Flight of 5

Our relatively short drive from Estes Park to Vail will require another map due to its remarkable nature.  Here it is:

It looks like a little jaunt through the mountains, and I guess on some level it is, but we transited Rocky Mountain National Park via the Trail Ridge Road, and in doing so crossed the Continental Divide at 10,758’, traversed several miles of no-kidding tundra, and reached our (and Davista’s) highest elevation of the year, and likely ever, at 12,183’.  Thereafter we got to see the headwaters of the Colorado River as we descended toward some of the “lower” Colorado towns at 7,000’ – 8,000’.

“Why would you do this, driving a fully loaded motorhome and towing a car?” you might ask.  Fair question that I don’t have a good answer for, but I’m thrilled we did, as it was unforgettable.  I would not have attempted it last year.

Now I did do a good bit of research.  We had originally planned to take a different route that brought us over Independence Pass near Aspen.  What I discovered is that even though it’s slightly lower in elevation, it’s much more difficult for rigs like ours, and in fact we would have needed to disconnect the Toad in order to do it.  No thanks.  This route was much more big-rig friendly, and in fact I didn’t find it terribly challenging, all things considered.  The north section of Highway 1 and the road into and out of Death Valley were far trickier.

At any rate, it was a breathtaking drive.  Here are a couple pics of us up at the top.

 

 

Having grown up recreating heavily on the Colorado River (Lakes Havasu, Mohave, Mead, and Powell, not to mention the various national parks surrounding it), it was fascinating for me to see the snowfields and meadows from which the trickle originates that eventually gains volume and velocity and then carves out the Grand Canyon.  As usual I attempted with varying degrees of failure to pass this fascination onto the kids.  Someday, maybe.

Something else that struck me on this drive was a sort of effortless coolness on Colorado’s part.  Not so much attitude-wise, more that just about anywhere you go in the western two-thirds of the state would be considered the absolute pinnacle of most places.  Mountain town after mountain town, waterfall after waterfall, most of which the majority of us have never even heard of.  Even the interstates seemed to have multiple areas where people just pulled off to the side of road with kayaks, bikes, climbing gear, etc to go play.  The whole thing was inspiring, and confirmed a lot of what I had noticed over the years about people I know who had grown up in this environment.

Up until departing Estes Park, we had deliberated between staying the next few days in Vail or Breckenridge.  Interestingly, it was Breckenridge that offered the full hookup / all the amenities plus heated driveways RV park, whereas the potential spot in Vail was a semi-primitive campground.  Ultimately we opted to save the money and go with Vail, but I would have loved to see both.

Quick digression… a couple months ago I heard of an impossibly good deal on ski passes offered to military members, dependents, and retirees.   So good that I figured I had either mis-read it or there was a catch.  Essentially it’s for the Epic Pass, which gets you unlimited skiing / riding at all Vail-owned resorts, of which there are now nineteen, with more purchases in the works I believe.  Among them: Vail and Beaver Creek (of course), Breckenridge, Telluride, Park City, Whistler (Whistler!), Northstar, Kirkwood, Heavenly, and now Stevens Pass in Washington.  That’s quite a line-up.  The price?  $99.  Yes, $99 for unlimited passes at all of these resorts.  That’s less than a day’s lift ticket at most of these places.  Figuring that we really couldn’t afford NOT to take advantage of this deal, I bought them for the family.  So I’m hoping we’ll get to see both Vail and Breckenridge at some point regardless of missing Breck this time…

We crested Vail pass on I-70 (10,662’ — !) in the mid-afternoon.  I had previously reported that there are no grades greater than 6% on interstate highways.  This turns out not to be true, as stretches on the west side of Vail Pass hit 7%.  Not quite a brake-burner, but it was definitely sporty.

Our campsite was another stunner — spacious and lush, and backing onto steep and gushing Gore Creek deep in the woods.

On occasion circumstances conspire to give me a shock back into the reality of our good fortune; this time it happened during a phone call with our realtor.  There I sat in my camp chair, complaining about how our neighborhood’s comps were unfairly bringing our home value down, or agonizing over how to get a potential buyer to our price, or something equally pointless in the Grand Scheme, when I casually tossed off “Hang on a sec… I need to move… this stream is rushing so loudly I can’t hear you…”  With a slight air of annoyance no less.  Our realtor, probably sweltering somewhere in DC traffic and on her way to an appointment with another needy client, paused for a few moments, and then a few moments more, and came back with “you’ve got to be kidding.  Where are you again?  WAIT, no… I don’t even want to know.”  We both laughed.  Though I do manage to do it anyway, it’s hard to justify getting worked up about home sale woes when you’re spending your Monday afternoon with your family next to a roaring creek in Vail.

Once again I wish we had more time there, but made the most of what we had with a few hikes up and down the creek.

This (below) is the type of thing I probably shouldn’t encourage in Keeper given the risk vs reward profile, but sometimes I can’t help but cheer him on when he throws it on the line a bit in the name of adventure.

Vail is an interesting ski town – in many ways it’s unlike any I’ve seen before.  Though it’s known for its wide open back bowls and its European style village at the base, its topography makes it feel almost cramped to me.  The valley in which it sits is narrow and steep, fitting I-70 and about 3-4 blocks worth of streets on either side before climbing abruptly toward the high peaks on both sides of the interstate.  “Cramped” now strikes me as a bad description… it’s more that, despite its upscale reputation, it feels wild and remote, far more so than it actually is.

We definitely wanted to explore the village a bit on foot, as well as grabbing dinner there, but a steady rainfall kicked in midway through the afternoon and showed no signs of abating when dinnertime neared.  Undaunted, we drove the few miles into town, and discovered a few things.  Firstly, Vail isn’t a “car” town.  There are two large parking structures skirting the village center and those are where you park.  Period.  You can be lulled, like we were, into thinking that you’ll just drive around the village until you find some little nook where you can park unobtrusively – it’s summer in a ski town after all – but you won’t find anything, you’ll just kill time and then head back to the parking garage.  Secondly, Vail is really, REALLY expensive.  After forgetting that we had two bikes riding atop the Toad, bumping the hanging boom that demonstrates the height of the garage’s lowest clearances, removing the bike seats in the hope that we would now clear the boom (which we did by an inch or two), and driving gingerly in, we discovered the eye-popping price of leaving our car here while we walked around.  Noted.  Next time no cars.  Shortly thereafter, and moderately soaked by our walk to what we determined to be the restaurant that would offer the best balance between food we would like and prices we could handle, we discovered that you pretty much just cannot eat out in Vail reasonably.  The food where we ended up was good, sure, but we were hoping for sort of a “moderate” price tag and that particular beast just doesn’t seem to exist there.

It’s a great place though, and I can’t wait to get the family back there during ski season to flex those Epic Passes.

 

 

The drive out of Colorado was equally spectacular, as we passed fourteener after fourteener and still more effortlessly cool towns.  Taking advantage of our routing, we did a short detour to Great Sand Dunes National Park on the “back” side of the Front Range.  It’s exactly what it sounds like and has an interesting geological story, but unfortunately we didn’t leave ourselves enough time to scramble on the dunes themselves.

The kiddos didn’t seem to take to Colorado as much as Tacco and I did.  I’m leaving it with a great appreciation for all it has to offer and the slightest of filed-away-for-now intentions to dig deeper into its feasibility and desirability as a future home.

Next up is New Mexico, the northern part this time.  More friends, another work trip for me, and possibly some river kayaking on the Rio Grande!

Estes Park sits at the doorstep to Rocky Mountain National Park, at an average elevation of about 7,500’.  The drive up from Golden was glorious, and re-sparked a conversation about what life would look like from one of the several small towns bisected by rushing rivers that we passed through on our way to the Creekside campground in EP.  We set up there on lush grass and hung one of the hammocks right next to the clear water.  We’ve had some extremely pleasant camp set-ups over the past year, but this one was pushing max glory.

