Unexpected Beauty - Death Valley, CA Sally
Death Valley - it doesn't sound too inviting, does it? But when I emailed around to my friends recently, asking what we absolutely shouldnít miss in Southern California, a friend from San Francisco didn't skip a beat.
January is the perfect time to see Death Valley, she said. "Go - you won't regret it." So we went! Steve and I checked the map and saw that we could stop in Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks along the way and then wind up in Las Vegas. I've never been to Las Vegas - or "Vegas," as Steve likes to call it - and it makes a great hopping-off point for our trip to see my brother in Daytona next month.
We started out in Fresno, which turns out to be the sixth largest city in California, then headed east through Squaw Valley. As we climbed higher in elevation, the trees along the road grew bigger and bigger. And the snow got deep! I wasn't expecting so much snow. By the time we parked for the night, I was really glad to be so snug in our RV. The snow was absolutely gorgeous, though, and it made the perfect backdrop for those monstrous Sequoia trees. I've never seen anything like them - they're the tallest trees in the world, and some of them grow to be almost 400 feet tall! We saw the General Sherman Tree, the largest living tree in the world, then we went snowshoeing at Columbine and had delicious warm-up coffee at the Ash Mountain park entrance.
From there we headed south, oohing and ahhing over the incredible views, and made our way down to Lake Isabella, which was a perfect place to stop for the night. We did a little fishing, caught up on our reading, and enjoyed hiking in the warm weather after our snowy mountain experience.
A few days later, we pressed on to Death Valley National Park. This is the hottest, driest, lowest place on earth, and the park is enormous (3.4 million acres, we learned). Even with our RV, we were only able to explore a fraction of it. We entered through the Panamint Mountain range, then swooped down into a wide, flat valley that sparkled, it was so hot and dry. All around us, there were pastel-colored hills made of pink, yellow, white, and coral sandstone. I couldn't stop taking pictures!
Steve
Death Valley is really something. And boy, am I ever glad we came in the winter. They say that in the summer the temperatures on the valley floor are often over 100 degrees. Our weather was absolutely perfect with temperatures around 70 degrees every day. We did miss the wildflowers by a month or so, which made Sally sad, but I reminded her that weíd be in Florida by then, so we might as well take Death Valley when we could fit it in!
We spent a day exploring the low valley, walking the Golden Canyon trail and seeing the Devils Golf Course. It was amazing to learn that animals actually can - and do! - live here. Then we stopped off at Badwater Basin, the lowest spot in the entire country. It felt like we were standing in a big batch of nothing, on a gigantic white sheet of hard-baked sand, 280 feet below sea level. And all around in the distance we could see mountain ranges with snow on them. Talk about a weird combination.
The next day we hiked around the windy ridge to Telescope Peak, the highest point in the park. So in just two days, we went from the lowest spot in the U.S. to 11,050 feet - incredible! Telescope Peak had an amazing view. We signed in the guest book there, so look for our entry if you make it.
Now that we were in true desert mode, we headed east to Las Vegas to see the sights. I think driving is the only way to come into Vegas, because it gives you a good sense of how odd it is to find this big sparkling oasis in the middle of the desert. We had a great time hopping from casino to casino, checking out the different buildings (Sally loved Paris Las Vegas and the Bellagio the best), the water shows, the light shows, and the buffets. I really liked the aquarium at Mandalay and the big pyramid at Luxor.
After a few days of soaking in Vegas, we did some side trips to Lake Mead, to see the Hoover Dam (we took a tour right down into the dam), and up to Valley of Fire State Park. Sally wanted to see the wild donkeys at Red Rock Canyon, so we'll be heading there next before we hop our flight to Florida to see Sally's brother. You'll hear from us next at Daytona's Bike Week!
Western Montana - Hot Springs, Moose and Fishing
Steve
The last time Sally and I visited Yellowstone National Park, we were busy the whole time, keeping the kids from running off the trails and annoying the folks at the campsite next to ours. Now that we're retired and only have ourselves to take care of, we were determined to do all the things we couldn't get around to then. So when we arrived at the park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs, we headed straight to the ranger's station to learn about backcountry permits and fishing regulations.
To keep our costs down, we set up camp at an RV park outside of Yellowstone, not far from West Yellowstone, the western entrance to the park. And even though we were supposed to be taking it easy, I set the alarm for six so we could start our day bright and early.
On the drive into the park that morning, we saw a herd of antelope grazing in the plains and two hawks soaring overhead. We had our backcountry permit, so we parked the car and headed off along a trail, aiming for one of the fire watchtowers. When we'd been her before with the kids, this area was still blackened from the 1988 fire, but now itís all grown back and looks as lush as any other part of the park. We even came upon a pod of moose wallowing in the creek!
