visit, plan, debrief, and just chat.

There are really only two good reasons to get up early. One is golf. The other is hunting. I’ve managed to spend the last fifteen years following this rule but the last couple of weeks have led me to add ‘coffee with Sarah’ to the list.

We got into Roseburg, Oregon mid-morning and hooked up with Aunt Margy. We left Roseburg headed east along the Umpqua river towards Crater Lake. We stopped in at various scenic sites and picnicked along the Umpqua, which was just beautiful.

Later on in the afternoon, we stopped in at Susan Creek campground. I have never seen a grove of old-growth Douglas fir trees and this campground was full of them. I think Sarah will agree that this is the best campsite we have enjoyed in the last five weeks. The sites were secluded such that you really couldn’t see the campers on either side of you. We hiked down along the Umpqua river and climbed out onto some large rocks in the stream. According to what I have read, the Upper Umpqua is a top-10 trout river in the US. I do have a fly rod but am not really outfitted. The problem I’ve struggled with is that we are sometimes in a state for only a day or two. When I have seen some tempting water, I’m never sure what is biting and I can’t reasonably afford to buy a fishing license in every single state…and certainly not for 15-20 minutes of fishing. I’m not saying I have ever broken the reasonable and well written fishing regulations in these various states. I’m just saying that should some game warden accuse me of something I probably wasn’t doing, I would be more tempted to pay the fine than come back and fight the aforementioned accusation. Right?

I built a bonfire and the girls roasted marshmellows. Aunt Margy brought her other guitar and we had the best time playing together around the fire. We went to bed early and woke up to heavy rain showers. Good thing I folded up all those camp chairs and put them away last night….or not.

We’re eating lunch at the Steamboat Inn along the river. It has been serving fishermen for over a hundred years and has more recently become more of a fine-dining establishment. The tables are single logs, about 4 inches thick and several feet wide. Very cool.

We’re off to Crater Lake. Cheers!

Thursday, September 3rd - Newport, OR

2009-09-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 3rd – Newport, OR

I have a peeve. If you find yourself annoyed by what I have to say, it is because you are guilty of it too. I’m not sorry for saying this but I do apologize if your feelings are hurt. If your feelings are hurt, I suggest you give this some thought.

I’m not some important guy whose time is super valuable or anything. I do like to think that I make good use of the time I have. That is why if get so freaking irritated by people who are unable to plan far enough ahead so that they don’t waste my time. There are a few certainties in this world. One is that when you get to the front of the supermarket checkout line, the cashier will say, “Do you have your bonus card”. The cashier will also give you your total and then stand there while you hand over the money. Folks, grocery store checkout is a very consistent activity. You know exactly what to expect. Every store is the same way. Give your bonus card, ring up the groceries, pay. Very straight forward. Listen to me. This is important: After you have been given your total is NOT the time to begin looking for money, your card, and your 25 cent coupon. It sends me straight up the wall when a person gets up to the cashier and seems to be surprised that they need to get out their money.

I’m just saying that if there were three people in front of you, you have had PLENTY of time to find your bonus card, locate your checkbook, and if you are REALLY considerate, you will make out the check. Do you know why this is important? You do, don’t you. It’s because the person behind you just watched you enjoying a guilty peek at Cosmo while pretending that you weren’t and now they have to wait while you get ready to pay. People…grocery stores have had the card swiper thing for about 15 years now. If you don’t want to join the plastic generation, that’s fine. Just read about Britney Spears after you have your check filled in.

You think this diatribe is about a grocery store trip this morning. It is not. I am going to apply the came concept to the campground though. Like the grocery store, there are lots of goods. (in this case, camp spots). There are also constrained resources in a grocery store like managers and checkout lines. In our campground example, we are short on rangers and waste dump stations. This brings me to the problem this morning.