My title of course is a hat tip to C.S. Lewis, whose Chronicles of Narnia I read in early Junior High.  The phrase, if I remember the context correctly, comes from The Last Battle, and is an exhortation from Aslan the Lion to explore the story’s thinly veiled metaphor for heaven.  Now I’m not saying that the Rockies are heaven, that would be a little too easy and cliché.  But I will say that I noticed a distinct, euphoria-inducing character to these mountains that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.  I’ve always known on some level that the various mountain ranges have different “feels” to them: the Sierra Nevada are craggy and wild; the North Cascades are deep, jagged, and glacier-y; the Wasatch are somewhat dry and full of aspen groves – but for some reason this leg of our trek really drove the point home for me, as this stretch of the Rockies struck me as almost a Platonic ideal of mountains.  The colors were vivid, the peaks were sharp, the air was impossibly clean and crisp, and deer and elk roamed freely through enormous meadows.

It’s difficult to convey how calming this all was.  Multiple times I carefully placed my low camp chair into the stream and balanced my cold tolerance with the Zen of the water rushing over my lower half.  I convinced Keeper to dip his head into the stream upon waking up.

 

This head-into-the-river/stream deal has become a bit of a “thing” for us, and bears further exploration.  This has become my compromise of choice when I feel compelled to jump into a cold, clear body of water (usually flowing), and I feel that compulsion pretty much any time I see such water.  Generally full immersion isn’t practical, though, due both to whatever I’m wearing at the time (old guys skinny dipping in public is frowned upon, and soggy cotton doesn’t jibe well with long trips in a vehicle* ) and the temperature of the water, in general.  I don’t claim that this is normal behavior.  But I do claim that it feels amazing.  And for whatever reason, the kids, Keeper in particular, have followed my “lead” on this.  So we’ve dunked our heads into quite a few American rivers this year, and this week we added Estes Park’s Big Thompson to the list.

We didn’t have much time remaining the first afternoon to accomplish much, but opted to pop into the National Park and stroll around one of the meadows.  I could spend this entire post searching for novel ways to say “wow,” but pictures do a much better job.

One thing that became very clear during this stop was the extent to which hiking brings out the best in the kids.  I love this.  It’s one of the things we had hoped for during the planning/dreaming stages of our journey, yet it’s tempered by the fact that they fight us tooth and nail every time we suggest a hike.  They seem to believe, deep in their souls, that they can’t stand hiking, and then get them out there and all the screen-addicted pre-teen nonsense falls away and they start playing exactly like you would want kids to play.  What’s more, they suddenly like each other!  Which isn’t to say that they normally don’t… in fact another welcome by-product of this trip has been the extent to which they have become close as siblings.  They fight, because they’re required to by natural law, but in general they’re extremely decent to each other.  But during a hike it’s all about “let’s go climb this rock!” “let’s take a selfie up here!” “come jump in the lake with me!”

We spent the majority of our second day on a hike higher up in the park, past a few alpine lakes.  Again, ideal.

Early on in the hike the kids spotted a not-yet-melted snowfield a few hundred yards off the trail and insisted we bushwhack out there to check it out (and get some photos).

Little did they know that further along the trail would look like this…

At the trail’s terminus we found the lake still partially frozen, which led to what could easily have become hours of collecting, examining, and creatively breaking ice chunks.

 

Nothing like having to drag your kids away from a mountain lake because they’d just like to play “for five more minutes!”

The next (and last) day in Estes Park we went hike-less, but opted to do some fishing… wait, better add the scare quotes here, make that “fishing”… nearby.  I’ll explain momentarily.

We first played some miniature golf in town.  Not our normal activity, but this being somewhat of a resort town, they had an especially fun looking miniature golf course, along with bumper cars, bumper boats and a slide.  Also, at altitude your putts travel 40% farther on average.  That may not be true.

Anyway, after mini golf we passed a stocked (commercial) trout pond which we had seen on the way into town, and all of the kids agreed that they would like to catch some trout for dinner.

About fishing. We brought the lion’s share of our fishing gear with us in Davista.  Which isn’t much really, but the grand concept in play was that fishing would become a family activity during our travel year.  Keeper had even, on multiple occasions prior to our departure, thrown out the idea that fishing was something he was very much interested in, and could possibly “get REALLY into.”  So that was a no-brainer – fishing everywhere, for everyone!

The problem is that I am…  well, essentially I’m a sub-standard fisherman.  Severely below average it appears.  Not for lack of enthusiasm mind you, I just don’t seem to have that skill set.  So poor Keeper, having had his first several fishing experiences with ME, well, his enthusiasm had dampened a bit.

Back to Estes Park.  My intention was to get some fish on my kids’ lines and then walk them through the line-in-the-water to dinner process in order to show them how rewarding it can be (or yeah, so I’ve heard…).  This place seemed tailor-made for that.  You didn’t even have to bring your own gear.  Just show up, catch some fish, pay by weight, and they’d even clean them for you.  I probably should have been skeptical of the whole setup, but the idea of having my kids actually catch fish for once sucked me in.

I have this to say for the trout pond folks, they delivered exactly what they promised.  It took more time for us to bait the hooks than it did to get a fish on the line.  I had to wonder whether we even needed the bait… these trout seemed starved and desperate enough that a sharp, shiny piece of metal would have looked like a Thanksgiving dinner.  Within about 10 minutes of arriving, all three kids had caught a trout.  And since catch-and-release was prohibited here, we were done.

Except for the cleaning.  As much I would have liked not only to teach the kids how to clean a fish, and, ok I admit it, to prove to them that I actually know how, because this trip hadn’t provided me the chance to do so… we had neither a good place to at this campground nor the proper knife for the job.  Thinking of ease, sharpness, and weight, we’ve gone all ceramic.  So I had the guys who worked at the pond clean the fish for us.

Not saying this was a mistake, as the outcome would have been the same regardless of who did the cleaning, but somehow Firebolt had yet to make the mental and emotional connection between swimming fish and on-the-plate fish.  She was disturbed.  Deeply.  No father likes to preside over that sort of distress in his daughter, I think, but if he does, he’s hopefully ready with a pithy response when she agonizingly offers up that “it’s just not right!  Those fish should be allowed to live their lives!  Not get sliced up like that and eaten!  Why can’t they just die naturally?”  Hopefully.  I, on the other hand, was not at all ready.  I threw something out there about the food chain, maybe?  Circle of life?  Omnivores vs. herbivores?  Whatever it was, it lacked conviction, eloquence, and forethought, and certainly didn’t change her mind in the least.  She decided right then and there not only to forgo that part of dinner, but never to fish again.  Well, shoot.  Maybe she’ll date a fisherman one day.  Or maybe she’ll become vegan.

And then there was the trout itself.  I prepared it like I remembered from various camping trips of my youth, namely dusting it with flour and/or cornmeal, adding some salt and pepper, and pan-frying it in enough butter to make nothing else matter.  And honestly?  It was nasty.  Tacco made a show of being appreciative that her husband and kids had brought home dinner.  That was a nice gesture.  But none of us made it past a few bites before deciding that these were not tasty fish at all.  I don’t know whether I’m mis-remembering the flavor of fresh mountain trout, or if whatever horrible conditions those trout were living in somehow translated to our plates and palates, but either way, I seriously doubt I’ll be able to pull off serving trout to the family for a long, long time.  And I think the fishing gear’s gathering dust in Davista’s lower compartment will become more or less an official state of affairs.

We did have a cool experience back at the campsite, however, before all of this unplanned rejection of our genetic stock as hunters.  I saw a few large bull elk as I walked up to the bathroom.  Knowing that there were abundant elk in the area, I didn’t think much of it, but did take a picture, as they were quite impressive with their huge antlers.  Well, after I emerged from the bathroom I noticed that they were gone.  I began to wonder where they had wandered to, but didn’t have to do so for long, as they had taken up temporary residence right behind Davista!

I quickly implored Tacco and the kids to take a look out the window, which led to walking outside to get a closer (but not too close) look.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like to be rousted from a nap in the hammock by a nudging antler. “Dude.  Wake up.  I want to eat this grass.”

 

Overall I’m just happy to be back deep into the mountains, and these feel especially mountain-y to me.  Life is good.

