RV Lifestyle

DOWN MEMORY HIGHWAY IN THE PASSING LANE

2011-07-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

I love traveling west on Hwy. 2. I guess I just love traveling west period. It brings back so many memories and always creates more. It started in the 50’s and 60’s with my folks. Traveling with another family, our little caravan of trailers would stop every 50 miles in some little burg. The adults would set out lawn chairs on the side of the road and the kids would let off enough steam to contain themselves for another 50. The subtle changes in landscape tell you how far west you have progressed. I am always looking at the western horizon anticipating the first glimpse of snowcapped peaks in the front range. You don’t see the peaks of Glacier National Park until you leave Cut Bank, MT and head west into Blackfeet country. It is a land that captured me at age 10 or 12 and never let go. My parents let us run the trails and explore the many National Parks of the West. We were never burdened with the fear that so many people bring with them today. I have spent years wandering the backcountry of Glacier and never tire of it’s grandeur.
Traveling west we pass broken down historic sod-roofed cabins slowly surrendering back to the land. I picture the family of immigrants that carved it out of this vast prairie. I am also reminded of all the agony thrust upon the Native Americans as we pass through the various reservation lands. The struggle to hold the land is ongoing. Spring 2011 was devastating to Minot, ND. Historic flooding creating life-changing challenges for many.
But as I drive the long days across the flat prairie states my mind is revisiting my dad promising ten gallon hats, horseback riding, snow in the mountains, grizzly bears and bighorn sheep.
The Empire Builder with it’s many passenger cars passes us eastbound out of Glasgow, MT. I stick my arm out the window and make the motion of pulling on a air horn. It always worked for my dad. I must have an ornery engineer. I get no response. Maybe there are new rules over fifty years of time and train travel. Perhaps the engineer is no longer permitted to give a short blast to friendly passing travelers. We were usually headed for a big annual Airstream Travel Trailer Rally in Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs, the Seattle Worlds Fair or Cheyenne Wyoming.
Gaila and I still today like to find little out of the way overnight stops. In my parent’s day it could be anything from A&W Root Beer stands to a friendly gas station owner, an empty farm field or a motel parking area. There were few trailer parks then and zero RV parks. Today there are numerous RV parks but we rarely partake. We prefer finding small town city parks. Our first night in Montana we find just such a park in Culbertson, MT. It is just a small city park on a dead-end residential street. A small parking lot actually. It has restrooms, a dump station, picnic tables and friendly neighbors with kids and dogs and lawn mowing. We wonder why they want to put up with a new group of traveling strangers every night but we find this in many small communities about the West. We spent the night with a couple from Vancouver, Canada who tucked their motorcycle in behind our rig and set up their tent. During the night a few more stragglers meander in quietly and spend the night. Like most, this is a free, safe place to circle the wagons for the night. Change comes slow across the prairie. Life is slow moving at a steady pace. The land is vast, the horizon endless, just like the old movies playing in my head as I roll through.
--Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

MICHIGAN MY MICHIGAN

2010-11-16T06:18:00.001-08:00

We’re home! It’s a beautiful Michigan morning and Oleo Acres (the cheaper spread) never looked better (my parents mowed and weeded)! It was great driving home by way of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We stopped early along the shores of Lake Michigan and relaxed on the last night of our trip. We enjoyed the cool breeze and a refreshing dip in the lake and had pasties for dinner. We knew when we got home we would have to hit the ground running. We have so much to do before the cold weather sets in.

It was a very hot ride across the U.P. We would travel in the early morning hours because the compressor on the motor home was giving us trouble. We couldn’t run the air conditioner because it made a horrible noise and Dick didn’t want to put any more stress on the compressor. Fortunately, we made it home without breaking down.

The trip was interesting in more ways than one. People have asked what were the hi-lights. For me it was the people we met and the time we spent with friends and family. Also, visiting the National Parks and enjoying the natural beauty of our country.

What have I learned from this nine months on the road? I’ve realized that I need to even out my time away and time home. I’m not a full-time RVer. I would be just fine with a few months away in the winter and a couple of months in the summer.

We missed our Michigan friends and family and want to catch up with you. Give us a call or email and we’ll plan a time to get together, or stop in if you're passing by. It’s good to be back.

P.S. We also missed our dogs - we're back in the dog-sitting business.

GLACIER = CROWN OF THE CONTINENT

2010-11-16T06:01:00.001-08:00

After exploring the North Cascades along scenic Hwy 20 in Washington, we headed for Montana to Glacier National Park. This place is so beautiful. The campgrounds were filled with vacationers, but we didn’t have to go far to experience solitude and quiet. Sitting next to the lakes in the early morning, drinking coffee, was a daily routine. There were a few hardy people swimming in the glacial fed waters but I would only go in so far to cool off. From the campground we’d walk or ride bikes on paved trails to West Glacier or Apgar Village.

While on the West side of the park, Dick went on a solo backpacking trip for six days and covered nearly 80 miles. PICTURES OF DICK'S HIKE He always hikes alone. I’m used to that, but in this wilderness it concerns me. In the 16 days we were at Glacier, we heard of several grizzly bluff charges, including Jack Hanna - the zoo man JACK HANNA STORY (we were told later this was a young cub just trying to get past him to his mama). We also heard about the grizzly killing near Yellowstone. GRIZZLY NEWS Not only can the bears be a threat, but moose and landslides and glacier crossings etc... Dick says, “any bear pub is good pub because it keeps people out of the backcountry.”

There was an abundance of wildflowers and huckleberries. I’m sure there are more bear encounters when the thimbleberries are ripe. The woods are thick with thimbleberry bushes lining both sides of the trails. We never saw a grizzly the whole time we were in the park - only scat. In the campground areas I did see some black bears along the trail and on the hillsides. Up at Logan Pass we loved watching the goats and sheep. We were very excited when a fisher ambled across the trail on the way to Avalanche Lake. Everyone else saw moose but us.

The morning we planned to move to Two Medicine on the East side of the park, I woke to find the window screen open about six inches. I sat up and counted cat heads. One was missing! Sheba had decided to go on a morning hunt. The squirrels and birds were always teasing her at the end of her leash and I think she was determined to get one. I was frantic when I remembered I had taken her collar with I.D. tag off the night before. We searched for about an hour and then as I passed the woods two loops down, I heard a bird making irritated noises at something. I decided to call for Sheba and heard this tiny meow saying, “go away, I almost got him.” She was crouched under a bush. It was still early enough to move to Two Medicine, but then we couldn’t get the motorhome started. So we stayed at Apgar another day while the solar panel charged the battery.

You’re lucky if you get a camping space this time of year. We arrived at Two Medicine the next morning and got a beautiful spot overlooking the lake with Mt. Sinopah in the background. The aroma from the spruce and balsam was wonderful.

Last year when Dick hiked I went to Pat Hagan’s Ranger Program. It was so good. We were lucky enough to attend two of his programs. He is a riot. Very humorous while teaching us about the mountain goat and birds of the park. You have to see it to believe it. We bought his book Seasonal Disorder. INFO ON PAT HAGAN'S BOOK

A couple times, at the evening campfire programs, we heard members from the Blackfeet and Kootenai tribe share information about their culture, traditions, and personal connection to Glacier National Park and really enjoyed Blackfeet singer and story teller, Jack Gladstone.
JACK GLADSTONE INFO

Dick hiked another two days in the Southeast part of the park. I drove him 40 miles to the Nyack trailhead where he would need to cross the Flathead River. He was advised not to try crossing this time of year due to high and fast water. He would be hiking through woods to the first river crossing. He didn’t want me waiting around to see if he crossed. He said if he couldn’t make it across he would hitchhike back to the campground. It was raining when I dropped him off and it rained all night. I was all snug and dry in the motorhome. The next morning I sat up in bed and looked out the window and there was a perfect full rainbow across the lake. I grabbed my jacket and camera and took pictures. What a beautiful morning, so quiet and peaceful. Almost everyone was still asleep in the campground. When Dick made it back to me late that day, he said the river was a “three crotch crossing.” Sounds like so much fun doesn’t it?

I enjoyed hiking with groups on Ranger led hikes. No bear sightings, but claw marks on trees and fur where they scratch their backs. BEAR SCRATCHING BACK ON TREE I enjoyed hiking with groups that didn’t wear bear bells and holler “hey Bear” or clap their hands every five minutes. The ranger tells people bells don’t work and the way you can tell black bear scat from grizzly scat is the grizzly scat has bells in it. Hiking with a group is safe enough that you don’t need to worry about making noise to warn the bears. On one of the walks we watched a beaver carry a tree branch downriver. Amazing creatures.

It was difficult to leave this beautiful place but we knew it was time. My parents are camped at the Ole’ E Ranch in Acme, and Maggie is in Traverse City now. If we didn’t have those two main reasons to head east, we would have probably inquired about being the campground hosts for the rest of the season.

THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

2010-11-16T05:48:00.001-08:00

“You can get so used to certain luxuries that you start to thinking they’re necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don’t need them after all. There is a big difference between needing things and wanting things - though many people have trouble telling the two apart.” - Anonymous

After leaving northern California, we took our time traveling up beautiful Hwy 101 through Oregon and Washington. Spectacular views of the rocky coastline, sea stacks, lighthouses, wildflowers, surfers, kite flyers (the Oregonians love their state), sea life and sunsets. The Oregon State parks are beautiful with trails leading to the beaches. One of my favorite areas was north of Florence. The beautiful Heceta Head Lighthouse, the one you see on so many calendars, and the famous sea lion caves. What interesting creatures. It was fun looking down on them basking in the sun on the rocky ledges from the scenic overlooks (that’s them on the rocks in the slideshow). Also, Cannon Beach with the famous, 235 ft high, Haystack Rock jutting out of the ocean.

Our last stop, before crossing the four mile bridge across the Columbia River into Washington, was Lewis & Clark National Park Fort Clatsop. Crossing this bridge reminded us of the straits of Mackinaw and the Mackinaw Bridge in Michigan.

In 1978, when we first traveled this route, we stayed at a free campground called “The Promise Land”. We remember driving through the coastal fog and being relieved to find a place to get off the road for the night. It was the perfect haven with free electric hookup. It truly was “the promise land”. We hoped to camp there this trip. It was not at all like we remembered, so we kept on truckin’ north to Kalaloch Beach, in Olympic National Park, where we had the best of two worlds, the beach on one side and the spruce forest on the other.

We passed through the now famous town of Forks on our way to the northern part of the National Park. All you Twilighters know what I’m talking about. There was “twilight” coffee, twilight tours, twilight you name it. Dick said he planned to stop for some “twilight” gas. The Lincoln Theatre (in downtown Port Angeles) was the one used in New Moon. Days before the showing of Eclipse, third in the series, there were fans lined up and camped in tents all along the sidewalk.

We camped at Heart of the Hills Campground near Port Angeles. This area has always been a favorite to us after living and working in Port Angeles thirty-two years ago. The town has grown a bit, with even a Walmart, but the downtown still has its charm. Dick had hoped to do an overnight hike in the high country, but the trails were impassable because of too much snow. We did several day hikes and especially enjoyed hiking up at Hurricane Ridge in the subalpine meadows; walking among wildflowers with beautiful glacier filled mountain peaks surrounding us. It’s how I imagine the Swiss Alps. I kept belting out the Sound of Music.

I was pleased to hear the park was removing two dams on the Elwha River that have stood since the early 1900s. This will restore salmon to the river and bring the area back to the natural. www.nps.gov/olym/

We were on our way to visit Maggie in Anacortes. We took the ferry from Port Townsend over to Whidbey Island and north to Washington Park, a city park not too far from her. We would be there over July 4. A total of ten days altogether. Our friend Chuck Woodbury drove up from Edmonds to visit us. We are friends from the newspaper days. He was publishing Outwest Magazine the same years we published The Dick E. Bird News. He and Dick have a lot in common and we had a great day catching up. Chuck now has a website for RVers and has added Dick’s RV Shrink column. http://www.rvtravel.com/

Washington Park has spectacular views when you walk out to the water’s edge. We loved walking by the water at dusk when the sky was saturated with reds and oranges and the seals were playing and fishing off shore. It was magical. Away from the water’s edge it is thickly wooded. We were experiencing grim skies and the sun rarely showed its face for the first five days we were there. Having no sunshine for several days can be a major factor in determining my moods. Getting out of the forested campground helped. Everyone commented that summer doesn’t officially arrive until July 5th. They were absolutely correct. On the 5th it was sunny and summer temps set in, the dark gray waters turned to sparkling blues and you could see the beautiful mountain tops with snow covered Mt. Baker in the distance.

We visited Maggie, in Anacortes, last September when she was working and living at the Shiphouse Bed & Breakfast. So now we had several more people we were looking forward to seeing again. I’m sure most of you know Maggie moved out to Washington, a little over a year ago, on a whim. During the slow season at the B & B she had another part-time job working at a little lingerie boutique downtown Anacortes. She has loved this area and made so many good friends, but recently made the decision to move back to Michigan. She flew back two days after we left Anacortes. We are happy that we made the decision to visit her again before she moved back home. We enjoyed a couple of campfire picnics with her and her friends. The three of us took an early morning ferry ride through the beautiful San Juan Islands, stopping at Orcas and Shaw Islands. We visited Oggie and Betty, Captain and First mate of the Shiphouse B & B, a few times over the ten days, and on our last day Oggie invited us and several friends over for a wonderful seafood dinner out on his patio overlooking the islands.

Fortunately, I travel with a man of all trades. The motorhome has given us trouble twice since we left California. Dick had to replace the solenoid in Oregon and the starter in Washington. Towing a car comes in very handy when the motorhome won’t move. We just unhook and drive to the nearest auto parts store. We’ve also been fortunate that both times we were stranded within ten miles of a store and they just happened to have the part we needed, for a 1989 Ford Econoline 350, in stock.

We are both looking forward to heading east to North Cascades and Glacier National Parks after almost eight months on the road. We first want to explore these beautiful places and Dick wants to do some long distance trips. Our ETA is around mid-August. We’ve been told our neighbor is mowing the lawn. We owe him big time! I’m wondering what my perennial gardens look like. I had a good friend help me get them started and then I abandon them. I have someone checking the house now and then and she says everything looks great and there has been no “mousecapades.” All is well. See you in a month!!

People in the campfire/picnic pictures:

KELLY SITEK (Maggie graduated with her and they were roommates in college and then Kelly moved out to Anacortes last September and they lived together at the B & B).

IAN FEATHERSTONE - Kelly’s boyfriend who is also from Traverse City and moved to Anacortes in February.

KRISTIE RAINCHILD - Maggie worked with her at the boutique and also lived with her for a few weeks before moving back to Traverse City.

LOGAN RAINCHILD - Kristie’s 3 yrs old son. What a cutie. As you can see by the pictures we had loads of fun with him.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

2010-11-16T05:40:00.001-08:00

“Treat your family like friends and your friends like family.” - Proverb

After Yosemite we headed for Foresthill, California and parked our motor home in my sister, Kathy's, yard. This was the first time Dick had been here in 13 years. Our original plan was to stay for only five days, but two weeks later we finally left. Kathy and her husband, Pat, spoiled us. We commented that their place was the best campground we’d stayed at in six months. Great company, delicious food, hot-tubbing under the stars, great spot surrounded by beautiful flowers and trees. (Kathy got the green thumb in the family, it’s not among my talents). We played card games and they taught us to play Cribbage which will keep our brains sharp.

Pat manufactures booster pump systems. Dick went to work with him one day. I don’t think he helped much or made them any money. He played with the plasma cutter and came home with his name tag cut out of steel.

My brother, Joel, and his family live about 30 miles from Kathy and my parents were visiting from Arizona and staying at his place. We were planning to camp at his place at some point, but there wasn’t a space large enough for the motor home. On Memorial Day, Kathy invited everyone for a family reunion. I am the oldest of five. Kathy is five years younger, and Joel is 14 years younger. I have two other brothers who live in Indiana. Unfortunately, we have never been all together in at least forty years.

The following weekend most of the family went on a camping trip. My parents opted out because they had been down the road that lead to the lake and campground before and said they would never do it again. My brother assured us it was fine and led the way. The motor home was mostly in 2nd gear. There were many curves with several climbs and steep grades and then about 3 miles of potholes. We took it slow and it took us almost three hours to go the 50 miles to the campground. It was worth the effort in getting there. We had the campground all to ourselves and the lake was beautiful with several runoffs from snowmelt. We had three days of more family time - fishing, hiking, campfires and great food and conversation. (We have been sworn to secrecy on giving out info on the campground).

After returning from our camping trip, we took a drive over to wine-country in our Saturn and looked up some friends we hadn’t seen in several years. First stop was Healdsburg to visit Valerie Hansen who we hadn’t seen since 1981. We met her in 1979 when we lived in Port Angeles, WA. I worked with her for a short time. Through the years we have kept in touch. It was great seeing her again and meeting her husband, Larry. Then we visited Becky Gulick. She and her husband, Steve (picture in video of him with the boat he built www.fishyfish.com), and two small children live in Vallejo. We know Becky from Ocala, Florida where we spent several winters beginning in 1978. We worked for her dad at Ocala Breeders Sales (a thoroughbred horse auction). He invited us to meet his family and we were adopted by them and included in on every occasion. They were so good to us. Becky is the youngest of seven kids. We had the best time. What a great family. Lots going on at her house with children, chickens, cats and a dog. She fed us a wonderful meal and it was great catching up and reminiscing.

It was time to move on up the coast of California and visit Redwoods National Park. My 13 year old nephew, Cameron, went with us for a week. I mentioned in my last blog that he was at Yosemite the same time we were. It was the first time Dick had seen him since he was born. He and Dick got along great. They drove me a little crazy at times but it was good to spend time with Cameron. They went on an overnight backpacking trip, rode bikes, played the guitar etc... We enjoyed exploring the big tree forests and the ocean beaches and tide pools. My brother drove north to pick him up and camped with us for a couple days. It was a long drive, but he had always wanted to experience the area too. He did most of the cooking and made sure we had a campfire every night. It was great to spend time with him. I just wish we lived closer.

So now we are back to some alone time and heading up the coast of Oregon and Washington, and planning to see Maggie soon. Even though the state has its beauty and we will miss family and friends, we are happy to be out of California. It is a very congested state and it's having a rough time. Homeless people in the cities and even at the backcountry campsites. The price of gas was high because of an added tax, and campgrounds were more expensive than we have ever paid, and in disrepair. Arnold, it turns out, really is the terminator.

BEAUTIFUL YOSEMITE

2010-11-16T05:29:00.001-08:00

“For me and for thousands with similar inclinations, the most important passion of life is the
overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.” - Bob Marshall

We are so fortunate to have such a variety of natural places in the US. Last December, we visited Padre Island and Goose Island in Texas and it breaks my heart to see what is happening to the Gulf. I can’t listen or watch the news.
We just spent ten days in beautiful Yosemite National Park, which is, understandably, one of the most visited parks in the system and it was already crowded in late May. We could easily get away from the crowds by riding our bikes or hiking. We learned fast to never drive the car. We used the shuttle, walked, or rode our bikes on all the fantastic bike trails. We met so many fun people, all having a good time and enjoying themselves in nature. I was pleased at how quiet the campground was even though they were always full. Everyone seemed respectful of quiet hours except for our first morning in the campground when Dick woke everyone up. (Click here for DICK'S BLOG) I take that back. It wasn’t always quiet at night. There is a Bear Patrol that drives through the campgrounds, shining bright lights into campsites and vehicles, making sure there are no coolers or anything that would draw bears into the area. We were woken a couple times by the patrol shining their lights in our windows and another time around 12:30 a.m. knocking on our motorhome door because we had a cooler in the backseat of the Saturn. There was nothing in it, but the bears don’t know that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9T9Il_Q3YY
May was a good time to see the park. The rivers and waterfalls were even more spectacular because of the snowmelt. It wasn’t peak snow melt yet and they were monitoring the rivers in case they might have to close part of the campgrounds that were along the river banks. The one hike that was challenging but enjoyable was the hike to Vernal Falls. There is a picture looking down at people at the top of the falls. The steps were cut out of the rock and very steep. Dick went on an overnight hike and climbed Half Dome. That’s challenging enough when the poles that hold the chains are up, but it was too early for that. He did it with just the chain. In the meantime, I’m down at the park library reading Death in Yosemite. Not a good idea. I was concerned after reading the numerous stories about people who had fallen off Half Dome. He made it back just fine, but still is hurting from the strain of pulling on the chain. He was thankful for the power grip gloves left behind by a previous climber.
Speaking of climbers. Yosemite is a climbers paradise. El Capitan is one of the world’s favorite challenges for rock climbers. www.elcapreport.com We watched several of them scaling the wall face. While we were in the park a young man fell 60 feet landing on a ledge. He lay unconscious until morning when he could be rescued by helicopter. We haven’t heard if he is still alive or not.
We also visited the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias because I wanted to see the famous Wawona Tunnel Tree. A picture of this tree has hung on my parent’s wall for years. In the late 1880‘s, this tree and the California Tunnel Tree were cut to allow horse-drawn stages to pass through. Stories and pictures of this gentle giant traveled around the world. This tree had a larger cavity and could be driven through by all visitors until it fell in the snowy winter of 1969.
My 13 year old nephew just happened to be at Yosemite on a class trip the same week we were. I hadn’t seen him in a couple years but Dick hadn’t seen him since he was a baby. It was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. We couldn’t believe it when, out of four different campgrounds, we found him in our campground (which had 238 spaces), in the loop next to ours.
We left Yosemite to go visit my sister and brother and their families for a couple of weeks. To get there we traveled Hwy 49 thru all the cute little Gold Rush towns and Calaveras County where Mark Twain once lived.
http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/price/frog.htm
I’m happy to hear you’re enjoying the pictures. It’s a good way to show you the beauty of each place we visit.

