A Miraculous Oddessy

Louisiana Men, Women and Children

2008-12-07T21:45:00.003-06:00

It has been since August when I last posted. A lot has happened since then!

We are still on the road and having fun but have made some decisions about where and when we will land and are in the midst of making the next phase come to be staring next spring.

In the meantime...

We have been back to CT twice. We have lived for over a month in Annapolis, MD and we spent Thanksgiving in Greenville, South Carolina and then one day in Mars Hill, NC, our winter home, before we headed up to Sevierville, Tennessee and the Great Smokey Mountain National Park before we left there last Thursday and headed south on a two day drive.

We made it the first night 450 miles from Tennessee into Meridian, Mississippi. This is one of those southern towns that we treasure for its hometownness. They next day though was to include one of our favorite eateries and a man, Arthur Davis, that I can proudly say has become our friend over our two visits to his town and his establishment, the "Old Country Store" in Lorman, Mississippi (which is by no coincidence, the place where he expresses his personal passion for life by greeting and meeting folks from all over the world). His fried chicken and assorted home cooked soul foods are great but they do not compare with his wonderful faith and sense of mission he experiences and follows in his daily life. He is an inspiration! He spent about a hour this time talking with us and sharing of his personal mission work with school kids and his new to begin prison ministry that will start on Dec. 13th.

We had our lunch and our chat time and then we were on our way to the final leg of our day as we made our way towards Lake Charles, Louisiana for our week long reunion gathering with the great folks who came down with us on our first trip way back in the spring of 2006. We are all here now and have selected another house and family to assists this time around. I will be posting some pictures as we go along but for now I just want to once again offer my heartfelt thanks to my buds from CT who make there way here out of the goodness of their hearts and from their desire to make life a little better for other human beings. You guys are absolutely the best friends and superior people for where you come from and what you offer in the way of hope and caring and love. It is my honor to be your friend and I thank you for accepting our invitation to come here and make a huge difference. Alex, Mike, Dave, Hilton, Megan and Jasper, you are the light of the world!

We will be here for one week and it that week we will collectively; completely remodel, expand and make accessible a new bathroom, Insulate and drywall a master bedroom and repair the drywall throughout the house, install new underlayment and finish floors through out the house, install new wiring and lighting throughout the house, install all new appliances, construct a new front porch and stairs off the front door, buy a communion dress for a 9 year old making her first holy communion and in effect make this house capable of being moved into by a family of four who has been living in a FEMA trailer for two years unable to move into their home sitting on their property. This is a real good thing that my friends have come here to do and it will change the lives of this family forever.

Mount Vernon for the Weekend

2008-08-30T11:36:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, we made the 442 mile trek starting from Mitchell, South Dakota, crossing most of Minnesota and ended our long day of travels to a warm welcome from our friends in Mount Vernon, IA. Thats the way to end your day. Supper waiting on the stove and friends happy to see you. Who could ask for more!

The only way it could have possibly been better would have been if we had had the opportunity to see something startling and really unique along the way.

OH! Hey! Wait a damn minute!.....

Weren't we in Mitchell, South Dakota?

Isn't that where the .............. most unique building in the entire country is.............. the one that draws people from all around the world!

Yes it is and we got to see it!

"THE CORN PALACE"

It really is a must see.

There's real live Corn Starts there!

Here they are working on their latest expose'

Here is a shot of the 1892 original Corn Palace!

Theres a lot of "Corny" history here! (sorry, I had to say it)

Inside there is a large Gymnasium and Stage that act as the towns performance space!

Here I am working on, with I mean, one of the older ones

Heres a little clip of the Palace

South Dakota

2008-08-28T23:28:00.009-05:00

This is one view from the hike that brings you to the base of the granite presidential monument

Tuesday night we made it to Reed Point, Montana. Montana is my favorite state of all we have visited on this trip. Oregon coast was also very great but different and much busier.

Weds we drove out of Montana, through the northeast portion of Wyoming and into South Dakota. We have covered a lot of Wyoming territory on this total trip. Been in the state and cutting across three individual times. Twice in Yellowstone.

We landed in Piedmont, SD which is the next town down I-90 after Sturgis.

Now I have always wanted to attend the summer motorcycle rally there and it happened about 4 weeks ago. We saw folks on the highway heading there before the rally and then we met a bunch of them heading home after the rally in a wide variety of places around the country.

I finally made it there but there was no rally just a quaint little SD town that, I'm sure, gets quite inundated during the bike rally. That rally supports a lot of businesses in and around Sturgis. And most of them were telling of the much lower numbers of participants this year in comparison to years past. Gas Prices were the assumed culprit.

Anywho, it was great for us (as we were with family) to have it as a quaint little town with the icons and remnants of the rally ever present.
We moved down to Piedmont and found our campsite just after 9PM. The reason we chose this RV park was that it had a heated pool for the kids to swim in and they did. There were only 4 or 5 RVs in the entire park (season is almost over) so the kids went skinny dipping and had a ball while Meg and I enjoyed a cocktail together at pool side after a longs days drive.

We got up early this morning (Thursday), a little after 6:30 and started to get ourselves moving so that we could make it to Mount Rushmore and the Badlands National Park during the day and make it to our camp in Mitchell, SD before dark. We did it all except make it before dark. We thought we were on track to make it by 8 PM. That would get us there right after sunset and give the kids a chance to swim for 2 hours tonight as we found a place with a water park three story slide into the indoor pool. We forgot about the time zone change. We made it just a little after dark began but it was 9 PM instead. So I set up camp and Meg took the kids to the pool. When I finished I went to the pool and swam and slid on the slide for twenty minutes before the pool closed, the life guard booted us and it was time for us to return to the RV for the night.

The day was just picture perfect in SD today and the temps never got over 75. We took advantage and got outside as much as we could.

Tomorrow, we are excited that we will make it all the way to Central Iowa, just east of Cedar Rapids to visit with our good friends Jeff, Kara and Kai for the second time this summer for Friday night and Saturday Night and we will head out on Sunday to make it somewhere in PA. We saw them on the way back east in June and it is great to visit with them this end of August. We have driven 1700 plus miles since we left Washington State on Sunday and it has been fun but with long hours in the RV included each day. Feels like we are really pressing to get Michaela home for Tuesday. But then again not to pressed, I guess as we will have a nice and welcomed break this weekend. in Iowa.

Tuesday in Missoula!

2008-08-27T13:43:00.004-05:00

Well, at least I can say that I lived out one childhood dream on this trip. I made it to Jellystone Park and hung with Yogi and BOO BOO!

The main highlight of the day was that Michalea, with Uncle Jaspers help, mastered riding her two wheel bike today. Like she had been doing it all along.

On the back stage, we had the highlight of visiting the Missoula Outfit of Federal Smoke Jumper Center. Here wet met and learned about the people and the jobs they do throughout the year in the forests in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. Cool gig attended to by very fit individuals.

Last night we camped in Reed Point, Montana and we are currently on our way to Sturgis, SD. The home of one of the largest and routiest motorcycle rallies in the country. Unfortunately we are three weeks late so it ought to be just a bit more calm then the real deal.

Tomorrow the Black Hills and Mt Rushmore and then the Badlands National Park.

Just a Little Bit!

2008-08-26T00:36:00.006-05:00

Last night, we were heading for Moses Lake, WA but we made it as far as Cle Elum, WA, at just about 9:30 when we had a blow out of the second of the two new tires we bought in February for the Tow Dolly. What a waste of time these tires were. I'll tell you the brand and the guys who sold them to me in another post so you'll never go there.
We fortunately were able to get immediately off the freeway with no damage to the rim, the dolly or the car. And as we pulled off, we pulled almost directly across the street into a Safeway Supermarket parking lot. While I was on the phone with AAA and Les Schwab tire company trying to arrange for mobile tire service, which neither group was able to help us set up, Meg went into the supermarket to ask the manager if we could stay in the parking lot overnight. He was real nice and told us of course. So, we looked around and found the best camping spot to be adjacent to a fifth wheel who had already set up camp in the parking lot as well.
Except for a little teenage party noise in the parking lot around 10 -10:30 all as fine and we slept pretty well after they left. I was up at 3 AM just because - I was sleeping in a parking lot but went back and got up again at 7 AM when I heard our camping neighbors get up, start up the diesel and pull out. I jumped up, went out, pulled the rim and mangled tire off the dolly and ran downtown to find someone to help us out.
I ended up at Willet's Shell station (instead of 20 miles away in Ellensberg at Les Schwab) and was the only one there, except for Dave, the guy running the place. It just so happened that he had two of the tires in the size I needed and also another rim that was the right one for our dolly too. I asked him to put one new tire on my existing rim and to mount the other new tire on the new rim.
I finally after all these miles bought a spare to carry with us for the duration of the time we use the dolly. Seems like it makes sense to have a spare. I am good at thinking ahead like that. Meg tells me that it is now our insurance policy. We will never have another flat on the dolly now that we have the spare. Sort of like buying a snow blower in the middle of a winter storm. It won't snow for the rest of the winter.
All set by 8AM we started out again and drove 400 miles today. All the way through Washington, through the pan handle of Idaho and landed in Missoula, Montana.
On the way through Moses Lake, WA we stopped to take the kids to the city operated water park. This was the only day they have had rain in 1000 years in August and since no one was at the park at 11 AM when they were to open (we didn't get there till 12) they closed it up and sent the workers home for the day. Son of a B..... if we didn't just tell the kids what we were doing just before we pulled into town, just to get them psyched for the event. BOOM - down we go. We saved the day by going bowling in town and the kids had a ball. A few of them actually!
The only other thing to do was to go hang out at Walmart for fun. And....... we did that yesterday.

Opps! I forgot Saturday's stuff!

2008-08-24T18:05:00.010-05:00

First here is a little bit of Governmental Wisdom - " Hey lets get those mandatory low flow toilets and save some water. Yeah and I'll have some signs made cause you know they never flush well."

Here are some of the photos from Port Angeles and Sequim

Clallam, Bay - It's like where does the water end and the sky begin

Does anybody know this species of tree.... or Red Car?

The Bay Village of Port Angeles, WA - coming down one of or THE main north-south street

For Most Creative use of a Tree Trunk - The winner is.... (the landlord, according to the tenant) Enter Sequim The Open Air Saturday Market Creative Signage from a vendor - The quote - "Love is work made Visable" - Kahlil Gibran

The Lavender Farm - "Purple Haze"

The kids after I gave them fresh Blackberries I just picked - "Guess their not ripe yet!"

We're On Our Way Home (for just a little while)

2008-08-24T17:09:00.007-05:00

Well this time we are heading East for another extended stay up and down the coast. The trip, as we have been on it, is close to being over. I stood outside the motorhome this morning today in Sam's RV Park as I was making the necessary adjustments to get on the road. I stopped for a few moments and offered up my gratitude for this trip that we have been fortunate enough to have been on for the last 9 months, aware of the freedom and space that we have realized, the great people we have met, including each other and the spectacular and sometimes overwhelming beauty that we have witnessed and I got all choked up and tears of joy and gratitude flowed abundantly. This was a very happy moment. It has been a great enlivening, clearing and enriching segment of my life, our lives together and especially for Jasper.

We have traveled 16,000 miles in the RV and so have the rear tires of the Prius and another 19,000 in the car on all four wheels. That's a total of 35,000 miles of America that we have visited and I hope this can go on for years to come.

For now we will make our way back to CT over the next 10 days. 3,300 miles in 10 days, you can do the math. We are going to be doing a lot of driving each night and taking the daylight hours to play along the way back in a new site each day.

Tonight we will make it to Moses Lake, WA - Tomorrow we will make to Missoula, MT. By next Saturday night we will be once again in the embrace of our Iowa friends for a days stay before we shove off again on the easterly path. All of this, of course, depends on the fact that we will get out of this traffic jam on 101 here in Sequim, WA before September.

Below are a few photos of a few days, including yesterdays journey around northwestern Washington state.

We stopped at the Quinault National Fish Hatchery and received a personal tour of the place

The Kids got to feed the 8 month old King Salmon - These salmon are raised in creek water that runs along side the hatchery - so... this is cool, in April they will be released back to the creek and they will head out to the ocean for about 3 years before they make their way back to the creek (and right into the hatchery with a little guidance) where the eggs and sperm will be collected by hand and the whole process will begin again.

A lot of planned forest clear cutting takes place up here and a lot of replanting as well.

There are signs all over the place that say when the areas were cleared and replanted. This replant is 20+ years old. Some of the trees they are still cutting today our over 400 years old. I'll show you those in a minute

But First, I wanted you to know that I visited my place in Aberdeen, WA. Your welcome to come on down anytime

The fish hatchery was great but the highlight of Friday, on the way up to Clallam Bay was the Olympic National Park Temperate Rain Forest

The trees in here are OLD and enormous, like lost world enormous. They average 200 feet tall

And walking in here is like no place I have ever been (especially when the sun is out)

Hers another set of examples of size of these Douglas Fir Trees. It makes me wonder how we could ever cut these down, they are so majestic. I can relate to all those folks who try to stop them. Once you see them you want them to remain where they are.

They say that strong wind damage takes out the most of them every year.

You can see below that they produce a lot of sap as I became stuck to this one as I backed up to it to show scale. No one recognized that I wasn't the SAP.

The Northwestern most point in the lower US

2008-08-24T11:35:00.002-05:00

Beach Horse Back Riding At Long Beach, Washington

2008-08-23T12:01:00.005-05:00

I know these last few blogs have been a little cheesy and it is because I have been writing in my log for the book and trying to show folks where we are in the worl right now. It could just be a break from having you read my long entries. This video entry is for Vicki and the great grandparents! Just so you can see the kids having a blast doing what they love!

I must apologize in advance, I am on a horse taking the video so it's a tad jumpy!

Heres a short video of us on Ruby Beach on the way up the Washington Coast inside of Olympic National Park

As Northwest As You Can Get!

2008-08-23T11:14:00.006-05:00

Over the past week or so we have made our way up (and down and up again) the coast or Oregon and today we will reach our destination of the western most point in the lower US in Washington state on an Indian Reservation.

One of the cool places to visit in Oregon is Tillamook and once there there are a couple of places that you should see along with everybody else who visits this cool coastal town. If you are into French Cheeses then the Blue Heron Cheese Factory is for you.

Oh Yeah, they have a petting zoo for the kids too.

The Tillamook Creamery is a definite have to visit, I think. The factory tour is one of the best we've been on, the product for sale in the on site store is less expensive then you can buy it out in the world (and it probably should be all things considered) the people that work there are the genuinely nice and friendly making it real (even though they see 500, 000 people per year mostly in the summer. 3 t0 5,000 per day)

and the Ice Cream is so great it almost beats the Ice Cream at the Flamingo in Key West.

She may not know it but this is our new cheese connection, Mary Jo. In this picture, everyone but Michaela, forgot to say CHEESE!

This is also the land of smoked salmon and beef and cod and cheese and anything else you want smoked. But it truly is the home of some of the nicest people we've met. You can bring your catch of the day into Debbies D's Smoke Shack and they will fillet it and smoke it for you, to order.

I guess you could say that in Tillamook somebody is always smokin' something!

And when your staying in Netarts Bay, There is no movie theater unless you go into town so you're better off having your own movie theater under the dining room table in the motorhome.

Friendly Tillamook!

2008-08-19T11:27:00.009-05:00

A view looking back at the Bridge that brings you into Waldport

On our first full day on the Orgeon Coast we rolled out of bed a little after 9 had our showers and put our selves together for a full day of exploring the coast south of us down into Florence. We stopped whenever we would see something that looked interesting to us. We were really struck by two things that first morning. The absolute beauty of the, most of the time, rugged meandering coast line and secondly all of the Tsunami Warning Signs. Now there is something we had never really thought of before visiting here. As you read the signs for what to do if you are in one of these areas, which is basically, the entire coasts of Northern California, Oregon and Washington you realize that you had better be ready to hightail it, if you have the presence to realize as a visitor that you just experienced an earthquake. I am not certain that I would know what it felt like but I was sure that I was paying attention while I (we) were out there walking on the very extended beaches during low tide. We stopped and had the rare lunch in a restaurant in the village of Yachats. This is pronounced YA- HOTS. At a little family restaurant called the Drift In. It was busy and not with just tourists but locals as well. Even with knowing as little as I frequent restaurants Iyou cna trust that if the locals are eating there it is a good bet that the food is good and the prices reasonable.

This is Little Miss Sunshine Smiles

After lunch our first site see stop was the Devils Churn. One of the places where the relentless pounding of the ocean has worn into the terrain of the coast and has created an active chasm that illustrates the power of the water and waves up close and personal. See if you can watch the video. Sorry it is side ways but this was my first go at the video and I do not know how to turn it 90 degrees. Here are a few pictures of the experience as well.

We left Waldport Monday at 11 and headed in a basically northern direction weaving along the coast of Oregon looking to land in the Camp Lookout State Park on the Three Capes Loop. We drove the summer congested 101 back through the active villages of Newport, Otter Rock, Depoe Bay and Lincoln City that we had passed thru just a couple of days before, in the evening, heading south. They are much busier during the morning hours as the thousands of us tiurist are doing what we do when we visit little sea villages. Then we passed the junction of Rt 18 that we had come in on from the east and as we continued passed on up 101 we were now moving further north than any of us had ever been in the pacific norhtwest before. On this leg it got less populated, more beautiful and a little more challenging or fun, depending on how you view it, to drive with a motor home. It almost felt as though we were in a rain forest. It was foggy when we got here to the coast, it has been foggy to some extend everyday and it rains mist from the fog a lot of the time but changes almost instantly evry 5 to 10 minutes or so.

After Devils Churn viewing we hiked the other side of this National Recreation area and ended up atthe rocky shores and beach area to the south. The kids played in the tidal pools left in the rocks for 40 mins and then down on to the beach and into a driftwood makeshift shelter someone had obviuosly taken quite a bit of time to create. They were pirates for a day that evening and the scene was gorgeous. After a considerable hike and playing in the greenery on the hillside that made natural forts, on the way back to the car, we loaded up and continued south towards Florence. We stopped every so often for more pictures and also momentarily at the "Sea Lions Caves". This is a place discoverd many years ago where the sea lions come naturally in abundance (during certain times of the year) and not at this time of the year. It has been made into a tourisat attration that charges 9 dollars for each person to get down 125 feet to the level of a naturally created cave where they lie enmass to rest from the ocean. They were closed when we got there so we talked to a guy outside who told us there were only a couple in the cave and not worth going anyway from his perspective. So we were glad they were closed. We continued our drive to Florence and the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. This is not only a huge stretch of beach but also the place to go to do Dune Buggy and Quad rentals to ride all over the sand back off the beach. We never found any place to rent from at the hour we were there so we went and played on the beach for a hour or so before it began to rain lightly. At that point it was getting late in the evening and we began the trek backto Waldport for supper and Olympic TV. It had been a good full day and it once again confirmed that we don't have to do all the fancy tourist gigs to provide solid entertainment value for the kids.

We're NATION WIDE!

2008-08-17T11:59:00.010-05:00

Making it to the Pacific Coast and the first photo shoot!

Yesterday, we entered into the coastal region of Oregon. We came in through the town of Lincoln City at the intersection of our road, route 18, with the historic and picturesque, North-South running Highway 101.

Michaela mentioned to us yesterday somewhere after we reached the coast that she wants to visit Chicago and Las Vegas. Megan mentioned to her that we are now on the west coast and that we would have to back up and then travel north and south instead of east to west. Micky looked at her like, "So whats the problem, Grammie." She is definitely a road trip kinda girl.

Just before the coast as you are traveling from the East to the West, depending on the route that you take you can come to a set of foot hills, we came in through Salem, OR on route 99 before turning west on route 18. When we entered Salem, a bank sign we rolled by read 103 degrees and it was 7 pm. It had reached 105 degrees in the gorge the day before and it was supposed to be hotter on Saturday. We only stayed till 5 and it was deadly hot but to offset it we spent the day high into the hills surrounding the gorge and in the ice cool waters of a mountain stream.

As soon as we got down from the mountain we hightailed it for the coast and here is why!

As soon as we crossed over the foothills and down on the approach to Lincoln City the temperature dropped 40 plus degrees and everyone scrambled for a light jacket.

By the time we reached the RV park in Waldport at 9 PM, we had traveled 40 miles south on 101 through fog the whole way and the temps were in the low 50's. It was refreshing and wonderful after spending the last two days in the almost unbearable heat. Oh and by the way, for almost the very first time since being in the west we did not hear a train last night and I slept straight through the night (after having stayed up to watch Mike Phelps win his 8th gold medal, I love the Olympic Games)

Breakfast, Saturday Morning from High above the Gorge at the very eastern beginning!

A View from the Bridge of the Gods! Oregon to Washington and back again!

The Amazing Brownville Dam - Washington Side looking Eastward

The Fish Ladder viewing station from inside and under the dam

The Mountain and the Trail!

The Falls and how far they Fall!

The view from the bottom of the falls!

The view from the top of the falls!

Three Quarters of the crew, partially up the mountain!

The Magic Bus from Half way up the mountain!

A Few More Pictures from Yesterday

2008-08-15T23:23:00.003-05:00

Central Idaho westward bound

Hells Canyon Overlook

Pictures from the Road (While we have service)

2008-08-15T22:17:00.013-05:00

This is us on our last day in McCall, Idaho with our friends Ardie, Chris, Hannah and Cracker

Jug Handle Mountain in the backround is in their backyard Fresh picked berries, picked by Megan & Ardie, Huckleberry Pancakes in the AM,

Um, UM Good!
Jasper and Michaela - L o w -R i d e r's

Jasper buys a new BB Gun!

At the Grocery Store in McCall - Humm!

We finally make it to Oregon on Thursday afternoon

and change our clocks yet again

Can you find the humor in this photo? I sure thought it was funny. In fact I had to go two miles out of my way to turn around to take the picture and then find a place to turn around again after taking it.

Double click on the image to see what it says on the building.

Look at the color of the sky out here. Seems to be like this everyday!
See ya next time!

Rexburg, ID and Beyond!!!!

2008-08-11T12:14:00.011-05:00

Here is a photo journal of our day yesterday, offer as a break from the verbiage of my past few entries! (It's a break for me too!)

In Rexburg, Idaho they have a park called Porter Park and within that place they have a Splash Park. So, Sunday morning the kids went to church in Porter Park, splashing the morning away!

What a way to Start the Day!

While Megan watched the kids, I wrote and repaired the GPS cord and she had the chance to meet some folks from Utah that were here for a christening

Michaela cut her foot on the rough concrete as she was walking towards Megan. I asked her to make the worse pain face she could to show how bad she was hurt. Looks like Hollywood to me!

Guess what she slipped on? The slippery tiles that spell out "NO RUNNING"

Later that day we were traveling further west on Route 20 heading to the "Craters of the Moon" National Park but found a science lesson on the way.

The first Nuclear Breeder Reactor in the world - Brought on line to supply the power to four light bulbs on Dec 20, 1951. On the very next day it was providing all the power for the reactor building and in 1955 Arco, Idaho, becomes the first town to be lit entirely by nuclear power. The plant was shut down in 1964 permanently and whether you agree with Nuclear power or not, this development was an amazing scientific development and it was real wierd to be in there!

Next we entered the Craters Park and found ourselves on the moon.!

Here is Michaela walking to the top of a volcano without her space suit. The volcano was so high it was hard for us to catch up with her and prevent from falling into the center of the snow filled funnel. Remember it is August 10, 2008 - and there is still snow in the desert! That's her the little white dot half way up the volcano!

Here is the shadow photo of all of us on one side of another Volcano funnel!

And here is a photo of me on the moon, I have disappeared into the ether and only my shadow remains!! That's Life!!

We drove on thru the late evening last night to get to Nampa, ID just west of Boise. We arrived at 11 PM all beat up and tired. But it just so happens that our friends Steve and Susan are here in Boise visiting Steve's mom for the week. So today we will visit with them and travel with them up to McCall, ID to visit with a guy friend of Steve's that we met at Steve's 40th birthday party in Middletown. He lives near one of the greatest lakes in Idaho, Payette Lake, and we will spend the day rejuvenating on and around the lake. Thanks Steve!

The Odds!

2008-08-08T10:41:00.007-05:00

Based on all of the, what I have continuously referred to as, miraculous like support, events, people met and adventures we have experienced over the past eight months of traveling I am not at all surprised in the way things turned out Tuesday. Nor was I upset in the least when the circumstances presented themselves. I actually have come to look forward (in a strange way) to the situations of any given day. Not like I am calling them into existence mind you but, they happen regardless, just as they do in any one's life and I have lost or at least misplaced my desire and possibly my ability to be tossed about for very long if at all, by whatever presents itself on this journey. I would say that this is a good thing as I take a quick look back, and I don't have to look to deep, into my past, to see that I had a very different approach to managing life's obstacles before a couple of years ago. I participated in a powerful program back in 06 that set the stage, I guess you could say, for the mellow, the observation and appreciation of how life shows up. This trip has offered plenty of opportunity for practice of being with the "suchness of life" and tested my perseverance and desire to continue to be with it and thus rewarded me for the times when I am able to maintain my presence in the face of "what is". That has been the true gift for me of this entire experiment (the trip) and I am grateful as hell for having learned this practice and for the way life shows up now.