I had the campground version of the disorganized shopper. I’ll spare you the details but when the guy in front of you has a hay that says, “Retired Old Fart”, you know two things for sure: #1, he is not an operator because operators won’t admit to being old or being farts…and… #2, you can also bet that if he’s crass enough to put it on his hat, he doesn’t care about you or your opinions. There was a line at the waste dump station. The young guy up front is out of there lickety split. He was very efficient. The “old fart” pulls up. Now he has been in line for a few minutes. Considerate campers get all ready, including putting on their disposable gloves and so forth. Not this guy. He wanders around. Then he slowly looks down the big waste hatch for a moment. You know what’s down there so I have no insight as to what he was doing but the point is, he sat doing nothing for several minutes and then when its go-time (pardon the pun), he curmudgeons around like he’s puttering in his basement on a rainy Saturday..

I’ll spare you the pain. It went on and on, up to and including a cell phone call before he pulled the valve to start dumping. I, and the others in line, had to wait while he yakked on is phone. Once he finished the call, then he started discharging his wastewater. I call these folks “Obliviots”, which, I think, fits the underlying issue. People, if you are in a good long line at the grocery store, use that time to prepare so that you don’t let that whole ‘have to pay’ thing sneak up on you. If you are guilty and you know it, give some thought to the people behind you who work for a living and pay their babysitters by the half-hour. Thanks.

Sorry for the diatribe. That one had been building for a while.

So later in the day, we headed off to the Sea Lion Caves. These are massive basalt caves formed into the cliffs down below Waldport, OR along the Pacific Coast Highway and ostensibly full of sea lions. They were not. Having created and run a small business, I get the fact that you must carry on when you are tight on cash or whatever your resource problems are. In this case, we shelled out $32 to go down into the caves, just to find that all the sea lions were out in the ocean. Don’t get me wrong. The cave formations were interesting. I guess I was just disappointed that we paid the money and went down into these volcanic caves where the ocean water came crashing in just to have a tour guide say, “well they aren’t in right this second but that big flat shelf above the waterline is where they lay around”.

Great. We got to see where the sea lions sleep. Swell. Visualize going on safari in Africa and having the guide say, “See that carcass? That’s where lions had dinner last week. Thanks for coming. Visit our gift shop please!” It was a bust. I paid with a credit card and was mentally prepared to ask for a refund and if they did not agree, calling Mastercard and disputing the charges. I know that they cannot control the sea lions but if you advertise “come see the sea lions at sea lion caves” and you got no sea lions, its time for a new plan.

Anyway, I had my mind made up to ask for our money back as we walked back to the car when a pod of grey whales started surfacing right in front of the caves. They were migrating north up the coast towards Alaska and at least one was surfacing and blowing about every minute. The visit was technically a bust but I’d have paid somebody $32 bucks to show all of us some whales. After enjoying the whales for 15 minutes or so, I didn’t have the moxy to work on a refund. We left but if you are ever headed down Rt.101 along the ocean and decide to visit Sea Lion Caves, make sure the lions are IN the caves first. Otherwise, it is not a good deal.

As we went to bed, I nearly got into a fight with the guy in the next camp. At the last minute, I did the right thing and went to get the ranger but I sure didn’t want to. He’d been cursing and carrying on for about an hour and I was all done. You don’t treat women like that. He called his wife the ‘B’ word several times and was screaming at his daughter for having a piece of chocolate before dinner. The guy had a wire loose somewhere. I jumped up and grabbed my flopflops, then opted for my new boots because they would leave a nice tread pattern his forehead. Sarah asked me where I was going and I didn’t answer. She says, “well then I’m coming too.” I said no and went outside for a good deep breath. Then I got on my bike and rode the half mile to the ranger station. You see, the problem with bullies is that you cannot win. I had no doubt about my ability to square him away. He was getting nastier by the minute and had started cursing at the people on the other side of him when they asked him to settle down. I know the kind though. I would ask him in over-polite terms to chill. Then he’d get up and want to have a go at me because he thinks he’s tough. It wouldn’t have worked out for him. Then he’d call the sheriff and press charges against me for assault. All cowards are this way. Luckily, a park ranger on patrol actually got there just as I got back on my bike. I don’t know what was said but we didn’t hear another peep from him.

