Over 3400 miles as of now...
This Blog started out with grand intentions of a new entry every day. Or at least every day with something interesting to post. How wonderful would that have been? ... alas, travelling with two little boys and a big puppy in a popup camper hasn't lent itself to such a vision. Part of the rhythm of the road is that there is always something to do. So far we haven't spent much time just in one place therefore there are always transitions; setup the trailer, take down the trailer, walk the dog, entertain the boys, cook food, get food, rearrange stuff in the trailer, clear out the pile of crap the boys have created in the backset, move Autumn's crate into the motel room, move it out, etc, etc. This is the rhythm though. Particularly those days of driving across the plains, you can hear it and feel it. The rhythm of the road. The rhythm of living.
I heard a story once that the Zeppelin song Kashmir (one of my all time favorites and perhaps the subject of its very own post one day) was inspired by a car trip they took across northern Africa and the sound of the tires on the highway, dunh dunh dunh, dunh dunh dunh. I've heard that so far on this trip. The rhythm of the road...
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I'm writing this post from St. Cloud, Minnesota where we've spent Halloween with Cady's family. We got here two weekends ago for a surprise birthday party for her Mom's 60th. From here our plan was to head east and visit all of our friends and family in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and New York but after staying here in the cold for a week, we are now considering heading straight to Florida and returning to the Northeast in the spring or summer.
Below are the stops that we've made up until now with some highlights:
Bend, OR
We stopped in Bend to visit Cady's 97 year old Great Aunt Marge. Marge is just the coolest lady; still totally with it, she even drives. She entertained us with stories about her life and I was particularly interested in learning about how she learned to drive on her dad's Model T. She got the job of turning the crank and still has a scar from where her hand hit the sharp brass radiator.
Bend gave us our first taste of the high desert; it's really beautiful. Getting to Bend had us driving up the Santiam Pass which is a treacherous stretch of road with steep drop offs in many spots. Devastation from the B\&B fire from several years ago is still visible throughout that area. Stark beauty.
Crater Lake, OR
After leaving Bend we drove up to and around Crater Lake. This National Park is absolutely breathtaking. The crater formed when Mt. Mazama's summit collapsed following a huge ash eruption and over thousands of years rain water filled it up. This is the deepest lake in North America and it's depth gives it the striking blue color. Amazing. Some of the sheer cliffs along the road here made the Santiam Pass look like nothing. Literally no shoulder and hundreds of feet down. Was fun with the popup on the back. Before making the turnoff we got a taste of local flavor at the 'EAT' restaurant where they didn't seem too partial to out of towner's; nothing specific, just that hard to miss unwelcome vibe which stands out mostly because it's been so much the opposite everywhere else so far...
Weed, CA
I wanted to stay in Weed mostly because of the name. It also turned out to be a good waypoint between where we had been and Folsom; where we wanted to get to next. The Friendly RV Resort was friendly enough if pretty dusty. There were a lot of full timers there who apparently pass the time drinking large quantities of beer. The park is right behind a truckstop and next to the train track and that pretty well fits with the overall 'vibe' of the place. I forgot to mention that this spot is right at the base of Mt. Shasta which was breathtaking as was Black Butte just to the side of us. Black Butte looks like it must be some kind of cinder cone and was of course renamed by us to Black Butt. If you come through this area I suggest you stay in the town of Mt. Shasta two more exits down the highway, they have several cool coffee shops and restaurants and an amazing hippie run health food store across from the laundromat.
Folsom, CA
My good friend Joe from college lives in Folsom with his family and we really wanted to spend time with them before heading in to San Francisco. Folsom is a really cool little town with all sorts of history and great old homes and such. On my walks with Autumn I really noted the awesome diversity of plants here; the dry sunny Mediterranean style climate is very apparent in the vegetation. Had a blast with our friends thanks to their wonderful hospitality.
Pacifica, CA
For our basecamp while in San Francisco we chose the Premier RV campground in Pacifica. This whole town is up on a bluff overlooking the ocean and besides the fact that the whole bluff is collapsing, it's a cool location. From here it took maybe 20 minutes to get just about anywhere in San Francisco. When we first arrived the weather was beautiful but most of the rest of the week we got the infamous SF style cold fog.
