The Texas landscape subtly shifted as we drove east from Guadalupe Mountains National Park, from the open desert into the lusher Hill Country.  I hadn’t really been focusing on our overnight in the Hill Country or the following stretch in Austin, because I would be gone for four days of our Texas time to return only to tag out with Flight so he could go on a trip.

After our departure from GMNP, we stayed in Pedernales Falls State Park for just one night.  We explored the local Pedernales River before grabbing one of our only dinners all together at The Salt Lick.  I was happy to stay dry, maybe dipping my toes in the river, while the rest of the family went all in.  Almost literally.

Flight and Keeper found the perfect rock from which to experience the newly popular spa treatment of having fish eat dead skin from their feet.  I was able to try this out while we were in Cabo just after New Year’s and, frankly, it weirded me out.

I did okay with the experience until the wee fish swam in between my toes and then I had to resist the urge to yank my feet out of the buffet line.

Flight and Keeper almost giggled in response to that same sensation with their feet dangling in the river.  I shook off the willies as I remembered that feeling as it most certainly exceeded my comfort level.  At least they weren’t paying to be weirded out…

After a relaxing afternoon spent by the river, we packed up and returned to the campsite to change out of swimsuits before grabbing our first Texas BBQ.  This well-worn menu captures The Salt Lick’s uncomplicated essence.

Two things this menu doesn’t mention: they were out of bison (bummer) and you have to specify what variety of BBQ you’d prefer from burnt, lean, and moist.  We ordered some of each among Keeper, Flight, and me, and I preferred the burnt offerings.

The moist was too much and the lean simply wasn’t enough.  Just what quality I’m describing, I’m sure I don’t know.  Nor do I speak the technical jargon, but I preferred the crispy burnt morsels the best.

The next morning, the family ran me over to the Austin airport and I flew back to DC for my Navy drill weekend.  My drill weekend last fall had most certainly thrown me for a loop and I was curious to see if I would have a similar visceral reaction to being back in the house. I knew I wouldn’t be there too much longer than the hours I would be sleeping, and made the opportunity to see family and a friend or two during my few unscheduled waking hours.

Fortunately my time in Maryland wasn’t nearly as traumatic as the last go around and I think that can mostly be attributed to our collective understanding that we would not be returning to resume our lives there.  I was able to collect a few wayward items forgotten in our hasty departure and return outgrown clothes, completed books, and other superfluous items.

Drill weekend passed uneventfully, although I had a general pit in my stomach while away from my family.  I attribute my unease to missing three sizable appendages. I have easily become accustomed to being around my kids 24/7 and felt their absence most acutely.  I know that despite sometimes longing for some alone time I will look back on our travels as a sweet spot in our growth as a family.

While I was in Maryland, I made it a point to visit with my Academy roommate and her family.  Lunch with her was one of the appointments I had to cancel to depart our house earlier than anticipated as we redeployed to Davista.  Their teenage son is a budding chef and I got to watch him make Phad Thai for our dinner, which was exceptional.  I also popped over to visit our cousins and our Aunt who was in town visiting them.

My last day in Maryland was actually pretty exciting as I got to cross something off my bucket list when I climbed the Naval Academy Chapel Dome.

The climb mostly involved crawling though the bowels of the magnificent Chapel dome, which is really a dome within a dome and at one point I felt as though I was scaling the interior of a chimney.

Seriously.

Intently ignoring the odd ways I contorted myself along the trek, I was rewarded with a most spectacular view at the top.

I was thrilled to have made the climb with a dear friend from my Academy teaching days.

I popped into the Midshipman Store before leaving the Yard and ran into a friend and classmate from back in the day.

Her husband had just taken orders to teach at the Academy and their son is getting ready to graduate next month before going to nuclear power school to become a submariner. As our oldest is in 6^thgrade, contemplating his college graduation is pretty mind blowing.  I dashed off to one more meeting at the Acupuncture Clinic at Joint Base Andrews (they have one – how cool is that?!) before sprinting to catch my flight.

And then I was back home with my family.  The unease I felt during my absence instantly melted away once I rejoined them outside the Austin airport.  As Flight would need to commute to Boston the next night, we made plans to enjoy our one full day in Austin en famille.

The day started with road-schooling activities while camping outside of Franklin BBQ.

In the middle of our schooling, a kind fellow from Franklin’s came down the line asking for general orders to ensure there would be enough of the BBQ to go around.  Although I do not claim to be a BBQ aficionado, Franklin’s was, hands-down, the very best I have ever eaten.  It was crazy good.  Perfectly tender, flavorful, every variety (moist, lean, and crispy) was scrumptious.

Happily sated stuffed, we drove to Barton Springs to while away the afternoon perched on the banks of a local swimming hole.

One of the things I enjoy most about our travels is seeing how locals take advantage of where they live to recreate.  Arriving in the early afternoon, Barton Springs was populated with a wide range of bathers.  The spring fed lagoon was awash with a handful of serious swimmers, identifiable by their sleek caps and goggles, mechanically churning out lap after lap in the elongated pool.

Throughout the pool there were also plenty of waders, like our family, whose intent was far less measured and simply delighted in the refreshing cold water.

Keeper even dove off the diving board a few times.  That’s my son!

All said, it was a perfect Austin day, sadly without any bats.  Because we had to run Flight to the airport to commute to Boston, we saved witnessing the bat exodus from the Congress St. Bridge for another night. Sorry, Flight, no bats for you.

Our first day in Texas sans Flight was actually spent in San Antonio (and you can read all about that experience here), which meant we didn’t see the bats until our last night in Austin.  Everyone talks about seeing the bats, so we put that on our Austin to do list.  While I was in Maryland, Flight moved campgrounds twice, the first of which I never even laid eyes on.  The second was in McKinney Falls State Park, which was a quiet place tucked into the south side of Austin, very near the airport.  We spent our morning schooling at the campsite and then made the pilgrimage to the Congress Street Bridge in time to see the bats take flight.

The BatCon (that’s actually a thing) website suggested viewing times between 7 and 8:15 pm. Because I didn’t want to miss the opportunity, we showed just before 7 and claimed a spot on the south side of the river with our well-traveled blanket.  Since I didn’t know how long the bats would take to launch or when they might begin, I was happy to let the kids pass the time playing on their respective screens while I retreated to reading a book.

