July 25

Great drive 7/24 from Conifer, CO through amazing country (high passes, 14,000' mountains all around, broad plains between peaks) to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Spent 7/25 exploring -- driving the rim, walking trails, filling out Junior Ranger notebooks to earn a badge! Dan hiked down in, a drop of a couple thousand feet, for some fruitless fishing. Still worth it. Amazing sunsets both nights here. A terrific and undervisited park! Here's a view from above, a view from below, and one of a thousand sunset pictures. Off to Mesa Verde tomorrow!

July 23

Happy Birthday to Phil, Dan's Dad!

Liz is fever-free but we are still planning an easy day. Organize the car and plan out our next week in the morning. Then, head off to Boulder to meet up with Adam, another friend from our OB days, who now lives in Boulder. Wow. The mountains here are so interesting. Slanted so that you can see the layers of rock and the changes in color are beautiful. And, as we approach Boulder - the Flatirons are impressive.

Dan and Adam take off to climb (here they are),

while I take the kids for a tour at the Celestial Seasonings plant. Odd choice, you may say..but, it was very, very cool. And free. :-) We learned a lot and since Liz and Henry are big tea drinkers (Red Zinger, Peppermint are favorites), they were psyched. We learned about the differences between white, green and black tea (besides the colors) and got to see the actual plant in action. And, the 'mint room' is not to be missed. After the tour, we sipped teas in the sample room, checked out the tea pot exhibit and the beautiful artwork. Here are Liz and Henry in front of some of the paintings.

Picked up Dan and Adam at the Chataqua Dining Hall in the shadow of the Flat Irons. Amazing. How does one not pick up and move here? :-)

Sad to leave Denver/Boulder with so much more to do here - we promise ourselves that we will be back another time.

Off to Gunnison Canyon tomorrow.

- Clare

July 22

Liz is still feeling a little low, so we sleep in. Off to Denver to meet Warren and Mike for lunch and a tour of downtown. What a cool downtown. We see interesting architecture and sculptures including the broom and dustpan and cow shown here.

Then, off to the Denver mint. One of only 2 mints in the country that have public tours where you can see money being made. We get there only to find it closed. Foiled. Either the book we have is wrong or this is one of the two weeks in the summer that it closes. Lesson learned - call ahead. Ah well. We head off to an amusement park that has big roller coasters and history (meaning it is old). We find it but as we drive up the really big rides aren't running. Turns out the big rides start at 6 pm, but there is a kiddie section open. Okay, okay. Call ahead.

Off to a birthday picnic (Warren's and another friend of theirs ) where we reconnect with Warren's parents, Tim and Sharon, and meet new friends. :-)

-Clare

July 21

During the night Liz develops a fever. Thank goodness we are at Becca and Greg's - indoors and comfortable. By morning, Liz is feeling better but still not all that great, so an easy day is in store allowing for plenty of rest.

We meet up with Mike and Warren, old friends from our Kennedy Center days who now live in Denver, for an afternoon at Dinosaur Park. There we see dinosaur footprints and get a good history of the area and the discoveries from the tour guide. Coolest thing - being able to see dinosaur footprints from the prospective of the imprint on the earth. The 'underside' if you can imagine. It was great.

Dinner with Warren and Mike rounded out an easy and fun day. Here we are at the Dinosaur Park.

-Clare

July 20

Second night at Cheyenne Mountain State Park brought us a wonderful lightening show out over the Colorado plains. Amazing to watch! We sat up in the parking lot above our tent site having dinner and watching the show. Here's the view from our tentsite.

Morning and we pack up and head off to Panera for breakfast and recharging all things electronic. Pike's Peak on the agenda today - riding the Cog Railway to the top. We find our way to the station through lovely Manitou Springs - home of some eleven mineral springs open to the public. Turns out the Cog Railway takes reservations but do waitlists as well. We don't make the noon train, but are waitlisted for the 1:30. We have about 40 minutes to wait so we hike down the road a bit and visit one of the mineral springs while reading up on the history of the area as we go. We find the spring and take a sip - effervescent and iron tasting. Not at all appealing. Hard to believe people drank that hoping for 'medicinal effects'.

