Summer

I’m trying to write outside in the screen house here by the river on this beautiful cool pre-fall summer day. But of course, a lawn mower starts up. It’s also a perfect day for mowing at the end of this rainy summer here in Minnesota. The river is still full as it heads south which is, of course, the direction that we are beginning to think of going…after we take a sideways route across Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula. This is our last weekend here at Mississippi Riverwood.

Full moon over the river

Not much is planned for this weekend except for Niece Aleatha’s wedding reception which is being held at the same location as the wedding was last April. She has had a busy summer and baby Marjorie Helen is getting chubby and strong already. I haven’t seen her since July, but FB pictures tell me how much she has grown.

 It is good to have a fairly quiet weekend as we have not had one for quite a while. Two weeks ago, we packed up the camper and headed up north to the Minnesota Blue Grass and Old Time Music Festival at El Rancho Manana. Brothers Ludwig and Doug were there as usual and Greg, Peggy and Edie joined us. Great music, good food,

Breakfast at the festival

good company and late nights are the typical experiences, only made better these last 2 years because with Edie I can go and hang out in the family area and enjoy watching her string beads and paint or walk through the magnificent mud on the road up to Old Wash Machine Field where my brothers camp. We can’t camp there anymore unless we leave the camper behind.

At Deb's houe

Then last weekend we headed up to Duluth with Greg’s family to see the Tall Ships Festival. Niece Deb and her family are on vacation out west and let us stay at her house. She has a wonderful old two-story house in the city. It is filled with the comfortable feeling of their lives, books and plants and a basket of rocks, with 2 cats we took care of while we were there. Her 2 teenage children let us use their rooms. They had found some toys that Edie enjoyed.

This weekend we just have the reception, and we will have dinner with Greg and Peggy Sunday night at their home. Edie starts pre-school on Monday, so they are moving to the school schedule. Greg will be 40 next week. So, we better celebrate that. Don’s gift to Greg this year was in the form of labor. They painted on Kelly’s house, and Greg got the money for both their work and purchased the supplies to move his fence. Then the two of them spent a couple of days getting that done. They also spent a day putting a slide topper on the big slide-out on our camper.

The Unicorn

The winner (I was the judge)

Baby

Of course, I just babysat while they were doing all of that. That includes camping in the living room. I don’t fit in the tent along with all the luggage, so I slept with my head in the tent. I competed in a beauty contest with a unicorn, Barbie and Baby. Edie won the contest of course. She was hands down the most beautiful.

Barbie

Grandma

Brother Jake was discharged from the hospital to the Forensic Nursing Home in St. Peter. His condition is somewhat better. He is fed through a feeding tube and gets oxygen. He still has pneumonia and is very weak and bedridden. The bright side is that the nursing home is state funded and has adequate resources to provide good nursing care and it is a comfortable, clean and well lit. Overall, a very nice facility. He may actually recover. Kay and I met with the social worker, and she seemed to genuinely care about him. We should all get such good care if we find ourselves in that situation.

Our cousin, Jimmy Dunlap died last weekend. He is not the first in our generation to die. We have other cousins who have died from cancer in their 50’s. Those were just not right. But Jimmy was 70. He was a few months younger than brother Bob. They were the first 2 children in our generation back in 1945. Jim was the personification of tall, dark and handsome. He was also big enough to take me by the hands and swing me around until I was dizzy back when I was 8 or 9. He and his sister Kathy spent days at our farm, and we spent days up north at Camp Deer where they lived. But there is no funeral now. They will have a memorial event next spring. I hope we are back in the state for that. The week after Labor Day we will be up at Camp Deer for the Jug Band Boogie where we can give our condolences to Em (Jim’s wife) and Norman (his little brother).

Labor Day weekend we are planning a family reunion by Brainerd. You wouldn’t think we would need a reunion a week after a wedding reception but that is just how things work out. After the Jug Band Boogie, we will head out east and then south and west to visit friends in Illinois and Missouri before going back to Texas.

Here’s some poetry or something

Running in Flip Flops

I wear flip flops most of the time now and

Often, I have to run

A foot race with barefoot Edie, laughing all the way

Catching that girl when she tries to get away…

Yes, I can still outrun her.

To get to the other end of the camper to check for obstacles

To the driver’s window to consult with my driver

Then back to the other side to check the branches of the tree

Then to the back so he doesn’t go too far.

No, we are not yelling at each other.

Just trying to communicate.

Yes, I run in flip-flops even though it is not recommended.

Writing prompts:

Running in flip flops

Leaving Minnesota

My son is 40

2 funerals and a wedding followed by a family reunion?

An Existential Crisis

A long time ago before I did much of anything as an adult, I was a French major at the University of Minnesota, so I made these associations.