As much as I prefer to feel the crisp pages of books as I read, I have to say it is very convenient, especially given our space and weight limitations, to be able to carry my current reading library on my iPhone.

The bats didn’t make their appearance until 8:13 pm.  They emerged in a steady stream of spastic wings, incredibly without a single midair collision. I was reminded of a video I had seen of an enormous flock of starlings turning about in the sky.  At least they could see.  !!!  That the 1.5 million fruit bats were able to accomplish the same close formations without the benefit of visual cuing was incredible to witness.  A perfect manifestation of swarm theory and, clearly, WoodSprite thought the same.

Kidding!  She did watch the bats take flight.  I wasn’t able to get a good picture of their departure, but found this spectacular shot online.

Keeper and Firebolt both made the observation that it was not unlike waiting for the total eclipse to happen, maybe a little uninspiring during the anticipation of the experience, but, once manifested, well worth our time.  Similarly, I wasn’t sure what to expect with our time in the Lone Star State, but found that, in retrospect, it heartily exceeded our (my?) expectations.

The last time I was in San Antonio was almost 23 years ago when I was in the midst of Advanced Flight Training held at Randolph Air Force Base, and, at the end of which, I earned my Wings of Gold. As we were fond of saying then, it was six weeks of Navy training crammed into six months of Army Air Force training, SIR!, which left plenty of time to explore the area.  All the military services have good-natured (mostly) rivalry that often points to the subtle differences among them and this cartoon I found online pretty much sums it up.

To distinguish how the Navy and the Air Force operate differently, our class was briefed by one of our Navy instructors on day one at Randolph.  He said something to the effect of “The Air Force tends to provide you a well-indexed, voluminous tome that in great detail defines what you can and cannot do whereas the Navy will toss you a pamphlet listing in bullet format what’s really unacceptable and then gives you the freedom to sort how to best accomplish the task at hand.”  My brief time in Air Force Training Land demonstrated the veracity of that assessment time and time again, which often translated to considerably less pressure while learning the art of long-range navigation by air.  Almost unimaginably, this skill set included learning how to take sextant shots, both day and night, from a moving aircraft to practice celestial navigation, which, sadly, has become a lost art.  After the intensity of Navy Primary Flight School in Pensacola, my whole class of fellow Navy Ensigns was thrilled to throttle back a little and luxuriate in the Air Force way.

With relatively more down time, many of our class stepped out a few times together to check out the Alamo and eat along The Riverwalk, because that’s what you do in San Antonio. Impish at heart, I rather enjoyed rattling some of my classmates, especially those who espoused local history (some almost religiously), by feigning my ignorance of key events that transpired south of the Mason-Dixon Line, “The Alamo?  Wait, wasn’t there, like, a big fight there?  And I think John Wayne was there…”   In response, one of my classmates from the heart of Georgia observed, “Aw, (TACCO), you’re all ate up with the Yank, aintcha?”  Not sure what to make of that, I said, “Um, thank you?” He imperceptibly shook his head, paused before answering and gently said, “Uh.  Naw,” letting me know that his assessment of me had dropped yet another notch by failing to comprehend the depth of the southern insult.

Frankly, more than twenty some odd years later, I’m still not quite sure what that turn of phrase means, but I’m fairly certain it’s not good.

I was adopted by my first dog (a German Shepherd puppy named Lancelot) half way through my training at Randolph, which meant I “stayed in” for most of my later months as most of my free time was consumed by logging countless hours walking Lancelot to ensure I had relatively uninterrupted sleep or chasing him down as he tried to eat my navigation charts.  Lancelot had this weird thing for paper – and eating rocks. But I digress…

While my time in San Antonio wasn’t particularly memorable, aside from getting winged and collecting fodder for future dog shaming posts, I thought it important to share at least The Alamo and The Riverwalk with our kids.  Flight, having been wholly underwhelmed by his few visits to San Antonio during his stint in Corpus Christi for his own Advanced Flight Training, assured me he was just fine missing that particular pilgrimage so we planned for it while he was on a trip.

After a solid Wednesday morning of homeschooling, the kids and I loaded into the car and drove the 90 minutes to San Antonio.  Before we got on our way, I learned that, as the nickname would suggest, the “Mission City” boasts an extensive mission network that has been turned over to the care of the National Park Service.  While I had known what had led to the rallying cry of “Remember the Alamo!” I hadn’t realized that what remains today of the Alamo was originally built as a Spanish stronghold, a presidio, to support further colonization.

When our nation was still just a collection of European colonies, each trying to outpace the others in expansion efforts, the Spanish crown was interested in growing their empire in both population and property and came up with an ingenious plan. Recognizing that these symbiotic efforts were best accomplished together, they first acquired new citizens who would then lay claim to (and pay taxes on!) land that broadened Spain’s boundaries. In order to become a Spanish citizen, there were three main hoops through which the native population had to jump: 1) learn enough Spanish and Latin to effectively communicate and observe Mass; 2) convert to Catholicism, a requisite for Spanish citizenship; and 3) learn a trade to contribute to society at the lowest level of the Spanish caste system.  Before these potential citizens could be so transformed, it was necessary to establish a local military stronghold to protect the crown’s investments.  In 1718, what is now The Alamo was the initial presidio from which the massive conversion campaign was launched through now central Texas, and four other mission sites branched out along the San Antonio River.

We spent most of our time at the San José Mission, which is where the National Park Service has their Visitor Center.

After picking up Junior Ranger books for the girls there, we emerged from the introductory film just in time to join a Ranger-led tour, which was especially noteworthy.  We were led about the compound on an hour-long journey where we were introduced to the initial various inhabitants of the mission and their respective roles therein.

The tour was very well done and I especially appreciated hearing both the European and the native population’s sides on how it all went down in the early 1700s.  The native hunting and gathering tribes throughout what is now Southern Texas and Northeastern Mexico were collectively known as the Coahuiltecans.  These nomadic people had struggled with warring tribes to the north and fell prey to European diseases to which they had no immunity.  The provisions and protection offered by the missions (minus the diseases) and this new way of life may have appeared the lesser of two evils.