We head back for the Cog Railway and get on the 1:30 train. It is a beautiful day - sunny and not a cloud in the sky....until we get on the train. Then over the mountains storm clouds are gathering. Figures. Train ride up is awesome. Lots of history from the guide and scenery not t

o be missed. Then the lightening and thunder roll in but we keep going. Then, fog. Seriously. We get above treeline and the fog rolls in. We are at the top of Pike's Peak and cannot see 3 feet

in front of us. But, the gift shop donuts are warm and we look at postcards of sites we should be seeing. :-) Here is a picture of the summit - I was running for the train and didn't wait for the guy to get out of the way....but, you can see the fog.

Good news, the skies cleared on the way down and we got to see some of the vistas. Dan's camera has the best pictures so, we'll have to post them later. But, for now, here is a shot of what we saw on the way down.

Once down, we headed off to the park to climb, but we just didn't have the energy. But, once again, we were treated a lightening show over mountains - this time sitting in the parking lot of the town climbing and mountain biking park watching the storm over the Garden of the Gods. Amazing. We head north to Denver, Conifer and Becca/Greg/Kaiya's house to spend a couple of days.

-Clare

July 19

Holy cow, it's great to be in CO. So happy to have an excellent campsite, to be at altitude (cooler!), and to have some topography to look at. Great sleep about a mile higher and a whole lot cooler than our last night in the tent a couple days ago (Oklahoma flatlands). It’s hard to imagine a better spot, high up on the slopes of Cheyenne Mountain, looking back east over the lights of Colorado Springs below, and beyond them the plains we crossed yesterday. Wish we were going to be here a week! This morning up pretty early (we can call it early thanks to two time zones in three days) and rolled downhill for bagels at Panera and yet another helpful visitors’ center. Off directly to the country’s only mountain zoo, and yes, we fed those giraffes we’d been looking forward to meeting for a couple thousand miles. Their tongues are eerily long and precisely prehensile, but it’s just the lips they need when eating giraffe crackers. Other big hits were the tapirs, the meerkats (we all thought of Spencer for some reason), and the river otters. Took a familiar ski-lift chair to the top of the zoo where there was rock climbing to be done inside a big yurt. Got us thinking, but too hot and tired and hungry now to think about doing the real thing, so off for haircuts and other errands and some quieter hours. Late afternoon, though, and we were touring around Garden of the Gods, amazed at the differentness of the landscape. What a striking place. It’s almost impossible to imagine having a park like this (a free park, mind you) so close to any city in the east, but I think even these red spires fade into the background of daily life here. The hairdresser working on me is a native and she didn’t even mention Garden of the Gods in her first five suggestions for what we should do. Imagine. Still, maybe that means we’ve got three or four other days to spend here on some other trip to follow her agenda. Anyway, off to the park with climbing equipment but little information and found great scrambling, great photo opportunities, and one obvious line to put a rope on and get us all up on. Really excellent fun, and good people to interact with. Here’s Liz bouldering with her new friend Matthew McConaughey. OK, he says his name is Bruce, but we know that’s just to keep the crowds away. And here's Clare cranking away for the first time in a while too.

Incredible sunset on puffy clouds then home to camp. Great day.

July 18

July 18 We occupy a motel room like the Native Americans used a bison, using every part of it, letting nothing go to waste. First of all, there are two swims to be had, evening and morning, essential exercise for patient young’uns doing hard time in the back seat every day. Then, of course, there are the nine devices that can be charged from the various outlets in this precious oasis of civilization -- walkie talkies, two cameras, three iPods, one computer, two cell phones. There’s an ice chest to be filled from the motel ice maker, and mindless entertainments to be appreciated (Man vs. Wild was on!). Last of all, six or eight showers taken in a twelve-hour stay. I’d say we used our $67.99 pretty thoroughly. Now off to the wilds of Colorado Springs 400+ miles away.