My brother Jake is about 2 ½ years older than me. My sister Jean is between us so we weren’t all that close in age. I started out to write a humorous post here but in order to put the humor in context, I have to write about Jake and that is a sad story. The summer I turned 18 and was about to head off to the University to major in French, Jake was discharged from the Navy because he was disabled. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia which I knew about at the time because I had just completed a one semester high school class in psychology. When I read the letter my mother showed me, even I could diagnose him, and it was like I lost him then. That was 49 years ago. Fast forward to today. His life took a turn for the worse this year when he was transferred from the VA hospital in St. Cloud, MN where he has spent much of his life, to the Security Hospital in St. Peter, MN. He has not done well there and developed pneumonia and was hospitalized in Mankato, MN about an hour’s drive south of Minneapolis. They managed to save his life and after several days on a respirator in ICU he was transferred to another room where he is being maintained with oxygen, a feeding tube, fluids by IV, a catheter and is completely bedridden. He is conscious and can communicate and knows what’s going on.  

So this is the sad situation that brought my sister Kay and me to go to Mankato to see him and find out what he wants for his life. Not surprisingly, it turns out that he just wants to get out of it, life that is. He has a court appointed guardian and can’t make his own health care decisions so one of our goals was to find out what he wants so we could communicate that to his guardian. We did that and we spent several hours there with him because you see I didn’t lose him 49 years ago and even though many of my experiences growing up with him were pretty negative, as is the case with just about all of my 12 brothers and sisters, he was one of the first people that I knew in my life. It made me very sad, and I wished that I could at least help him be more comfortable.

When Kay and I arrived at his room, we found him as I’ve described above. A young man sitting in the corner of the room is a staff person from St. Peter Security Hospital. He has someone with him 24/7. I guess because they think because of his past behavior that he might pose a threat to hospital personnel. Anyway, both this young man and the one who came to relieve him were both kind and respectful towards Jake and us. It’s probably good for Jake to have someone with him so I won’t complain about them being there. They are also helpful and know what’s going on. When Jake said that he wanted to sit in a chair, the nice young man informed us that physical therapy would be there within the hour and they would get Jake up and sit him in a chair. We tried to make small talk, but Jake wasn’t interested in much of anything except sitting up so we just waited, thinking he might do better once he was sitting up. So, we waited. Jake dozed off and Kay went back to the car to get the crossword puzzle we had been working on. When she came back, she said that she took the stairs down and that she was worried because there was a sign on door at each landing that said, “NO EXIT”. We waited. Jake began asking for Ashley whose name was on the white board as his nurse. We paged her and Heidi (the second name on the board) showed up. She said that Ashley was at lunch and would be back in an hour. Jake told her that he wanted to sit in a chair. She said that PT was going to be there soon to help him sit up. So we waited some more. Jake continued to tell us to get Ashley or Heidi from time to time and we told him that someone would be there soon. Eventually I went to the nurse’s station and asked. They said that they were trying to locate a chair he could sit in so I went back and reported that to Jake. And we waited. These things happened repeatedly over the course of the 3 hours we were there. PT never did show up, and we never did get to meet Ashley. The St. Peter’s staff shift changed and eventually we left because it was getting late. As we walked down the stairs and I saw the NO EXIT sign on every door down 4 flights of stairs it appeared there was no way out. I said to Kay, “Oh my God, we’ve been trapped in an existential play!” And I remembered being a French major in college reading existential plays, “No Exit” by Jean Paul Sartre, and “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett. Google up the plays and read the Cliff Notes or the whole play to understand what we went through that day.

Rivers

(I wrote this a couple of weeks ago... just now getting posted. Pictures to be added later.)

This has been the summer of rivers….

The Mississippi from our back yard

Here at Mississippi Riverwood, the Mississippi is high and flowing fast – for the Mississippi, that is. Most of the time it is in no hurry. It has 1230 miles to drop about 1000 feet to the Gulf of Mexico.

Unlike the rivers from where it originates in Yellowstone Park. Those rivers are in a hurry. As we were driving along somewhere near the Idaho/Montana border, I realized we had left the Snake River

The Snake coming out of the Tetons

behind and were following the Madison and I thought, “Wow! This water is headed to the Mississippi.” And I pondered the scale of the watershed that drains into that river, from where I was over to the other side of Ohio or somewhere. I’m not sure where that divide is but maybe as far as the Appalachians. Those mountain streams we were near, formed from recently melted snow are racing, tumbling down hill

The Yellowstone in Yellowstone NP

The Yellowstone following I94

sometimes dropping 1000 feet in ¼ mile. The Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin join up to form the Missouri River which takes it’s time to cross the Great Plains and the prairies to join the Mississippi in St. Louis. The Yellowstone
passes through Columbus, Laurel and Billings and joins up with the Missouri downstream near the Montana/North Dakota border. Highway 94 follows the Yellowstone to the edge of Montana.

Then we moved Down the Missouri to Pierre, South Dakota where we ate Walleye harvested from that river on its way to St. Louis.