THE BIG TREES

2010-11-12T15:26:00.001-08:00

“When I entered this sublime wilderness the day was nearly done. The trees with rosy, glowing countenances seemed to be hushed and thoughtful, as if waiting in conscious religious dependence on the sun, and one naturally walked softly and awestricken among them.” - John Muir

Getting to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks was not easy. Not only because we had to go out of our way, but because we had to drive through a lot of California traffic to get there. We have always wanted to see these two parks when we traveled through California in the past, but there were always too many obstacles. This time we didn’t let that stop us. Dick gets very uptight driving on expressways and through cities. Being blind in one eye, he has no depth perception and depends on me to help with changing lanes, backing up, etc... I keep telling him to let me drive but that rarely happens. He loves to yell and call people names. The problem is, I’m the one who has to listen to him. Once we arrive and get parked, he is a happy camper - most of the time. I know how much he needs solitude and he is the happiest in the backcountry.

The big trees are amazing. In all the world sequoias grow naturally only on the West slope of the Sierra Nevada, most often between 5,000 and 7,000 feet of elevation. We took several pictures, but it’s hard to capture their immenseness. Kings Canyon is where the Grant Tree (the nation’s Christmas tree) is located. Sequoia National Park has the General Sherman Tree which is the largest living tree in the world, estimated at 2,300 years old. Of course we did several day hikes, exploring the canyons among the big trees. Dick wanted to do an overnight hike but there was too much snow in the high country. As you will see in the pictures there is still quite a bit of snow because of the high elevation, but the springtime weather was beautiful. I will keep this short because a picture is worth a thousand words.

(the background music for the video is printed below the video)

The Mummers' Dance by Loreena McKinnett

When in the springtime of the year

When the trees are crowned with leaves

When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew

Are dressed in ribbons fair

When owls call the breathless moon

In the blue veil of the night

The shadows of the trees appear

Amidst the lantern light

We've been rambling all the night

And some time of this day

Now returning back again

we bring a garland gay

Who will go down to those shady groves

And summon the shadows there

And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms

In the springtime of the year

The songs of birds seem to fill the wood

That when the fiddler plays

All their voices can be heard

Long past their woodland days

And so they linked their hands and danced

Round in circles and in rows

And so the journey of the night descends

When all the shades are gone

"A garland gay we bring you here

And at your door we stand

It is a sprout well budded out

The work of Our Lord's hand"

SPIRITUAL RENEWAL

2010-11-12T15:11:00.001-08:00

Zion National Park is an incredible place. We loved Zion when we visited 30 years ago and enjoyed it just as much this time. It has changed a bit because of the increase in the number of visitors, but the natural beauty is still the same. I read the journal from our May 1979 visit, and I noted there were only a few people camping in the campground. Not so this time. They closed one of the canyon roads to vehicles and now have a shuttle bus system in that area because of the increasing numbers of visitors each year. A great idea and many of the busier parks are doing this. The campground was full of Summer Tanagers and Yellow Warblers. You could spot them easily by their bright colors and beautiful song, and the black-chinned hummingbirds were out in full force. It was a very relaxing six days. We hiked and biked and attended all the evening programs at the outdoor amphitheater under the stars.

Several of you have asked how the cats are doing. They are both still with us and great travelers. Funny Face never goes near the door when it is open. After escaping a couple of times, it scared her enough to tell her that is not where she wants to go. She doesn’t want to lose her happy home. We have definitely bonded on this trip. Sheba does real well on a leash and even knows how to untangle herself sometimes. She’s been traveling since she was a kitten. (The ravens do intimidate her). We tried putting Funny Face on a leash but she freaked out. It was like having a fish on the end of your line, running out the real.

We left Zion and headed for Death Valley, but not before checking the temps first. We timed it perfectly, arriving in the late afternoon when it was around 82 degrees and it cooled off through the night. We hiked around dusk watching the bats and poor-wills swooping around us. We left the next morning around 6 a.m., beginning at 190 feet below sea level, we slowly climbed to 4,000 ft, stopping along the way to take in the views. We hit this area at a good time. Along the road, as we drove to higher elevations, the wildflowers were beautiful. All colors of the rainbow. We did have one problem along the way. Our refrigerator wouldn’t start and everything thawed. We had to buy an ice chest and put everything on ice to save our food. The next morning it started up again and everything is working great. Interestingly enough, when we were in Death Valley in 1981 our refrigerator quit working then too. We were pulling a 1963, 28 foot Avion Travel Trailer with a 1964 Chevy Suburban. That time we weren’t so lucky. Dick had to drag the refrigerator outside and roll it three times. It worked! Then if that wasn’t bad enough, the carrier bearing went out on the suburban. So this time it was not so bad compared to all that. John Denver had it right when he said, “Some days are diamonds, some days are stones.”

Below is a photo of our home on wheels (our Avion), taken in 1979 when we last visited the Utah canyonlands.

CLICK HERE TO READ DICK'S BLOG

GRAND CANYON GRANDEUR

2010-11-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

DICK'S BLOG
Because I had no reservation, I was expecting a long and frustrating wait for a permit to hike into the Grand Canyon. The National Park System is beginning to implode on itself from the impact of over visitation, lack of funding (they do not keep all the revenue they generate), and increasing attitude degradation on the part of park rangers who become fed up with visitors earlier and earlier in the season. I have always said, “Multiply Numbers/Divide Resources.” That little Dick E. Bird wisdom becomes more profound every year from my perspective. The problem with becoming an old fart is that your hard drive is full of the memories of “How it used to be.”

To my surprise, I was allowed into “The Canyon” on my fourth day in the park. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and I immediately scooted over to the backcountry office. I was fortunate enough to get a peach of a ranger. She was knowledgeable, personable, friendly and helpful. I’m to a point now where I am grading rangers. Only about 50% make the grade, and I’m grading on a curve.

I told her I didn’t have a reservation and that I would like to spend about four days in the backcountry (which would give Gaila a much needed sabbatical from me). I added that I would take whatever I could get. Beggars can’t be choosers. I said I would go to any areas that she could find openings. She did her magic on the computer and in five minutes I had an awesome permit.

It had me going half way down the Kaibab Trail then east along the Tonto Plateau for 6 miles, back the next day to Kaibab and descending to Bright Angel campground near Phantom Ranch. The next day up the Bright Angel Trail to Indian Gardens and the fourth day out. I’m still finding that amazing as this is the Primo time to be hiking in the Grand Canyon and yet I snared a decent permit.

Actually, I was a little suspect when I noticed my first night campsite was “Cremation Canyon.” Maybe they’ve heard of me. Maybe they know I’ve become “Oscar the Grouch” of park service policy. I was warned, “No water on the Kaibab and no water in Cremation.” No problem, I’m part camel. I just drank until my hump was swollen and headed down into the Big Amazing Ditch.

I don’t know how people do this in July. At least I don’t know how they can enjoy it. I left the rim on a day they were calling for snow, high winds and a high of 41 degrees. I never carry more than 2 quarts of water, but on this trip I carried a gallon. Yes, I have read the book, Death in the Canyon.

The switchback Kaibab trail and the incredible landscape it traverses seemed limitless. The morning light changing the shading every second. A half hour down the steep trail I was shedding layers. I like to hike fast and hard and long. I found myself stopping to take pictures every five minutes. I’m no photographer, blind in one eye and have no depth perception, but what the heck, film is history. This isn’t costing me a dime and I might even get lucky and take a decent picture. It’s more to show Gaila where I have been. I don’t give a rip about pictures. I keep all of mine on my hard drive, the one whirling around between my ears.

I get bored easily. I made it to Cremation Canyon by late morning. I could have stayed. I had a couple quarts of water left for dinner, breakfast and the next leg of the hike to Bright Angel campground. My map showed it was only a few more miles to another canyon called Lone Tree. My permit allowed me anywhere along this section of the plateau. I was cozy in a nice little “Man Cave” rock overhang with plenty of shade. Beyond that blazed full sun and temps in the mid-eighties. The trail was faint in many areas. It seemed to hug the South Rim Canyon wall and drop in and out of dry side canyons. I was told I would still find water in Lone Tree canyon. I decided to hike there. Sure enough there was still water pooled in canyon pockets, shade in rock overhangs, and the canyon floor was alive with spring. Wildflowers, blooming cactus, singing frogs, busy hummingbirds, and my favorite, aerial acrobatic ravens, gliding along the canyon thermals, creating drag by raising and lowering their feet, like small aircraft landing gear.

I usually do not filter water. Gaila says one day it will kill me. My theory is that I am building immunity to water borne disease. If you drink water in Mexico you get the screamers, but do you ever see Mexicans with the screamers? Anyway, I have not yet picked up giardia or any other nasty water borne bug, and I have consumed some nasty water. If I do, I’ve saved myself 50 years of filtering water so far. I still had several hours of daylight so I explored the canyon and decided to filter water using my “filter bulb.” I’ve been carrying it for years and have never tried it. It’s about the size of a fishing bobber and has a small charcoal filter as it’s core. I always wondered how fast it would work. It’s a gravity flow procedure. The Canyon Tree Frogs were loving the pools. It was like dying and going to heaven for them. They had been patiently waiting all winter for this bath. To me the water smelled a bit foul, contained a lot of algae, and well populated by pollywogs and the next generation of Canyon Tree Frog song, which sounds like bleating sheep.

I thought I was going to set up an IV and go hiking, thinking this water filter bulb was going to be a slow drip. To my pleasant surprise, it worked faster than a fancy, heavy, expensive filter pump. I filled my platypus water bladder, hung it upside-down from a tree branch and it filled my quart Gator Aid bottles in less than five minutes.

I didn’t have a watch. I just go to bed when it gets dark and get up and hike when it gets light. How simple is that?

In the morning I hiked five miles back toward the Kaibab before eating breakfast. It was raining pretty hard and cold. I had my poncho and down mittens (doubles as my pillow) on. My poncho is also the ground cloth for my tent. I have a big one that covers me and my pack. To keep it from blowing wildly in the fierce wind, I used a long pack strap as a poncho belt. Works great. My goal was to get back to the rock outcropping (Man Cave) I settled into near Cremation. I knew I could get out of the rain, fire up my Zip Ztove and enjoy my freeze dried bacon and eggs. The rain soon stopped, sun was shinning, birds were singing, flowers were growing. I sat looking across the Grand Canyon at the snow covered, 8,000 ft. North rim. I was nursing a hot cup of coffee. This is “Sucking the Juice out of Life.”

By noon I had crossed the Colorado and set up camp in Bright Angel Campground. It was a great site bordered by the canyon wall on one side and loud, rushing Phantom Creek on the other.

This is a little utopia just downstream from the Phantom Ranch. You will hear me in later blogs grousing about National Park Ranger attitudes, but here at Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel Campground I found some of the best. They were young with the ranger quality of old. It’s all about attitude. Even though the place was filled to capacity, the water pipe that supplies the valley was broken and the weather turned windy and rainy, the two rangers managing the area were cheerful, knowledgeable, instructive, interesting and interested.

I’m still waiting to hear if I have secured a backcountry job in North Cascades, but if it happens, I’m taking my lead from these two.

We were all conserving water, but by law, the Park Service has to provide water, even if it means flying it into the canyon. Plus, it’s probably cheaper than flying dried up bodies out. I left at first light the next morning to try my hand (feet) at conquering the switchbacks of Bright Angel trail. It was promising to be a hot day but by leaving early you enjoy a shaded trail until almost noon. I had less than five miles to Indian Garden. I decided I would wait and have breakfast there. It is a beautiful little oasis half way up the Bright Angel. The Ranger there was suspiciously looking at my Zip Ztove as I cooked breakfast. It burns ground litter so it could be considered an open fire, which is not permitted in the Canyon. The stove, which requires carrying no fuel, is approved by the National Park and Forest Service. Unfortunately, few Rangers are familiar with that fact. Gaila says I just love conflict and debate, but I feel it is my duty to educate the less enlightened. The Park Service has a manual full of rules as thick as the postal service's “Domestic Mail Manual.” And like similar government tomes, few have ever read them--besides me. And, like the Bible, those who have done the reading interpret differently the convoluted doublespeak they contain and are all of a different religion.

I was bored again. I decided it was only nine o’clock in the morning. I lifted my pack and started up the trail. I took my time and ended up my trip a day early. I called Gaila from the rim at noon and said, “I’m Baaaccck!” I just wanted to give her some warning in case she had a Ranger in the motorhome. I think she rates them differently than I do. --Keep Smilin’

GAILA'S BLOG

"You can see the way the whole world is put together, by looking at how it's been cut away millennium after millennium, and then you'd feel just like what you really are - a grain of sand in all this creation." - Katie Lee, Singer Songwriter

While Dick went backpacking for a few days, I stayed behind and enjoyed hiking along the Rim Trail each day. When he told me the route he was taking climbed 4500 ft in 9.3 miles one way, it did not sound like my idea of fun! A trip to this park can be a vacation or a challenge, a revelation or an ordeal. I opted for the revelation. Over 250 people are rescued from the canyon each year. One ranger said an average of six people a year fall into the canyon. While we were there a man drove his car off the south rim.

The Mather Campground is within walking distance to just about everything. If I would rather ride, there is a shuttle bus system. I love reading the history of the area we’re visiting. I was thrilled that the library let me check out books and dvds on the honor system. Learning about the Kolb brothers, Mary Jane Colter, Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls, John Wesley Powell, Edward Abbey etc..., made my visit more interesting. Reading a book on “Women of the Canyon” gave me some idea what it’s like to ride the Colorado River or hike in and out of the canyon. I also attended ranger programs and learned about the incredible geology of this area and the California Condor. I was lucky to see a condor in flight and then perch below the Lookout Studio. It was #89.

http://www.birdfotos.com/birdfoto/condors/89/condor-89.htm
http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/upload/CondorchartMarch19-2010.pdf

The Grand Canyon has over 4 million visitors a year. It is an amazing place - one of earth's most powerful inspiring landscapes and it overwhelms the senses.

AWESOME ARIZONA

2010-11-12T15:01:00.003-08:00

The thoughts of the earth are my thoughts. The voice of the earth is my voice. All that belongs to the earth belongs to me. All that surrounds the earth surrounds me. It is lovely indeed, it is lovely indeed. - Navajo Proverb

After several months exploring New Mexico we crossed over into northeastern Arizona to visit Canyon de Chelly and Navajo National Monuments on our way to the Grand Canyon.

One of the reasons we couldn’t go back to Michigan right now is because we wanted to visit places in the West that we had never seen before and places we hadn’t been to in over 30 years. We knew we had made the right decision when we saw the beauty surrounding us. Amazing colors and spectacular views - canyons, mesas, mountains and rivers. New Mexico is interesting and has its own beauty, but Arizona is awesome! This is what traveling is all about.

I’m sure it helps that it’s spring and finally warming up and beginning to bud and turn green. The green desert floor against the red rock formations and blue skies brought many oohs and aahs, and I love the sweet aroma of the desert sage and the desert in bloom. The land of the Navajo is lovely indeed.

We enjoyed hikes into areas at both monuments where you aren’t allowed unless with a guide. Our guides were Navajo (Dine’) which made it even better. We sometimes had to wade across rivers to visit the preserved cliff dwellings of the Anasazi (ancient ones).**

We also took a day trip to Utah to see Monument Valley. Huge rock formations jut up from the desert floor. A backdrop for many car commercials and many of the early westerns. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhnDe_rTk_o

We were in the Navajo Nation; 27,000 sq. miles extending into Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. It is a sovereign nation with its own tribal government established in 1923. Most have kept their traditional customs and values and most speak the Navajo language and it is taught in the schools. They make exquisite jewelry, rugs and pottery and often sell their artwork along the roads.

Many appear to not have much but they are richly blessed with the beauty surrounding them. It’s a whole different way of life. To get to the beautiful protected areas we drove through many communities where the living conditions are very poor, but everyone has a Hogan, a sacred shelter where the family can be together. http://www.navajorugrepair.com/NavajoHogan.htm
There are stray dogs everywhere. It was the same in New Mexico. Most of these dogs are homeless but very friendly. They hang around outside restaurants, gas stations and stores and beg. I fed some when I could. I saw one lift his paw to every person that passed by. It must be the norm here because people don’t even pay attention. It’s hard for me because I want to take all of them home. I was shocked when Dick asked me if I wanted to take a little puppy with us that I had stopped to pet. It was so sweet, and I was torn, but decided it would not be wise. It needed a bath and would need to see a vet before I brought it in with the cats.

There were so many dead dogs along the roads and we even passed a dead horse. It’s open range for horses, as well as cattle. There is a shortage of water and we wondered how anyone or anything can live in some of these dry desert areas. Right now things are turning green but it must not last long.

We are now in Grand Canyon National Park and Dick just returned from a 3 day backpacking trip into the canyon. We will update you on our experiences soon. The adventure continues!

**History: It is believed that the Navajo first migrated to the area from the north - possibly the area of Central Canada - around the year 1000 C.E. At that time, the area was occupied by the ancestors of today's Hopi, Tewa and other pueblo peoples. The Navajo tended to be aggressive with their neighbors, stealing and raiding, and forced the Hopi into the tight, protective villages that still exist today.

Traditional Navajo society was very loosely organized, with little or no centralized governmental or religious structures. With the arrival of first the Spanish and later European-American settlers, the Navajos began a period of violent clashes that eventually resulted in an incredibly violent campaign against the Navajo by the US Army. Government forces killed or captured all of the Navajo they could find, including women and children. The captives were transported to a desolate army base in Redondo Bosque, New Mexico, where many people starved or died of disease in the horrible conditions there. As part of the campaign, the Army burned everything they could - hogans, crops, looms, and household belongings. Over 8,000 men, women and children were marched the 400 miles from Navajoland to Bosque Redondo in the winter of 1864, in what is known as the Long Walk.After several years, even US government officials were appalled and embarrassed by the conditions in Bosque Redondo. A treaty was concluded recognizing the sovereignty of the Navajo Nation and allowing the Navajo to return home to their ancestral land. In exchange, the Navajo pledged not to take up arms against their neighbors. The Navajo are one of the few Native American groups who managed to hang on to a significant portion of their historical lands.

GAILA IS SOOOOO BAD!

2010-11-12T14:58:00.001-08:00

LOST PART II

Well, Gaila has done it again. She is such a bad influence on me. We were headed home to Michigan and almost made it out of New Mexico. I mean, we were so close to Oklahoma we could have spit on an Okie and hit two Texans. I just casually mentioned we should turn around and head back across New Mexico and Northern Arizona, then go home by way of Nevada, then California, then up the Oregon and Washington coast and over to Montana. Most women would be more responsible and say, “No, we are going home.” Not Gaila. She said, “Okay!” She is sooooo bad!

It’s not such a crazy idea when you think about it. We are already all the way out here. We could hike in the Grand Canyon, Zion and maybe even parts of Yosemite National Parks. You can’t do that in Michigan. We weighed all the options. Go home and mow the yard or stay out here and hike the Zion Narrows. It was a tough decision but we are tonight camped at Eagle Nest, New Mexico just outside of Taos and headed west again. Another thing that this extended trip will prove is just how accurate the Discover Channel is. I watched that program where they pretend Man is wiped off the planet and nature takes over. They show buildings being eaten by vines and crumbling to ruins. I’m just curious if that will really happen if I don’t mow my lawn for the next seven years. Just kidding. That’s how long we were gone the last time Gaila started this irresponsible behavior. I’m almost sure it won’t get that bad again.