Hiking is tiring work, so by the time we got back to West Yellowstone, we were more than ready to sit down to a nice dinner at the Three Bear Lodge and Restaurant. It gave us a good chance to look over our maps and make our plans for the rest of the week. I'd wanted to go fishing on one of the Yellowstone lakes, but Sally convinced me that we'd be better off doing a little learning first, outside the park. I've pole fished before, but fly fishing is new to both of us, so after a little talking, I came around to thinking she was right - this would be a great time to learn to fly fish! So the next morning I arranged a trip with one of the local fly fishing guides at Hebgen Lake, a popular cutthroat trout fishing spot that's not far from West Yellowstone.
Sally
I just love this part of the country so much. Looking across the big meadows at the bison grazing and lowing is such a peaceful thing - it makes me think about the way this countryside must have been before the pioneers came along.
I have to admit that I was a little nervous about our fly fishing class with the guide. I don't know a whole lot about fishing, and I hate the idea of being wasteful, so I wanted to make sure that we were going to eat any fish we caught. But once we showed up at Hebgen Lake, Jay, our guide, put all my fears to rest. He told us how to release any fish we didn't want to keep and said that in his opinion, fishing was more about spending time in nature than it was about catching and keeping fish. I really liked his way of thinking, especially when I found how peaceful it is out there on the river. Steve picked up the casting motion faster than I did, so Jay put him to work on the river while he and I worked on swishing the line out and over the water. And you should have seen Steve's face when he felt the first tug on his line! I knew right then that we'd be doing a lot of fly fishing in the future. Steve was hooked just as much as that fish was. We had such a good time with Jay that we asked him to meet us in Yellowstone a few days later at his favorite spot.
That afternoon, we visited the Museum of the Yellowstone and saw fabulous movies about bears and the big Yellowstone fires. I did a little shopping in Christmas in Montana and the Madison Gift Shop, then we went to the Bookworm's to pick up A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean's famous book that includes a lot about fly fishing.
Steve and I have had such a grand time here, that we're determined to come back as soon as we can, maybe in the winter so we can try a Klondike Dreams Sled Dog Tour and a little cross country skiing in the park. And we had a thought - we'd love to hear from all the RV travelers out there who've been to Yellowstone. If you tell us what your favorite sights were, we'll put them on our to-do list!
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The Dakotas - Black Hills, Badlands, and Mount Rushmore Steve
When we last checked in, Sally and I were way down in New Orleans, sipping gumbo and listening to smooth jazz. But around mid-June, we both felt an itch to check in with our youngest, Julie. Julie's a junior at the University of Minnesota, but she's working this summer at a girl's camp in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Sally tends to worry and, where the kids are concerned, she can see trouble behind every molehill. So it wasn't long before we were headed northwest, hot to investigate all the dangers - and treasures - of the Black Hills.
That's where we are now, and it turns out to be beautiful country. It's about as different from Louisiana and our home-turf of Minnesota as a place could get, but itís pretty fine all the same. The hills are gentle rollers, and I believe they're called "black" because of the ponderosa pines that cover them. From a distance, they really do look like black squares on a patchwork quilt.
Julie got a furlough for the July 4th weekend, so we piled her gear into the RV and took her along with us. Those of you with kids know that they have a pretty weird sense of fun sometimes. No sooner were Sally and I talking about where we'd like to go - the Badlands? Mount Rushmore? - than Julie piped up with "Wall Drug! We have to go to Wall Drug. And the Corn Palace!" Neither Sally or I had ever heard of Wall Drug. But when Julie explained that it was a tourist stop and that 'all the other counselors had been there', we knew our fate was sealed. We headed east on Interstate 90, on our way to Wall, South Dakota.
Like most things in South Dakota, Wall is set in the middle of miles of sunflower, corn, and soybean fields. And Wall is a tourist stop, all right. The main attraction is the old-fashioned drug store that sells everything from moccasins to jack-a-lopes, plus some dinosaur statues and curiosities from the Old West. It's an unusual place, that's for sure!
We didn't have time to take Julie as far as the Corn Palace, which is located in the eastern half of the state in Mitchell, not far from Sioux Falls (also on Interstate 90). But Julie got us to promise to stop there on our way back through, so she could have a picture. Apparently, it's something like a Taj Mahal, but built entirely out of corn. Only in the Midwest, eh
Sally
When I was a little girl, I remember a family trip to South Dakota, when a heard of bison crossed the road in front of our car. One of them even put its big nose right on the car window! So of course I was thrilled to be able to take our daughter along on a bison-watching expedition. How lucky we are that bison herds still wander freely through Custer State Park.
