purplecalluna

[purplecalluna]

"I Did That"

For summer of 2003(?)

Mom, Granny, and I stepped off the subway, heading for a long day of monuments and museums in D.C. We had not walked very far when we came across a circular tribute to the women who served in World War 2, so we stopped to look. After a few minutes of looking at the raised bronze scultpure photos, Granny points and says, "I did that."

Suddenly the rest of the monument is absolutely unimportant as Mom and I both scurry to see what she is pointing at. There before us are women who are working together to collect information over a phone, drawing it on a map, and talking about the map. Granny explaind that they would get the weather data from the coast of Maine as the weather left the USA, and make weather maps so the European Front would know what weather might be in bound and could coordinate movements and plans.

"Wow Granny! That is so cool!"

She shrugged- "We just did our job."

Like so many women of her generation, they did a job and kept moving, not really appreciated or thanked for their part in the grand scheme of things.

Thanks Granny.

[purplecalluna]

Backpacks

Also known as Kackbacks to the toddler who delighted in carrying the homemade tiny thing my sister made from dog print quilt fabric. Every time a kackback was seen on another child, usually headed to school, squeals of delight issued from the toddler who knew just one use only- carrying a bottle of apple juice and a cheerio cup to carry while hiking. Both of my kids have carried their own little kackback since they were old enough to demand to walk on their own. Now they are old enough to carry a big kid backpack and be the kids who look like they are headed for a hike as they go to school. May some of your kackback days be hiking days.

[purplecalluna]

Storming Tyndall’s Glacier

For summer 1991(?)

Mom and Dad woke Sister and I up before sunrise for a quick breakfast. With sandwiches packed, and a short drive to the trailhead, we were on our way. The sun was just starting to color the sky and trees revealing their summer green coloring. After a hike through the montane layer, we emerged into the sub alpine and then the alpine. For being called “Flat Top” it sure wasn’t flat. The trail zig zagged across a slowly curving ascending boulder strewn alpine. To my 11 year old self, it was the worst version of forever- never making progress or getting there.

Lunch was early and with about a dozen or more people. The adults still in their older 20s and 30’s, were all looking at a tourist map, binoculars, watches, gear, and the darkening clouds quickly growing and gathering to the west of us. The discussion became more urgent- it was coming in fast. Were we going to hike as fast as possible zig zag down a slowly descending curved alpine towards tree line over a mile away or… what was the other option anyways? As the rain began to fall, the other groups with adults only took out with almost a quick jog and started working their way towards the shelter of tree line.

My mom and dad took one last look at the late 80’s early 90’s not topo tourist map and at the cliff edge below us and decided that THAT was where we were going. The top goal was to get off the lighting field NOW. So we scurried twenty feet to the nearly vertical edge of the short cliff and my dad had Mom creep down first and handed to her my sister and me, following us a moment later. We kept to the edge of the cliff as we worked down layer after layer until we reached the top of the cirque glacier, the lighting striking the flat top above us. Gathering our wits again, and putting on one size fits all ponchos tied up so as to not trip, we prepared for the next step.

To pick our way around the glacier or to slide down it? Dad decided to test it and laid down on his stomach and gave a scootch and slowly started to slide. Down he slid, hands and toes of his boots dug in, rooster tailing as he gathered speed. What looked like fun at first was suddenly very clear it was way too fast and then he slammed into the rocky scree field at the bottom, the smash echoing in the canyon.

A very long pause and then,

DO

NOT

COME

DOWN

HERE!

Another long pause…

GO

AROUND!

It took Mom, Sister, and I over an hour to pick around the north edge of the glacier, slowly working our way down in the rain. We got an occasional glimpse of Dad (Mom probably chose that intentionally) and he had laid in the snow for a while, then knelt with his knees and shins in it for even longer.

Mom had us wait so she could go walk to him, and then let us follow. By the time Sister and I got to him, he was sitting on a boulder, the two of them giving each other very grave looks. He was pretty scrapped up. (Frankly he was lucky to be alive let alone not broken.)

We four picked our way down to where we knew the trail below would take us back to the parking lot.

Our bright ponchos caught the attention of a growing gathering of people at Emerald Lake at the bottom. They occasionally shouted dirrections at us, helping us past a cliff as we worked our way down. A small glacial pond and a waterfall jumping off the lower cliff were beautiful but just another obstacle to getting down to safety. We crossed a few boulders and a creek to get to the south side of Emerald Lake and joined our new friends who all cheered and gave us snacks and helped my parents down. By then, Mom had torn her pants and Dad never let us see him struggle to walk.

His deep purple black bruises all along his shins and knees took until the late fall to heal, slowly bluing, then green, then yellowing.

Mom and I went back when I was in college to finish the hike up Flattop, along the top of Tyndall’s, a brief visit to Hallett’s, along the wood sign marking Chaos Canyon, and over to Andrew’s Glacier and back down. The beautiful alpine hike, marked along the tundra with only dog tags trail markers glittering in the sun, was gorgeous and the longest hike I have ever done. A couple from Connecticut followed us for the journey. Mom only told them once we were back at the parking lot that she had been told about the hike in the 70’s while still in Ohio and it really isn’t a loop trail at all.

Definitely a level 2 adventure. Perhaps 3? It is only “fun” in the retelling thirty years later.

[purplecalluna]

Storms - Prince Edward Island

For summer 1993

The green Colman 4-person dome tent blended in with the green grass and distant trees of Prince Edward Island and contrasted sharply with the red soil and grey blue water of the Atlantic Ocean. Granny’s blue grey van blended with the darkening evening sky and impending incoming storm.

At some point in the night, the wind picked up and battered the dome tent, bending the sides in towards the three of us, eventually pushing against my 13 year old face and waking me up. Mom was already awake, putting on her shoes, and digging for keys. She had me also put on shoes and sneak out of the tent holding a flash light. She climbed in to the van, waking Granny asleep in the far back deluxe back bench seat, oblivious to the raging storm.

I guided with a flashlight and Mom moved the van carefully between the edge of the short cliff and the tent to shelter it from the storm coming in off the Atlantic Ocean a dozen yards away. Tying the mid guy lines of the tent to the side mirror and the back door hinge, we then crept back into the tent where Sister was still asleep.

Thus Granny slept in the silent van, a few feet from the cliff and crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, blocking most of the wind so we could sleep away the stormy night in a well-traveled green tent. I have since used the same technique many times to shelter my own kids from a storm.

[purplecalluna]

Storms - Sleeping with a Stranger

For Summer 2019

North Platte had a campground south of the rail, the river, and the highway, a stop over before our last day drive home. Thinking nothing of it, we chatted with the nearby couple who had a very nice road motorcycle and a small tent. The two laughed easily in a Scottish brogue and told of their adventures touring the States. We bid them sweet dreams for the night.

2am and the wind picked up, waking my always on guard brain. One bar of cell service and I slowly checked the weather. The screen displayed a horrific impending doom- incoming nasty.

Living sheltered from most of the intense storms by the Flatirons 11 miles west of our town, I was very aware that anywhere east of I-25 is Tornado Ally and it was tornado season. I had long since learned that Dad had wisely lied to my childhood self- Tornadoes happen at night after all.

The nasty storm heading right for my thin fabric tent would bring two-inch diameter hail, rain, lightning, wind, but luckily, no tornado. Just the rest. Yay. I had a decision to make- wake up my mom and kids or not. The second decision was just as hard- wake up the other nine tent sites?

As the storm moved in and large branches started thrashing in the big trees, I woke up my family, moved the sleeping bags and dry fabrics out of the tent, and woke up the rest of the tents. One family got in their car and left. The last tent was the motorcycle family. I shook the side of the tent and shouted over the wind, “Scotland! Wake up! Incoming nu-uh!” a groggy “Wuut?” so I repeated it- “Incoming nasty storm! Get up!”

We pulled stuff from inside tents but with no time left to take a tent apart, we flattened them to prevent the wind thrashing and hail puncturing them, and group lifted each site’s picnic table and set it on top of the tent. Now shelter- the storm shelter at the main building was locked and no one could find the owners. The nearby bathroom would have to do. I got everyone and their sleeping bags and pillows into the building. Remembering the diagram for storms and the advice for tiny walled rooms as the safest, I put both kids side by side in a walled and full door shower stall and kissed them good night and closed the door. A few more strangers joined us for our impromptu slumber party on the bathroom floor, the power long since out, thunder and hail so loud we had to yell to be heard to the person next to us. So, with mom laying beside me in the hallway between shower roomettes and toilet powder rooms, and the Scottish couple 180 degrees to us, I reached above my head and patted them both on their heads- “Goodnight Scotland. Sweet dreams.”