When you get to be my age you start looking into your bucket list. There are things I have never done yet and this might be the time to do some of them. Also, my wife says I have to have a job before I retire. So I have applied for one. I decided if I was going to be crazy wild, and get a job, I should get a Government Job. They never run out of money as long as they have ink. So I applied to North Cascades National Park as a backcountry ranger. A recent communication from them said I was at the top of the list of qualified applicants. It was kind of a “no-brainer” decision. They want to pay me $21,000.00 to backpack for six months. If it looks like they might give the job to someone else I might have to tell them I will do it for half price. I hope it doesn’t come down to that. With a 20 zillion trillion budget deficit, who’s going to miss a measly twenty-one grand that’s going to a good cause like backpacking. If it doesn’t happen, no big deal. If I die and never have a job, history will show that at least I tried.

If we do hear from North Cascades we will have to put our foot in the carburetor and head up there. If we do not hear from them, we plan to visit a lot of places we love and places we have never been. It will give us a chance to spend some more time with Gaila’s family in Arizona and California and Maggie in Washington. We haven’t told the two cats yet. They may mutiny. There are many pluses to this decision. One is that most people have done the responsible thing and gone home to mow. That has left all the great camping places empty and quiet. I think it might even be safe to head back into Arizona next week.

The toughest part for Gaila was having to give up her On-Call position at Urgent Care. They were kind enough to put it on hold for her this winter. After she hung up, I don’t know if she was crying because she was happy or sad. I don’t ask too many questions when she gets emotional. I find If I hike about five miles it cures her.

We put hours of thought into this decision. We made a list of reasons to stay out west and reasons to go home. The “stay list” just kept getting longer. Lists are a lot like casino odds, they can be fixed. So maybe we left a few things off the “go home list” but it’s not like we are never going home again. I think who ever said, “You can never go home again” was wrong. We intend to prove it, but not right away. --Keep Smilin’ Dick Carpe Diem!
“ Looking back your greatest regrets will be of things you didn’t do not the things you did do.”

FART IN A WHIRLWIND

2010-11-11T16:46:00.001-08:00

We just spent eleven days in and around Santa Fe. Maggie flew in from Washington to join us for six of those days. We had a wonderful time touring and being together again after five months. Dick has written his views about the visit and I just can’t think of anything to add except the three day hunt for the ball gown. Maggie flew to Minneapolis after she left us and attended a Viennese Ball. We looked in every consignment shop in the Sanfa Fe area and saw sides of the town we would have never seen otherwise (and actually wished we hadn't). We would have pictures with this update, but after Maggie downloaded them to her computer they were deleted off my camera. So you can see some of the pictures by reading her Blog at http://gabbyhollaway.tumblr.com/

We are still in New Mexico enjoying spring in some of the Northeast areas. We are having a difficult time pointing the motorhome towards Michigan.

Dick's Blog below:

We had a great time with Maggie in Santa Fe. Although next year I think we will just get a mannequin to stick in the backseat with earphones in one ear playing scratchy music, a cell phone in the other, and laptop computer. The smartest thing we did was park the motorhome eight miles up the Santa Fe Ski Bowl Canyon out of cell and data coverage area. At about the five mile point we could actually have a conversation with the girl in the backseat that was as wired as the Army Command Center in Arlington, Virginia. It was still cold at night up in the ski bowl but in the morning we would drop down into Santa Fe where the sun was shinning and all of us could work out and take showers at the Ft. Marcy Public Recreation Facility right at the bottom of the mountain. It was a perfect location for camping near Santa Fe. Gaila and I arrived a few days early and explored the whole area for convenient camping. There are several commercial campgrounds, but we seldom do commercial. We like state and federal campgrounds surrounded by nature and trails. We found New Mexico’s Hyde Memorial State Park had seven electric sites that the ranger keeps plowed year-round. There usually would not be enough snow to ski in the Santa Fe National Forest Ski Bowl, but this year is unusually cold and snowy.

We played Skip Bo every night and acted silly and laughed until Gaila would wet her pants. Maggie and I knew our silliness had peaked once we pushed Gaila over the edge and she had to go change her pants.

After a little wine one night, Gaila said to me, “There are things you do that I love that you haven’t been doing enough of lately.” I said, “Like what?” She said, “Being gone!” Wine is like a truth serum. I think that means I should go hiking more.

We spent Easter Sunday up in the mountains of Bandelier National Park. Great hiking spot with pueblo ruins built into the canyon walls everywhere. This spectacular, watered canyon was a small utopia for thousands of years to the Native people of this region until the Spanish came along and screwed everything up. http://home.nps.gov/band/photosmultimedia/

While Maggie was with us, we also met friends from Traverse City who were on spring break in Taos. We met at Ojo Caliente hot springs, the most expensive way to submerge yourself in hot water in New Mexico. We had a great time, but all decided it would have been better to hike to one of the many free hot springs in the nearby mountains. Gregg, Katherine and Emerson then followed us into Santa Fe for dinner on their way to Albuquerque to catch a flight home the next morning.

On our last day with Magpie we finally made it up to Chimayo to the shrine of the holy dirt, or something like that. She and Gaila had been there the year I did my CDT hike and wanted to go back. The problem was it was Easter weekend and from Good Friday thru Sunday thousands of people are walking and driving to the mission from all over the world to get holy dirt. It’s a carnival atmosphere. It's a pilgrimage of people walking for miles carrying crosses and rosaries to leave near the church. http://www.newmexico.org/experience/holidays/chimayo.php They also drink a lot of beer and soda, eat pinon nuts, burritos and everything else the vendors are peddling. I like to hike, I just don’t like to find 10,000 people already there when I arrive. On Monday we had the whole place to ourselves. No traffic jams, just the aftermath of what looked like a real party. Trash everywhere and fresh holy dirt in the Sanctuario.

On our last night together we parked the motorhome close to the Albuquerque airport at the Sandia Casino. I am no casino officinado, but this one is really beautiful. With the Sandia Mountains as a backdrop the casino/hotel is designed after a local pueblo and the theme is weaved into the building inside and out. The other great thing is they give you free money. There is all kinds of money but free money has always been my favorite kind. Most casino’s give you a little fake slot machine money to play and you get to keep what
ever you can win above and beyond the fake stuff. This was the same way but they also gave each of us twenty bucks in chips. First Maggie and I lost our fake money in the slots immediately. Gaila won forty bucks over her fake money and bailed. On the way out I took all of our sixty bucks in fake chips, went to the roulette table and put them on red. The ball landed on red, I exchanged the fake chips for real ones and we all went to the cashier and turned it into greenbacks. Now that’s my kind of campground. Not only is the camping free but they give you a hundred bucks for stopping in. I married Gaila because I thought she was 100% Cherokee and I was going to get some of that Cherokee Casino money from the Smoky Mountains area. As it turns out she is only a sixteenth which is not enough to even get free fake chips.

I am writing this is a beautiful canyon carved out by the Rio Pecos. It’s another gorgeous New Mexico State Park. A great place to relax and decompress after spending several days chasing after a Fart in a Whirlwind. --Keep Smilin’

LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

2010-11-11T16:42:00.001-08:00

“My only regret about dying is not being able to see this beautiful country anymore, unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I am gone.” - Georgia O’Keefe

It’s been 3 weeks since our last update. I try to make my blog as interesting as I can so you won’t get bored and will continue reading. We are still in New Mexico and only a few days away from meeting Maggie at the Albuquerque airport. She’s flying in from Seattle and will be traveling with us for 6 days in the Santa Fe and Taos area. Places she and I fell in love with when we were here in 1999 while Dick was hiking the Continental Divide Trail (CDT).

New Mexico is diverse and has so many interesting places to explore. It is called the “Land of Enchantment.” We love staying in the natural areas. These areas are clean, protected and well taken care of. Then there is another side to New Mexico. It has a very high poverty rate. So often we would drive through areas that looked like we were in a third world country. Then among the run down, what looked to be, unlivable homes, there would be a few beautiful well-kept homes mixed in. I also noticed in the bigger cities there are always people holding signs asking for money. It's very sad and depressing to see. Traveling in different parts of the country I see that it is not all utopia and I am reminded how fortunate we are.

We left City of Rocks State Park and drove up to Silver City. As we left the city we could see the Kneeling Nun rock formation in the distance. We drove the steep grades of Hwy 152, passing through the tiny town of Kingston “Home of the Spit and Whittle Club” and down into Hillsboro where we had to stop and eat at the Hillsboro General Store & Cafe. It was tradition. We’d been there a couple times before over the years and the owners, Ben and Doreen Lewis, know us as the “Dick E. Bird people.” When we drove through here in 1999 there was a police car facing the road that worked well in slowing cars down as they passed through town. I remember walking up to the car to ask the cop if I could park the motor home in the open field in town. I walked up to the window and then realized it was just a dummy. I wonder how many people got a laugh out of that one. This year the police car wasn’t there. The dummy must have been laid off due to budget cuts. We did a walking tour of Hillsboro. It has an interesting history and has turned into a cute little art community. As we headed east out of town we passed the Ladder Ranch, one of Ted Turner’s many land holds. Here is one of the largest herds of buffalo with no cattle strain. Ted is also a protector of rattlesnakes. I like this guy. It’s amazing what a bad rap the poor rattlesnakes get. They don’t want to hurt you. Just give them the right of way and they'll turn tail and run.

We headed for Caballo Lake State Park for a couple days and the highlight was Sandhill cranes flying over the lake, migrating for a layover in Bosque del Apache NWR. We were also planning to migrate north to the wildlife refuge, but since the weather was still a little cool, at the last minute we decided to head southeast of Alamogordo to Oliver Lee State Park. Parents of our good friend back home, Julie Mousseau, were campground hosts there and they kept emailing us to come over, and enticing us with “there’s great hiking here.” We traveled through Hatch, the Chile capital of the world. It’s amazing to see how this dry desert can grow pecans, pistachios, chiles, onions and grapes for wine. We also stopped to have a picnic and hike in White Sands National Park, one of the world’s natural wonders. We wished there was a campground in the park but over the next few weeks we understood why. We often saw in the distance the white sand blowing fiercly in the high southwest winds.

We met Julie’s parents, Marlene and Dave Ferguson, when we pulled in to find a camping spot at Oliver Lee. We planned to stay a couple of days, but ended up staying twelve. Julie told us her parents would give us the tour and they did. There was never a dull moment. Besides hiking all over the park, they took us on a couple of road trips to mountain country and showed us around Alamogordo. We had Marlene and Dave withdrawals after we left.

Over St. Patrick’s Day, we were at Valley of Fires BLM Campground. Hiking past a campsite that evening we heard a woman’s voice call out, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.” We were greeted by a smiling woman who was Apache. No mistake about it. She said she just knew she had to have some Irish blood in her from one of her wild grandfathers. She even gave us a Blarney Stone - a polished pebble she picked up along the road. After many laughs, she explained she was with the New Mexico Archeologists and they were doing a dig of an ancient village that was discovered along the road near the park. She made our day.

Bosque del Apache NWR is a great bird migration area and we saw mule deer, coyotes, a skunk, and a variety of birds including a great horned owl, as we hiked and drove around the 12 mile auto loop. We then headed for El Morro and El Malpais National Monuments, camping in Datil and Pietown along the way. A slice of pie was $4.95 or you could buy a whole pie for just $25.00. A tourist trap for sure.

We decided to get full hookups today because of the cold weather. There were snow flurries last night and this morning. We are camped at the Sky City Casino RV Park. There were signs with arrows pointing the way to the campground. Dick commented how things have changed! The Indians used to shoot at us with arrows and now they’re inviting us to a safe place to camp with them for the night.
We've had some very cold New Mexico nights, and our furnace was giving us trouble and finally quit working. I was not a happy camper. We would get a camping site with electricity so we could use our electric heater and most days we had the sun to help warm things up. Dick was determined to fix the *!%!^$* furnace himself. He finally did without blowing us up and I don't have to look at his butt crack any longer!
Here is his story: Dick's Blog Update

White Sands National Monument: http://www.americansouthwest.net/new_mexico/white_sands/national_monument.html

Valley of Fire BLM: http://www.geo.utep.edu/loca/Volcanos/VALLEY.HTML

Bosque del Apache NWR: http://www.friendsofthebosque.org

El Morro National Monument: http://www.nps.gov/elmo/index.htm

El Malpais National Monument & Conservation Area: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/res/Education_in_BLM/Learning_Landscapes/For_Travelers/go/geology/el_malpais.html

YOUTUBE SLIDE SHOW

2010-11-11T16:30:00.001-08:00

I put together a slideshow instead of writing a long Blog this time (not an easy task because I'm not so good at this high tech stuff). There are a few pictures of friends I wished I would have taken but didn't have my camera with me. No, that is not Dick in the red shirt. It's our friend Ed Trautwein who we met at Pancho Villa State Park. (Hi Ed - now you're famous!!) Dick's Blog will catch you up on what we've been up to since our last update. We are still enjoying the trip and the cats are still with us. They can't believe the size of these jackrabbits out here. They're bigger than the cats!!

DICK'S BLOG CLICK HERE

THE DICK AND GAILA CECIL B. DeMALLERY SHOW

RV LIFESTYLE

2010-11-11T16:19:00.003-08:00

"Normal day - let us be aware of the treasure you are. Let us learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let us hold you while we may...!" - Mary Jean Irion

We decided to head into south eastern Arizona to visit some areas that we’ve enjoyed in the past. Bizbee (top photo), Patagonia, Madera Canyon and the Chiricahua Mtns near Portal (bottom photo), were at the top of the list. I’ve had several of my blog followers ask questions on what it’s been like living and traveling in an RV. I’ve decided to dedicate this update to talking about what these past months have been like for me and answering your questions. Someone asked if I’ve been homesick at all. Yes, there have been those days. I miss friends and family, the State and Elk Rapids Theaters, and Oryana Co-op. I haven’t missed my home or beautiful downtown Traverse City, because I know it’s covered with snow and ice, but I look forward to being back to my creek and the beautiful Grand Traverse Bay area when everything starts to turn green and blossom again. I miss the variety of things I do when I’m home. I miss our daughter. She has been in Washington all winter (Blog entry 9/22/09), but when she returns to Traverse City in April, I will be eager to get back so I can spend time with her again. In the meantime, I have enjoyed getting out of the snow for a few months. I think 4 months is enough if we do this again next year. Leaving after the holidays would be better. I like the snow through Christmas and I look forward to Spring.

I’ve always enjoyed traveling and exploring new areas, it’s in my blood. We’ve taken several trips through the years in this 27 foot motor home so I’m used to living in a small space for several months at a time. You would be amazed at the size of some of these rigs that people travel in these days. Dick said some of them range in price from $300,000 to $500,000. They don’t have any more amenities than I do, except for space and a washer and dryer (yes, you read it right). I’m content with my little motor home. Like I said in an earlier blog, we have to be organized and keep things in their place otherwise it's called "clutter". We don’t need much, so storage space is not a problem. We have our two cats with us. It would be easier with just one but we wouldn’t leave one behind. It’s good having a pet along to hug. Traveling with a cat is easier than a dog. A dog has to go outside at night and early in the morning, and often times the mornings are a bit chilly. Someone asked where we kept the litter box. We have the perfect spot under the bed. There is a storage door from the inside that we prop open and there is a door to this space from the outside which makes it easy for cleaning.

Someone also asked about showers and laundry. We have a separate shower which is small, but you only need enough elbow room to stand and wash yourself. As far as laundry, we each have enough changes of clothing and extra sheets, so we can go up to two weeks without needing a Laundromat. I also try to get a two week supply of food when we get to a city. Buying organic isn't easy. I don't find many health food stores and none that compare to Traverse City's Oryana, so either a large supermarket or Walmart will have to do. The kitchen area is small but there is an order to doing things that we’ve adapted to quite well. We just keep it simple but make the presentation elegant. Mornings are my favorite time to sit with a cup of coffee and watch the sunrise. We have a picture window next to our dining table and have been fortunate to park where we look out at the beautiful canyons, desert and/or mountains. We stayed in one privately owned RV park this winter and did not enjoy that because we had to look out at another RV on both sides. We try to stay in National or State run campgrounds.
Someone asked how do I get by without electricity when we boondock camp, which we do most of the time. I have only used a curling iron once since we left home. I pull my hair up into a ponytail most of the time. I've learned how to make great toast on an iron skillet on the stove burner. I do without the electric toothbrush and just brush harder with a manual one. We do have a generator that we use only to run the vacuum. Dick put a solar panel on the roof and it works great for charging the battery to run lights and heater. It's amazing what you can do without.

We have made several friends along the way. It’s great when we have someone else to talk to. Dick is very entertaining and interesting, but I like to talk with other people too. We did look up our friends from Traverse City, Melissa and Angelo Poli, who now live in Green Valley near where we stayed in Madera Canyon, AZ. We had the best time. We also visited with a couple from Illinois we met while camping in Texas. It was so great connecting with all of them. Now we are back at Pancho Villa State Park in New Mexico where we have met some characters. We fit right in.

We have an Alltel Wireless Stick which gives us a computer connection wherever there is cell phone service. Keeping in touch through email and Facebook really makes a difference for me. Also, we can get the news and hear what’s going on in the world. I haven’t missed not having television. We don’t watch it much at home anyway. It’s amazing how busy we are, yet it's a relaxing lifestyle most of the time. We enjoy hiking, playing cards, watching DVD’s, bird watching and reading to name a few. Dick has enjoyed writing his blogs and always has a story to tell. I was hoping Dick would do more hiking without me because I feel we both need some time apart. I agree with a comment another RVer said, “You have to go outside to change your mind.”

Someone wrote, “How lucky you are to have Dick to travel with - much nicer to have a fun companion than a grouch!” Well, I just have to say that you are so right, but Dick is lucky to have me to travel with too.
P.S. If you have more questions feel free to email me at glmallery@gmail.com

DICK'S STORIES BELOW:
RV Parking Rage
Border Patrol
Dr. R.V. Shrink

INTO NEW MEXICO

2010-11-11T16:16:00.001-08:00

Heading west from Marathon, Texas, we stocked up in Alpine and experienced more winds and cold weather camping in Ft Davis and the Guatalupe Mtns. We've been told these are abnormally low temps for this time of year and we hear it's the same all across the southern US. We were so pleased when we had a couple sunny days at Balmorhea State Park. There is a beautiful spring fed swimming pool at Balmorhea,with water temperatures of around 72-76 degrees; still too cool for us to get into the water, but we enjoyed all the aquatic wildlife.

Just before reaching New Mexico we stayed at Hueco Tanks State Park. We were in for a treat. There was a line of cars waiting to get into the park with license plates from all over the country. Then we started seeing large rectangular pads with legs walking towards the trails. I stopped a couple of guys and asked what the pads were for. They explained that these are crash pads for "bouldering" and this is one of the world's premiere bouldering areas. We had never heard of it. It is very interesting to see. The rock formations here are so unusual, and besides Dick's escapade with the campground host, it was very peaceful.

Bouldering at Hueco Tanks State Park
We've been having problems with our refrigerator so decided to stop at Camping World in El Paso to talk to the service department. We ended up talking with a salesman whose father had owned the airstream dealership in El Paso during the 60's and, like Dick, his family traveled with an Airstream when he was a kid and attended several of the same Airstream rallies - Hershey, PA, Seattle etc... The reminiscing went on for over an hour. It was late so we decided to stay overnight in the Texas Welcome Center across the street. My parents had been there and said it had 24 hour security guard and cameras. We never stay in rest areas because of all the truck traffic and noise, but the RVers even had their own area to park. All went well. The next day we headed over into New Mexico and stopped at their Welcome Center to get some info. It was really nice and we said we should have stayed there. A few days later we read about a January 4 murder at the Anthony, New Mexico Welcome Center. Well, that did it for me. I will never stay at a rest area or Welcome Center again - even if it says Security! It's not worth it and I would never rest anyway.

Dick and I were both reading a historical novel about Pancho Villa. So we headed for Pancho Villa State Park, in the town of Columbus on the border of Mexico. Reading this book beforehand made our visit to the museum more interesting. In 1916, the Mexican Revolutionaries under the leadership of Pancho Villa raided the small town of Columbus. Every year, as an expression of goodwill and friendship between the US and Mexico, up to 100 riders on horseback from Mexico cross the border and are joined by American riders and parade through the streets of Columbus and into the park.

We had heard two stories, good and bad, about crossing the border into Palomas, Mexico. I asked the park ranger and a friend from Michigan who used to be a campground host here and they both said it was no problem. They both highly recommended going to The Pink Store for lunch which is within a block after you cross the border. We enjoyed the food, the people and the atmosphere.
P olomas and The Pink Store
It's amazing the difference a few short steps mean economically, socially and politically. A line in the sand marks the stark contrast between two varied types of governments and the way people live. As we crossed the border back into the US, the song by John Lennon came to mind. No war, hate nor poverty, only peace. Everywhere you look along the border you will see Border Patrol vehicles. We've had to go through several checkpoints, answer questions and be sniffed by dogs.
We planned to only stay a night or two at Pancho Villa State Park but ended up staying eight days. Out our picture window we watched the Gamble's quail running through the cactus landscape with a view of the Tres Hermanas and Cedar Mountains in the distance. The sunrises and sunsets were beautiful. The main street of Columbus is within walking distance of the park where there is a post office, library and a couple cafes. Besides places to beautiful places to hike, and peace and quiet, these are the only requirements I need to enjoy an area. A movie theatre would be nice but we did get a library card for free and borrowed movies on DVD. The library even let us keep a book Dick is reading and said to just return it when we're back in the area. So it's on to Portal, Arizona and another adventure.

