Despite our best efforts to go where the weather suits our clothes, an unexpected heat wave drove us out of Salida. We rolled north 40 miles to Buena Vista, population 2,617. Kat found a VFW Post offering water and 30 amps for $10 a night, open to the public. The juice would let us run our A/C when needed, and while camped in a white water Mecca we hoped to raft the Arkansas River.
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We settled in for Chardonnay and people watching. Kat had just poured the wine when a big shirtless guy stumbled out of his old trailer and collapsed into a lawn chair. An unwashed-looking fellow pedaled past on an old bicycle, and no-shirt yelled at him “Hey, pig-face! You owe me money! I’m talking to you!” Pig-face paid him no mind. Kat thought she saw an old skinny guy tying off a vein, then with his other hand; did he give himself an injection?
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Fear kept us from re-visiting the Switzerland of Colorado, Ouray. The Million Dollar Highway must have been something back in the day when a cool mill was a lot of dinero. Back in my day we developed land with entrance roads costing more than that. Cars were much smaller in the 1930’s, and nobody drove 40’ RV’s or pulled 30’ Airstreams. From what we heard, the road from Silverton to Ouray is little changed aside from resurfacing. Guard rails are rare, long and steep drop-offs down the mountainside are common, and the road is so curvy and up-and-down, nobody gets to enjoy the spectacular views. Instead we pulled a supposedly much safer route from Dolores to Montrose and almost to Gunnison with our goal being safe arrival at Elk Creek Campground west of Gunnison.
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Roughly four miles northwest of Dolores, CO lies a lovely little Federal campground known as McPhee Reservoir. You want to book your reservation on the Pinon Loop because it’s the one with water spigots and at some sites, voltage. The dump station has not worked for a year or so (insufficient funding), but there are a few full hook-up sites you can drain tanks into when they’re unoccupied for only $5. You will have mountain views over 180 degrees, and birds and wildlife do well here.
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Thank you for so generously inviting us to camp a few days in your backyard! You didn’t notice us? That’s because you own more land than you could possibly see in your lifetime, even were you only 16. “You”, of course, is plural; and a grammar Nazi would prefer that I write “we”. The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have custody of over 600 million acres of Federal land. It has always been fashionable to bash government employees, but from our experience those guys and gals do a pretty good job.
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One of the more underrated joys of full-time RV-ing is our long look at early spring. We all choose to go far south in January to preserve our plumbing, not to mention the RV’s. Then we see the redbuds and dogwoods bloom before anyone to our north. After a couple of weeks something clicks in our heads or hearts, and we know it’s time! Like old bears coming out of hibernation, we wake up hungry and eager to get out, see things and enliven our souls with the spirit of the Travel Season.
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Then came a walk through the ruins of a Pueblo village abandoned for reasons unknown sometime in the 1500’s. Our guide, Ranger Myron, is as long-winded as I am long-worded, but twice as interesting. He shared his culture’s view of man’s place on earth (caretaker of the planet whose primary duty is to preserve it for future generations). He told oral histories passed down over hundreds of years from the Ancient Ones, and lent insights into the Pueblo religion.
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It’s a light-year from necessary to love art to enjoy The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. But if you don’t love art, you will crave more when you emerge into the daylight of a brilliant Santa Fe afternoon. You can see it all in 90 minutes, and it is worth a trip. If you find yourself in […]
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We saw a dead diamondback on the road, but no eagles or other big raptors. That is good news for the convention of bunnies dancing around us. Kat’s hummingbird feeder sells out faster than a coastal Wal-Mart when a bad hurricane’s moving in.
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We enjoyed our stay in Natural Falls State Park, but the spring thaw has come to Colorado and only a few more snowfalls are forecast: now is the time to travel on.
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Two summers ago we enjoyed several weeks in Arizona, the land of blue skies, no rain, and few clouds. While pulling near Tucson we witnessed a dozen or more tandem parachute jumps. Kat became inflamed with the idea of trying this. It is immoral to encourage lunacy, yet that crazy streak is one of the things I love about her. We agreed that she should do a tandem jump when the time is right. Now in northwest Arkansas, waiting for warmer weather in Santa Fe and Colorado, the time feels right.