Julie and I like to try to identify wild flowers with our little guide book, and this is an especially pretty place for doing that. South Dakota has all kinds of roadside prairie flowers - daisies, cornflowers, black-eyed-susans, purple cone flowers, and of course sun flowers. We were so busy with the flowers during our picnic lunch, we almost missed the bison herd! Steve had to call us over to watch them swarming across a nearby hill. They're such amazing beasts with their lumbering great heads. I was delighted to see them - and right before July had to go back to camp, too. As she said, sheíd have a fabulous story to tell her campers when she returned.
After we dropped Julie off, the RV seemed so quiet! Not to mention roomy. It was a little like being empty-nesters all over again. I missed her awfully, but I have to confess that it didnít take Steve long to interest me in something new ñ a trip to see the new Crazy Horse Memorial. Like Mount Rushmore, this is a towering face ñ Crazy Horseís face ñ carved into the side of a mountain. But unlike Mount Rushmore, this monument is still under construction. Work on it only started in 1948. As we read on the signs there, Crazy Horse was a Lakota chief who was known for his loyalty and upright character.
It was such a moving experience, gazing up at that solemn face. As I said to Steve, it seemed like Crazy Horse could see all the way across the hills and plains, clear into the last corners of the Dakotas. And who knows? Maybe he even liked seeing the daisies and black-eyed-susans waving on the roadside as much as Julie and I did.
Louisiana - Bayous, Beignets and Bourbon Street Sally
Something I will never forget is when Hurricane Katrina struck Mississippi and New Orleans. It was so horrible, watching all that suffering and devastation, and feeling like there wasn't a thing I could do to help. My heart just bled for the people of New Orleans during that awful time. I was desperate to pitch in, to really help, but all I could do was round up blankets and send money to the relief funds it felt so small in the face of such a big tragedy.
I'm also a little embarrassed to say that one of my early thoughts was sadness that I'd never get to see the French Quarter that everyone talks about so much. I'd always wanted to go to New Orleans -- ever since I took High School French! But it just hadn't happened. And when the hurricane hit, I really thought I'd lost my chance.
Well, imagine my surprise when Steve brought it up the other day. Turns out, he'd heard from another RVer at one of our campgrounds that New Orleans is working hard to put its city back together. There's plenty to do and see, he said, and a whole lot has been repaired in the last two years. Steve and I agreed that the best thing we could do to help was to spend our tourist dollars there, where it could do the most good.
I sure was excited! New Orleans is such a melting pot, taking little bits from French culture, West African, American, Spanish, and Italian. And then there's the music. Our biggest trouble was figuring out what to see first, though of course I lobbied for a walk through the French Quarter. And once I mentioned beignets (French donuts that I read about online), Steve made it his personal mission to find the very best ones in the city. We found fantastic ones - and cafe au lait -- at Cafe Du Monde on Decatur Street. And the French Quarter was so charming! I just loved the balconies and plaster walls - it felt like Paris to me, but with a special American twist. Steve said he was glad he didn't have to speak French to get by here, ha-ha, but I thought the little bits in French were the best part.
Since I got to pick our first destination, Steve chose the second. He took us to a Zephyrs baseball game, then out for crawfish at K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen on Chartres Street. We ordered the crawfish without their heads, and only felt a little silly doing it. But what can I say? We're from Minnesota!
Steve
I love a place with a neat history, where you learn things you didnít expect. For instance, did you know that by 1852, New Orleans was the third largest city in the U.S.? Or that it belonged to the French, then Spanish, and then French again before the Americans finally bought it as part of the Louisiana Purchase? No wonder things feel so European here.
One of the things I really wanted to do in New Orleans was to see The Cabildo, the site of the Louisiana Purchase transfer. This is also a museum with a Spanish Arsenal right next door. And because Iím interested in the Civil War, I got Sally to go with me to the Confederate Museum, where we learned all about Jefferson Davis, who died here in New Orleans.
You probably already know how much I like to golf, so it shouldnít be a stunner to hear that I wanted to play at the English Turn Golf & Country Club, where they hold the Zurich Classic. What an unbelievable course! It was tough, of course, but just beautiful. And the Louisiana weather is just perfect for early-morning golfing.
Everywhere we went in New Orleans, Sally and I talked about Hurricane Katrina and how sad it was that we couldn't do more to help out. That got me curious, so I started asking around at our RV park and, sure enough, it turned out that there were way for us to pitch in. The city's organizing all kinds of volunteer crews to do jobs like clearing debris and building houses. You should have seen Sally's eyes light up when I suggested we spend a few days helping out. "I'm not much good at building," she said, "but I can sure paint"!
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