Imagine theres no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will live as one -- John Lennon

BIG BEND COUNTRY

2010-11-08T08:15:00.001-08:00

“The stars lean so close that if one stood tiptoe on the highest hill he might grasp at least one star in his tingling fingers. ......We should be able to glimpse eternity through those spark holes in the blanket of the long night. Perhaps we do. Where else is such order, such an eternal pattern, as in those stars that light the winter sky?” - Hal Borland

After stopping at a car wash to remove all the Padre Island salt and sand from our motor home, we traveled west stopping in Laredo to stock up on groceries and do laundry. We were definitely the minority. It seemed like the only English speaking people were the staff at the campgrounds. Our Spanish is limited but hola an gracias seemed to be enough. The last two weeks of December is an ongoing festivity along the border -- lots of parties in the campground with family and friends. Dick said there were many broken pinatas in the dumpsters and every evening we watched fireworks. To celebrate our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary on December 28, we satisfied our Mexican food craving at Palenque Grill in Laredo. We both agree the best gift to each other is this five month trip.

I love the cactus covered, wide open spaces of Texas. We now and then drive by an entrance to a ranch and pass through several, what appear to be, ghost towns. After Del Rio we crossed the beautiful Pecos River and, of course, had to stop in Langtry to visit the museum in honor of Judge Roy Bean “law west of the Pecos.” http://www.historictexas.net/valverde/people/judgeroybean.html

We then moseyed on to Seminole Canyon State Park where we hiked 7 miles and had lunch overlooking the Rio Grande River. We watched a beautiful full moon (the blue moon) light up the clear sky, and settled in for a night of fierce winds. We have had many nights of Texas winds. There are times we feel like we’re in a boat during a storm, but it eventually rocks us to sleep. We’ve had freezing temps several nights, but the sun warms everything up into the 60‘s or 70‘s during the day. Locals are saying they haven’t seen it this cold in over 20 years.

We traveled south out of Marathon (pronounced Marathin out here) heading for Big Bend National Park. We liked Marathon so much we visited again on our way out of the park. On a whim we took a side trip down to the Stillwell Ranch. We'd heard about the legendary Hallie Stillwell, a pioneer woman who married a cowboy who owned the 4L Ranch (4 L's in Stillwell in case you didn't figure it out). In 1997, she died at age 99. There is a campground and an old general store. The campground isn't much but it was not a wasted trip because we enjoyed meeting the granddaughter who now runs the place. She handed us a key to Hallie's Hall of Fame museum and told us to shut off the lights and lock it up when we were done. The museum and the hour long documentary honors this interesting woman. http://stillwellstore.com/hall-of-fame/

The park personnel asked us to keep Big Bend National Park a secret. It is very remote and the least visited National Park. It's difficult for me to keep a place as unique as this a secret, but I understand their reasoning. It is called Big Bend country because it is located at the Bend of the Rio Grande River which divides the US from Mexico. The park shares 118 miles with Mexico. The bird watching is great. The roadrunners were everywhere, and a site to see was the Vermillion (fire red orange) Flycatcher sitting in the morning sun just outside our window. Again, the coyotes were lurking around and hoping for a cat dinner. The only other wildlife we saw were the javelinas and deer. Big Bend’s night skies are so clear and with no light pollution the milky way and stars are intense. It was paradise sitting in the hot springs along the rushing Rio Grande River. The white throated swifts were thick as mosquitoes swooping over our heads and over the river and canyon walls. Best of all were all the beautiful hikes and places we explored.

My parents decided to try out their new camper and traveled from Arizona to camp with us at Big Bend for a couple of days. We had fun visiting and playing cards. Mom resupplied us with food before they left knowing we wouldn’t be near a grocery store for a while. The nearest town was over 100 miles away. We are hoping to camp together again in southern Arizona.

After nearly two weeks, we finally pried ourselves away from the park knowing there are more wonderful places to explore ahead.
Click here to read Dick's Blog

TEXAS TREASURE

2010-11-08T07:41:00.001-08:00

"I learned early that the richness of life is found in adventure. Adventure calls on all the faculties of mind and spirit. It develops self-reliance and independence. Life then teems with excitement. But man is not ready for adventure unless he is rid of fear. For fear confines him and limits his scope. He stays tethered by strings of doubt and indecision and has only a small and narrow world to explore." - William O. Douglas Of Men and Mountains
Texas is a different world. Driving through Houston, Dick was singing "Happiness is Houston,Texas in the Rearview Mirror". We noticed a couple of things that probably only happen in Texas. A sign on a library door that read "NO FIREARMS ALLOWED", and another at a little store "FRESH COON FOR SALE". I went into a feed store in a little Texan town and they were giving away camoflage drink holders. I said, "no thank-you". I should have taken it. I remembered someone who would love it for his birthday. While driving the expressway through Corpus Christi we witnessed the police trying to round up a loose steer at a shopping center. It is open range here isn't it? I was behind a couple at a grocery store buying something that looked like packaged lard. I asked them what it was and they explained it was the cow's stomach or tripe. "It's great!" they said. "You slice it up and cook it with beans and chilies and it's delicious." They added that they eat every part of the cow - TMI.
We traveled along the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail where we visited Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and then on to Padre Island National Park. All along the coast the bird watching was great. Besides the Whooping Crane, another first for me was the Caracara (the Mexican Eagle). I love the white and brown pelicans and the many migrating shorebirds. Around 380 bird species have been documented here. When I asked Dick about what kind of Terns we were seeing, he said, "They're either Wrongs or Rights or they could be U's." This is what it's like traveling with this guy. You should hear him when we're playing cards - he has an Italian accent one night, Mexican another. I keep telling him I prefer Irish. I think he does this to distract me so he can win.
Traveling to Padre Island National Park we turned on the wrong road because of our GPS. This time after Dick yelled at it, he apologized because we ended up at a free ferry crossing to the island. It saved us a lot of miles in traffic and it was a beautiful ride with schools of dolphins playing all around the ferry. Padre Island was great. We stayed nearly two weeks. We visited this place in 1979 and parked our car and trailer on the beach but we weren't so sure we'd do that again. If you want to read about our 1979 visit CLICK HERE

At first Dick said, "No way will I drive our rig out there." Then he decided to do it after watching others. It is hard to believe that you can drive out on the sand and not get stuck. We had equal amounts of rainy and cold days and sunny and warm days. We stayed in the campground for a few days then moved to the beach. We watched the waves and sunrises right out the motor home window. Two storms forced us back to the safety of the campground where the winds rocked the motor home all night. The Texas coast is noted for its heavy rain squalls. It was nice to be back in the shelter of the campground because most of the RVs were decorated for Christmas and it was Christmas Eve.
The National Park embraces close to 70 miles of sandy beaches with a variety of shells and birds and we loved watching the Ghost Crabs. We were told by the ranger the best time to see the crabs is at night. So we went out with a flashlight and watched and waited for quite awhile but saw nothing. We commented that the ranger didn't know what she was talking about because we saw more in the daytime. As we turned around to head back to the motor home, there in our path was a huge crab watching us. We also startled a big buck that ran in front of us. I picked up a couple sand dollars and brought them into the motor home to dry out. Funny Face started acting weird. She slunk low to the ground, acting like there was a lose snake under the chairs. We were looking under everything when I finally thought of the sand dollars and put them back outside. Then she acted normal again. We were told the next day that the darker sand dollars were still alive. I felt terrible - that poor little creature.
One morning it was calm enough to watch a few dolphins off shore, but mostly the surf was a constant roar. There were a pair of coyotes that came down to the beach a couple times a day. We never figured out what they were after. We couldn't let Sheba out on her leash alone because we didn't want to reel her rope in and find only a collar at the end - or a coyote.
There is a sad side to this little piece of paradise. There is a lot of trash that washes up on the beach. We were told that the predominant southeast wind drives the currents in the Gulf of Mexico to this location in the Northwest corner. As a result, anything that falls or is tossed into the Gulf eventually ends up here. Trying to keep all these miles of beach cleaned up is never ending. SHORELINE CLEANUP
Slowing down and being one with nature makes you wonder about things you see every day but you don't take time to understand. There were nights the sky was so dark and the constellations so clear. To think that we used to navigate by them and tell time by them. Or seeing the changes in the tides and learning how the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun affects the tide level.
Padre Island National Park was a wonderful place to spend the holidays and if the sun would have continued to shine, we may still be there. We decided we'd better head away from the ocean spray or we may begin to rust.
Link to Dick's Blog PADRE ISLAND NATIONAL PARK

MIGRATING SOUTH

2010-11-08T07:36:00.001-08:00

“When I die I want my heart and soul fully seeded with rich stories and experiences.” - Dawna Markova

Dick and I left home November 30 beating the first snow in northern Michigan. We would have waited until after Christmas if Maggie would have been home, but we were grateful that she decided, since she had just been home in November, she’d rather fly down to meet us somewhere warm this winter instead. We’ll never forget the time we left Michigan in January 1978 and got off the expressway in Kentucky not realizing the off ramps and side roads were glare ice. The 30 foot travel trailer we were hauling started to pass us on the left. Fortunately, we straightened it out by using the hand brake. A wrecker had to get us back out to the expressway!

To get into the spirit of the holidays, I have decorated the motor home a little bit with red candles and a vase of red berries and greenery from the woods, and I belt out a Christmas carol now and then.

We arrived in Nashville, TN, after driving two days, to begin a week of exploring the Natchez Trace from Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS. A beautiful National Scenic Parkway that has preserved our nation’s natural and cultural heritage. http://www.nps.gov/natr/index.htm

Whenever we start a trip it takes a few days to decompress. Going from a busy lifestyle to becoming a laid back RVer can take some getting used to - believe it or not. Being together practically 24/7 is an adjustment. Keeping this small space clean is easy but we do have to be more organized living in 30’ motor home. Laundry is much less. At home I do a load every day but on the road it’s once a week. There are many changes from home, but after a while we get into the swing of things. Because of this life style we have more time to read and write. When we have a phone connection we can watch the news on the computer. We are not big TV watchers anyway. We play cards which we never do when we’re home, and we hike in a different place every day. Some of my favorites along the trace was visiting the grave of Meriwether Lewis, seeing the fields of cane and cotton, the bayous and the beautiful Magnolia trees (the MS. State tree and flower), visiting the town of Kosciusko, MS. just off the Trace, where Oprah was born and raised, touring the Mount Locus Stand (one of the oldest buildings in MS. dating back to 1780), and hiking where my Choctaw ancestors at one time lived (a spiritual experience for sure). We visited several of the towns just off the parkway. My favorite was the city of Natchez. Driving through downtown felt like we were on a movie set. Many huge southern plantation mansions. Before the Civil War there were 35 millionaires in the U.S. and Natchez had 12 of them. We toured Melrose Mansion and reading the history of slavery in an exhibit there was moving. http://www.visitnatchez.com/

I love listening to the southern accent in this part of the country. The blacks seem to have a different southern slang than the whites. It’s so amazing to listen to these southerners, but sometimes difficult to understand. Another thing I notice is everyone is laid back and friendly.

We have made friends with a couple from Ontario who we met the first evening at a campground on the Trace. We keep meeting up with them along the way which has been fun. They talked us into camping at a casino in La. We live four miles from one in Michigan and never go there but decided to go in and check it out. We were in the mood for some good Cajun cuisine but the menu prices were outrageous. We lost $15 in the slots in just a few minutes and left smelling like smoke. We just can’t figure out what the attraction is. We did think it was great how someone kept offering us free drinks. I made cajun rice & beans in the motor home and I won at a game of cards. Now that’s more like it.

Our two cats are with us. Funny Face did jump out of the motor home one afternoon and explored the whole campground. She finally came home after dark. I’m not sure how she knew which RV was hers. We told her she better be careful or she’ll end up being a southern cat and living in the bayou.

It has only been warm enough one night to open our windows. We keep traveling south and hope it warms up soon. We watch the weather up north and Dick is so happy he doesn’t have to shovel snow.

Ya’ll take care now, ya hear?

DICK'S BLOG BEATING THE BLIZZARD

BROKEN DOWN IN THE BADLANDS

2010-11-08T07:29:00.001-08:00

When we visited the Badlands National Park a couple weeks ago it reminded me of the time we were stranded there during the fall of 1990. Dick had written the experience down and published it in The Dick E. Bird News. I thought it would be fun to share the article because it is quite comical. Click on The Praying Mechanic link below.

The Praying Mechanic

BACK HOME

2010-11-08T07:26:00.001-08:00

The winds were atrocious for two days as we traveled across the Great Plains and into Minnesota on I-90. Dick had to fight the wheel as the wind hit us broadside. There were areas of construction where the westbound lanes of the expressway were closed, and narrowed down to two lanes, so whenever a westbound semi passed us it would suck us in and blow us off the side of the road. The American flags were flying stiff. The Great Plains is referred to as America's wind corridor and contribute substantially to wind power in the United States. We saw turbine powered windmills from South Dakota into Minnesota.

People in this area must be acclimated to the wind and other conditions. We are always amazed at stories of early settlers who were lured to these open spaces by the offer of free or inexpensive land and tried to make a living.

In Minnesota, It was interesting to see the kestrel birdhouses mounted on the back of the highway signs along I-90, as part of a program to help the declining kestrel population. We would also see large flocks of redwing blackbirds in the sunflower fields. They're fattening up for fall migration. The farmers are allowed to kill these birds if they're eating their crops. How ironic -- they're growing the crops to sell as birdseed but they are killing the birds because they're eating the seed in the fields. learner.org/jnorth/tm/rwbb/RedwingPoisoning.html

The trees were just beginning to turn and the sun was shining as we traveled across Hwy 2 along the shores of Lake Michigan. We love northern Michigan but it sure would be nice if it was a little closer to the mountains. We stopped at a rest area along the lake and parked behind a caravan of RVers with Idaho license plates. They were all taking pictures and walking the beach in awe. We take for granted how unique our great lakes are and how fortunate we are to live surrounded by them. It truly is a wonder of the world. When whenever we see the Mackinaw Bridge we know we're on the home stretch. Even our cats were acting different today. They must have smelled home in the air.

For those of you going on a color tour of northern Michigan I highly recommend taking Hwy.

119 out of Harbor Springs, through the Tunnel of Trees to Cross Village, and make sure you check out the Bliss General store. Even though the trees weren't showing their peak colors it was still a nice route home.

It's hard to believe we traveled 5,500 miles in thirty days. We have lots of good memories and many new friends. When we first start a trip it takes a few days to get into the swing of things. Being with your spouse 24/7 can be a challenge but after a while it's not so bad. Finding your way around some areas can be difficult. There are times when you get lost, or miss a turn, or turn onto a dead end or a parking lot too small to turn around. For a motorhome pulling a car that is not good. But, you learn to roll with the punches. We don't have one of the fancy motorhomes with laundry, large kitchen and all the amenities of home, so it can be like roughing it sometimes -- but you get used to it. At least we're not in a tent. We've learned to always read the check list after stopping for a while. Once you've forgotten to lock the refrigerator, and food flies everywhere, you learn fast. It's amazing how much more we read, write and relax when there is no television. We've taken the time to write a blog and it has connected us to so many people. And that has been rewarding. Now that we have everything figured out, we would like to keep going and head to warmer climates but it's back to reality, we'll get used to it. Its good to be home.

"Man, being man and an ambulatory creature with a degree of restlessness in his blood, must be up and gone from time to time. He must go, if only to assure himself that the horizon has no boundary. What are hills for if not to have a farther side? But once one has gone, one must come back. And that is the final satisfaction of the trip, whether it is a vacation or just a journey -- the return itself. The homecoming." -- Hal Borland

Dick’s Comments:
Once we left the Badlands National Park I felt our pilgrimage to America’s wild places was over. There are few National Parks between South Dakota and home and none that we had time to visit. It was hammer down directly east. I was looking forward to a color tour across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but we arrived a few days too early. Jack Frost was just beginning to get his brilliant palette fired up. We finished the trip the same way we started with a pasty at our favorite roadside rest area along Little Traverse Bay, south of Petoskey, Michigan. It was a real pasty too! Anyone can make a pasty but to be a true Yooper pasty it has to come from someone with an attitude. When Gaila bought these two it was from an Escanaba woman with veins of lard and ice water for blood. Every time Gaila would ask a question she would answer, but she had that look on her face that screamed out contempt. I knew she was thinking, “Ask me one more question and I’ll break your legs, eh.”

NATIONAL PARKS

2010-11-08T07:13:00.001-08:00

When we visit the National Parks we feel like we're home. Since our last blog entry, we drove to Devils Tower in Wyoming; America's first National Monument. In previous traveling years we've skirted this place but never visited. In the middle of mostly flat country is this huge rock, jutting out of the earth, measuring 867 ft from its base and 1000 ft in diameter. You may remember seeing it in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We camped below it in a quiet little campground in the curve of the Belle Fourche River. In the evening we went to a ranger talk and in the dark someone pointed out a light on the side of Devils Tower. These were climbers that apparently had miscalculated their time and the ranger said they were also repelling down the most difficult side. More than 5,000 climbers come here every year from all over the world to ascend the massive columns. There are rescue rangers on duty but the one assigned for that day went to bed; tired of waiting for them to reach the bottom. According to the ranger they would have heard them yell or received a call from their cell phone if they had a problem.
After 35 years of marriage, Dick and I still have communication problems. His plan was "to walk the 1-1/2 miles to the visitor center and then take the loop around the tower." What he didn't say was we'd be hiking 1-1/2 miles of switchbacks up the side of a mountain to get there. I must admit it was a beautiful climb looking back down over the valley and the river. I'm actually getting better at this uphill climbing. I've acclimated to the higher elevation and I've hiked many trails on this trip that have strengthened my up hill climbing muscles.
Devils Tower is also a sacred site to American Indian tribes throughout the U.S. We saw several prayer bundles along the trail. I really wanted to stay longer but we decided we'd better keep going since we need to be home in a week and we still have so much we want to see.
We traveled next to Wind Cave National Park in Wyoming, seeing lots of wildlife - buffalo, prairie dogs, elk, turkeys, mule and white tail deer, antelope, mountain bluebirds etc.... We went to the evening program and the energetic ranger tells the audience of around 40 people that she would like us to follow her by car to a prairie where we could listen to the elk bugling. As we walked out into this field in the dark, we passed buffalo and walked around prairie dog holes, and then everyone sat very still under the stars and listened to the bugling in the distance. One of the reasons we love the National Parks so much is the ranger led walks and talks. We learn so much and we meet great people. So this leads me to the best part of the bugling experience. As you know, from Dick's last blog, the starter on the Saturn is shot. After too many arguments trying to push start it, we have decided to just keep it hooked up to the motorhome until we get home. Consequently, we needed a ride to the prairie bugling. A couple, who recently moved to South Dakota from Louisiana, willingly volunteered. After an evening of talking and laughing to and from the prairie, we exchanged contact information and Robin even had Dick take a picture of she and I for her Facebook. Great people. It reminded us that oftentimes good things come from bad situations. I didn't mind that our Saturn wasn't starting.
We were up before sunrise and the prairie dogs so we could see wildlife as we headed for the Badlands National Park. A unique beauty of its own, this place is located in southwestern South Dakota, and consists of nearly 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires with a grass prairie mixed in. It's hard to believe there is anything living in this arid place but it is home to so much wildlife.
This is the last national park on this trip. Now we are looking forward to getting to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and enjoying the beautiful fall colors, but know we have three long days of driving to get there.

Dick's Comments: Coming out of Cody, Wyo. I again tested the motorhome transmission getting up, over and through the Big Horn Mountains. That type of climbing sucks the petro, but worth the price of admission. We love the little town of Ten Sleep at the base of the Big Horns. Ten Sleep got its name by being ten sleeps (nights) between the Great Sioux Camps and the Platte River to the South, and the northern camp located near Bridger, Montana. We always feel like we have arrived home when we enter National Parkland. Devils Tower was no exception. We are so incredibly fortunate that these areas were set aside and protected for generations to come.

Besides the vast array of wildlife viewing opportunities in Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, the caves themselves are fun to explore with a ranger. We didn’t do a cave tour on this trip, but instead spent our time hunting for wildlife.

It is so easy to start friendships when traveling. This trip has been no exception. We met an interesting family at Devils Tower who travel, home school their daughter and publish a magazine “Airtstream Life” online and in print.