Now, I'm not a bookie, in fact I am not even sure of how to spell it, but if I were and someone were willing to take the bet against us having the success that we did in yesterday's little road adventure, based on our personal history of magic thru out this year, I would have certainly gone ahead and taken the bet. I don't know how to calculate odds, but if I were to do this in a very simple format, I would say that the odds of our success would have been, at least, 27,804,240 to 1. My formula for figuring these odds comes from the simple ancient theorem that, I believe Pythagoras developed, back in the day of creating such things. I simply followed those weighty pre-established rules and... multiplied the number of days in the year by 24 hours and then by 60 minutes and finally by the number of years I have been alive and came up with the total number of minutes in that time span and placed that against the number of times this type of experience has actually occurred in that time span. I would have given anyone the bet and been quite satisfied with the payoff.

We were running up highway 25 north in Fort Collins, CO when a nice young couple pulled up next to me in their cute little SUV (that by the way looks very small from way up in the captains perch of the RV) waving frantically. (I have done this particular move enough times to other people to know that they were trying to tell me something and that it wasn't just their way of wishing us a safe journey or welcome to Fort Collins). On their first attempt to communicate with me, upon noticing them, I reactively took my foot of the gas pedal to slow down to see if I can figure out what they want or are trying to tell me(this move saves me at least 2 gallons every time I do it so there is that little bonus too). Their speeding up to try to catch up with me joined with my reactive slowing down causes them to shoot by me by about 10 feet. As we attempt to choreograph our highway dance I place my foot gently back on the accelerator as they begin to slow down and finally we are aligned. They are now alternately looking at the road in front of them and rapidly glancing back at me and as they do they are moving their mouths in largely exaggerated fashion in attempt to pronounce the words they are wanting me to hear. They soon enough realize that I am not understanding them but the dumb questioning look on my face and simultaneously become aware that this form of communication would work alot better if they put their window down. She, in the passenger seat reaches for the power window button and as it reaches the open position they both start speaking at the same moment and once again as I try to hear each of them independently I don't get what they are saying, Finally, he gets really loud and yells, "The tire on your trailer just completely disintegrated."

I acknowledge that I understand and thank them for telling me (all of my communication with them, I realize, has been silent and in head motions and sign language form by facial expressions and eye movements) and immediately begin my maneuver to the breakdown lane on the right side of the highway. You know the one with the deeply engraved, perpendicular to the direction of travel, grooves that are designed to make you Instantly aware that you have drifted from you lane of travel as your tire makes contact. Well when you travel over them with an 18,000 lb. RV loaded to the gills at anything less than normal travel speed, they not only tell you that you are now in the break down lane they rattle your fillings loose and shake everything in the RV viciously. In a car you could probably get over far enough to move to the right of the grooves but in the RV your drivers side tire is basically running down the line of grooves until you gratefully and as quickly as possible come to a complete stop. Which I did.

I jump out of the driver seat and head to the side door on the passenger side of the RV to go back to see how bad the damage is to the tire and to what ever else has been affected by the tire disintegration, as previously described. As I am heading to the door, I look back to the rear of the RV and notice that Megan is laying on our bed with her knees up and that in the midst of all l of the commotion and slowing down, speeding up and eventually coming to a complete stop on the side of this major highway and I realize that through all that she has been in the same position and hasn't moved an inch. I have the thought that she has simultaneously also become accustomed to accept what is without panic or upset and in this situation specifically, without questioning what is going on or doing anything other than raising her head a few inches to see what I am doing and questioning me with her eyes as I move towards the side door. I tell her with a concerned voice that one of our tow dolly tires has blown as she raises herself to her elbows and looks concerned. Confident that she understand the possible weight of the situation I continue my exit from the RV.

I make my way down the side of the RV towards the rear to get to the tow dolly through the tall grass, litter and miscellaneous car parts that are strewn about the side of any major highway in America. By the way, if you have never walked along the edge of a highway, in the US, you should try it sometime. Not for long, for a minute there will tell you that this is not a great place to be. Not only is this a junk collectors paradise and THE place to go if you are ever on a scavenger hunt and need to find a few obscure items but it is also one of the noisiest, windiest and scary places to be or to work on a vehicle. A car rolling by you at 70 mph is all of that but when a semi or bus goes by you are literally moved by the wind as you try to hold your ground and brace yourself for the next one following behind and covering your ears from the constant loudness of diesel engines and wind. I have spent sometime on the sides of roads and have a great appreciation for my friend Dave , and others, who has worked on CT highways for 20 plus years. I don't envy them.

As I examine the tire or what used to be my tire, I recalled that just this morning I had looked at what was a brand new tire in February and noticed that it was chopped or what I would call scalloped on the outer and inner edges, like worn heavily, but still had plenty of rubber. I could not figure out why this was happening to this tire but knew that the one I had taken off to replace was in the same condition when I replaced it. Maybe there is something up with the tow dolly that causes them to wear like this or the tires for trailers are just sheer junk. I was concerned and wondered if I should replace it again but my second thought was (and probably because I am cheap and want to drag the last little bit out of everything), well the other one that was on there was worse and made it a couple of thousand miles so, I should be able to make it a while longer. And so I did, about 60 miles longer.

The great news was that only the tread material had shredded off. It was as if someone had taken a knife and sliced a line down the center of the tire all the way around it and the tread rubber peeled off in both directions toward the outer edges. The tire liner, what they attach the tread material too was still intact and full of air. That means that the neither the tow dolly and more importantly the car had not been damaged at all. Well, almost at all. there was a small lack ring that had gotten knocked off of the tow dolly strap tightening ratchet but no real damage occurred.

I went back to the RV drivers seat, realizing that I could drive this to the next exit and hope that there was a way to get a new tire. It is now fast approaching 4:30 PM and any place that may be open would surely be closing soon. Not to mention that we are really out here in northeastern Colorado in the middle of horse country and there just may not be anyplace near to get a tire from. Especially this tire of 13" rim size. But, although I did not think of this at the moment, there are plenty of horse trailers in this area. It didn't really matter, we ended up not having to buy, borrow or steal a horse trailer tire and rim. We took off driving on the highway with our emergency flashers on, traveling at about 50 miles an hour so as to minimize the risks of getting run over on the road by other faster, much faster, moving vehicles. (The speed limit on this road is 75 mph) We made it safely to the exit and while we were making our way Megan was on the laptop connecting to the Internet via our Verizon plug in Internet card ( have I mentioned how great an idea it was for me to get connected via this plug in device just before we left Middletown) and was looking up tire shops in Fort Collins and more specifically this exit and surrounding area.

I made my way to a gas station close to the exit and parked in an almost out of the way place being as inconspicuous as one can be in a 33 foot motor home pulling a tow dolly, a car with a car top carrier mounted on top, 6 bicycles and a dirt bike attached precariously on back, while she did the research. Unbelievably she found two entries. I am not quite sure how she did that yet but she did and simultaneously had pulled up google maps and was telling me where they were from where we were sitting. I didn't even know the road we were on but somehow she had located us. She was also giving me phone numbers to call so I started dialing the first one and much to my horror the number had been disconnected. With the next number she gave me I felt my attitude shift a bit becoming a little frustrated with the situation and for some unknown reason told her to just give me the address and directions to get to the place and we will drive there and see if someone can help us. She looked around, attempting to get her local bearings and began giving me directions on how to get to the only other option we seemingly had.

We pulled out of the station and took a right to get back to where we had pulled in off the main road in town. Seeing the street name she directed me to take a left. As I did we crossed from Fort Collins into the not so metropolistic main street of Wellington, CO. She them directed me to continue through town until I crossed over railroad tracks and to take the very next right on to PODUNK LANE (just kidding I don't remember the road name but I do remember that as I did make the right I asked her if she was sure of the directions because we had just turned int a residential, THE residential area for this town. She checked again and said that this is the right road to lead us to the very next and last road that would lead us to Harold's Tires. As is it in most small towns, residential and commercial interests are mixed as a matter of convenience and grandfathering in on zoning regs.

As we made the only and next left and crept slowly thru the neighborhood with our contraption on most wheels, we were the vision of the week for the people of the hood who were outside on their porches in in their yards fortunate enough to catch sight of us looking like we had no idea where we were. A few hundred more feet down the road and we came seeing upon old tires stacked in various formations along side of a long driveway and realized immediately that we actually we going to find a tire shop (or an unruly neighbor) there. I pulled into the long open gravel drive area and eased up towards the building. The overhead garage door was open and two guys were leaning up against the back of a specially designed work truck. One that is modified and used for the mobile changing tires out on the highway usually for trucks and buses. And gauging by the size of the tires along the driveway in, they did a lot of that kind of tire change. In fact, there were so many huge tires stacked on racks and on the ground that I said out loud that it will be absolutely amazing if they have our tire size here in stock as I jumped down from the drivers side door.

I looked over toward both men who had not moved anything but their eyes since we had pulled and and I had jumped out of the vehicle. I shouted a hello and waved and they both responded with their greeting. As I approached where they were I began explaining my need of a trailer tire and wondered if there was any chance that he might have one in stock. I really didn't know which one I was talking to yet but as soon as they had interpreted what I was in need of they both moved but one started heading to the dolly. AS he went he shook my hand and said, "Let's see what size it is'" This was at the least promising. He searched around the side wall of the good tire for the size and immediately upon recognizing this size said, "Well I have it in a radial but not a biased tire!" I looked at him and then looked away and down towards the ground like I was contemplating whether I should put that radial on this dolly or not as he stood there looking at me in a very easy non pressuring way. Really what I was thinking was that I had no idea of the difference between those two tires and how much is this going to cost me because there is no way that I am leaving here without a tire and I didn't really even want to consider (although I simultaneously was considering what that would be like) sleeping in the parking lot of this place

overnight while he got me the right tire because I didn't even know if you could mix a radial with a biased tire now that i knew that I had biased tires. But this was the moment of genius for me. I turned back to him and said, "I need your recommendation here. Will the radial be OK to put on here and will it match OK with the other tire I have on?" He told me the differences between the tires and how much better the radial is and told me that it will work just fine. I gave him the go ahead (without getting a price - like I had any other choice anyway) and asked him if he would like me to pull the RV up and to turn it around so that the bad tire was adjacent to and in front of the open garage bay and on top of the only concrete pad in the area to make it easier to work on. He nodded affirmatively as he was walking towards the bay to grab the tire and I headed back to the RV to reposition her for the change as his friend, that he had been talking with when we arrived with our little issue and who had come over to assess the tire issue with us, announced his departure when he realized that we had made a deal and his buddy was going to go to work.

To accomplish the repositioning I had to turn the RV 180 degrees and face it the other way, which means I had to either make a really wide turn in the lot of this place or go around the block and turn it somewhere else to get it in the right position. His lot was big so in the essence of time I decided to try to make the U-Turn on the property. So I swung way out to my right, way off of the gravel driveway and onto the grass area, without asking for his permission, to try to get wide enough to make the complete turn. My judgement about turns has gotten pretty keen over the last eight months and I have been able to make most of them (and have learned how to very gradually adjust the tow dolly while in reverse to get myself out of a couple of tight spots so as to not have to unload the car and all of the other crap loaded on the back just to turn the RV around) and this time I made the turn with a foot to spare between the RV and the tree in front of me.

Once positioned and back out of the RV, I noticed that our man of the hour was getting every thing he needed, in the way of equipment, out of a second truck parked outside the building and not out of the garage. This is when he told me that they were really a mobile tire service and that they rarely do any tire work here at the shop. He asked me how we had even found him because most everybody just called for service and did not come to the shop. I told him, to his amazement that we had Internet access almost all over the country with our Verizon card and that we found his address in a Yellow Page listing. He shrugged and smiled and went back to the task at hand.

I told him that knowing that he was usually out on the road that I was really glad that he was open and here when we arrived and having a slow day just for our benefit. He laughed and told me that it had actually been a real busy day and that this was the first time he had been back to the shop all day. I was taken again by the level of serendipity that has been and continues to be provided for us on this trip but at the same time, as I said, have come to rely on it as the way it works when we are in right alignment listening to our hearts and following our passion. (It almost feels embarrassing to say that but at the same time this is what has come to be our way of being - no real issues just amazing surprises and the reality that it all works out just fine and better than we could have imagined) This time was no exception!

I went back to the RV to take some notes of the event and by the time I came back out he was completed with the operation and was making out the invoice. Now comes the moment of truth. We've all heard the stories of shock and horror of folks being broken down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in small town and being taken advantage of cost wise, so I was not really sure what to expect. But again I have gotten to the point of what is is what is and I was back in business and ready to roll into Wyoming with a much better tire than I had before and it was all working in my favor. So I asked him confidently what I owed him and he went over to the truck and into his small, rectangular, aluminum box type, invoice container and shuffled through a bunch of papers to find the one he had, just moments ago, made out for me. As he found it and turned toward me to hand it to me he said, "And the grand total is.... $65.00)

In my head I went, Oh thank God and in my heart I went, you see, just trust.

After paying him I went over to the dolly and saw that as a reult of the blowout the strap that holds the car on had gotten knocked out of position and had to be realligned and adjusted so I began to spin the ratchet to loosen it so that I could reposition it on the tire. Trying to move the ratchet was impossible because the locking clip I mentioned before had be knocked off in the upsetting of the cart.

Randy came over a looked in a went back to his shop and grabbed his set of them and replaced mine with in a minute and I made the final strap adjustment and was on the road again amazed at how things just work out if I don't push and try to force them into place.

He was a real nice guy. His name was Randy and he lives in Fort Collins. He allowed us to take his picture and get to know him a little bit but most importantly to allow us to let him know how much of a difference he made in our lives just by being there.

We're RV'ing Again and we're still in the flow

2008-08-08T07:42:00.004-05:00

First, here is the sunset on the first evening back in Boulder as we look out over the foothils to the Rocky Mountains.

We have been camping at the airport hanger of our friends in Boulder since Tuesday. This is the place where the RV has been stored since we left it there in June to head back home for tammy and Matt's wedding and a few other things. When we got up yesterday morning we knew and decided that it was time to hit the road again and to complete the daunting task of packing the RV with all of the stuff that we had taken out two months ago so that while we were back East so that our friends from out West could use the motor home for some vacations of their own. They were planning on taking the RV for a month long trip up to Washington and Oregon. But since one of their major construction projects was just busting into reality it became impossible for them to take the full contiguous month off. They did take ot for a couple of week long trips to Wyoming and had great fun. So, as it turned out it really was not necessary for us to have removed all of our items to make all of the basement and closet space available for them. But it did give us an opportunity to clear out and reorganize everything that we had loaded in the RV back last December. We took some things home and the rest got stored on a metal rack system within the hanger while we were gone.

At 9:30, Megan began by unloading all our items from the rack and and placing them piece by piece on to a furniture moving dolly, that she had placed a piece of plywood on top of for a platform. She did this because we were not able to easily carry the things from the rack to the RV, which I had moved from its side of the hanger, camping location, to its front of the hanger loading location. Jasper had taken care of opening the huge twelve foot high by fifty foot long doors as he loves to do via the electric motors with the five sets of cable winches that lift this crazy heavy door with ease. Megan, through numerous trips, was rolling the loaded goods on the dolly under the rear and main wings of the twin engine plane that is parked in the hanger, that belongs to our friends here in Boulder. She would roll it out close to the parked RV and drop it off to go back for another load while I began sorting and loading the variety of goods, tools and equipment that we had previously deemed necessary for this one year journey. We brought a lot of stuff and amazingly we have used most of it during the trip at one time or another.

You just have to take a look at, enlarge the picture by clicking on it, at the back of the RV. We, for sure, look like Jed and Jethro and the rest of the familyhitting the road for a better future. A good deal of my time was spent just installing this precarious load that dangles and somewhat innocuously follows behind the motor wherever we go. The one thing that made me feel better about MY load was that I passed an RV yesterday, traveling in the opposite direction that was towing a car behind it and a sailboat behind the car. We just look more white trashy then they did.

Once loaded, a mere five hours later, at 2:30 we sat down for a quick lunch before launching ourselves on route to the Northwest corner of the US for the very first time. We were done eating and ready to roll by 2:45 and it just gets cute from here for a few minutes. AS we pulled away from the hanger, I chortled loudly, "Here we Go!" Michaela started clapping. A few seconds later she was up whispering in Jasper's ear, who was sitting in the front seat, something that they both apparently agreed to, based on the wide smiles on both of their faces. They got very and uncharacteristically quiet and just kept grinning as I slowly meandered my way around the rest of the hangers and made it out to the airport exit road to the stop light before entering the main city road that would lead us out to the highway, out of Colorado and into Wyoming for the night. As the light turned green and I began my right turn and maneuvering the large, fully loaded vehicle out onto the street the kids, in unison gave us all a standing ovation, showing how happy they were to be on the road and embarking on the next part of our trip. It made me smile from the heart to know they were excited to be on the trip and paying attention and being a part of it in their sweet way. Later on in the late evening before we actually got to Casper, WY, Jazz came up and was sitting the the passenger seat quietly and I turned and asked him what he thought the best part of the day was. He looked at me thought for a few seconds and said, "getting back on the road." I told him, "Me Too!"

By 4 o'clock we were onto the real exciting adventure for the day and the subject of the next blog entry. See ya then.

The Fastest Road to Denver and Boulder Too!

2008-08-06T11:55:00.007-05:00

The next morning, Megan and I were sitting outside the motel room on a bench eating cereal when Michaela came out and stood next to us. I asked her to stand still and be very quiet and listen to the sounds she can hear. She stopped and listened for a few seconds and looked at me like I was crazy and said, “I don’t hear anything, Grampi!” I replied, “That’s right, cause this is Kansas!” Soon after Meg put Mick's hair up for her and we loaded in and began the move.
We finished our light breakfasts’ and while the kids took showers, Meg and I packed the car for the very last car leg of the trip that would take place today as we head to Boulder, CO. It took us 7+ days to make this trip leaving from Middletown, CT last Tuesday at about 12 noon and we should arrive in Boulder this late afternoon. As you saw in yesterday’s entry, we took our pictures of the illustrious Midwest Motel and headed down the road towards Boulder still another, at least, 7 hours away.
After grabbing a coffee at the local convenience store and stopping at the post office to mail postcards for Michaela to home, we made once last roll by photo of a locomotive mural painted on the side of a building in downtown Stockton and then hit two lane highway 183 north for a short while to join us with Rt. 36 west that would lead us into Denver and the freeway 70. Route 36 by the way is touted and has been for 150 plus years as the fastest route from Indianapolis to the Denver gold fields. It is just a grand undulating road with beautiful scenes from every hill crest. I am not sure why everyone says Kansas is so flat, we never found the flatness as we cut across Rt. 24 from Missouri and connected with Rt. 36 all we found was rolling low hills and beautiful fields of corn of different variety, hay grass, soy, Huge fields of blooming sunflowers and sunshine and plenty of summer heat. The only obstacle we ran into on the entire crossing of the state was one area of road repaving which had turned the two lane into one and had us stopped for 20 minutes or so while we waited for the oncoming traffic to pass by. The temp was a balmy 104 at that time and sitting in the air conditioned car waiting beat the living shit out of being the person standing on the highway holding the infamous two sided slow/stop sign. She did not look happy!
After a few minutes on the road I got a call form Steve S. back home who had called to ask if he could borrow a piece of equipment that I have. I answered with my usual hello and heard his voice on the other end saying, “Hey, how’s it going?” I replied, “Ah, Alright!” Steve retorted, “Uh Oh! What’s up?” I said, “Nothing….., I am in Kansas.” We both laughed out loud for a while knowing that we could not have planned the conversational lead up to yet another Kansas joke. We talked for a bit longer before cell service got weak and he had to head off to do another task at hand. AS we hung up I was glad for cell phones and for friends to talk and laugh with.
About 25 miles up the road, we came to the intersection of routes 183 and 36. THE four corners in the town of Phillipsburg, KS. The traffic on 36 West does not have stop signs only the traffic heading north or south on 183 does. We were held at our stop sign for about 5 minutes for something you just don’t see back East, three massive tractor trailer trucks that were coming from the west and turning south onto 183. Now the trucks themselves were not the spectacle to us but their cargo of three back new huge, and I mean huge, brightly painted yellow Combines heading to some sales yard somewhere in Kansas. These tractors tires stood two Prius’ high without exaggeration. They looked like space ships someone had found in the middle of a corn field somewhere and probably cost about as much. We have come along way from hometown organic gardening!
We continued down the western path, about another 30 miles, to the town of Norton. I needed a pee break from the earlier extra large coffee so I pulled into the local Micky D’s. To our good fortune this one also had a Red Box machine so we were also able to return the movie we had rented the day before, all in one stop. While standing at the machine, returning the Red Box movie, a man, a McDonald’s employee was unfortunately sitting right next to the machine on the low, seat level brick ledge smoking a cigarette or two. It was only unfortunate because he was smoking. I had said Hi to him on the way into the buildings restrooms and now, standing this close to him, he began a conversation about the heat. We talked for a few minutes while the kids looked to find a film they wanted to watch. T was pleasant and I learned a bit about his world view and how he couched his life’s philosophy. He was a nice guy from Middle America who at this point told us of a personal movie recommendation. He suggested, “The Bucket List” with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. I asked him if he thought it was kid appropriate and he responded with, “Well I haven’t seen it but, people tell me its good. And Red Box doesn’t usually put movies in that aren’t good for the family.” As you can see I learned a lot about what he believes to be true in every sentence he spoke. I thanked him. Had the kids choose Nim's Island and I got The Bucket List for us to watch. It was good, a little predictable but touching just the same.
Our breaks on this trip, having two kids now, have been considerably longer then when just the three of us are traveling together. (Only, I believe, because Jazz has been previously outnumbered. Now that the numbers are two adults, two kids, they win every time and we stay at each resting place lots longer) And really this is all good. They have been in the car for 2000+ miles so far with very little in the way of discomfort, complaints or issues and the way that and what they do is a lesson to me each and every time we stop. There happened to be a subway store next to the McDonalds and upon sighting it Mick asked if she could get a sandwich (Lesson: eat when you are hungry) So we got a couple and shared them for lunch. All in the car, I began heading out of town but heard the little voice of wisdom saying maybe you should get fuel before you leave town. Learning to listen to this voice of intuition has proven wise so, I turned around and went to the gas station closest to us and filled up ($3.69).
As we pulled out of the station, Megan saw a small stone building across the street that she had previously looked up and knew as “Station 15”. (In early times, the Leavenworth and Pikes Peak Stagecoach Line ran through the site of Norton. Stations along the route provided food, lodging, and fresh teams of horses. New York Times publisher Horace Greeley spent the night of May 24, 1859 at Station 15 near Norton. Other famous travelers of the old west also stopped here, including Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and Roy Bean.) This was cool and all for us history buffs but more importantly for the kids, there was a playground located on the same grounds. The played on the See Saw and then the siwings for about ½ hour until it was time for us to hit the road. (Lesson: Play whenever you have the opportunity. It really makes a significant difference in your life. Oh and by the way, let the adults in the crowd see you playing because it makes a difference in their lives to if they are paying attention) Lesson: Pay attention to what the kids know intrinsically about life and get back to that stage as often as you can) Humm.. Lesson inside the lesson, I like that one!
Also at this stop in Norton, as well as at every other stop we have had, Megan cleans up and organizes the car to the point that it looks as if we have not even been traveling in it. This is so awesome! (Lesson: Allow your partner the opportunity to do what she loves whenever she wants to… and you will benefit too!
At 2:30 Central Time we left Kansas. Entered Yuma County, Colorado and Mountain Time simultaneously. Now it was 1:30 again and we just gained some daylight (with the exception of the large thunder and lightening storm we were driving into and could see from some 180 miles away because of the unobstructed viability of this part of the country.
I read the kids the latest blog entry and told them that I was keeping track of all of these days and events so that I could put them all into a book when we are complete. Jazz loved this idea and began singing one of his infamous little ditties’s that he comes up with all of the time. He sang, “Oh yeah, this is going to be an awesome book and I’m gonna get 50/50 of all the sales.” I told him that I could write another book on how Jasper has tolerated his parents on this entire trip. He replied in song, “ 50/50 makes me tolerate them really easy.” So far there is only a book and no publisher so as the old song line said, “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.”

Read the "Flight Of The Cheyennes" sign to the right and you will lnow how the white people felt about the Indians back in the day and probably still today or at least when they made this signage"

We spent a week in Kansas, Yesterday!