In the morning, power still out, we ventured out into the storm strewn quiet sunrise. Leg sized limbs littered the campground and the sound of a chainsaw already on the job broke the eerie dawn silence. We later learned the storm had killed two people in the nearby town. Our tents, soaked but still there and undamaged under the tables, fared better than the trees. My hesitant decision to wake the tents was revealed to literally be lifesaving- a limb about the size of my thigh, was smashed down onto the table set on top of the Scottish family tent. He and I stared for a moment before he reached over and clapped me on the back. “Thanks Yank!”

[purplecalluna]

Storms - Devil’s Tower

For summer 2019

Storms are part of travel and camping. The intense storms that wake me up become stories only after we make it through them.

Devil’s Tower is a pillar of stone jutting out of a rolling landscape- the contrast reducing the surrounding hills to flat land. Old craggy cottonwoods growing sporadically throughout the campground belay the water and the weather of their home with the giant ancient pillar. Mom and I and the two kids tuck in after a long day as the wind picks up. The kids are asleep almost instantly but the wind and lightning have me wide awake. No cell phone service and no internet- I cannot check the alerts or the pattern or the movement or intensity of the storm. In tears, I whisper to mom my concerns about the lightning and the nearly instantaneous thunder. She sleepily replies that the biggest lighting rod is within a half a mile and to go to sleep and not wake the kids. Against my better judgement, I curl up with my kids tight to me so if we are found in the morning, I at least died holding my children.

The morning revealed no Hollywood classic lightning strikes but the nearby cottonwood and I had a “chat” about the missing bark in a spiral radial pattern.

Too close.

[purplecalluna]

Stinky Shell

For summer 1993

One of my children’s favorite stories is the Stinky Shell.

Mom took my sister and I to Granny’s house in Ohio, piled into her blue (carpeted curtained tv and vcr travel van) “Hunk Mobile” as mom called it, and drove across the northeast US and southeast Canada. The loop included Ontario, Niagara Falls, upstate New York, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Maine, and then back to Ohio.

The spiral round white sea shell stood out in the fading evening light against the red sand and short cliffs of the coast of PEI, attracting my imagination already intensified by a day in the Land of Anne. The opening of the sea shell was blocked by a leather like door of some sort but the early smallest curl was broken off. Was the creature still inside? I washed the red sand off in the Atlantic Ocean and brought it to Mom. “Can I keep it?”

Thus begins the saga of the shell. Uncertain if there was a living creature in there or if it was already dead due to the damage, Mom had me put it in a cool whip container and fill it with fresh water. It traveled on the floor of the “trunk” of the van as we toured Nova Scotia, Fundy Bay, and Maine. At a KOA somewhere along the way, Granny suggested that we try to cook the critter to kill it for sure so it would come out of the shell. A tin can was selected and filled with shell and water and set to boil on the gas stove. It was immediately clear that this would be a smelly endeavor.

The cooling night air carried the smell and smoke down the valley slowly filling the rest of the campground with the smell of boiling dead rotting sea creature. One by one each site struggled to the main building at the top of the hill, remarking that there was a campsite with a VERY stinky dinner cooking. I declined to claim the disaster as my fault, returning to put out the flame, drain the water, filling the cool whip container once again with fresh water and critter still stubbornly stuck behind the leather door in the softball sized shell.

The last campground before our final leg home and then an airplane ride was in Massachusetts. My Mom handed to me a coat hanger found in a nearby fire ring, left over from a much more enjoyable job of roasting marshmallows, and demanded the critter stays here or the whole shell stays here. Sister and I went to the edge of the forest and tried to pry the end of the coat hanger under the leather door. Finally, the door opened and we pulled out a greenish white shriveled dead critter and tossed the door and critter into the forest edge away from the rest of the sites. The shell was scrubbed out with a stick and then a paper towel and then patted dry, wrapped carefully, and placed back into the cool whip container for the flight home.

Almost thirty years later, it still sits on a shelf in the living room, prompting traveling adventure stories with Mom, Sister, and Granny.

[purplecalluna]

Road MORE taken

Summer 2017

“Disney, watch my kids.” is not a phrase I say often or lightly.

The day had been a glorious adventure, complete with the Chaco ranger swearing my kids in with “eat my veggies and never high five a cactus!”

Excellent.

Once out of Chaco’s north side, I turned south on a road not labeled either in real life or the grey line on my atlas, towards Grant, through a no-cell-phone-service steepe. 80 miles and not a whole lot of gas for mistakes and the side roads weren’t labeled. “The road MORE taken” is the choice today, Mr. Frost.

While Disney distracted my kids from the “Where are we?” and the “Are we there yet?” questions, I studied each intersection for gravel ever so slightly more displaced and hoping each time it was THE atlas’s grey road.

We weren’t lost. We just weren’t on any map I had available Granny.

I drove on.

The gas station in Grant looked beautiful to my eyes when we turned in.

[purplecalluna]

Simplicity

for spring 2017 and now

I sat “criss cross apple sauce” on the industrial carpeted floor in the basement of the national parks federal building west of Denver, Colorado, fingering alphabetically through and pulling out one each of every map they have available while the staff continued to go about their work day around me. Each piece of the national park system has a visitor guide you receive at the gate or the front desk. Instead of picking them up one at a time, I was grabbing the set all at once. Occasionally a ranger at a distant park would be surprised that I had the “old” version, or the “wow where can WE get that?”

Grouped by region and then by state, those visitor guides are the backbone of my planning. The USDA plant hardiness zone maps of last and first frost help me figure out timing so we aren’t ever too surprised by weather, and the National park system map helps me figure out the loops. I make several rough draft loops, fine tuning the distances and what to see and how to get there using a paper road atlas and the KOA map. I NEVER rely solely on the computer or internet or gps or cell phone service. When you are halfway between nowhere and nowhere, you need paper maps in a physical binder.

The Binder becomes the daily planner- filled with one photo sleeve per day of the trip, it has the map on the right with the plan for the day written out on the backside of the receipt for the location we are staying that night. Turn the page each morning and go. It is a metric ton of planning ahead of time but then it is done for me by the time I get there and I can just enjoy the day. It turns out that my past self is the adult I hold a nervous hand and travel with every day through the magic of The Binder.

I try to get the monuments in between the parks- why not- we will be driving right past. Plus- the monuments are the icing on the cake- they are less visited and therefore we get the place and many times the rangers to ourselves to ask all the questions we can come up with.

I holler when I first see each entry sign- “Martin sees a Monument!” and we get out and take a photo of the kids with the laminated flat cartoon scribble colored Martin Luther paper doll and the entry sign. FlatMartin gets his own photo posted to twitter sans kids to let our city family know we made it ok to each place.

Once at the front desk, we stamp their National Park passport book that is brimming full with extra pages, stamp the “M is for Majestic” picture book, and I have the kids get a Junior Ranger booklet from the rangers right away and start in on it immediately. They will earn that shinny pin before we leave and I buy the fabric patch to sew on later. Believe me, after a dozen or so, the shiny pins on the Junior Ranger vests begin to make the kids look like a disco ball. (We were able to use a pin to flash signal the South Rim from the North Rim.) The pins get lost, are used as car weapons, caught on things and are, in large numbers, overwhelming, so they left at home before the next major trip, pinned politely on a 3 by 4 foot piece of canvass fabric map of the USA nailed on their bedroom wall. The Junior Ranger books are hole punched and put in a 3 inch binder back in the car to keep the car from being a paper disaster zone. The binders line a shelf in each bedroom like photo albums. I laugh that the passport book will be thunked down on a therapist’s desk someday- “See? THIS is what she did to us!”

