Thanksgiving at The Grand in Alabama

Breakfast in bed

Photo time with Tom the Turkey

Horse driven carriage ride

Making turkey scavenger hunt bags

Climbing giant old trees

First manicure with Laura

Igloo gingerbread house – the contest winner!

Gyro at carnival

Impressive control panel on Drum submarine

November 25-28, 2015 – A Thanksgiving to remember…

The Grand! When I think of Alabama, the first thing that comes to mind is not a luxury family resort on the beach, but there it was at the end of a spectacular drive in Point Clear, Alabama. Around for hundreds of years with a history going back to Civil War battlefields and hospitals, building, hurricanes, rebuilding, and lots of family tradition, what a place. Now owned by Marriott, the resort really is grand, with multiple buildings spread out over beautiful grounds joined by walking paths dotted with bench swings and hammocks. We stayed in the Spa Building in a fancy room with two queen beds.

They had a lot of activities all lead by their extremely courteous resort staff. I quickly got used to being called ma’am or Miss Ellen. Aside from some relaxing in the room, we did… a glow in the dark scavenger hunt, family movie night with popcorn, croquet, golf putting, turkey hunt bag decorating followed by the turkey hunt the next day, carnival games on the lawn with pumpkin decorating, cookie decorating, swimming in their very cold pool, a highly competitive gingerbread house making competition (that Mark and Zachary won with an igloo gingerbread house!), horse-drawn carriage rides, beach bon fire, and an even bigger carnival with gyro spinny thing, rock climing and a petting zoo. 

I especially liked meeting people, getting to know them over the weekend, and learning about their holiday family traditions. One night I wandered into the lounge on my own and was called over to join a new friend, Jay, where I had a great time meeting his family and listening to music. Another highlight for Sophia and me was her first manicure and hair styling with Laura at the salon. What an exciting outing that was for us girls! Sophia was thrilled and I had a ton of fun watching her.

We also ate well with a big buffet for Thanksgiving including all the usual fare plus more, one morning with room service, and a spectacular breakfast buffet on our last morning which left me wishing I could eat more. Or, at least take some with me so I didn’t have to cook again. 

Sadly, we did finally leave and drove half hour away to the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile. Sure enough, the first thing I did was make Sophia a snack while camped in their parking lot. We then joined Mark and Zachary to see the USS Alabama Battleship, the Drum Submarine, and a bunch of cool airplanes. Very interesting and I imagine being aboard a sub must have been crazy. Next stop, Florida.

Five Days in Louisiana

The Waffle House

Rolling pin bed at Maison Olivier

Sugar mold and tongs

Cafe Du Monde

It’s as good as it looks

Preservation Hall

Sophia with street performer

Swamp tour (see the alligator?)

Best jambalaya EVER at Ron’s Gumbo Shop

Tauro

Mother’s restaurant

Unicycle friends

November 21-25, 2015 – Here’s to great food and sites over five days in Louisiana…

Day 1: Driving to NOLA
Our first night in Louisiana brought thunderstorms. We woke up in Lafayette at the very wet Pioneer RV Park and showered at their very nice bathrooms with inspirational signs on the wall. “You’re exactly where you should be on your journey!” and “Faith makes it possible, not easy.” I found myself wanting to agree with the signs, relayed my thanks to the cheery owner, and happily headed off to a much anticipated breakfast.

“The Waffle House” is a favorite song of ours by David Wilcox and until this trip I though he was singing about a generic waffle house type restaurant, but it turns out it’s about an actual diner chain called “The Waffle House.” Mark was amused as he knew about The Waffle House, and today was our morning to go there. We sat in a slightly undersized table which provided counter service right next to the waffle makers. They turn out sweet waffles which are almost as good as you hope they would be. Just as we finished eating, we discovered that there’s a famous local zydeco music brunch at Cafe Des Amis in nearby Breaux Bridge, so we hustled over and Sophia and I caught the very last song with everyone dancing enthusiastically in the morning. Then we wandered around the little antique shops there and chatted with one of the shop owners who was sitting down to lunch with two friends at a little table right in his shop. It was so natural for them and quite charming to us.

To reach New Orleans we decided to drive on side roads near Hwy 90. As we drove, Mark suddenly remembered that his friend Joe Olivier was from around there and a quick text exchange revealed that Joe’s many times great grandfather had a plantation nearby. Sure enough, less than an hour later we drove into St. Martinsville and toured Maison Olivier, a 1815 Creole cottage which was the center of a plantation and is now a national historic landmark. It is the main feature of the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site which we toured with a spectacular guide Mary. She told us the history of Creoles and Cajuns, showed us a rolling pin bed where you take the big rolling pin out of the top of the bed frame to roll it smooth each day, how they make and store sugar, and showed us all kinds of old timey things. We loved it! 