2008-08-05T14:46:00.005-05:00

After traveling for almost 8 months, last night we made it to Stockton, Kansas, finally, the pinnacle of just about anyone’s journey and here we were. We rolled into town at about 9 PM. We had been slowing down as we rolled through several towns, over the past couple of hundred miles, since about 5 PM and looking at the individual sole motels in each of the towns, eying them for acceptability for a nights stay. Some weren’t even open in these towns of only a couple hundred people and those that were looked somewhat scary and or nasty. I guess we have gotten used to the Comfort Inns and Holiday Inn Express’s of the world, so much so that looking at a small town; throw back to the 50’s (or 90’s) motel has little appeal to us. But regardless of the appeal, or lack there of, by the time we got to Stockton, we realized that we had no choices other than to keep driving with two kids who really wanted to get out of the car or to stay, like sleep, in the car or sleep outside under the stars with no bedding. Uh…… No thanks, not tonight!
So, I walk into the office of the long standing Midwest Motel, that has a little blue and white rectangular “Come In, We’re Open” sign hanging from a small chain on the inside of the door and ask the woman proprietor, who’s house is attached to the smoke filled and stale smoke smelling front office, if she has a room available with two double beds in it. She tells me that she does and I can feel myself start to relax just a bit, realizing that we don’t have to drive on any further and perhaps that I wanted to get out of the car as much or more than the kids did. As she is messing around finding the registration form I look around the room and see that she has a large long table set up that displays her knitting and crocheting that she has for sale. All around the room, that is paneled with thick, heavy cabin like V-groove knotty pine boards, there are miscellaneous wood carvings and paintings of animals I imagine are indigenous to this area. My last glance brings me to the wall directly behind the desk she is standing at. It is filled with framed, signed promo shots from all of the stars that have stayed in this motel over the years, There are pictures of the Hager Brothers, famous from Hee Haw, Martina McBride, Lee Greenwood. The woman owner was very pround of all of the stars that had stayed at her establishment.Must have been a long while ago for Greenwood and McBride cause I can’t imagine either one of them staying here now. I asked her when they stayed here and confirming my thoughts, she could not recall the years. She is very friendly and pleasant to deal with and even with that I could not wait to get out of the smoke scented or stained room. At that moment, Megan walks into the office and asks the woman, the seeming juxtaposed question, if the room she is assigning us is a non smoking room. I am certain that she has not heard this question too many times before and more certain that it is of very little consequence to her if a room has been smoked in or not and even less if we decide to take the room or not for the night. But she is very polite to Meg and tells her that they don’t separate rooms by smoking or non smoking but that she is sure that Megan will find the room just fine. I, realizing that I probably should have asked that question too, before I started filling out the registration card and having the proprietor start the credit card transaction, asked her if we could just check out the room before she finalized the deal. She, of course, agreed and we went down to the room. It was, as expected, an OK room. Small and dingy but, clean and made up fine, it did not smell like smoke (although nothing could match their office area) but it did smell stale and old and those odors were exacerbated by the heat build up in the room from the days temperatures that reached 106 degrees. And with all that, still, we found it acceptable for a nights stay. We must be tired and certainly we did not know of any other options and besides that, we could honestly say that this was the first time on this trip and beyond when we had supported local small business with our stay and we knew that our stay was having a direct impact on this family and that felt great. Maybe Jasper was not so aware of the difference he was making for these nice people. As he sat down on the bed, with a puss on stated, “Let’s not stay, it’s too small.” Losely translated I think that means he was pissed there was no pool.
I went back to the office and completed the sale and received the receipt and the remote for the TV. I went back again, a few moments later, to ask if there was an ice machine so that we could fill up our small plug in to the car adaptor (that doesn’t cool when the car is off) cooler to allow us to keep things good over night. She told me that there was not an ice machine but she could give us a small bucket of ice. There was no presumption in her voice or on her face that I would even want that and she stood there waiting for my response. I said, “Yes, please!” She shuffled off to one room off to the side of her kitchen area and soon returned with a small off white (smoke stained perhaps) plastic ice bucket on a matching round tray and hen moved to, I assume her freezer to fill it with home made ice cubes. She came to the front desk and handed me the ice and told me to hang on a second while she got me two more towels and a face cloth.
I waited for her to go off and get those things that she had offered, but while I was waiting I started to think,”I would bet these towels are gonna smell like smoke.” In about half a minute she came back and handed them to me and I said my thanks and headed out the door and back to room number 10. On the way back I stuck my face in the towels and discovered, to my surprise, that the towels smelled like fabric softener. Things were working out just fine, as usual.
As I walked into the room I felt the coolness shooting from the loud, but effective, A/C and it was beginning to cut the heat in the room to a bearable level and saw the kids already on the bed staring at the TV. Megan was futzing about with the cooler and getting things out to begin to put together things for our night meal before we began settling in for the nights sleep. All seemed well in Stockton, Kansas for the night or at least in our little 10 x 12 section of it, so I headed out to the downtown area to one of the two gas station/convenience stores that act as the local supermarkets to pick up some Mayo and Milk for this meal. Upon my return the parts were put together and a makeshift meal of Tuna sandwiches, cereal and various raw vegetables was had and enjoyed by all. It was like camping in.
Once the meal was complete and Meg began the clean up and getting the kids ready to get into bed, I headed out, once more, to go to the laundry mat in the next building adjacent to the motel, that is by default left open all night, meaning no one locks the door on purpose and did two loads of clothes using Dr. Bronners Peppermint soap as a substitute for laundry detergent. While the machines were doing their thing I read my emails and shot one off to my tenants back home about an issue that has been occurring there, regarding the folks next door, since we left. Even though it was now 11:30 PM it was good to have some alone and quiet time in the car by myself and on the computer, When the laundry finished I folded and made my way back to the room and settled into bed. As I did, Meg got into the bed having woken up when I came in and relocated herself from the kid’s bed to ours. Before I fell asleep moments later it was the beginning of a brand new day in Middle America. I was glad to be where I was, next to my wife in a bed, in the midst of the ones I love in somewhere, Kansas.

Our Day After The Ramada - Great St. Louis

2008-08-04T08:59:00.005-05:00

In the morning on Saturday, August 2, 08 after we gratefully evacuated ourselves from the hotel from hell we headed down to Old St. Louis along the Mississippi. The gateway to the city as marked by the unforgettable Arch. The monument that celebrates the westward movement of civilization (if you will) in this country. It is part of what is called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. It is part of the trio of monuments that also include the Museum of Westward Expansion, and St. Louis' Old Courthouse. It is a grand site and has a lot of history. It is the first site designated by a president as a national historic site after having been given the powers by congress to do so.

There was a competition to create a monument for this area in St. Louis as businesses set an intention to bring the area back to life after it had fallen into disrepair when business interests shifted focus away from the port area back in the day. The architect that won, with his design of this massive 630 foot tall and 630 feet apart from base to base, stainless steel arch was Eero Saarinen who won the competition in 1948 never saw its construction even begin. The Arch was built between 1963 and 1965 and Eero died in September of 1961. What a shame that is. This arch is most beautiful and very strongly associated with St Louis.

We spent a great deal of time in the old court house and with the kids doing the junior ranger program. The had to move all about the building searching out answers to the questions found in the prepared booklet that were designated appropriate for a variety of different age groups. This was an activity that Jasper tolerates because he wants the badge but dislikes the reading and having to look to uncover and reveal the answers. However Michaela, just loved the challenge and was totally into the process and earned her first junior ranger badge in her life as a result. At one time, when we were standing in one of the court rooms answering one specific question about how do you think it would feel for you to be in this actual court room during a trial, she looked up at me and said, "Judgeful." After we had completed the booklet and were walking towards the ranger station to have it reviewed and to receive her badge, she looked at me and exclaimed, "This is the best day of the trip so far." She is a great student of learning.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city. Visiting Busch Stadium and eating at the Spaghetti Factory before we headed back to Dave and Sherries to collect our bikes and head out to Hannibal. Here are some of our photos of the day.

Hannibal, Florida, Paris ending in Marshall

2008-08-03T21:49:00.003-05:00

Today we spent almost the entire day in Hannibal and Florida, Missouri going through the Mark Twain houses and Museums. In Hannibal we saw his childhood home and stomping grounds as well as the house of his girl friend who became Becky Thatcher in the Tom Sawyer books. Clemens is most defitnitely an idol or dead mentor of mine regarding writing and perhaps most importantly how to live life. The more I learn of his adventures and escapades the ,more I am enchanted and can see parralels that I would like to continue to align with and manifest. We'll see!

Jazz and I met George Scott on the streets who is one of the two Twain impersonators operating in town, He is the one that they don't like and there is a lot of bad blood in America's Hometown.
We had lunch in the Mark Twain Dinnette and then completed our tours of the requisite museums and gift shops.

We jumped back in the Prius and headed out another 30 miles west to the birth place of Clemens. The small wood frame house was moved into a building that had the roof constructed first, then the house was installed in its entirety, in one piece, and then the walls of the museum were built under the roof and surrounding the house.

The kids (Jazz and Michaela) loved this day and so did I and Megan didn't seem to mind it at all. It was one of the most interesting and inspiring days on the journey back to Boulder. Knowing that we were headed to Clemens' birthplace and homes we have been reading the adventures of Huckleberry Finn to them in the car on our rides between places. Jazz has seen this story in the film version previously but they are both captivated by the written story and listen for long spells without interuption (with the exceptional question to undersatnd some concept or word)

Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and ME!

2008-08-03T07:34:00.003-05:00

It is about 7 AM here in Hannibal, Missouri. The skys are grey blue, yet well lit through the minor morning overcast appearance. A man I met getting coffee this morning said that he said it was supposed to be in the high 90's again today and that he thought it looked like rain, but, more than being the truth, I think this is just what old men, like us, say to each other in the morning. The morning breeze is steady with gusts that just light up my soul this morning as the 68 degree temperatures make it very easy to handle being in the midwest on a beautiful and inspiring mid summer morning.
A freight train blasts in behind me, blowing its tooth rattling horn way to loudly and repeatedly. The engines are pulling many open top coal cars, flat cars with rolls of steel strapped down on them, large tankers with the ADM logo emblazoned on the sides and other jet black and light gray tankers carrying undisclosed materials, along with open slotted and corrugated steel paneled cars carrying who knows what, possibly livestock, followed by the run of the mill regular box cars with heavy steel sliding doors, some with the doors still half open as they run down the tracks just tempting the hobo or gypsy in me to run and jump on board into one and take the trip just to find out where it is going. As a kid I read and heard of many stories of men who walked the tracks and rode along on these dirty old freight cars some even knowing where they were going. This is another thing that today I find romantic and would like to try just once in my life. The train cars pick up speed as the entire assembly processes through on the outer edge of town with out even the faintest idea that I am here taking in each moment of bliss in this magical spot. The only disappointment for me in this very moment is that at the end of the train, there is no caboose just the last baby blue box car.
I am sitting in the our hybrid car at a portion of the town docks right on the edge of the mighty Mississippi River. In front of me to my right is the modified steamboat named the Mark Twain. She is all decked out with those (old fashioned) plastic backyard chairs we are almost all familiar with, for all of us tourist who enjoy getting on such throw back pleasure boats and motoring around the river for a while reliving the stories of Mark and Huck and the gloriously romanticized life on the mighty river. Two young guys have just arrived . One on a bike and the other in his car. The guy with the car is obviously the man in charge as he has a set of keys that lets him into the lacked gate that could stop only the least of those desirous of getting onto the dock and to the front door of a floating barge/house boat looking thing that is the actual ticket office and gift shop for the "Mark Twain" replica steamship. I am mere steps away from the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens and most likely sitting on a spot where he played or walked or took in the sites, smells and scenes that would later lead to the nation capturing stories that would pop from his imagination for our enjoyment. Perhaps he even boarded a steamship here for the first time. I am going to believe that that is what happen for now.
To my left is the tug "Sir Randall" sitting idle waiting for a job but just one space to the left of it is the tug "Sir Randy J" diesel motors running, captain in the perch and the front end pushed up snug against the barge she is to maneuver one way or another on the river once clearance has been provided. As I sit watching and writing, simultaneously, the "Sir Randy J" fires up its diesel engines to begin to push the barge away from the dock and to maneuver it into position for its river journey today. As much as it seem pointless to me, at the same time, I am captured by the ships movement and my desire to be up in the perch with the captain as he heads out for the day or the week. Just to try it and see what life on the river is like for a tug captain. As he pushes away upstream another set of 8 huge interconnected, at least 100 foot long loaded barges are being pushed downstream by a huge white tug with many symbolic names painted on the side including the familiar ADM logo and among others, lettering that spells out Cooperative Vanguard. The "Sir Randy J" has pushed out of my sight up river from the dock and I have sadly missed this opportunity to set off with it for the day.
The river is flowing strong along the sides of the dock as she makes her way south toward the shores of New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico some 800 miles away by car and I am certain alot longer by meandering river.
Way off at 8 o'clock from the position I am sitting as I face the river are an organized group of young people playing mud volleyball in a tournament that is being held here on the banks of the river. It strikes me that we are drawn to these places along side the water and in the midst of doing the things of our lives we are also creating the stories of our lives in the almost unseen midst of the landscape we do them in. For this place was made magical by the likes of Mark Twain and could be again by anyone of us here today, especially the boys operating the floating gift shop or the captain of the Sir Randy J and perhaps they will, but as I look at them in their current endeavors it seems that they have other things on their minds or possibly nothing at all of any significance on their minds except to do what they believe that are charged with or are assigned to do this day.
I am thrilled to have come here and to feel my soul soar and heart expand as I take in and experience the being and the playground of Samuel Clemens and the genius that this place inspired in him. It is easy to imaging how it did just that. This town is the self proclaimed Americas Hometown and it is just that. It has this easy go feel to it and that feeling is amplified as I sit watch and listen to the sights and sounds along the river. Across the way, across the river on the eastern shore from this dock is a sandy shore on what looks like an island. I could easy create a story of my own about crossing the river on a raft, to drift away on during this small town Sunday summer morning as a second freight train slowly and mightily saunters on by, behind me. This one taking a part of my precious remaining hearing with it from every blast of its air horns.
Coal, Coal and more Coal on its way to some power plant in some large city America where we are just waking up looking in our contemporary freezing cold ice boxes (refrigerators) and turning on the morning coffee pot to enjoy while we sit and read the paper or watch the morning news or cartoons on TV depending on your preference. We who live in the east have no or very little knowledge of these goings on. The excavation, shipping and burning of coal for power for our homes and businesses is not in our consciousness any more. We hardly use the trains for personal transport and rarely, if ever, see cargo trains any more. How juxtaposed it seems to be sitting looking at the broad and mighty river and all its power and undying strength (as witnessed many times by floods in various parts of our country) and to witness perhaps millions of tons of coal slide by me, right behind me within 50 feet, in the rear view mirrors. These 120 freight car trains take four massive running diesel powered locomotives, two in the front and two pushing from the rear, to move their freight from dig site to drop off point. I am told that it takes one 120 car train full of coal to operate one Chicago electrical plant for one 24 hour period. That is a lot of need for coal.
The sun is up again as predicted (and remember it is supposed to be another 90 plus degree day today) and the breeze is blowing strongly through my open car windows (soft to the feel on my skin) and as I look around, searching for signs of the kind of change I am interested in I don't see even one solar panel or windmill in sight. Not to mention the power of the river water passing silently and forcefully before me. Some day we will get it and use what has been gifted to us silently and abundantly using very little force to maintain and have the things that we love to have available to us with out damaging the earth or the Ozone. I look forward to that day and will do my part to get us there but for now I am just going to breath in the glory of this beautiful planet.
Oh Yeah, I have to go back to the hotel and pick up the family. Thank god for cell phones!

Ohio to Missouri

2008-08-02T21:40:00.003-05:00

Friday morning we put our things together, helped snake the sewer line one last time and loaded the bikes on the back of the Prius (with the car top carrier mounted up top, three bikes stacked on therack on back, the load of clothes and other assundry items we are bringing back (traversing America with) to the motor home and the four of us in the car - our gas mileage has gone from the avg of 48- 50 mpg to 33 - 36 mpg (I was very surprised by how dramatic the difference was.) As a very pleasurable offset we did though buy gas in Dayton for $3.59 on this very day just before we hit the highway for the 6 plus hour journey to St. Charles, Missouri. (This is the home of Megan's brother David and his wife Sherrie who currently share a home and live with her brother Lee and his son Eric.) When we left CT on Tuesday the lowest we saw gas drop to was $3.99 so it has dropped more significatly here in the mid west. You know where all the oil comes up from the ground and all the delivery ports are.
We pulled into the historic city of St. Charles directly off the highway and we met up with them (Dave and Sherrie) at about 7:30 last night and immediately Dave and I went shopping to get goods for a meal to prepare at home. When all was said and done we finished eating and talking after 10 and quickly shoved off to try to find our hotel back at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, St. Louis Missouri. Now, I don't want to mislead you or for you to even think for a minute that that designation for that airport in the afore mentioned, St. Louis, will help you at all if you are ever trying to find this airport via GPS in St. Louis, because you will not find it in St, Louis. Thus, the sucky part of the evening had just begun.
We plugged the address of the Ramada hotel that was listed on the national website that we booked thru and on the email confirmation that they had sent to us into the GPS. However the number (4545) of the building was not showing up on the street (North Lindbergh Blvd.) they gave us in St. Louis. Unbeknowst to me the GPS had automatically shifted to the highest number available (2799) North Lindbergh Blvd. when I had put in address number 4545. So off we went thinking we were heading to the address we had plugged in. After following the GPS directions to the automatically programmed 2799 address and finding no Ramada Inn there, I began looking at the GPS a bit more closely and was quite surprised when I actually saw the address it had directed us to. Searching its data bank for answers, I noticed that there was a 4545 South Lindbergh Blvd. so I set that in thinking that the road they gave us was a mistake. This turned out to be my big mistake. I followed this road back about 15 miles to the address I had just plugged in on South Lindbergh only to not find a Ramada there either. Feeling very frustrated at this hour of the night, after a long day of driving and visiting, this time I pulled into a parking lot (not my normal immediate pull over to the side of the road thing) and Megan, who was staffing the internet connection found the Ramada national reservation phone numberand I called them for assisatnce with finding the damn hotel and they offered only the local hotel number as there way of helping. (I just can't tell you enough how invaluable the Verizon PC plug in internet card has been while on this trip. It has provided almost immediate internet access all over the country with the exception of only two rather remote places I can think of) I called the front desk and got an, oh so, put on, pleasant person who was obviously at or over the end of her shift. (mind you it is fast approaching 11:15 PM and that we had just crossed into central time zone earlier in the day so this is really our 12:15 eastern for us and more importantly for the kids who are tired as hell from the six plus hour drive earlier in the day, then the visit, then the escapade to find the friggin hotel) The nice woman at the front desk puts me on hold for 7 minutes while she is looking for the shuttle driver to take the call from me to try to figure out where I am and how the hell to get me back to the right address and the hotel. I should have begun to get that, what the hell is going on feeling and listened to it before I ever went to the hotel, but being that I booked it so late in the day (as we were running out of gas, for the very first time ever in the Prius, which just shouldn't happen but as I said our gas mileage was severely impaired using the car as a moving van, on the bridge crossing over the Missouri River... but thats another story) it was not a cancelable reservation anyway. He politely tells me that if you are doing the directions by GPS you need to enter Bridgeton, MO as the town and not St. Louis. This sucks as the only city listed anywhere we could find for the "Ramada - St. Louis Airport" was friggin ST. LOUIS. Right, why didn't I think of that. The St. Louis airport is in Bridgeton. Coming from CT where the Windsor locks location of Bradley Field is call Hartford/Springfield I really should have known.
Well changing the town/city in the GPS made all difference in the world, however, we were still some 15 miles by 1/2 hour in the wrong direction from the hotel. We arrived at the front desk for the rest of the evenings festivities at 11:45.
They checked me in and took my money and gave me room keys for 238. Meanwhile Megan and the kids were getting the hotel cart loaded with all of our necessary gear for the overnight, ready to transport to our luxurious suite for the evening. Proudly walking next to my family with the loaded cart, heading towards the elevator we walk from the Air Conditioned lobby area into Dantes inferno. It had to be 95 in the hall as we waited for the elevator to the second floor. The elevator arrived, the doors opened and we got in to the super heated cubical from hell and headed to the 2nd floor. AS we got out of the elevator and began the long hall walk from 200 to 238 we came into view of our neighbors for the night. There were at least 12 older teen aged young men scattered throughout the hall way each with their own portable electronic device of some sort. Each leaning on a wall, spread out on the floor or pacing around the hall. Megan, without even breaking her stare at them said, "Well this is not looking promising!" I stopped everybody in their tracks and turned the family motion back towards the elevator. We got to the first floor and I sped back to the front desk to get assigned a different room for the night. I explained to the new front desk person (because happy girl had been relieved) that the second floor looked like a college dorm room and that at this hour of the night I needed a quiet space for the kids and us to get to sleep. They, already knowing of the 2nd floor situation although having done nothing about it, reassigned us to room 130.
I told them that I wanted to go down and check out the room first at this point before we committed to keeping it for the night. The guy told me that there were no other rooms like what we had reserved available. This was not going to be an real issue for me if the room was not what we wanted, except that I did not want to try to find another hotel at 12 AM. I went down to the room trying to be as open as possible to liking the room so that we could just stay and sleep. I tried to get the key and door lock open four times before I walked the 1/4 mile back to the front desk yet again to tell them I could not get in. The dude told me that many of there locks were worn out from all the years of use so I should try lifting the habdle instead of pushing down. (ever get so yused to a problem that you just find ways to manage instead of dealing with it? I had the impression that when you paid for a hotle room you as the guest wern;t realy supposed to have to deal with this kind of stuff but I found out I was wrong about that at Ramada - St. Louis Airport in Bridgeton) I went back down and did as instructed and got the door opened. All of my personal openness was necessary. As I walked into the room with 7 year old grand daughter Michaela by my side, the first words out of her mouth were, "It smells in here!". She was right it did smell stale and a bunch like some deodorized cleaner but this could be overlooked or at minimum tolerated. The AC was blasting but it was barely past warm in the room. I naively thought that maybe they had just turned it on recently and that it would really get cool later into the night. WRONG!

On The Road Again, Again!

2008-07-31T15:11:00.006-05:00

Well we left CT again on Tuesday morning and with much less fanfare then last December.

We head southwest to stay a night with our good friends, Susan and George and the kids in Pittsburgh, PA. They are such wonderful people. Here they are 10 days form the scheduled birth of their fourth child, George putting the finishing touches on his second book to leave his office this year with a deadline of Wednesday, all the kids home for the summer and they were an immediate YES to our staying the night Tuesday. Just an awesome family and we want to say how grateful we are to your welcoming us again into your home. Thanks for the soft landing (much later than we had originally anticipated).

We left there pretty early Wednesday morning and hit the road for Dayton, Ohio where we still are visiting my brother and sister in law for a day and half before heading out to St. Louis for a day or so to visit Megs brother and our sister in law.

It has been a bit of an adjustment again, physically, we are sleeping in different beds each night and traveling longer distances than usual to get there. We have not been sleeping normally and it has caught up with us to some degree today. One great thing about being here is that my brother has a pool at his house and the kids were hardly able to wait to be able to get in it yesterday. Today they were in before 10 AM and have been in right up to now at 4:20 with just a few minute breaks during that whole time. The weather is hot and humid and perfect for the pool. I will be in the 82 degree water just as soon as I am done blogging for today.

We had to clear a blocked sewer line from the house to the street this morning here at my brothers house but all went well and easy and it gives us time to spend together and I really enjoy that aspect of our trips here. Today we got the pleasure of being with my nephew Matt who was upstate in PA helping my niece make ready to move to FL. He drove back today and we had the chance for a short visit before he headed off to work. We will spend a little time together this night and some in the AM tomorrow and then we will shove off for Missouri.

Speaking of Missouri, I wanted to share with you and special Missouri customization of a vehicle that I saw on the road yesterday as we were between Pittsburgh and Dayton. I am looking to send this in to the Red Neck show but I wanted to have the chance to share it with you first.

This could be an example of the way that RV's came into existence.

This is a real life example of , When you need something and you have all the elements to make it work for you, why bother calling someone else who may be an expert in the field,
Just do it yourself and save BIG.

In other words, You know your from the hills when:

(double click on the picture for a larger, more clear image)

Notice the way the generator is mounted to the vehicle, the power wire running from the generator to the cooling unit, the special cooling unit mounted in the rear window and the insualtive material used to make sure none of that cool gets out. This guy(s) thought of it all. This is priceless and practical!

Well, until next time... I'm going in the pool to cool down!

One month since my last post!