The native people were welcomed into these compounds and offered two solid rooms for each extended family, who then took a weekly delivery of beef and corn rations and had access to several shared wells and outdoor ovens, all in exchange for making progress on becoming Spanish subjects.

On the other side of the compound lived the next higher up on the social ladder, Spanish merchants hailing from all over the world.  In addition to learning foreign languages and adopting new religious beliefs, the converts were educated on the arts of agriculture and other crafts practiced in the far-reaching corners of the Spanish Empire. Once these skills were mastered and the new citizens baptized, they were turned outside the protection of the mission walls to fend for themselves in this new way of life (and to free up new rooms for the next family).  It was quite an assembly line the Spanish crown developed to further the Empire.

It goes without saying that the focal point for any mission compound is the church, and this one was simple, but lovely on the inside.

I was captivated by the two-story gallery running the length of the building and was surprised to learn that only three religious leaders were in residence here: a priest and two laypeople.

Just beyond the arch on the far right is a personal garden and well.  Apparently there was sharing of neither wells nor veggies with the commoners. !!!  I guess it was good to be at the top of the social ladder.

After our tour, the girls brought their completed Junior Ranger books into the Visitor Center to receive another badge.

More so than the other two, Firebolt was stoked about the Ranger-let tour and she gushed, “I really liked the tour – the Ranger made it all come alive, it was like I was watching a movie in my head.” And then she tentatively added on, “I think maybe I want to be a Ranger.”  High praise indeed.

From the San José Mission we headed into downtown proper to see The Alamo.  By then the kids were just about historied-out, so it was okay that we arrived only half an hour before The Alamo closed.  We saw the main museum exhibit, moving through it with a purpose lest we get locked in.  More interesting than the folks involved in or the details surrounding the legendary standoff, our kids couldn’t get enough of the enormous koi, making wishes in the fountain, or trying on coonskin hats.

Apparently equally underwhelmed by The Alamo, maybe our kids, too, are all ate up with the Yank?  At least they come by it honestly…

The closing of the Alamo signaled the start of a search for a dinner venue, hopefully located somewhere along the Riverwalk, and we popped into several interesting stores along the way.  Check out the Nacho Libre fans below.

After stopping in a store that must be a cousin to IT’SUGAR where we found scrumptious birthday treats for our cousins, we identified the perfect San Antonio place to eat.

I thought Casa Rio was nothing to write home about, but the kids were thrilled with their dinner choices and gleefully observed, “Mom, they have HORCHATA!” before each ordered some of their favorite beverage.

We dined leisurely, watching tour boats cruise by, all aboard delighted by the unfailing smiles and enthusiastic waves from our girls, and then we meandered along the river to see what we could see.

In the waning sunlight, we retraced our steps to the Subaru.  Our drive back to Austin was uneventful and the perfect ending to seeing the best of San Antonio in six hours or less, making for a healthy amble down memory lane.  Not bad for a gaggle of Yanks…

Departing Phoenix we tried a new version of the dawn patrol, which worked quite well.  Essentially we front-loaded all the work the night before so that Go Time mostly just consisted of waking to my alarm, making a cup of coffee (and taking a quick shower) to get me coherent, and rolling into the pre-dawn.  We had covered quite a bit of ground before things reached their normal activity level in Davista.

While eastern Arizona was quite beautiful, particularly the parts that traversed the mountains, southern New Mexico was less so.  I kept searching for something to find interesting, but didn’t have much success until Las Cruces, where the Rio Grande valley greens things up a bit and a sharp ridge of mountains behind it teases at some more intriguing surroundings.  But alas, the Rio Grande was where we turned south toward El Paso, so we never quite reached those mountains.

I’ve been to northern New Mexico in the higher elevations and loved it, so this stretch of road did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for our planned return to the state’s mountains later this Spring.

Bypassing El Paso to the north, we joined a two-lane road that led us through barren desert toward Guadalupe Mountains National Park, still in Texas but just, and our jump-off point to Carlsbad Caverns.  I had initially reserved another campsite in New Mexico from which to drive to and explore the caverns, but the more I looked at it, the higher the sketchiness factor appeared.  Comments from the “reviews” section of a website I use to scout campgrounds contained phrases like “not too much trash” and “just far enough from the road so they can’t see you” as well as the somewhat more ominous “felt a little off…”  Nahhhhh.  Out here I would’ve been happy to do a Wal-Mart parking lot, but there were neither Wal-Marts nor parking lots, so expanding our search into TX and finding a national park I’d previously never heard of with a campground that took RVs was a no-brainer, even if it was first-come-first-served.

I just mentioned that I had never heard of Guadalupe Mountains National Park, right?  Yeah, it’s tiny.  Basically a nubbin of a short mountain range in southern New Mexico (the same one in which Carlsbad Caverns is found) pokes into Texas at its southern end, and in doing so creates the highest point in the state at 8,749’.  There’s a small visitors’ center and a campground, which was really just a three-row parking lot with a bathroom, at least the RV side of it.  The tent side looked a little more scenic, but was equally diminutive.  The sole trailhead sat 20 feet from our parking spot campsite, and from there it appeared that you could do some solid hiking.  I will give it that.  Yet… Tacco and I found ourselves speculating on what sort of horse trading might have been involved in the establishment of this place as a national park.  Maybe we’d have felt differently had we done some of the hikes, or if we were from Texas and felt like we deserved to have at least a couple national parks since Utah and California get to have so many.  Kidding!  Mostly…

Regardless of its relative modesty, it was reasonably pleasant and safe, the girls knocked out another Junior Ranger program, and Keeper, who has of late developed an interest in cooking shows, fixed us an outstanding dinner.  A friend of mine once told me she loved guys from Louisiana because “they call you ‘darling’ and they’re all great cooks.”  Keeper will almost certainly never be from Louisiana, and doesn’t have the chops yet to call anyone “darling” (which will probably suit him well even when he does have the chops), but he’s way ahead of the curve on the cooking part!