Other than the trinket fabric patch, I agree to buy a tshirt for each kid from each national park. If they want to spend their own money on anything else, they are welcome to it. Usually, the shirt and the patch they choose is sufficient to satisfy their desire to have mom buy something for them. It also helps the trinket collector we each seem to have built into us. I never let them take even a pebble with them as collecting is not ok within the NPS system. I try my very best to make sure we are following all of the Leave No Trace principles. I also learn as we go and have had to apologize a few times to a Ranger when I didn’t do it right. (I am sorry- I won’t catch lizards anymore- it makes the lizard less wild and more tame and more likely to get hurt- don’t touch the wildlife even if you think you are teaching your kids to not be afraid of lizards.)

Their Junior Ranger vests are full, the super hero cape that is NPS tan with a new olive border has 97 patches on each one so far with room for 33 more before I have to get even more creative. We are quite the sight running excitedly up to the Ranger’s front desk in long sleeve sun shirts, sear sucker and linen pants, floppy brimmed hats, massive dark sunglasses, and the national park vests and capes catching the wind. Many times a park has sister parks nearby and occasionally the afternoon monument will laugh and say “Sister Park called us and told us you would come.” And then hand to the kids the Junior Ranger booklets they had stashed for us. The Rangers love looking at the capes and asking the kids about their adventures, many jealous that the kids have seen more parks than the Ranger have.

As for me? I have one patch that says “National Park Geek” sewn to my hiking bag. Simplicity sometimes is the better way to go.

[purplecalluna]

Turn the Corner

For Summer 2017

I turned the corner and headed northwest out of Paige, Arizona, and freaked out. For the next several miles, I saw nothing other than stripes and blacktop even thought it was a gorgeous sunny day. I had never been there before, that road, that part of the map, that landscape, and I was alone. Ok, as alone as a person can get with two young kids in the back of the car. But alone in the “no other adult with me” sort of way. It was on me now, all the planning, all the packing, all the driving, all the problems, all the danger, and the responsibility of the unknown. If I messed up, or got lost, or… Any mistake I made could literally kill us. But it was that or stay home and I was losing my mind staying home. So, one mile at a time, one deep breath at a time, I drove us into the unknown adventure before us.

My mother had installed in my mind the wanderlust program from an early age. I don’t remember my first plane ride at a month old and I don’t remember my first camping trip. Or first hike. Or first long car trip. My first time on a horse is a vague dreamlike memory- I may have been 2-1/2. The first ice skating and skiing experiences were in preschool. The sailboat was sometime in elementary school, as was the rafting and zipline. My first time in the cockpit was the summer before my freshman year in high school. Everything I had just shown the kids I had already seen either with my parents, a college class “field trip”, or with my husband. My only solo trip had been retracing the path laid out from my parents’ door to my aunt’s door - I had been shown the road, the way, by others.

Ironically, it was my mother that had begged me to not take myself and my 2 kids into the unknown alone. Dozens of reasons spilled from her over several weeks beforehand, including the fact my 6 year old kid was not yet old enough to take care of me if something went wrong. I still have the greeting card she slipped into my gear the morning she drove home and I drove onwards.

In my travels since then, I have met many well-meaning people, from my friends (“Do you have a SPOT?”) to strangers (“You mean you don’t have your husband with you?”) who are astonished that a mom in a VW Jetta station wagon with two young kids and a tent are camping and seeing the national parks. I have been asked if I am a teacher- Who else has the whole summer off? Answer- a bored stay at home mom.

As of right now, the three of us have seen 135 national parks and monuments (etc) units. Honestly- I have lost count, not because I can’t count the checkmarks on the master map, but how do you include the different 22(?) varieties of the park system in a count and explain it to the people around you? Currently there are about 400 different pieces and I could sit down with any fellow traveler and double the list. It is like reading all the Caldecott and Newberry winner and honor books- they are the best of the best we have.

I was also asked, sometimes in curiosity, sometimes in anger, why I was making my kids go do this. My answer is this- you have one precious childhood that you will spend like currency one moment at a time. What are you going to choose to spend it on? Like Mary Oliver said, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Whether you are a bored SAHM, or a teacher with the summer off, or any variety of working parent with a smidge of vacation time, I hope you enjoy these stories and are inspired to “turn the corner” and head into unknown adventure.

[purplecalluna]

Return to Camping

Summer 2022

Other than a few "borrow and replace" food items, and a "tent and bag only cold food overnight solo trips", the boxes of camping supplies had gone untouched and unused for over 2 pandemic years. When I opened the "kitchen" box just over a week and a half ago, I was thrilled and sad to see my former world preserved neatly just as I had left it. At first I was VERY rusty, stumbling through slowly on what to do with each item and how to use it. I noticed if I just took a deep breath, my hands seemed to know what to do, like typing a password that I don't consciously know, and eased back into full camping mode. It was my first real solo in 15 years, and longest solo ever. All in all, it was fabulous.

[purplecalluna]

Sacred Bored

Summer 2020

There is a sacredness to bored children. They have a wide variety of activities they can do and mix them in new unique ways. We have a Lego Enterprise D and a shuttle craft. The new backyard pond regularly hosts pool parties and the dinosaurs are invited. I refuse to count how many days it has been since the last day of school let alone the last day they were IN school nor anticipate what will happen next year. This level of "lack of planning" is very different. Monday and Wednesday they have a new G20 country to learn about and Tuesday and Thursday I tell stories by taking them to the locations in town on our bikes. They sleep in the 2 person tent in the backyard every other night with my insistence that they sleep in their own bedrooms the opposite nights so they actually sleep. I miss traveling so intensely bad that if I stop to think about it, I will crash into a pile of misery with chocolate for company.

[purplecalluna]

Industrial Strength

When car camping out of a station wagon, I have learned to pack minimal. It is a balance to bring just the right amount of stuff- things we will need- but not too much stuff that would be nice for emergencies. For example, I have looked at the overnight low temperatures where we are headed next and have unpacked the winter coats that were in compression sacks so they took up less space. The car snow shovel has also been unpacked, but the camping fire shovel replaced it. The kids have do-bags, there is a quite evening do-bag for in-camp activities like cards or checkers, and there is a burn-energy bag for afternoons complete with frisbee and a skeleton soccer ball. (No kidding- it is just the outline of the traditional ball hexagons in very firm plastic, requires no air, lights up, and is clipped in so it doesn’t bounce out when the trunk is opened.) The kitchen dry box, kitchen prep box, camping box, stove, and cooler comprise the majority of the trunk with clothes bags on top. Most things are essential or very nice to have and make life easier when packing small and tight.

The one thing that is not part of the usual camping entourage is an industrial strength hole punch. Part of the entire adventure is to do the Junior Ranger booklets at each park we go to. After about 3, they start to take over the car. So, they get hole punched and put in a three-ring binder. The only other thing I can think of that would make the adventure smoother is my sewing machine, but I think that is starting to get ridiculously extravagant. Safety pins for the fabric patches will have to do until we get home again.

[purplecalluna]

Shot of Apple Juice

Summer 2018

We have had several “trial” adventures so far this summer- parks that the kids don’t remember or do not have Junior Ranger pins and fabric patches.

The warmup was a day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park as the park had just opened the paved Trail Ridge Road and I love getting to drive the freshly opened road with the snow field walls and getting to see the alpine just waking from its winter nap. Since they already had their pins and patches from Rocky, we simply enjoyed the day and remembered what it is like to sit in the car for several hours at a time.

Having done that, neither of them remember the Black Hills in South Dakota. We stopped by Fort Laramie, a national site, in southeastern Wyoming and the Oregon Trail Ruts and Register Rock, both a state site. The ruts are so cool to get to see 150 years after they were made. Sarsaparilla was a must at the Fort as it was something my grandma had insisted on when I was there as a kid. Neither of them are used to the zing and bubbles of soda pop so they preferred their pop flat.

We woke up in Scottsbluff in Nebraska and tried a new idea for compact food packing- pure concentrate apple juice. I brought a metal shot glass along for the ride- aptly a Route 66 cup- and used that to measure out a shot of apple juice and added water. This makes it so I can bring what would make almost a gallon (128 ounces) of apple juice in a 20 ounce metal water bottle, and that saves room in the cooler for other items.

Scottsbluff is along the Oregon Trail and the ruts there are also amazing to walk in. The enterprising competitor to a supply provider decided to literally chop a passageway through a nasty crevasse filled sandstone pass, shortening the route by several miles and bypassing the competitor, going between the bluffs closer to the river. The view from the top can see Chimney Rock to the east. Watch for rattle snakes.