Read MoreMs. Walton has spent lavishly gathering a representative library of works of America’s best painters. Although it is not a deep collection (not a lot of any one artist’s work), it is broad, offering something by just about every big name in American art. She needs to add a Pollock, a Rothko, maybe someone from the Ashcan School, but I hear Wal-Mart pays a decent dividend. Those paintings will come, possibly when next the art market recedes. Meanwhile, enjoy Theodore Robinson, Georgia O’Keeffe, the Peales, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Frederic Church, Frank Stella, Thomas Moran, and a hundred others. No doubt about it: good art nourishes the soul.
Read MoreAfter a week of basking in the luxury of near full hookups the time came to enjoy the sights and sounds of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Our target was Van Buren, AR, the mid-point of a pull from Cossatot Reefs to Natural Falls State Park in West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma. Why go to Siloam Springs? I got two reasons: it’s still snowing in northern New Mexico and Colorado, and Kat’s gonna jump out of a plane in Siloam Springs.
Read MoreOnce more, unto the breach, dear friends! Let us leave our pleasant surroundings to follow spring north. After Bryan we pulled into a Corps of Engineers campground called Cossatot Reefs. It is part of their Gillham Lake project and offers 50 amps, water at select sites, and a community dump station. The sites are […]
Read MoreWe paid $100 for a week, which is quite reasonable given its 15 mile commute westward on Hwy 30 to Bryan/College Station and the bustling metropolis that former burg has become. Have your GPS look for a diner called Yankee’s Tavern in Anderson, TX, then follow the signs to the lake. Go back to the Tavern and order a cold Bud and a Chicken Fried Steak.
Read MoreThe Garage Coffee Shop sounded too much like Chin Ho’s Sushi Bar and Bait Shop. Some things just don’t mix.
Read MoreOur GPS found no Dodge dealer; Rand McNally’s population figure dashed our hopes of finding even a brake shop. I saw no choice but to pull our ‘Stream the last 100 miles at 55, the slowest semi-safe daylight speed on an 80 mph highway. In a couple of hours we arrived and set up camp at a Passport park. The host had several ideas about who could repair the truck. After half a dozen calls we had one option left: a local guy whose staff all conversed in Español.
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Wednesday we said our good-byes and Pink passed while we stroked her and told her the stories of her youth. Then she was gone to a kindly veterinarian’s euthanasia.
Read MoreKat felt a call to revisit Texas A&M’s Bonfire Memorial, and so we did. The Memorial begins with a landscaped garden of central Texas trees, shrubs, and flowers leading to a massive granite wall inscribed with a quote from “The Spirit of Aggieland” penned in 1926. Next comes Traditions Plaza with a shaded seating area facing an even larger five verse poem written in 1950, “The Last Corp Trip”. The walkway to the Spirit Ring is marked with 89 polished grey granite blocks and one black one, each honoring the 90 years Bonfire was stacked, and the 89 years it was lit. The black block represents 1963 when the stack was dismantled after JFK’s assassination. “It’s all we have, and the least we can do.” Finally you come to a circle 170 feet in diameter made of grey granite blocks marking the perimeter fence put up after the stack fell.
Read More“I am John Palmsley of the IRS Audit Department. You must call me today to explain certain criminal allegations. If you do not call now, I do not think I can stop local authorities from arresting you. “
Read MoreTuesday’s coffee was interrupted by a television report that schools all over south Louisiana were closed today in fear of the coming rain, hail, high winds, and probable tornadoes. I checked the Google to see how far we would have to pull to insure safety, assuming we could leave soon enough to outrun the weather. The nearest location outside the extreme weather map was my home town, Mooringsport. That’s 320 miles northwest of Madisonville. That’s when the park ranger came knocking on doors with news that the park would close in an hour; evacuation was optional, but not mandatory. This is not a drill.
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Brave is the man who first ate an oyster, and were he alive today, he’d regret advertising their flavor. Once common and cheap, they’re now getting a bit pricey. Oysters can be fried, put in all kinds of soups, baked with a creamy mushroom or crab sauces, or prepared a hundred other ways. But none are better than a just-opened salty oyster with a little horseradish and lemon red sauce.
Read MoreFontainebleau’s sad country music scene made me crave the real thing.
Read MoreTwo cops rousted our car camper, lecturing him on carbon monoxide while shining big flashlights in his face, gun hands on their holsters. Ten minutes later they left, and once out of sight, our neighbor cut loose with choreography worthy of a Super Bowl touchdown celebration.