Another couple we met in Wind Cave became fast friends. In a short span of time we got acquainted, plus pulled over by park police. Dave and Robin and their lab puppy, Dakota, are avid hunters, especially bow hunting. Robin was telling us how she met Dave in a taxidermist shop. She actually set him up. “In hunting circles,” Dave says, “it’s called baiting.” Robin’s girlfriend ran the taxidermy shop. Robin had her eye on Dave and told her girlfriend to call if he showed up in the shop. The call came in and Robin made a 911 whistle-run for the taxidermy shop. It only took one of cupid’s arrows from her quiver to bag her buck. The rest is history. We laughed so hard our sides hurt.

The park police pulled us over because a headlight was out. None of us had seat-belts on, Robin gave the officer expired proof of insurance and Dakota just wanted to lick him. He didn’t ticket us but we were so confused we missed the campground turnoff in the dark. I think we could make a lot more friends if we didn’t haul a car around with us.

A trip out this way would not be complete without a traditional stop at “Wall Drug” and a loop through the Badlands. Our weather has been almost perfect on this trip but we were blown into the Badlands National Park. The wind and storms can be ferocious in the plains and especially here it seems. The last time we camped in Badlands National Park we watched a large troop of Boy Scouts take shelter in their vehicles as they watched their tents blow across the prairie like tumbleweeds. It comes with the territory I guess. A good place to earn your Long Tent Stake Merit Badge. --Keep Smilin

DICK'S JUMP OR SWIM STORY

MIGRATING EAST

2010-11-08T07:07:00.001-08:00

The best part of our trip to Crater Lake National Park was the Oregon Scenic Byway heading east out of Roseburg. It was much needed after taking traffic congested Interstate 5 from Anacortes. Another remarkable thing about Oregon was they still pump your gas and wash your windshield. Something I hadn't seen in years.

Touring Crater Lake National Park (Caldera Lake) with my sister and her husband for four days was great. They traveled from Foresthill, CA which was about a seven hour drive for them. The last time the guys had been together was in 1999 when Pat and Kathy and their two kids drove to Henry’s Lake, Idaho when Dick was hiking the Continental Divide Trail. So it was catch up time. Crater Lake is incredible. When I saw this huge deep crater, filled with water of the most beautiful shade of blue, my first expression was “this is amazing.” It is the deepest lake in the U.S. and is an incredible sight to see. The four of us explored the park by foot and car. Driving in some areas of the park you are right on the edge with no guard rails. It was especially scary driving those two lane roads in the motorhome. We played lots of games, ate lots of food, enjoyed campfire talks and so much more. We vowed to see each other at least once a year from now on.

On the next leg of our trip we drove two long days to reach the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks in Wyoming. Driving east through Oregon and Idaho we stayed off the expressways as much as we could. Miles of mountainous areas through Oregon leading into flat onion and potato country and then into the mountains again. The aspen trees are a beautiful golden color and are so beautiful among the deep dark green of the pines.
Just thought you'd like to know, the cats are still with us.

Click Here for Dick's Comments -- See Sept. 25th 2009

SIX DAYS WITH MAGGIE

2010-11-08T06:14:00.000-08:00

Our visit with our daughter, Maggie, was great. For those of you who do not know, in May she sent emails, inquiring about work, to several B & B’s in the San Juan area of Washington. Out of those that responded there was one in Anacortes called The Ship House B & B that she decided was perfect for her. http://www.shiphouseinn.com/tour/index.htm She was so excited but I was a little worried. You know how mothers can be. Being the adventurous and brave spirit she is, she flew out on June 17. Now it looks as if she’ll stay indefinitely. We understand why. The man she works for, Oggie, is special. The two of them make a good team running the B & B. He and his wife, Bette, are very kind and take good care of her. She is part of the family now. There was never a dull moment the six days we visited. Maggie stayed busy cooking and cleaning but when there were no guests there was plenty of time for sight-seeing with her parents. She loves the town and has made so many friends. We ate at a couple of her favorite places but also had some great seafood meals at the B & B. The Ship House B & B sits high on a cliff overlooking the ocean and the San Juan Islands. WOW - what an amazing view and sunsets. Maggie and I had mother and daughter time too. We went berry picking and enjoyed berries everyday. They seem to be bigger and more abundant out west. Visiting over coffee is one of our favorite things to do and she took me to a coffee shop she loves “The Supreme Bean.” We had hoped to take a ferry to Orcas Island but only fit in one ferry trip to Guemes Island where we went beach combing for agates. It was difficult saying good-bye but knowing how happy she is and seeing she is in a good place made it easier. The next morning we headed south to Oregon to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law in Crater Lake National Park.

Dick’s Comments:

What a great time we had in Anacortes. I was just getting into “Island Time” when we had to leave. I guess when you live on an island you begin to move like a sloth. I think it might be the ferry schedule, you have to get used to waiting. It’s a tough life. I slept in a hammock overlooking the best sunset in all of North America. I told Oggie I was his backup. Every time I climbed out of the hammock I said, “Hey Oggie, I’m back up!” One of Oggie’s favorite lines when he wants to rest is, “I’m going to measure my bed.”

They fed us like Kings and made us feel like family. Oggie is a real captain. He goes “garage sailing” every Friday. You should see the treasure he comes home with. The Ship House is all decked out in a nautical theme and I spent several days constantly discovering new things. Bette is a real sweetheart and Maggie loves helping her. We had six days of laughter. Maggie was always doing her Julia Child’s impersonation in the kitchen, especially the wine drinking part. A trip to the Ship House wouldn’t be complete without meeting “Popeye” and we did--Steve actually, a good friend of Oggie and Bette who visits often and brings all kinds of goodies and helps wherever he can. He has been helping Oggie build on to the B&B for a long time. I wanted to warn him before I left that Oggie bought 1400 bricks at a garage sale last week. Enough to build a new “Brick Ship House.”

We also met many of Maggie’s new friend’s, Elena, Casey and Billy.

Just before we arrived Maggie’s good friend Kelly moved out to Anacortes from Michigan and is rooming with Maggie and working in town at an Italian restaurant. Maggie is glad to have her aboard. It would take a lot more than six days to truly explore this area, but we did fit a lot in.

MONTANA AND MORE

2010-11-08T06:00:00.001-08:00

While Dick was backpacking for three days in Glacier NP, I enjoyed some alone time. I took a short hike through the campground and watched a mother black bear with her three cubs eating berries. Believe me, I wasn’t too close, they were specks on a mountainside. I went to a couple campfire programs. It was wonderful sitting outdoors in the evening, overlooking Lake McDonald with the mountains as a backdrop, listening to the stories and songs by Jack Gladstone, a Blackfoot Indian www.jackgladstone.com We heard him for the first time when we were here in 1997. His music is magical.

Another evening a ranger (Pat Hagan) stripped down (he did an actual strip show) to a goat costume and gave a talk on what a mountain goat’s life is like - a very humorous and entertaining evening I must say. We were parked at Medicine Lake CG when Dick left on the hike but he planned to hike down to the Southwest corner of the park so I moved down to West Glacier. Driving the motorhome with the Saturn in tow was a piece of cake. After driving it for five months when he hiked the CDT in 1999, it was like second nature. The weather was damp and cold and windy part of the time and I wondered what it must be like for Dick up in the higher elevations. I kept reassuring myself that if he hiked 3,800 miles from Mexico to Canada he could handle any kind of weather. I was also concerned because he was going to search for the body of the young man who never returned after backpacking last summer. GREAT! My parents planned to camp nearby until he returned and then head south for warmer weather. I cooked one of Dick’s favorite meals and the four of us celebrated his return. The next morning we headed west stopping in Whitehorse to find our nephew, Kevin Mallery.

He is living and working out here and it was great taking a couple hours to catch up. We crossed into Idaho and found a great campground along the Priest River. We were so excited to see several owls perched on telephone poles along Hwy. 2. We weren’t sure what kind they were and asked our campground host, who was from Texas, if he knew what they were. He says, “Oh, those are Hoot owls.” It was tough keeping straight faces as we thanked him and walked away. So the next morning we drove a little slower and get a better look at them. With the daylight we could see they were fakes. Dick’s comment was, “Them ain’t hoot owls, them’s pole-out-the-butt owls.”

We took the scenic Hwy. 20 across Washington. Several mountain passes and scenic overlooks and it cuts through the beautiful North Cascades National Park which was a first for us. We were full-time RV’ers, working our way around the country, from 1978 to 1986, visiting 49 states, and there are still so many places we haven’t seen.

We made a rule never to drive after dark but as we got closer to Anacortes and Maggie we broke the rule AGAIN. We arrived at the campground around 8:30PM (as Dick says, “Dark:30”). There were no lights and it was so dark as we drove up the entrance road. It was a narrow, first gear, climb and we were wondering what we were getting into. It’s not always easy finding a spot to camp for our size motorhome with a car, especially in the dark. We didn’t want to have to unhook the car. All of a sudden out of nowhere a man with white hair and a flashlight was directing us into a pull through camping space. I thanked him for his help and we never saw him again. When I mentioned this to the campground ranger he wondered who that could have been. It must have been an angel helping us. When daylight came we saw how beautiful the place was. Lush, green and surrounded by huge Douglas Fur and Ponderosa Pines. This would be our home for the six days we visited Maggie.

Dick’s Glacier Hike Link

Dick’s How Not to Fill Your Propane Tank Lesson

Dick’s Washington State Hwy 20 Route Link

Dick’s Refrigeration 101 Link

GLACIAL PARADISE

2010-11-08T05:58:00.001-08:00

Dick loves to watch for the Empire Builder (Amtrak from Chicago to Seattle) as we cross the prairie. He has ridden that out to Glacier in the fall a couple times. I think his fascination with trains started when his Dad woke up the whole family one night to watch the Zephyr (Amtrak Chicago to LA) go past their Airstream on one of their western trips when he was a kid. He’s always talking about jumping a train. I think he must have been a hobo in one of his past lives. The tracks follow Hwy. 2 almost the whole trip and we did see the Empire Builder pass us a few times.

After a couple long days on the road, through the breadbasket of America, passing through the geographical center of North America, and then under the big sky of Montana, we finally made it to paradise. Glacier National Park is incredible. We hiked around Two Medicine Lake that began at our campground. The 8 mile trail went through beautiful spruce forests and fields of wildflowers. We even ate a few raspberries and thimble berries along the way. We visited with several other hikers so it took a few hours more than it should have. It’s always fun meeting people as we travel. This morning as we walked up to the ranger station we were greeted by a woman carrying her mug of coffee and walking her little poodle at the end of a leash. She says, “Where are the bears? That’s what I wanna know. I came all this way so I want a picture of a bear.” Dick says, “Just keep trolling with that dog and you might just find one.”

One interesting couple we met on the trail were from Switzerland and had traveled to the U.S. on a container ship. They landed in Jacksonville, FL., bought a small motorhome and have been traveling across the country. Next they go to LA, sell the motorhome and take another container ship to Australia. They said it wasn’t cheap, but like a floating hotel with great food.

We did meet up with my parents here and there along Hwy 2 and have connected again with them here at Glacier. They know where all the “FREE” campgrounds and dump stations are. They will be with us until Tuesday when we head west to Washington and they’ll head for California to visit my sister and brother.

**I’m reading a book The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin, the author of Devil in the White City. While traveling through North Dakota where you see nothing for miles and miles it is hard to believe what took place in this region in the 1880’s. For those of you who like reading historical books, I recommend this one.

Dick’s Comments

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes but North Dakota is the land of a billion pot holes. I mean that in a good way. They dot the farmland across the state and this time of the year as well as spring they are loaded with migrating ducks. There’s a thousand miles of wheat between Minnesota and the Rockies. It must have been amazing to travel this stretch of the globe in a covered wagon through tall grass that would hide an Indian on a paint pony.

Traveling in the Electronic Age. I spent a month before we left trying to figure out the best way to stay connected and able to run our book business on the road. I discovered what I pretty much already knew--the cell phone company plans are the next best thing to bank robbery. I finally decided on the lesser of several evils. It used to be, “The customer is always right.” The new motto for many corporations is “The customer is always stupid.” That’s probably why so many of them are going bankrupt. Our cell service is Altell which was bought out by Verizon. We ended up with an internet data card from Altell which turned out to be faster than the Charter Cable we HAD at home. Yes, we fired Charter. Now Gaila is chatting online with her sister in California while I’m driving across the plains of Montana. I can see from horizon to horizon and can’t pick out a single tower, yet she has big pipe internet service flowing through the laptop. Amazing. We grandfathered into Altell before the switch this fall to Verizon. Much better and cheaper data plans. I thought we would be going back to the old dial-up speed so this has been a pleasant surprise. We can use it on our home computer--IF WE COME HOME!

GOOD COP / BAD COP

2010-06-07T16:10:00.000-07:00

I decided to title this blog “Good Cop/Bad Cop” because it is always easy to write about our National Parks looking through Rose Colored Glasses in a Ken Burns description, and that’s what most writers do. But, the parks have a dark side I think could use a little light. Both GC/BC are accurate descriptions. The parks would do themselves a favor by marketing the reality of todays parks and drop visitation numbers which in turn saves the park. Instead, all you see in media presentation of the parks are those wondrous things for which they have been set aside. You will learn of the “Dark Side” and the “Dirty Little Secrets” that are attached to these nature niches if you have the time to read “Bad Cop”

Good Cop: Yosemite Valley has “The Good,” “The Bad,” but no “Ugly.” Yosemite Falls is the fifth highest falls in the world, El Capitan is the highest unbroken cliff face in the world, and the trees here are some of the largest and oldest on the planet. The Valley floor sits at 4,000 foot elevation and the sheer canyon walls soar from its lush fen and forested edges. One of the first things I noticed was the wildlife in Yosemite doesn’t run around with a chip on their shoulder. At first I thought it was that California Glow, Peace and Love, Let It Be and efforts by the Rainbow Coalition Wildlife Management Team. As it turns out with a hundred year history of no hunting pressure this is truly where deer have no fear, bear enjoy dining with you, and squirrels are overly, neighborly.

Bad Cop: You might not want to read the Bad Cop portion of this blog. If you cannot tolerate reality, skip these scenarios.) It took a lot of computer thumping to finally book a string of eleven days in Yosemite Valley. It’s campground bingo. If you want to stay you have to be willing to move every other day. It’s like musical chairs--only with Campers. Every morning we all get up and move to each others sites.

Many national parks, including Yosemite, have their own jails. I had not been in Yosemite for an hour before human conflict raised it’s ugly head. We arrived at our “Reserved Site” late in the afternoon and found another vehicle parked in half of it. We parked across the street in an empty site and found the campground host. He came down and found that the vehicle belonged to someone in the Sherpa Base-camp site next door. It was a tribe of young guys with more vehicles and tents than sites are allowed and one of them decided to take ours too. They said he was around and would be right back to move. The camp host said I couldn’t stay where I was parked because that was someone else’s reservation. He asked if I would park our motor home in my site next to Sir Edmund Hillary, Jr.’s truck until he returned, and park our car over in Sherpa Base-camps site. Trying to chill, get along, go with the flow, mellow out, get into the Yosemite State of Mind, we said yes. That was our first mistake. A ranger with no Cojones came by before we went to bed and did nothing. He should have written a ticket and called a wrecker. Climbing Boy never returned--until midnight when he decided he should organize his gear and his truck right next to our window. He woke up Gaila, but I snored through the whole episode.

By morning, not only was the truck still parked inches from my door, my car was boxed in by more Climber Boy cars in their site which should only have two vehicle. That did it. By now I realized that they all knew he wasn’t coming back until late. He was on the side of a mountain somewhere. They had been messin’ with me, lying to the gutless ranger law enforcement officer driving around with blinders on, and taking advantage of my good nature. Unfortunately, like Teddy Roosevelt who helped set much of this park preservation system in place, I “Walk Softly but Carry a Big Stick.”

I decided to have a good Ole Marine Corps Reveille at six o’clock in the morning. I walked over in the middle of Sherpaville and started screaming orders and kicking tents. I was so convincing, people in other campsites who where doing nothing wrong got up and started moving their cars.

“OKAY BOYS. YOU WANNA #$%&$ WITH ME? WHO’S DRIVING THE JEEP WITH CANADIAN PLATES? WHO OWNS THE RED TRUCK IN MY SITE? I WANNA SEE HEADS COMING OUT OF THESE TENTS. I’LL HAVE A WRECKER AND WORTHLESS RANGER HERE TOWING ALL THIS SHIT OUT OF HERE IN TEN MINUTES IF THINGS DON’T START MOVING. I’M TAKING A SHORT WALK AND WHEN I GET BACK I WANNA SEE THAT SHIT HAS DISAPPEARED.”

That got all their attention. They started coming out of tents everywhere. Most of them didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Poor Gaila was in the motor home watching me bark orders in the middle of all these tree tall young guys and just started writing my obituary. As it turned out everyone was real cooperative after that. They got to get up early and enjoy the morning sunrise, I got possession of the site I rightfully owned for two days, and the the worthless ranger didn’t have to do anything.

I’m not really a big bully. It is actually something I learned in the Marine Corps and fine tuned while the Personnel Manager of a Pie Company. It’s not how tall you are, it’s how loud you are. It’s all about volume control. I actually liked these these guys. I just couldn’t tell them because they were acting like a bunch of assholes.

Good Cop: I don’t want to sound like I’m softening, but I am finding a lot of great hikes and solitude not far from the maddening crowd. This valley, full of trinket merchants, can easily compare to the temple where Jesus threw out the peddlers, but is only about one percent of Yosemite. It IS necessary to fight your way in, establish an Alpha, top-dog status among inconsiderate, un-enforced fellow campers but then find those niches of nature that take some sweat equity and grab some alone time. My guess is that 99% of the visitors here never get more than a mile from the nearest trailhead. That is the passport to sanity. I have been a National Park supporter for over fifty years but now I realize that the patients are running the asylum. Leaving the maddening crowd behind is as easy as a short hike or a backcounty permit to Yosemite’s lofty magical places. Snow melt has swollen the many waterfalls that surround the valley and continue to redefine its shape in a process so slow that you really can’t wrap your mind around it. The Merced River rushes by our campground doing the same.

Bad Cop: The saga continues. I have tried real hard to get my California Glow on. I thought I was getting into the Zen of camping, living the moment, feeling free and easy. I decided not to let the Sherpa Base Camp next door irritate me. I was actually more irritated with the park service because they enforce nothing--I thought. Even though the Sherpa Pigs were doing everything wrong the rangers were afraid to go into their site and do their job. But, after midnight they knocked on MY door and said I had to get the ice chest out of my car. Again, I was sleeping through the whole episode but Gaila was shaking me awake and yelling through the window that their was no food in it. “Doesn’t matter. Store it in a food box.” By the time I was conscious the ranger was gone and I had to get out of bed to take an empty ice chest out of my car. No food in it. Bought it at Walmart for insurance because the refrigerator was acting up. I guess the bears in Yosemite are smarter than the rangers. They know an ice chest means food. I go out and look over at Sherpa Base Camp--ice chests and coolers scattered on the ground everywhere. Two cars and a camper parked in the site and out on the road, five tents and two people in sleeping bags on the ground, cooking gear and food items on picnic tables and on top of food storage boxes. The night before remember, my car was parked in Sherpa Base Camp because they had half my site occupied (with the same ice chest in the same backseat)--BUT DID THE RANGER WAKE THEM UP AND COMPLAIN---NOOOO. I’m thinking these kids must belong to the Superintendent. They have some kind of Yosemite immunity. They break every rule in the book and nothing. They are the Teflon Dons of the valley. I don’t make this accusation without cause. After jolting Sir Edmund awake and evicting him from my site I noticed his red truck with Colorado plates parked the rest of the week directly across from the Park Supers office in a small private looking lot that only official “Ranger Club” vehicles should be able to drive into. Luckily we are moving today to another campground, another site. I may even find new campground management with enough backbone to “Give Peace a Chance.” I know that Sherpa Base Camp will be as happy to see me go as I am to be gone.

Good Cop: Yosemite has 400 full-time, year-round rangers. It is obvious that is not enough to combat the invasion of visitors that begins each spring. Another, 400 reinforcements are being brought in right now to help repel the Spring Offensive. Not wanting to do battle anymore than I had already, the backcountry office and I were on a first name basis. Having never hiked here before I was confused on where to backpack. In addition, Yosemite had 156% of snowpack this past winter. They call it, “Sierra Cement.” Snow here is very moist and heavy as it is formed when a mixture of wet Pacific wind slams into the High Sierra Range. If you have any question on how harsh it can get, read the “Donner Party” history. To get higher into the backcountry it is necessary to visit this area in the middle of the summer. One of the top ten hikes among Packtoters like myself would be the John Muir trail. It is a spectacular 200 mile trek that is unfortunately still under seventy inches of snow this spring. I will get close but the John Muir will have to reside on my “bucket list” still longer.