Agate Fossil Beds is also a national site north of Scottsbluff where we did see our only snake- a bull snake. They also have an amazing collection of Native American artifacts, given to the land owner by the people that owned them, therefore they do not have to be repatriated. *(EDIT- I have since changed my opinion on this- given under duress is not actually a gift- the museum needs to work with the People to figure out a solution. Travel has broadened my world view.) The Beds themselves have supplied fossils to museums across the USA and we saw something I had never even heard of- a Devil’s Corkscrew- a cast of an ancient burrow-living critter. Along the way, we also saw the National Grasslands. They are devoid of the American Bison- I would love it if they were to be returned to the national grasslands.

We woke up in Fort Robinson State Park and stopped to visit a nearby little town as family is buried in the cemetery there. Another Grassland and we arrived in Hot Springs and spent the rest of the day playing in the water at Evan’s Plunge- a natural rock bottom warm spring indoor/outdoor pool. The rocks provide a thousand diving objects.

The KOA in Hot Springs was wonderful and quiet. The KOA system provides us with a usually consistent format, emergency supplies at their store, clean bathrooms, warm water, showers, and laundry if we need it. We have had some stellar excellent KOA’s (East Des Moines) and some terrible ones (Green River, Utah) but for the most part, they are a good way to travel for relatively cheap. This one was our base of exploration for 5 days.

We visited Wall and accidently ran across the National Grasslands Visitor Center- the only one for all the grasslands- and learned about the different types of prairie and the valuable ecologies that the comprise. I learned a new term- Foundation Species- in regards to prairie dogs. I knew they were Keystone Species, but now I have the term to use for the “builder of the neighborhood that 145 other critters also use”. Cool.

Minuteman Missile is north of the entrance to Badlands, both national sites. I hope we never have to use the missiles. Badlands was gorgeous as usual and a few hikes and some jumping and running made it so the ride through the west edge of the Badlands on the dirt road was tolerable. It was a long day in the car, but we were rewarded with bighorn sheep and bison and pronghorn along the way.

Music in the car was Broadway’s “Hamilton”- the kids had never heard it and it was a good opportunity to introduce them and then explain why someone would be mad and go shoot someone else and that there are WAY better ways of handling it all.

Custer State Park, in my opinion, should be a National Park. The drive is gorgeous and the wildlife is amazing. We got an afternoon tour of Wind Cave National Park with all the box work formations in the cave. We all agreed- it looks like chocolate waffles.

Jewel Cave is first come, first serve tours, so be there at 8 so when the box office opens at 8:30, you are in line. Check, learned the hard way from the day before. The hike to the natural entrance is relatively easy- one mile out, one mile back, across a landscape that had a devastating fire. With my training in landscape architecture and love of national parks, fire ecology is a conversation that we have on a regular basis.

The 1880’s Train is an oil-steam train that goes from Hill City to Keystone and back. The afternoon was filled with the wonderful smell of a stream train, the 20+ whistled road crossings, and the scenery passing gently by. I love trains, especially old steam trains, and I am a third-generation train girl. It isn’t my grandpa’s model train that we have, it is grandma’s. The train is not on the national list, but neither is Custer.

The drive through the Needles Highway through Custer State Park was the next adventure as was swimming in Sylvan Lake. This was the highest concentration of parents of little kids so far in the 8 day adventure and many gave us plenty of room, as usual, as we are not the normal family. The kids jumped in fully clothed and one parent commented that they would be cold and wet and smelly. Meh- they dry, they wash, and the clothes aren’t normal clothes anyways. The shirts we wear all summer are long sleeve SPF swim shirts, the long pants are a light weight fabric that dries faster than we can get back to the car, and the sunhats are the broadest brims I could find. In addition, my underthings are running top and swim suit bottom so I am always ready for adventure. We are quite the sight and usually odd enough that people give us lots of room.

The afternoon at Mount Rushmore was amazing and a little bitter sweet. With over 400 things on the park list, and then more that is not, I don’t plan on coming back to many of them and to Mount Rushmore unless I am helping a kid bring their kids. What will our democracy be like when I do return? Will the horizon-gazing George Washington still look across the land of the free?

On the way “home”, the Bison Jam that we got stuck in on the Wildlife Loop took 45 minutes to go 200 yards.  First in line, I did not want to scare these massive creatures and become the next You-Tube video of bison-slamming-into-car. The mommas and babies moseyed their way along the road with me creeping through, several trucks close behind me, revving their engines every now and then to hurry the heard up. We decided we had enough of bison at this point, but I am still glad to have seen them.

On our way out of town, we visited the Mammoth Site, also not on the national list. It is a sink hole that trapped a few Wooly but mostly Columbian Mammoths. They are not petrified, and many are still in the matrix of the sink hole silt. The entire site is now completely inside an air-conditioned building, so it is good for a warmer day.

We drove to Chimney Rock, which the atlas claims is national, but the people in the visitor center say it is state. Whatever. It was neat to see, and drive the road from Jail and Courthouse Rocks, past Chimney, the next group, and to Scottsbluff along the old Oregon Trail. Our turn south took us through Pawnee National Grasslands and the kids got to see the difference between Pawnee’s short grass and Buffalo Gap’s mixed. Later, they will see tall grass, but not today.

Once home, we washed up, hung out, repacked, sewed patches on, and headed out again. This time for a short last-check quick trip to Curecanti National Rec and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. More than likely, you have not heard of it- they get about 250,000 people a year, less than many monuments. The combined 3 dams and the huge Blue Mesa reservoir in the rec area, the hikes along the old train beds, and then the half mile sheer cliff in Black Canyon make both side-by-side parks amazing. If you have not seen the Painted Wall, hold your children’s hands very tight, and take a look at what a half mile of solid rock wall looks like. It is a good time to look at a topo map and teach about what a cliff looks like when drawn in 100’ lines. Then go drink a glass of wine- it is one of the scarier parenting locations as one stupid move from a playful brain means the death of that person.

While there, a Boomer-aged woman commented in shock that I was traveling like this with kids. “Not that a woman can’t do things without her husband, of course, but where is your husband?!” This has become a common and humorous response from people, many of whom are women. The men somehow don’t question it as much as they have less trouble placing themselves in my shoes. A Belgium woman asked if this was a normal American Woman thing, and I had to laugh and tell her no, sadly, it is not.

For now, we are home, washing, repacking, replenishing, and making sure the check lists we scribbled out are all addressed. This morning at least, we don’t have to have a shot of apple juice- just a normal pitcher from the fridge will do.

[purplecalluna]

You mispronounced “Awesome”

Summer 2018

I get occasional hate for doing these park trips. “Does your husband know you are taking the kids out of state?” “What does he think?” “What is he going to do while you are gone?” “And he just pays for all this?” “You are ruining your kids summer by not letting them stay home.” “Wow you are ‘brave’.” “You are crazy!” Some of the hate comes from genuine jealousy, others truly think I am doing something wrong. But others really do want to do the same thing. The last is the reason I am going to try to include maps and photos this time- you also can go and do the parks with kids.

[purplecalluna]

T-29 days

Spring 2018

It is T-29 days until Thing 1 and Thing 2 are out of school. As usual, the adventures start the very next day. I am behind the scenes, getting things ready and today’s task is to call and ask for a work around for a camp ground whose website only lets you book 2 or more days at a time. Tomorrow, the reservation window opens up for a state park that we want to stay at. I need to have every night preregistered so I know there is someplace legal and safe to sleep at the end of each day. #NPS #KOA #camping #SummerVacation

[purplecalluna]

Tour de Parks

2017

I am getting multiple requests for the maps, routes, schedule, locations and things we saw last summer. First, the details of the trips…

Warning- this is exceedingly long.

  For starters, “we” usually means “mom and two kids”. Occasionally a relative will join us for a few days, but for the most part, the majority of the trips were just the three of us. Our mode of transportation is a station wagon- I put 10,000 miles on it over the summer and 4,000 over winter break. Our housing is tent camping out of the back of that perfectly packed car usually at a KOA, sometimes at a national park if I could get a spot, or at a mom-and-pop-campground. Sometimes we stayed with a relative or friend for a night or two. I had the car ready to go so the day after public school let out, I made sure everyone had breakfast, and we got in the car and were gone for three weeks solid for the south (middle) trip. We took with us kid bikes and helmets and a telescope. Those are the things we did not use enough so they did not get repacked for the north trip which also was three solid weeks, plus the wind drag on the bikes in 80mph Utah was quite the sight. Our southmost trip of two weeks did not include the tent or camping supplies but just the cooler which was upgraded from the old college junk to a Yeti for just this reason. Suitcases and hiking bags were all that came with us east to the 10 day Ohio and east coast to Acadia trip.