Read MoreFrom Tennessee we set a course for Florida to better survive the two coldest weeks of The Typical Year. We camped for a few days at Top of Georgia, the all-Airstream RV park near the Bavarian hamlet of Helen, GA. TOGA had had a lot of rain, and we got stuck twice. A fellow with […]
Read MoreWe celebrated a big country Christmas in east Tennessee. Of course, the country Christmases I remember lacked cases of champagne. In any event it was a rare treat to break bread and pop corks ….
Read MoreIn 2013, 33,000 Americans died in vehicle accidents. That same year 34,000 were killed by firearms. We know a lot about car wrecks, and so little about shootings. Why have we let the NRA legislate ignorance?
Read MoreToday, while at Wally World prospecting for dinner (I found a deal on spinach and ricotta ravioli!) the muzak broke into the Christmas mode. They played The Beachboys doing “Little Saint Nick”, as cheerful a carol as one can imagine. I’ve always enjoyed that song and I know the lyrics. So I began to sing along. This is one of Mike Love’s leads, and although in younger days I could also cover Brian Wilson’s high falsetto, today I’m a middle and lower register singer. And unlike my Kat, I feel no compunction about making as ass of myself in public, especially where nobody knows me. So I sang out, mezzo-forte, and in my ear, right on key:
Read MoreThe burgers at A&W Root Beer were more affordable, more filling, and nearly as tasty. We fleshed out the other meals with canned spaghetti and meatballs heated in a sink by an hour of running hot water, or marked down pastries from the big groceries. Freedom is precious but it has its price.
Read MoreI’m thinking about what we’ll do for year’s Christmas in Tennessee. Last year was marinated brisket with gravy and latkes. The year before was a rib roast and a turkey, if memory serves. I love to observe our peculiar Christmas tradition: cook something new every year! Over the years we’ve done goose, turducken, pork crown roast, smoked turkey, fried turkey, hickory smoked ham, country ham, oysters Bienville, and once when caught on the road and no place else was open, Pizza Hut. I can’t think of what’s left, so I asked The Google, and she told me.
Read MoreDoonesbury had gone on an extended hiatus, but was re-running classic scenes from 43’s administration (you can read the timeline by checking out the plumes in W’s Marc Anthony helmet … that hat had been seriously beaten up by ’07. The best of all time, Calvin and Hobbes, appeared to be gone for good, but I still had a couple of paperbacks full of his better work.
Read MoreThe USA leads the world in mass shootings. To which the NRA replies “Guns don’t kill people: people kill people.”
That’s technically true, but guns make it too easy to kill people.
Read MoreWe’re in the early stages of the monarch butterfly migration here in central Kentucky. A few weeks ago they began leaving Canada and northern USA on their long fall flight to Mexico. I saw one yesterday looking confused. She crossed an open field to our huge parking lot, then began circling as if she’d lost all sense of direction.
Read MoreLong before the Housing Collapse of ’07 I toiled in the Land & Development section of Beazer Homes, Raleigh. Our team was built around Sara, a world-class admin, who among other things excelled at covering for whichever of the boys were out-of-pocket, as in shooting pool or watching March Madness in some smoky bar. Mitch, our captain, did most of the land acquisition and zoning work.
Read MoreI have struggled to understand Trump’s appeal. I see no evidence on his campaign website of any real plan to govern, nor even one new idea. This morning a rationale for his poll ratings came to me in a flashback to the climactic scene of Network. Howard Beale, an aging night-time network anchor about to lose his job concluded his show with a spluttering rant.
Read MoreMy last trim was over two months ago at a franchise shop in Elkins. That purple-tressed barbess (barberian?) cleaned up everything but the sideburns, which I noticed only much later. Maybe they were just too scary?
Read MoreI’m looking forward to being still for a while, to finding new creations in our little galley, and getting a haircut. Haircut? Not just anybody can cut my hair. At the C’ville barber college haircut quality ranges from pretty good to misdemeanor.
Read MoreWork fills up most of our waking hours leaving us less time to focus on our trials and tribulations. Sometimes it is unpleasant, but if it were always fun, they wouldn’t call it work.