The next day was our Carlsbad Caverns day, and was something I had been quietly looking forward to.  The idea of a no kidding cavern with crazy limestone formations and underground pools and stalactites and stalagmites all up in your face is something I have always been fascinated by, yet so far I have managed never to see one in person.

The caverns have a natural opening of course, out of which tens of thousands of bats swarm each dusk on their search for insect meals.  We weren’t there at the right time to see them unfortunately, but learning this factoid answered my “how did they find this cavern in the middle of nowhere?” question.

Most visitors, however, descend into the 800’ deep caverns via elevator from the visitors’ center, which seemed like a cop out to me.  I was actually pleased to discover that the elevators were out of service during our visit, taking this option off the table.

Beginning a hike with a steep descent, negotiated via switchbacks, was a first for me as well (clearly I’ve never hiked the Grand Canyon either).  I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, at how quickly the light was gone and replaced by the extensive artificial lighting network the park service had installed.  It was only a hundred or two feet down where we read that at this depth, without the artificial light there’s nothing for your eyes to even adjust to.  Just pure black.

Noteworthy also was the condition of what appeared to be a vast majority of the visitors climbing back out of the cavern.  Bulging eyes, stopping every hundred feet or so to gasp for breath, pale and sweat-covered… I have to admit it made me wonder whether 800 feet was a much greater vertical distance than I was remembering it to be, or whether cave air robs you of your oxygen or maybe just your mojo in some mysterious way.  Not that any of these people appeared to be endurance athletes, in fact far from it in most cases, but their apparent exhaustion certainly seemed excessive.  Was this a more taxing hike than it appeared?  Would I be carrying out the kids on my back?  I filed these thoughts away for later.

The sheer size and labyrinthine nature of the complex of caverns overwhelmed me as we continued to descend.  I absolutely can not imagine exploring something like this armed with only a headlamp and a rope.  Yes, I understand that they have a system for ensuring they don’t get lost, but that would not be remotely enough for me.  It’s easy to forget, when you’re wandering around gawking at everything, that this place is now lit up by thousands of lights (and it’s still only very dimly lit) and that you’re walking on paved trails with handrails.  Safety rope or not, it would be terribly disorienting, and with a constant nagging fear (for me at least) of some sort of malfunction causing me to be enveloped by darkness and hopelessly lost.  Evidently I am not a closet spelunker.

All that said, the caverns were stunning.

We traversed the entire loop trail and stopped near the “rock of ages” to complete Junior Ranger activities.

Prior to our own ascent I recalled the sight of the sweaty zombies emerging during our descent and decided to attempt to get ahead of the kids’ inevitable complaints about the climb.  My exhortations about their hiking skills and the fact that they had easily conquered several more difficult hikes may have had some effect, but I think it was my turning it into a “who can complain the least” game that truly pushed them over the edge.  Gamification wins!  They killed it.  As it turned out, 800 vertical feet is just about what I remembered 800 vertical feet to be, and wasn’t particularly tricky.  Keeper and Firebolt blazed the trail and reached the top a solid five minutes before the rest of us, with Keeper declaring that he felt like returning to the bottom and coming back up again, just because.  Even Woodsprite managed not to complain, and we hardly broke a sweat.  I was proud of my family.  I did, however, find myself musing, at about the 2/3-to-the-top point, on the general physical condition of the average American.

After a bit of messing around back in the visitor’s center, we made our way back to Davista at Guadalupe Mountains NP and set up for another dawn patrol after an early night.  It would be another long drive through Texas to Austin in the morning, and despite our short stay in the area, we felt confident we had seen everything we ought to have.  My post title was a touch snarky, but in truth I’m glad we made this visit and got to dip our toes into this region of the country.  It’s entirely unique and fits well into the whole, even if it contains very little that screams “look at me!!”  It helped us all, I think, to understand a bit better how vast the landscape is once you get outside the cities.

OK that’s not ALL we did in Phoenix.  Far from it.  No, really.

We’ve learned how much we appreciate variety while on the road.  A little bit of primitive “dry” camping, some cushy private RV “resorts,” a generous smattering of wooded state parks with a ton of space, the very occasional beach cottage…  We haven’t been traveling long enough this go-around to really need what we got in Phoenix, but it was most certainly appreciated.  In fact, I would classify the week as “epic.”

My best friend from college with whom I commiserated on day 1 of Naval ROTC training back in 1986 is now an Emergency Room physician in Phoenix.  He lives on what I can only call a “compound” (in the very best sense of the word) in the middle of a fairly dense but entirely pleasant residential area with his lovely wife and four kids, whose ages match my kids’ perfectly.  We don’t communicate nearly enough and see each other even less, so a visit to Phoenix was a must, and when he suggested that we take over a corner of his 1.5 acre lot cousin Eddie style, I jumped at the opportunity.  This visit would entail a work trip out of PHX, so it would be a relatively long stay.

Regarding the wine… I can’t really call him a wine enthusiast or aficionado, as neither of those words convey the level of commitment.  At the same time, “freak” goes too far.  Essentially he’s the best kind of wine geek – he’s been a well-educated fan since college and has aggressively collected and studied wine as a hobby since then, with his cellar size more or less tracking with his means.  For years it’s been so large that he needs to store it off-site.  But he’s not ostentatious or pretentious about it – he likes to drink it and enjoy it with friends, not display it and save it.  And yet he’s not really a “drinker,” so a very basic calculus problem will demonstrate the degree to which his cellar growth has vastly outpaced his rate of consumption.  At some point he played that math forward and realized he needed to slow down his rate of purchase and find more occasions to pull out the really good stuff.

This, lucky for us, was one of those occasions.

We drank well.  Oh man did we drink well.  But even more fortuitous was my being in town during one of his annual “wine dinners” with a few like-minded friends of his.  It’s a ridiculously exclusive thing where they pull out all the stops for a night, have a catered dinner, and taste 6-7 wines centered on a theme.  This year’s theme was Andy Beckstoffer grapes, which I knew nothing about previously but rapidly got up to speed on.  It was by no means a given that I would be able to attend this dinner, but he was able to grease the skids for my attendance.  I’m convinced this was a once in a lifetime kind of thing for me.