On through enormous distances and flatnesses of Kansas, but couldn't pass by the whirligigs and junk sculptures of MT in Mullinville, KS! Pulled over despite time pressure when we saw the line-up of street-sign windmills and bedspring political figures on the roadway and made it to MT’s stew-dee-oh. It was lunchtime, and the only thing to be found under extensive garages was an untold collection (number it in rhousands, ten-thousands, or greater) of coffee mugs, an arc welder, and hundreds of artistic creations hard to imagine made of junk and scrap metal and vision. We wandered around, feeling like creeping neighbors in someone else's attic, then on our way out to get in the car met MT on the way in. He must be 70 or so, and as his brother later told us, he qualifies as eccentric rather than nuts only because he's got money to burn. An artist all his life, that’s what MT tells us, and we believe him. He takes H & E under his wing right away and has them sketch something out on 1/8” iron (Elizabeth drew a bear, Henry a gnome), then fires up his welding torch and burns their art permanent. I bet they’ll have that all their days! Who’d have thunk that such a stop would grab us off our mission to sleep in a taller and cooler state? Very glad to have obeyed the commands of the goddess Serendipity! Only downside -- now we're toting a bunch of unexpected metal. Where to stash unwieldy artwork?

Many, many miles into sagebrush plains, occasional corn, soybeans, grain. Hard to imagine living out here, though we found a NH native right in the thick of it. Mr. Bouchard (was that his name?) is an artist in a sleepy town just before the big turn westward toward Colorado Springs. He’d painted a view of the Old Man of the Mountains way out here in this flat town of, what, a couple hundred people? Sad to talk with him about the demise of that old man, but good to reminisce about out East where Mr. Bouchard hasn’t been in ages. Hope that painting sells before the whole cliff falls. Clare may or may not have left her keys there, so many miles eastward as we write. Wish we knew. . .

First break today from the white and blue skies we've seen for ages -- horizon to south turned dark, purple even, joining the blue skyline at a slant. Torrential rain somewhere out there. When you can see the whole sky around you you’re reminded that even a violent storm isn’t the whole of the world. We rode on in sunshine, keeping track of the thunderbolt flashes that loomed in the distance. Would we miss it? Would we outrun it? Dark skies rather a welcome alternative to the steady heat and glare of the past few days. A race to the mountains against the rains. We saw Pike's Peak blip up on the horizon from what must have been 80 miles away, almost imaginary in the distance, then reeled it in on an impossibly long line until it was real. Camped in the shadow of Cheyenne Mountain and knew we were in a very different place -- cool night up high and slept soundly. No real traveling for the next few days -- really the first layover. Everyone very ready for that, and for seeing good friends in Denver : ) - Dan

July 17

Holy cow, it gets hot here! Got going a little late, but all day traveling once underway through 100+ degree heat. Everyone seemed pretty happy to be in the controlled climate of the car, so we made tracks. Appreciated the visitors' centers in OK and KS as we crossed over both borders, and now we're avoiding that heat out there with a night in a motel in Pratt, KS. Folks are very nice here. Kids very appreciative of the pool and grownups grateful to have a chance to reorganize the car. Well, the pool's not such a bad thing for the grownups either. We've really liked the plains, but looking forward to mountains at the end of tomorrow. Shooting for camping in Colorado Springs, so it'll be a momentous kind of day.

July 16

Good food, then great visit to Central High School in Little Rock, now a national historic site to commemorate the integration of the school system back in 1957. We all know this at some level from history classes but primary sources, oral histories, photographs here remind an older visitor and grab a younger one in a way that feels very present. Everyone in our family got a ton out of this place. Really glad to be there in the company of a former student (Kathryn)!

Off later than we'd hoped, but still making progress. Camped at a fine spot found serendipitously -- Aux Arc Park in Ozark, AR. Goose poop everywhere, but everything else just right.

- Dan

July 15 -

Ah - sleeping on a bed in an air-conditioned house. Nice change. Sitting on the porch looking out over the Arkansas River at the dock with a houseboat moored to it. River current is quite strong - flowing fast. Hot and muggy but Dan, Henry, Elizabeth and Russell are out playing ball. Off to Little Rock and the sites - then swimming. :-)

- Clare

Visited the Heifer International Headquarters and their wonderful, interactive museum. Nice to be inside since it is 89 degrees but feels like 99 with the humidity. The museum gave a good introduction on a kid-level to ideas such as global hunger, water scarcity, the right to education and sometimes how hard children (and their families) have to work just to get the basic necessities. Henry liked the exhibit where you, playing as a child in some part of the world, made choices typical of that child in that part of the world. Elizabeth liked the map that showed the Earth at night and the electricity usage around the globe as well as the video that you can see when you first walk in that explains Heifer's work. Then, the gift shop! Great visit.