The Colorado at Glen Canyon

The Rio Grand in the RGV

But we started the year in the Rio Grande Valley, just a few miles from where it finds its way into the Gulf. That place doesn’t look like a valley. There are no great hills or bluffs going down to the river. The land is flat there. We found the Rio Grande again in Albuquerque where it looks more like a normal river. Somewhere through Arizona or Southern Utah, we came into the Colorado River watershed. The Colorado and its tributaries have carved out amazing and beautiful canyons and waterfalls in its hurry to get to Mexico and the Gulf of California. It needs to move a lot of water to take care of so many thirsty people and their bountiful crops as it travels along the California-Arizona border. We saw that last year. This year we spent time near the Green River before it joins the Colorado in Canyonlands National Park in Utah and the Virgin River in Zion National Park. In those places they warn of flash floods where a river can rise 20 feet suddenly and if you’re in a canyon, you have nowhere to go so the river will do whatever it wants with you, and you’ll probably never get to tell about the experience.

Salt Lake City has the Jordan River which goes to the Great Salt Lake which goes nowhere. Kind of a landlocked watershed, I guess.

As we traveled over the Wasatch Mountains into Idaho, we came into the Snake River Plain. The Snake and its aquifer feed Idaho. If you’ve eaten potatoes from Idaho, you probably got a little bit of the Snake River. It comes out of the Tetons and snakes its way through central Idaho where it provides abundant water to make Idaho a breadbasket or potato basket, field upon field of potatoes, wheat and some hay for the many cattle. In June green as far as the eye can see. We were in Pocatello on June 5 which is the 40^th anniversary of the Teton Dam failure. That was the news headline. On that day in 1976, the Teton Dam collapsed and the reservoir emptied into the Snake River at a rate of 2 million gallons per second. Only 11 people died but the town of Rexburg now has a flood museum which was closed on the Saturday afternoon we were there. All of the towns along the river that we visited (Pocatello, Idaho Falls and Rexburg) have their flood story to tell. The Snake joins the Columbia River in Oregon when it leaves Idaho and heads over to the Pacific Ocean. We traveled along that River on our way out of Oregon last summer.

Where we’re parked on the Mississippi now, we are about 180 miles from Lake Itasca where the river starts and already here, north of Minneapolis, it is a big river.

I last posted on this blog from Fort Pierre, South Dakota. Here’s where we’ve been since then.

July 9 – Finstead’s Oak Haven Campground, New Ulm, Minnesota

July 10-13 – Dakotah Meadows RV Park by Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake, Minnesota

July 14 – Reunion with college friends Jerry and Colleen Bahma, Jim and Lisa Fallencheck and Larry and Marge Teig at the Bahmas in Spicer, Minnesota

July 15 – present at Mississippi Riverwoods RV Park in Otsego, Minnesota. We plan to stay here until September 1 and begin moving north before heading south again. We will take the rig up to the MBOTMA festival in a couple of weeks and then return here. 

It’s nice to be staying in one place for a while. Here we are a 45-minute drive from Greg’s place if the traffic is cooperating. Since we are on the route “up north” on Friday and Sunday afternoons it can take longer. But on a weekday, Greg can make the trip pretty easily or we can go into the city. We have a screen house on a patio in which we have set up our table and chairs. The table adjusts to a low height making it ideal for art projects (Edie is into watercolors) or now writing on the computer. It’s a little bright but I’m making it work. I get to watch the river and enjoy the breeze in the shade.

I feel some pressure to try to get to see her as often as possible since it seems our time in Minnesota is so short. I’ve agreed to head out right after the Jug Band Boogie the week after Labor Day again this year. We’ll be going east through Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula and then down through Michigan to Illinois. We have our obligatory trip through Illinois and Missouri to visit friends every fall before we head to Texas.

Mystic Lake and then some

Here is where we've been

June 20 Buffalo Campground – Targhee National Forest, Island Park, ID – beautiful setting

June 21 – Buffalo Crossing RV Park, West Yellowstone, Montana- right next to the park

June 22 – Bakers Hole Campground, Gallatin National Forest, West Yellowstone – beautiful setting on the Madison River

June 23-24 – Itch-Kep-Pe City Park Campground, Columbus, MT – No hookup but big sites and on the Yellowstone River

June 25-July 2 – Mountain Range RV Park, Columbus, MT -

July 3 -  Riverside Campground and RV Park – Belle Fouche, SD – Ugh. Dog poo. Crowded

July 4 – Happy Holiday RV Resort, Rapid City, SD – very crowded

July 5-8 – Fort Pierre Motel, Fort Pierre, SD – practical for fishing

When we leave Columbus today, I will take out a new color highlighter to trace our journey. July 1 is the anniversary of our journey. Two years ago we finished wrapping up our affairs in Illinois and headed north to begin putting together our life on the road.