  The entire trip, day by day, was preplanned and pre-purchased and put page by page in photo pages in a binder. Maps picked up at the Denver Federal Center were slid into the plastic sleeves with the receipt for each camp ground. Each day, the page was turned and we did what I had planned on that page, put receipts in the sleeve, and put maps, papers, and the fabric sew on patches in the sleeve for that day. I agreed to buy a short sleeve t-shirt at each National Park and an occasional treat at a monument, like cactus jelly for sandwiches. We very rarely went out to eat and made semi-regular trips for basic groceries. When I bought gas after 500 miles, I bought ice for the cooler. The trip was also fueled by coffee that I made every morning on the camp stove. We ate an egg and a banana for breakfast, cuties for snack, pb&j and an apple for lunch, cheerios and raisins for afternoon snack, and had things like hotdogs or hamburgers or chicken and veggies for dinner with milk and a can of fruit as dessert. The tent was a Boyscout Jamboree tent meaning it is ridiculously easy to set up and take down in a short amount of time. We traveled with the last frost and first frost dates of the USDA maps, doing the middle south parks first, moving north as it got warmer, and back south as it got cold again. We totaled 80 parks and monuments in 2017.

  Spring break had us travel by air out to Las Vegas, renting a SUV, and then a drive through the Mojave National Preserve- the largest collection of Joshua Trees. At that point, we had not yet learned to recognize basalt and thought it weird that there were pimples across the landscape in the shape of volcanic rock cones. The Joshua Trees were amazing to see, and we did a few of the hikes there. The kids still want to go back and do The Rings Hike again. The Kelso dunes and Train Station are worth the visit- the park took the better part of two days.

  We visited a local park in the Palm Springs area with a hike that takes you on metal ladders to view the valley below you. The Salton Sea, a self-draining below sea level inland sea gets saltier every year. The dried-up sea bed had flooded 75 years ago when a nearby irrigation canal broke, sending water into the area. Not very much lives in it and fish die offs make it stink.

  Joshua Tree National Park was gorgeous as we were there just as the trees were blooming giant pods of creamy white flowers. We went on several hikes, including near the remnant palms growing around the natural springs in the area. Everywhere the flowers were blooming as they had a wet rainy winter. It was gorgeous.

  Death Valley is farther north and we used a hike on the salt flat below sea level as a morning run- you can’t get any more oxygen than that without using a tank. The hotel in the park serves as an oasis still, and the drive and short hike overlooking the salt flat is a must. Sunset and a steep scramble of a mountain that goes a mile almost straight down very clearly illustrates what one mile above sea level is. The colors of the landscape are stark and beautiful. A reminder- DO NOT GRAPHITTI THE SALT FLAT- it takes valuable water to erase your chicken scratch. The second day we were there was only 95 degrees and a strong wind blew in a huge dust storm. We didn’t go see the sand dunes- they saw us! Once out of the storm and looking down it seemed as if it was a dirty fog spread across the valley floor. The Scotty’s Castle section was still closed due to the epic floods a few years ago. We plan on going back someday to see it. Our spring break trip seems a side thought looking back, but we had a wonderful time.

  We started our summer trip in southern Colorado by seeing Chimney Rock. This is a great spot if you want to celebrate the equinoxes and solstices- there is a guided tour and, as always, a Junior Ranger booklet and badge to earn. As we went, the pins stuck all over a junior ranger vest started to become a problem, falling off or getting caught on things. I purchased along the way sew on badges to sew to the vests and decided the pins would have to be displayed some other way later on. They now hang on a hand drawn map of the USA on a 2-1/2’x4’ piece of grommeted canvas in their respective bedrooms. As we collected enough sew on patches, they also crowded out the space on the vests, so super hero capes made from a piece of tan broadcloth with an elastic and Velcro fastener are word over the top of the vests. Floppy hats, sunglasses, sunscreen, and long sleeve sun shirts and homemade seersucker pants complete the goofy look- we are unmistakable and people recognized us from park to park, even saying “hey, the other park called down yesterday and said you were coming.”

  Next up was Mesa Verde National Park. We stayed in the park itself at one of the old hotels. The park itself is a highly supervised park because it is a cultural park designed to protect the ancient buildings and landscape of the ancient puebloans that still inhabit the region today. We took several tours with the park rangers and did as many of the self-guided hikes as we could. While in Cortez, we saw the Canyon of the Ancients and the museum that accompanies it. It encases Hovenweep National Monument- the whole area should be Mesa Verde West.

  We missed again Yucca house- the turn off is hidden.

  Four Corners is next, and then on to Canyon de Chelly National Monument.

  The region, as we learned, had been scrapped of its people and resources over 100 years ago- the native people were forced to march to Fort Union in New Mexico in a “Trail of Tears” march, their land was looted, scrapped, and killed, and those that were still alive to return came back to a devastated region. It is a Hurricane Katrina economic disaster of which only parts have ever recovered. I will not be returning to Canyon de Chelly, even though the Monument is amazing because the level of poverty is very heartbreaking.

  We drove to Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site and then on to the KOA nearby.

  Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park is gorgeous and we enjoyed the large agatized quartz trees and the colors of the soil. Every turn was another postcard.

  We eventually headed diagonally south towards Sedona through an amazing drive in the east mountains, reaching Sedona in the late afternoon in time to see the colors of the rocks bright with the sunset.

  We saw Montezuma Castle and Montezuma Well- neither have anything to do with the Aztec.  Tuzigoot National Monument is an ancient village on top of a mesa and is our south most point for the summer adventure. From that point forward, we traveled north with the heat, maintaining about 80 degrees as we moved north.

  While in Sedona, we saw the Catholic chapel and enjoyed the drive north through Oak Creek Canyon. Part of the point is to see the things that are in the original Cars movie- Sally drives across the bridge in Oak Creek Canyon- it is easier to see the bridge in the winter as summer foliage covers part of the view.

  We saw Walnut Canyon National Monument in the morning and did the hike around the main village. We saw Sunset Crater National Monument near lunch time and did a short hike to explore the volcanic landscape and learn about basalt and how it ages. We visited Wupatki National Monument in the afternoon. The underground cave that is at the base of the Wupatki village was “breathing- exhaling” when we were there due to the daytime and evening atmospheric pressure shifts. We stayed in the Flagstaff KOA- it is a block party every night, and it is a neat place to stay if you are up for hanging with cool strangers.

  Our next stop was Grand Canyon National Park. The reason I compressed the monuments is so we could spend several days at The Canyon. We stayed in one of the old hotels and explored the village, the rim, sunsets and sunrises, the old uranium mine area, listened to a park ranger talk about California Condors and added them to our list, visited Hermits Rest, drove through a controlled burn and learned what a Chimney Tree is, saw Desert View, and then made our way towards Paige.

  Along the way we saw Horseshoe Bend, and then saw the Glen Canyon Dam. They will give you credit for Rainbow Bridge, but I want to make sure we actually see it some day. Nearby is the Navajo Bridge- both the new one you drive on and the old one which is now a pedestrian bridge. This is where you will see California Condors and meet the man in the middle of the bridge with a scope you can look at the birds with. You can donate to the Peregrine Foundation to help the California Condors. The last I heard he needed a way to connect to the internet to broadcast the condor chicks in the nest.

  So far, everything I had done on this trip was either something I had seen as a kid or young adult or was with a family member along for the ride. When I turned towards the road headed to the North Rim, I had a mile of panic- I had never been there, could not visualize it, and it was a line on the atlas and nothing more. Although we were already a week into the adventure, this is when the brave part kicked in. I could have headed home, stayed in my safe zone. The panic cleared as we drive past the buttes on the south side of the Grand Escalante and into the North Rim.

  The campground near Jacob’s Lake is port-o-potties and cold water only. This proves to keep out the Friday night party crowd. It was a gorgeous quite stay, showing the moon in the telescope that we brought along for the ride.