I’m actually a little sorry that we were in a civilized campground full of witnesses. I would like to know if he was as tough as he fancied himself.

Meeting up with my Aunt Margy tomorrow. Night!

Wednesday, September 2nd - Newport, OR

2009-09-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 2 – Newport, OR

We had a pretty short ride from McMinnville down to Newport, OR. We joined the Pacific Coast Hwy 101 at Lincoln City and enjoyed the last 30 mile with views of the beach and ocean. After crossing the big bridge at Newport over the Yaquina river, we found campground and settled in. This is a great spot and I think we will probably stay another day. The campground was full of young kids and our campsite adjoined the play area.

After a quick lunch, we packed off to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. For you east-coasters (which are most of this blog’s followers) it was nowhere near as crowded or as busy as the National Aquarium in Baltimore and was a good bit smaller. For our girls, it was just perfect. The touching pool had all kinds of critters to study, including two small sharks. The girls had a ball. Afterwards, we went back to the state park campground and turned the girls loose. You know those signs which say, “Do not tap on the glass. It is mating season and the noise will greatly agitate the otters”. I didn’t tap but sure wanted to. Does anybody else want to tap on the glass too just to see what happens? How often do you get to see an agitated otter?

Right after dinner, we broke out the bikes and went for a good long ride. The folks in the next campsite told us that it was low tide and we should ride down to the beach so we did that. Taylor is riding well now on her big girl bike and Kathryn rides on a trailer bike which is hitched to my mountain bike. This is a great system and I highly recommend it if you have one riding kid and one who isn’t ready yet.

Anyway, we headed down to the beach. Maybe some of you folks have seen a big west coast beach but this one was amazing. At dead low tide, the waves are hitting about a quarter mile from the dunes. It takes forever to walk to the water’s edge. We walked out there because I wanted to put my hands in the Pacific ocean and make our cross country trip official. We were in Puget Sound earlier this week but that’s not the same somehow. Anyway, we walk and walk to get to the water. Now the thing about a beach this wide is that it is *very* flat. You hardly have any sense of the sand sloping down towards the water. In fact, it seems a lot more like a sandy parking lot.

By the time we get down there, the tide was just starting to come in. The girls wrote their names in the sand while we watched the sun set. I can’t ever remember seeing a Pacific sunset before and it was very pretty. Remember what I said about the beach being nearly perfectly flat? The downside is that when the first couple of good waves come in on the rising tide, they run straight across a flat beach. Kathryn was probably 50 feet closer to the water than Sarah and I, piling . All of the sudden, a good wave hits the beach and runs across the ground at jogging speed. Kathryn was facing back towards us and in a split second, she went from standing on dry packed sand to being knee deep in water. The look on her face was priceless. She stood there quivering with no less than 5 pounds of sand in her pant cuffs, socks, and shoes. Good parents would have run into the water and scooped her up. We aren’t good parents. We burst out laughing. She didn’t cry though, she just looked confused. I mean…one second she was a long ways from the water and then suddenly, she was knee deep. When the wave receded, I took her by the hand and started the long walk back to the bikes. If I ever do an RV trip again, I will have a warm-water wash-down outside. The water in Oregon is about 60 degrees on the beach and we were all chilled when we got back. The we had to use cold tap water to rinse off our feet. It was very odd to see folks on the beach wearing sweat shirts, pants, and wind breakers. It is not even Labor Day and the water is in the low 60’s all the time. Nobody swims in this water for obvious reasons.

Back to the RV and bedtime for everyone. It was a great day.