On July 1, ten of us hiked back out of the mountains…. 3 miles around Mystic Lake then some steep switchbacks up the mountain and a long hike down-hill through rocks and switchbacks for another 3 miles till we were all safely back to the trail head. I measure success by the safe return of all the hikers and once more we all made it. Not that I’ve ever been on the trip when anyone was injured but in my imagination it could so easily happen. From the time that we begin planning a trip… in this case it was in September last year until everyone is safely down the mountain, I have some anxiety that increases in the weeks before the trip and doesn’t go away until we are all safely home. Now I can sleep soundly again.

Of course it is worth it. Mystic Lake never fails. We spent five days amidst indescribable beauty. I will let the pictures tell of that. We ate delicious trout cooked on an open fire. We took a day hike over to Silver Lake. We set up the cribbage board on a makeshift table under the tarp shelter that we built when it was raining. It didn’t rain too much so there wasn’t much cribbage played. Don found a couple of trout holes, and they brought in 2 meals of delicious trout. These were bigger trout than we have ever caught up there. Nephew Andrew fed us with large pots of soup, cheese and salami in addition to the trout.

Here is what I wrote about the hike up the mountain the day after….

“Everything

        in the

     universe

     has

       rhythm.

Everything

            dances”

    Maya Angelou

That is the title of this journal. Today, 6/28/16 I am sitting on a log just down from our camp on Island Lake in Montana. On Sunday, 6/26 we made the hike up the mountain and around Mystic Lake and across the log jam to where we are now – Don, Ludwig, Greg, Kelly, Ken, Lori, Paige, Andrew, Stasha and me. We are here till Friday, 7/1 when we will make the return trip – a trip of a lifetime. Eleven years ago, when we came up last, I thought that I would never come back. I said to Greg that in 11 years, Edie will be Paige’s age, and you can bring her here. I doubt I will make that trip. But we are here now.

There were doubts along the trail but today I think everyone is glad they came. If we can all return with no serious injury the trip will be an awesome success. That is my only criteria. So here I am at Island Lake but I will address Mystic Lake which is always the name of this trip.

Mystic Lake,

We always brag on you when we extol this trip and you never fail. When we know our pack is too heavy, our shoulders and hips ache, our legs are so weak we don’t think we can take another switchback, we come around the corner and there you are below us, nestled down in the mountain, blue as blue. We can hear the whisper of the dam. Far below, we can see people sitting on your beach beckoning us down…blessed down. The switchbacks on this side are steep and rocky. We have to be careful with our tired legs but now we have gravity working for us. We go down to you with renewed vigor. We lay those cursed packs in a pile and go to our people for rest and the refreshment of your cold clear water. Now the dam is a roar and you welcome us. This is our reward for now.

And then comes the hard part. Our leader is not content to be here because on your other side beyond the log jam that separates you from Island Lake are beautiful level camp sites among the Fir and Lodgepole pines. Our hike is not over. So, we trudge on somewhat renewed and hopeful because we got a drink of your fresh cold water. We can’t tarry too long as the day is getting late, and we have to move along. Now we are getting discouraged again especially as the trail takes us up hill again for a while. We get another break at Huckleberry Bridge to give us one more boost before the last leg. We load up our packs and set our again – quiet and determined, most of us trying a little stoicism. Then we come to the log jam. Even for those of us who have done this before, we think, “This is STUPID!” But our leader, with the stoutest of our group has already found a way across and taken our youngest member. We have no other choice. Let me describe the log jam. That’s just what it is. Old dead trees have fallen in the lake and drifted to clog up the narrow river that runs from Island Lake into Mystic Lake. There is a small soggy island in the middle and on the other side of the island another log jam only longer. Many of the logs are solidly wedged together, some are floating and some are rotten. It is slow going but even the most novice of hikers who have made it this far can make it across... if they take their time and have some guidance from the braver and more well balanced… and especially if one of them helps carry their pack, even though their legs are shaky from exhaustion. The sun is getting low and thank God the cook has found the firepit and has started a fire when the last of us finally straggle across. We can set up our tents, air up our sleeping pads and lay out our sleeping bags…. Heaven.

Then we can join the others around the campfire and enjoy the fajitas made from steak and fresh vegetables thanks to Andrew and Stasha Switzer.

Now, Mystic Lake, you can continue your magic promise to restore us so that someday we will actually come back.

                                                                                        Love from the hikers

Our Billing's hosts, Bill and Carol Ruff

Fishing lessons

The log jam

A beautiful picture

Camp

Ken's fish

The after picture

Today, a week has passed since we came down from the Mountain and I am sitting in my camper in Pierre (pronounced peer), South Dakota. We’ve met up with some of our friends that we made in Texas, Ray and Cyndi who live in Omaha and their friends Harvey and Doreen who live in Belle Fouche, SD. 