But I’ll stop there with the wine geekery and put the details in another post for the curious.

The overarching theme here is that the visit was a smashing success and fed the soul.  Our kids got along famously and will likely continue to keep in touch.  The weather was perfect.  The adults, with several nights lounging by the pool while the kids played, had enough time to catch up and reconnect in earnest.  So often time constraints rush that sort of get-together; not so this time.  Even with school, work, and the typical life stuff we all manage, we were able to cook together, eat together, watch our kids play together, and do just the right amount of reminiscing.

Every morning I would get up and wander over to their enormous grapefruit tree to pick a few for breakfast – incidentally that’s the best way to make your kids grapefruit fans.

Keeper and I pulled out our drones and took advantage of their enormous yard to practice flying them around and scaring their dog.  OK, that part wasn’t on purpose, but was an amusing discovery, after which we steered the drone clear of him.  He really didn’t like that thing.

One day gave us the opportunity to head north (and up) to Sedona.  On another we met up with some old Whidbey Island friends at the Musical Instrument Museum.

Sedona was stunning, but felt a little commercial to me.  Back in Washington there are a few mountain towns that took an emerging theme and decided to go whole hog with it as sort of a marketing ploy.  Successful marketing by the way — they’re fun towns and get a ton of visitors.  But still, there’s a veneer of inauthenticity to it that you have to either ignore or decide it’s part of the fun and roll with.  Sedona, to me at least, felt like “hey, come visit the New Age theme town!”  I don’t know how deliberate that was on the town’s part and it may be an unfair characterization, but that was my take.  The crowds and horrible traffic (on a Monday!) didn’t help.  And it certainly doesn’t need the marketing – the scenery is spectacular and stands on its own.  I’m told there is also a very real energetic feel to the place that undergirds its reputation.  Both Tacco and one of my friends’ kids mentioned sensing it.  I didn’t, but I did appreciate the red rocks and jaw-dropping vistas.

We took a short hike along a stream that runs through town and stacked rocks within an “energy vortex.”  Vortex?  Maybe not — it might have been an energy perturbation or a confluence.  The ranger at the park entrance even mentioned it when we paid our entrance fee.  But I forget how he billed it.  It looked cool though.

It would’ve been nice to take a dip or at least wade there, but the weather was actually quite chilly despite the sun.  It sits at about 4500’, so even in the summer it can be crisp.

 

We drove (crawled?) through town thereafter, on the way to Slide Rock State Park.  It’s billed as a refreshing antidote to the summer heat – which, as a mountain stream cascading over some slippery red rocks, it would be.  It’s less of an antidote to a bracing March afternoon, particularly when you arrive there after the sun dips behind the canyon walls.  The kiddos were nothing if not game, though, and Keeper made waves as it were by being the only one there to go full immersion in the chilly water.  That’s my Pacific Northwest boy!

He tried to do some sliding in order to get others to join him, but the rocks turned out to be not especially slippery.  I guess Sit On Your Butt And Push Yourself Over The Rock State Park is a less catchy name.

On the way back down the hill we split off from the others and enjoyed an excellent dinner with Tacco’s aunt and uncle, whom she hadn’t seen in years and was looking forward to catching up with.  Loving these Target Of Opportunity visits — huge benefit to this lifestyle.

Easter Sunday was another highlight.  A sizable chunk of their extended family calls Phoenix home, and Easter is a traditional get-together time for them, so we were able to take part in a perfectly chaotic Easter Egg hunt for the kids as well as a sunny, lounge-y, nibble all afternoon sort of day.

We had planned to depart on Monday after Easter, but we all agreed that one more day just hanging out with nothing at all to do (they weren’t working and their kids started Spring Break) would be a far better use of our time than trekking east to City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico.  So we stayed another day and chopped City of Rocks off the list, rationalizing that if we did a dawn patrol departure on Tuesday we could easily make it to Carlsbad Caverns.  So glad we made that call.  More swimming, more running around the yard (the kids, mostly), some insanely good pizza, and yes, some more wine.  Perfect.

We said our goodbyes in the evening and pre-positioned Davista+Toad for our planned 4:30AM departure.  My intent was to get up, make a cup of coffee and shower to wake up, open their gate, and roll with everyone still asleep.  Prior to the goodbyes, though, I decided it would be a good idea to fly the drone one more time.  Why on Earth would you do that, you ask?  Exactly.  It seemed really smart at the time though, and yes, there was wine involved.  I flew it straight up to clear all the palm trees and also to show off a little bit, and it almost immediately caught some upper level winds and took off to the north.  Not being GPS stabilized like the more expensive drones, it’s both very susceptible to such things and tricky to orient so as to get it flying back toward you.  More so once it starts tearing away and the tiny lights are all you can see of it.  Had I been able to orient it perfectly back toward us and get it back down out of the higher winds I might have had the chance to show them what an amazing pilot I am.  “I’m going to be impressed if you’re able to recover that” was the last thing I heard (along with the beeping of my controller, informing me that its commands were no longer reaching the drone) before I watched it disappear behind some distant trees.  I felt like I was in high school again as he and I tooled around the neighborhood in the dark, scanning the trees and walking quietly up to people’s backyard walls and peering over them, hoping to catch sight of my wayward drone and wondering what I’d say if the lights in the house suddenly came on and the resident asked what an almost-50-year-old man with a baseball cap on was doing climbing their wall.  It was fun.  Didn’t find the drone though.

[P.S. She found it the day after we left and shipped it to one of our future stops.  Awesome.  Evidently it went far further than he and I had been looking!]

Overall we hated to leave, but appreciated having such an opportunity.  The kids made new friends and got some solid play-with-kids-our-age time and we got to have the kind of week with friends that you really only get a few times per lifetime I think.  It strikes me in retrospect that that’s a large part of why we wanted to do this trip in the first place.

Flight’s ER doc friend had to go to work, so we made a caravan trip up to Sedona with his wife and their four kids.  I had never been to Sedona, but had seen many references to this piece of paradise where the Earth’s energy wells up definitively.  After my recent journey down the past life road, I was eager to see if I might recognize any rock formations and/or if the Sedona energy resonated with my own. 