2008-07-28T02:46:00.002-05:00

I am not entirely sure why I have not been writing in the blog except that since being here in CT we have just taken on many things that just do not occur while out on the road. These things have obviously managed to consume time and thus have somehow prevented me from expressing them on the blog. I have kept notes to some degree and hope to recollect them on the blog over the next few weeks but certainly the highlights of this trip home will be discussed in the book.
We were supposed to leave today to begin the trek back to Colorado to pick up the coach and begin our exploration of the Northwest corner states but we could not get it all ready to rock so we will be leaving Tuesday morning bright and early. We will have an additional passenger for the next 5 weeks in the person of our grand daughter, Michaela. Both she and Jasper our very excited to embark on this section of the trip. Megan and I are as well as Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Northern California are places that neither of us have been to.
We will stop in Pittsburgh Tuesday night and stay with our gracious friends George and Susan. Weds we will head out to Dayton Ohio and visit briefly with brother Scott and Diane. Thursday we intend to make it to Saint Charles, Missouri to visit another brother David and Sherrie before we head over to Mount Vernon, Iowa for a night stop over to see Jeff and Kara again before we make the leg west to Colorado probably stopping one more night in Nebraska or eastern Colorado.
The RV, left in Boulder with friends, has been used by them a couple of times while we were out East but not to the extent that we thought they were going to travel. No issues for us but perhaps a little disappointing for them as they were intending a major road trip while we were gone.
After driving back to Colorado the approx. 1800 miles by car, when we get the RV we intend to drive up the road an hour to Rocky Mountain National Park and camp there for a few days so that the kids and we can recoup from the car travel which is much different than RV travel and allot more tiring. We will then head up thru Wyoming and into Montana before heading west again across the top of our country towards Washington state.
There have been many highlights since being home but two that stand out were getting together with my long time friend Jim Shea and playing golf at Lyman Meadows with him in a benefit tournament sponsored by the New Haven Kiwanis Club. We spent a truly enjoyable day together talking about the present mostly but recapping some of our history together as well. Some that would be better left unrepeated and some that was fun recalling. The present moment conversation was the most rewarding as we have both been delivered into places that we are really grateful for.
The second highlight was the wedding of Tammy and Matt at which they asked me to be the Master of Ceremony and to preside over that ritual that would deliver them into marriage and get to do the entire ceremony right next to them as they made the bold commitment to spend their lives together. It is a day and ceremony I will never forget. One of the highlights and honors of my life.
Many miracles and further awakenings have again occurred since being home and I will write them in future blogs. I am sorry for not getting to see everyone while home this time and am very, very grateful for those of our friends who went to extremes to have us over to their houses for visits and meals and conversations and fun. We miss you all very much when we are out there but it is great to be loved and to see you all when we come home. Thanks for your friendship and love.
Talk to you soon.

At home in CT

2008-06-28T16:01:00.003-05:00

It has been a little different being back in CT since June. It took us a while to get reconnected and energized to do certain work oriented tasks. The sense is sort of like when you come home from vacation of two or three weeks only multiplied by 6 or 7 times. And I was left with a question of, What am I supposed to do. I closed down the business for the year, so there was no work to do or anything related to the building business remaining on the plate. There were and are many items to do around our house but that somehow did not seem like much fun however necessary. There were certainly people to catch up with so we began our reentry by checking in and visiting with each of our kids and there loved ones. We then began contacting our friends here and letting them know we were back in town and wanted to get in touch and visit them as well. Slowly others have learned that we are back and we have been immersing ourselves into the relationships that we sort of put on hold for the extent of our visit. We have not yet been able to contact everyone or visit with everyone but we intend to for sure.
As a result of our contacting folks and some hard organizational work, we were afforded a very great get together opportunity last night. We attended a really comfortable summer outdoor picnic type party back in Middletown. One of our friends put it together for all of us to be together but specifically so that we, having returned to Ct for a short while, could spend some time with the friends we left behind and haven't see since December.
Thanks Sogul and Paul. This was a great treat and just as splendid a way to spend a summer evening as any one could have come up with.
We caught up with friends, had really great food that each group brought to share and talked about new things going on as well as recently passed items of interest, like the North Pole trip for Daisy Mayhem as well as catching up on some of the continuing life circumstances of the various families attending.
Jasper left in the middle of the evening to go to a special friends house (that has a horse farm and lots of riding farm equipment) he comes home from these visits full of ideas of how he wants us to be living and what animals and equipment he wants to own. He had a blast!
The night ended with Ed catching fire flies and showing them to all the kids (and Sogul) and a cool summer evening ride pick up Jasper in Durham and then on to our temporary home in New Haven.
What a great evening! Thanks to everybody for being there and sharing this time with us and making it work in your schedules.

We have not left the Planet

2008-06-25T08:53:00.007-05:00

We have arrived in and are currently staying in New Haven, CT and have been occupied with a variety a details regarding our families, dancing around the city (explained later) and our house since arriving home for this period of time. We will be heading out again soon and we will be traveling to and through the northwest corner of our country and western Canada for the late summer and fall.
We have decided that the material gathered on the blog, in notes and pictures along the way will be collated and assembled into a book describing the journey. The book will take into account how the trip was planned and launched, reasons why anyone and more to the point, why we, would take on such an exploration (We intend to capture the emotional/spiritual dimension of why one would take to wandering and what did happen for us as a result), possibilities on how to finance such an endeavor and the effects of doing it the way we did, how we attempted to put all the pieces together, what we hoped for prior to leaving and how that may have led us to what we got , how we planned our travel destinations and what we saw and found physically, geographically (on our planet and from our interior geography as well) and emotionally and spiritually as we traveled around the country during this provocative period of our US history. We will also discuss the aspect of taking on such a journey with a 10 year old, in particular our 10 year old boy and how homeschooling has dramatically affected us, the parents and how we approach his education, and him as a student and child growing and learning on the road doing what we affectionately call "Roadschooling". While we are at it we will also meander around the topic of our discussions of the pros and cons of whether to send him back to structured school or to continue with home/un-schooling, how he feels about the matter and how that works in conjunction with finding a new place to call home in the US.
As mentioned above, part of our trip purpose was to search out a possible new place to call home that would allow us the opportunity to build an energy regenerative, earth friendly structure after the trip ended. Thus, we will also explore how in the world you can plan to and seek out such a place after having lived in, become a part of community and have raised a family in one state for 30 plus years. How to intentionally take on the possibly scary thought and act of creating a new home center and personal community out there in the world. Now, this may not be a frightening thing for some people but for others, changing the knowns and stretching oneself into new lands can bring about all kinds of reactions. We intend to explore that which occurred for us and how we attempt to accommodate the feelings and emotions of each of us and our families as we branch out from the established center.
So much more arose from the trip than can be described in short blog notes or certainly this short blog note, so we will expand on our findings and offer a view of the US and its people from the (our) prospective of witness to our culture from a wanderers eye.
I am very excited about this opportunity to share our story, all of the mind thought and physical changes that occurred on such a trip, as well as, all of the wondrous, enlightening and possibly miraculous aspects of the trip.
Something deep happens as you leave what you know behind and set out into the world unknown.... (before, during and after) Perhaps, not unlike what the so called pioneers of our country experienced as they headed into the deep west in those early days of our exploring the vast, unexplored areas of this country. As was recorded as true for them, was true for us. There are innumerable different and unique experiences that occur constantly and most are unanticipated and your reactions to them are unpredictable. In a particular frame of mind those things are just "what is" but in another, in the midst of living your daily life they, can and do, run the range of extraordinary to mundane (depending on the day, geographic location, altitude and weather conditions, your personal mindset and perhaps the alignment of the stars).
I have just finished the book "Blue Highways" written in 1982 by William Least Heat Moon and was thoroughly re-inspired to capture the account of our exploration into and around America and our larger community throughout. Thanks Jeff, very much, for the lend. I may have to get you a new copy though as the paper cover has gotten a bit dog eared. See you again soon.
If anyone who sees this entry knows of any publishers that may be interested in this format and content please let me know. bill@adaptbuilders.com

Thanks

Change in direction (again), heading to Iowa!

2008-06-01T18:22:00.008-05:00

After spending our personally illustrious time in the Tetons and Yellowstone, we whimsically and obtusely thought that we would head south again for some currently undetermined time to let the, what we would consider, late winter weather dissipate. And, this brings us to our decision of having left the RV in Boulder, CO. on Thursday the 29th of May after having arrived there the previous Saturday, May 24th. We arrived in Boulder by plan, just in time (actually the party started without us) for a fantastic memorial day party being thrown by friends Laurie and David. At the party, we met many of their great neighbors and friends and just had a blast recounting our trip for some of them, talking about Boulder with others, eating really good food and tasting some really great local beer. From our perspective, out on the road, we hadn't really known that memorial day was approaching until we called them and asked if we could stay there for a few days while we thought about what we were going to do, where we were going to go and waited for the warmer temps in the north. Memorial day weekend is a real good time to be in Boulder. They have a wonderful annual festival there with many eco centered vendors as well as the regular food and beverage vendors with a boulder twist. They have musci most all day everyday throughout the weekend and we were luckiy enought to catch a U2 cover band on Monday night that were real good and played right up to and slightly crossed over the 10 PM line of quiet.

After hanging there for the night and following day and finding that they could and would be willing to store the RV for us at a municipal airport hanger about two miles from their home, we decided to take advantage of the summer schedule of one of our closets friends/families on the planet and spin east to visit and stay with them for a few days in Eastern Iowa. While we were at the hanger I also took advantage of the dry covered space and changed the oil of both vehicles. did some tire rotation and balancing work on the RV and Now, you may have been able to tell by now that we decided to leave the RV in Boulder and head to Iowa by car to make the visit. This move would save us hundreds of dollars in fuel and the RV was not necessary as we stay with them in their house, intentionally, each and every time we visit them. For years when they lived in CT, we talked about living in community together as family. Just previously on Thursday, May 22 we landed in Salt Lake City having driven down from the Tetons National Park. This was certainly one of our longest drives of the journey to date. It took us from The Tetons, with a basically quick stop in Moose, Wyoming, at the post office, to mail something back east that we had hung on to for way to long for mom Chris. Next we stopped at the final, from where we were coming, most southern visitors station still in the Tetons National Park, Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitors Center (Grand Tetons Park map link) http://www.nps.gov/grte/planyourvisit/upload/GTNP_map_CTDVC_08.28.07_Sum.pdf

and after that rushed, by me, visit we jumped on the RV bus and continued south and west through the active little tourist town of Jackson, Wyoming (more famously known for the ski area named Jackson Hole) without stopping for more than fuel, yet again. We were now on a beeline and on a mission to attempt to make it to Afton, WY so we could get to a prearranged factory tour at 3 PM at the Aviat Aircraft Inc. company. Here is where they build the small fixed wing planes Husky (single fixed wing)

and Pitts (bi-plane)

and Eagle aircraft from the ground up, on site from start to finish. Great place, great tour.

Check this one out a little later as I will complete the balance of the story in this post in just a bit!

Breakfast in Wyoming (completed)

2008-05-29T17:17:00.015-05:00

After staying up until two something writing in the blog and looking out the window to see the snow still coming down, I decided to see if I could actually fall asleep. After turning out the light and settling under the covers I began to recapture all the moments that I had something to be grateful for, over the course of the day. Lying there, doing this, I eventually succumbed to my physical tiredness that had been multiplied by the energy expended participating in the adventure previously noted and not quite yet over (but we were seemingly on the back side of it, sliding, excuse the pun, easily down hill) and drifted off to sleep. (I found out the next morning that it had snowed until approximately 4 AM.)
I find this, gratefulness focus, an unusually good way to fall asleep. I started out writing them down quite a while ago (last January) but found that there were so many things to take into account that it took quite a bit of time (this was obviously before we embarked on this trip) and that it took too much time from all the other things I had going on during my awake hours. So, I decided that I more enjoyed the process of falling asleep recalling them instead. Since I have been doing this regularly I have also found that my focus has shifted during the awake hours to seeing or seeking them during the course of my days. This practice has made my days much more enjoyable as well but, the real gift here is the fact that the practice itself seems to create the things to be grateful for regardless of me or any other circumstances. That's the really great part, however it may sound, it is a profound experience. Oh, I can surely still try to see the negative almost every day, but, the practice has really uprooted that pretty successfully. We, as a family, also do this during supper together. We recall and express the highlights of the day and what we are grateful for. It has become a real nice ritual when we are all sitting together.
My rest during the night was somewhat restful, but weird at the same time. I don't really sleep well ever, the first night in a new bed and space. Second night fine, first night not so good. Plus, the electric heat baseboard that was used to warm the room, although appreciated, became way to hot for sleeping somewhere into the dark hours. Great for drying Jasper's wet socks (from playing in the snow) but to much dry heat for my comfort, even though we turned in down before we went to sleep.
Getting up to turn down the thermostat, in the dark, was a treat and a little painful, as I bounced into furniture and got my feet caught up in the top covers that had been thrown off the bed sometime earlier, before my thermostat expedition, in attempt to get comfortable within the rising room temperature. I tried to get all motions complete in the dark but had to turn on the bathroom light, which I really didn't want to do for fear of waking Jasper at the same time I was trying to accomplish this seemingly minor maneuver and get back to sleep before it was time to get up again. But, alas, it seems I had to go in to the bathroom anyway, being 50 plus and already up (oh yeah, that's unfortunately the other thing I think about when I am trying to go back to sleep once awakened for any reason) so might as well make use of the already up and moving thing facts and be effective, to boot. Besides, I was really parched and needed water to douse my throat and lower my body temperature. After my wee hours (this pun intended) tour of unknown spaces, I let myself ease back into the bed and off to sleep for the rest of the night.
I woke promptly at 7:30 and got started making the room organized and ready for us to get out and down to the registration desk by 8 AM as the manager had requested the night before. I woke Megan moments later and we both, without a discussed plan as usual, effectively ordered the room and our belongings, ready to exit. As she helped Jazz get ready for going outside, I began to grab up a couple of arm fulls of stuff and headed outside to get the car warm and put our stuff in for the trip back to the Tetons park (hopefully). As I got outside I realized that it was a little above freezing although the storm did drop about 4-5 inches total and the sidewalks had a layer of compacted snow on the walk paths and ice in other places. But it was clear and definitely warmer than when we had entered our personal oasis hours earlier. I had hope and faith that we would be able to move on down the road this morning and back to the RV so that we could make it ready to move South , quickly, from this beautiful place.
When I got out to the car the only male of the Spanish speaking group was already outside and was standing next to their car, apparently and best I could tell, warming it up. They must do it differently in Arizona then we do in the cold climates. For, although the car was running, all of the doors were open. Perhaps, he was attempting to make sure that the heat from his car melted any remaining snow and ice from the roads so that they could continue north through Yellowstone Park. When I approached our cars , which were parked next to each other from the night before, I succeeded in saying good morning in Spanish and that was about the extent of my morning conversation. Before turning to go back in, looking around, I noticed that our other team mate, the guy with the pick up truck pulling the trailer, had already pulled out. Obviously, at this point, I did not know if he beat us to the mess hall or if he had just hit the road, but my inclination was to think that he had just beat it and that breakfast was the last thing on his racing mind.
I went back in to help move things along. We all seemed pretty tired still, but, the hope of the ability to move along down the road was calling us on. As I walked back into the lobby of the building we were staying in, the Spanish woman driver was standing there looking sort of dazed and half asleep but we managed to have a conversation, in English, where I told her that we were getting ready to go to the reception desk and then on to cafeteria to have breakfast. She understood and headed down the hall to get the last person of their group ready to go, I thought. Megan and I finished collecting the rest of our things and putting them out in the car and still the two women had not come out of the building and now the guy had gone back in as well. Not knowing exactly why the manager asked us to be at the reception desk promptly at 8 AM and seeing that it was now 8:10, Meg and I walked back in and went to their room to see what was happening and get them moving for good this time. (We soon found out that the manager had only suggested this, generously, so that so we could make it in time to have breakfast at the employees cafeteria before they closed for the morning, which they had already done by the time we actually made it there). When we got to their door and knocked. The driver woman came to the door and looked at us as if she did not know what we came to the door for. Megan asked, in Spanish, if they were ready because we had to go, now. She said yes and turned to tell everyone it was time to go, as if they were waiting in the room for the real signal or a fire alarm or possibly some Divine intervention illustrating that it was really time to leave the room. Anyway, we all went out together and headed towards our cars. While we were walking out, I noticed that the second woman in their group had a blanket wrapped around her that looked a lot like ours, that we keep on the rear seat of the Prius as a material protector from the likes of Mr. Jasper and his eating habits (which resembles a food fight with himself). When I asked Megan about the blanket, she confirmed that it was ours or rather used to be and that she had given it to her because she really had nothing to wear that was warm. (She was wearing spike heels and those tight jean pants that hug the hips and land only 1/2 way down the leg at mid calf and to complete the ensemble she also had a "belly shirt". You know, the kind that women , I think over twenty wear and usually, are tugging down on to make sure it is covering what they bought it to expose! All real nice in Phoenix, but not so good in 34 degree or snowy weather. Regardless, I have learned in our time together, that the fastest way to stop the flow of abundance and gifted-ness, is to go against what Megan has deemed required as her part in the play. We work real well as a team until I forget that important fact. When I do, it's like the guy who is in the physical midst of and living inside the magic spell of the Holy Grail and then doubts that this can be happening to him... poof...it all disappears and fades to grey. I enjoy the magical spin way too much to ever want to choose out of it so.... my next thought was, wouldn't a Pendelton Indian design blanket look good on the back seat and be very durable, cleanable and unique as well?
Smart, huh!
When we all arrived, minutes later, at the reception desk, Shauna was already behind the desk and in full operation. She had been joined by her assistant, Kathy and another woman who was seemingly there to assist both of them. Shauna came to the front to talk with us and process us out of her facility. She was all smiles and glad to be of assistance and glad to see us well and mostly rested. After handing back our keys and talking for a few moments, at my prompting, she went behind again to her desk and got the chits for us to have a meal at the cafe. I was not all that interested in eating but would love a cup of decaf coffee but, I could not speak for all of us and certainly thought that we should continue, for the next short period of time, taking care of our other group members. Kathy asked Shauna if she would like her to escort us to the cafe. She agreed. As people turned to make their way to the door to leave, I reached over the counter and took Shauna's hand in mine and pulled it gently up to my lips and kissed the back of it. I raised my head from her hand and looked her in the eyes and thanked her, from my heart, for her and Mark being our angel's in the storm last night. As I did this everyone in the room had turned to watch the interaction. As Shauna stood there, silently, with deep attention, taking in our appreciation, her eyes became misty and she smiled the most beautiful smile you could imagine. You know the kind, the ones that you just can't stop. We all knew in that moment, regardless of the language we spoke, that my acknowledgement had touched her heart and that she completely understood our gratefulness.
Kathy then walked us out to the parking lot and soon we were back in the cars for the short ride to another corner of the complex. On the way, we filled Kathy in on some of the details of our sorted evening affair that she had not been brought up to speed on and she told us what her position was in the scheme of things and how long she had been doing this type of job for this company and the like. She was just so chipper and friendly and understanding and immediately became part of the entire whole operation that seemed to feel it was their calling to see to it that we were just completely satisfied and taken care of to the last moment of our being there. It was also really clear that she was totally in the right profession for her. She loved doing her job. She told us on the way over that she had checked and read the report that all roads were back open for the time being. This meant that we could hit the road as soonas we wanted and now of course after we had had something to eat. When we arrived at the cafe she brought us in and made sure that the front line people knew that we were there and to be taken care of. We found that Shauna had already called ahead and notified the staff of our ensuing arrival.
Unfortunately, they had mostly already broken down the serving line and cleaned the grill from the shift of employees eating there. I felt weird about having them ramp back up for our little party but for the most part they (the obvious line chef in charge, Quinn, but not necessarily his assistant) were extremely happy to do it and as a matter of fact he overtly, with abundant politeness, insisted that we wait just a few minutes while they put it all back together so that he could cook us our eggs to order and make sure that all else that we wanted could be handled for us. (I cannot remember having been in a hotel or for that matter and especially a restaurant, regardless of the supposed quality or esteem of the place, where I felt so well taken care of. Moreover where the folks doing the taking care of go out of their way to manage their care with complete genuine joy and satisfaction, without exception). I was taken by their devotion to our well being and remember that we had not even paid a cent for this service. It was very distinctly the way they do business. For me this was very refreshing and restored hope that not every service person on the planet hated what they were doing.
Quinn, the front line chef, had taken over and we were in his charge. He could not find enough to do for us. He spent the next 1/2 hour preparing food for us, making sure we had all that we wanted or needed, insisting that we not do anything to help and allow him to serve us. He had placed home fries back into the fryer (not my choice of preparation methods, but the way they do it there) and because someone had already turned it off, unbeknownst to him, they were not going to be ready for us at the same time the eggs were. This was a minor issue for him, as it broke his flow, but it meant very little to us who were thrilled to have a bite before we headed out. He asked us to be patient and apologized and told us he would bring them out as soon as they were done. Minutes later, he did just that. Serving each of us a huge helping of hash brown potatoes in individual bowls. When we were all settled in and eating he slipped away and allowed us time to eat talk a little among ourselves. About five minutes later he return with an unopened box of fruit pastry and insisted that we have some sweets with our meal. After completing this action of generous offering he asked if he could make us sandwiches for our trip out for lunch. Declining more out of deference to allowing him to get off duty and the facts that we only had 70 total miles to go to the park and not really wanting to explain the offer to our Spanish friends who I am certain, having made it this far, could certainly get lunch handled for themselves. Okay with our refusal of sandwiches but not completely ready to allow us to leave empty handed he came back some five minutes later with bunches of chocolate chip cookies, wrapped in plastic wrap for us to take with us on the next leg of our collective journeys.
Almost immediately after we received the cookies, a guy dressed in the management companies managerial outfit, khaki's and an Izod type sport shirt, popped in all smiling and chatty. he completely knew our saga and where we were and came to make sure that we were all set from our stay and breakfast and ready to go at our convenience. He sat down at our table and began asking us if we were good and where we were from and about the roads last night and such. ( At this point, I was beginning to think that there was either something in the water therer in the park or that the management company had a policy of giving out Prozac as a company perk to it's employees. I have not met such a happy, willing to please group of people in my lifetime. I don't mean this is any nasty way but even the mentally challenged man that the company had hired to work at the dish clearing station, prior to sending them into the dishwasher, never stopped smiling).
Soon, another one of the chefs came out from the back kitchen and seeing that he was there, joined us all in the conversation and stayed for the next five or so minutes telling us about his experience with Wyoming and in particular this past winter. At this point with all conversations coming to a natural completion, all of us finished eating, all thanks and gratefulness expressed many times over, chocolate chips in hand we headed out and back to our cars to get ready for the trip out.
We walked out next to our Spanish friends, knowing that our odd circumstance but very family like time together was about to come to a close. We took pictures of them as they stood together in the cool Western Wyoming morning air, with their new blanket wrapped around them. They were about to head into not only the remaining,unknown to them, parts of beautiful Yellowstone Park but as we had found out during breakfast, they were going to Washington to move there permanently, relecating from Arizona. Or at least that's what we think they said and meant.
We hugged each other and said Adios and Asta Luego and turned to get in our respective vehicles and begin to reminisce about the strange events that brought us together. AS we got to our car, the driver woman, never did get her name, called to us. As we turned to face her, she cocked her head a little and raised one arm in a gesture to embrace us from a distance and said, "Thank you very much."