We are at the Fort Pierre Motel where our friends are staying. We have full hook-ups here in the parking lot.  The reason we are here is because of the Walleye fishing which is good. The guys caught some walleye yesterday and we took them to a restaurant where they cooked our fish and served it to us along with a salad and potato. They are fishing again today and tomorrow so hopefully we will have some walleye in our freezer when we get home. While the guys are fishing, I’m doing some sightseeing and shopping with Doreen and Cyndi. I’m also checking out the Little Spa on the Prairie for a massage. We are here for 4 days then we will stop by our “home” in Madison, SD, pick up our mail, renew my library card and take care of our vehicle registration before we finally get to go home to Minnesota and Edie.  

Pierre is the second smallest state capital next to Montpelier, VT. The population is 13,600. Around here they have the Missouri River dammed up creating lakes in which they have a lot of fish. State government and walleye fishing are the only reasons for this town to be here. Tomorrow, we will tour the capital building, and I will learn more about my state’s government. It seems like the right thing to do. I have seen no evidence that the legislature is in session, so I expect not much to be going on. The town seems to be thriving with small businesses and shops downtown. I guess that goes with politicians, lobbyists and walleye fishermen. Their spouses and partners need something to do out here in the prairie. It’s actually nice to be back in the Midwest with big thunderstorms and a little moisture in the air.

Before all this happened, we spent some time at Yellowstone Park and enjoyed some waterfalls in Idaho on my birthday. Here are some pictures.

The view from the river walk in Idaho Falls, Idaho

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

SLC ----- Idaho

May 23-29 – KOA Salt Lake City, Utah

May 30-31 – Wasatch View Estates and RV Park, Ogden, Utah

June 1 – Chubbuck Wal-Mart Supercenter Parking Lot, Chubbock, Idaho

June 2-8 – Bannock County Fairgrounds, Pocatello, Idaho

June 9-13- Jefferson County Lake Campgrounds in Rigby, Idaho.

June 14-19 – Juniper Campground in Ririe, Idaho

June 3

So that is where we’ve been since I last posted. Today it is only June 3 and we plan to be here at the fairgrounds until next Wednesday. That’s our plan anyway. Today we have to fold up the camper and take it in to get the front end alignment done as one of our front tires is wearing unevenly. We are hopeful that this will make it safe for us to continue to Billings, MT where we will likely get all of our tires replaced as they are getting kind of old. This will cost as much as many of the cars that we have purchased in our life.

Since I last wrote, we’ve had some wonderful times. We stayed for a week at the KOA in Salt Lake City which is where Kelly and Jason came to see us. They flew in from Philadelphia on Friday, 5/27 and stayed until Monday. So we got to meet Jason and are pretty pleased that he seems to be a good guy and he really likes Kelly.

When we were traveling through southern Utah we moved frequently never staying in any one place for longer than 3 days. When we got to Salt Lake we stayed for a whole week at the KOA there and that was really nice. We’ve had quite a bit of time to fill since we came into Idaho so we stayed a week in Pocatello. There is not a lot going on there and we were ready to leave when we did. As we get closer to Yellowstone Park though it is harder to find places to stay. Many RV Parks are full. We found a county Park just north of Idaho Falls where we can stay for only 5 consecutive days. Since we don’t have sewer that’s about as long as we can stay in one spot anyway.

June 15

We moved about 15 miles to one of the nicest campgrounds we’ve stayed in. Juniper Campground is about 10 miles northeast of Idaho Falls on the Ririe Reservoir. The RV App, AllStays identifies the campground as being private but the sign up front identifies it as a Department of Interior land. The land is surrounding a good size reservoir. It has the amenities of a well run private RV park – large pull-throughs with full hook-ups, level paved pads, trees trimmed back. The huge amount of space between sites, the price ($18 per night) and the location away from major highways is more like we find in national forest campgrounds. We sit well above the lake which is bordered by a steep canyon with Juniper trees and sage brush framing the top in somewhat arid land. The campground is well irrigated with thick mowed lawns. In this part of Idaho it is easy to forget that this really is a pretty arid climate. There are acres and acres of fields in unending green vistas. Potatoes, wheat and hay with irrigation systems constantly pumping out water with any kind of sprinkler you can imagine. Water spraying into the air shooting out over the fields without regard for loss to evaporation there is so much of it. Eat your heart out California. The abundance of water from the Snake River and the aquifer beneath it make this land the farmer’s dream. To the east and the west, the snow topped mountains with rain clouds above them most afternoons are the lifeblood of this valley. A person could really live here. From where I’m sitting I can see across to the hilltop on the other side of the lake which has windmills lined up across the wheat fields. If you look at Google maps of where I am by Ririe, ID you can see huge green circles which are the fields where they use a sprinkler system which is stationary on one end with a pipe extending out about 2000 feet or so with water jets spraying along the pipe and ending with water shooting out the end another 50 feet (or so). This entire apparatus rotates around the stationary end creating perfect circles of green.