Tuesday, September 1 - McMinnville, OR

2009-09-01T22:25:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 1 – McMinnville, OR

Today, our odyssey is 25% complete with three months to go. I knew that our campground here in McMinnville, OR had an aviation museum next door and a walking path between the two properties. What I didn’t know is that the Evergreen Aviation Museum is the current home of the Spruce Goose. If you didn’t know, the Spruce Goose was a Pentagon-funded project undertaken by Howard Hughes in 1942 which mandated a huge aerial transport plane which could land on water and did not use any primary war materials (steel or aluminum). I wanted to see the ‘Goose. It is enormous. It only flew one time for about a half mile right near the end of WWII and changed hands several times before coming to roost in McMinnville, Oregon. After breakfast, we set off on our bikes.

The Evergreen Museum is a beautiful facility consisting of three large buildings and featuring an Imax auditorium. Want to know how much it cost to see an Imax show and visit the museum? $32 per adult and $28 per kid. Oh. The best part? You have to pay an extra $5 to walk through the Goose. After paying $32 to enter the museum, you have to pay an extra $5 to actually see the star exhibit.

We took a pass. There were enough planes to see outdoors around the property that I felt good just paying $10 for the Imax show and skipping the museum entrance fee. You aviation enthusiasts are going to love this. Want to know what they had parked out front? A Boeing 747. That’s right. The Big Dog. I rode all around it on my bike. Climbed up and sat in the intake of the jet engine. Stood next to the landing gear. How often will I get a chance to do that? Ready for the best part? Evergreen Logistics, which is a global air transport and aviation support company, is the parent and primary sponsor of the Evergreen Aviation Museum. Evergreen is the donor of the 747 which is a worn out freighter. The plan is to start construction in a couple of months of a gigantic water park adjacent to the aviation museum and the 747 jumbo jet will be mounted on a pedestal way up in the air. All of the water slide entrances will be in the body of the jet. Water park patrons will walk up the steps into the jet and then walk down through the cargo hold and jump into different slides which shoot you out of the body of the plane.

I told the docent that I’m no expert but if a brand new jet costs about $330 million bucks, then the parts on a worn out one have to be worth several million. Trust me. Parts for old airplanes cost about fifty times what you think they should cost. (On this point, I am an expert.) He just laughed and said that having a water park made out of a Boeing jumbo jet was projected to make way more money than a parted out hulk. He went on to say that there are actually dozens and dozens of old worn out 747’s around and parts availability is not a big problem. Turns out that the docent was a Navy captain and fighter pilot from the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. He flew F-4’s off of carriers back in the day. I enjoyed chatting with him and seeing the outdoor exhibits but I wasn’t going to cough up the $120 necessary to get my family into the museum today. If we had one more kid, it would be cheaper to buy a family annual membership to the museum than to pay for five people. I don’t get their pricing strategy.

The girls really enjoyed the new playground at the museum (no fee required) which was the coolest one I’ve ever seen while I had fun climbing on the jumbo jet.

Before leaving to see the planes, I walked over to the office and told them that we wanted to stay for an extra day. The lady behind the counter made those clucking noises that only disapproving older ladies can make. You know the sound I’m talking about, right? It is sort of a quick breath intake, tongue click and then a short but loud exhale? I can’t do it and neither can you… but you know what I’m talking about.

“Well sir, I don’t know….{clucking noise}”

[ Well Ma’am, if you don’t have a spot, just let me know and we’ll check out ].

“Well now I have to look at *all* the reservations in that computer thing”.

[ “Yes Ma’am. So is that a ‘No’ ??” ]

{more clucking} “I’ll have to see what I can do but I just don’t know….”

[ “Ma’am, I passed two or three campgrounds on the way in to town. It’s no big deal if you are full. I’m glad to see how busy your campground is.” ]

{one good emphatic cluck and a pair of ‘tsk’s’} “Sir, I just don’t know. You see, we have a lot going on and I don’t have all the check-outs done and so I’m not sure.”

[ “No problem. We’ll go ahead and pack. I appreciate your checking” ]

{rapid fire clucking now with the occasional hiss } “OK, you can stay but you have to move to spot 242”.