Bad Cop: Okay, we are into day four and after 96 hours of humming Kum ba ya and John Lennon’s “Imagine” my nerves are soothing and my temper is less seething. I am starting to understand the park service management plan. I didn’t understand at first. They have so many rules, regulations and laws that visitors must follow, rangers had to be recruited from the ranks of prestigious law schools around the country. Then I wondered, “why would a law student become a ranger?” Actually they are the law students that flunked out. The park service needed a large Corps of Employees that could automatically look perplexed when asked a direct question about any particular rule. To fine tune this system they also needed law enforcement rangers that would not actually enforce regulation. Again, I didn’t understand this the first couple days. I was following all the rules. Every time I questioned the campground host about twice as many vehicles and people squatted and partying in the sites next to me he would say, “That’s really not enforced.”

Another problem is doing any full day hiking. Because of the reservation system we are in a new site almost every day. The “Rule” is, “If you occupy a site before noon you will be charged a camping fee for the night before.” I thought that meant we couldn’t move until noon every day. That was before I found out that rules are not enforced.

There are black bears in all the campgrounds. I know this because rangers come through the campground at night blasting air canister horns at them. Between Sherpa Base Camp and annoying rangers I think I will be sleep deprived by the time I leave this valley. Let me quickly take the bears side of the issue. After a long winters nap the bear wakes up extremely hungry. Wafting up from the valley floor comes all these delicious fragrances--steak, hot dogs, potato, onion and mushroom stir fry, fish, corn casserole, barbecue chicken, baked beans, smoors and more. All that is available as a natural food source for bears in the spring is grass. Tell me, if you’re a bear are you going for the grass or the campground? We all know the answer to that. I know bears are smart but they are not as smart as people. So if the park service can’t educate people on food handling, how are they ever going to educate bears on food snatching. This story is older than Yogi Bear, and yet the park service still has no clue. Stop honking at bears in the dark and “ENFORCE THE RULES YOU SPEND ALL WINTER DREAMING UP!”

Good Cop: It took us a few days to learn all the rules that aren’t enforced in Yosemite. Gaila was talking to a ranger about the possibility of switching reservation sites if something came available. In the conversation she mentioned we would be here eleven days. He said, “You are only allowed seven days in Yosemite.” That surprised us. Most parks and forest service campgrounds are 14 days. Seeing the panic in her eyes he said, “Don’t worry “I know nothing. Did you say seven or eleven.” Gaila said, “SEVEN.”

Not all rangers have attitude problems. There are many dedicated individuals who do a tremendous job. As the park service has grown over the years it has become a bureaucracy like so many other government branches. It is easy to criticize a system that is saddled with the task of protecting natural places from the very society of people that have set them aside for generations to visit and enjoy. It is truly a “Catch 22” and I should not expect perfection from such a precarious mission.

Bad Cop: The first day in Yosemite Valley we decided to first orient ourselves by riding the shuttle system from one end of its route to the other. What we learned was this. “Never get on another shuttle bus.” It was worse than most New York subway rides I have been on during rush hour. You could walk the route faster because of all the road repair traffic stops and traffic jams from all the people who had already given up on being shoe-horned into a shuttle bus. We opted to ride our bikes everywhere. Best decision we could have made. Not that you can day dream on your bike. The walking/bike paths are a gauntlet of very confused people from all over the globe. Some walk/drive on the right-side of the road, others, left. My first attempt at mastering the bike trail from the campground to the visitor center almost turned into tragedy. A had a bare encounter. I was momentarily staring at a women who I thought was taking her pants off. By the time I realized she was just adjusting them down, before pulling them up, I almost ran over another women.

Good Cop: We have met a lot of wonderful people here in Yosemite. Of the thousands that are here you just spark with certain people and become fast friends. If you think of the place as a small city instead of hypocrisy on nature it helps psychologically and keeps you from climbing Half Dome and doing a Full Gainer. As much as I grouse I know I am part of the problem, not part of the solution. I keep telling myself as I look around at the crowds and traffic jams that this valley could be full of fish. If John Muir had not saved it, it would have been dammed just as they did Hetch Hetchy. Being situated less than a days drive from one of America’s densest population centers explains part of the reason this valley is clogged everyday with twice as many vehicles as parking spaces. The logistics problem this valley faces everyday to feed, house and directionally control these numbers is enormous and handled impressively--not to mention waste removal. The only place similar that comes to mind, that I have seen it done better, is Disney World.

Bad Cop: I find it almost humorous how the park service glosses over the Valley history. At a ranger talk we attended the speaker described the valley as occupied by the Native American Miwok & Paiute for thousands of years. When gold was discovered and the 49ers started moving into the valley the tribes were chased out and driven to the other side of the Sierra range. That is all very true, leaving out the small historical fact about genocide. Many tribe members were massacred for being so bold as to not leave, others hunted for years and exterminated as coyotes still are today in most of the country. They wouldn’t be happy here today anyway, an ice cream sandwich costs $4.50. When I got to the counter with my Nutty Buddy I just said, “Shoot Me!”

Good Cop: We rode our bikes as far as we could down valley, then caught a shuttle that had just opened for the season to El Capitan. We wanted to see climbers on the sheer rock face. We talked at length with a photographer/ex-climber who had a scope set up on two climbing teams going up El Cap. He gave us a lot of information on how it is done and the equipment used. When Gaila asked if anyone ever fell he said, “Yes, like yesterday.” A guy fell 60 feet down a chimney rock formation the evening before, landing unconscious on a ledge. They could not rescue him because of nightfall. He never regained consciousness and they brought him down in the morning. Often these climbers are hanging by their nuts. Seriously, the equipment they wedge in the rock face cracks are different size metal ends hooked to heavy wire harnesses. These devices are called “Nuts.” So not only do you have to be nuts to climb El Cap, you have to have nuts.

Bad Cop: Ninety percent of the people I meet here in Yosemite Valley are from Southern California. Southern California is like bungy jumping. You want to try it once, but if you survive you never want to do it again. I think many of the problems I have encountered here in Yosemite are from my lack of perspective. If you come up here from Southern California where 23 million residents out number the population of the whole country of Canada, this place must feel like dying and going to heaven. What I perceive as a zoo, they perceive as utopia. Here you can walk around at night and be relatively safe, if you’re not carrying a fresh baked chicken. At home most of these people expect to be pistol whipped every time they go shopping at Walmart. I think Arnold, the Governator, who is completely out of ideas on how to balance California’s budget should do some camping. An idea hit me over the head immediately after being here only one day. TAX GENERATORS! Californians love generators. Most have at least one. You can’t camp in California without electricity. Californians with one-man tents and light-weight gear still have at least one generator to power their hair curler. If Honda could only design a muffler on their super-quiet high tech generators that turned the puttering of exhaust into birdsong the campground chorus would be tolerable.

Good Cop: I decide I was going to climb Half Dome. I was told their was a lot of deep snow on the approach, the cable posts were not installed for the season, the wooden steps were not attached to the cables, and to get to the top climbers would have to lift the heavy cable from the rock and use it to climb. A picture in the Park newspaper showed hundreds of people climbing. They have even gone to a permit system on summer weekends because so many people want to climb Half Dome. How hard can it be? Well, I found out. I backpacked to Little Yosemite Valley and set camp, then kept moving to the foot of Half Dome. I hit deep snow, but used my hiking poles to get to the area they call “Sub Dome.” Although I saw a lot of hikers coming down the trail early in the day I found no fresh tracks in the snow approaching Half Dome. That should have told me something. Once over the Sub Dome I could see the cables hanging off the rock face. They were cold and damp. Why had I not thought about bringing gloves. I had my down mittens but I didn’t want to ruin them for one round-trip to the top of Half Dome. Then I spotted the “Glove Dump.” Many people throw their worn gloves in a pile near the base of Half Dome and leave them. I sorted through and found a nice, Smurf Blue pair of “Power Grip” gloves. Now I felt like “Spider Man.” I started up the cable hand-over-hand. I could see in the crevasses I crossed, iron poles and wooden 2x4s that make up the step system during the summer season. After two sections of cable I fell (pun intended) into a rhythm. I would climb a section, have cardiac arrest, climb a section, have cardiac arrest. It was all working just fine. But how high is this Half Dome anyway? The steep angle of the Dome blocks out the view of the top and the bottom. Every new horizon on the cable brought into view more rock and more cable. I kept climbing sections then stopping and seeing if I could suck all the oxygen out of Yosemite Valley. My arms and shoulders began to fatigue, my heart was pumping, my lungs were screaming for more oxygen, I wondered how many sixty year old fools they found at the base of Half Dome every year. I finally hit the summit. It was so foggy I couldn’t see my hand unless it was touching my nose. I rolled over on my back and waited for my pulse to come back to normal. There was still some snow on the top. After all that work I couldn’t see a thing. After three-quarters of an hour I felt refreshed enough to try the cables again in reverse. I decided to take my time because eternity is forever. I now understand how people fall to their death every year attempting to climb Half Dome. It is no cake walk. I’m sure the cable posts and steps make a big difference but this climb claims victims every year.

The next morning a woke early and did a 16-mile loop trail to Merced Lake and then a high route back near Half Dome again. Massive amount of snow in the high country, but the route was well marked with cairns and blaze. I made it back to camp by four o’clock and decided to pack up and hike the five-miles back to the valley. Eating dinner with Gaila sounded better than preparing my five-year-old packet of freeze-dried ChiliMac.

Bottom Line: Come to Yosemite with a backpack!

THE BOOMERS ARE COMING! THE BOOMERS ARE COMING!

2010-05-17T14:35:00.000-07:00

If you are one of the people who dream about traveling in the National Parks during your golden years, you may not want to read this latest blog. It is not meant to depress, but it is a small taste of reality. I will use our current stay at Zion National Park to enlighten you on “The New National Park Service.”

First, let me start out with the fact that the natural magic still exists in the park systems many units. There is just much more stress involved in getting yourself into the park of choice and to the point of enjoying what is still there under a thickening veneer of bureaucracy, overpopulation, and degradation in attitude of park service employees who seem sick and tired of answering the same old questions visitors have day after day.

Spring and fall used to be the time to travel and beat the crowds. No longer is that true. Yes, the boomers are coming. Personally, we don’t like being on a schedule, but we are learning that if we want to have a camping site in most parks we had better become proficient on the government’s online reservation site. Example: We showed up at Zion only to find the campgrounds full. We spent three days outside the park on the computer trying to secure a site. It will do you no good to talk to campground gate personnel because most of them come straight out of the Jerry Seinfeld sitcom. Think, “Soup Nazi.” You have to deal with someone in a cubical, three-thousand miles away in New York. The problem is the Park Service and the Reservation Service have two different sets of rules. If you want peace and tranquillity when you arrive, you better have all your ducks in a row (campsites reserved well in advance). I have discovered there are a couple ways to game this system. The reservation site shows a W on sites that are open to “First Come First Serve” no reservation campers every morning. Park Service employees are trained to deny these sites exist. Through extensive research on my part (All rangers at Zion now hate me), I have discovered these sites are saved for emergencies (gate keepers friends and relatives show up unexpectedly) and VIP’s. You can get a site in any park, any time, you just have to delete the Mr./Mrs/Ms in front of your name and re-title yourself Senator or Congressman. I’m kind of thinking of going with Sec. of the Interior Mallery. It just seems to have a nice ring to it.

Most parks still have a small percentage of “First Come First Serve” sites. They fill quickly and early. You have a better chance of dealing with these campgrounds because they are hosted by Park Service Volunteers. These are usually seniors who aren’t sick of seniors. They work for free, are much more organized, friendly, helpful and are not only informed, but willing to share information.

You can save yourself a lot of time by learning to read facial expressions. If you are approaching a ranger that has that Clint Eastwood look, “Go ahead, make my day,” “Are ya feeling lucky, punk, well, are ya?” Keep moving. Try not to make eye contact. It could be contagious. I don’t want to sound age biased but the results of my research are clear. The older the ranger the better treatment and information you will receive. Most of these young rangers don’t even know Dick Nixon was a crook. To test my theory, I questioned five fresh rangers (those that had not learned to hate me yet, and one who had but didn’t remember me) seeking information I already had answers. Just south of Zion is a beautiful, free, BLM campground. It sits right on the Virgin River and although it offers no amenities, it is a safe, natural place to camp just outside the park. We found it on our own. It was never mentioned to us as we were turned away from each campground and asked rangers for camping suggestions. We were only given a list of commercial campgrounds (and treated as if we were unwanted guests) just outside the park that average $50 a night.

Asking the same alternative campground question to various rangers from ages twenty-something to seventy-something. Here are my results: Ranger #1 20-Something. (Clint Eastwood type) “I have not idea.” Ranger #2 20-Something. (Campground Toll Gate “Soup Nazi) “There’s a commercial park right across the river. They might have something.” (“I’m sorry, did I mention I was Sec. of the Interior?”) Ranger #3 30-Something. (Wise guy. Not one of the Wise Men. I interrupted his conversation with another ranger about their next career moves.) “There is nothing close to the park except commercial campgrounds.” Ranger #4 40-Something. (Morning Campground Toll Gate ranger who obviously had not had her coffee fix yet.) “Nothing.” (What about the BLM campground just south of the park?) “That’s not a campground. They don’t even have restrooms.” Ranger #5 50-Something. (Standup Comedian. Full of BS but made you feel good without telling you anything useful.) “You can camp in my driveway but I’m booked until late August.” Ranger #6 70-Something. (My personal favorite) “You can’t stay in the RV parking overnight, but there is a real nice BLM campground just outside the park. It’s right on the river. If you get up here early in the morning you should have little trouble finding a site in the “First Come, First Serve” South Campground.”

You can do whatever you want. Me, I’m always going to direct my questions to an older ranger who likes his job, knows what his duties are, and doesn’t have the facial expression of Hannibal Lector.

What the park service needs is a new corps of Mystery Shoppers (Campers). That way when a little blue haired lady asks a ranger where to catch the escalator to Half Dome the ranger will think twice before answering, “Go to the trailhead at the end of Yosemite Valley and take the first bank of elevators. Get off near the falls. The escalator is just left of the lupine.” If I don’t get the North Cascade backcountry ranger job, mystery camper would be perfect for me. I love to grade rangers.

I wish this was as grime as it gets, but there is more. The park service does not get to keep all the money they take in. Much of it is siphoned off to fatten the US treasury and therefore perpetuate the increasing national debt. They do this willingly because they know if the government ever runs out of ink, the first thing they are going to do is put National Parks up for sale. They are currently leasing them out to more and more concessioners. If volunteers ever go on strike they would go immediately into insolvency.

The park service, believe it or not, is now running scams on visitors that have been successful beyond their wildest dreams. You are not going to believe this. You can check it out for yourself. The park service is now offering park rangers as part of an Escort Service. I’m not talking your basic ranger walk (some of which now require a guide payment to attend.) Let me explain. As you approach Zion National Park in your RV you read a road sign, “All RVs and Buses must stop in 1/4 mile.” It makes you think there is an entrance booth ahead. By the time you see that it’s a “Historical Marker” type pull-off you have already passed it and there is no turn around. “I wonder what it said?”

I think it is actually a “Hysterical Marker” cleverly designed by the park service to not be read by a large percentage of visitors.

Several miles up the road you come to the official entrance booth manned by a ranger that loves his job, but in the wrong way. He thinks his job is to irritate as many visitors as he can, and he is armed with an inadequate management plan he has learned to wield relentlessly. If you do not have a Park Passport card he first will ask for a $25 entrance fee. Then his favorite piece of information, “You will have to pay $15 to go through the Zion Tunnel.” I’m blindsided by this little nugget of reality because I missed the sign so cleverly tucked into the side of the road. Having been through the tunnel before with a much larger rig, I had to ask, “Do I take up more air than smaller vehicles?”

I was told I needed an Escort Service through the tunnel if I was driving an RV. I wasn’t happy, but that did make some sense to me. I’m sure the park service has had expensive delays caused by people who can’t control the monster RV’s now on the road. I still wanted to think about it a minute. I must have been looking like a deer in the headlights of a Mac truck. I politely (honest) asked this turkey (ranger #3 above) if I could pull over in a wide turn around and think my options over. He replied, “If you run I will have law enforcement chase you down.” I couldn’t believe this attitude. Was I really in a National Park? Has it really become this much of a zoo. Have visitors actually pushed park service personnel this far over the edge? I couldn’t contain myself. Okay, I never can. “Yea, Einstein, I’m going to try to outrun park service law enforcement to a tunnel that needs and an escort in this twenty-seven foot motorhome pulling a Saturn.”

I pulled over to study my options. It would cost more to go back out of the park and drive around to the south entrance now that they had me this far in with their poor communication sting. I went back and paid the second booth my $15 RV tax so that Einstein couldn’t see me. I wanted him to call 911 and report a “Boomer on the Run.”

Next comes the Escort Service scam. The park service is so embarrassed by their own policy, when they extract the RV tax from you they tell you it’s because you need an escort for passage through the tunnel. It works. I felt better knowing I was charged $15 dollars for a service that smaller rigs did not have to use. I was a little upset when I arrived at the tunnel and found that there is NO ESCORT! There were two good looking ranger flag girls who might have been escort material, but they weren’t going to escort anyone. The tunnel was one way traffic. The flag rangers let southbound traffic pass, then shut it down and let northbound come through. It wouldn’t matter if you had a Commercial Bus or a Mini Cooper. You had the whole tunnel to yourself. Cars, RV’s and Buses went through with us, but only the RV’s and Buses paid the tax. I wasn’t to far off when I had asked Einstein if I “used more air than everyone else.”

I did a little Google Research and discovered Zion National Park took in just under $500,000.00 in 2009 with this nifty little con. Subtract the flag ranger salaries and that is one concession I am going to bid on as soon as the park service finds such an operation too overwhelming for them to operate themselves.

If you have made it this far into my grumbling, let me give you a little glimpse into my crystal ball. The Boomers haven’t even snapped out of the starting blocks yet. The rangers that already don’t like boomers are going to start realizing it takes four of them to pay the Social Security of each Gray Hair asking them the same stupid questions over and over. The parks are going to price family camping out of existence the way baseball exterminated their fan-base. If you think these stories are exaggerated and my predictions extreme, try this: Go to the park service reservation site www.recreation.gov and try to book a site in Zion or Yosemite National Parks this month. When you find it impossible, go to Ebay or Craigslist and find one. National Park Campsites are now a huge business for people who have learned to game the inadequate system the parks operate. I just watched a three day campsite in Yosemite sell for $475.00 on Ebay. I called the guy and he has plenty more. He books them as soon as they come online and scalps them to people desperately seeking solitude.

Let me close with the fact that I come from a perspective of camping in National Parks for over 50 years. I’m addicted. I will continue to adjust my attitude and accept the changes that are guaranteed to dial down National Park enjoyment. Because once I shoe horn my way in, fight my way to the back country office, negotiate a permit and make payment on a few days of solitude, I know I am going to leave the maddening crowds of visitors and still find the magic that made these areas worth setting aside.

This is the new Smokey the Bear Public Service Announcement: Only you can Prevent Over Crowded National Parks. Parks Kill. Do not plan a visit. Bears eat people, 2,000 ft. drop offs claim dozens of visitors each year, spring rapids drown unsuspecting swimmers, and let’s not forget about rangers that go POSTAL!

My suggestion is you stay home where it is safe and keep reading my blog. --Keep Smilin‘

Important Message: In all fairness to rangers, I will have to admit, if I had to work everyday with the masses of people I have witnessed lately in the parks, I may go Postal. More to come in my next blog as I critique Seqouia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite. One management decision that is proving effective as crowd control in many parks, is the shuttle system. As a lifetime RVer I would vote to move all campgrounds out of the parks and shuttle everyone in and out.

THE ANATOMY OF AN RV FURNACE

2010-03-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

It’s been an unusually cool winter in the Southwest. Even the desert floor has been high 50s to mid-60s during the day and low thirties and sometimes into the 20’s at night. For us this has been a shake down cruise this winter. When we traveled full-time in the 70‘s and 80‘s , we discovered everything we needed to do for comfort and convenience and continually readied the land yacht to sail. Preparing for this trip I added a solar panel to the roof and bought a new deep cycle battery. That has worked out so well I plan to add at least one more and a couple solar batteries. We only hook up to electricity when we have had a few days of little or no sun, which is seldom. Owning an RV is a constant precautionary maintenance job. Many little “puckersnatches” arise that need attention. This year it was the forced air furnace--it worked but only when it felt like it. It was finicky, which would make me cranky. I had pulled the furnace once before we left home to inspect it. It looked fine and worked fine. Once we hit the road, it occasionally wouldn’t light and I would have to diddle with it until it fired up. By midwinter I would fiddle and diddle and it still wouldn’t fire up. That is when I became an uncertified RV furnace mechanic. I got all my training on Google. I read everything I could and kept pulling the furnace out and troubleshooting all the suggestions I was discovering on Google. I couldn’t seem to solve the mystery of the cold air furnace. I thought about taking it to a certified RV mechanic but everyone I talked to seemed to know less than I did about them. Most of them just keep throwing new parts at problems until they work. They also want you to move out of your rig for a few days while they scratch their heads (at a $100.00 an hour) and come up with a solution.