Choir Practice 

This post is likely to end up kind of disjointed since it has been so long since I last wrote. It seems like a long time ago that we spend a good week in Salt Lake City. We were able to get some shopping done and check out the city so that when Kelly and Jason arrived we had some suggestions as to what we should spend our time seeing. The KOA where we stayed is conveniently located by the Utah Transit Authority Green Line for an easy train ride to Temple Square.

We used that when we went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsal on Thursday night and again on Saturday when we toured Temple Square with Kelly and Jason.

The Temple we could not enter

Kelly and me in the Great Salt Lake

We spend some hours getting to know the Church of the Latter Day Saints and touring their beautiful Temple grounds and then checking out their State Capitol and on Sunday we went to Antelope Island State Park in the Great Salt Lake to see that strange environment.

Some of the best time was hanging out at the KOA preparing and eating good food at the picnic table. We were able to get a cabin for Kelly and Jason for their first night but we set up our tent for the next 2 nights. Jason’s first camping experience, probably the softest and easiest camping in the world.. an 8-person tent with 2 twin size Coleman air mattresses assembled into a king sized bed on the soft level grass of a KOA campsite. 

We don’t stay in KOAs very often. We think they are expensive and from our previous experience we found their sites small. They tend to be very well maintained. This was one of the best places we’ve stayed. They have lots of mature trees with good shade. When we needed them to trim some branches for us they sent a cherry picker over and trimmed the trees right away. It is a huge RV park with a lot of staff working the grounds and taking care of things. Definitely not cheap but the location and for what we needed it was ideal. I’m not sure why I think I need to review RV parks. Maybe it’s for the benefit of our fellow RVers who might visit some of the places we’ve been.

After Kelly and Jason left, we moved up to Ogden for a couple of days to get our laundry done and begin getting things ready for our upcoming mountain trip. We found a smaller tent and picked up some lighter air mattresses at a camping outlet store. Then we came to Idaho and have spent the last couple of weeks in the Snake River Plain and I’ve talked about that. We took a day to check out Craters of the Moon National Monument. On our way there we drove by the Atomic Museum at the site of EBR-1 (Experimental Breeder Reactor-1).

Modern communications technology - 1951

It was here 12/5/1951 scientists first generated electricity using atomic energy. They hooked up some light bulbs and were thrilled when they started the reaction and the lights came on. Out here in the middle of nowhere who would have thought we would find such a landmark. But where else would they put a nuclear reactor besides the middle of nowhere. It was really interesting and a nice young intern gave us a guided tour and told the stories of the famous scientists who worked there. It is at Idaho National Laboratory which is part of the U.S. Dept of Energy’s national laboratories that include Argonne back in Illinois.  Who knew?

The Middle of Nowhere

Craters of the Moon National Monument is where the astronauts who went to the moon came to practice their moon landing.

Flowers getting a foothold after the volcano

Volcanos erupted only about 10,000 years ago and the landscape is shaped by the craters and lava flows. Some flowers and plant life are starting to make inroads on the landscape but it still looks like a recent volcanic eruption. 

After we came up to the Idaho Falls area, we took a drive over Teton Pass and had lunch in Jackson, WY. Not far from where we are staying you can begin to see the Tetons in the distance. They don’t look a lot different from this side than they do from the other side.

The Tetons from the back....

While we were in Jackson, we went to check out the Elk Refuge Inn where we stayed back in 1982. It’s still there and hasn’t changed much.  We came out west with some friends with our very small children. When I hear tragic stories about children getting away from their parents I remember keeping an eye on my 3-year-old overlooking canyons at Yellowstone Park. We are all just a second away from being the next Gorilla Pit Mom or Alligator Dad and becoming an internet sensation engendering criticism for our failure as parents. I guess if we can blame the parents we can believe that something like that couldn’t happen to us. Those of us who manage to get our children to adulthood are just lucky.

There isn’t much to say about Orlando that hasn’t been said. Both Don and I have thought about something to write about human nature and about gun laws but so far haven’t written it. Our thoughts are not a whole lot different than what has been expressed by so many others. Would it make a difference if we added our voices sharing our grief and frustration?

First selfie with Grandma-- my family members
will recognize our mother's mouth in this grandma.

There is much in our family to be joyful about. Niece Aleatha with the help of her Doula Mom and team gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby girl on June 4 shortly after her mother had given up and figured she would be eternally pregnant even though that has never happened in the history of the human race. They named her Marjorie Helen after her maternal grandmothers.  Another DOM

(Daughter of Marjorie). Uncle Don had a large supply of hot water if needed even though we are in Idaho. My baby sister is a grandmother!

We are now assembling our packs and getting ready for Mystic Lake. We will be leaving here on Monday to head up toward Yellowstone. We are meeting with Don’s cousin in West Yellowstone for a couple of days and then on to Columbus, Montana where we will await the arrival of “the kids” and Ludwig. This trip is taking just about as much time to get together as it took Aleatha to make a baby…. Just saying.