Miracles in a Wyoming Snow Storm

2008-05-26T00:56:00.011-05:00

Following behind the pick up truck trying to put a little distance between us to let the air clear, we rounded the corner from the closed road onto the only open Easterly road. Jasper expressed his anxiety about our situation with matching concern in his voice and his face. We did our best to console him with the thoughts that we were having about all things working out for the best, not to worry.
As I stood there at the closed station with my new found friend who needed fuel, ever more curious about meeting him here under these conditions, with a boat on the back of his truck, I realize now that I probably responded more abruptly then I should have to his "going to the ocean remark." But at this point, standing in the dark in front of a guy I don't know, having just inserted my credit card into the automatic gas/diesel pump, after searching feebly in the dark for the card slot of a pump at that closed gas station, in the midst of a minor Wyoming style snow storm at 10:20 PM with know where to go, I went for it anyway and I blurted with a slanted, sharp vocal attack, "What ocean, this is Wyoming, and it's 28 degrees." (for christ's sake, or are you f'in nuts - should have been added here but at least I thankfully had some refrain remaining in me at that moment, although I don't understand why.)
He responded to my query, with a completely straight and honest face..., "The Pacific Ocean!" and he looked straight at me. I could see that his faced matched the simple authenticity of his words, as if there was another choice of oceans from where we stood.
I then asked where he was coming from and he then told me that they had left from somewhere North Dakota at 9 AM that morning and had been driving ever since. To make the drama complete he then said that he had also just recently had a flat tire and that he believed he had driven over something in the road that was covered in the snow so he never saw it before it cut into and blew out his right front tire out. He had changed the tire on a dark snowy road (which come on now you got to give this dud a lot of credit here. Changing a flat tire out in the daylight and finding and having everything you need to do it is simply amazing but in a snow storm on a dark road... This guy was on a mission) and was now about to run out of fuel in his truck, just as he finds out he can't go any further on the road south, which by the way is nowhere even close to the Pacific Ocean. (I wondered silently if he had even one, tiny, thought, that this trip was not going well and that just maybe, they should just turn the hell around and go home to where ever North Dakota or if this was just the way things went for them and that this whole episode was nothing out of the ordinary.) He seemed a little uneasy standing there with me but ultimately unaffected by the current events. As if surely, he would find someone at this hour, where he was to put fuel into his truck for him and then everything would be back on track and off he would go headlong towards the deep blue Pacific Ocean (in a 16' boat). Maybe sensing my surprise at the circumstances he was enduring or his path to get to the West coast, he informed me that it was 70 degrees when he left home that morning and that he was real surprised to find it so cold and snowing here. (not checking the weather before heading into northern Wyoming in May with your boat on the back of your truck.... Priceless)
Wondering about or, Okay, maybe doubting the validity of most everything that was happening at this very moment, I leaned over and looked into the back of the pick up and saw no blown out tire. So I asked him what he did with the damaged tire. For some unknown reason, I should have known, but he had to tell me that he had thrown it into the boat. What I did see in the back of his pickup upon my gander, was their luggage and other miscellaneous personal items completely covered with a thin layer of new crusting snow.
By this time he was completing his fuel pumping and we both silently stared, watching the pump come up to $50, like two guys in an elevator watching the lighted floor indicator. There evidently was nothing of any value left to say ,I guess, except for the thank you he offered and the your welcome and good bye I offered. He opened his driver side door, reached into the truck and took something from the woman in the front seat and turned back out towards me. About to hand me a fifty dollar bill, he grabbed it on each end with both hands and snapping it straight as he did as if in some attempt to prove it was real or to conclude the deal with such a motion. Either way our meeting was complete and as he got back in the truck and began to pull out of the station, I pulled up to the pump to fill up the Prius for our yet unknown destination and possible long night ride. As I stepped out of the car again and watched him leave, I noticed he was headed out into the dark night in the same direction he was not supposed to be going because everything was closed off. I never saw him again and did not here about him until the next morning.
After filling up the Prius (which we lovingly and yet jokingly refer to as the 4 wheel drive Prius for all of the ridiculous terrain we have traveled over and through since embarking on this trip with our little safari vehicle and for right now because of the current weather and road conditions which we would really be much better suited in a four wheel drive vehicle, we will continue to refer to it as our gas miser SUV) we pulled out and headed a just a little ways east and into the very next parking lot we came to, less than a half mile away. It was the entrance of a large closed up lodge building that oddly had cars in the parking lot and lights on in some of the hallways of the building. As I drove slowly through the lot looking at the buildings, I silently considered my options. The main consideration of the moment was, and I am not kidding here, breaking into the building and sleeping inside for the night. The thought of the three of us trying to sleep in out Prius (SUV/safari vehicle) was enough to make me consider breaking in and dealing with the consequences, if any, later. As I continued to drive through the lots and consider what seemed best at the moment and how I would do this deed, I rounded a U-shaped corner at the end of one lot that was leading to the next continuous lot. At the far end of this lot was a vehicle that was obviously occupied, or at least running, as the lights were on, vapor was coming from the exhaust pipe and it was stopped in the middle of the driving lane of the lot, not where you would normally park. Jasper excitedly exclaimed, " I think it's the police!" He was obviously tuned in hoping for his own miracle to get us out of this strange situation.
As we got closer to and began to pull around the running, real SUV, vehicle on the drivers side, we saw that it was not a police vehicle but a running occupied vehicle with the drivers side window open. As we pulled along side, the woman driver stuck part of her upper body out of the open window and used her arms to signal us to stop and talk to her. To our surprise, I think we were surprised, she spoke mostly Spanish and some broken English. Why this should surprise me at all, that we should meet a Spanish speaking group of people in the deep of western Wyoming at 10:30 at night in a snow storm, I am not real sure but it did catch me just a little off guard. I spoke to her first in my terrible Spanish and then in somewhat of a frustrated manner explained to her that Megan speaks Spanish and that the two of them should continue the conversation. It turns out that they too were prevented from traveling any further due to the closed roads and continually, worsening storm. I added in a few comments as we went along and after 4 or 5 minutes finally realized that we were solving nothing by sitting here talking in a weird configuration of two languages and decided that we should head back up the road a bit to where we had seen a building with lights on with a couple of park service police cars parked in front. At this point in the conversation she suggested, asked or insisted, I was not sure which she was doing, that they (three adults in her much larger SUV) get in with us in our car as we go frolicking around trying to find away to safety for the night. I looked somewhat puzzled into the back of our vehicle, I guess trying to figure out how that would work and immediately came to my senses and told her to just follow us. She agreed and off we went, as a mini winter caravan, to see if we could talk to anyone about our dilemma and determine a good course of action, now for two families. As we pulled back onto the open main road, I noticed a police car and a passenger van turning onto the entrance to the lodge building road that we had previously been on. I flashed my lights and blew the horn but neither one of them stopped for us and they continued down the path they were on. So, I continued straight on, instead of following them for some unknown reason, towards the lighted building we saw earlier.
As we got to the, what turned out to be a, park fire/police station with lights shining out from inside, Jasper and I got out of the car and walked through the now 4 inches of snow on the ground to the front door and began banging loudly on the door. Megan headed over to the Spanish speaking families car to continue to make understandable conversation with them. After a few seconds of no response at the front door, I headed around to the side of the building to the large overhead doors and peered into the window openings in the doors. I noticed that Jasper's concern to a second position to his interest in the new fallen snow on the ground and its perfect consistency for making snowballs. This boy loves snow, he never gets enough. Looking in, I saw that there was a truck missing from its spot and that lights were on but, unfortunately, no one was in the building. Trudging back to the car, I decided to now head back to the road to the lodge that we just saw the two vehicles heading down just minutes earlier. Brilliant, EH?
Megan and I both now intrinsically felt somewhat responsible for our new additional, stranded and lost group members, because that is what we do, so we translated my latest plan into Spanglish and once again, our little wayward group, headed down the road, close to where we had started.
As we first turned into the lodge road, I was a little disappointed to find that there was not an immediate siting of those two vehicles but, in just another 100 feet or so I saw one of them, the passenger van, sitting in a loading area of the lodge with the vehicle running. I don't remember what time it was at this point of the evenings festivities but it had to be near 11 PM if not later. I pulled up next to him with my drivers window adjacent to his and rolled mine down to speak to him. He politely joined me in a conversation that began with me explaining what the hell we were doing here and how it came to be. It was immediately obvious to me that I had just given this poor guy way to much information to ask him to process and furthermore for me to be sitting there expecting the proper response, like, I'll take care of everything, began to seem absurd if not out of the realm of possibility for him. (But, you know I stand in the quality of my intentions to create my life) When he had considered briefly what I had just said to him, his only response was to tell me that the park service had closed all the roads. Being very patient and friendly I told him again that that was why we were here and explained that we had picked up this other family on the way who was also stranded here in this snow storm. This reiteration of mine allowed enough time to pass for him to recollect himself, digest what I was saying and to take in the direness of my voice and expression or at least for him to realize, that he could not handle this alone. So he very nicely asked me to follow him around the corner to another parking lot and he would call his boss on the radio and tell him what was going on for us so that they could figure out how they could help us out. This was the first sign of light in the situation. He actually had said, "To see how we can help you out." This was also the first of many soon to come and continually following expressions of generosity and kindness from everyone we met from this point forward. I asked him his name (Chuck) and told him mine and thanked him for taking an interest and taking on trying to find a solution for our issue. He smiled and said, "Sure, your welcome. Now just hang on here while I get in touch with my boss" and rolled up the window to make his radio contact.
Within a minute he rolled the window down again and told us to follow him to the other side of the building as his boss was no on the way down to the lodge to see what he could do for us. As we were talking about this next move another guy pulled into the parking lot where we were. He was driving a large scale, heavy duty, extended pickup truck, pulling a trailer that had a huge piece of equipment on it. (I found out later that he had been driving all day as well from the other side of Wyoming with this piece of well drilling equipment, trying to get back to California via his GPS which had led him through here as the shortest route but also unfortunately into a blinding snowstorm for the last five hours, only to get here and find the roads closed.) As he approached me and Chuck, with a curious, frustrated and befuddled look on his face, he had his cell phone open, poised near his face. We would soon come to find out that it was on speaker and connected with his girlfriend in California. They had obviously been on the phone for most of the hours he had been driving. Although she was silent when he started talking me, she soon spoke up and it was easy to here the frustration and worry in her voice about her bo's issue. I assured him that we were well into handling the situation and that Chuck's boss was on the way down to talk with us and see if he could help us out. I mentioned that he was welcome to join our little group and to wait and see what was about to happen. He was very visibly uptight, like too much caffeine and way to long behind the wheel of this hard to handle rig in the midst of this storm can make you, and he paced as he spoke. He told me of his desire to throw his GPS out the window just before he got to us and to smash his phone on the ground right there were he stood. I instinctively offered that there was no sense in letting the anger get to him and that it was gonna work out the way it would regardless of his anger or some such zen filled mutterings. He looked at me in disbelief of or caught off by my words and mumbled something but also smiled and laughed a little as he turned to go back to his vehicle and wait. I told him that we were going to drive to the other side of the building and to follow us there. So now our enlarging group meandered our way around the snow covered lot, around the building to the original spot of finding our Spanish friends. As we drove around to our new holding spot, Megan told me that she had learned that the Spanish speaking folks were heading for Washington state and that they had come from Phoenix, AZ and had already been driving for twenty two hours at this point when they got caught up here. Our situation of site seeing in Yellowstone for the day was taking a major back seat in regards to all of the unfolding stories of our enlarging group of traveling companions. Also the caring of others and generosity of good people was about to unfold as we found ourselves in the company of people who were in the business of hospitality but who would extended themselves way beyond the call of duty for people they had never met but obviously needed their assistance.
When the boss man arrived, Mark, we found out that he was the Location Manager, which means he is the general manager for the lodge and all of its services and stores and the like. He asked us to stand by as he took at few moments to gather some info and see what he could do to assist us. He told us that the facility was not open yet but that all of the staff that would operate the facility for the summer season was already on site and put up in staff housing, as they were opening for the season for the first day on Friday. During all of this, searching, waiting and talking we had slipped into early Thursday morning and everyone one of us was tired and ready to do anything to get to lie down and rest until the morning.
When Mark came back to us after only five minutes, he told us that he had rooms for us to stay in for the night. He reminded us that they were not open for business yet and that we were about to stay in a hotel lodge that was not fully prepared to have guests. We were so comforted and overjoyed to not have to drive any more and not to have to think about what to do next that I know we would have stayed on the floor in any heated area of the lodge.
We explained the new found solution to our problem to the Spanish speakers and assured then they were OK for the night. They were happy and relieved as well. They were quite the site standing there in the snow storm with their Arizona clothes on (high heels and Capri pants and no coats or jackets of any kind.)
Mark asked us to go into the registration area with the front desk manager (Shauna)that accompanied him and fill out guest registration cards while he went over to the building with the rooms in it and made sure that they were at all ready for us to stay in. We all went and filled out our cards and began to make light conversation now that the pressure was off and shared some of our travel issues as we waited for Mark to return to lead us to our, whatever their condition, luxurious sleeping quarters for the night. We were all much more content then just minutes before but now the tiredness of the day was seeping in and we all could hardly wait to get to the rooms.
When he came back, he led us to our spaces and told us that we were on the first floor and that all of the soon to be staff was on the second floor, so we may here a bit of noise from them but just so we knew that people were supposed to be there and not to worry. I made several acknowledgements to him and Shauna about how great they were being to us and how awesome it was to be treated so well by them in the middle of the night. I also added a request for and a couple of comments about how great it would be if they could just get us some beers as well as the rooms. I mean they are in the hotel business, right? Whats a six pack of two?
Thankfully everyone got the humor, laughed out loud and in seconds, all continued on course. Mark explained that they would not be charging us for the rooms for the night based on the situation we found ourselves in and that if we would just show up at the front desk at 8 AM that he would have chits for us to take to the dining hall for the employees so that we could have complimentary breakfast before we headed on our way, provided we could get on our way. We were all very grateful for their thoughtfulness and way of being with us. None of us had had any supper the night before as a result of being on the road for so long and although we were not really hungry the knowing that breakfast was available put every ones mind at ease. There was certainly no way we could have figured that this would have worked out the way it did. They showed us to our rooms and asked us to check around and see if there was anything we thought we needed. Well we needed soap, shampoo and oh, yeah, sorry to have to ask for this but do you have shower curtains for the showers by any chance? They found everything that we needed. We got little Bear shaped soaps and small complimentary bottles of shampoo and shower curtains that were made for tubs to hang on the shower stall. Man, I'll tell you the nerve of some places! As Shauna handed us the new packages of shower curtains, Mark said, "Did you notice if there were curtain hooks on the poles?" Thankfully there were and except for going to the munchy machine in the lobby of the building we were in, we all went about trying to get settled in for the night. I made a comment to mark before he left us thatthere was a couple out there in a pick up truck and towing a boat that headed backout on to the road and that if they could keep a look out for them and offer then the same kindness it would be greatly appreciated. He assured me that he had told the park police that if they found anyone else to bring them in and that he would put them up for the night. What a great guy he was. So as we lie in bed, coming to rest, Megans last outloud thought, before drifting off to sleep was, I sure wish we had asked the German couple to come with us. They would now also be sleeping indoors and comfortable. I agreed and at that moment could not figure out why I had not made that offer to them.
After that, the only final concern I had left, personally, was that the freezing temperatures put the RV at risk to a small degree. We carry water in a fixed tank and charge the lines that run to the various fixtures in the unit. I was just a little worried about what we would have to deal with the next day if something froze or broke overnight but I easily put it out of mind, to be dealt with as necessary, the following day upon our arrival back to the Tetons campsite with hopefully enough time to get packed up and moved out of the site before our 11 AM vacate time. I spent an hour plus into the night capturing the details of the day in the first blog of this story and then put the computer down at 2:45 AM and attempted to get quite and enjoy the warmth and spaciousness of the room and the comfort of the bed. I was still amazed about the story and looked forward to thanking the kind people of the night again in the AM at breakfast.

The Good Life, in Wyoming

2008-05-22T00:43:00.004-05:00

We arrived in Lander, Wyoming on Sunday evening (before dark, intentionally) after a really long and interesting ride from Casper where we just had a ball (particularly at the annual High School Rodeo). This was a hoot and Jasper was in his element.
We rode the way of the Oregon, California, Mormon and Pony Express trail from Casper to Lander. This was really cool to be on the trail that led us as Americans from the east to the west. What it really meant for us, aside from the amazing history lesson that we received along the way, was that the 3 hour trip took us over 9 hours to accomplish. The trail is marked with innumerable historical locations and overlooks that simply felt wrong to ignore, so we didn't.
We spent additional time at a couple of the really significant and interesting historical locations such as the Mormons ranch and memorial to a specific hand cart group who suffered a costly and fateful loss of a large number people during one very early winter storm for a couple of days on their way to Salt Lake City in 1856. This ordeal cost the lives of over 190 people in that group who either froze to death or succumb to exhaustion, starvation or illness, all while help was on the way from Salt Lake.
Another location is called Independence Rock. This very large rock formation stands independent from the rest of the mountains around it but it also had a second significance in that if the wagon trainers made it to the rock by July 4th (Independence Day) they were almost assured of making it through the Rocky Mountains before winter set in. Marking this high point of their journeys they chiseled their names and dates of their arrivals into the rock, all over the rock, but especially on the top. Which we climbed to, took pictures of the names and took a look at the view those hearty and certainly weary travelers experienced from 1841 thru the 1869. Some 500,000 people passed by this rock on their way west and most of them carved their names in.
From Lander we were headed to the Grand Teton National Park. We arrived there on Tuesday afternoon after another wonderfully, beautiful ride and the customary bunch of stops along the way to glean more western history and meet some really nice folk.
Upon arrival at the park we met the guy on duty who sees to it that we are registered in the camp site. These are hired hands for the season thru a hospitality group who gets the contract from the government to run the place. His name was Joey and he was an experienced host in his late twenties who does this work because he loves people but really because he loves traveling and this gig gets him all over the planet in different parks for 6 months at a time. Once in his location he works, but focuses on hiking the area he is in. He is real good with folks and was just super with us, helping us to find a location that would work for our unit. As a result we asked him to stop over for late margaritas and burritos when his shift was over. He showed up at about 10:45 PM and we drank, ate and talked travel stories and philosophy for a couple of hours.
That was fun and all but the most delightful part of the getting situated for RV camping at this park was that there were only two possible sights left where our RV would fit. One was OK but not great, the other was better but a tight fit and.... I had to shovel 14" of snow on the back 1/4 of the space to allow us to get the Rv into the slot. Now, didn't I leave CT to get away from the snow?????. We have headed into the north country again, way to fast. Anyway I did it and we got it in and situated and after having drinks and supper with the girl next to us also sporting license plates from CT and then with Joey later, we headed off to sleep in this springtime, winter wonderland.
Wednesday morning, Jasper spent the entire morning playing in the snow and although it rained thruout the night it started snowing again in the morning. Although it wasn't sticking then, it did not quit, ever, all day and into the night. This was just a gift from heaven for Jasper and you can probably imagine my enthusiasm as well. Well, while he was playing out doors I spent time plotting my immediate course south so we could beat it out of there as soon as humanly possible. Or so I thought!
When I had finished that exercise, I felt a strange gravitational pull to run north, up the street just another 70 miles or so to get into Yellowstone National Park which borders Grand Teton. We had come this far and I really wanted to leave to go south the next morning, having already paid for Wednesday nights stay in advance, but not without seeing the geysers. So at about 1:30 PM we convinced Jasper that there would be more snow on the ground up in Yellowstone and he begrudgingly got in the car and off we went. 28 miles to the park entrance and 45 miles to the site of Old Faithful. Yellowstone, by the way, has the most geysers of anywhere on the planet.
We also saw lots of wildlife on the way; Buffalo, Grizzly, Elk, Moose, just wild and wonderful. When we got to the longish entrance road to the parking area for the Old Faithful site and as we rounded the first corner, from a bit of a distance, I guess you could say we were lucky in that we could see that Old faithful was going off. Intrinsically knowing that that was what we were witnessing, we each snapped a picture or two from the car to catch the moment.
What this really means is that you have to wait approximately 90 minutes more if you want to see it up close and personal, and we did, probably shouldn't have, but we did. The shouldn't have relates specifically to the underwhelming sense I had standing there watching it spew water vapor into the sky. Now this may sound crazy or unpatriotic since this is one of the natural wonders of the world, but it just didn't seem all that exciting in person. I am real glad that we went to Yellowstone. The wilderness is awe inspiring. This is the first designated national park in our country and it set the model in place for the preservation of great open spaces here and it is spectacular in most every sense. Including the amount of snow still on the ground in late May. The park was established during the presidency (1869-1877) of Ulysses S. Grant in 1872.
Speaking of snow, it was still coming down and getting colder, as it was now a little after 5 PM. We would have to wait to 6:49 or so to watch Old Faithful blow from the grand stands. So we meandered around, went to the gift shop, went to the bathroom, went to the cafeteria, met some nice folks from Germany and talked to them until 6:40. We found out that they were visiting for the thrid time to the US and each time they have come they head to our western states and visit another national park or two. They were tent camping and were worried about the weather and the falling temps as they were, by their own admission, under prepared with just the tent and three season sleeping bags and not so much as an additional blanket or pad to sleep on. We were concerned for them but they seemed to be set on trying to find a way to manage for them selves. He, I guess, seemed more set on handleing it or at least more confident then she was. She was asking it we thought they would be OK or if we thought they should sleep in their rental car. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. Us to stay and watch the geyser and they to do what they were going to do about staying in the park for the night. We went to go outside to get up as close as you can to watch the event. But it was still snowing and blowing and cold so I decided to watch it from indoors thru the windows of the cafeteria. Megan followed me back indoors and as we stood there quitely waiting, both of us were still consumed by thoughts of the couple and their adventure of sleeping out of doors in the park. I spoke first and asked Meg if she happened to have any of our business cards on her. I at least wanted to offer them our numbers to call us, minimally if they came back to the states and wanted a personally guided tour of the Eastern states. She did happen to have a card in her wallet. As she handed it to me she remarked that she felt that we should ask them to come back to ther RV and sleep there for the night. I quietly considered this proposal but couldn't really see how it would work andwondered if they would even consider this from people they just met. I guess with that I just dismissed it and set off looking for them throughout the quite large building. After looking in several areas I spotted them at the reception desk of the lodge we were standing inside of, presumably checking to see if they could get a room for the night. I gave them the card and asked them to make sure they called us the next time they were in the US. They we very glad to take the card and to have made the connection and we shook hands again and I parted never asking them if they wanted to come and sleep in the RV for the night. I took off back to where I had left Meg and Jazz and met up with them again inside in the same place, moments before the geyser actually began shooting up. When it actually started spouting I ran out to snap a picture or two. I don't think it was really worth the wait but there I was and I was gonna have a picture of it.
After that sighting we headed out to our car in the parking lot. As we were sitting there warming up the car and getting ready to roll the same German couple came right in front of our car again and noticing it was us began laughing at the peculularity of seeing us yet again in the parking lot. They came over and he seemed serious minded and ready to get to their car but she wanted to ask our opinion once more about what we thought they should do regarding their sleeping situation. We made a few more suggestions but again did not ask them to come to the RV for the night. As you can tell we were feeling real weird about not asking them because this is most normally what we would do. I seem to be the one who shys away from it so it is most likely my lack of asking that had them not following us to our site that evening. But everything workis out as it should. Once out of the Old Faithful site and onto the main road, we began heading south towards our home. But 50 feet or so down the road we decided to turn around and head north again for another 16 miles to see if we could see some wolves where they are said to haunt. Welll 16 turned into 30 miles as we got caught up in the wilderness and the vistas. Along the way there are spectacular sites to be seen in the way of bubbling pools and spouts, just all over the place ,of boiling hot water pushing up thru the ground and bringing with it all sorts of highly colored minerals (and their accompanying odors) and reactions of every sort imaginable as this water comes in contact with the air and cooler water running by in streams. We encountered more wild life, including a Buffalo herd on the road and another posing Elk, but no wolves. As we reached 30 miles further north at about 8:30 PM or so I thought it was really time we headed back as we were now about 2.5 hours from our camp. Again, it was still snowing and looking more serious and the temp was now 32 degrees and falling. The minimal traffic had slowed to mostly 30 but at times 20 or less miles per hour and this was going to make the journey that much longer. So I settled in for the ride, declared a 10 min no talking meditation and focused on the road and managing the now freezing up roads gathering depth and slippage.
By the time we had driven about a hour south we came upon a park police who had closed the gate across the north bound side of the road not allowing any one further into the park. Another 1/4 hour south we came across a park police car that had closed the gate on our side of the road preventing us from traveling the last 30 miles or so to our RV and bed for the night.
I parked in front of his car that was facing north in the southbound lane. Jasper and I got out to have a conversation with him. As I got to his car at what is now 9:45 PM and asked him the obvious questions including the most pertinent, "how the hell do I get to the campsite with my RV in the Tetons National Park", he very politely and way to quickly explained to me that they had closed the road south due to how bad the road was further south and that they were about to close the only other road out of the park to the east but they were patiently waiting for guys like me to get out. I was a bit stunned and again asked him how then, if this road is closed, I could get back to the Tetons park. As I politely listened to the directions he was kind enough to offer me as a route around to my campsite and tried to make mental notes of rights and lefts and road names and numbers in what has been called one of the most remote places in the US, without really understanding what he had just told me, I asked the only logical question I could think of at that point, "How long will it take me to do this side journey back to my roving home?" He again politely responded with, "Oh, at least 5 hours." I was dumb struck. It was almost 10 PM, I was only 30 miles form the camp site straight down the road and now I was supposed to drive till 3 in the morning to get there, in the snow and not knowing where in the hell I am in the first place. Holy Crap!!!! The police guy hurriedly excused himself saying that he had to respond to a possible heart attack up the north road. I figure some other cop had just told that guy the same thing I had just learned, there's no way out of here with out driving to Nebraska.
Keeping my head, as I have so aptly learned and absorbed on this trip, I decided to do what I know works best.... Wait for the miracle. As I swung around to head towards that only remaining open road, the train of events that would lead to said miracle began. The very next thing we saw was an older pick up truck pulling a 16 foot boat. The driver pulls up next to me heading south towards the closed road gate. I stopped to tell him that it is closed and he responded with, "Well, I got one better than that, I'm about to run out of gas and I don't have any money." His wife or whatever is yelling something to me from the passenger seat but with the loud muffler on the old truck and the guy still talking to me, I can't hear what she's saying. I told him that I would give him money for gas but asked him where the hell as gas station was that was open at this time around here. He pointed to the only road out of the park and said the station was down the road a bit and closed but they leave the pumps on. I told him I would follow him there and pay for gas for him. This was a slight mistake as his truck was pouring diesel fumes out of the obviously disconnected exhaust pipe and damn near asphyxiated us on the short ride to the station. Choking and gagging we made it to the pumps and I pulled up behind him. I headed up to the one next to his truck and pulled out my credit card figuring to give him 20 bucks or so to get him to wherever the hell he thought he was going. He simultaneously jumped out of his cab, with his t-shirt poking out of and tightly zipped up to the top of his zipper on his jeans and says, "my wife only has fifties and hundreds and we don't have a credit card." So I insert my card and he starts pumping fifty dollars worth of diesel, at $4.99 a gallon, (don't buy gas or fuel in national parks if you can help it) into his pickup. This gives me the opportunity to find out where in the hell he is going with a boat in the middle of a snow storm in frigging northwest Wyoming. (This entire experience is turning into one of those, what the hell is going on here moments, but I am doing fine, starting to feel the fun and just waiting for the sunshine in the blizzard) He answers with, of course, an answer that is just as obscured as it should be. He says, "I am going to the ocean."