We caught lunch at a Mexican restaurant, although it was a rather frenetic dining experience as seven of the party of 10 were 12 and under.  We emerged from the restaurant and took in a rather commercialized pass through town before making our way to the Crescent Moon Ranch.  Our friend let us know that these particular rock formations were perhaps the most photographed in all of Arizona, and I could see why…

I was especially enraptured when the sun came out and the rocks appeared to illuminate from within.  We snapped a few family pics and made our way to Oak Creek, one of the tributaries that feeds the Verde River. 

As we approached the Creek, we came across a battalion of rock cairns.  Rock cairns have been used for many purposes across the years, mostly for land navigation and burial purposes, but also for giving thanks and/or honoring loved ones. Curious as to why this place in particular had gathered so many monuments, I took off my shoes and stood amidst the precariously balanced towers, momentarily feeling the Earth’s deeply pulsating hum snaking her way into my feet.  With seven children in tow, I knew I wouldn’t be able to tarry and mindfully soaked in the energy for a few moments until I was “hey, momma”-ed away from this magical experience.  

I had heard that the land surrounding Sedona was riddled with energetic vortices and/or ley lines and, as I put my socks and shoes back on my tingling feet, I promised myself – and the vibrant energy – that I would come back, next time far savvier on how to explore and (hopefully?) less encumbered.  Perhaps as a means of honoring my commitment to return, I felt compelled to build my own rock cairn, mine to recognize our four children I only briefly knew.

Giving thanks for the three who continue to bless our existence, our gaggle moved from this space down to the river where we enjoyed periodic sun breaks. Our family has always enjoyed riparian ecosystems, as we’re reminded with each visit to any such moving water, yet this one spoke to my soul. 

As the sun parried with the evolving cloud masses, the alternating flat light and brilliance underscored the beauty of this space.  Flight found the perfect seat with an easy path across stepping stones. WoodSprite mindfully made her way out to this energetic oasis and back, and spent only a few moments relaxing on the sunning rock before her equally mindful return.

Our friends helped us find our way from Crescent Moon Ranch to this delightful swimming hole.  Not to be swayed from his intent to dunk himself in every body of water we encounter, Keeper vowed to submerge himself in the chilly waters.  While Flight accompanied Keeper to the water’s edge, the rest of our Flight of Five observed from afar – and donned fleece jackets as the sun stretched to meet the last of its journey to the horizon. 

We parted ways with our friends and journeyed the 45 minutes to meet my Mom’s sister and her husband.  It had been ages since I had last seen my Aunt and Uncle and, once again, I marveled at the blessings this trip has provided.  Despite how long it had been since our last visit, we settled easily into the business of catching up on family doings. 

Although not surprising in retrospect, I was caught off guard by seeing a myriad of expressions I had only ever seen on my mother’s countenance move fluidly through my Aunt’s features.  While the two sisters had grown up seven years apart and haven’t lived in the same place since 1961, they are very clearly cut from the same cloth. 

All told, it was a lovely day.  Yet, as is often the case with our journey, I’m left with the knowing that I need to return, for these rocks have much to tell me…

When we got to Seal Beach RV Storage, I was stoked to see that Davista was just as we’d left her last December.  Flight and I had estimated at least a day’s worth of tasks to complete before redeploying in our house on wheels, so we planned to spend a couple of days at the Seal Beach RV campground before getting underway in earnest.  First and foremost was getting the water tanks sanitized for our return to traveling.  That process involved plenty of bleach, repeated filling and dumping of tanks, and patience.  I’m not so good with the latter, so it was good that Flight led the charge there.

I spent some solid time meal planning and, frankly, felt a little out of practice.  How lovely it was to be back in a small space that required solid advanced planning and no waste! WOO HOO! I couldn’t help but wonder why we have so much stuff in a sticks and bricks house…  Within 30 minutes of our relocating Davista to the campground, I felt a great rush of being welcomed home and gushed to Flight, “I am so happy to be back here!”

As we got reacquainted with Davista, Flight and I were both surprised to find the stash of clothes we had left here to overwinter was more plentiful than we had remembered, meaning we were, ahem, overstocked to some degree.  Firebolt had the greatest number of outgrown clothes awaiting our return, which we stashed in Davista’s underbelly until I could take them to rejoin their friends in Maryland a few weeks hence.  We had also sent six boxes to our friends’ house, much of which were filled with homeschool books and all contents needed to find homes somewhere in Davista.  The kids were happy to postpone schooling as long as possible and weren’t disappointed that we couldn’t collect the packages until the following day when we planned to grab dinner with our friends and make the drop.

While Flight ran to Trader Joe’s to refill our larder, the girls and I went for a bike ride. Actually, they were on their bikes and I was walking at a brisk clip and loving every minute of it.  Having narrowly escaped the latest Nor’easter, it felt decadent to be out again in my standard deployment uniform of t-shirt and exercise skort.  Our excursion halted abruptly at the gated entrance to the Weapons Depot, where this ship was loading up, and we turned back.

As my ability to identify ships is rather dated, I am unable to classify this one more specifically than, “Um, Warship?”

More interesting than those pointy grey things that float on the water (Sorry, Papa), we saw a few signs of wildlife. The last time we were in Seal Beach I was so focused on lamenting the closeout of phase one of our travels that I paid no attention to the fact that the Naval Weapons Station partially shares a footprint with the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge.  While the girls were thrilled to be reunited with their bikes, I was surprised to see how much had escaped my notice here last go around. On our hike/bike we found a sizable discarded snakeskin (don’t care to wonder where that larger creature went), a salamander whose tail may or may not have been made shorter by Firebolt’s bike tire (she wasn’t sure), and a host of heron nests (as impressive in size as the winged creatures themselves!).  I have indeed missed our travels.

It took us less than 48 hours in Seal Beach to regain confidence in our gear and we managed an early launch Friday morning for Joshua Tree National Park.  This was the first (and likely only) place we would be revisiting on the next installment of our trek and the kids were beside themselves excited to return to the Park.  I was curious to see how well I’d be received as the last time around it didn’t go so well for me.