San Francisco, CA
We've got lots of friends in the Bay area plus there is so much to see here, though we didn't wind up doing everything we had anticipated. The Monterrey Aquarium for example was farther than we anticipated and by this time, we had determined that the rhythm of the road that works best for us is not pushing everyone too hard and allowing the boys as much time and space as possible. That's not to say we didn't do anything at all. One day was spent going up to Fort Funstown, a great state park right on the ocean. Another day we wound up pretty much just chilling around town and found an offleash dog park and playground in just one of the off the beaten path corners of town. We checked out the Exploratorium, probably the best hands on museum I've ever seen. That same night we checked out the Tut exhibit at the De Young Museum. Also at the museum that night was a performance by the belly dance studio that Cady visited while here. They performed in the American Tribal style that she practices. One night I even got out for a taste of the city with some of my old fraternity brothers and we tore it up pretty well.
We got together with a bunch of old friends that saturday for a picnic in Golden Gate park. We were accosted by cold weather and moved the party to our friend Lou's pad on the other side of town which was so much fun to see how people without kids live :) It was a blast. We ended the day by moving our whole kit and kaboodle over to Berkeley where we were going to spend the rest of the weekend with our good friends Smitty and Patricia. We had a great time seeing everyone and in many cases meeting spouses, etc, for the first time. A really awesome visit.
Berkeley, CA
We stayed for two nights with our friends Smitty and Patricia at their house in Berkeley. We got a nice taste of semi urban living what with walking to the corner for world class coffee and pastries/ up the other block for sandwiches for lunch, etc. Reminded me of my old days living in Brooklyn. We also went up to Muir woods on Sunday to see some Redwoods. They have a really beautiful home here and we really appreciated them putting up with us our rowdy children and dog, it was a great visit.
Reno, NV
After leaving the Bay area we had hoped to next visit Yosemite but in the end did not. There was a heavy rain storm coming through central California at the time that was sure to make driving up into the mountains extra treacherous. We also reflected on something we've learned about traveling with young boys. Little boys primarily want to run, play with sticks, scream, ride bikes and the like. In both the Hoh Rainforest and Muir Woods I found myself spending most of my time hollering at them "stay on the trail", "don't touch that", etc. Sometimes a national park's main areas can feel more like a museum than the great outdoors. And they tend not to fully appreciate the wonderful vistas and sights afforded by these places. At Crater Lake, they were less interested in gazing at the beautiful lake and moreso in clambering up the treacherous trail to the lookout or visiting the park store. The point of all this being that we realized that we will all enjoy Yosemite so much more in a few more years.
We were also under somewhat of a time crunch since we wanted to be in St. Cloud before Betty's birthday party on the 24th. The first day out we made it to Reno. We found a great off leash dog area at the end of the day for Autumn to stretch in and then we drove down the Reno strip and had dinner at an Olive Garden and stayed at the Vagabond Inn. Kind of a rundown joint with a too loud apartment building behind it.
Elko, NV
Stayed at a motel in Elko and at this point we were still enraptured by the beauty of the mountains and wide open plains. That morning Valen got a mustache from the restaurant vending machine which we thoroughly played out. At one of the rest stops along the way we found lots of tumbleweeds and had lots of fun gathering them and racing them across the parking lot.
Salt Lake City, UT
We spent an extra day in SLC to just kind of hang out and wander around, the weather was beautiful and we wanted to check it out. We stayed at our first (and last?) KOA of the trip. In SLC it seems to be located in a shady party of town, though honestly it wasn't that bad, it was just the rowdy bar outside by the entrance that biased me a little. There was a lot of stuff that Cady wanted to check out but in the end we mostly just rode bikes in the great weather and then made it out for ice cream and a run to Whole Foods. Found an off leash dog park and Autumn got some fun too.
This is a really cool town, we'll come back here someday to see more.
Rawlins, Wyoming
When we started out, the idea was of course to stay in the trailer the whole time. We've gotten kind of lazy and when we're only staying one night and want to get an early start, or if it will be particularly cold we've taken to staying at motels. Rawlings fit both criteria and we stayed at the Quality Inn there which is one of the 20 or so big name businesses clustered around the highway exit. We ate dinner at Pizza Hut and then pulled over here. Not too much going on out this way.
Driving on 80 out this way you get to see some amazing country. In Nevada and particularly Utah, there is beautiful rock and mountains and then it gets flat. Really flat. One of our XM presets is the 'Chill' channel which is all ambient and jazz-house music which is perfect for this kind of driving. By the time we got to the same kind of endless sagebrush ranch area throughout Wyoming it had gotten old and we decided that we could safely cross that state off of our 'maybe we'll move here someday' list. If nothing else, this trip has eliminated several states for similar reasons. I couldn't help but wonder what the possible effects of global warming might be on these endless, dry areas. Will they go further towards real desert or get wetter and therefore possibly more productive? There is A LOT of land in the United States. It is amazing.