Then a visit to the Little Rock Racket Club and their amazing pool complete with curvy slides! Nice to cool off from the heat. Dinner that night was in the award winning Whole Hog Cafe - home of Arkansas' best barbeque!

Nice evening of chatting about Kathryn and Mike's big adventure - a year in Mexico! So glad we got to see them before they head off in a couple of weeks.

July 13-14

You know how you never get around to doing the things locally that would be high on any visitor's list? That was always true of Grandfather Mountain for Clare and me -- neither of us ever got to the top while we were living next door. At least she had made it up to the swinging bridgeas a ten-year-old, but for me a first trip. At any rate, great fun getting high enough to see why these are called the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Kodiak the bear in the animal habitat exhibit didn't hurt the experience either.

On from Grandfather to a nice visit with NCOBS friends Lisa and Skip. Wish for lots more

time in this corner of the state and with the people in it! Good to be moving by afternoon,

though, and to be making tracks west. Down from Linville on Rt. 221 (missed getting onto

the Kessler Highway - next time!) to hit our artery west, route 40. Hard work for the car

and torrential rains as we passed through Smokies and on in to Tennessee to camp a couple

hours shy of Nashville at a peaceful state park I've already lost the name of (Cumberland

Mtn State Park - Clare). Good day, but tired and wearing on each other a little bit.

Reclaimed good spirits with evening firefly catching!

-Dan

Must give a mention to the wonderful Visitor Center folks at the rest stops when first

entering a state - they have been great! They've given us good advice, good maps and

coupons! That's how we found out about Cumberland SP.

-Clare

July 14

Big driving day -- we'd make it 488 miles before done! Boy, does Tennessee do roads

well. This day we covered the same miles as our first two days combined, but instead

of congestion and tolls and fearing for our safety we had open roads and cruise control

speeds and greenery to look at. Land changes so much out of NC, then stepping down

further after eastern Tennessee. We aimed for Memphis originally, but cruising so well

we decided to push on and make it to Little Rock and ourfriends Kathryn and Mike. Well

worth it to stop for a bit at the border and wade the scale model of the whole Mississippi

that's on Mud Island in Memphis. We badly needed water of any sort, andthis was almost

as good as swimming and much more educational. Also good to score some Mississippi

River water for the collection, narrowly avoiding reprimands from the park security

officer who was trying hard to close up for the night.Very nice to be looking at a layover

day tomorrow with good friends in a beautiful place! Arkansas very welcoming indeed.

- Dan

Happy Bastille Day! Memphis needed more time but it was a welcome diversion to see

the MississippiRiver model Dan describes above. See picture of us at the 'headwaters'.

Too hot to cook and therest stop was closed once we crossed over the great Mississippi

from Tennessee to Arkansas, so we kept driving. Snacks for dinner works just as well

Driving up to Kathryn and Mike's house saw the Arkansas River right in their backyard!

We parked andlooked out at this expanse of water - beautiful. Big trees and a big porch -

can't wait to be sipping coffee in the morning on the porch!

- Clare

July 12

Woke to forecasts of rain, rain, and more rain, so hopes of some rock climbing kind of out the window. But did a little moisture send us whining to an all-day visit to Waffle House? No (though the suggestion was made . . .), it did not. Very grateful to have gotten out the door and onto the trails at Stone Mountain, NC, a climbing area Clare and I knew from ages ago (and a terrific state park to visit no matter what you do). There's a great old 19th century homestead at the base of the cliffs that really gives a sense of what it would be like to live like the early settlers. For us it was nice, too, because by the time we got up there the rain was coming down in torrents. Neat to sit dry in the loft of a hand-built tobacco barn and watch new rivers come tumbling down the huge cliff above. Henry snapped this photo that captures it a little.

Lots of wildlife in the park. Many up-close deer,
a wild turkey, and (best of all?) a little red eft
salamander that we named Tiny. You know,
Tiny, because he's my newt.