[ “well ummm… 242 appears to be identical to 262 where I am currently set up, only one row down. Could I just stay where I am and you put the new arrival in 242??” ]

{ The clucking has shifted into overdrive } “SIR IF YOU WANT TO STAY, YOU WILL NEED TO MOVE TO 242. That is about all I can do for you”. The storm passes. The strange noises stop. She obviously feels better about life. Me too. I smile. She smiles. I turn to leave. The next person steps up….”I would like to stay another day”.

I have got to start carrying a voice recorder. How often do you get a shot at instant replay?

We had lunch at McD’s, per the kids’ request for “good lunch food” and then we all visited Adelsheim vineyards and a Wine & Cheese shop in town. If you didn’t know, Sarah has a cheese addiction. Like other addicts, she has a dealer who provides her fix. Unfortunately, Jeffrey and his shop, The Frenchman’ s Corner, are in Culpeper. Sarah was in a bad way. We hit a shop on the main drag which had a modest selection and some new things to try. The girls were happy with a movie on the computer so Sarah and I had time to visit with the shop owners and sample some of their featured offerings.

We bought a couple of selections and sat down at one of the tables to enjoy them. The first cheese was excellent. Sadly, neither of us can find the name of the cheese now but it was a semi-soft French cow’s milk cheese which neither of us had heard of and we really enjoyed it. The second selection was called Ardrahan. It is not good cheese. It is actually worse than cheese from an aerosol can. Words cannot adequately describe how crappy this cheese was. We are adventurous cheese eaters and have tried some strange tasting cheeses. We are not connoisseurs, but we are open-minded. This cheese was so bad that I am struggling for adjectives which won’t offend you. The owner told us that it was a firm, chalky Irish farm cheese with “hints of chestnut and boiled peanuts.” In fact, it had hints of dairy barn floor and rotten pine logs. If you are offered Ardrahan cheese in a polite setting, man I don’t know what to tell you. Good luck with that.

We’re off to Oregon Coast aquarium tomorrow. If things go well, we will also hit the Sea Lion caves along the beach.

Night!

Monday, August 31st - Washington to Oregon

2009-08-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Monday August 31, 2009

This morning we said goodbye to Bev and the wonderful folks at Summertide in Tahula, WA. Go see these folks. Seriously. Where else have you ever been where you can pick up Hood Canal oysters at low tide and dig your own clams for dinner?

We all got up about 7am this morning and went down to the beach to walk along at low tide before packing up. I use the term ‘beach’ loosely for the folks back home. Beach here requires sturdy soles because you are walking on a living oyster reef. Barnacles and shells make it a place you don’t want to stumble and fall down. Well after a few moments, Kathryn started wimpering about how cold it was and so Sarah took her back to the camper. Taylor, on the other hand was so excited to be up and prowling the beach that we eventually had to drag her out of there. We gave her a little bucket, shovel, and rake. We found dozens of starfish, little stone crabs, clams, oysters, baby eels, hermit crabs, and snails in all shapes and sizes. Within about a half hour, she had filled a bucket up with her “treasures” as she termed them.

We walked back to the camper together and I found a big plastic basin for her to spread them all out in. She had the best time talking to her critters, organizing them, and showing them to Kathryn. Sarah walked her down and helped her turn them all loose just before we checked out and hit the road.

The camper and the car were both out of gas. I took this picture to commemorate our very first $200 fillup. You like that?

That was about all we did today. Pack up and leave Summertide and drive to McMinnville, Oregon. We arrived at a really nice RV park and hit the pool. Tomorrow, we will tour a winery nearby and visit the ‘Spruce Goose’ which is housed just down the street. Goose was Howard Hughes gigantic wooden airplane and I’m looking forward to seeing it tomorrow morning.