The Latest from HERE!

2008-05-17T09:54:00.011-05:00

For where ever we go there we are. So here we are!
We stayed in Denver for 10 days. We had a blast there. We visited Colorado Springs, some 70 miles to the south, twice. Once to go to Pikes Peak and The Garden of the Gods (the second picture shows the rock formation park with Pikes peak in the backround)

and the second time was to visit the Olympic Training Center

.

We also went to Golden, Colorado which is where Coors Brewing Company began its business and still operates today some 150 years later, but we did not get to do the Big Brew Company tour. Instead we visited the highly celebrated 2nd largest b rewery in Golden, a great little micro brewery by the name of Golden City Brewery. We went there with a friend of a friend Jim who has a share of ownership in the place. This was just the finest beer I have had in a long while and the buzz was enhanced by the altitude. Much easier to get high when your already high! We had fun there and hung with some really nice folks who teach at Metro State College. (Congratulations Jim on your retirement from professorship.) and others who live in the town of Golden.
While in CO we also got the opportunity to visit with D. Picard's brother and sister in law in Boulder. We had a fun visit and great supper with them and determined that we will leave our RV with them in Boulder when we return home in early July to get ready for the family wedding later in July. They will keep it and store it in the hanger David uses for his plane but best of all, we found that they have been planning an RV trip for years and have just been putting it off for one reason or another and never got the chance to rent one and go. So this year they are going. As soon as the kids get out of school they are going to head out in our RV for a super three week traveling vacation up thru Wyoming, into Montana, Oregon and California and then back to Boulder. We are very happy to be able to make this possible for them and also real glad that we get to keep the RV indoors while we are away in CT.
We left Denver, Thursday morning. We had such a warm and wonderful stay with Jim and Mary. We ate like Kings and Queens, had hot showers everyday in a bathtub/shower (unusually spacious when you are used to shower stalls every day), did our laundry with ease and with out having to find a laundry mat and were able to hang our clothes outside to dry on the line without being white trash. (you'll have to get the distinction here... When you hang your clothes out any where when you are in an RV park, aka trailer park, first it is not allowed and second it is really ugly and moves you rapidly into white trash realm. Now if you are in Denver and hang your clothes out on the line your are part of the coveted environmentally conscious elite throwback hippie crowd), either way your clothes get dry by solar power and save the planet but you just get more credit in certain social circles.
But DRY, Denver solar power, seemingly constant May breeze and definite lack of any real humidity to speak of, drys clothes in record time. Particularly if your have the good fortune of using a high speed spin front loader machine, like we did, where the clothes come out virtually dry from the washer. No kidding, Clothes were dry on the line before the 2nd load was done. I was a washing, hanging, folding, washing fool that morning. I loved it. The ultra clean, fresh, crisp, sharp feeling and scent of sheets hung outside and the considerably extra absorbency of the towels is a pleasure to behold.
While in Denver we also got the opportunity to meet Mary's daughter Jenifier and her children (Mary and Jim's grandchildren) and have supper in their beautiful home in a new planned progressive subdivision that was built on the previous site of the old Denver airport. In some cases they built right over the tarmac. Wild concept, nice planning, intense density and real nice houses. Great lasagna supper too. Megan, Jazz and Cooper made awesome desert that evening and had some fun doing it too as you can see. Poor Jasper had to be beat up just before supper to get him in line for the evening. Funny, he didn't really seem to mind the beating! As we were leaving for the evening, Jazz got the chance to play on and in one of the planned open space parks within the housing development. This was a real nice aspect to living in this development.

A couple of other things we got to do while in Denver was see the Imax film The Alps. Holy crap do I want to visit Switzerland. We also visited the Natural History Museum and had the rare and wonderful opportunity to see a living speciman of the rare and unusual Jazzalope, live and on the premises.

Also while in Denver......., Jim set up a visit with friends of theirs outside of Fort Collins, CO. This was intended as a special trip for Jasper because his friends there own and operate a horse farm. They own and house about 26 horses and this gave Jazz another really personal opportunity to ride and get a private lesson from their daughter that afternoon. Donna and Norm were simply awesome folks. Not only did they provide this for Jazz but also had us all for supper and warm conversation. (Even though he is not a UCONN fan)
Thanks Jim and Mary for your wonderful Denver hospitality and oasis in the high desert that you call home. I'd bet that it seemed real quite after we left.

As I mentioned previously, we left Denver this past Thursday and headed North to Wyoming. We made it to Lingle the first night about 250+ miles north of Denver and just a bit north and east of Cheyenne, WY. This entire area of southeastern and central Wyoming were so significantly important to days of old. The paths from east to west via wagon train and horseback all converged and passed on thru this country side. The pony express followed along the cart paths cut by the thousands on emigrants and there carts as they made their way to Oregon, Utah and California from out east. It feels old and important here in WY and much of the old west flavor and memorabilia and ways of being still remain.

We left Lingle, WY and drove to Casper, WY yesterday (Friday) and plan on camping here until Sunday. There is a high school annual rodeo going on here this weekend and we specifically designed the trip so that Jazz could be here for that event. We will be leaving here tomorrow, Sunday, some time and heading northwest again into Jackson Hole and the Teton Mountains and then into Yellowstone Park. After viewing Old Faithful and the wildlife there in the park we will drop west into Idaho and begin trekking south again stopping in Utah at Salt Lake City for a day or so and then on into Boulder to park it, remove the car from the back of the RV and begin heading east for the month. More on that later. Great to be back writing and sharing again!

We're in Denver (for now)

2008-05-08T19:08:00.005-05:00

We have been having just a super time here in Denver. It is our new most favorite city.

We have been visiting with friends since last Sunday and helping out around the house but mostly eating really fine meals prepared for us here by Mary. Jim and I have been hanging together and getting silly with electrical reparations on Marion St. Jazz has truly enjoyed being in a house for a while, too.

I made some intro's of us to two local homeschooling co-ops and Megan and Jazz have attended some planned social events this past week. That has been very cool.

You may remember us trying to leave Texas after a month plus of being in that state. We headed up into Fort Davis and stayed there for almost a week helping those nice folks out there fix up the camp site then on our last two days in Texas we headed north toward New Mexico. On the way, some eighty miles north of Fort Davis, we stopped into a refreshing Texas state park called Balmorhea State Park http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/balmorhea/

Check this web place out if you have the time. In short, it has water and lots of it. A rather unusual phenomenon for the desert in Texas. We had not seen water, other than the shower in the morning for over a month as we pulled into the park and we were determined to swim and get wet, good and wet. Jasper in swimming in the roped off shallow end we started off in. Beyond the roping is the beginning of the 25 foot natural bottom section and it continues and swings around to the right for the rest of the pool where you can see Meg and jazz jumping into the very other opposite end of the horseshoe shape. You can . also see Jazz jumping off of the 8' high dive board while Megan jumps off the deck adjacent to him. We just kept playing until we just had to leave.

The pool is 77,000 square feet (1 3/4 acres) and hold almost 4 million gallons of very fresh constantly cycling spring water that is constantly 72 - 74 degrees. The spring that feeds this pool (San Solomon Springs) pushes up 22 - 28 million gallons of water each day through the pool. The really cool part is that it has a deep section of 25 feet that is all natural bottom and has all natural fish species swimming right along with you in the pristine waters. All of the water travels on thru and down the guiding canels and makes its way into a Cienega that was specifically designed for the purpose of saving two endangered species of fish. It has been a very successful project and you can view the fish they saved, underwater in a special viewing area. The water then travels downstream and is utilized for irrigation.

We had a blast and it was very hard for us to dry off and leave but the Rest of The Wild West was calling us forth.

Next Post!

2008-05-05T00:33:00.003-05:00

Hi,
To those of you who check on our whereabouts, thanks for checking, for caring and for being part of our lives.
We are in Denver, Colorado. We are visiting friends, getting some fine tuning and maintenance items completed on the RV and car, planning for our next leg, doing laundry, hooking Jasper up with Denver home schooled kids and attending some of their social events this week, seeing some typical and not so typical Colorado sights (including the Coors Beer Factory and a local brew guy that a friend of ours knows), finding a chiropractor for Megan, finding a masseuse for me, letting Jasper go horseback riding, cooking in a full size kitchen with full size appliances, enjoying the less dry very mild blossoming spring weather, making blog entries and in spite of all that taking it easy for a while.
We may be here for up to two weeks but one for sure while we decide what we are going to do next.
I will blog more tomorrow with pictures of some of the amazing things we have seen and done in the past week plus. There has been a lot but one of the most unusually spectacular sights was the Great Sand Dunes National Park in lower Colorado. This rare location is a geological wonder and it was just wild to stand on top of this naturally created phenomenon.
More Tomorrow!

Way Back Then and a little NOW

2008-04-22T20:34:00.004-05:00

Back on the 9th of April we were on the move from Del Rio on our way to Marathon, TX which is one of and the first intersection of roads that allows access down south to Big Bend National Park. This post is to fill in the gaps between now and then via a little narration and lots of photos. These pictures will hopefully and happily show and pass along to you the picturesque country side that filled our eyes with imagination and beauty as we made the trip westward.
We'll start with our stop in Marathon. Here we stayed at what has been the nicest looking and well kept RV park on our journey since we left Marathon Key in Florida in February. The day we arrived in the top of the desert the temp. was almost 90 degrees and the wind was blowing upwards of 30 MPH and didn't end for another 48 hours. Like idiots we tried to put out our awning to try to block that days late afternoon sun. Minutes later we were fighting to get it back to the upright position. It has only been out once since.

Marathon is the home of the locally and beyond famous Gage Hotel, This is a high class and high cost establishment in the middle of this desert town.

We have been incessantly dry since we arrived in the Hills, Prairies and Desert areas of Texas. (althought I don't specifically mean of the alcohol variety, this is true as well in this section of the no-woods) It has done nothing but increase in dryness over the past couple of weeks here in the desert. My hands need to be constantly dipped on water to feel refreshed. It doesn't last. So I am continually putting lotion on. It doesn't last. S0 I often find myself with a little undercurrent of frustration. It is just way dry and usually there is wind. Yesterday morning I walked out of the RV to put something in the dumpster and I noticed that something was very different when I was walking back. I stopped in my tracks to find out what was the thing that was missing. It was the wind. I guess I sort of got used to it but when it was not there it was real nice for a change. It was still dry. It got me to thinking about water. We have not had rain, not even the hint of rain since we left Lake Livingston on the 26th of March. Three more days and it will be a month. Man!
I don't like driving in the rain with this motor home but I wouldn't at all mind a rain day. I don't like feeling soaking wet usually. I try to avoid getting my head wet whenever it rains but the next time we have it we are going to do a family dance outside in the rain run around in ti and see how much our bodies can absorb.
Yesterday we took a another drive to Presidio, TX. This time embarking from Fort Davis not Terlingua. This time we also intended to go into Mexico. Into the town of Ojingua to see the place and see what medications really cost across the border. We found deisel fuel at only $3.00 per gallon and Tequila for only $15 per liter (better than half price off) but the meds were not cheap (if you have an insurance copay) if you do not have insurance then it is the place to go. Literally 75% off of the actually real price of meds if you pay by yourself in the US. Same meds lower price. Ah! Free Enterprise!
On this trip down we got completely off the paved road for over thirty miles as our driver and new friend from Fort Davis eagerly took us through the spectacle of Pinto Canyon. This is a county road but I have know idea what that means anymore. This is really a 30 mile dirt road, better yet, sometimes a dirt road but mostly a rock road that is passable only by 4 wheel drive and sometimes that is questionable. There are parts of the road that pass through creeks, through and over dry river beds, on cliffs where you are literally hanging on the edge of a single, narrow lane with the 300 or 400 foot drop off to your immediate left or right. There are cars or trucks or some mechanical means of movement left to rust on particular hill sides that leaves you to wander if they got there by accident or on purpose for a variety of reasons. I could well imagine doing this on horse back. It would have been easier on the body, if you can imagine. It also passed through some of the most spectacular formations of mountains and hills and valleys that we have ever seen. And knowing that only a very small handful of people living on this planet will ever visit this remote place (or even have the slightest desire to) makes it all that much more special. Not to mention the occasional Javelina or Road Runner crossing your path just for authenticity sake.
But it is hoooooottttttttt on the thermometer. We left Fort Davis, about a mile in the air(5280') and below 80 degrees at about 9:45 AM and descended towards Presidio at elevation 2851 and into Mexico on the Rio Grande. By the time we actually got off the Pinto Canyon dirt road (which by the way is one access road to Chinati Hot Springs and actual resort and retreat, like a tourist destination) and onto pavement in the town of Riudosa (population 14) and then drove the 20 plus miles to Presidio (pop. about 4000) it was about 1 PM and the temp was up to 112 degrees and did not get back into the high 90's until well after 5 PM. It is true what they say though. It certainly is hot. And you would not want to be stuck out in it walking through the desert, but it is bearable and not stifling like in the more humid climates. When in gets into the 90's you really do actually find yourself saying, "This is not bad out now."

Anyway here are some Pictures of the trip since the 9th of April. This first set was taken on the damn at the end of the Amistad Reservoir. The national line between the US is right in between the two eagles which sit right in the middle of the damns expanse. The other picture is taken from the middle of the damn looking down and out over Mexico and the third is of Japser handling Verizon, the drug sniffing Chocolate Labrador dog at the the border crossing station on the damn.

The pictures above are from the few moments we spent crossing the Pecos River. First by vehicle and then by foot in both directions. This bridge is.. (Kara or Steven I. - how far is it when it takes a small rock, dropped from the deck, 9 seconds to hit the water) at least 100 feet or so above the river and very dramatic to stand on. The river, as is the surrounding terrain, is refreshing and bold. And the bridge moves like crazy when the occasional car crosses while you are standing on it. Jasper would stop moving and hang onto the railing whenever a car would pass. Consequently he came back with hands coated thickly with silver paint that they used to coat the railings of the bridge. He thought that it was just great looking partially like the Tin Man. Notice the sign that says no jumping. Oh, Okay!

It was already desolate by the time we got to the Pecos River but from there on out it just got sparse. The next couple of pictures will show you what I mean. This is Dryden, Texas!

That's it! From 1988 to the year 2000 - Population....13

A little further along the way we came to the town of Langtry, TX. This town actually has a visitors center. Large town by all normal measures with the population standing at around 145 for the last twenty years. It promotes itself as the home of Judge Roy Bean. Originally a squatter on a piece of the tract of railroad right of way land and tent-saloon operator he became embroiled in a battle to stay with a local prominent railroad man of the town. His saloon drew many of the railroad workers and thus gave him a permanent place in the tent town. He was sort of renaissance man who was the Justice of the Peace, Bar keep, Boxing promoter and curator of an opera house that he had built in anticipation of a visit from a "beautiful English singer" that Bean had fallen in love with via a picture in the newspaper. She did eventually visit but it was 4 months after his death in 1904. The Saloon, the opera house and a general store/post office that was opened in 1884 still exist on the town site. This town sits on the top western side of a very deep canyon of which we could not determine the name. It, like many others in this section of Texas, has many abandoned houses and buildings, remnants of the past life and a ghost town in its present form.

We also were fortunate or unfortunate enough, as the case may be, to be just outside of Langtry at exactly ther right time to be witness to a train hold up by some old school outlaw of the wild west. I got the photos and turned them into the sherrif. Hopefully they'll catch this bad guy and his mom and dad will get a goods nights sleep knowing that he is in good hands.

The two pictures below illustrate what we consider to be the two best options we have for housing ourselves on a budget that we can work with in Western Texas. Which one do you think is the most likely for us. I like the windmill and we already have a motor home!!!

Mcdonald Observatory!

2008-04-20T08:09:00.008-05:00

Happy Passover to all my Jewish friends. I hope you had a great first night celebration with your families and friends.

The past two days adventures have been focused activity that is really out of this world!

Friday after we arrived at Prude Ranch, a horse ranch, RV and cabin park just north of Fort Davis' main center on RT 118, we headed up to the real site of our interest and tourist draw in this location. For us, not only are the roads up to and all around Fort Davis on our list of the top scenic roads to drive in America but RT 118 also leads up to the place with literally, the darkest sky in Texas and the contiguous 48 states. It is also the highest mountain top in Texas accessible by paved road at 6700 feet above sea level.

With all that going for it, it seems that those characteristics make it also the most spectacular place for an observatory. Mcdonald Observatory, as built and designed over many years, as an extension of the University of Texas and visited and utilized by astronomical scientist, studying all varieties of celestial phenomenon. It is a renowned location for scientific research and is an outstanding place to visit and learn even more than you might think you know about the day and night sky that surrounds us.

On Friday we attended a twilight presentation at 7:30 that was the introductory portion of the entire evening aptly named "The Star Party". At twilight we learned about particular astronomical features that we would be able to see later in the evening through 6 different telescopes and view apparatus ranging in size and power intensity.

After the sunset, at 9 PM, we all headed outside to an amphitheater, and joined in (at least Jasper and I did) a skit (model) presentation that was intended to teach us about the relationships between the sun and the earth, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter (me) and their respective distances from the earth and their revolutions related to each other and the sun. Then we put the constellations (Jasper was Capricorn) all around us in the approximate positions in the sky. All of this was while it was still somewhat light and we were waiting for that huge night sky to darken around us.

As the sky grew darker the presentation moved into an visual illustration of the constellations using a high powered laser light to point out all of the major bright stars and the their positions in the constellations. All of this was very easily understood by us amateurs as they used the presenter used the big dipper to get us to the current north star, Polaris and then brought us 360 degrees around the sky pointing out each visible constellation. Maybe not the very most fun you can have sitting out top of a mountain in the dark but certainly one of the most exciting and informative learning experiences I have had in that environment.

By the end of this portion of the presentation, other presenters had already been busy setting up and aligning the various telescopes on the specific items we would be viewing. This was the high light of the program. We were able to view the planet Saturn, its rings and a few of its moons through a 12" telescope and it was just awesome to view. We also saw various age star clusters. Some just forming and some dying and some in such massive clusters that they appear as a cotton ball at the center. We saw M3 - a globular cluster of stars containing approx. 1/2 million stars that are about 33,900 light years away (1 light year is 5.8 trillion miles, you do the math) that shines with a brightness of 300 times that of the sun. This cluster is so large and bright that it can actually been seen by the naked eye under the right conditions and assuming we actually knew where to look. We also saw M35 (open star cluster only 100 light years away and can be seen by the naked eye and with binoculars-off the foot of Gemini. We saw this through two different powers of binoc's), Pleidies (the seven sisters) and the spectacularly beautiful new set of stars forming called Orion Nebula (see the picture to the right)

We also got two different views of our moon. Did you know that the moon is drifting away from us? It is, at the rate of about 1/2" per year. And I thought my night vision was just getting worse. Whew!

I enjoyed Saturn, Orion and M3 the most. Brilliant!.

Saturday we returned for the Daylight presentation that involved learning quite a bit about the sun and the tours of the the largest telescope on the property - 107" mirror (108" is 9 ') and the newest and largest in the US spectography telescope. All this and being on top of the mountains left us felling very..... tired, I mean enlightened in a celestial sense.

The presentation is very professional, with indepth detail and funny.

The guys presenting make it work and very accessible to all.

The Observatory complex is a city unto it self. It has a director who also acts as Mayor. There is housing for all of the professional staff, a school, medical facility and so on all self inclusive. Quite a remarkable operation and a real pleasure to visit and partake.

This first one From the bottom one up just above and to the right is the 107" telescope from the top floor, inside the observation building some 50 additional feet off the ground. The next one up is the newest spectograph scope.

Check out the radio telescope at the bottom of the pictures. Click on the sign describing it, to enlarge it and read what it has to say. This is wild to me!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-04-19T12:26:00.004-05:00

Well, Whoo hoo, we made it this far!
(with a lotta help from our friends and family)
Today marks the four month anniversary date of our leaving home for our journey on the road.
It has been absolutely everything and well beyond what I anticipated. I really love life on the road. It is new and exciting everyday and we meet all of the every part of our worlds best people. There is hardly a negative with the one exception that we really miss the people we love at home. We teeter constantly about that.
Also, I guess cause it sure seems like, we are entering a new phase of the aspect of living full time on the road.
Believe it or not we are really tired right now.
We get up and go most days to a new place. That entails putting all the inside things in order and loading the car on the dolly, detaching from the water, the electric, the sewer, the cable, cleaning all those things daily and then there are the body adjustments. 103 degrees one day 32 degrees the next night. Oh, and then we have to find a place to live and call hoping thatthey have room for us. (So far no room issues to date). We are definitely on a holiday and we are authentically enjoying most aspects (well maybe not when we are not having cell and internet service in all the places where ever we are) but we just need to find a place to stop for a while and get all the business and financial items (taxes) completed, watch a few movies or Tv shows, do our laundry and rest for a bit.
On any given day after picking and loading up we drive between 20 to 150 miles to get to our next site and stop every twenty feet or so to take pictures or see some impassable site. The drives can take us up to six hours each day. Then we park and unload everything and get ready to live in this place, where ever that may be, for this night or two, then get ourselves in the car to go see the local attraction (museum, scenery, park, bird, mountain, pool, river, scenic drive, observatory....) that we came to this particular place to see. This is what it is all about and it is really good. If we lived like this at home we would for sure know our state and all of its interesting points and places inside and out.
We have just learned, again, or been reminded, that we need to listen to ourselves and our bodies and Jasper and stay put once and a while to catch our breaths.
This is also what this is all about and may be the gold.
We started out with the concept that we would only be active outside of the camp for four hours a day and then be around and recreate ourselves individually for four hours a day and then sleep and eat and do entertaining creative stuff together for the balance of our day. Now we have the vision and opportunity to do that reevaluation again and see how we want to design it. And we are and we will.
All types of opportunities continually present themselves on the road.
We just pulled into a really nice and well kept RV park this morning and met the really joyful Framingham, MA woman running the reception/check in desk. The place is clean and has just a real nice fell to it. (Believe me, you can almost sense it (the energy) from the road before you pull in after a while and you even get good at picking up on it on the phone when you call to reserve a spot) this place was good from the phone and proved good upon arrival.
But there is an interesting tweek to this place. Here's the scoop!
Megan went over to up our stay for an additional day and began talking to the two people that were at the front office and found that the owners were recently asked to leave by the bank and that the place is in some state of foreclosure or settlement with the bank. Those two, that megan was talking with, stay here free (separately, like not in relationship with each other) and care take the place for the bank with a limited time commitment required in exchange for there staying free and they run it joyfully. In the midst of their conversation they asked Megan if we would like to stay here for the month of May and take care of the place while the woman goes back to Mass to sell her house and help the guy who is helping out now and who is staying here by himself to run the place while Framingham goes back to Mass for the month. So we are considering it and even considering talking to the bank about what they might want for the property.
We are in Fort Davis, Texas. A small high desert town that is a little over a mile above sea level. The normal high temps for the summer are in the high 80's and the normal lows in winter is 30. It is not very green here grass wise but there are lots of varieties of green cactus, mesquite, evergreen trees and flowers. Who knows we will sleep on it and see what works for us. Jasper of course wants us to buy the place and run it. He already has designs of opening a trading post in the front restaurant and having a horse stable on the additional 6 acres to the west of the RV park.
The other really interesting part of this story for us is that we said we needed a break and a place to stop and rest, just yesterday and an opportunity arrives and presents itself the next morning. You may find this weird but we find it magical and as if we are tuned in like never before. This is what has been happening to us more and more frequently. We receive opportunity after opportunity within a very short time of discussing and talking about our options for what we have a desire to do. It is the miraculous part of the odyssey. We are very fortunate and happy as can be that life is working this way. I have many examples of these magical occurrences.
I am very certain that they are happening for all of us ongoingly, every day. But since we have been void of most of the usual business of life at home and focused on the events of our trip and living daily life, they are just very obvious and frequent. It is fun and fulfilling to know that is how life works.