I discovered working on an RV furnace is not brain surgery (even though I would like to try that someday too) First, you see if you have sufficient power to the furnace. The blower kicks on, which blows enough air on a sail switch to turn it on. That sends power to a limit switch. If everything is working up to that point you have a furnace that blows cold air. I HAD A LOT OF COLD AIR. After that it gets a bit more complicated. There is a control board that makes the guts of a computer look uncomplicated. I don’t understand transistors, and little soldered things, so I pulled the furnace and had it bench tested at a propane dealer. He said the sail switch was dirty and that it fired up on his bench. That misinformation set me back twenty bucks and a week of googling. It didn’t make sense. If it fired up on his bench it should fire up in my motor home. More cold mornings.

Finally, I pulled the furnace again and hooked up my own bench test on the floor of the motor home. I guess you would call this a floor test. From the limit switch to the gas valve I had no power. Between the two sat the transistor laden control board. It had to be the board. The propane bench tester must have scammed me. It couldn’t light if the board was fried. I decided to gamble. I ordered a new board online and had it shipped to Oliver Lee State Park, in New Mexico, where our friends were camp hosts. When it arrived I pulled the furnace one last time and wired in the new board. I put it all back together, prayed the prayer of RV furnace technicians, and switched on the thermostat. Bingo, Bango, Bongo. NASA we have ignition. I get such a warm feeling all over when my furnace kicks on.

So the moral of the story is this. My fix cost about a hundred bucks and lots of googling. If you have to go to a certified RV mechanic, you might just as well buy a new furnace @ $700.00, because those jokers are going to cost you nearly that much anyway. It is all part of the RV lifestyle. If you have a furnace problem just call me. I have been thinking about starting the Doctor R.V. Shrink Diagnostic Service. I can come over to your rig and listen to your woes. Once I look the situation over, rub my chin thoughtfully, scratch my head and grunt a few undecipherable words, I charge you $25 and confirm for you that you do have major problems. Ya gotta love this RV business! --Keep Smilin'

LOOKING FOR GONADS

2010-02-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

We had a great time at Rockhound State Park in New Mexico. Not because we know one rock from another, but because we hooked up with friends from home, Bob and Mary Ann Warner. Mary Ann is the Rock Star. She is always walking around with her eyes on the ground. The rest of us see dirty rocks but she sees gem stones. Bob doesn’t want to know how many pounds of rocks he is hauling all over the country in their 36 foot motor home. Every time he fills up at the gas station he is just praying that some of them contain gold. Gaila was mistakenly calling geodes "gonads", until I told her the biology of her geology definition. Everyone was looking for gem stones and Gaila was looking for family jewels. The best part of traveling is meeting characters and one day in Deming, we met several. Bob and Mary Ann introduced us to Gertrude and Geraldine Kretek. They met them on a previous trip and became fast friends. The "girls" (80 year old twins) are native to Deming, growing up on a large 3000+ acre ranch just east of town. We thought that was large until they took us out to meet their friend, Nadine, who has a ranch consisting of 15 sections. Her grandparents settled there in 1902. The highlight for us was visiting with Nadine who lives on her ranch by herself at 87 years old. She even has her own mountain. Most women bring out there knitting projects to show visitors. Nadine brought out her jars of rattlesnake rattles. The twins called her the Annie Oakley of the area. The rattle collection came from her yard. She likes to use her .22 cal rifle to shoot snakes that come up to the house. Her kids would prefer she use a shotgun but Nadine said that shotgun pattern puts holes in her garden hose and bird feeders. She said that one day she just couldn’t seem to hit the darned snake. “I kept shootin’ and the snake kept comin’.” Finally she went in and got a fresh box of shells and finished the job. She found out later her grandkids had loaded her up with blanks. Ranch life can be dangerous this close to the border. Nadine’s late husband always told her to shoot first and ask questions later. One Christmas he decided to surprise her with a new wood burning potbellied stove. He unloaded it out in the yard after dark so Nadine would see it the next morning. Nadine was up before sunrise and in the dim light could see someone standing out in the yard. She shouted a couple warnings before she poured lead into her new potbellied stove.

The twins have a ranch hand named Brent. He was showing us his latest hunting trophy, an African Oryx. You can see it in our slideshow as well as a photo of the twins. THE DICK AND GAILA CECIL B. DEMALLERY SHOW The Oryx were introduced to the White Sands Missle Range, here in New Mexico, for hunting purposes. It’s bad enough we can’t take care of the animals that were here originally, we are adding new ones to manage.

Gaila and I drove up into nearby Spring Canyon State Park and hiked up to “Lovers Leap.” You could see for miles into Mexico and off toward Arizona. I couldn’t get Gaila to jump. I guess, down deep, she really doesn’t love me. We also visited City of Rocks State Park - a geological wonder. These massive rocks, out in the middle of the desert, were blown here form a volcanic eruption 33 million years ago. We parked among the balancing rocks and explored the area for nearly a week.

We are still dealing with cool weather. Most days are warm and sunny but it drops into the 20s and 30s at night. My furnace has been acting goofy the whole trip. I have had it out and apart several times and still have not licked it. Before it’s over I will be an RV furnace expert. When it’s not working, it can be a two cat night. Sheba and Funny Face keep slapping me with their paws and looking at me like, “Hey, dummy. Go turn the furnace on.” They don’t know how lucky they are. I make them watch the weather news back home every night so they appreciate how good they have it.

We are really glad we decided to come back to New Mexico. We did have a little excitement leaving Arizona. The car partially came loose from the motor home. It is connected with two towbars and cables. A cotter pin somehow fell out off one bar and the car started wagging behind the motor home. Gaila calls these innocent incidents “PreDickaments.” Luckily I wasn’t going too fast. I had just come off of a winding canyon road. I usually can’t see the car behind the motor home so when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw it trying to pass me, it got my attention.

THE STATE FLAG OF NEW MEXICO

The yellow field and red symbol colors are the colors of Spain. First brought to New Mexico by Spanish explorers in 1540. On New Mexico's flag we see a red sun with rays stretching out from it. There are four groups of rays with four rays in each group. This is an ancient sun symbol of a Native American people called the Zia. The Zia believed that the giver of all good gave them gifts in groups of four. These gifts are:

The four directions - north, east, south and west.
The four seasons - spring, summer, fall and winter.
The day - sunrise, noon, evening and night.
Life itself - childhood, youth, middle years and old age.

All of these are bound by a circle of life and love, without a beginning or end.

RV PARKING RAGE

2010-02-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

I hesitate to tell this story. Readers might get the idea that I’m getting crotchety in my aging process. Truly that is not the case. I think my problem might be my vicinity to an aging population lately. We spent a wonderful few days in one of Arizona’s most beautiful “Sky Islands” high above Green Valley, Arizona. Being winter, we enjoyed sunny warm days and cold nights in Madera Canyon’s Bog Springs National Forest Campground. We love these out of the way, hard to reach, NF campgrounds for the solitude they offer, the beautiful locations, and the dark quiet nights. Because the campground is located a half-mile up a rough, little maintained, mountain road, few RVers are willing to negotiate it for the prize location we find at the summit. This is another reason to have a rig that is not too big to squeeze into hundreds of great government sites.

The problem started when we left our mountain utopia and ventured into the valley below. The land of Oscar the Grouch. We decided to head for Patagonia, AZ, but first thought we would stop at the Green Valley Library book sale and get some reading material. It was early in the morning and we found a huge, mall type parking lot behind the library. The sign said it was the White Elephant Thrift Store but other buildings looked like Sheriff, Road Commission, county type stuff. We were the only vehicle in the lot. I parked horizontally, taking up five spaces. I was way out at the edge of the lot in nobody’s way. It was an hour until the library would open so we sat and ate breakfast. Quickly, over the next hour, every lot slot in the parking area filled. We were amazed. A line was forming at the White Elephant Thrift door. Soon the Golden Girls blocked me in from the front and Archie and Edith blocked me in from the back.

When the hundreds of lot slots were filled, people started parking out on both sides of the street.

I thought I was just imagining the looks we were getting from people walking by. Could my five spaces be that important in a sea of overflowing vehicles that clearly had to flood the nearby roads whether I was squatting here or not. I went on a recon mission. I discovered they were all here for the White Elephant Thrift Store. It wasn’t a once a year sale. This thing goes on six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. It is more popular than Walmart at Christmas. When I got back to the motor home I discovered I had not been imagining the “LOOK.” The head of the Geritol Posse knocked at our door. At first I thought it was the Sheriff. Brown shirt with official arm patches, khaki pants, shiny gold badge and radio. My first clue she was White Elephant Security was the fact that she wasn’t packin’ any heat.

When she said, “You have to move. You are taking up five spaces”, I could see the panic in Gaila’s face. She thought I was going to go into my raving jailhouse lawyer mode. It was true that I was breaking no law. I had every right to be parked where I was. I could have given this female Broderick Crawford much grief, but I could also see the strain in her face. Coming out and telling me I must move was the last thing she wanted to be doing, but the Golden Girls and several other complaints forced her from her better judgement. I could have unhooked, parked the car and motor home separately and vertically. That would have really blocked the lot. I know that would have sent her into a panic. So instead of being Mr. Hyde, I decided to be Dr. Jekyll. I told her I couldn’t squeeze out until she had one of her complainers move their vehicle. The word was out. I had been evicted. Cars were already vying for position to take my five spaces. When she got the car behind me moved, I still could not exit the parking lot until she made those crowding for the slots, like vultures on a fresh kill, to move on past. They did not want to lose their positions. Because of poor eyesight, I could tell many had taken their Vytorin in combination with their Viagra at breakfast and it had hardened their heart. They wanted to string me up but couldn’t find a tall enough cactus. We finally eased on down the road and found a gas station that said we could drop the rig for a couple hours. We went back to the library and later explored the White Elephant store. I saw my Rent-a-Cop friend and told her I had parked down in Nogales, Mexico and wondered if that was far enough. She got a chuckle out of that and hoped I would never come back to Green Valley, Arizona. No chance of that! --Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

HUECO TANKS STATE PARK IN TEXAS

2010-01-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

Traveling is a constant learning experience. It is usually very laid back, but on occasion you will run into a situation where your mind had better be on full alert. Such was the case the morning we pulled into Hueco Tanks State Park on the eastern edge of El Paso, Texas. It is a small park with beautiful surroundings and thousands of pictographs adorning the nearby boulder formations. I went into the office to register for camping and it was filled with young college aged rock climbers waiting for permits. When the state park lady finally got to me, I found her very business like, organized and I could tell she had done this a million times by her spiel. I didn’t know anything about this park. It was just another of many Texas State Parks we had camped in. What I didn’t realize was the security involved because of the ancient art. I felt like I was back in the Marine Corp. Instructions were flying and you had better listen up. If I didn’t get them the first time I just knew she was going to tell me to get down and give her 50 pushups. I listened intently and I think I had it. I was told I had to see a short video before I drove into the campground. She said to stop at the next building and watch said video before going to my campsite. Okay, got it! I hope I had it. There were so many new state park rules I had never heard before I was afraid to fart.

I pulled up to the next building and a guy came out the door and signaled me on to the campground. The gate was open and I went in. Before I could even park the rig, I had a campground host on me like ugly on an ape. He may have been a graduate of Campground Host School, but definitely not Valedictorian. I could tell by his body language he was upset. Luckily he had a radio in his hand and not a weapon. He told me I was supposed to have stopped for a video and I would have to go back. My simple little tourist brain had already figured that out. I then figured out the guy that waved me through must have been trying to point to a parking area where I wouldn't block the road with my rig while I watched the flick. The host lightened up a bit and allowed us to park the motorhome first, since the car was half unhooked and I was already causing a traffic jam worthy of a pictograph.

Dutifully we got in the car right away and started back to the entrance for our video indoctrination. I was still a bit upset with the hosts attitude but Gaila was counseling me and suggesting I continue to be polite. While I was digesting her advise, I came to the campground gate and it was shut. I would normally get out and push the gate open, but to continue my spousal therapy I decided to go find the host and politely inquire about Hueco Tank State Park protocol when it came to closed gate policy. I knocked on the first RV I came to that said, “Host.” A very nice polite woman came to the door and answered my questions. “Yes, just push the gate open and close it behind you - it's not locked. It’s always supposed to be closed. Someone must have left it open when you arrived.” As I was walking back to my car I ran into my host friend, Judge Roy Bean, dragging his dust mop dog. Knowing my wife was watching me like a hawk I mustard every theatrical cell in my body and said a pleasant, “How ya doin’?” At that he answered, “What’s your problem now?” Gaila was reading his lips through the car windshield and knew it was too late to keep a cork in me. I blew. By the time I was through dressing him down he and his fufu dog were turned around and heading back to their rig with their tails tucked between their legs.

Yes, we did finally see the video and met host number two who may have been Valedictorian. It was his rig I had knocked on and his wife who was very polite. He was the kind of campground host we had come to expect and enjoy in all the state and national parks we visit. Gaila thinks my approach was all wrong, but I think I did host #1 a huge favor. I think I gave him an attitude adjustment that might go a long way in tweaking his Emily Post host etiquette.

We didn’t need any more aggravation. We just wanted to do a little hiking, which isn’t easy. Most trails require a guide to protect the pictographs. As we studied the maps, our cat Funny Face bailed. Great, that’s all I need. I was already on the host's scat list and now my pet was loose in the park and heading into the no hiking without a guide area. Gaila literally cut Funny Face off at the pass. I held the door open to the motorhome, determined to deny I had a cat if anyone asked. Gaila scared the schizophrenic little furball back into the rig and I was ready to pull up anchor and leave. Three law enforcement officers with glocks have already walked slowly past our rig peering in. I would not be surprised to find my picture on a poster at the entrance station.

This park only allows a three day stay, instead of the usual 14, unless you get special compensation, for an additional three, from the Pope. In this case, the campground host. In our case, FAT CHANCE.

You might think all this camping stuff is easy. Well, let me tell you, it takes a big set of Cojones, as the Mexicans say, to do this. We are the only other rig in the campground besides the two sites the hosts occupy. They have scared all the other campers with less cojones away.
Never mess with an Irishman!

FROZEN FECES AND POOPCICLES

2010-01-22T16:32:00.000-08:00

The RV lifestyle isn’t all fun and games. There are many things to deal with just as owning a home. The refrigerator won’t light, the battery is low, the heater won’t ignite, and here is a new one for me, the waste holding tanks and pipes are frozen!

This winter has been a record for cold nights in Big Bend National Park, and one still night it reached the single digits. The warming sun rose, not a cloud in the sky. We decided it was time to run the rig over to the dump station, empty and water up for another few days. When we arrived we discovered the park water lines were all still frozen from the night before. The sun was hitting the pipes so I worked on getting a drip started and Gaila and I sat in the motor home and played cards until finally the water was streaming through the pipes at a decent flow. I went out and tried to open the valve on the motor home black water tank----FROZEN. I tried the gray water tank----FROZEN. We played cards for another hour while we waited for the sun to do it’s magic. When I could finally open my sewer valve nothing happened. I was still frozen into the pipe and tank. I took the sewer hose off to inspect, when Murphy’s Law kicked in and the log jam (pun intended) broke loose. Luckily the first wave of frozen feces hit the ground like a slushy snowcone and hesitated long enough for me to get the hose back on. It could have been jump or swim, but the disaster was diverted with action on the part of a master dumper like myself. The solution will be a short wrap of heat tape around my exposed pipes. I can fire it up with the generator when needed and speed the process along. It could also save a lot of misery from cracked pipes if it stayed cold for any length of time.

LIQUID BORDER

2010-01-16T18:37:00.000-08:00

We have always said that entering a National Park gate is like coming home. It doesn’t matter which one, they are all managed in a similar fashion and all have the same feel. We know many of them well and Big Bend is no exception. It is not a pass through park. If you come to Big Bend you made an effort to get here. It is a special natural area secluded in a corner pocket of Texas. Despite the remoteness it has not escaped the geo-political catch-22 of the past decade. There is little illegal trafficking through the park because of its remote location, but the invisible cactus curtain is recognized here as much as any other border section with Mexico. Since the Parks inception in the 30’s the small Mexican villages just across the river have built a meager economy on U.S. tourist trade. On previous visits we used to give a guy a couple bucks for a row boat ride across the river and burro ride into town, have a delicious meal and buy a few trinkets. Today that would cost you five thousand dollars and a year in jail. The Park Service continued the status quo for a while until some tight-ass Bush Bureaucrat heard about all the contraband tortillas that were being eaten in Mexico and deposited in the U.S. The “no crossing” ruling destroyed a unique neighborly economy. If the results of this typical government decision were not so sad it would actually be comical. The people from the two small border towns used to cross the river each day and sell walking sticks, carved and decorated from the sotol plant, and wire sculptures of scorpions and roadrunners. They would sit quietly along the canyon trails and display their wares. Today they are not allowed to cross the river into the U.S. but the crafts are still along the trails with pricing info and money jars. Park brochure warns visitors not to buy these items. You could be charged with illegal importation of goods. I’m no lawyer, but I can’t figure out how we illegally imported a walking stick we bought on the U.S. side of the river. I would also scream entrapment since these beautiful items are everywhere along the river trails and do not seem to be confiscated by the Park Service or the Border Patrol. But the best gig going is Victor the Singing Mexican. Victor sits high on a rock outcropping on his side of the river and sings beautiful love songs that bounce off the canyon walls. He has binoculars and can watch for Border Patrol and Park Service personnel. When we met him, the coast was clear and he climbed down from his perch, crossed the river, and sang a beautiful love song to Gaila. (Click Here To Hear Victor) He truly has a wonderful voice. We do not speak Spanish so he could be singing something mocking but we didn’t care, he was great. Someone was approaching so he went back to his perch, but we could still yell back and forth in English. Victor from the small village of Boquillas, with no electricity, in remote northern Mexico, somehow has his CD’s for sale online.

A better and cheaper solution to this problem might be to man a small border crossing station in the park, where we could all conduct ourselves in a legal fashion and enjoy the experience as we once did. Instead, we spend millions trying to enforce the harmless commerce of a friendly bunch of neighbors, who live across this shallow liquid border, while every hiking visitor in Big Bend is carrying a beautiful ornate sotol walking stick.

We didn’t spend all of our time here breaking the law, paying for contraband musical notes. Big Bend has miles of incredible hiking trails and thousands of panoramic views. From the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains you can see a hundred miles into Mexico and most, if not all, of Big Bend’s 800,000+ surrounding acres. Keep Smilin’ Dick E. Bird

“Environmental issues are not radical notions by those looking for Utopia; they are the product of an ancient natural process evolving now through the destructive bombardment of intensifying human pressure. In our travels we have met friends on all sides of environmental issues, each with individual perspectives and all without solution, because time holds the solution and only slowly distributes direction.” - Dick Mallery

Padre Island National Seashore, Texas

2009-12-27T13:40:00.001-08:00

It took a week in Texas to finally pry the sun out of the ocean. It was still warmer than Michigan, and we made the best of it selling books, walking the beach, and spotting a Jaguarundi in Aransas Wildlife Refuge.