  The North Rim is worth the stop and offers a very different experience of the Grand Canyon- wild bison herds, beautiful drives, and hikes filled the majority of our day.

  Our drive out took us to Pipe Springs National Monument. It is a neat place, but I am not sure it is Monument level. The history of the spring, the native people that are still there, and the Mormon’s and their prisoner/polygamy wives (the building is built as a defensive fort but also served to keep people in) were told to Stephen Mather- father of the National Parks. I think it talks also about his manic depressive behavior- buying the property on the spot and then being reimbursed by the park service. We did not see the north west section- the Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument- we will need to bring a truck back for that portion. We stayed near Zion in a way off the track place that I will not return to- we had to finish building our campsite, clearing it of remaining debris and raking it flat.

  Zion National Park was a taster of what the park offered. We saw the Grotto but missed several other places that the crew needs to be old enough to handle. The Grotto weeping wall and playing in the river still is listed amongst the favorite sites from the year. I intentionally cut Zion short, hoping we will be back, and took us through Cedar Breaks National Monument, with the impression that we won’t ever be back. Cedar Breaks had just opened for the season and still had snow in June- the elevation of the hoodoos is very high. The ranger was hilarious- “You know,” he said with a swagger, “half the park is after dark, and I have eight inches…”  He let that sink in for a second and then pointed to the 8” telescope in the corner. They were one of the first parks to get Dark Sky Certification. I laughed and appreciate people who get excited about stars. We drove on and stayed at the KOA just past Bryce Canyon.

  Bryce Canyon is where we met a family from our same town. The world is a small place sometimes. The hike down into the Hoodoos was a wonderful other world adventure, as was the drive through Grand Escalante (DRIVE THE EXACT SPEED LIMIT IN ESCALANTE!- we learned that the hard way a few years earlier) and towards Capitol Reef National Park. The ancient people left artwork on the rocks in Capitol Reef, and the Mormons set up a homestead that still has fruiting trees. We stayed in the Green River KOA- it is not the same quality as the rest of the KOA’s and I will not return.

  You may notice that I am looping around quite a bit- I want the crew to see the back road along the Colorado River as it heads into Moab- a wonderful drive. The speed limit around the corners can be 10 miles and hour- trust them- they know their road. We visited Arches National Park and learned that a landscape that is carved by wind seems to always be windy. Delicate Arch had 80 mph winds and it was a dry and hot hike. The KOA in Moab is amazing, even without the direct comparison of the Green River one. They are rebuilding it and I enjoyed the attitude of the people who own and work there.

  Canyonlands National Park is very different from Arches in that Arches is more of a tourist attraction and the Canyonlands is a wilderness park. I was cautioned about even being there with my crew and I was only in the north section. We took several short hikes and earned another ranger badge.

  To continue following Lightning McQueen, we drove the road south out of Moab, drove past the inspiration for the Hole in the Wall/Wheel Well Hotel, and into Blanding. We made it clear to the people there that we had come for the parks and monuments and made friends with the other two people staying in an otherwise empty campground who were also there for the monuments. The owner was a hesitant but wise businessman and gave us each a map of the region that included the new Bears Ears Monument that encompasses Natural Bridges National Monument.

  The drive through Bears Ears showed us an amazing landscape with scattered ancient villages now protected under one banner. It is un-farmable, not easy to ranch anything other than sheep, not worth logging as it is scrub pine and juniper, made of sand, and would only be useful for tourism. We learned later that there is oil under all of that- the shaking from the fraking would potentially damage the ancient buildings as well as the sandstone arch looking bridges that are Natural Bridges. The region is in a fight for its soul and what it wants to be. I hope they all continue to embrace tourism- the monuments are the only reason I was there. On our way out of Bears Ears, we took a road that goes from paved to dirt and then a CLIFF very quickly. The atlas has a very tiny squiggle that was hard to see until we almost fell off of it- the massive wall of sandstone that the road descends is not for the faint of heart, however it is passable to a family car. We drove through Monument Valley (which is not a monument but should be) into Kayenta. They have been using their oil money to improve the town itself. See the Code Talker’s Museum inside the Burger King. Yes, Burger King.

  Navajo National Monument is just south of Kayenta. We visited there, took the hike, earned the badge, and then headed back up through Kayenta, then headed east towards New Mexico. It is here that we crossed our loop we had started southwest out of Four Corners. Our only drive-off was in Aztec, New Mexico. The campground was a family run place and it was a “hell-nope!” and we drove back to a hotel in Farmington- the last time we slept inside since Grand Canyon.

  Aztec National Monument was really neat. The Grand Kiva, rebuilt in the CCC era, might be historically not as accurate as it could be, but really sends home what it might have been like. Please take your hat off inside- it is sacred. Get gas and supplies and check in with family and friends before you head south towards Chaco Culture National Historic Park. It is dry, hot, and in the middle of nowhere and has no cell service and the GPS wasn’t sure where we were. TAKE DETAILED PAPER MAPS! That being said, Chaco is so cool. It is a graded dirt road that a family car can handle, but if it has rained recently, the wash crossings might be impossible. Keep an eye on the weather. Chaco is also sacred- listen to the whispers and be respectful. The hikes are neat- take water and stay off the ancient building walls. South out of Chaco is the perfect time for the crew to be asleep/reading/watching a movie. This is not the place to be having the “Are we there yet?” questions. This is when the maps come in handy. Also, take the road more traveled otherwise it might be a driveway. We stayed in the Grant KOA.

  El Malpais National Monument (Bad Lands) is a repetitive basalt flow that makes anything off road very very difficult. The Continental Divide Trail goes through here near the Visitor Center. We did not do any caves while there. We saw El Morro- the head, and the natural water collection pond and the wall of signatures of people who have been there over 100 years ago. Do not deface/write on the wall- it destroys the history of the site.  We drove back towards Albuquerque and detoured to see half of the Salinas Pueblos National Monuments. There are four sites and each has a ribbon to earn to add to the ranger badge. We will get the other two sites some other time. We stayed in the Albuquerque KOA- a well secured and nice place but very loud- it is next to I-40 and the trucks roar all night.

  Albuquerque has Petroglyph National Monument with basalt rocks the ancients left art on. The drive north towards Bandelier National Monument had a surprise for me- Valles Caldera Reserve- the source of the tuft that Bandelier is carved into. I have not seen Bandelier since I was a kid and it is still just as cool. Everyone enjoyed climbing the ladders and waving from the open holes in the porous rock. We drove past everything in Santa Fe and stayed in the KOA to the east of Santa Fe. The museums and monuments in Santa Fe will have to wait for a different day.

Pecos National Historic Park is a village with a catholic mission, both missing roofs. The region experienced a coordinated rebellion several hundred years ago and the native people ousted the catholic missions in a one-day regional rebellion. It taught me quite a bit about communication that does not use modern technology.  The afternoon brought the trice-built ruins of the Fort Union National Monument. The Santa Fe trail runs through the area, and the fort was a resupply along the line.  We stayed in the Raton KOA.

  Capulin Volcano National Monument is always neat- the day we were there they were catching, tagging, and releasing hummingbirds to study the migration changes of the birds due to the changes in climate change. The hike around the top of the cinder cone is always a treat and from the top is visible several different types of volcanoes and lava flows. Nearby, if you have time, is the site that they discovered the oldest arrowheads in the region. We skipped that and headed towards a state monument in Colorado- the Ludlow Mine Massacre. This is a depressing but necessary spot that tells the tale of abuse of those in power over workers. The people lost and died there, but eventually it was the beginning of a very needed rebalancing of power in the country. We then headed home to clean up and head backout again.

  The north end of the trip heads to Grand Teton National Park. We stayed just east of the park, woke up with frost on everything the next morning, and spent several days hiking, exploring, swimming (it was cold but worth it!) and canoeing. We saw a moose who was thankfully more interested in eating than us, and we saw the snowmelt rivers bulging with crystal clear cold snow melt. The Tetons are stunning, but you must catch them at sunrise at least once. I am thankful that someone with far more money than I ever will have donated the land for the park.