Read More… , early one summer evening a fellow climbing alone broke his leg on a highly technical (a serious mistake can be fatal) descent. Word went out and the climbing community marshaled their resources. Nearly a hundred sturdy fellows with ropes, rock anchors, carabiners, and years of experience on the Rock appeared in less than an hour. They formed a human ant line at solid footholds along the way to the injured climber. Their plan was to pass up a stretcher, strap the broken man to it, and pass him down from one secure station to another.
Read MorePerhaps 35 miles east of Elkins stands an unusual rock formation bearing our title’s name. It’s thought to be 440 million years old and survives today due to its composition, mostly quartzite, a super-hard form of sandstone that in a former life was the beach of an ancient ocean. Tectonic shift pushed the young quartz […]
Read MoreIt’s felt like spring in north Louisiana here in The Mountain State for the past seven weeks. Sure, everyone east of Dallas has dogwoods and redbuds but around Elkins both defer blooming into early May. By late May the mountain laurel gears up to peak the first week of June. The end of June and first half of July feature huge pink or white mountain rhododendron blossoms bunched by the hundreds on each bush
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We had to cross highways twice each way, both giving the engineer an opportunity to play his blues music on the steam whistle. Every engineer tries to invent a signature riff, as whistles are capable of varied tones, attacks, and slurs.
Read MoreThis past weekend we faced a fully-booked Saturday and a near-full Sunday. Saturday came with three unprecedented challenges. The large pavilion was hosting a wedding on a day when the rain forecast called for an inch within an hour of “I do.” The smallest pavilion was rented by an old bat who, despite 20 […]
Read MoreOur first church group function was held in the Big Pavilion at Stuart this Sunday. We get advance notice of reservations, and you should have heard me and Kat wailing and gnashing teeth upon receipt of those tidings. Even Pink was making funny noises, but she’s an incredibly intelligent dog – her vocalizations may have been glossolalia.
Read MoreIt’s easy to make good food from a recipe, but hard to invent good recipes. In downtown Elkins we stumbled across something new to us on the menu in the Venezuelan restaurant El Gran Sabor. In Castilian Spanish that translates to Great Flavor. That they deliver. We ordered cold ones with salsa and chips, both […]
Read MorePark your rig at any 20 campgrounds scattered over this great land and you will find 20 different styles of hosting. Some work beaverishly all day and into the night, others spend most of their visible time working on a tan, some try to remain invisible. Some are story-tellers, a few are enthusiastic recruiters for […]
Read MoreQuick, where is The Mountain State? Hint: its flagship public university is a member of The Big 12 athletic conference (which has but 10 members). You guessed Colorado? No, they’re now in The PAC-12. Wyoming? Nope, they’re in the Mountain West. Second hint: John Denver recorded a hit song about life here.
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Two days ago a big, polished RV rolled in and parked across the road from us at Shenandoah’s Big Meadows campground. The kernel of news here is that it was navigated by a reader and frequent commenter. The Mayor was talking camp telecommunications with some pop-up people two sites down when she noticed a young lady looking at the Red Sled and Kat’s Cradle with marked curiosity. When Pink and I emerged from the ‘Stream for walkies, this gal strolled over with a big smile (yo dog, that don’t happen every day) asking “Jackson?” “Yes! How did you know?
Read MoreThe gift shops at our latest National Park sell a variety of shirts, caps, and jackets bearing the SNP logo. It stands for Shenandoah National Park, the first park easily accessible from the larger cities in the eastern third of our country. We’re hanging out at a lovely campground called Big Meadows in SNP. There are over 200 sites here and although none have juice, all have easy access to water and dump stations; generators are allowed five hours a day. This is beautiful country, charming in a way the West is not: old orchards and cemeteries tell you that people of European descent have been here for well over 300 years.
For now this is Saturday National Park. Later in the season people will reserve sites for several days, but for a while you can drive in Sunday through Thursday without reservations and find a good site that’s available until noon Saturday.
Read MoreApril 29 was our last full day at the Assateague National Seashore, on the Maryland side. The local wildlife came out to wish us safe travels. We saw a pair of wild turkeys, several horses, and pod after pod of bottlenose dolphins swimming southbound three hundred yards offshore. The male blackbirds and gulls are staking out prime nesting sites, which means spring has come to the Atlantic Seaboard.
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Life on the Blue Highways 