We went into the AWR to see whooping cranes.

http://www.nwf.org/whoopingcrane/

It is their winter hangout and the easiest place to spot them. After watching them for a while, it was getting late and we decided to drive a 16-mile wildlife viewing loop before sunset. El Gato was right in the road, crossing into the high dune grass and hammock. Our first thought was Cougar, not knowing about the Jaguarundi. We were confused because it seemed too small for a mountain lion, and it was almost a chocolate brown color. It had the right tail, so we figured it had to be Mr. Puma himself, only young. If I’m confusing anyone, a cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma are all the same critter. The ranger at the visitor center seemed to think we saw a mountain lion. She said it was a rare sighting but that they were known to be in the area. Still not convinced, we went home and Googled the wildlife refuge and known suspects that live there. Up popped our feline, no question. More of a Mexican mammal, they are seen occasionally in coastal regions of Texas. For wildlife freaks like us, this is like a seven on the richter scale. Jaguarundi Info

No sunshine had been kind of a bummer, not only for sought after warmth but also for solar energy. We like to boon dock camp (no hookups), so I installed a solar panel on the roof of the motor home before leaving Michigan. Without it (or the sun) our battery only lasts a few days, then we need electricity to recharge. Our plan was to move down to Padre Island National Seashore and camp out on the beach for a week or so. It is the only place in the U.S., that I know of, that you can drive right out on the beach and park with the waves outside your door. We arrived during a stormy week of bad barometrics, rain and wind. A combination that makes beach boon docking almost impossible. We stayed up in the regular park campground, which is a 100 yards up off the beach. We could still beach comb and walk for miles along the coast and sleep comfortably knowing we would not be washed out to sea. Finally, after four days, we decided it seemed calmer so we moved to the beach. We spent cocktail hour (5-6) looking out at high tide, which we were told would be 6 o’clock, to see how close to the motor home it was getting. It only washed under us a couple times and we figured it would begin receding after dark. We decided to stay-- until the rangers showed up and convinced us differently. They didn’t demand we leave but suggested it might be in our best interest. So it was back to the campground for the night. The next day we went to Corpus Christi, stayed at the Mustang State Park to recharge the battery, buy grub, and wait out the storm. It worked. The sun finally made its appearance on Friday. We moved out to the beach at Padre. The surf was tamed, the solar panel was charging, the pelicans were kettling, our closest neighbor was a couple of coyotes, and the beach was littered with every kind of shorebird we could find in our Geographic bird book. It was truly “sucking the juice out of life.”

BEATING THE BLIZZARD

2009-12-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

Traveling is an adventure. You never know where you are going to end up and what the stories will turn out to be along the way. On this trip the plan was to beat the snow out of Michigan. So far, so good. We did hear about a snowstorm in Houston, TX. We are hoping they have that all out of their system before we get that far south. It has been cold at night so far along the Natchez Trace and brisk during the day but the further south we roll the more it’s beginning to look “less” like Christmas.

My Uncle Vic loaned me a GPS when I left. This is my first experience with one. I have to say, “I am not impressed.” Doesn’t it seem odd that Garmin would use the voice of a very dominant women, who can’t make up her mind and with no sense of direction, to guide you through the spider web of American roads. She has me hang left when the exit is three lanes and semi’s to the right. I may be a sick puppy but I find myself arguing with this broad. Gaila says I can’t use the “B” word anymore, so I call her a Witch, as in “Witch way do you want me to go this time bitch.” She’s mad at me now, Gaila and the Witch. I can’t get any navigation help from either of them anymore.

Our first unplanned turn of events happened in Kentucky along I-65. I sped up a bit to make room for an 18-wheeler coming out of a truck scale. When I let up on the throttle my engine backfired like a cannon shot through the motor home. I stopped at the next exit to check things out and found my backfire was one of my inner dual tires quickly expelling air. I had the brakes done before we left and the mechanic did not hook up the extension between the two tires. It hung down and rubbed against the brand new tire for five hundred miles before the extension wore through and blew. The tire was also shot as it had rubbed a soft spot in the tire too.

I’m always a little nervous when someone works on my rig, especially if it turns out to be Homer and Jethro. We stopped at a tire dealer and sure enough H&J both worked there. They were trying to pull my hubcap off by hand, slappin’ each other upside the head and comparing tatoos. I decided to watch them like a hawk.

We met our friends from home, (the Fosdicks) at the tire store. They were headed for Alabama along I-65 the same time we were. By cell phone we kept in touch and planned to meet at the exit to Mammoth Cave National Park. We thought we would miss them when we had to leave the expressway to find a tire store, but they have a GPS with a different woman than mine and came right to the tire store and found us with no problem. It’s a small world. We hardly ever see them at home and end up having a reunion at a Kentucky tire store.

We love reading about the history of the Natchez Trace. There should be more of these scenic roadways that allow no commercial traffic. For 444 miles we move south along a beautiful parkway at 45 m.p.h. No traffic signals or stop signs, picture perfect pavement, historical pullovers every few miles, free campgrounds and lots of hikes and friendly people.

Still traveling after all these years!

THE PRAYING MECHANIC

2009-10-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

On our way back from Yellowstone one fall, we decided to detour through the Badlands. A dozen miles south of Wall, South Dakota, we spotted some goats high on a butte, and I pulled over to check them out. My daughter Maggie was only four years old and needed a little exercise anyway. I was at the top of a steep grade. It was a beautiful autumn morning, and everything seemed right with the world. I was hauling a 31-ft. Airstream travel trailer with "Old Blue" our old Chevy Suburban with a lot of miles on its 350 engine. It had been having a hard time pulling in the mountains on that trip, and I was looking forward to some flat land driving. After enjoying the view and watching the goats, we climbed back into our rig and started down the grade into the heart of the Badlands. The engine began to knock as if it were doing all it could to throw a rod. I coasted into a scenic pull out at the bottom of the grade and sat there wondering what to do. I have discovered from past experience that with automobile mechanical problems, the first thing you always do is lift the hood and stare at the engine. I don't know why this is. It must be mind over motor or something because everyone does it. I stared at it for several minutes and concluded that I didn't have a clue what was wrong with it. As I continued to stare, a small-size Toyota pickup pulled up, and an old mountain man-looking character jumped out and hurried over to my truck.
"What's the problem, son?"
"I'm not sure. My engine just started knocking like a woodpecker."
"Fire it up and let me listen," he said
I thought, "Great, here's a guy who understands motors! He can help me." I started the engine and hurried back under the hood to hear the diagnosis.
"Yep, she's knocking all right!"
"Well, thanks," I said. "At least now I know I'm not just hearing things."
The old man started back to his truck. "I've got a tow rope. I'll pull you back to Wall."
"I don't think your pickup will haul this Suburban up that grade."
"Oh, yeah. It's a diesel. It will pull the teeth right out of your head."
Again, I thought, "Oh, great! Now he's a dentist."
We dropped the trailer out in the middle of the Badlands, hooked the truck to the little diesel pickup and as the old man and his grandson hauled us back up the steep grade, diesel fumes were blowing out both sides of the "Little Truck That Could."
They pulled us all the way into Wall, and we found the only mechanic in town. He couldn't look at the engine for a half hour, so we all milled around under the hood and stared some more. We began to find out more about our rescuer. He was videotaping us, so he could show his wife when he and his grandson got back to Tennessee. We found out that he was a retired Baptist minister, and he and his grandson had been traveling around the West, talking to youth groups and sleeping in churches all summer.
They couldn't stay while we waited for the mechanic, but they said they would like to say a little prayer over the engine. So Gaila, Maggie and I held hands with our two new friends and huddled in front of the truck while the old man prayed about our problem.
Soon they bid us goodbye and there we sat, just down the street from Wall Drug, still staring at our broken, but now blessed truck.
The mechanic finally found time to come out and listen to the knocking in the engine and quickly said, "No question! It's a rod."
"We're a long way from Michigan. What do you think we should do?" I asked nervously.
"Well, I've seen them go five miles, and I've seen them go another 50,000. If I were you, I would put some heavyweight oil in it and head for Michigan."
Since I had about enough money left to buy a nickel glass of water at Wall Drug, that sounded like the most fiscally feasible thing we could do. I bought some heavyweight oil, poured it in, and we headed back into the Badlands. Just a few miles outside of Wall, things got real quiet. The knocking had stopped, and the engine started purring like a tomcat in a creamery. We hooked onto the trailer and made it all the way back home. We then drove that truck for another four years and sold it to a farmer who wanted the engine to drive a wind turbine.
I told my wife, Gaila, "Had I realized the full potential and power of prayer, I would have asked for a paint job too!

JUMP OR SWIM

2009-09-29T14:46:00.001-07:00

There is a fine art to RV septic dumping. Gaila is an expert after dumping for five months when I hiked the Continental Divide. Now and then she will let me take a turn at the dump station. That was the case recently in Cody, Wyoming. We found a city RV dump station by going on the internet. Yes, the internet can even tell you where to take a dump. I did everything by the book as Gaila stood by to grade my performance. My plan was to fill up nearby with fresh water after dumping, but before I could do that a large tour bus pulled up. There was a big sign that stated, “No Commercial Dumping” but these two Canadians must not have understood English. I could see them considering their options. One was obviously the driver and the other was a slick looking tour chaperone who seemed most talented at smoking his cigarette and suggesting how the driver should go about dumping his bus full of ballast. I heard Slick say to the driver, “We can just back it up close to the hole and let ‘er go, eh?” When they started backing up next to us I told Gaila to run for her life. We jumped in the motorhome and we made a quick retreat. These turkeys didn’t even have a sewer hose. They just backed over the dump station and let’er fly, splashing everywhere. The driver was doing all the dirty work, and Slick Willy was running in the opposite direction holding his nose, puffing on his weed and yelling, “Oh, my God that stinks, eh?”

The septic outlet on an RV is on the driver’s side of the vehicle so that irresponsible people cannot dump on the side of the road. It is obvious that this isn’t true with tour buses. I am not sure when the RV industry implemented the new location for black and gray water outlets. Trailers in the 50’s and 60’s had the dump outlet on the road side of the vehicle so that trailer owners could dump on the shoulder. I can see how that would have fallen out of favor as millions of Americans took to the road in recreational vehicles. Anyway, our new method of dumping the motorhome septic is to first check for Canadian Tour Bus operators, then get in and out fast. --Keep Smilin’

CASCADES TO THE ROCKIES

2009-09-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

I don’t know why we had never been to Crater Lake before. We just skirted it on past trips. What a cool place. My knees have been giving me problems since my hike in Glacier or we would have done a lot more hiking around the lake.

The morning we were leaving the park our Saturn decided to die. My brother-in-law (a much better mechanic than I) was heading back to California and not even out of sight when it stopped running. We have still been using it but have to push start it. I push and Gaila pops the clutch. She is getting better at it all the time. The first time she didn’t have it in gear. I’ll have to put a starter in it when we get home, I just don’t feel like climbing under it and dealing with it on the road.

This traveling is wonderful. Gaila used to complain that I drank too much coffee but now she has decided “If I can’t beat ‘em, I’ll join ‘em.” As you can see by the picture we have a supply wagon full of coffee that shadows us wherever we go.

Once we reached the Eastern side of the Cascades in Oregon there was a dramatic change in scenery. It is very dry and rolling terrain. A lot of second gear climbing but not a chore with an air conditioned motorhome. I think it might have been a bit more difficult with a covered wagon full of arrows. Idaho flattens right out and we watched ranchers combining and haying this year’s last cutting.

We followed “Goodale’s Cutoff” http://www.idahohistory.net/OTgoodale.html one of many shortcuts along the historic Oregon Trail. We visited Craters of the Moon National Monument and hiked through a lava tube 60 ft. deep and 800 ft. long. Blistering hot up top on the lava field and amazingly cool through the tube. Pigeons were roosted in the cool tubes which proves that birds are not stupid.

Fifty miles west of Idaho Falls, ID the Rockies come into view. You can see from the bottom of the Wind River Range up into Yellowstone, with the Grand Tetons anchoring the center of the horizon. This area is the largest volcanic region in the world and the surrounding landscape make it evident.

Teton Pass into Jackson Hole, WY is a first gear, slow climb up, and a first gear, fast, sphincter tightening ride down the other side.

Jackson Hole was a unique, small western town when I was a kid but I see no resemblance today. We drove through quickly and I think I will just drive around it in the future. We camped just inside Grand Teton National Park and ate breakfast the next morning with the mountains framing our motorhome picture window. Not a cloud in the sky, four moose in the field and me pushing a Saturn through the campground as Gaila pops the clutch. Is that sucking the juice out of life, or what?

Yellowstone is closing up for the winter and although the weather is perfect, they must know from the past that it’s going to get cold soon.

September has always been a golden time of year to travel. Once school starts around the country the vacationing traffic thins considerably. But I am noticing a silent invasion. It is getting much busier during the fall. It is the invasion of the boomerang gang (boomers). As the Geritol Posse grows, the busier recreational destinations are becoming in the fall season. Maybe with global warming we will have extended fall seasons that will accommodate larger crowds.

The other thing you have to deal with at the end of the season in National Parks are some cranky rangers. They have spent the last several months answering every stupid question imaginable and they just can’t take it anymore. I just love stopping at the Visitor Centers and asking really stupid questions to see how many of them I can push over the edge.

That’s all for now out here in the Wild West. Keep Smilin’, Dick

HOW TO BLOW YOURSELF UP ON THE ROAD

2009-09-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hauling a large tank of propane around under your seat is maybe not the best idea but it is convenient. It runs the motorhome hot water heater, refrigerator and furnace. It’s a necessity if you want cold beer, a bath and a warm space to enjoy hot coffee on a chilly morning. The tank itself has what is known as a pop-off valve. When filling the tank you want to make sure the attendant opens the pop-off valve. When the liquid fuel reaches the valve it starts spewing gas and you know the tank is properly filled to 80%.

The way you know it is not done right is very simple. You start in Montana with a guy with brown teeth who’s complaining about it being cold and that he was lassoed into doing this filling job. I should have been watching him but I was busy doing other things. I thought, when he handed me my bill, that $39.78 was a little steep for propane, but I paid and headed down the road into Kalispell, MT.

All of a sudden it sounded like someone took a shot at us with a shotgun. A few seconds later they fired again. My thought was the refrigerator was trying to light and getting too much gas. I pulled over in the perfect spot--a funeral home parking lot. After inspecting the propane tank I thought maybe it was through expanding in the morning sun and finished with the mini-explosions. Again, we started down the road, and again the explosions.

I saw what I thought was another propane dealer. I pulled in and discovered it was a Schwan’s Food distributor. Luckily for us, the manager was well-trained in propane as all their trucks are run on propane. He grabbed a pair of gloves and popped the valve, releasing lots of pressure. I could see the dollar bills shooting out of the tank. He said not to touch it without gloves as it was two million degrees below zero. He also suggested not releasing it like this around any smokers or open flame of any kind. On a cold morning he said it would just float low to the ground looking for something to blow up. The moral of the story is: Know how your propane fill should be done. Watch the attendant to make sure it is done properly, especially if he has brown teeth and complains a lot about having to work on a chilly morning.

ON THE MOVE--WE HOPE!

2009-09-01T06:18:00.000-07:00

Once I cross the Mighty Mac and start heading west on Hwy 2, I am born again. It almost didn’t happen this time. After a month of readying the motorhome and getting techno road abled with a laptop and DC powered printer, so we could take the book business anywhere, things went south fast the night before we were leaving. Gaila was working at Munson Urgent Care when she started having chest pains. They were not sure she was going to make it to her 59th birthday, just hours away. They gave her an EKG, a chest and abdominal X-ray, blood pressure monitoring and a check of all her vitals. After checking her vitals they discovered her problem was vittles. I could have saved her a ton of money. I had just told her that morning that she was full of shit. But she wanted a professional opinion I guess. Now she is on constipation meds and I will be looking for RV dumping stations all the way to Seattle. Keep Smilin’, Dick E. Bird

2008-08-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

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RV Lifestyle

2008-08-05T09:32:00.001-07:00

Camping in a tent or sleeping on the hard ground isn’t everyone’s idea of a meaningful experience with nature. Nowadays, a camping trip often means roughing it in a recreational vehicle. Many campers today are looking for something a little more comfy.
A motorhome, travel trailer, or other RV is like a small cabin on wheels, usually complete with stove, oven, refrigerator shower, toilet, beds, heater and 12-volt electrical power. Smaller units may not have bathrooms or hot water. Some rigs, though, have lounge areas, air conditioners, bathtubs, microwave ovens, built-in color televisions and generators for extra power.
When asked why they like the RV lifestyle, RVers cite the convenience of cooking their own meals, sleeping in their own bed, and taking a hot shower at anyplace, any time, even in a remote campground. They also mention that with an RV they are always packed and ready-to-go.
Compared to automobile travel, where motorists eat at restaurants and sleep in motels, vacationing in a RV is economical. Gasoline and campsites are the major expense. Food costs the same as at home because you cook your own meals. Overnight accommodations are reasonable, usually from about $5 to $25 a night. A surprising number of public campgrounds are still free.
There is, of course, an initial investment. You don’t have to buy a palace on wheels to enjoy the RV lifestyle. In fact, the more you spend the more gadgets you get—and the more gadgets you get the more maintenance problems you have. Do you really need a doorbell that plays a hundred different tunes? Do you need a step that automatically comes down when you open the door? Shop hard and buy used. That’s my advice. There are plenty of people who have purchased a rig and found out they didn’t like the RV lifestyle. Their loss can be your gain. You can even rent a rig for a few weeks and try before you buy.
Camping can still be inexpensive depending on how fancy you want to get. We love to camp in National Forest campgrounds which are usually under $10 per night. Many small communities have free city and county parks often with full hookups.
Seniors can obtain a Golden Age Passport, which is a lifetime admission and discount pass for citizens or permanent residents of the United States who are age 62 or older. The pass is valid at National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and Tennessee Valley Authority sites with admission fees.
The Golden Age Passport also provides a 50% discount on federal use fees charged for facilities and services such as camping, swimming, parking, boat launching, and specialized interpretive services.
If you are just making time and want a safe place to park for the night, try Walmart. Most stores allow overnight parking and provide around the clock lot security.
You will make a lot of new friends living this lifestyle. Gaila and I have friends all over the world that we met while traveling. Expand your horizons!

2008-02-17T13:13:00.001-08:00

Bruce and Teri Schwindt love living in their solar powered recreational vehicle. Schwindt said he probably would have put solar panels on the vehicle anyhow, but the $3,000 towards the $7,100 system he received from the Wyoming Business Council allowed him to install a larger system than he otherwise would have.

CHEYENNE—Few people can claim to have a life-style as free as the one enjoyed by Bruce and Teri Schwindt.
They spend nine months out of the year in Wyoming and use the winter months to travel throughout the Southwest, mainly in Arizona, to pursue their interest in muzzleloader hunting.
The key to their nomadic ways is that they do not own a house. Instead, home is their RV.
"We just kind of have that life-style," Bruce Schwindt said.
The accommodations are lean but sufficient, and finding a source of electricity to live on was often a concern when on the road.
They had to rely on either a noisy generator or a friendly relative who would let them plug into a power source.
That is now less of a worry after the couple recently had a $7,100 solar panel energy system installed on top of their RV, thanks in part to a $3,000 grant from the Wyoming Business Council.
The four-panel system produces up to 24 amps under bright and constant sunlight.
Bruce, 52, explained that the power from the panels runs to six 6-volt deep-cycle marine batteries that feed into a 3,000-watt inverter, which turns direct-current voltage into alternating-current voltage that can be used to power lights and appliances in the vehicle.
An interior display screen lists how many amps are charging at a given time.
"When the sun’s shining, it’s charging. It’s so cool," Bruce said of the system.
While small, the couple’s home has many of the appliances found in a typical house, including a vacuum cleaner, computer, television, microwave and refrigerator.
"Last night, we turned on our electric blankets," Bruce said.
Under mild sunlight the system will generate 13 amps. The Schwindts expect to reach the 24-amp maximum throughout most days in the hot Arizona sun.
The Wyoming Business Council has funding to award up to 25 grants a year to applicants who install a photovoltaic, or solar power energy system, on their homes. The grants can be as large as $3,000 to cover half the cost of a system. The system must not have already been installed at the time of the application, and it has to be used on a primary residence.
"They have a primary residence, they just move it more than most people," Dale Hoffman, state energy program manager for the Business Council, said of the Schwindts.
The program started slowly in 1996, generating fewer than 10 applications in its first year, Hoffman said. It has since gained in popularity. Last year, the Business Council received 47 applications.
If more than 25 applications are received this year, Hoffman said, a random drawing will be held including all of the eligible applications to determine who is awarded a grant.
The Schwindts lived in Laramie for 10 years, but now use Pavillion, a town of 165 people northwest of Riverton, as their home base. Teri, 51, has a sister there who owns 10 acres, enough space for them to easily park their home when they are in town.
The couple says they are still learning the entire potential of the solar panel system, including which appliances drain the most sun-powered charge. However, they already know it will make their already free lives even more unfettered.
"If we go out and park in the desert, we can sew or do whatever and before we couldn’t do any of that," Teri said.
The Schwindts said they were able to afford an early retirement based on Bruce working as an electrician at construction jobs throughout the country. He would live in an RV while on the road to cut down on expenses.
In the meantime, the couple invested in real estate, primarily in Wyoming and Arizona. They fixed up properties and sold them or served as landlords to be able to finance their travels.
More and more RV’s are coming equipped with Solar Panels. It’s really nothing new. Twenty years ago I ran into an old friend. I mean really old. He was 91 and still pulling an Airstream Travel Trailer all over the country. He made his fortune as the Porta Potty king and also owned Thedford Corporation, the company that manufactures the majority of plumbing fixtures to the RV industry. His name was Frank Sargent. He had a specially built 26 foot Airstream. The roof was loaded with solar panels. He said, "Dick E. Bird when I park I don’t plug-in, people plug-in to me!