Back Again! With a little ranting this time.

2008-04-18T07:48:00.010-05:00

So where I left off was in Del Rio. We are now 350 miles west of that and have crossed a lot more ground than the miles show.

The state of Texas is just amazingly diverse and we have really only deviated a slight bit from a straight line starting in Beaumont to here in Alpine. We have spent the last week in the Chihuahuan (like the small yappy dog) Desert and on the border of Mexico along the Rio Grande where "The Fence" is being built to keep the Mexicans out of the US. Or is it us out of Mexico or just to try to scare us regardless of the reason

I know this is a touchy subject and probably more complicated than I could understand but I must tell you that standing on the US side of the very small and shallow, not so, Rio Grande River and talking to the Mexican people on the other side and knowing that if I go over the middle of the river and cross back that I am subject to a huge fine and/or imprisonment as are they, just doesn't feel right. I felt sorry, strange, trapped in my own country with a sense of not wanting any borders anywhere. I was told that if I offered them even water if I saw them crossing the desert that I would be fine, jailed and prosecuted. It made me feel sick that I could not aid another human being without risking my own freedom in the process. This country has fallen way away from the "great melting pot" mentality that I grew up being taught. Seems like we are supposed to be afraid of something all of the time. Like we are at risk of being invaded by poor people and the truth seems to be that we are risking becoming poor as a result of our own fear. Trivia question.. who was that guy who said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." (or was it the only thing we have to fear is the BUSH administration)

Our country was built on and draws people here only because and when we project the great possibility of being an American citizen. Not when we play hard to get and make our own citizens go thru military check points on every road that leads from another border. We went thru one yesterday that was 150 miles from the border. Surely this was for us and not to try and stop a desperate Mexican that could have gone anywhere in any direction by the time he got that far inland. This whole check point and pointless questions only bolster the internal fear of the political machine. If you could see the land that they or anyone would have to cross on foot to get to either side of the border you would certainly ask yourself who would go through the trouble. It is very rough country anywhere from Del Rio to Presidio and I don't think that I could make it more than a day or two at the max. Perhaps my drive instinct is not strong enough.

The Mexicans are still swimming across the border every morning and placing the trinkets that they make and sell on the US side of the river for us to buy if we dare. We did buy one, and risk the bullshit fine and imprisonment if for no other reason than to teach Jasper a piece of our personal human philosophy. That we believe that if we can help others survive regardless of imaginary borders in the middle of rivers and signs to scare people into not helping when possible or befriending another human whatever the color of their skin or their country of origin, we will and think that this is what we would hope for in return. Who knows, the way we are going we will all be in need of assistance from other people in other countries for our subsistence soon. Where would we all be if that's was the way it was when our great grand parents came from foreign lands to the US, the land of possibility, many years ago. I am not afraid of sharing the abundance of our country with people who work way harder for their bread than most of us. I made the acquaintance of Victor from Boquillas, MEX. A small suffering village in northern Mexico 160 miles from the next Mexican town via a dirt road. Victor used to be the ferry man who brought people across the river to his village from Big Bend National Park to buy trinkets and tacos. The entire economy of that village was based on tourism. About two years ago that crossing became illegal and as it was instituted a few unlucky Americans, I was told by the park people, were fined $10,000 dollars and sent to jail as examples of what can happen if you break the rules.

Victor now swims over in the early morning, places a cut open 2 liter bottle jug and a sign that reads "Victor the Signing Mexican." He sits on the other shore all day, in the desert and sings all day long for any tourist who walks way down into the Boquillias Canyon to see the rocks and river in this dry, arid and really hot desert climate, so that hopefully people will put money in the jug and he will be able to continue to support his family. This is not sad, we all have to do what we do to get along in the world but the possibilities seem limited from where I stood on my side of the river and I wished that we could go over to his side without the constructed fear of whatever it is we are supposed to be afraid of.

Back to Del Rio for a bit and then over to the desert. On the first night there I got an opportunity to sit in with a pick up band at the saloon on the property. While Jazz could not come in the bar he was able to sit on the back porch with Megan and watch through open double doors as I as playing and singing with the band. It has been quite a while since I have played with a full band and I must admit it was a blast. I am not sure though who enjoyed it more. Me on stage or Megan and Jasper watching me on stage. I guess as long as we all did it works out fine and I didn't have to stay till closing and help pack up the gear. First time I ever really felt like a rock star in my life. If you look closely you can see me in the right hand side of the picture and you will also see Jazz outside playing air keyboard on the veranda.

The following day we headed over to Amistad International Reservoir. The big time, elite group of professional fisher guys and perhaps gals (although I did not see any) were in town for the practice week before the $100,000 tournament. We saw a guy named John Crews and I went up and asked him to take a picture with Jasper. He was a real nice man from Virginia who travels around the country, with ESPN hot on his tail, fishing for prize money. We took the picture and wished him well and walked away amazed again at what is possible in this country. "Somebody has to do it", was the old saying he used as I walked away in disbelief that you can fish for your whole life as a career in the US and have sponsors give you new boats and cars and pay for your travel as you go around and fish. What a country we have here.

The life in Del Rio centers around the reservoir and US people going into Mexico for pharmaceuticals. So we chose to center around the reservoir and although we wanted to go in and see the Mexican iCiudad of Acuna (and see if I could get some drugs there) if never came to be. With Jazz's 10 birthday, buying him a new bike, swimming in the water, giving time to Jazz to connect with other kids at the water, saving a little boys life from drowning, talking to local fisherman, going to the movies, roping cattle (Jasper finally got to ride in Texas as a result of the kindness and connections of the RV Park owner Ratana), coaching and site seeing with the same owner of the same RV park, taking pictures of vegatation and animals we have never seen, walking across the Amistad damn to take a picture and crossing into Mexico breifly, we just didn't have the time or the real desire to go there. I think we saturated ourselves or poor towns back in January in the Dominican.

All that under our belts we headed west over the Pecos and on towards the BIG BEND.

Time to Catch Up!

2008-04-08T23:30:00.006-05:00

We have been without service for the most part of the last three weeks and it is about to get more definite for the next week. The computer is acting like a dinosaur stuck in molasses due to this weak signal and I seem to lose service entirely and unpredictably and there is a lot to share. Those things don't make a good match so..... Here we GOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
First of all a big Happy Birthday to MOM!
I know we talked but I know I forgot to say it. I guess our business of entertaining ourselves and moving about the country had us become absentminded. Sorry for the no singing birthday call but know that we are sure remembering you now! We'll make sure to find you something special in Arizona, we know how much you love the southwest, and we'll send it along as a small token of our love.
On the last day of March we were still in Austin and returned to the city in the late afternoon. We had missed our chance to have pizza at Home Slice and I wasn't about to miss the opportunity again so we headed there for supper. Now you may be asking, why does it seem so important that he go to have pizza and what is so special about this place. Well the answer to both questions can be answered by your nose. As you walk down Congress Ave. anywhere within several hundred yards of this place you can smell the aroma of garlic and crust being cooked to perfection in a brick oven and wafting about all around the area. I love pizza but I am a sucker for brick oven pizza like that of Modern in New Haven. Now this was no Modern but it was close and they saved themselves but stating in the menu that their White Clam Pie is modeled after the New Haven style clam pie. We had one and it was just damn good. Literally the best pizza we have had since we left CT. Well worth the effort to get there!
We made sure we got thru with pizza just in time to head up to the Congress Ave bridge. Here, just at dusk, a million and a half Mexican Free Tailed Bats, who take up residence under the bridge, head out for the night. It is the largest urban bat colony in the country and it is quite the site to see. Once they start they just keep coming and their exit is very well choreographed and a bit weird. They seem to fly along the edges of the bridge columns and supports, jogging in and out between them until they get to a certain point where I guess they fell its OK to fly out and then they do, en mass. People come from around the world to see the bats and line up around and under the bridge in the park area and up on top of the bridge all along its edges. I pulled into a Firestone dealer just before the bridge and went in to ask the guy behind the desk if this was in fact THE BRIDGE? he smiled as he looked up and told me enthusiastically that it was and that I could park right there in his lot and "just follow the line of people going up to the bridge". Can you imagine though, that someone in a city, just offers up their parking lot for free and for fun. I really loved this city and its people. I often feel as though they come into our lives just for us! We just meet too many of them for this not to be true. If you look hard at the two bridge shots, you can see small black dots streaming upward away from the bridge just above the peoples heads and all along the beam of the bridge just below and all along where they are standing. Those are the bats or.... dirt on my lens. It was quite the site. I guess if I have to explain where they are that means that the shot wasn't that good. Oh well!!!
On Tuesday April-1, we entered the Hill Country Section of Texas and made camp outside of Johnson City in Perdenales State Park. Great Park, great site and Jasper met another home schooled boy on vacation there and they became famous together and inseparable and I caught a butterfly on my face while on a bike ride in the park. The two of them were so interested in rocks that they held an impromptu meeting of the Future Geologist of America, right there at the campsite. I was the staff photographer.
On 4-2 we visited Johnson City. This is the boyhood town home of President Johnson and two sites about 14 miles from each other have been donated and turned into national park sites. We visited both and it was much better that I thought it was going to be. Politically speaking I opposed the Vietnam war and so was not real happy with Johnson but I got to see the other side of the man at this park and it softened me a little. It is worth seeing a piece of our history from all perspectives. We saw his grandfathers house, which was the only house in the town in 1832 and we saw LBJ's boyhood home and we visited the Texas White House (LBJ Ranch) as well. beautiful areas and landscape and I learned a little more about what it is like to be president of these states to boot.
On 4-3 we traveled again and we stopped in a small town just 13 miles from the LBJ ranch.
Luckenbach, Texas - Population 3. If you are not a country fan at all or a Willie Nelson fan at all you may not have heard of this place. but he made it famous in a song and it is a legendary little place that I loved visiting, felt fulfilled for having visited, wouldn't have missed it and hope you get the chance to stop by here some day. This place is a bikers paradise and a musician's stomp. It feels like you are in a weird dream when you are there and yet it is so real at the same time. Too much!
Later that night, after a breathtaking ride thru those Texas Hills and as many stops as we could fit in as we passed many 5000+ acre ranches and not much of anything else, except of course wildlife in abundance and variety, like we were in Africa, we pulled into Lost Maples State Park in Vanderpool, Texas. Vanderpool - You will definitely miss it driving thru. There is a general store on one end of the town and a lawyers house/office on the other and that is it. It is about 24 miles west of Bandera, Texas. Big town, Population approx. 1,170. It is self proclaimed "The Cowboy Capital of the World". There was a "Thunder in the Hills", Bikers rally going on the weekend that we happened to take a ride in to use the phone and get grub so we got an eye full of bikes and other biker related scenes and circumstances. The next day jasper hooked up with two brothers, both younger, visiting on a three day holiday with their parents, from San Antonio (about two hours away to the East) We had the good fortune of meeting their parents, Christiana and Jim and we spent a lot of time together over the time we were there. It was a pleasure to hang with them and make sure that they did nothing of anything that resembled have too's. Hope to see you guys again soon!
On 4-6 we drove from the hills into the start of the desert of Texas. Moving from one section of the state to the next happens like turning a page and suddenly you are in the next chapter. It is like someone drew lines and said this is where this section ends and the next begins. It really is that dramatic. You can stand in one spot and look forward and backward and see the two distinct geographic illustrations. Okay, I know, you got it.
We ended up in Del Rio, Texas which is on the border of Acuna, Mexico. We came here so we could have some phone and computer access but it has been periodic and cuts out often. But it has cooperated this late night to allow me to post this. We have stayed at Buzzards Roost private RV park right down the street from the Amistad International Reservoir. This reservoir was created by a dam on the Rio Grande River as a joint effort by both the Mexican States and the US. The border crossing is in the middle of the dam. We walked out there on the 8th and took pictures from the center.
I will hopefully get to complete this and add pictures soon. We are heading out this morning for Marathon, Texas and will be there for two days before we enter Big Bend National Park for a week.

We left Livingston!

2008-04-01T09:15:00.010-05:00

Today we left Lake Livingston State Park. We had a great week there and made friends with Mike and Patty from Oklahoma. It was nice hanging with them over the fire, playing guitar and solving all the worlds woes, yet again.

We headed toward Austin via the back roads on the Piney Woods and into the Lakes and Prairies section that brought us through Huntsville, Texas. The blooming wild flowers all along the way were spectacular and made the trip more beautiful and also longer in duration.
We also stopped briefly to eat our lunch and to see the statue of Sam Houston in Huntsville. It is huge and supposedly the "largest statue of an American hero in the world" according to local legend. He was quite an important guy in the world of Texas during its time of its own sovereign country hood and his importance continued after they became an admitted state of the union.

For our supper that evening we stopped along the Barbeque Trail at the renowned Taylor Cafe in Taylor Texas. This is a True Honky Tonk that has been in existence for 52+ years and owned and operated by Mister Vencil who is now 84 (42 twice as he says it) and still comes in every day and prepares the brisket, beef, chicken and sausage meat in the pit . He graciously took a picture with us and gave us a copy of his newspaper write up and then allowed us to tour (which he directed without leaving his chair)his office and the pit area of his establishement after being prompted by one of the locals sititing across from him at the bar. What a sweet guy this Vencil is. While we were eating our supper, after a rousing game of pool between Jasper and me, we watched Mister Vencil fall gently asleep sitting behind the bar. Amongst all the beer bottles clanking and people talking and coming and going, he drifted off as if there was no one else in the place. He welcomed us personally and thanked us for coming and asked us to come back and visit him again.

back out on the highway we saw some bones in the road (who gladly posed and waited for my digital camera to get the shot before heading off).

We pulled into Hwy 71 campground just 20 miles outside and to the East of Austin at around 7PM. We set up and jumped in the car to head to the city. Before getting there though we stopped in to see the McKinney Falls State Park campground that we were going to stay at but decided to go private this time. It is directly within the city limits but it appears as though you are in the Big Thicket National Preserve. If you didn't leave the grounds, you would never know that you were in the city. There were masses of deer, everywhere and we even saw an Owl up close sitting on a speed limit sign right in front of our car. Spinning his/her head around, a couple of times, to check us out before flying away.

Austin is a great looking city and it seems to be completely safe. This assessment was made by us based on talking to folks who live there and by the number of single people walking and jogging thru the parks alone at night. The latter prompted the former. It is also a beautifully clean city and once again we find the people to be very friendly and welcoming. We found that "Shadow Kissing" is definitely encouraged!! What a nice City!

The Capitol building and grounds are the quality of the White House but you are free to walk around and view the place even at 10 at night. While there I went up to one of the State Police stationed at a gate in his car to ask him directions to the music clubs. He spent 10 minutes talking to me asking where we were from, welcoming us to Texas and explaining which clubs he thought would be best for a more mature crowd (he was doing real good up till that moment) and giving me directions and naming the clubs, before he wished us well and thanked us for coming to visit Texas. So, when was the last time you were formally and pleasantly welcomed to CT but one of our esteemed state troopers (sans citation)?

Before leaving for the night, although we tried to have Pizza at Home Slice on Congress Ave.,it was 10:02 when we got there and they told us that they stop letting people in at 10. So we put it off until tomorrow and went up the road just a bit to have cupcakes from an airstream RV turned cupcake kiosk named "Hey Cupcake" we spotted coming in. The name and the Airstream RV are real attention grabbers on the corner where they are parked.

There we made the acquaintance of Katie who was working that night who had just recently returned home to Austin from LA, CA. She was extremely nice to us and extremely friendly. She couldn't welcome us enough or take care of us enough. She told us all the great things about what she called the small town city of Austin, where everybody knows everybody.We ordered two decedent cupcakes and she gave us six. She made sure we didn't leave without our very own "Hey Cupcakes" fridge magnet and then as a final over the top gift she gave us three logo screened T shirts as well. katie told us that the business has only be up and running for 6 months. When they started out the were selling around 200 cupcakes per week. Last week they sold 7000. Funny, people don't look FAT!
There are just great people every where we go.
We headed home at around 11:30 PM.
Another very cool day in the life on the road!

Shenandoah, Texas!

2008-03-29T12:23:00.005-05:00

Yesterday afternoon we headed about 50 miles south towards Houston. We were on our way to Shenandoah. We had located our bank and one of our daughters banks there that we needed to visit and do some business.
On the way there we stopped along the roadside to take some photos of the wild flowers that are in abundance this week here. Spring has sprung and it is on the way to a town near you.

While there, in this boom town, city really, we saw more Porches than anywhere we have been yet on this trip and we also experienced a brand new Bentley. There was not even dust on these vehicles. It dare not land on them.
We also got to go to Borders, which is what we usually do when ever we have to go into the city. We each bought a new book or two, walked around the high price shops, strolling down the planned retail/restaurant row and then headed out to a recommended Mexican restaurant called Chuy's. The food was excellent and the place was very nicely and authentically decorated. They had a Creamy Jalapeno salsa there that was out of this world good. The highlight though of the dining experience was our waiter. His response to everything we asked of him was not the typical, "No Problem" it was an authentic and pleasing, "But, Of Course".
I have taken it on as my response to things in my life that are requested of me.

We have been staying at Livingston Lake State Park in Livingston, TX. We will leave tomorrow sometime and head to Austin for a good few days before heading into the western wilds of Texas.

Here in the park we have met another wonderful couple, Mike and Patty from Northeast Oklahoma. Mike is a retired physician from a small town there and they have headed out on the road for a few months to enjoy the sites and ambiance with no particular direction in mind. They sometimes head out and make it only 50 miles oer day to their next destination where they have stopped to see some interesting site or museum or the like.

We have been spending a good deal of time visiting and sharing with them. They are both learning to play different instruments, just for fun. Mike has begun on the Guitar and has just purchased a new Ovation Adamas with a wood top. It is beautiful and sounds great. So much different then my Adamas with the resin top. it was fun to sit by the fire last night with them till midnight and play and sing some tunes and chat about everything between family and politics.
Finding friends on the road is a blessing.
Today they borrowed our recumbent bikes for a try to see if it brought comfort to Mike. He has been competing in senior mountain bike events, I guess for quite some time, and it has really damaged his shoulders. He loved the recumbent. Patty did not!
they take some getting used to. balance is much different and the body dynamics is very different. But as equally different is the comfort. No seat up your butt and no stress to your wrists and shoulders.

I love it and Megan is not sure yet. I am certainly keeping mine. They are also great conversation starters and you know that suits me just fine!
While they were trying our bikes, we tried theirs. Seat up the butt, butt we made it around the loop before Jasper told me that it was hurting him. Of course, that won't stop him from wanting to ride again.

Floating in the Shower?

2008-03-29T12:15:00.003-05:00

We learned something new today about the RV life.
Make sure that you trust the electronic gage that tells you how full the holding tank is and empty the holding tank for grey water when it says it's full.
As we started to do the dishes this morning I went into the bath area and opened the shower door to find the towels and laundry bag floating in the shower base.
This meant that the holding tanked had filled to capacity and just a bit beyond.
Thankfully I went and opened the door to put something in the laundry bag that we keep in there. Why I did that I can't really tell you but I am sure glad I did.
In the next few moments we would have been doing the dishes and rinsing them off and it would have surely over flowed out of the shower and onto the floor.
No Shit!
Thank goodness!
Just Grey Water!

Crawfish Fishing!

2008-03-28T12:03:00.006-05:00

Well here is another first!

I always new that they were crawfish (crayfish)ponds but had never actually seen someone working the pond and cultivating the product.

As we were on our way to Lafayette, LA to visit with Jodi of Rebuilding Together Lafayette and see her build week using Alternative Spring Break Kids in her district, we passed this guy collecting in the pond along I-10 in Crowley, LA.

Crowley happens to be the Rice Capitol of Louisiana. Now you should know that they do compatible cropping here in LA. The same ponds that they cultivate Crawfish in are the rice fields in season.

You would think that this is a great way to grow. As the crawfish actually fertilize the water in which the rice grows and then you can harvest the crawfish every year as well and obtain two cash crops from the same square acres of land. Sort of Natural Hydroponics, if you will.

This man was willing to sell us Crawfish for $1.00 per pound. They were currently selling in the stores for $3.79 up to $5.00 per pound depending on where you shopped. Of course we would have to drive to Crowley and pick them up adding to the cost per pound but when you are buying 160 lbs that transportation costs get spread out quite thinly over the total amount.

By the way Easter is one of the highest holidays for the largest consumption of Crawfish.

Getting the bait for the traps from the truck!

Loading the bait into the skiff!

The coveted Crawfish, up close and too personal!

He places the Crawfish in this bin as he empties the traps while out on the water!

When the bins are full he returns to shore and loads the Craws into these large bags ready for .....

You can see the trap heads in the pond beyond Susan and the tarp!

Easter Boil!

2008-03-26T16:46:00.003-05:00

Although, I know, this is gonna be hard to believe, this was our first ever Louisiana Easter Crawfish Boil!

Here is some of the family taken care of what was left of the 160 lbs of crawfish boiled and mostly eaten by the less then 20 hungry people in attendance. This here is good stuff!

This is Shannon getting his briefing from (his Dad) The Almighty Crawfish. Our heartfelt thanks to Lionel for including us and to all of the family for making us feel welcomed and at home!

The kids get there final instructions and guidelines for the Egg Hunt. It seems there really is no Easter Bunny. These eggs were hidden by The Almighty Crawfish himself. The kids never suspected it was him. You see the tall boy paying the most attention? Well it paid off. He found the Golden Egg. It had lots of money inside. I think it was like 1 million dollars or something like that.

Me and the Students

2008-03-26T16:29:00.003-05:00

The Alternative Spring Break program that we have participated in for the past two years has been nothing if not spectacular. It is so great to be with people who spend their time making a difference for others. The most important part for most of them is to get to meet the people they are helping and most of them had that chance as the guys worked right along side of them thru out the week. You will see the age difference as the distinguishing factor as who are the students and who are the residents. See if you can the Bosnian, South Korean and American students among the students. I bet you can pick me out too!

As you can see there was a contest for the mediums here between Adem and Megan. Neither would give up on taking pictures/footage so I had them shoot each other while I shot them!

The Work Week At City Of Refuge!

2008-03-26T16:07:00.006-05:00

These are the pictures taken on our final 2008 trip to City of Refuge where we worked with the Bosnian and American students to build shelter for the homeless.

This man, Burt, is the founder and director and has been doing his life's work here for the past 22 years. he is a great man on a mission to help.

The first picture is the building portion of the work that we accomplished during the week. The two units that are building will be accessible to wheelchairs via ramps that we also built during the week that will be installed when the building is completed and the bathroom and shower will also be modified to accomodate the wheelchairs.

The lower picture is what they will be when completed. 4 men live in each cabin and they share a bathroom and eat in a common kitchen/dining room on the property. They live here and pay what they can when they can toward room and board but are expected to work on site if they are not working off site (employed).

We met most all of them living their and found them to be a good group of people who found the margins of our society in their circumstance of life.

It was an honor to work with them and to know that we were providing shelter for others in the future.

OK, I'm Back!

2008-03-26T13:55:00.009-05:00

We have left Louisiana and are in Southeast Texas. Our first night campsite is Livingston Lake State Park in the town of Livingston.

It was very nice to get here as the landscape has changed dramatically already and we are only about 120 miles north and east of Lake Charles, LA. Just to place it we are about 60 miles north of Houston.

The scenery is rolling hills, very tall pines and assorted hardwoods. The catfishing is supposed to be spectacular and the mosquito's are as strong as anywhere else in the woods in the south. Yoo Hooo!

We left Lake Charles yesterday morning after having spent Monday seeing Susan and Shannon off on their weeks vaca in Toledo Bend. The rest of our Monday was spent getting ready and completing any and all details requiring attention before we left. We did a bunch of laundry (including theirs, as we tried to help them out and say thanks for letting us stay with them for tow weeks, they didn't get to it while trying to get out of the house for their holiday, after a week plus spent arranging all of the details for all of the students being here for the work week), we returned the last rental car from the students, returned some movies we had rented, made some returns to Lowes from my previous attempt to make a bike holder for the new recumbent bikes we bought in Houston two weeks ago.

Megan spent time making the inside of the RV ready for the road. It takes on a different, um... atmosphere when we are stationary for two weeks. It takes on a different patina on the outside too, so I spent a couple of hours washing the RV and the car to get the SPRING TIME POLLEN off the vehicles along with any accumulated road crud. I also had to repair wiring on the tow dolly again. Sooner or later I will get the wires positioned so that they don't get pinched and break while turning. We'll See!

Later that evening we sat down to a easy rib dinner and took out all of our pre-gathered Texas pamphlets and brochures and selected a basic route to travel for the next couple of weeks. We moved the RV to a different location in their driveway that allowed us to hook up the tow dolly. I positioned the car in line behind it but left it off in case we need to go somewhere else prior to pulling out and hitting the road.