*True story:  Once while road-tripping with Tacco through the Norwegian fjords in early May and wearing jeans, a long sleeved shirt and a wool Norwegian sweater, I walked to the edge of the water and immediately slipped on the rock, finding myself completely underwater a split-second later.  Those clothes sat draped in the back of the car for days.  They’re probably still damp.

Finally, the mountains!  Real ones.  Fourteeners all up in your face.   Crisp, fresh air and crystal clear water.  It REALLY felt good to be back.

While there are several places to park the RV along the Front Range, once we narrowed things down, a private RV park in Golden edged out a County Park just out of town and up I-70 a bit.  This was a good call.  Though the RV park itself wasn’t much to look at, it had all the amenities, was clean, and was essentially right in town.  I very nearly wrote that the kids appreciated this, and they do, but really that’s a cop out.  The truth is that we, or I at least, have reached the point in our journey where power, water, a sewer hookup, clean bathrooms, and solid wi-fi / cell signal assume far more importance than they did in the first few months, and I’m not ashamed.  I guess how I can best interpret this is that I’ve come to accept that we’re not needing to be too hard core about it all; I no longer feel any obligation to “rough it” more than is necessary.  We’re not camping, we’re moving our home around the country.  A half year’s worth of public toilets and showers, giving your waste euphemistic names (“grey and black water”) & storing it with you in a small tank that fills quite quickly, and keeping close track of various levels (battery, propane, the aforementioned grey and black water tanks) all get you to a point where a few creature comforts are treasured when they’re available.

Plus we have friends in Golden whom we were hoping to see.  And it’s a cool place, as we quickly discovered.

Once again I needed to leave the family behind and fly a trip for work very shortly after arriving, but I was fortunate to be able to connect with another old squadron-mate and friend who has been a Golden resident for quite some time, and who now flies for Delta.  He’s yet another spectacular individual from that time of my life – stellar pilot, top notch mountain biker, and ridiculously intelligent, yet known for his slow, deep style of speaking and generous use of the word “dude,” or more accurately, “duuuuuuuude.”  He’s the only person I know who takes the time to write a handwritten, personalized (and humorous) note with every single Christmas card he sends.  At any rate, I had hoped just to say hello, but he surprised us by offering to swoop us in his minivan and give us a grand tour of town, which we’d have been crazy to turn down.

So as I mentioned, Golden is a cool place.  It’s surrounded by parkland and open space, and criss-crossed by dedicated biking / walking trails. 

It also is more or less bisected by Clear Creek, which is exactly what it sounds like, and provides not only a nice set of streamside trails right through downtown, but tubing for the more adventurous – we saw quite a few tubers get flushed off of their tubes and into the rapids in the short time we watched.  I loved it.

And then there’s of course the beer scene.  Naturally there’s Coors, who I learned essentially owns the town.  My friend talked about how when he first moved in he had to sign an imposing pile of paperwork which turned over, among other things, the right to turn off his water to the Adolph Coors company.  It’s not as ominous as it sounds (at least I don’t think it is), but definitely an interesting anecdote about the consequences of a town’s existence being so tied to one company.  But back to the beer scene, the Denver/Boulder/Longmont area, and I think it’s safe to include Golden in that, seems to be one of the current meccas of the country’s craft beer explosion.  Up there with both Portlands, Asheville, Burlington, and San Diego, to be sure.  Beer tasting wasn’t why we were there of course, but we did get to grab a flight at Golden’s second largest brewery (The Golden City Brewery – and yes that’s how they bill themselves), while buzzing though town.

Upon my return from my work trip, I managed to talk Keeper into doing a bit of mountain biking with me.  I had seen that we were staying very near Apex Park, which appeared to be flush with Colorado singletrack, and hoped that it wouldn’t be too sporty for him (or me).  He was game as usual, but found the climb up the road just to get to the park a bit more exhausting than he had bargained for.  I probably forgot to tell him that we were at about 6000’ too.  Oops (sorta).  We made it though, and started up the trail, only to find, at the point where it diverges into a loop, that this trail system is evidently popular enough that the city decided to make the trails one-way on certain days, our day included.  I had sold this ride to Keeper on the premise that we would climb as high as he wanted on the trail, and if it got to be too much, we’d just turn around and ride back downhill.  I realized fairly quickly that that doesn’t work if the trail is one-way, and had a brief moral dilemma in which I considered “not realizing” it until we were half-way up, but decided that our father-son mountain biking career as a whole was far more important than this particular ride.  Plus there’s the whole not-lying thing, which would be nice to pass on to him.  So we aborted the ride and headed back down to the RV park.

Another feature of our RV park was a pool and a hot tub.  While this isn’t an especially uncommon amenity among RV parks, I’d put the running percentage of “RV park pools I’d actually put my body parts into” at around 25-30.  Bozeman and Las Vegas were notable exceptions, but one was a natural hot spring and the other you definitely paid for up front.  This one wasn’t bad at all.  The girls wanted to get some hot tub time in, so Tacco and I took turns supervising, while Firebolt made friends with all the kids within 3 years of her age as usual.  She tells us that she’s “shy,” and we tell her “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…”

Before heading up into the mountains we had wanted to check out Boulder as well.  For whatever reason, possibly the fresh mountain air, maybe the miles and miles of green/flowery (it’s May – I’m sure that changes) open space, certainly in part the obviously athletic and outdoorsy residents… most likely some combination thereof, our “auditioning places to settle” radar began to sweep and net us some promising returns.  Sorry if that was too radar-geeky – I promise it makes sense if you’re used to operating a radar…  Golden piqued our interest when we started looking at a Denver airline commute, from which I could fairly easily go either east or west.  Boulder, being a college town of a little more size and renown and a bit deeper into the mountains, struck us as possibly further up our alley.

We made the relatively short drive up there via highway 93, which was sort of an impossibly pleasant meander along the front range via the iconic Flatirons.

We also made a stop at Eldorado Springs, which I’m not even sure how to describe, so I’ll initially let Wikipedia do it.  This is about all Wikipedia has:

“In 1910, Eldorado Springs was a resort community, known for its Big Radium Pool, then the largest swimming pool in the United States. The pool, along with several other smaller ones, was known as “Coney Island of the West.” Also known for its good tasting spring water, “Eldorado Springs” bottled water is sold in stores around the U.S.”

“Big Radium Pool” and “Coney Island of the West.”  OK.  This in a town of 585, with dirt roads.  And a “you’re still in 1910” feel, but with a heavy hippy vibe, and tucked deep into a canyon, surrounded by high peaks.  “Hey kids, let’s grab a couple hot dogs and then take a dip in the Big Radium Pool after we go freeclimb a cliff!”  Interesting place…

Pearl Street is Boulder’s main drag, and we walked the length of it in both directions before settling in for some lunch.

Unfortunately the friend of mine who lives in Boulder was working, but we were able to exchange a few texts.  Guess we didn’t need to be physically in Boulder to do that, but it was a good excuse.

Boulder is impressive.  The climate, the vibe, the people, the food&drink…  in fact we were impressed enough to pull out trusty Zillow right there on the spot to see what we might be able to afford, home-wise.  Nothing at all, as it turns out.

I guess we aren’t the only ones to find Boulder impressive.  So that fell back off of The List after a very short stay on it.  Golden is still doable, as are the eastern outskirts of Boulder, a bit further from the mountains.  We discussed it, though, and it was actually my friend from Golden who confirmed several things we were thinking.  Though he very much enjoys it there, he listed several things about it that are less than ideal and angles in which Bend has it beat, at least for the lifestyle we want.  He was insightful as usual, and pretty much dead on.