Blame for the awful pun (or credit, if you will) to Ron Dawson, who first pulled this one out in my company sixteen or seventeen years ago. Tiny reminded us that, coincidentally, Ron was expecting us for dinner on the other side of the divide. Pea-soup fog and winding roads, but gorgeous country whenever the sky opened enough for us to see. These mountains were such a big part of earlier lives for us and it's almost painful not to be lingering here. A real visit to western NC sometime soon, we promise ourselves.

Just great to see Ron. He makes us all smile.

Camping now beside Grandfather Mountain and hoping for sun tomorrow. It feels good to be outside.

- Dan

July 11, 2010

July 11 - arrived in Raleigh for a late dinner yesterday at the home of Andy, Lauren, Paisley, Chloe and Keira. Nice that Mom, Ruth and Rachael made it down from Norfolk. So nice to connect with all and check out the steps picture. Good looking crew!

Took a walk to a park near their house that had a great Frisbee Golf course. What fun! And, saw some cicada shells....check out the cool poem:

Persistence

Did it yell

till it became all voice?

Cicada-shell!

- Basho

On the road again around 6 - heading to Stone Mountain State Park outside of Elkin, NC. We have to start getting to places sooner! We got to the park too late - the gates close at 9 pm and they do not let you in after the gates are closed. Harrumph. When we called at 4 pm asking about availability and sites, the lady said there were plenty for the night. But, she didn't mention when they closed. Lesson learned. Next time, we ask. :-) Good note - met some lovely people outside the gate (there seems to be some sort of system of parking cars outside the gate when you are meeting people who already have a tent site and then walking in to meet them) who were really helpful - even going to get the ranger to see if they would open the gate for us. Ranger was polite, but firm. Gates are closed, no gettin' in. Harrumph. Nice people told us to go for cheap motel in Elkin down the road....

So, here we are - writing this from the Elk-Inn in Elkin, NC (Motel 6 quality but they didn't even cut us a break considering it was 11 pm!). Sooo disappointed that we are not camping as it is such a beautiful night. Ah well. There will be plenty to come. Looking forward to seeing the beautiful NC mountains in the morning - the first really different landscape we will see on the trip so far. And, hoping to meet up with some old friends as well. Short time to be here as we'll be moving through to near the Tennessee border by tomorrow night.

Thurs., July 8

Whoo hoo! Off and away from Natick, just a bit later than the 8 a.m. launch we’d planned. Er. . . eight hours later. Turns out to be hard to leave a house for a month or two away. Almost as hard as planning which thousand things to bring and which thousand others to leave home. One thing that made the cut was the little bottle of Atlantic seawater E & H collected a couple days ago in Maine. We're hoping to add lots of representative drops to it before we come home, including a little piece of the Pacific. So, off and away at last, car stuffed wheels to ceiling with fishing rods and ball gloves and sleeping bags and tents and books and books and books and ropes and maps and stoves and tarps and assorted electronic gadgets with their chargers. It’s going to be a trip. Five-plus hours later (and a wrong turn that’s convinced us we need yet another gadget) we're with Sally, Jim, Anna, Caitlyn, Joe, Patty in E. Brunswick, NJ. Great company, and Jim’s birthday to boot -- ice cream cake right before bed. Happy birthday, Jim!

July 9

No time for visiting Clare’s old haunts in New Brunswick as planned, sadly, but nice morning with friends doing things that needed to be done and gearing up again. Late lunch in Philly with Josh and Cindy, who rule for a hundred reasons but added another with their generosity -- they bestowed on us a much-needed roof-box that now holds at least half our stuff. Finally a rear window to look out of! Quick night tour of monuments in DC and pledges to come back and actually get out of the car. Got pulled over at a DC traffic light, seemingly for being from Massachusetts. Good thing charges didn’t stick. Late night move on to motel near Fredericksburgh, VA. Ten states in four days, plus a District of Columbia. Not too shabby. We’ve named the new rooftop box “Carrie” and the car “Wayward Son.” Any groans are understandable. A good night not to be camping -- rains come down.

July 10

With Mike and Colleen and Maggie in Bracey, VA! Too short, but long enough for a golf cart ride to the beach and the tallest slide in the world.

Now in a festival of family with Andy and Lauren in NC just over an hour south. So happy to be here!