Utah Utopia

Today (May 21 afternoon) I need to write a bunch of stuff just because I am so grumpy. I didn’t sleep well at all last night with the camper closed up because of the wind and the wind gusting occasionally rocking the camper a little bit. And I was trapped in the back of the camper. The only way out was to crawl over Don and disturb him which I didn’t want to do. No need for both of us to be awake. I’m whining, homesick…. What are you sick for when the only home you have is the one you drive around in. I’m home here in frigging Utah. There is nothing wrong with Utah. It is an amazingly beautiful state with incredible land to see and we have been to see much of it. It’s just that we have been on the move so much never staying for longer than 4 days in any one place. This is what I said that I didn’t want to do. But the other side of this is that we were parked in Wal Mart last night for the wind storm. And it was very comfortable. We walked over to Applebees for dinner and since we were right by Walgreens we took advantage and got our prescriptions filled.  We found that sitting on our bed to watch television is quite comfortable when the camper is closed up.  

So here’s where we’ve been since my last post.

Up where the snow is.

May 10-11 Beaver Canyon RV Park, Beaver, UT

Took a day to drive around and explore the area – drove over a high mountain top past a ski resort from Beaver to Parowan and across the mountains on Hwy. 123 to Panguitch and back to Beaver. We checked out routes to bring the camper across the mountains. That wasn’t it.

                                                                                                 

Our view in Red Canyon Campground

May 12-15 Red Canyon Campground in Dixie National Forest near Bryce NP.

Moved camper to Red Canyon Campround.

Getting back up out of the canyon

A day at Bryce – Hiked from Sunset point to Sunrise point down into the canyon around the hoodoos.

Hoodoos - the trail to the bottom

A kind hiker offered to take our picture
by this scenic hoodoo.

Driving down the wash in Capital Reef

A drive down Scenic Hwy. 12 to Capitol Reef National Park – drive down a wash into Capitol Gorge until the canyon walls were so close together towering over us we chickened out and turned around. Many times here in Utah we could use a good 4-wheel drive vehicle.

The Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument and Kodachrome Basin State Park where we hiked up to Panorama point so we could take a panoramic picture.

Panorama - just like the sign said (Thank you google for creating this panorama from my photos.

Don with his favorite hoodoo.

It's called the Ballerina. I see an Orthodox Priest.

May 16-18, Zion Gate RV Park, Hurricane, UT

A day to do 2 weeks worth of laundry (almost had to buy more underwear) and clean the camper.

A day hiking and exploring Zion Canyon – Riverside walk up to the narrows

Zion 

Watchman Trail to overlook

A drive up Kolab Terrace Road for a different view of Zion.








May 19 Wal-Mart – Hurricane, UT

Shopping

May 20 Wal-Mart – Cedar City, UT

Kolob Canyon on the north end of Zion – Short hike up Timber Creek Overlook Trail

May 21-22 – Jones High Country RV Park, Nephi, UT

Sit on the couch and complain – try to wash diesel fuel out of sweatshirt. Make granola.

Normal life in the slow lane 

I had made reservations at Red Ledge RV Park in Kannaraville, UT for last week but when they called and said I couldn’t have a 50 amp site I changed my mind. I needed to get laundry done and wanted to run my own dryer. That was probably better because Kannaraville is a long way to the main entrance to Zion National Park. The thing was that I had our mail forwarded to us at Red Ledge and also had my brother send me my NOOK that I forgot at his house in Minneapolis along with some mail that was sent to him by accident. It’s complicated. Fortunately the lady at Red Ledge held our mail and we drove through there yesterday on our way north and picked it up. We would have spent the night there instead of Wal-Mart if she had any openings. As it turned out with the high winds we were just as well at Wal-Mart because we needed to keep the slides in on the camper and we were in a convenient place to eat out.

No wonder I’m tired of moving around. This is not the right way to do this but I’m not sure what would work better. We had good reasons for all of the moves. But here we are nearing the big city in anticipation of seeing Kelly and Jason on Friday. 

Newspaper Deprivation, Cell Hell and no God TV

Don has been suffering from Newspaper Deprivation for the most part since we came to Utah. We have our routines. One of Don’s is to head out first thing in the morning and buy a local newspaper, bring it home, drink coffee and read the paper. Even today in Nephi which is just down the road from Salt Lake City, the gas station had not received their newspaper at 7:00 AM. At least they are expecting a paper. For the most part there have been no newspapers, no television signal and no cell phone signal where we were staying. Not even God TV which we can almost always get in English and Spanish. When we were way South by St. George which is a sizable city or here near Salt Lake City, we at least get television on our antenna and can normally get a cell phone signal when we are along Interstate 15. Over by Bryce, we were the couple sitting over breakfast, our devices clutched in our hands, intently reading the small screen, getting what information we could from the outside world on the restaurant’s precious wi-fi signal. You know you would be judging us. Many of the small towns have a weekly paper that comes out on Wednesday in which you can find wedding announcements in which an invitation is extended to anyone who might not have been invited formally and down by St. George Don was able to find USA Today.