Lastly, and I hate to be repetitive, but my leg / sciatica is becoming even more of a factor.  At one point on the way back from Boulder, with Tacco driving no less (driving tends to aggravate it), it became excruciating enough just sitting in the front seat that I had to have her pull over so that I could get into the back in order to try to maneuver into a position I could tolerate.  We need a plan here, one that doesn’t involve pain killers.  Fortunately the position in which I’m sitting when I fly doesn’t aggravate it, and therefore it hasn’t yet affected my work.  But the prospect of continuing to wander around the country in that type of agony isn’t appealing.  Tacco has been doing some acupuncture work on me, and we have another friend in Albuquerque who can do some work as well.  I’m also reaching out to friends in Utah for some medical recommendations, under the assumption that either we’ll be back there soon or it would be easy for me to fly there.  Time to take action.

In the meantime, we’re getting into the mountains for real tomorrow with a drive up to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, and we’ll stay at high elevation for the foreseeable future.  I’m stoked!

Ten months ago today we took the picture on the top of our blog page, and six and a half of those months we’ve been on the road.  We’ve reached the mountains again, and will stay in them pretty much for the remainder of our adventure.

We both noticed the extent to which returning to the crisp and dry air, rushing streams, and pine smell gave us a palpable sense of relief.  Even if things change dramatically, there’s no doubt this part of the country feels like home.

Here’s our progress:

Still no real movement on the house, other than some verbal feints: “what if we offer this?” Us: “Put it writing and see!” (more or less… that’s a two-line summary of various painstaking multi-day exchanges) and lots of vaguely positive but ultimately unproductive feedback from open houses and visits.  It hits Tacco and I at different times — our frustration with the house situation that is — and I think it comes more from realizing that we really need to be looking forward now, not back.  The idea that selling our house was once a no-kidding prerequisite for even doing this trip seems hopelessly quaint now.  It now looks probable that we will have done the entire year paying for an empty house.

Interestingly, what we’ve learned is that we can be pretty thrifty on the road, even without skimping.  Our only main expenses are gas, RV sites (lodging), food, and entertainment.  The entertainment tends to be cheap if not free, arising naturally from our destinations.  And we’ve gotten very good at meal planning, such that we very rarely eat out.  Even fast food, which we’ve not done once.

At any rate, we are still optimistic that we’ll get it sold based on recent activity, and we have left July and August fairly open and unplanned, anticipating the need to both  return to Maryland to pack out our house at some point and do some house-hunting in Bend (or wherever — still not 100%!).  We still intend to nail that down before the kids start school.

If you look at our map, it has us returning to Park City after we’re done playing in the Colorado / NM Rockies and eastern Utah.  I’ll fly a trip from there, and then we’ll bolt to Bend in order to reach it by the 4th of July.   Our stay in Bend is open-ended.  We added a possible (hopeful?) loop through Washington and northern Oregon just because.  But we’ll see!

That’s not much traveling left, and that fact has yet to sink in…

This was a long two days, but significant.  Or at least they felt that way.  Essentially we made our way from what I think of as The East, to The West.  For what I assume is the last time.

As has been the case of late, Tacco’s description is both thorough and insightful, so I’ll stick with providing some color commentary.

Our route below, also as usual:

 

A few things struck me about the drive.  The first was the German influence in western Missouri.  I know next to nothing about Missouri save for what I learned in the previous few days, but I hadn’t expected to see so many small towns with German names and the obvious provenance.  Possibly “Anheuser Busch” should have given me a clue?

The second was that eastern Kansas and western Kansas are very different.  Eastern Kansas seems to be where most of the “civilization” is… the college towns, the reasonable sized cities, the trees, etc.  It’s a pretty area.  We circumnavigated Kansas City, but we stopped in Topeka and drove through Manhattan, home of Kansas State University.  Both places had a vibe I appreciated.

Western Kansas, on the other hand, is wide open.  WIDE open.  As is eastern Colorado.

I want to dwell on Topeka for a moment, though, as we stopped there to visit the Brown vs. Board of Education National Historical Site there, and it affected me more deeply than I would have guessed it would have.

I confess to having had only a bare bones knowledge of Brown v. Board prior to this visit, and I learned quite a bit on our stop.  I won’t belabor the points Tacco already made, even though they affected me as well.  What really stayed with me (I almost wrote “haunted me”) after viewing the exhibit was this idea that our country was a very different place only a few decades ago, and it’s exceedingly easy to forget that.

There is significant exhibit space devoted to fleshing out the ideas and consequences of racial segregation, and tangentially, the degree to which a large segment of society seemed to be not just ok with this idea, but willing to fight for it.  To watch video of not only the common folk, but the authorities and elected officials standing up with what appears to be a clear air of moral superiority in support of segregation is more than a little mind-blowing in 2018.

But I think what stuck with me most were the videos of the people reacting to the protesters.  And by protesters I don’t mean aggressive, sloganeering, in your face types, I mean people trying simply to walk quietly into a school.  The people around them are screaming, pushing, spitting… it’s shocking, frankly.  And when I go deeper and try to get into the heads of these folks, whom I whole-heartedly believe were convinced they were doing “the right thing” at the time…  It scrambles your brain a bit.  I could go far deeper here, but I’ll leave it at that.

It stuck with me.

After our Topeka stop we headed into Kansas’ great western unknown in search of our Friday-night-of-Memorial-Day-weekend campsite.  I had no idea how this would turn out, as this was the first time we started a Davista drive without a definite destination reserved, and on a holiday weekend to boot.  My operating assumption was that this being Kansas, the people-to-space ratio couldn’t possibly support fully occupied campgrounds.  Hmmmm…

Our plan consisted of stopping successively at four campgrounds, using their occupancy state, the surroundings, and my sciatica to determine where we’d drop anchor.  The first was at a city park which I’d repeatedly tried to call to verify vacancy, but got no answer.  It became abundantly clear why there was no one at the other end of the phone line once we pulled into the campground.  Wow.  Tacco’s description was diplomatic.  I’ll remain diplomatic, but slightly less so – there was no chance we were staying here with our kids, free of charge or not.  There are some seriously depressed towns in central Kansas, and we had found one.  I wish we had photos… kinda… but that would be piling on.  Better to just move on.

The next stop was at Glen Elder State Park on Waconda Lake in Cawker City.  The campground here was enormous.  And completely full.  And then some.  Not only were all the sites occupied, but people seemed to be camping on any open grass spot they could find.  It was quite the festive atmosphere.  We drove around all four (or more?) campground loops, past hundreds of campsites, for a good half hour if not a full hour, before we talked to the ridiculously friendly camp host, who advised us to just grab an open area of grass and relax.  Great idea.  We did as she suggested and didn’t even disconnect the car.  Here’s where we were.  I almost wished we could stay a while.

We fired up the generator, made some dinner, ate, and went to bed.  Nothing wrong with that.

Knowing there was yet another long drive ahead of us, we decamped pretty early in the morning.  We did stop in Nicodemus, however.  Another National Historical Site, and fascinating.  Yet again better covered by Tacco, but my overall impression upon leaving was that Kansas is a pretty cool place, with a solid legacy of supporting those who desire to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.  The open terrain can be unforgiving, but there seems to be, and has always been, an aggressive tradition of no-nonsense egalitarianism.  It’s hard not to respect that.

The drive into Colorado was tough.  I mentioned the barrenness of eastern CO / western KS, well combine that with a searing sciatic nerve and brutal crosswinds.  I’ve come to discover that gusty crosswinds are by far the toughest weather conditions in which to drive.  It’s very similar to landing an airplane in that sense.  The last time we had a drive like this was through eastern Texas; these winds were even stronger and required constant, aggressive steering corrections.  By the time we rolled into our campsite in Golden, I was done.  DONE.

Fortunately, it was a great campsite, with full hookups, good wifi, a pool and hot tub, and clean bathrooms.  And we were back to the mountains.  Ahhhhh….

Up until now, my knowledge of Kansas was limited to Dorothy’s escapades and knowing that’s where convicted military criminals go to make big rocks into smaller ones.

We opted by bypass Leavenworth and focus on more noteworthy (and less felonious) stops.

We departed Cuba wicked early and made for Topeka, Kansas.  It was our intent to stop and do lunch in Topeka after we checked out the National Park Service (NPS) site, the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. The following and final leg of the day’s drive was rather nebulously defined as we had yet to determine where in Kansas we would overnight. Friday night of Memorial Day weekend, should be pretty easy to find a reputable place to park the rig sans reservations, right?