Boulder, CO
We were really looking forward to getting out to Boulder where we have several friends from the Life is Good Unschoolers Conference we attended in May up in Washington. Lucretia and Brad opened their homes to us and were just the best hosts with a wonderful home overlooking the whole Boulder area and the mountains beyond. We stayed for the weekend and also visited Lara and Joe at their cohousing community. Got a really great progressive, healthful and positive vibe from the entire area thanks to everyone. Why can't there be an ocean near here? It's still on my mental short list of possible future places, but at least we'll definitely be visiting again anyway.
North Platte, NE
North Platte was another one of those places that was just the most convenient and largest 'dots' on the map to stop in. Another motel night, we stayed in one of those places that smells like they've only just recently gone with the non-smoking policy. North Platte is actually a pretty big town, I believe it was a big jumping off point for settlers heading west and therefore has a lot of history as a way station kind of town. We ate at a mexican restaurant that we found online which was pretty good. The bar next door was surrounded with a 10' tall chain-link fence. It was the kind of place that you weren't sure if the fence was keeping something out, or keeping it in...
Des Moines, IA
Some more of our friends from Life is Good,
Heather and Cliff live in Des Moines and were so kind to let us stay with them for a day before we made out 'final' push to St. Cloud. They have two boys and a Golden too so there was lot's of energy and a great time was had by all. We went down to the river during the day and the boys got thoroughly caked in mud and we found some cool chunks of coal, one of which we still have.
The drive from North Platte to Des Moines was the longest one we've done so far and everyone was just wiped afterwards, the picture of the trucks at night above was from that push. I wanted to try and capture that flavor of driving in the dark with the big rigs. I had a great moment once where I slowed way down to let a truck over who sort of got stuck in the passing lane going up a big hill. When he came over, he tapped his brakes clearing saying "Thank you" and in that overtired, over-caffeinated moment, I connected with that guy. It was really cool.
Quick Shout out from the photographer
St. Cloud, MN
Cady moved to St. Cloud when she was 12 years old, all of her sisters and her Mom live here along with just about everyone else on her mom's and dad's side. The surprise party was a big success, Betty was totally surprised and we got to see a lot of Cady's family. The next big event was of course Halloween and Cady's sister Carrie in particular is like, Queen of Halloween; she did not disappoint. She had a big party, many of the damning images of which are now immortalized on Facebook. Kids had a blast trick or treating around grandma's neighborhood.
Most of the time in town has been spent with me spending lots of time walking Autumn around the neighborhood and then visits with everyone and generally just kind of hanging out. Sue the Tyrannosaurus is here in town at the local museum and we also spent some time at a local park in a converted quarry, this is a big time granite town.
While here I've become a big Vikings fan and have watched more football in the last two weekends than maybe the rest of my life combined. It's been a great visit here in Minnesota and a good recharge until the next time. We'll miss everyone until we can visit again...
We did get away for a couple days to visit our close friend Amanda in Erskine and being a different place altogether, it gets its own entry.
Erskine, MN
Our very dear friend Amanda just had a beautiful little baby boy and she's staying right now near her family up in Erskine. It's another 4-5 hour drive from St. Cloud to go up that way towards the empty part of the Minnesota map. Since most of our travels have stayed on or near the 'thick lines' on the map, it was great to venture out into the real interior. Even driving for days across Wyoming and Colorado, it's easy to feel disconnected from all the vast space. Driving on smaller roads out into the distance and passing through towns with populations of 100 people really makes you realize just how much space there really is in this country.
Autumn, the boys and I had a lot of fun exploring the fields and woods around Lake #18 (that's the name of the lake) there, it actually reminded me of my own youth growing up in the sticks. It was great to see our friend and meet her baby, we'll look forward to visiting them again up at the lake especially in the summer.
And away we go....
We'll be leaving St. Cloud this Monday and heading towards Chicago where we'd like to spend a day or two and check out the Field Museum and then south from there to Kentucky where we want to visit Mammoth Cave. From there we will either keep going to Florida or maybe go over and visit our friends in Charlotte. From here it's all about the weather and we'll be carefully watching the patterns to guide our choices...
Peace and Love to all,
E,C,V,K&A
Odds and Ends