Prior to leaving Maryland last week, I had read Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss, a Yale-trained psychiatrist who stumbled upon an interesting premise while regressing patients in therapeutic sessions, inadvertently seemingly into past lives.  Dr. Weiss has found that unexplained phobias can sometimes be traced back to a time that predates our current life experiences.  While the jury is still out on all that I read, I was curious to learn more about his process.  My angel again suggested Google and I discovered that, while he would be speaking in Japan the following month and somewhere in Europe after that, Dr. Weiss was scheduled for a conference in Phoenix the day before we arrived in town.  !!!

Curious timing, I thought, and felt compelled to go.  I told Flight there was a speaker I wanted to go see in Phoenix on the day we were rolling from Joshua Tree and he said, “Go for it!  Take the Subaru and we’ll follow either that afternoon or Sunday, depending on whether or not they have room for us.”  Perfect – I love how a plan comes together!

That afternoon we hiked about near our campsite and Flight and the kids climbed as many rocks as they were able to.  Keeper was wearing a skeleton mask/neck guard that he had received as a party favor before we departed Maryland.

I found his ensemble a little disconcerting, but he was keen to keep the sun off his neck.  I deferred to my vertigo’s dictated demands and didn’t venture terribly high, again happy to assume the role of the photographer.  As we were getting dinner ready, the girls were busy playing and dancing on nearby rocks.

Firebolt was stoked to begin a new whittling project and WoodSprite just wanted to dance.  On the rocks.  Better than on tables or a bar, I suppose…

While the girls were jamming to music only they could hear, I was unable to ignore Joshua Tree’s continuous unspoken invitation to depart, which again left me on edge.  Apparently, the arrival of 2018 has rendered me no less repellant to the quiet energy at home here.  After a fitful sleep (no kidding, the worst slumber I’d had in a long time), I woke up for the final time to dress and got on the road by 4:57 am.  It was just over a four-hour drive to Phoenix and the conference started at 10 am.  Despite being so discombobulated by my return to Joshua Tree, I was on time. Early, even.  Yay, me!

Intrigued by what I might learn at the conference, I let my thoughts meander while the sunrise burst forth.

It was a lovely display, and I contemplated life’s mysteries, potential past lives and stewed prunes. I rolled into Phoenix and pulled into the parking lot of the hotel hosting the conference.  Time check, 9:22 am.  Check me out – I am NEVER early.  Permit me a little backstory to explain.

When I was pregnant with Keeper, my initial gestational diabetes test results came back questionably high and it was recommended that I do a more extensive test.  This particular test requires fasting and, after an initial blood test, begins with ingesting a nasty sugary concoction (sadly, they were out of jelly beans) to see how your system handles the sudden glucose spike.  Following consuming this vile drink, you provide blood samples at intervals of 30 minutes, one, two, and three hours post consumption. After I provided the initial sample and drank sugar, I pulled out my knitting and a woman having the same test done, hers to evaluate hypoglycemia, said, “You know we can leave between the blood tests, right?”

I thanked her for the reminder and told her I was aware we could leave, but it probably wasn’t wise for me to do so.  I admitted to her that I feared I would get busy doing something else and wouldn’t get back at the appropriate time, meaning I would have to redo the test.  I assured her it was much wiser for me to stay here and knit for the three hours instead of running the risk of being late. She chuckled and, apparently not suffering the same time vortex issues, went about her day easily popping back in at the appropriate times.

There was a crotchety older gentleman a few chairs down who followed our exchange and gruffly noted, “You sound like my daughter-in-law.  She’s late to EVERYTHING.  It’s very rude.”

“Um, wow, sounds like you’ve got some family stuff to work out,” I thought before benignly commenting, “Well, I certainly don’t mean to be rude, I just try to do as much as I can and that sometimes means I run later than I’d like.”  He loftily proclaimed, “It sounds like you need some military training.”  I momentarily entertained the idea of sharing with him my military pedigree, but thought better of it and simply stated, “I’m not sure that would help.”

The additional 13 years since hasn’t helped me hone my concept of time.  Flight maintains that while I am not quite as bad as P-3 Maintenance Time, which required automatically tripling any forecasted repair times, I do tend to constantly underestimate how long things should take, often by as much as half.  I looked on the positive side of my sleeping so poorly – Thank you, Joshua Tree, for ensuring I was out Davista’s door in plenty of time.

Upon arrival, I wandered into the hotel and looked around for the conference.  Because I knew it wasn’t planned to be a small, intimate affair, I was a little perplexed by not immediately locating the venue, so I asked at the front desk where I might find the conference.  The woman behind the desk looked in her huge scheduling binder and informed me that the conference I was looking for was actually on tap for tomorrow.

Unable to comprehend what I just heard, I said, “I’m sorry, um, what?  I thought it was scheduled for Saturday, March 25^th.”  And, as she was confirming that today was actually Saturday, March 24^th, my brain slowly caught up.  I belatedly realized that if you were to look at any calendar, iPhone, or conference confirmation email, you’d see that March 25^th is, in fact, a Sunday and that today is not yet that day.

Strong work, TACCO, strong work.

While 38 minutes early was a certainly noteworthy given my history, 24 hours and 38 minutes early was (thankfully) truly unheard of.   I wandered back out to the car, wracking my brain on how I managed the scheduling SNAFU. I blame Joshua Tree’s understated yet very clear eviction notice.  After I texted Flight and sheepishly confessed my calendar mix-up, I holed up in a fantastic local Scottsdale eatery (Modern Market) and tackled writing about some of our last travel phase.

Admittedly, I am woefully behind on our blog.  It’s tricky business when every day is a big day.  I might have caught up some while back in Maryland, but found myself consumed by intermittent travels bookended by house projects.  I can’t help but apply an observation Flight has made regarding my admitted knitting problem: “I think there’s a calculus equation that proves that the rate at which you acquire yarn will never be overtaken by the rate that you complete projects.”   While I didn’t at all appreciate his blunt estimation, most frustratingly, he’s dead on.  Similarly, I’m sure the rate at which we enjoy our experiences on the road will continue to exceed my ability to capture them in a timely manner. Sigh…

In addition to affording me some quiet alone time to write, I was able to reflect on how our redeployment is very different from our initial departure.  The biggest difference is that we now have an ultimate destination and end time.  That and our lessons learned thus far really only need to be dusted off instead of, well, learned.  Resuming this lifestyle has been far easier than either Flight or I had anticipated and I am delighted to be back underway.