This particular NPS site is housed in the former Monroe Elementary School, which was one of the four segregated elementary schools open to African-American children in Topeka in the early 1950’s.  This schoolhouse served as the launching point for the five collective cases that came to be known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which began the process to legally overturn the Jim Crow laws that had sprung up in the decades following the Civil War.  Following these segregation laws was the 1896 ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson that specifically permitted that separate but equal public education was permissible.  Until I put together Keeper’s study packet on this subject, I hadn’t remembered that there were five cases that fell under this notorious ruling.

 

During our visit, I learned it was then 46-year old Thurgood Marshall who, while representing the NAACP, told each of the plaintiffs that their impact would not be significant enough to get the Supreme Court’s attention should each case be evaluated alone. He convinced them it would be wiser to band together, arguing that these five different situations in Kansas, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina, and Washington DC all demonstrated that the previous ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson was indeed unconstitutional.  In 1954 the Supreme Court unanimously declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and our nation began the process of desegregating educational experiences “with all deliberate speed”.

Two things jumped out at me in that little schoolhouse in Topeka.  First, because the quality of education and the disparity between segregated schools varied widely by location, the Supreme Court deferred to state and local governments to responsibly make the desegregation of public education so, which meant there was no defined timeline for the transition to occur.  I was dismayed to learn the great lengths some pockets of our nation went to defy this Supreme Court Ruling.  For example, Virginia state legislature rallied to advise that any public school subject to federally-mandated integration would be closed instead.  This opprobrious behavior continued for five years.

I was also intrigued to learn that the Brown v. Board case was specifically chosen because the two elementary schools used to demonstrate the inherent inequality in segregated educational experiences were nearly identical in every way (e.g. facilities, teacher education, books, etc.).  By citing the segregated elementary school system of Topeka (whose higher grades had been integrated for decades and where on paper the schooling was nearly identical), it was possible to clearly demonstrate that, by removing all other variables, a segregated primary educational experience was fraught with disadvantage for everyone involved.  Interesting to note, they also used the name of the only male parent plaintiff to gain more “credibility” for the class action case. In putting this Supreme Court ruling in historical perspective, I incredulously realized it still took another decade for the remaining Jim Crow Laws to be overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  I took a moment to reflect on my own amazing elementary and middle school experience at the widely diverse Martin Luther King, Junior, Experimental Laboratory School (King Lab for short) and gave thanks again for the bubble in which I was raised.

Junior Rangers badged, we had a short, hot lunch – hot not for the food choices but because the temperature within Davista skyrocketed as she was parked, windows closed in open sun. Lunch devoured, we got underway with several Kansas State Parks as potential overnight possibilities on our way to the Denver area.  And, as we have been reminded by many a non-RV owning friend, there was always Walmart…

We learned at our first stop why no one was answering the phone when we tried to call to make a reservation.  It was free! You could just pull up and set up your rig anywhere.  For any period of time.  And plenty of folks did.  Still subject to find-the-best-campsite-itis, Flight and I eyed the remaining mileage to get our Rocky Mountain high on (check out this vintage ad for Coors), assessed our long-encamped potential neighbors, and looked at the upcoming lakefront Kansas State Parks along our path.  Despite Flight’s fiery sciatic nerve, we decided to press on.

We rolled into Glen Elder State Park at dinner time-ish.  A 30-minute drive through each of the four campgrounds showed no open designated spots, not even any primitive ones without hook-ups (e.g. water, electric, sewer, even cable at some…).  After passing through the four different campgrounds, we noticed there were plenty of folk getting their camp on pretty much wherever.  We stopped to ask one of the Camp Hosts (a temporary title bestowed on an RV family who serves as the Park POC in exchange for a free stay) about finding a spot.  They assured us all official spots, with hook-ups or no, were reserved, but we could park anywhere we wanted.   When we asked about a fee, they told us since Memorial Day Weekend was such a madhouse and we were leaving in the morning anyway, we could just stay for free.

Well, Kansas is all right.

Flight and I debated the pros and cons of a free off-grid birdie in the hand versus the unknown of the next Kansas State Park down the road.  It wasn’t a long debate and we unceremoniously staked our claim at the next open lakefront location we saw.  It was unceremonious in that we pulled off the road, didn’t even disconnect the Subaru, or exit Davista before we extended the slide out, deployed our stabilization jacks, and turned on the generator, using the latter to prepare dinner and support our children’s screen habits.  Exhibiting uncharacteristic apathy, even Flight refrained from exploring our local environs before we dined, shared a family movie night, and crashed out.

Were we inclined to stay longer, this State Park was in a lovely location, but we were eager to get back to the mountain west where we had reservations with full hook-ups.  I did capture our spot after we retracted jacks and the slide before we rolled on to Golden.

An added benefit to our staying at Glen Elder was that it put us near another NPS site in Nicodemus NHS, so we stopped just after they opened and learned about another aspect of our nation’s history, one that tied in nicely with our Topeka stop the day prior.

Nicodemus, Kansas, is a unique town that is now 18 citizens strong, yet the current diminutive population size should not take away from its significance.  In the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, those Americans who, despite being legally granted their freedom, still found substantial discrimination in the deep South longed, understandably, for a truly free community.  Acting on these desires was a remarkable group of recently liberated families who made their way west to establish a place free of the limiting beliefs deeply entrenched in the southern states.  One of the volunteers at the NPS site was a 6^th generation resident of Nicodemus, where her three times great grandfather was the first born in this new settlement.  She further confided her four times great grandmother traveled west at eight months pregnant.  !!!

What I found most remarkable about Nicodemus was not only what those founding families accomplished, but that they recognized how significant their actions were and recorded everything, taking a surprising number of photographs and keeping copious journals.  Much to the frustration of archeologists, most of humanity, unless you have “Emperor” or “Queen” in your title, has not seen fit to leave records of their day-to-day existence.  In speaking with this 6^th generation Nicodemus resident (and her young daughter is 7^th generation, she told me), I commented on how impressive it was that these early Nicodemus residents were so intent on capturing their experiences.   She replied that they simply knew what they were doing was momentous and documented as much as they could.  Although most of their descendants have since moved on, I am awed by what these early pioneers were able to accomplish.

As we pressed westward, Flight and I had an interesting discussion stemming from the one I had with the Nicodemus volunteer.  We, too, are (somewhat belatedly, sigh…) attempting to capture our trip’s experiences in this blog because we recognize how uniquely privileged we are to be able to so travel.  Very few people have a flexible enough occupations to allow for this opportunity, and fewer still are willing and able to capitalize on that flexibility.

Flight and I agreed that we have each formed our impressions of places we had seen in our younger years and are finding that those perspectives are sometimes jarringly (and sometimes only slightly) different from our interpretations this go around.  Neither of us is sure whether it is these locations or we that have evolved in the interim, likely both.

Our discussion then pushed in an unexpected direction, and not just because I was driving and it was (surprise, surprise) blowing stink across Tornado Alley.

 

Breezy indeed!

I observed to Flight that, despite taking pride in our nation as a melting pot, there seems to be an opposing desire to normalize the collective American experience.  I’m not sure if this push for normalization is due to or based on the apparent globalization of small town, USA, redefining much of our nation as a conglomerate of golden arches, Sam’s Club, Target, and countless other ubiquitous chains.  While that movement has certainly made our travels far easier (I’m thankful Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are far more prevalent than even five years ago), I can’t help but wonder what long-standing local Mom and Pop treasures we’ve missed out on.  These unique gems seem to be slowly winking out across our nation, overrun by the ever-expanding gargantuan chain establishments. Stephen King’s Langoliers come to mind…

After mulling that over for a stretch of miles, I further wondered aloud why, despite this longing to become loosely defined all-American citizens, there still remains a conscious pursuit of tribal self-identification. Using DNA testing companies and participating in the genome project have recently become all the rage.  But why? I had always learned it was our nation’s diversity that provided our unmatched strength and depth, so why then do we as individuals eagerly seek out a unique existence defined by our roots, genetic or otherwise, despite a public (subconscious?) tendency to promote a uniform American identity?  At first blush, I’m really not sure what’s at the root of these seemingly contradictory personal and public agendas and, frankly, I’m not sure what that juxtaposition says about the prognosis of our nation’s prosperity.  In the meantime, I will continue to give thanks for the freedoms I enjoy, for the privilege of doing my part to help make that so, and, with intention this Memorial Day, for my sisters and brothers in arms, especially those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.