Shopping

We had been warned by people who know these things to stock up on any alcoholic beverages before we got to Utah and I did that but who ever would think there might be a place where you can’t get Miller Lite. Well here in Utah, you can’t. We did find a liquor store in Panguitch and they had a small selection of beer so Don settled on drinking Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in the green can for a short time. When we moved the camper over by Zion National Park (and that is another story), we had to take the long road which goes south into Arizona for a while and then comes back up into Utah. We notice both on entering and leaving Arizona that they had nice big liquor stores not far from the border. Well, we were driving the camper and it was never convenient to stop. When we got settled over in Hurricane we found a good size city, St. George just a few miles south and right on the Arizona border. We needed to do quite a bit of shopping so we set aside a day to do that. I said, “I bet we can just drive across the border and find a liquor store”. We decided to make that our first stop. It didn’t quite work out that way. Interstate 15 cuts across the northwest corner of Arizona for about 40 miles before entering Nevada. There was nothing out there. We drove long steep grades down through and up the Virgin River Canyon, with long sections of traffic reduced to one lane for construction. We finally stopped in Littlefield, Arizona where we asked someone. He said the nearest place to buy anything was 8 miles farther in Mesquite, Nevada. We had come that far. Eight miles was nothing. We headed down the road and crossed into Nevada. Everything changed. Mesquite is a thriving desert community with palm trees, a beautiful golf course, condominiums, casinos and the biggest most amazing liquor store I’ve ever seen. 

We found some Miller Lite and checked but they did not have Big Sky Summer Honey… I guess I’ll wait till we get to Montana for that. We passed another big liquor store on our way out of town. So we did make it to Nevada on this trip.

Traveling by RV
You would think we would learn…. When we left Red Canyon Campground over by Bryce to move the camper over by Zion, we took US89, a good two lane scenic highway as far as Mt. Carmel, UT. Don had done his research so he knew we needed to check before we went west on State Hwy 9 about the long tunnel in Zion NP where we found the height limit is 13’2” and if you’re that tall you need to pay a $15 fee in order to drive down the middle of the road. We are 13’4”. No way was that going to work. We didn’t try. But that meant that we drove an additional 100 miles down south through Arizona and back up north to Hurricane and then another 20 miles to the park. They have a first come first serve campground at Zion and for some reason we thought if we got there early enough, like before noon, we might be able to get a site. We took the camper up to Zion through the town of Springdale to the entrance. In Springdale, it was pouring down rain and cars were parked on both sides of the street for miles where visitors to the park left their car to take a shuttle. The streets were crowded with people and narrow. Needless to say when we arrived at the gate, the lady gave us a sticker for our camper that said, “No tunnel” and informed us that if we wanted the first come first serve campground we might be able to get in if we showed up at 7:00 AM. She also told us where we might be able to turn around in the park. So we ran the gauntlet through Springdale again and went to  Hurricane where we found Zion’s Gate, in time for our afternoon nap.

Zion

After we toured Zion's river valley we drove through the famous tunnel and that is where we saw the big horn sheep to finish off a really good day.

On every hike we take, there is at least 1 small lizard who crosses our path. We’ve decided this is probably the same lizard who is somehow finding a way to tag along with us, probably in the car somewhere. He is always with us. 

We’ve seen him in Texas at Palo Dura, in New Mexico in the Sandia Mountains, in Arizona at Petrified Forest NP, and of course in every place we’ve been in Utah.

Every park in Utah has it’s own unique land forms that define it’s character. In Arches it is of course the arches. In Bryce the road travels at the top of the canyon and you walk down to enjoy the thousands of hoodoos, these strange rock formations that jut up out of the landscape. In Zion, the road travels along the river valley with the canyon walls towering above you. My favorite trail was the one that continues where the road ends and follows the Virgin River up into the canyon until it reaches the narrows, the place where the canyon walls come together and encompass the river on both sides. In the high places, it is warm and dry. This is the desert. But down below on the canyon walls, it is cool and damp with little sunlight. Water seeps and runs out of the sides of the wall and plants that like that kind of environment have made this their home creating the hanging gardens of Zion...beautiful. At the bottom of the canyon, where it is always damp and cool, swamps have formed here in the desert. At the end of the easy trail where the narrows form is a more difficult trail that continues to follow the river with warnings about flash floods which have been known to suddenly raise the water by 12 feet and sweep away anybody in its path. Even though the danger was low that day, we weren’t ready to walk through cold water.

We've decided we prefer staying in lower elevations this time of year. It's cold up here.