Week Three, The Cliff’s Notes

A week of intense travel, unbearable heat, and a complete lack of cell phone reception has caused me to fall rather behind on my blogging, but here are some highlights for your reading enjoyment:

*Lake Powell (Page, AZ) was stunningly beautiful and provided a landscape that felt almost prehistoric with the surrounding desert and mountains looming in the background. We had only one full day there, and decided to spend in splashing around in the lake. I wished I’d been able to bring my camera on our lake adventure, but I was worried about it surviving the extreme heat (our frisbee melted in the back of our car). I did, however, manage to snap these two images, the first of the lake (and the beach where we swam), and the second, of a very tired Toddler (sans pants) asleep in the wagon after a few hours at the lake.


*Because Page, AZ wasn’t hot enough, we then traveled to Lake Mead, NV, where temps were around 111 degrees and the air was dry enough to dehydrate my contact lenses on the surface of my eyes after only a few minutes spent outside. Even the water out of the cold tap was scalding hot, because, you know, desert.

*Though Lake Mead was beautiful and the lights of Las Vegas, just 30 minutes away, were tempting, we decided that we’d be happier moving toward or next stop in Groveland, CA, just outside Yosemite National Park.

*A grueling day’s drive through Death Valley brought us as far as Fresno, where we decided on an impromptu night in a hotel. An indoor shower, a night swim in the hotel’s outdoor pool, and a little mindless television was just what the doctor ordered. We left the next morning for Yosemite (about 2.5 hours away) feeling refreshed and grateful for our mobile home, even as we were thrilled to have had a night away from it.

*The last hour of the drive to Yosemite was through the most beautiful, winding, mountainous roads (with no guardrail). It made for an incredible view, but we were very relieved that we weren’t trying to navigate in the dark, when we already exhausted, and with no cell phone service should we have run into trouble.

*The Teen is back!! After two weeks traveling in Europe with a friend’s family, she flew out to rejoin us for the rest of the trip. Amelie flew with her, and the last few days were spent touring beautiful Yosemite and reveling in family togetherness before A returned home to the east coast.

*We left Yosemite yesterday afternoon for Shasta, CA. Our first long travel leg with all five of us in the camper was a success, and we made excellent time, even with a long stopover in Sacramento to have lunch with a friend.

Moab, UT: A Photo Diary

Moab, UT –> Page, AZ

Our adventures continue! We loved many things about groovy little Moab, UT, but it turns out that we’re not so crazy about vacationing in the desert. In fact, I spent the better part of yesterday morning feeling frustrated by our inability to take advantage of all the incredible biking and hiking trails, or do much of anything but sit in front of the air conditioner. Moab is an outdoor enthusiast’s paradise, but the truth is, it’s simply too hot and dry during this time of year to do much of anything before 5pm.

Fortunately, we’d been tipped off by the waitress at the sushi restaurant the night before about a semi-hidden swimming spot that’s a favorite among the locals. So hand-drawn map in hand, we set off yesterday afternoon in search of a place to cool off. A short drive and a brief hike down into the canyon led us to a stream of fresh water that flowed directly from the Colorado River, over rocks of all sizes and pooling in a series of consecutive wading and swimming holes. The Tween and I hiked up and down the stream, stopping in various spots to admire the scenery or play in the soft sand beneath our feet. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and just what we needed to keep us from going insane in the heat of the day.

By the time we get back to the car, it was cool enough to go explore the famed Arches National Park. This stop on our journey was a last-minute change in itinerary (while in Durango, we decided to bag the Grand Canyon during this hottest and most touristy time of year and check out Arches instead), so none of us knew much about this beautiful and fascinating part of the country. Thank goodness for the Visitor’s Center! The guide there helped us map out a tour through the park that allowed us to cover a lot of ground by staying in our car on the main road, but involved two short hikes to get closer views of several of the more famous arches. We decided to put the Toddler in the hiking backpack for the steeper of the two hikes, and I can tell you that climbing that mountain in 100 degree heat with 50lbs of kid/water/gear on my back was no small feat, but totally worth it. The view was stunning and the arches truly are a geological wonder worth appreciating up close and personal.

Post-Arches, we rounded out the evening with another trip to the sushi restaurant (best sushi ever in the land-locked desert–who knew?) and ice cream from the local brewery. This morning, we managed to squeeze in another swim at the stream before hooking the car to the camper and heading out of town.

Next stop: Lake Powell in Page, AZ!

Durango, CO: A Photo Diary

Durango, CO —> Moab, UT

After 3 incredible nights in Durango, we are off to Moab, UT! It seems that every leg of our adventure gives us a new favorite vacation spot and Durango was no exception. The past few days have been spent horseback riding through the San Juan National Forest, fly fishing high up in the Rockies, journeying to the historic mining town of Silverton, CO via steam engine, visiting with L’s dear friend Jen, a longtime resident of Durango, eating delicious food, and generally having good, clean family fun. I keep marveling at how this trip is bringing our already close family even closer and am thoroughly enjoying getting to know our kids on new levels. They’re growing and changing so fast, it’s a true gift to be able to spend this kind of concentrated time with them.