One of the greatest things our travels have afforded us is the opportunity to reconnect with friends we’ve met throughout our lives.  One of those people who made a great impact on both Flight and me was one gentleman we each worked very closely with in our squadron days.  He was the Chief Aviation Electrician in my first shop and, a true mentor, taught me a lot about how the Navy runs.  In addition to being a stellar electrician, he was also a flight engineer and flew on Flight’s crew.  While we worked through some challenging issues with our shop on the ground, he and Flight worked through countless of them in the air, every time safely returning them both to land.  Flight so respected and valued his input that he called his former flight engineer while he was limping a plane back to the Netherlands from the Caribbean during his exchange tour with the Dutch Navy.  Not only do we each value his professional savvy, he’s just an all around solid fellow we wish we could spend more time around.

We were fortunate that his son was stationed in Annapolis for a short time, so we were able to connect with him once during a family visit, but as our travels hadn’t previously taken us to Cuba, Missouri, we hadn’t seen him much since his retirement from the Navy many moons ago.  We both welcomed the opportunity to route our trek west through his neck of the woods.

Flight and I really struggled with coming up with an appropriate path as we moved west, mostly owing to our ignorance about the middle of the country.  With an anchor point of Cuba, MO, there remained any number of ways we could take five days to get from Atlanta to Denver where we had our next campsite reservations.  I had originally suggested going through St. Louis so we could see the magical Gateway Arch. After reading the reviews of this particular National Park Service (NPS) site (and seeing the tic start jumping in Flight’s eyelids in response to the likelihood of having to wend Davista through another tight metropolitan area), I broadened the scope of our trek and found another NPS site to see on the way.

Most fortuitously, Flight had also indicated his interest in seeing the Ozarks so traveling through the Ozark National Scenic Riverways was a no-brainer.  We stopped to stretch our legs, have lunch, complete Junior Ranger badges, and freak out to be reminded that snakes climb trees (maybe that last one was just me…).

I don’t know why that particular serpentine skill set escaped my attention, especially considering I can sing all the words to “Trust in Me” from the Jungle Book, but I had to work very hard to talk myself out of believing that snake must have plopped onto Davista and snuggled into some cranny to ride to Cuba where it would then make its stowaway presence known in a most disturbing manner.  For me, snakes fall into the same category as unidentified swimming objects (USOs).

I find water boasting clear visibility to be soul-soothing and lovely, whereas murky water tends to unleash my imagination so it can enhance the capabilities and instincts of any and all hypothetical USOs I might fathom.  And I can dream up some doozies.  I admit this character trait does not serve me the best, especially when doing a float along the sediment-rich Meramec River.

Upon first hearing the river’s name, I couldn’t get the Irish Drinking Folk Song “Mary Mack” out of my head.  Try as I might, it’s on a loop soundtrack even as I now type…

When we pulled up to the Indian Springs RV Campground we were a little concerned.  Apparently the previous week’s rain made the Meramec so swollen the entire campground had been waterlogged.  The sites along the river, of which ours was one, were only now becoming usable, which meant the campground was empty and we could choose any site with the mud viscosity of our desires.  We opted for the driest of the lot and were steadily joined by other RVers as Memorial Day weekend approached.

Our friend was able to take the day after our arrival off and he and his daughter met us at our campground with kayaks to explore the river.  It was extremely convenient to put in steps from Davista and we got underway just after lunch.

WoodSprite accompanied me in one of our two seaters and Flight and Firebolt cruised in our other one.

Keeper, however, was kayaking solo and, most impressively, made the opportunity to read Tom Sawyer along the way.

The timing of this book choice was hardly incidental as we knew we’d be moving through Mark Twain’s stomping grounds.

Our leisurely six-hour paddle afforded the opportunity to kayak beside and visit with our friends as we floated down the river, the transit interspersed with swim calls, cliff jumping, attempted rope swing operations, and modest cave spelunking.

It was fantastic to be introduced to the Meramac’s treasures by two of the locals who know it best.  Fortunately, our friends had let us know about the native alligator gar, a fish that looks an awful lot like its namesake (see the picture below I found online…).

I say fortunately because I saw one surface close to our kayaks, nearer than I found comfortable. It looked like a baby gator and two thoughts immediately came to mind.  First was the trailer for the terrible movie “Alligator” which I remember seeing on TV while growing up.  The gist of the film was an unwanted pet baby alligator was flushed down the toilet, fed on escaped scientific test subjects (rats) that were riddled with growth hormones, and grew to Godzilla proportions to wreak havoc on Chicago.  Inspired by that movie, I remember dubiously eying the commode every time nature called, unsure of what might surface when I was most vulnerable.  My uneasy truce with modern plumbing lasted for several months until I was drawn into other preoccupations.  Although, frankly, port-a-potties still invite my creative juices to go in such unwanted directions.  The second and more recent flash pointed to the signs surrounding the “lake” in Houston. Although I didn’t see any telltale gator silhouettes, I could imagine them circling darkly beneath the muddy waters, awaiting foolish appetizers to enter their domain.  Such creature sightings, even when I know what they are, don’t do a whole lot to help me keep my imagination in check and serve only to reinforce my desire to maintain a healthy distance from those who call the water home.

Purposefully and intently stuffing my creativity back in the box, I ignored what I had just seen and instead focused my energy on how to make use of the many rope swings dangling over the river.  We tried to take advantage of several, but they were all in poor repair and impossible to reach.  Bummer.

Our last stop on the float was a cave behind a spring.  It’s important to tell you this because the spring appeared to be channeling water in directly from the Aleutian Islands.  It was ludicrously cold.  As we were approaching the inlet, the spring’s artic tendrils crept out of the river’s alcove and the water temperature noticeably dropped.  I did not take that as a good sign.

Steeling ourselves for the frigid (and slippery!) walk through the water, we slowly made our way to the cave entrance.  Mildly claustrophobic, I chose not to venture too far into the cave but captured this picture of the braver souls in our party.

The beautiful view out to the icy pool was almost enough to make me forget my lower legs were still numb. Almost.

Once more through the pool, I held WoodSprite’s hand in a death grip to preclude either of us inadvertently going for a brisk swim.  We made it back to our respective transports and carefully extracted ourselves from our waypoint.  The rest of our float provided me the privilege to soak in this valuable time with our friends that we rarely see.  It was made even better by having his extended family meet us at the take out point and caravan us back to Davista.

Flight and I spent much of our drive the following day reflecting on how incredible this journey has been, especially in affording us the opportunity to reconnect with some great friends, and we again gave thanks for being in a place in our lives where we are able to so travel.

Our plan to connect Appalachia with the Rockies finally coalesced after quite a bit of scenario gaming.  It would’ve been easier had we more time to meander, and I still can’t quite get my head around the fact that we don’t… a year seemed like plenty of time for everything and more in the early dreaming stages.  I can assure you that it isn’t though, and so we found ourselves with some long drives ahead and only a few stops possible.

Not quite making the cut, and with no small measure of regret were:

• Memphis (wanted to see Beale St and try some more BBQ!)
• Nashville (though we did do a quick stop there)
• Hot Springs National Park, AR (looks unique, I’ve never been to Arkansas, and who doesn’t like hot springs?)
• Dallas (family and friends there, but it’s starting to get a little too hot for Texas)
• St. Louis (never been, and the Gateway Arch is iconic, but the idea of driving through busy city streets again is rubbing me wrong)

Ultimately what pushed us over the edge to our chosen route was a desire to see an old Navy friend who happened to be my Flight Engineer for most of my initial squadron time as an Aircraft Commander.