  The drive north through the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. parkway is a pretty drive and has one stop but not really a visitor center. The entrance to Yellowstone is always a line. The drive through the forest that is slowly recovering from the fire in the early 90’s is a magical drive for anyone who saw the fire on the news. We drove the south and west section, seeing sites along the way. Yellowstone has a parent constantly on guard- stepping off the path for an adult or kid can be instant death. Be careful. We stayed in the Mountain West Yellowstone KOA- it was much much cooler than what we had expected and it rained. This is not Painted Desert- the north trip needs coats and warm blankets.

  We spent several days in Yellowstone- the parks like this one are worth cramming the monuments together.

  We stayed in the Cody KOA once we left Yellowstone and saw the Cody museum. It has an amazing collection of firearms and had a chuck wagon outside with someone making coffee, biscuits, and showing how they traveled and cooked over 100 years ago.

  We headed north into Montana and stayed at a KOA before continuing to the Big Hole National Battlefield. I was unaware that this should have been called Massacre- get chocolate afterwards- it VERY sad. We saw Grant-Kohrs National Historic Site that afternoon and stayed at a friend’s cabin afterwards.

  We headed north to Glacier National Park, staying at the nearby KOA for several days. Keep an eye on when the road over is open. We didn’t know it had just opened and did not anticipate that it would be very very busy on the Fourth of July. 6000’ elevation and July 4th and there is snow at the top but yet still breathable air. We had to wait forever for the bus and it was very crowded but we had a wonderful time. We drove our own car the next day and enjoyed that most people had gone back to work. Glacier is amazing and sad also- the ice is melting faster than rebuilding every winter. Glaciers are ice fields that are big enough to move- by 2030, they will have melted to the point that they are not heavy enough to move and will not be glaciers anymore, but simply ice fields. We kayaked and enjoyed our time there none the less.

  We drove west at that point towards the Blue Mountain KOA in Washington. The landscape is very rolling and looks like a screen saver but there is a very sudden drop off as you descend the basalt cliff into the city. Whitman Mission National Historic Site is also a depressing story of culture misunderstanding and lack of science knowledge of disease transmission, germ theory, and immune systems. It turned out badly for everyone- get chocolate afterwards on your way towards the series of Nez Perce National Historic Parks. There is a wonderful visitor center and rangers that are able to interpret the landscape and cultures there very well to someone who has never heard of any of it. We stayed at the KOA in the area- the tent pads are next to the duck pond and the ducks sit on your table. The drive in the area is gorgeous though and I would not miss it.

  The drive down past Hells Canyon is a scenic one however we missed the turnoff to Hells Canyon so at some point we might go back. We stopped to get a fresh supply of used books from a thrift shop and stayed at the KOA near Minidoka.

  We saw Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument- all the fossils are in museums now but you can see where a prehistoric flood opened the hillside exposing the fossils. The site also has the Oregon Trail ruts still visible giving us the opportunity of talking about grandparents who might have traveled the trail as a child, showing their grandkids where the trail is, and then those grandkids growing up to make sure the ruts are mapped and marked, resulting in our modern knowledge of a 150 year old trail.

  Minidoka Internment National Monument is absolutely depressing. It is a concentration camp where the 1940’s white citizens of the USA locked up the Japanese American citizens of the USA simply because of race. And land. It was also a “best farming lands” land war. Get chocolate afterwards and go to the nearby waterfalls in the city park along the Snake River.

  Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a basalt other worldly place where astronauts trained to be able to go to the moon. It is one of my favorite places now- I like seeing the ages of the different basalt flows and the way the fine grains sparkle iridescent in the sunlight. We finished the drive through the region by going past the first town to be powered by nuclear energy and headed down into the City of Rocks National Reserve. The kids were able to convince the closing-early visitor center to give them the booklets but wouldn’t even talk to me so I could get the badges and give them to the kids after they earned it. We drove along a graded dirt road into Utah and then east and south into the Salt Lake region and stayed at the KOA north of the city.

  Upon entering the Salt Lake Valley, I immediately noticed a double bathtub ring around the entire thing. It turns out that the region is loaded with mountains and basalt which acts as a sieve letting the water run right through until it reaches a non-permeable layer and then it runs off, creating waterfalls in the Snake River Gorge. The understructure rock was weakened by the Yellowstone Caldera moving through that area millions of years ago. When the river was backed up with a lava flow, it made the lake in the valley where Salt Lake is now, thus the bathtub rings from ancient beaches. When the river cut through the lava flow, it created an 8 week flood, gouging out all sorts of stuff, carving the massive gorges throughout that region and slamming large boulders of basalt across the landscape.

  We saw the Gold Spike National Historic Site and they gave us a map to the Spiral Jetty that twirls out into the lake. The Great Salt Lake is wrongly named as it is an inland sea, self-draining basin that gets more salts brought into it every year with the rivers. As it evaporates, it gets saltier. It does not support much life except little krill and some bacteria. It smells like rotting something or other and is not anything like any of the Great Lakes in the Midwest. We stayed at the south KOA that night.

  Timpanogos Cave National Monument was next- the hike up the north face of a mountain was quite the hike so the cool air of the cave was a welcome experience. We came up with a new legend of how the caves formed and the rangers liked our version better than the Romeo and Juliet love story a nearby professor made up. We drove on all the way to Vernal, Utah and stayed at their KOA.

  Dinosaur National Monument is cool. They have enclosed an entire hillside with dinosaur bones still in the original rock matrix. We had taken the outdoor hikes the last time we were there so we had plenty of time to explore and do the ranger badge. We drove several hours one the south and west side of the Flaming Gorge National Rec Area to Fossil Buttes National Monument. They have a fantastic wall of fossils displayed as if it were an art gallery. The region is still loaded with private dig sites but we didn’t have a behind-the-scenes permission slip to go see those. On the way back, we drove past the very first JCPenny in the nearby town. We stayed in Vernal again that night.  Vernal has an amazing dinosaur museum that we didn’t see this time because we saw it last time and the drive north has the geologic layers labeled so you can drive backwards and forwards in time.

  We drove through Steamboat on our way back through Colorado, hit Rocky Mountain National Park as we drove over the mountains, and headed back through the Denver area. We chose to extend the trip and go to Florissant National Monument for their petrified redwood trees and walk across the landscape and the fossils that are there.  It is a good lesson in not picking up treasures and taking them home- most of the petrified wood and fossils have been stripped from the site by tourists wanting to take home a souvenir. There are several monuments that are no longer monuments because everything of interest has been removed, and therefore the monument status is removed also.

  We got home, cleaned up, packed suitcases, and grabbed a flight to Columbus, Ohio. The zoo was not on the list this time but is well worth it. We drove west and saw the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park and airstrip. The bike and airplane shop of the Wright brothers was amazing as was the nearby airfield where they tested later models of airplanes. It is a two-part badge and you have to sweet talk the rangers into giving you both parts- the junior ranger booklets and pins and sometimes fabric patches are all funded by a foundation for that park. Donating to the National Park Foundation ensures that more kids get to do these programs. Nearby is a new monument Called the Charles Young Buffalo Soldier monument. They do not yet even have their programing figured out however it was fascinating to learn about the man and his influence on our military and that region’s culture.

  The Hopewell Culture National Historic Park is south of Columbus and has several sites of mounds left by the ancient people. Ohio is so very opposite and very green compared to Chaco. We learned about different ancient cultures and how different environments forced people to build, farm, and live different ways.

  Another airplane took us to Boston where we caught “The Train to Maine”. Called “The Downeaster” the Amtrak train goes north out of Boston, on the down east current to Portland. We found out about the train in a children’s book and had the conductors snip and sign it. From Portland, we drove north to Bangor to stay with a friend.

  Acadia National Park is a collection of peninsulas and island properties donated by the Gilded Age wealthy people in the area. Bar Harbor is on the same island. Acadia was gorgeous as always and we spent several days there, having dinner at Jordan’s Pond, swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, and driving a few of the carriage roads. The Beehive Hike was a rock scramble with metal bars mounted in the boulders. It is not a hike to take anyone under 5 on, and fragile seniors or athletically challenged people should not go on that hike. To make it more complicated, it started to rain and threatened to lightning- not the hike for stormy weather, but we finished just in time. We saw Thunder Hole as the tide was going out instead of in so it chugged along quietly.