I think we are all a little bit road weary. We’ve been kind of cranky with each other the last day or two. The kids have been acting out and I think we’re experiencing some fatigue. Shortly, we’re going to sit down and rethink the pace of the trip. While we do want to see lots of cool stuff and really take advantage of this opportunity, it won’t be as enjoyable if we’re all struggling to get up, pound the miles, and see every sight. We are going to slow a bit for the next couple of days. We are just south of Portland now and we don’t have to be anywhere until Friday or Saturday when we hook up with my Aunt Marguerite who lives in Azalea.

Hope everybody is well back home. We miss you all.

Sunday, August 30th - Its the ropes and the reigns, the joy and the pains...

2009-08-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

We drove up to Belfair to go to church this morning. It was ok. You know when you walk in to a church and nobody greets you and you sort of drift on out without talking to anyone? That was this church. I don’t mean this in a negative way but when you have half your seats empty and you can’t get organized enough to locate and greet visitors, your seats will remain…half-empty. One older gentleman noticed Sarah and said hello just as she hit the door and walked out to say hi to me as well but I found it kind of sad. The preacher was from Nigeria and did a decent (albeit rambling) job with 2nd Chronicles. I do enjoy the pronunciation and cadence of west African English speakers. "TH" sounds are replaced with "D's" Short E's are pronounced with long E's. I could listen to him all day.

Afterwards, we rode up towards Bremerton to see what was going on. You are not going to believe this. The Kitsap County Fair was in full swing and today, was featuring a Professional Bull Riders (PBR) event called “Extreme Bulls”. As we rode past the fair grounds, we see that Bucky Covington (American Idol finalist) was opening for Eddie Money. Folks, when you have Bucky opening for Eddie and Extreme Bull Riding, you go to four wheel lockup and swerve off the road. You make a quick U-turn in the median strip, and you go there. Post Haste. Here’s a tip. I don’t care what the activity is. If it is sponsored by Dodge Trucks, Wrangler Jeans, Justin Boots, and Featherlite Cattle Trailers, you want to be there. There is nothing to think about.

I think I had two of the best hours on this trip today. We did stick out like sore thumbs at the rodeo. I was wearing a blue knit shirt and khakis from church. Sarah was the only woman there who didn’t have some of her underwear showing. People looked at us funny. I felt like we had made a wrong turn and accidently entered a blue jean and calico convention. I noticed a guy behind and to my left who was wearing West Virginia University logos. I said hello and struck up a conversation with him. I asked him if he was a big West Virginia football fan. He said that he was. I asked him if he was a true fan. He said he was. I asked him if he brought batteries and golfballs to throw at the bulls. He looked puzzled. I said, “isn’t that how West Virginia treats all of their opponents?” He gave me a dirty look. He turned out to be a really nice guy though. He actually went to Navy and left the service when he was posted at submarine base Bangor which is only a couple of miles away. It was nice to chat with somebody who knew where Culpeper was, so far from home. Besides myself, I think he was the only other person there who wasn’t armed. Say what you want but at this event, people could safely drop a wallet or leave their bags and nobody would touch them. Just try that at a Puff Daddy Concert.

It was a hoot though. I mean…when you have fellas named Cody, Hal, Buddy, and Bo riding bulls named: One Eyed Willy, Swamp Donkey, Scrambled Eggs, Getting Lucky, and Slum Dawg, it is going to be good. We were not even slightly disappointed. The people watching was nearly as exciting as the cowboys getting stomped. The announcer had me in tears from the get-go and it got better as it went along. “See dat big ‘ole hump on dee cow’s neck, people? Yeh see dat hump? Dang bull swallered a rodeo clown last week and de clown is still up in ‘dar'. Its not a muscle, its a clown"

During breaks or for the few minutes it took to extricate the bull which managed to get halfway over the railing before getting stuck, the clowns would put on a show. At one point, a clown pulled out a black fedora, glasses, and a single silver white glove to parody Michael Jackson. It was particularly funny because the clown was an excellent dancer. If you are a Michael Jackson fan, don’t bother emailing me to say so. I’ll just make fun of you.