The next morning we continued to move through all of the final details and finish the laundry and get ourselves on the road. We were in the seats and roiling our way towards Texas by 10 :30 but i had a great desire to make an impromptu stop in Vinton, LA (just 4 miles before the border) at the City of Refuge where we had built last week, just to say good bye and get a final picture of the structures we had worked on. The people there were so nice, grateful and welcoming during the work week and it was no different when we arrived late this morning. They could not have been any happier unless we had answered their "Can you stay longer?" question with a Yes. We took a couple of pictures and had some conversations for the road and then we were gone.

Our next stop was to be in Orange, Texas.

We have been stopping at any of the small interesting and appealing places we can find along the way. In this town we stopped in to the First Presbyterian Church that had some unique and notable architectural features. This building was magnificent in structure and stained glass. The photo of the Stained or Opalescent Glass on the left is taken from the inside of the second floor, which is the sanctuary, while laying on the floor between the pews. It is inside of the copper dome you see on the roof in the picture on the right. It is massive and measures about 24 feet in diameter and about 12 - 15 feet up from where the glass begins to the center peak. It was built piece by piece in place.

Then we headed down the road a piece to Beaumont, Texas. This place brought us to the site of the first electrical sub station here that ultimately and ostensibly changed the way this town existed. In honor of the devlopment of that utility they created a small yet interesting Thomas Edison Museum. they have a bunch of facts and hands on things to play with that illustrate the growth of use and marketing of electricity that brought us into the age of electric that we currently (pun intended) find so simple and accessible these days.

While here we also visitied three other ornate and unusual church buildings as well as the Texas Firefighters Museum

Lake Charles and Building with Amazing Students

2008-03-23T10:37:00.005-05:00

The Miracles Continue!!
I have not posted anything for the past week as I have been totally involved and consumed in organizing and mananging of the construction site for an awesome building effort in Calcasieu Parish in the town of Vinton, LA. This is about 5 miles shy of the south eastern Texas border town of Orange.
The build was at a delapadated shelter location that has been operating for 22 years specifically for the purpose of housing homless veterans of the Vietnam War. It has grown to include anyone who is homeless and continues to operate due to the diligent and pious efforts of the main man Brother Burt.
This building effort was similar to last years in that it was a spring break trip for some 56 students who arrived here in waves two Saturday's ago. Then the differences begin. 46 of the students are Bosnians. Approximately 1/2 of then are doing undergrad work at St' Johns University in Minnesota. The other half have already completed their 4 year degrees and are either back home working or are continuing their studies and furthering their degrees. They all are part of a Peace Trails organization that stems from Bosnia and there are 120 of them in the group in total. The web site to learn more about their efforts is http://www.nestovise.org/ (all though it is in the language of Bosnia.
Along with them we had an amazing contingent of American students and two women exchange students from South Korea, going to school in Long Island, New York. Thanks to each of you. You were the backbone of the group and worked your tails off this week.
Please see all of the pictures (or however many you want to) on Megs Website - http://picasaweb.google.com/Meganlps - the files dated March 16 thru the 20th will show you all that has occurred over the past week.
We will be sharing an official Louisiana Crawfish Boil/ Easter family meal with our friends Susan and Shannon and family at Shannon's Dad's house in Toomey, LA this afternoon and then tomorrow we will make our way west to Texas. First Stop Austin. We are attempting to layout a trip thru Texas but it is so big that we are having some difficulty slecteing a route. We intended to spend a month here but are getting concerned that if we stay that long we will not be able to spend as much time in New Mex and Arizona due to the oncoming heat (that Meg does not like)
So we shall see. Please stay tuned!

Getting to know each of these people this week was the miricale for me of the week. My life is forever altered by the relationships and friends I make from all over this planet. I am deeply honored to have been involved with them.
My deepest thanks go out to my new friend Bill from San Fran. Who made it all possible thru his diligent and peacefilled efforts to make it work as he guided his group through the process and help to make my days easier as well.
The guys from the shelter, Dan, Rick, Tommy, Doug, Scott all the John's on site and Vicki - You all were the best. Thanks for everything.

Port Arthur - Texas

2008-03-14T17:55:00.006-05:00

I have not been able to catch up on the dates and posting since we spent the week in Mississippi without Internet access but i have been making headway.

I will jump ahead, just for today, to the current date of TODAY! March 14, 2008

We arrived in Lake Charles, Louisiana last Sunday and we have been busy having fun and helping our friends here since we arrived. today we took a break and went to Port Arthur, Texas. This is about 50 miles from Lake Charles and way in Eastern Texas when you look at Texas.

We spent the first hour of the trip at the Texas welcome center gathering info and talking with one of the host of the center. We are trying to get our bearings as we intend to spend one month in Texas starting Sunday the 23rd, when we will leave Louisiana. Texas in a big state and we have a bunch of places we want to see and none of them are even relatively close to each other so we will be doing some car driving from strategically selected RV sites.

Today though, we went to the Museum of the Gulf Coast in That small Texas town. I mean no offense but to the naked eye there does not seem to be much of any other reason to go to this town. It appears all but vacant although they tell me that the town center relocated about two miles away from where we were at the museum.

My reason for wanting to visit this place started last year during this month when I was down here doing the alternative spring break rebuilding gig. One of our rotating Vista assistants, Shelly, told me that she had gone and asked if I had ever gone to see the Janis Joplin exhibit there. Port Arthur was her birthplace and she still has family living there. I being the guy who loved what Joplin sang and how she sang it and who has watched all of the Dick Cavett interviews with her, during the very short lived time of her notable success, before her untimely, yet self inflicted, death was rightly jealous that this young woman had gone to see this exhibit that was so close (and that I knew nothing of). I didn't even know where she was born.

Well I must tell you that the museum is just great and the music hall denoting all of the Texan, Louisianan, and other southern musicians is awesome.

The Winter bros, ZZ Top, Janis, Percy Sledge, BJ Thomas, Fats Domino, Cosimo Matassa and about 50 others of varying fame and notoriety have a place in the hall and tell and brief bit about their successes in their respective fields. I found it as thoroughly fun and interesting, maybe even more so, than being in Cleveland at the RR Hall of Fame. At least a lot less commercialized and a LOT less expensive ($3.50) to get in. 9and I didn't get a parking ticket when I visited) There are pictures of all of their illustrated guests visiting the museum thru out the years hung in their respective exhibits.

The rest of the museum is first class as well. The history of the city is fascinating as is the uniqueness of its base and people. Check it out!

Here are some photos from the day.

Upstate to Tupelo!

2008-03-12T16:54:00.008-05:00

I just typed the entire post. The battery power gave way and the entire post was lost as it seems my auto save was not working either. So....

Here is the brief news for:

Monday, March 3, 2008

We left Bay St. Louis around 10 AM and decided to head North to Tupelo, Mississippi.

Tupelo is the birth place of Elvis!

On the way up we stopped in Meridian, MS. to do three specific things.

See the Carousel, See the Jimmie Rodgers museum and see the Causeyville General Store.

Without our even knowing it, this was to be a lucky day filled with our favor.

The Jimmie Rodgers Museum is located in Highland Park a few hundred yards from the Dentzal Carousel. The museum was opened (which we found out later was a complete stroke of luck as it is not open any more unless someone calls to set up a special showing) We didn't call and it was open anyway and it was really cool to see all the memorabilia including the specially handcrafted Martin Guitar made for Jimmie. Upon leaving the museum, I asked the curator where the carousel was located, because we did not see it when we pulled in. She told us where it was but also informed us that it was not open. Then she told us that if we went over to another building in the park (the office of Park and Rec) that if we told them that we came to see it that they would most likely send someone over to open the building so we could get a look and some pictures.

As I was finishing the conversation with her, Megan and Jasper went to the building to see if we could get into the carousel building. As I left the museum, I saw Meg and Jazz walking back towards me and I assumed that we were not going to be able to get in. They told me that it was all set and that the guy told us that he would meet us at the building in a few minutes. He did (it was the director of parks and rec, caused all of his staff was home sick. He locked the office and came over to let us in.

This Carousel is the only one of its kind left in the world. The city of Meridian bought it at the St. Louis Worlds Fair in 1905 and had it transported back to MS. It is a two, side by side, hand carved, hand painted, stationary, wooden animal, Dentzal Carousel. It was made in Germantown Ave, Philidelphia, PA by the Dentzal Carousel Company in 1856.

Not only did we get to get into the building and were given a very generous private tour and narration regarding the history of the machine but he also surprised us by giving us a private ride upon the beautiful artful work. It really flys! Megan was completely thrilled at this treat. Her smile was as wide as the crescent moon. She looked just like a kid again. Priceless!

While we were talking to the great guy who gave us the tour he was also telling us of other places we should see in the city. We settled for the barbecue restaurant he recommended less than a mile away. See the pictures! This was the best little barbecue place and food we have experienced to date. And of course the owner (in the picture) has family in Hartford, CT.

After our meal, we drove the 18 miles out of our way to the Causeyville General Store http://www.visitmeridian.com/attractions.htm

Start there and look at a few more sites with its name in the google box. You will see why we went out of our way to get there, meet the owner and the neighbors and see this very neat historic place. I swear, going to Meridian and to these sites and meeting the friendliest people in our country is worth the trip. And I thought the people in Louisiana were the most welcoming! I think it's a tie!

We left the store under the threat of tornado's and violent thunderstorms (again for the second time since we have been on this trip) and made it again miraculously the next two + hours thru the line of the storm as if we had radar and missed all the bad stuff.

We arrived at 10 PM that night in the midst of that heavy rain storm that, by the way, halted for 10 mins at the moment of our arrival that allowed us to take the car off and get set up with out getting wet. Thank You! We had booked two nights at Trace State Park just outside of Tupelo. (In the completely dry county of Pontotoc,MS. Zero tolerance for alcohol - no drinking, selling, transporting, having of any kind, no kidding. Immediate arrest! Uh Oh!) Beside this, this was a really great state park and we had our entire section to ourselves the entire time. It was so nice that we decided to stay a third night.

More about Tupelo and Elvis in the next post.

Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi

2008-03-11T10:13:00.000-05:00

Saturday March 1, 2008

We moved the next day from Mobile, Alabama to Mississippi. Bay Saint Louis is just past Biloxi and Waveland and Gulfport on the coast of MS. These areas were some of the hardest hit by Hurricane Katina. The devastation is still quite evident as are the rebuilding efforts still be carried out by many organizations and volunteers.

One evening on the beach in Waveland (where the sign at the beach reminds us, "debris from the storm remains in the water, do not enter") as I was standing in the sand watching Jasper play around, I started a conversation with some folks who I easily recognized as Mennonite. I asked them if they had a local community here in town. They told me that they did not and that what they were doing here was rebuilding homes for those affected by the storm and that could not afford to do it themselves. The actual crew leader, Jason, was a young man from Indiana, here with his wife and young child. They had been assigned here for three years by their church. They were also considered house parents of four other single Mennonite young men who had been stationed with them, they rotate in and out of their positions, and back to their home communities.

They had another family visiting them from Arkansas. This was a young family with two young children. This was a farming family who farmed 1500 acres of alternating crops of corn and soy on a farm where they had bought the house but leased the property until such time when they could purchase the land as well. They were very interesting to speak to and very dedicated minded young people. I was glad to know that they had such a strong and long term commitment to continue to assist the folks in these areas regain their housing. (Even if I still believe, personally, that it is a little silly to rebuild in such susceptible areas. The ways of methods of building are changing somewhat and the height of the buildings seem to be able to accommodate the rising waters. (which is scary enough in its own right)

Our first reason for coming to this area, as we continue to move west along the southern coast of the US, was to visit the Stennis Space Center. This is a place that I did not even know existed until this trip and my continuing research for educational areas and places to visit along the way. Stennis is the NASA laboratory and science center where all engines for all space craft are tested before they are installed on the actual space craft for travel. It is also the scientific place where many new development of materials take place for NASA. They do a very nice and thoroughly pleasant job of allowing us to tour the test facility and the attached museum. The test facility is coll to see but the museum is chock full of all kinds of really interesting info from the local area and also about all kinds of different things that revolve around the space program. It was simply a great place to visit and to experience, in particular, the shuttle program. We actually got to sit in and operate a shuttle landing simulator and try our hand at landing the thing. (I did it great the first time and crashed it the next two)

The next day we traveled into New Orleans, Louisiana, which is only 40 miles to the southwest. After having completed Mark Twain's biography, while in Florida, I felt it compelling to experience a ride on a steam driven river boat. (Rear Paddle) Just like the ones that Clemens became pilot of in his own lifetime. I booked us for a lunch time cruise on the Steam Boat Natchez out of the working New Orleans Harbor and we cruised around on the Mighty Mississippi for a couple of hours and enjoyed a somewhat, banquet style, Cajun lunch.

This was a great day and a great little tour filled with an informative and somewhat political narrative from the ships pilot house.

We completed the day walking around the French Quarter, as we have done several times before, sipping latte and thoroughly enjoying biegnets at Cafe Du Monde, listening to street performers, viewing the work of great local artists and strolling thru the sidewalk market before heading back to camp via the old RT. 90 along the coast yet again. It is still disheartening to see the houses missing but the world moves on and people learn how to deal.

A good Lesson!

On In To Mobile!

2008-03-10T10:21:00.000-05:00

Friday, February 29, 2008 (Leap Day)
All Systems Go!
We headed, FINALLY, out of Florida, to the west.
On the way out we stopped in Apalachicola, Florida. This is a very nice and very small beach city center with a bunch of artsy things going on. There are a few great antique dealers, great old buildings a small little port that was used for shrimp boats at some point (this small port is reminiscent of Middletown’s place on the river (great potential, yet undeveloped as such)
We landed, just a short piece up the road, for an overnight stay in Mobile, Alabama. None of us had ever been there before (We had never been in Alabama at all) and it is entirely possible that we will not go there again. We drove through downtown and it was nice and interesting. I found the old train station to be very cool architecturally. They also have a good science center and museum but if there were any other drawing points, we missed them.
There was really one cool thing that did occur for our time in Mobile which was also serendipitous. As we pulled into our under embellished camp field for the night and got settled another camper pulled in right next to us within the next 10 minutes. We exchanged hellos and each of us went about the business of setting up our traveling homes for the night. After a while, when all was set, I saw them fussing around with their bicycles in the back of their pick up truck. I went out to see what they were up to and found that their bike rack had broken off of its stand on the back of their trailer while enroute to the site earlier that day.
One bike had been pretty serious bent up but the tandem bike they had survived the fall to the highway and being dragged at 65 miles per hour (unnoticed by them until another driver on the highway enthusiastically informed them that they were dragging their bikes). While talking and examining and helping them determine the best way to load them into the back of the pickup, I noticed that the man was wearing a Yale Divinity baseball cap. So we got to talking about that and I found that he went there way back and was now a recently retired minister from a liberal Christian church in Dallas. (As liberal as it can get I suppose, he likened it to UCC in CT.) We talked a short while about our friend Charles Vogl (of New Year Baby fame) who is currently attending Yale Div and how it is a small world and such.
Moments later, I had this thought that we could do something really nice for them and also help us out with an up and coming issue if we offered them our two bicycles (Megan and mine) as a pay it forward offering and so that they would not have to be without a bike or worry about trying to get theirs fixed.
I have just bought two recumbent bikes on EBay from a guy in Houston. We figured we were on our way through there and would pick them up on the way. My regular 21 speed road/mountain bike has been hurting my shoulders and wrists for years and I wanted to have the sit down on and pedals forward type for years as well. This trip has afforded us the luxury of time to bike but it wasn’t all that much fun when I hurt afterward.
Seeing that we were just two weeks away from Houston and getting our newer bikes there, we offered our bikes to our new friends. After a bit of discussion and them trying them on for size and convincing them that we did not want anything (money) for them but just wanted to help them out and have our bikes go to someone who would use them, we all agreed and made the gifting official.
They were on their way to a month long campground host volunteer position in northern Florida and were amazed and very happy to have the bikes to use there. I love it when things just work out this way. I was wondering what the heck we were going to do with those bikes once we got our new ones.Issue Resolved in a really nice way!

Three nights at Big Lagoon and all that means!

2008-03-03T13:35:00.000-06:00

After we left Eden Gardens, we drove all another 70 miles or so to the eastern side of Pensacola and stopped at an official road side pull off along side of the Pensacola Bay. It was very windy and unusually so, being parked, this was to our advantage (not so great while we are not driving this big tin box down the road) as it had brought out the wind surfers to the bay. We watched them for a 1/2 an hour or so and made plans to try that strenuous but fun looking activity in the near future.
While stopped, I did my usual scan of the towing situation to make sure all was well and to my surprise or dismay, it wasn't. The tow dolly had broken where the long arm that attaches to the hitch joins to the bar that acts as the axle. This is not good. It is the connection that holds the whole thing together. The integral ramps were basically dragging on the ground (also not good). I decided to try and make it the last 20 miles as it was and had my dear brother (always ready to help out) look for welders in the yellow pages on line (in Pensacola). We made it about another mile but every time I step of the gas a little the weight shifted rearward and forced the ramps back down to dragging on the ground. We stopped as soon as we could and unloaded the car from the dolly and Megan followed me in the car the rest of the way to the camp, Big Lagoon State Park. This park is beautiful and very limited in camping (75 sites), well maintained and very friendly.

With the help from the list of welders my brother sent and asking the rangers who they would call, we found and made contact we a guy who had a mobile unit and could come to us. One of the rangers, Chris, happened to be working on the water connection at our site and not only recommended this guy but also made the call for me to his wife, Jennifer, who runs the office and put us together. She was just as accommodating as anyone could be and I knew in the first few seconds of talking to her that we had found, serendipitously, the right people. I made arrangements to send her some pictures via email that I had taken to allow them to see what was required prior to coming out to our site. (And she didn’t even laugh that I had taken pictures of my broken tow dolly) She called back within an hour of getting them and discussing the job and told me that her husband Gerry could stop out that afternoon after he left the site he was working on at a local college. That time didn't work for us but we made arrangements for the next evening for him to stop out and fix it on site.
I knew taking the pictures and bringing them on my lap top to a local podunk welder was gonna seem like, "geek boy has a weldin problem" but I didn't want to drag the damn tow dolly all over town trying to find someone to fix it. SO, this on site gig really worked out swell and saved me a little hometown embarrassment as well.
The next morning we got up sort of early and made our way back to the Naval Air Museum. This is the home base of the famous Blue Angles flying team. We spent most of the day here after having gotten there early enough to get a spot on the one hour bus tour of the air strip aircraft restored museum section. This air museum is an amazing place particularly from a historic perspective. Even if you are not military minded the history and expansion of flying machines and the extremely articulate manner and methods used to put back together and maintain these aircraft is something of a wonder. The museum aircraft restoration shop and project is completed by volunteers. And they are damn good at what they do. I was impressed. The inside aspect of the museum is huge and immaculate. There are a variety of displays honoring aircraft, military operations, flight simulators, and the history of the Navy. I was moved by the Vietnam Prisoners of War display and documentary, even though McCain was a featured POW on the film. If you get a chance to see this place, don’t miss it!
On site there is also a full time educational arm of the museum, staffed by two full time teachers, that brings 6th, 7th and 8th graders into the facility for varying length programs through out the school year and teaches them jet engine propulsion, actual jet flight simulation, advance mathematics and physics. This was and amazing opportunity for these students and the teachers were very proud to be able to bring this to students.
The welding repair took place later that day as my new friend Gerry from “On Demand Welding” in Pensacola stop in with his working partner, Trey, and did what they do best. These were two of the nicest guys I have met on this trip. Just a pleasure to be with! Thanks for that guys! Welding repair handled with style we were ready to go and feeling confident.
I don’t wish anybody any welding repair issues but if you have one and you happen to be in northern Florida. Call On Demand. You’ll make a new friend too.The next and final day at Big Lagoon, we spent in the campground. Jasper and I took his metal detector that he got for Christmas and headed down to the beach to find some Spanish Doubloons’ while Megan enjoyed some quite time at the campsite. After three plus fun hours, we had found several hundred pop tops of various vintage an entire coke can, buried 7” under, 3 fishing weights and one dollar and eighty two cents in miscellaneous change. It made me wonder how much money and trash is actually buried everywhere just below the surface in the crust of our planet. It won’t be very difficult for the future archeologist to find our artifacts.

Big Lagoon State Park!

2008-02-28T16:21:00.000-06:00

We left St George Island State Park and headed west for a two night stay at a private campground that was supposed to have everything (according to their description) that would have Jasper be a happy boy for those nights. I guess you can write anything you want and never have to update it.

Needless to say it was OK but they only thing that worked for us there was the fact that They had a basketball court for Jazz and me to shoot hoops and that the immediate neighbors were nice. The place had been recently and continually dumped on, rain wise, so it was very damp through out the park. We got there late the first day only to find our site had already been taken, by someone who drove in and was just as confused by the sign sheet left out for everyone arriving after the office closes, as we were. I, with the help of a friendly passerby, found the on site maintenance man, and after some personal effort he got a site up and running for us and we managed to get set up and have some friendly conversation with the neighbors before dark.

I noticed while taking the car off the dolly that one of the, not so great anyway, tires was real low on air. So....

The next day was spent doing function things. We had to do laundry and decided to have it done in town, twenty miles away in Panama City. While going there I decided to get new tires for the dolly and have that ready to go, no more worries. After a bit I found a company that sold almost my size tires and got them mounted while we were doing the laundry. It is days like this when my romantic version of this trip has a tendency to slip away a little and I have to actively recreate a vision of what I want this trip to be and accept that things are going to happen and that's all part of it. There is a theme for me in here! I am still discovering how to be with things when they don't work out the way I think they should. Probably no real surprise for some of you but an on going source of surprise for me. GO figure!

That all went well enough. We now have clean clothes and new dolly tires. We spend the next day lounging a bit and cleaning house and playing some B Ball and walking on the beach. But a cold front is moving in and my body has finally acclimated, to some degree, and it feels cold with the stiff wind blowing from the Gulf. We make the best of it but, Megan and Jasper both voice their dislike of the place we are staying. As we travel around, we find, certain places have a very different feel. Some are OK to visit, some are OK to stay at and others are you have got to be kidding me, no way we are stopping or staying.

We loaded up the car on the dolly after dark that last night. There were weather reports of severe thunder storms and hail for the morning and they aren't kidding when they say severe. They predicted 60 mph winds and we got then along with a sizable downpour. We were very glad we had already loaded and closed up.

We got on the rod then heading for Big Lagoon, inside the city limits of high class Pensacola. This park is beautiful and very limited in camping (75 sites), well maintained and very friendly.

I want to let you know that Florida just a fabulous job of maintaining and operating all of the sate parks. It has been an extreme pleasure, consistently, to stay in them. You can count on them for there stated attributes and beyond. All of the rangers and other employees have been so friendly and helpful as well as the volunteer park hosts. Hope you get the chance to enjoy them your self some time.

On the way here we stopped at another day use state park called Eden Gardens. I will leave you with some of the photos of this beautiful, once privately owned, estate.

I have to go know to meet the welder who is repairing our tow dolly with the new tires. If came apart on the way over to Pensacola.

"The difference between an adventure and an atrocity is attitude"

St. George Island

2008-02-25T11:58:00.001-06:00

Saturday Morning we left Lake City and continued actually heading true West for the time on this trip. We headed to St. George Island on the pristine, emerald coast of the Gulf of Mexico in northern Florida. We stayed on the Island in the same named state park. One of the nicest we have been in. Unfortunately we could only get one night there.

Megan and I were sick from food poisoning all day Saturday but I was so struck by it that by noon on Saturday all I could do was lie down. I was hammered by it all night until 4:30 AM Sunday when it finally had run its course....

As you can see by the picture, our being affected by food poisoning didn't stop Jazz from enjoying "one of the best Smore's he has ever had."

This left me, finally, able to move and to make a concerted attempt to enjoy some of the time on this (what I had heard until this moment) beautiful island. So, on Sunday morning we headed down to the beach and sat in the fold out chairs until noon. We then went and broke camp and got out of our site but returned to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. We met and Dad and Son, on the beach, from Tallahassee who had been camping there for the weekend. We hung with them and the the kids enjoyed swimming and exploring in the salty gulf waters. At around 3:30 we headed to the RV to head out west a bit further over to Mexico Beach, Florida as we head on and aiming to be out of Florida by Mid Week. The water and sand and bright clear sky's and the reasonably limited population of tourist in these coastal towns make them perfect spots to be in the winter.

"I think if you click on it you can enlarge it"
If you look just to the left and over the top of Jasper's friend Jake you can see one of the many dolphins that swim by just 50 feet or so off shore. The boys actually got to within 15 feet of them but I wasn't there to get the picture. You can see it on the Picassa site listed in the My Profile section to the upper right of the blog page.

Here is Jazz riding his bike on the beach and obviously thru the shallow tidal pool left just as high tide is starting to come in.