A quick, or maybe not so quick tangent on P-3 Flight Engineers… The Flight Engineer / Pilot relationship in the Navy’s P-3 community is truly unique.  In civilian aviation the Flight Engineer is (more accurately “was” – commercial aircraft that require a Flight Engineer are now all but gone, at least outside of the cargo world) generally the junior pilot on the crew, who sits in a third seat in the cockpit with his/her own set of gauges, monitoring and manipulating various systems.  It’s a stepping stone to “the right seat” (copilot seat) and thereafter to Captain.  In the P-3, however, the Flight Engineer is an Enlisted sailor who generally starts as an aviation maintenance specialist, then at some point applies for and is accepted into the FE program, which is quite challenging, though not nearly as challenging as the extended FE syllabus within the various operational squadrons.  Earning the title of qualified FE is a supreme achievement, and they take great pride in knowing everything there is to know about the aircraft.  In each crew’s cockpit, there are two Flight Engineers and three pilots, with one of the FEs generally being the senior one training and supervising the junior one.  Senior FEs command a tremendous amount of respect.  They sit in between the two pilots in flight, presiding over the center console.  While there are enlisted aircrew working with officers on flight crews throughout the military, I would be very surprised to find a relationship like this one outside of P-3s.  Though the pilots all technically outrank the FEs, everyone knows where the expertise is, and it was common, as a pilot who hadn’t yet earned Aircraft Commander status (which generally takes at least a year and a half) to be quizzed relentlessly, for 4-5 hours out of an 8-9 hour mission, by your FE on P-3 systems operation, performance characteristics, procedures, and minutiae.  They tend to be an extremely tight knit group within the squadron, and they not only police themselves, but they know all the pilots and both their flying and personal quirks.  They’re often cocky, generally for good reason.  They watch over us and mold us, and the good ones take pride in developing “their” pilots.

With the P-8 (essentially a Boeing 737 modified for military use) phasing out the P-3, there are very few Navy FEs left, and they will soon be gone, which is a shame.

At any rate, my friend mentored me well, as all P-3 FEs ought to, but more importantly he’s just an incredible person, and flying with him made some long deployments far more palatable.  For better or for worse, you don’t spend that many hours sitting next to someone day after day and night after night without getting to know them very well, and in this case it was very much my gain.  After his Navy Retirement, he had moved to Cuba, Missouri, on the northern edge of the Ozarks and a bit southwest of St. Louis.  He’s now a pastor there when he’s not riding his motorcycle through the hills or hanging out with his family.

My never having seen the Ozarks made me more partial to taking this route as well.  It’s one of the only parts of the country in which I had never set foot, and considering myself a mountain person, I’ve enjoyed checking out the various American versions of mountain country.  Though even more than Appalachia, calling the Ozarks “mountains” is a stretch.  They’re very much hills, and are referred to as such even by the locals.

I was looking forward to driving through and making a few stops.  Here’s what that looked like.

I need to give a shout-out to Chattanooga, even though we only blew through.  I’ve got a very good friend from flight school and squadron days who has settled there and commutes to Atlanta for his airline job, and we tried hard to coordinate a visit.  We couldn’t quite manage to align our schedules, but in the process of researching where we might stay in/near Chattanooga, I came to the conclusion that it’s one of those very cool towns that flies beneath the radar, or at least the West Coast radar.  I had seen it included on various “Top Ten Towns for Adventurous Folks!” type lists you see in various Men’s Journal / Outdoors-ish magazines.  And to be completely honest, my West Coast snobbishness bias always made me skeptical when I saw towns that weren’t in the “real” mountains.  I figured they were just trying to be inclusive and branch out from Jackson Hole, Telluride, Moab, Tahoe, Vail, etc.  Give the little guy a chance…  But I have to say, from what little I saw and read, they’re absolutely right to include it.  It looks awesome.  River, cliffs, mountains, woods, trails, lakes… and even some history to round things out.  I wish we could have stayed and explored.  Plus I bet you could buy a decent house there for less than a million bucks.  Take that Telluride!

Thereafter came Nashville, and again I had to resist the urge to stop and stay awhile.  Granted, by this point my leg / sciatic nerve was hurting me pretty badly again (it’s not getting better), but more than that it just looked booming.  And it’s another pretty area.  Not to mention I was told it has developed quite the foodie scene.  All that + music and I’m thinking we could’ve easily done a week there.  Alas, not to be.

Though I would have preferred to log more westward mileage since we were somewhat in “go” mode, we’ve decided both for my pain issues and the kids’ sanity to avoid drives longer than eight hours unless it’s absolutely necessary.  This brought us to Land Between the Lakes, which is a rather large area that is exactly what it sounds like and spans the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, though the majority of it sits in Kentucky.  Yet another well-appointed lakeside campsite awaited us there, but we didn’t have much time to enjoy it, as we headed out the next morning.

And at last we reach the Ozarks.  Here’s the description of how the area got its name, which I found pretty interesting.  The area is karst (“a” karst?  I’m not sure about the usage…), which is something else I’ve only recently learned about.  Without getting too geological up in your grill, karsts tend to be quite hilly, but with many, many closely spaced and small hills rather than large ridges or ranges.  They’re mostly limestone underneath the surface, and the water, rather than draining downhill directly into rivers, tends to be absorbed into the ground, only to return to the surface at various springs.  Hence you get lots of caves, sporty terrain, and spring-fed streams and rivers, some of which are crystal clear.  I like all of that.

Then as a bonus there’s the whole Mark Twain / Tom Sawyer / Huck Finn thing, which I know is more about the Mississippi River, but I know Twain was born in and hung out in Missouri, and I always mentally pictured that whole world taking place in a setting like this one.  I loved those books back when I read them.

After departing from Land Between the Lakes, we took a route that brought us to the very southern tip of Illinois, near Cairo, which if I remember correctly, figured heavily into Huckleberry Finn.  What’s cool about it is that it sits at the confluence between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, which is kind of a big deal, river-wise.  We spent only about 5 minutes and 3 miles in Illinois, but at least we can check it off the list.  Not that we have a list.

Our first stop before turning north to get into the hills in earnest was a National Park Service visitors’ center, at which we were greeted by an enormous black snake that surprised us by climbing a tree to get a better look at us (and to claim the high ground – he clearly didn’t trust us not to mess with him, and probably for good reason).

Just down the road was one of the aforementioned clear streams upon which tubing was evidently popular.  With the temp in the high 80s and the humidity continuing to creep up, taking a long, wet detour was highly appealing.  But of course (again), we didn’t – we had a campground up near Cuba to check into.  Onward.

The family’s opinions on the Ozark roads varied widely.  And by that I mean that I absolutely loved them and no one else did.  Which is completely fair, they were winding and roller-coaster steep.  Short, steep ups and downs and lefts and rights that weren’t long enough to really put me hard on the brakes or gas pedal, and were therefore a blast to drive.  But for everyone who wasn’t concentrating on the road and looking out at the horizon they were essentially a vomit comet.  Fortunately not literally so, but after nearly an hour on a road designated only by a letter, everyone was thrilled to turn onto something big and straight enough to earn a numbered route designation.  And they were even more happy to stop once we reached our destination on the Meramec River.

I wasn’t familiar with the Meramec before our arrival, but it’s exactly the kind of pull your inner tubes up to the rope swing and take a mad leap before you explore the cave sort of place that I had hoped we would reach at some point in our journey.  Fortunately we hit our campground right before Memorial Day, which is apparently the official beginning of river floating season and quite the madhouse.  We were assured that we would have the run of the campground as long as we checked out on Friday by noon, but that if we wanted to stay longer we would be out of luck.  Truly spoken – we arrived to an empty campground, though we were surprised at how saturated the ground was, pretty much everywhere.  Walking without soaking your shoes was impossible, and some campsites appeared to be the type you would not want to drive into unless you didn’t mind staying awhile or being towed out.  Not having seen much rain in the previous few days, we asked what the deal was, and were surprised to learn that the entire place had been underwater, as in under the level of the river, just a few days prior, and that this is a normal thing in the Springtime.  It even sometimes happens in the Summer if you there’s enough rain.  Wow!