  We drove north along the coast to the Saint Croix Island International Historic Site where the French settlers didn’t listen to the native people and decided to make camp on an island. It is the same latitude as France but does not have the same ocean currents so many of them froze to death. Lovely. We did not get to see either the new national monument donated by the Burt’s Bees people or the Appalachian Trail- something to look forward to next time we visit- but we did get to see the northeast most point of the United States and the lighthouse with it. Our cell phones thought we were in Canada so we had to turn them off so we would not be charged international calling rates while in the area. It is a beautiful area, and we plan on returning even though it does take two airplanes and a rented car.

  Our final rounds for the year came later. A hotel trip to Colorado National Monument to see the hoodoos and pinnacles of that valley. The monument is a neat drive and several sections of the road are CCC era built by hand on sheer cliff faces. One of the old roads is now a wide winding hiking path that the locals hike daily.

  We saved the southmost parks in the Mountain Time Zone until winter break. Two solid days of driving, broken only by getting to visit the non-monument Meteor Crater was the fast burn down past Tuzigoot. We stayed in hotels for two weeks while we traveled these parks but still brought the hiking equipment, winter gear, and the Yeti cooler. It was again other worldly as we turned the corner after descending the mountain ranges and started to see our first saguaro cactus.

  We visited Frank Lloyd Write’s southwest house, Taliesin West. It is still a certified architectural masters degree school and the students still flex between the original house back east and the wintertime quarters in Arizona. FLW is an amazing architect but not such a wonderful human. That afternoon we visited Phoenix’s Botanical Garden and learned about the ecology of the region- important if we were heading to Saguaro later on.

  We went east to visit Tonto National Monument- a collection of cliff dwellings and a now-submerged farming valley. The huge suspension bridge across the exit of the reservoir near the dam is beautiful. The dirt road back to Phoenix was passable for a passenger car but only because I know how to drive ungraded dirt roads.

  Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is not the typical ancient building- instead of stone, it is adobe and it is a stand-alone structure with a small village around it instead of being in a defensive position on top or in a mesa. It is theorized that it is a solar observatory. Cool. The surrounding vast valley grows cotton after the natural dessert ecology is stripped away.

  We drove through the Sonoran Desert National Monument on our way southwest to Organ Pipe National Monument. Organ Pipe is a Biosphere Reserve and it is on a main road in and out of the country. The ranger told me that I would need a truck to drive the one-way sandy road through the main Organ Pipe Cactus habitat and it was unadvisable to be a crew of just one adult and some kids. So, we stayed right at the visitor center, took their small ecology hike, and enjoyed what we could see from the road. We made the border guard laugh as we went back through the check point- mom, two kids, national park maps, crayons and peanut butter sandwiches in a station wagon- we were clearly tourists on a vacation instead of the usual border traffic between two countries.

  We visited Kit Peak Observatory on our way through the area and saw the big telescopes. We visited the second to last day that the solar telescope, built in the 60’s, was operational. The kids each got to drive the main mirror! Later on, they will understand better why I was excited for them. The new solar telescope is located in Hawaii- higher, more expensive, updated technology. The old guy at Kit Peak was disappointed that students would not have the “how to telescope” opportunities anymore- the digital stuff takes the skill out of it. We made two more border guards laugh, and we pulled into Tuscon as the sun was setting.

  Tumacacori National Monument was the next morning. A catholic mission church from 500 years ago, the priests learned the ways of the native people and did not force them to convert and helped them when there was regional trouble. Therefor, the priests are still celebrated as local saints today. Tumacacori refused to give us the ranger booklets when we arrived, choosing instead to hand us a laminated flip book of the site with stops along a self-guided tour. The ranger asked questions of the kids and once satisfied that they had absorbed the site, then gave them the badges and the booklets to do in the car. I like this much better as it gives them something to continue learning in the car and their faces aren’t in a crossword puzzle instead of looking at what we came to see. We drove through the countryside, seeing wild boars along the way, to Fort Bowie National Monument. This is a hike-in park and having been assured that it was safe to do so despite what the park map says, we parked and hiked in. You get a hiking pin when you do this park- it is now double drilled and sewn like a button to my hiking bag. It is a fort with a natural spring surrounded by a small mountain cluster. The entire region is like an ocean with islands- they are ecologically different than the island several miles away across the vast desert plain. Since we were in the area, we visited Chiricahua National Monument Wilderness. I would like to have spent more time at this park and plan to return someday. It is hoodoos made of rhyolite and has lots of hiking and a gorgeous drive. We made it back to Interstate-10 as the sunset.

  The next morning was the new year and Saguaro National Park (east) was the first thing we did. It was amazingly quiet as most people were still in bed. The city is right on the fence so the locals use the park as a daily hiking area. The birds we saw and the morning sunlight spilling through the saguaro forest was enchanting. We took a hike and by the time we got back, more people had shown up for the day to the park. We drove to the second half of Saguaro and saw the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum on the south side of that west section. The animal park is semi-private and the exhibits are really neat. By the time we were done for the day, we could identify most of the large woody plants and the birds.

  On our way east, we saw Coronado National Monument and the southmost section of the Continental Divide Trail as well as the incredibly straight scar of a road and fence along the border. It interrupts the landscape and ecology. They have to open the bottom of the fence periodically to let migrating species through. We headed back north and then east towards Silver City, New Mexico.

  Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument is north of Silver City about an hour and a half, and that means it is also that distance back out. The ancient buildings include a narrow mouthed huge open room, probably used as a kiva, and multiple cliff openings and buildings inside. The ranger said they still find things there as the packrats move things in and out of the middens in the dwellings. We saw a bobcat while in the area and photographed it and GPS marked its location and gave it all to the rangers who were delighted that not only was it a photo, a location, time of day, direction of travel, and behavior of the animal. On our way out, we took the extra long route around to the west, the north, and then to the east, past the radio telescope at sunset and getting to the Trinity site just after dark. The road into Alamogordo is smooth as fresh Zamboni ice and the engineered curves make it feel like an easy Sunday drive.

  White Sands National Monument was our only cloudy day but it didn’t dampen the spirits in the car at all.  The gypsum sand still looked like fresh fallen snow, and we took several short hikes and everyone made sand angels and rolled down the steep windblown hills of the dunes. Next was the drive south to El Paso and Chamizal National Memorial- a park dedicated to the peaceful verification of a border between two countries solidified by putting the river in a concrete channel through the region so it would stop wandering and moving the border. Chamizal has a display of fashion babies wearing the regional clothes of each area of Mexico and the markers where the border has been in the past. The air quality in El Paso was pretty bad but it was visibly far more dismal just one mile away across the border. It makes me very grateful for city land use codes and environmental protections that we have in the states.  We drove east towards the Guadalupe Mountains National Park and made a hypothesis that the tall yucca are related to the Joshua Tree. The head land of Guadalupe is quite stunning and I learned from the map that the region has several areas that produce white gypsum sand. We stayed in Carlesbad City that night.

  The entire region is an ancient underwater reef system and the Guadalupe Mountains and the Carlsbad Caverns are the northwest and northeast of that reef circle. The entire region is being fraked for oil and gas so the City has a lot of oil and gas traffic and temporary workers who live in the hotels and anywhere else they can find. The City acts as if there are not two National Parks on its door step. Unlike Estes Park or Alamosa, this city is not catering to the outdoors people or the park lovers. We were one of the few tourists in the City and were treated like royalty because of it. The Caverns were, as I remembered them as a kid, amazing. We took as many of the self-guided tours as possible and took our time- we were clearly there in the off season as our winter break was placed later in the calendar than most.

  Guadalupe Mountains has the same stage coach trail running through it as Fort Bowie does, so it was neat to see multiple sections of a trail I had never heard of. We took a few hikes and enjoyed the day there and saw the natural springs that are in the area. We spent a total of three nights in the City, leaving on a Sunday. The entire City is very different on Sunday as most of the migratory workers drove home Friday and Saturday night. The remaining residents seem to enjoy the City to themselves before the population doubles again the next day.

  We drove north the next day, breaking the final drive into two days, visiting the third and fourth Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument on our way to the hotel for the night. Again, the missions had tried to coexist with the ancient people to the demise of the people that had been there.

  All in all, it was a heck of a year with all the adventures we had. Some parts were a hot burn, others were a relaxing vacation, some was very long drives and hurried sites, other parts were just right hikes. The kids and I are already looking forward to doing it again, but on the Pacific coast, next summer.