I have no pictures. We were in such a rush to park, get tickets, and get to the rodeo that I left my iPhone in the car and, brilliantly, had left the regular camera on the dashboard of the RV, 40 miles away. I am sure I will make more mistakes on this trip but that one is a top-10, right there. You would have loved the pics. I have never wanted to be a cowboy but I can understand why young men do it. Most guys need to believe that deep down, they have an inner tough guy. I watched one of those PBR riders for a few minutes. He's tougher than I am....by an order of magnitude. When his number came up, he climbed over the fence and sat down on a bull named "West Coast Offense" which is 1400 lbs and hates his guts. I said he was tougher than I am. I didn't say he was smarter.....

The girls were worn out by the time it was over and we headed back to cook the clams I gathered up early this morning. Last thing about the rodeo that I loved....Drinks were a dollar. I mean like a frosty cold Coca-Cola...$1. Cotton Candy was $1.50. Soft Pretzels for $1.25. You can't eat at home that cheap.

Ok. I have a last, last thing about the rodeo. At the beginning of the event, there was a parade of dressed up cowgirls carrying American flags. They rode in and then lined up in formation. Then, all 2500 of us sang God Bless America. Then there was a recorded speech by John Wayne talking about why this is the greatest land on earth. At the end of the John Wayne speech, all 2500 of us sang the national anthem. I don't mean that we listened or mouthed the words. I mean that 2500 people put their hands on their hearts and *sang*. Every head was uncovered. I'm sorry that more whiny American apologists don't come to events like this and meet real people who love this nation and aren't afraid to sing 'God Bless America'. Man was I proud to be among good folk like this on such a beautiful afternoon.

There was a really nice couple in the campground. He was a commercial fisherman from Alaska. They took us under their wings and taught us how not to look like clueless easterners. She is a school teacher so they left Sunday before we had a chance to say goodbye. Hopefully they will check out the blog. If so, thanks so much Steve and Betty. It was a really pleasure meeting you!

Also, a HUGE ‘thank you’ to Bev and Summertide RV and Marina in Belfair, WA. Bev was super friendly and had plenty of great suggestions for us. If you are headed through, it is well worth the stop.

We had a ‘sit-down’ with the girls yesterday. Both of them have developed a case of the backtalking. Sarah and I conferred and then we brought the girls in and explained the new rules. Zero strikes and zero tolerance. First back-talk earns you 15 minutes in the “thinking corner”. The thinking corner is the rearward facing inside seat on the dinette. There is nothing to do and you can’t really see out the windows.

One kid got a turn in the thinking corner just once. (I’ll let you guess which kid) and then both of them decided that arguing and backtalk wasn’t a very attractive option. I guess it was a victory when Sarah told Kathryn that she had to eat her whole dinner before she could have more pasta. Kathryn says, “Does that include these three lettuce leaves?” [ Yes Kathryn ] “Mommy, do I have to enjoy the lettuce while I eat it?” [ “No Sweetheart, you don’t.”] “Ok. I am going to eat it but I will not enjoy it” [ “ok then” ]

We held it together, but it was tough.

Saturday - August 29th. Tahuya WA. Turning the Corner

2009-08-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you hit the jackpot. You wouldn’t ride by and think this is a great spot. It is situated with about 12 campsites on one side of a sleepy country road. A small store, marina, and beach are across the street.

The campground-marina (“Summertide Resort”) is full of cheerful, friendly folks. We arrived with very little regard for Washington State. I don’t mean that there aren’t nice folk here. I just mean that we had yet to meet any. That changed abruptly when we pulled in.

The owner, a lady, rushed right out to help us get situated and stopped traffic on the little road while I backed out and turned around to get set up properly. Noticing the girls, she marched us right down to the beach and showed us how to find clams, oysters, and offered one of her Dungeness Crab pots so that we might try our hands at crabbing. What a sweetheart! We are located on Hood Canal which is a natural deep water trench. It is fed by several small creeks and connects out to Puget Sound. If this were Scotland, it would be called a large Loch. Another lady with kids slightly older than ours came over to say hello while we were on the beach and gave us a quick run-down on the area. She pointed out Bill Gates weekend house across the water and the Nordstrom family compound a little further up. She also corrected us on the correct types of clams to eat. Apparently you want “Butter Clams” versus the larger dark grey ones.