Our Navy friend joined us at the campsite for a bit just after our arrival, and he made plans to join us on our river float, along with his daughter, the following day – perfect.  Tacco covered most aspect of our float well, so I’ll try not to be redundant.

But I do want to emphasize how much I enjoyed it.  Catching up with him, getting to know his daughter a bit, watching Keeper float in his kayak while no-kidding reading Tom Sawyer…

And that spring.  I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that sort of a temperature differential, at least in the cold direction.  You had to know exactly where it was to find it, so it was fortunate we had local guides, but once you knew and began heading that direction on the river, it was as if an air conditioner had been turned on, but out in the open.  The water had been a steady 80-ish degrees, and near the spring it plummeted to about 50, with the air around you cooling as well.  Once we pulled into the spring area itself and explored the cave out of which most of it was emerging, the temperature dropped even more.  It really was amazing.

All told, another outstanding experience and yet another long time friend visited on their home turf.

I can’t say I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s trek across Kansas.  Not because I’m anti-Kansas, but because there is just no way to avoid a long drive and the associated leg pain.  I have a two-day trip to fly (commuting from Denver, ideally) beginning on Memorial Day, and for the first time I’m wondering how that will go for me and beginning to consider whether I need to look at seeing a doctor and taking some time off.  So far, thankfully, it hasn’t reached the point it had the first time I experienced it a few years back, in which my foot began to go numb.  I’m considering that a red line, as it indicates the beginning of nerve damage, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others that I don’t yet know about.

Moreover, we’re rolling into Memorial Day weekend without reservations, which is a first for us on any weekend, let alone a holiday.  We have some potential stops marked on the map and are hoping that Kansas is vast and sparsely populated enough to make finding a suitable stopping point feasible.  But, fingers crossed.

We departed Hotlanta and meandered towards the Land Between the Lakes, which spans the confluence of Western Tennessee and Kentucky.  On our way, we stopped at the Stones River National Battlefield to learn more about the Civil War.

The girls had the opportunity to earn another Junior Ranger badge, making it their third at a designated civil war site, which meant they were also eligible for becoming Civil War Junior Rangers.  A twofer – WOO HOO!

Actually, our little sojourn in Tennetucky (Kennessee?) provides a great opportunity to give a little update on the roadschooling aspect of our travels.  Why, you ask?  Well, frankly, because we didn’t do much else there.

Permit me to back up to the start of the second phase of our travels, which we started up again on the Spring Equinox.  Our girls had been playing going to public school for six out of the eight weeks prior to our departure (minus our time in Bend) while Keeper continued homeschooling while we were back in Maryland.  You can read more about the decision making process for that choice here.

Getting back on the road and resuming the education of all three of our kids has been extremely rewarding, most especially because everything is all converging at the end of the official academic year.  Our kids are (mostly) motivated to knock out their work in a timely manner and are learning by leaps and bounds.  A quick refresher on our educational goals for our kids that generally fall into three categories:  1) the basics (math and the Four Arts of Language (reading, writing, listening, and speaking)); 2) the application of the basics in other directions (e.g. science, art, history, geography, economics, social studies, etc.); and 3) life skills (e.g. meal planning, cooking, cleaning, laundry, sewing, knitting, etc.).

To solidify the first of these basics, every day our kids each complete a math exercise, review, or test in accordance with their respective Singapore Math curriculum.  To improve their writing skills, they each pen a journal entry on their respective experiences the day prior (WoodSprite a few sentences, Firebolt a paragraph, and Keeper at least three paragraphs).  To further advance in the other three arts of language, they all silently read at least one chapter in a book to themselves (we alternate between books of their choosing and ours) and each is also required to read aloud to the others (or me or Flight).  Keeper reads The Story of the World to his sisters, Firebolt reads the latest Laura Ingalls Wilder book to WoodSprite, and WoodSprite reads Inside Out aloud to me.  Somehow I came across a History Sticker Book in the bargain books section of Barnes & Noble and, just for fun, completing at least one page has been an additional requirement for WoodSprite.

A bonus – it has neatly tracked along with Keeper’s readings aloud on world history, and Firebolt has been eager to help her sister through the pages.

While they are all practicing the fundamentals of math and the Four Arts of Language (they also each have weekly spelling tests), we are encouraging them to apply these basics in directions they enjoy.  Keeper started the year intrigued by chemistry, so Flight and I have worked through an online high school chemistry class with him until we returned to Maryland. Since then he’s been captivated by physics, so Flight covered the basics of trigonometry with him before we jumped into a high school physics class, which he has enjoyed.  While on the road, the girls have had the opportunity to complete Junior Ranger programs at all the National Park Service (NPS) sites we visit (24 so far!). In earning Junior Ranger badges, the girls have become savvier on social studies, biological diversity, ecology, history, paleontology, archeology, marine biology, and numerous other varied disciplines.

Aside from writing about his observations about his experiences in his journal, Keeper had not been held accountable for learning much of anything at any of the NPS sites we had seen.  Although I didn’t stumble onto it until later into our adventures, the NPS website has a cache of curricula for teachers to use, aptly named “Teaching with Historic Places.”  Most conveniently, the curricula available are listed by subject and by location.  When asked whether he would prefer to study more about somewhere we’d been or learn about where we we’d be heading, Keeper insisted on the former.  From these posted lessons, I put together a solid packet that Keeper could work through in a week.  He’s evaluated the varied manifestation of urban planning in the vastly different cities of New Orleans and Savannah and how those architectural differences reflect the identities and societal norms of these developing urban centers.  As we were departing the Great Smoky Mountains, Keeper studied the Trail of Tears and the forced relocation of the Cherokee people. As we roll into Kansas, he’ll be assessing the five different cases that are collectively referred to as Brown v. Board of Education, which I’m excited to tie to our heavy civil rights day in Atlanta.  It’s all coming together…

Tangentially related to their daily writing exercises, our children are each required to draw something that illustrates some aspect of our travels that they’ve written about.  I’m excited that at the end of our journey they will each have a portfolio journal capturing their experiences in their own words and drawings.  Hopefully some of those will make their way into the blog before too long…

One of the topics we really can’t get around is geography.  Thanks to dedicated focus, each kid now knows the location of all 50 states, and they have nearly mastered learning their capitals (mostly thanks to this youtube video…).  Keeper learned about this video in 5^thgrade and recently introduced his sisters to this fantastic study aid.  WoodSprite is the last of the three to learn the capitals by heart, and you can see her intensely study during our stay at the Land Between the Lakes.

We also hope to teach our kids some of the major geographic landmarks that define our country (e.g. rivers, mountain ranges, lakes, etc.), which we’ll continue to revisit through our travels.

The final focus for our roadschooling efforts is on life skills.  The kids take turns helping to meal plan, generate grocery lists (although I relish the opportunity to shop unencumbered), assist in the preparation of meals, set the table, and clean up after meals.  They are also each working on a knitting project, although Firebolt’s is in hibernation while she finishes her very first latch-hook project.

This week Keeper learned how to sew on a button. Maybe next week he’ll teach his sisters. I think surgeons are onto something with trying out new procedures: “See one, do one, teach one…” Truth be told, I’m much more comfortable with the efficacy of such a practice when learning how to sew on buttons, measure twice before cutting out a sewing pattern, or binding off a scarf.  However, on second thought, these evolutions do strangely resemble basic surgical procedures…

This academic year has been incredibly rich with learning for everybody, me especially.  Although it took a while to get everyone on board and eager to work, slowly we’ve gotten the hang of it (literally).

True to Navy form, now that we’ve figured out how to roadschool most effectively, it’s time to change our SOP.  Summer will be officially upon us after Memorial Day and we’ll be downshifting our academic efforts.  Not entirely, mind you…  It is our intent to still require some academic work over the summer (namely math, reading, and writing) and we’ll be seeing plenty of our country, NPS sites and otherwise, as we make our way west.  May the learning never end…