The other night, we found ourselves with nearly two hours to kill before dinner, so we found a park in the center of town and spent the time playing with the various sports equipment we had in the trunk of the car. It was such a simple activity, and one that we could easily do at home, too, but I can’t remember the last time I made time for such a thing. Our regular routine requires us to adhere to a strict schedule in order to accomplish everything that we want or need, and the consequence is a distant lack of casual, unplanned, lighthearted fun. Therefore, the short term goal is to take more advantage of parks and green spaces along our route (and indeed, the Tween and I have been logging some serious frisbee action since our impromptu evening in the park), but the long term goal to be more relaxed and present in my own life is much greater. The saying, “they’re only young once” is really ringing true for me right now, and I want to find a way to maintain at least a bit of the vacation mentality once we’re back to the grind of work and school, with laundry piling up and a seemingly endless To Do list.

We’re less than an hour from our destination and landscape is really starting to change now. Hello, Utah!!

Lake Pueblo State Park: a Photo Diary

The order of these is a little screwed up, but you can get the idea….

Kanopolis, KS: a Photo Diary

Well, we weren’t in love with the campground at Kanopolis State Park, but we did spend one stellar morning at the lake, hula hooping, building sandcastles, and playing badminton and paddleball. Note the sand mega church, constructed by another group on the beach, along with several crucifixes and other religious imagery.

Lake Pueblo, CO —> Durango, CO

As I type this on my phone, we are driving through the Rocky Mountains, en route to Durango, CO from Lake Pueblo, CO. I just woke from a brief siesta to find a drastic change in landscape as we climb higher and higher, through sleepy little towns set against a backdrop that is truly breathtaking.

It was during our stay in Pueblo that we really settled into a rhythm of traveling and being together, and the point where RV life stopped feeling so mysterious and began to seem sort of ordinary. Not that it doesn’t also feel special, and certainly different from life at home, but we’re getting the hang of structuring our days so that they feel both leisurely and exciting, structured, and lazy. We’re figuring out how to find activities that are fun for all of us, despite significant age differences, and discovering a freedom that comes with being on vacation: We eat when we’re hungry, even if that means venturing out for dinner at 9:30, when almost everything is closed, and go to bed when we’re tired, usually around midnight. Our regular routine feels light years away and it’s been wonderful.

We’re also getting more and more comfortable with the RV and packing everything in for a day-long drive is getting faster and smoother. Several days ago, we realized that we weren’t so crazy about Kanopolis, KS (the campsites were crazy crowded, and we appeared to be surrounded by fundamentalist churchgoers, who spent the majority of the day getting drunk and constructing religious imagery out of sand on the nearby beach). So at 5pm, we decided to head towards Pueblo, CO, our next scheduled destination, and we were packed and on the road in half an hour. Given that it took us several hours to go through the same procedures before leaving Deep Creek Lake, MD, this feels significant.

Fortunately, Lake Pueblo State Park was exactly what we hoped it would be: Beautiful, expansive, and featuring countless ways to enjoy the Great Outdoors. In the last four days, we’ve biked, fished, rented a pontoon boat, and tried jet skiing for the first time. We also got our first taste of southwestern cuisine and enjoyed he best barbecued ribs (with a honey-bourbon glaze!) on earth…twice. WordPress isn’t letting me upload pictures right now, but I’ll try again in a separate post.

Lake of the Ozarks, MO: A Photo Diary

Fishing, Vortex-style

As many of you know, some of us* on this trip are avid fisherfolk. For your learning pleasure, here’s a handy guide to how we do things around here:

1. Locate body of water.

2. Rent a vessel, such as a pontoon boat, or merely set up camp by water’s edge with at least 27 different rods, 5 tackle boxes, and the rest of the gear necessary to really look the part.

3. Consult with guy at nearest bait shop for no less than 45 minutes, and emerge with enough bait to catch all of the fish. Ever. In the history of time.

4. Arrive back at fishing locale and begin! Plan to spend between 4 and 7 hours laser-focused on this activity.

5. Note plethora of fish jumping and taunting you from just beneath the surface of the water.

6. Lose your bait and/or your tackle by snagging your line on a patch of leaves, tree branch, lawn chair, or fishing dock. Repeat.

7. Furrow your brow and make confident statements about catching dinner.

8. Admit to inquiring passers-by that you are not having much success with the fish, which, by this point, are full-gills laughing at you from just an arm’s length away.

9. Listen to said passers-by brag about how they caught fish by the hundreds just an hour ago, and how they had to stop due to space limitations.

10. Ask about their bait and learn that they’d been using the only bait NOT recommended or sold at the bait shop.

11. Bid the passers-by a cheerful adieu. Swear under your breath as soon as they’re out of earshot.

12. Keep your nose to the grindstone (or fishing dock, rather) for another hour or two before packing it in and heading home.

13. Place styrofoam containers of bait in the refrigerator in such a way that they will inevitably be mistaken for food later.

14. Eat a hotdog.

15. Kick back with a cold beer and fantasize about the next day’s fishing adventure.

*(not me)