The water is cold but didn’t deter the girls from splashing around on the beach and piling up small stones instead of sand for their castles. It was a very relaxing day. I ran up to the grocery store because I had no confidence in the Dungeness pot (which was wise) and got one big crab and some scallops for dinner. Taylor had been talking about scallops for about 1500 miles. She wanted scallops in Michigan. She wanted scallops in Wyoming. We really worked to explain that you want scallops and crabs in seaside towns and not in burger & rib joints in the mid-west. Yes, yes,…globalization and frozen seafood and location doesn’t really matter, etc etc. I know. However, since the seafood trade is indeed significant in Seattle, you really can find high quality shellfish inexpensively and I brought some nice stuff home for dinner. Taylor finally got her scallops. I grilled them with bacon and they were awesome. The only thing was that as soon as Taylor got a bite of my Dungeness crab, she didn’t want any more scallops. She wanted my crab. I gave her some and ate half of her scallops. It wasn’t a good trade. The crab was spectacular and I had some Old Bay in the spice cabinet.

We met a nice couple a few campsites down who are in their early 50’s and keep their camper at this campground for the season. He is a machinist at Boeing and had all kinds of interesting stories to tell about that facility. She’s a teacher. I always enjoy meeting people. Sarah, on the other hand, will make friends with a fire hydrant if she has to but is going to fill her need for socialization. We chatted with them for several hours and said good night.

Props to Sarah. We did not intend to stay here. We were deluded in thinking that we could just show up to a state campground right near Seattle the last week of the the summer without a reservation. When both local state parks politely told us that we were out of luck, a kindly ranger suggested we drive down here to Tahuya. It was 14 miles out of the way and worth ever gallon that Big Bill sucked down to get here. This was one of those accidental discoveries that makes this trip so rich and memorable. After a while, all the state parks run together. This place has character....and characters!

Friday August 28th – Ellensburg, W

2009-08-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

Friday August 28th – Ellensburg, WA

This was a travel day. We made it to Ellensburg, WA and located a working ranch which had about 10 RV hookups in the back pasture. It could not have been more excellent.

The ranch owner came over and introduced herself. She told us which of her critters were friendly (the goat, the two sheep, etc) and which were not: six bulls and an Appaloosa horse with a bad attitude.

We grocery shopped, caught up on vehicle cleanup and turned in early. We did get the bikes out and rode around. The Yakima river runs right past the back of the ranch and we rode down to the river. According to the owner, the river is slam full of big rainbow trout but I literally didn’t have the energy to find out.

The thing I’m learning about trout waters is that you have to know what flies are spawning. Otherwise, the fish just laugh at you.

The ride to Ellensburg was really pretty. We literally crossed a high desert. I didn't realize that Washington had this type of terrain but it was just scrub and rolling rocky terrain to the horizon in both directions. Then, without warning, we passed a sign which said, "Entering the Columbia Basin Bureau of Land Management Reclamation Project". Moments later, we are seeing an irrigation system on every square inch of some very lush green farmland. It was startling. The thing which was new to me was the canal system. The BLM excavated a whole network of inland ditches which are just a couple of feet deep and maybe 15' wide which run for miles and miles. These ditches are fed by gigantic pumps out of the Columbia river.

As a farm kid, it was interesting to see all the types of irrigation equipment. Center pivots, reel type, rolling pipeline, and so forth...everywhere. Within a few minutes, we left scrub desert and entered commercial production corn, alfalfa, wheat, and a few crops I actually could not identify. You'll laugh but I think I saw one giant snap-bean field. Several hundred acres of snap beans. It was just amazing.

Out!