Gathering that comforting observation around me, I again tried to unpack how I could have gotten my days so confused.  I kept coming back to Joshua Tree really wanting me gone.  Why was that so? I wondered.  Perhaps I had set fire to that parcel of land in a previous life?  I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out…

One prediction I nailed at the end of Phase One was how Joshua Tree would age in the kids’ memories.  While back in Maryland, we were often asked by friends what our favorite stops over the past several months had been, and the kids generally answered “Joshua Tree and Zion,” sometimes leaving out the “Zion” part.  There may be some recency effect involved in that answer, as we could generally elicit other favorites by reminding them of the eclipse, the beach, the mountains, the river float, etc. but regardless I don’t disagree with them.

Hence our decision to commence our traveling lifestyle re-engagement with a day spent scrambling on Joshua Tree’s rocks.  I realized this go-around how fortunate we had been previously to snag a reservation at the campsite with so little lead time – all I could manage this time was one night.  But it turned out to be enough, as Tacco had to leave at dawn (or so she thought, but that’s another story) to catch a conference in Phoenix, and without our Toad, we had a much smaller exploring radius.

Backing up slightly… I had been skittish about everything involved with the sudden transition back to travel.  We hadn’t given it nearly as much thought this time, and were slightly hobbled in our planning capability by not having Davista sitting in our driveway for a few days while we loaded her up and fine-tuned our itinerary.  Plus our mental space was entirely booked out by home sale preparation.  Among the things I had forgotten was the fact that I had left all my clothing drawers in Davista completely full upon our departure in December, and would not have had to add a thing to them in order to successfully re-launch.  So the full suitcase I brought, not to mention the extra clothes I had stuffed into a few of the six extra boxes of “stuff” we sent to our friends in Long Beach, qualified as pure bloat.  Fortunately we have room for it all and it’s not heavy, but the inefficiency bugs me.

More significant, however, was my skittishness about basically everything else – the condition of the car and motorhome, my presumably long lost big-rig driving skills, and most of all, the ability of the family to so abruptly re-adapt to our tiny new home and life on the road.

It wasn’t necessary.

Davista looked like new, and fired right up once I re-connected her battery, as did Toad.  Supplemental systems all fully operational as well.  And remembering how everything worked and fit together took me no more than the half-day in Seal Beach we had set aside for that purpose.  The forecast LA deluge never really materialized, the kids set up their spaces quickly and excitedly, we had dinner with our friends in Long Beach, and by the following morning we were back into the groove and Joshua Tree bound.

The kids bolted straight for the rocks upon our arrival.

OK, me too.

Tacco joined us for part of a family climb, but her vertigo issues caused her initially to stay lower on the rock and then to return to base and watch from afar.  The kiddos, however, and Firebolt in particular, attacked the climbing with a confidence I hadn’t seen before, which warmed my heart.

Later in the day I was able to take Keeper with me for a more sporty climb that involved a few “I’m not sure I can manage that, Dad”s, all of which he deftly conquered immediately thereafter.

It was a very, very good day.

Interestingly, Tacco had another unsettled night and attributed it to the Joshua Tree vibe once again.  I’ll be interested to see how she fleshes that out in writing.  I had no such disturbance and awoke happily to the cool desert air and blanket of quiet.

Some more rock scrambling gave way to a nature trail hike prior to our noon departure, and we were out of the campsite and on our way to Phoenix by noon.

I opted to take the extra half hour to make the drive through the park rather than around it, with the intention to stop at Joshua Tree’s Cholla Garden for lunch.  Cholla, a variety of cactus, are more commonly known as “Jumping Cholla” due to their tendency to attach themselves both readily and doggedly to anything that happens to brush against them.  They don’t actually jump of course, but they do have tiny barbs at the end of their spines which make them tenacious hangers-on, as well as lots of pieces that tend to dry up and break off of the main cactus body.

Keeper had been more or less pooh-poohing the Cholla lore, or maybe more accurately, tempting fate by brushing against them lightly or even picking up a few of the fallen pieces when we came across a plant or two.  A bad dad idea intersected with his luck running out on that front when we stopped for lunch and I tried to set up an album cover-ish photo among the cacti.

The photo’s reasonably cool even if I didn’t quite get the “our album’s about to drop” thing nailed, but Keeper’s reaction when we stepped on some wayward cholla chunks was less so (rightfully).  What dad plops his kids into the middle of a field of Jumping Cholla in the name of a picture?  This one does, I guess.

Fortunately we were able to escape this situation relatively unscathed, with only Keeper cactus-pricked and only one spine needing to be removed from actual skin.  His shoes took me quite a bit longer to de-spine, but within a half hour or so we were intact, fed, and on our way to Phoenix, where the plan is to take over a portion of my closest college friend’s driveway and lawn for the upcoming Easter week.  Not only do they have four kids whose ages approximate my kids’, but we have seen each other for years.

This is a great start!

We are back in Joshua Tree National Park!  It’s been soo long since we have been in Davista.  I’ve missed her sooo much.  But it was hard saying goodbye to all of my friends.  I’m hoping to see some of my friends soon.  I just went on a rock climbing adventure. And I’m probably going to write about it so stay reading the blog.  What we’ve been doing for some time at national parks is jr.ranger badges ( you can do it at national parks. Just ask one of the Rangers in charge and he or she will probably hook you up).  I’ve got more writing to do about my adventures. Bye!

Blog this morning we went on a nature walk. But before we were going on the nature walk we were going to check out our old campsite. But before we even got to our old campsite Woodsprite was “tired” NOT! After a little bit I went back to Woodsprite and gave her a piggie back ride up the hill. Even when I was tired I still pushed forward. It was easy first but having to carry her over and over again it got harder every time. It felt awesome when she was off my back. She walked the least of the whole walk! She was the definition of lazy. But still it was really fun. That’s all for now. Bye Blog!

[Editor’s note: Event in question pictured below…]