The rest of the drive brought us through interesting towns, sugar cane, a busy sugar cane plant, lots of bayou houses with very green lawns and no fences, and to Danny’s fried chicken where we got takeout and happily ate in the truck. We arrived in New Orleans at 5:30 and settled into the New Orleans West KOA which was about half hour from the French Quarter. A little inconvenient but reportedly safer than the other RV sites on the east side of town.

Day 2: New Orleans – the French Quarter
The first thing we did in New Orleans was Uber over to Cafe du Monde and get our little table with hot chocolate and beignets. I didn’t realize they only have the beignets and coffee/hot chocolate, but what a great business and it feels great to be there. You stand in line, take one of the hundred tables when it’s available, a server comes over and they go stand in a cafeteria style line to get and pay for your food, then you pay them. We were quickly covered with powdered sugar.

Our friend James, who was literally moving out of New Orleans in two days, met us there took us walking all around the French Quarter to his favorite spots. We saw a fun street show with guys doing a jumping/dancing/comedy thing, street performers like a guy in still motion holding a football and another dressed in a fancy gold outfit, and many musicians. Stopped by the art gallery where James worked, had a great lunch at the Gumbo Shop, briefly visited the Historic New Orleans Collection Museum, and went to Louis Armstrong Park with the cool Congo Square and interesting sculptures. My highlight was that James knew the guy at Preservation Hall, so we got to go in during the day to see it. I fondly remembered being there with my Grandparents in the 80’s and looking in from the street at the musicians playing inside. At night, with James as our chaperone, we walked around everywhere including Bourbon street where Zachary asked, “So, this is where people party?” And, we bought a little pink chandelier for Sophia’s room and shipped it home to await setting up in her very own room when we return rom our trip. We topped off the day with giant ice creams at sucre.

Day 3: Swamp Tour, Oak Alley Plantation & Ron’s Gumbo Stop
The third day in Louisiana we took an outing about an hour away to two stops… the Cajun Pride Swamp Tour and Oak Alley Plantation. The swamp tour was super fun with a Cajun tour guide who told us all about how he lives and hunts in the bayou. He was very descriptive which gave us not only a nice tour of the swamp but a colorful picture of his lifestyle. His family was looking forward to alligator and crawdads for Thanksgiving. The alligators weren’t very active that time of year, but we did see a few lounging at the edge of the swamp and there were some cute raccoons. Near the end of the tour he brought out a baby alligator for us to hold. 

Next, we toured Oak Alley Plantation, another Creole plantation but with a larger “big house” sitting on 25 acres and displays about the time period, including slavery, in surrounding structures. We had another exceptional tour guide who brought the period to life. He explained that the Creole plantations were just big enough to be nice, but not so grand so you could spend your money enjoying life with food and wine and going into New Orleans for the season. The more northern plantations were the giant plantations that we think of as “typical.” 

Dinner that night started poorly with an epic Yelp-fueled battle of where to go and developed into the best meal of the trip to date. We ended up at Ron’s Gumbo Stop where Mark had the best jambalaya in his life, Zachary and I had gumbo (which was a bit delayed for Zachary who lost his tooth at dinner), and Sophia had sauteed shrimp. Chef Ron came out to chat with us and ended up giving me recipe tips and a giant container of his favorite spice. And, to top it off, our great waitress, Becky, recommended Thanksgiving at The Grand, Marriott’s five star resort in Point Clear, Alabama, which turned out to be spectacular (more on that later).

Day 4: New Orleans – St. Charles Ave, the Garden District, Magazine Street
Now more comfortable with the city, we drove our camper toward St. Charles Avenue and first thing we came across was Tauro Synagogue, named for the son of the historic Rhode Island Tauro congregation and dedicated in 1909. Usually you have to schedule a tour, but the receptionist let us in for a quick visit because they were closed the next few days for Thanksgiving. It was a thrill to see such a giant and ornate synagogue. The main sanctuary seats 900 and is filled with stained glass, carvings, a giant pipe organ, and huge Stars of David!

We didn’t make it onto the street car, but continued our drive down St. Charles Avenue where the mansions looked quite grand. Then we drove around the Garden District which seemed to be just houses with green in the middle of the street but maybe I missed something. We parked and wandered around Magazine Street’s little shops which were fine. Then Sophia and I walked through an interesting Jewish cemetery which had graves from 200 years ago all the way to the present. The old grave markers were all unique and I liked imagining the people and life around them. We then made a quick stop to tell James and Summer goodbye and then that night we had another fun meal – Mother’s – in downtown. It’s a long standing cafeteria style restaurant with great food in a great atmosphere. We had giant yummy sandwiches with fixings – cabbage, fries, etc. and great bread pudding. 

Day 5: At the RV Park
The last morning in New Orleans, Mark took the camper off the truck for the first time in the trip and headed out to get an oil change which turned out to take several hours. Meanwhile, a motorhome pulled in next to us and it turned out to be a family with six kids. Within minutes, mom Caryn and I were talking cooking and discipline, Zachary and one of their sons were riding unicycles, and Sophia was playing dolls with two of their girls. We really had a great time talking and seeing how their life works and Mark had a tough time tearing us away from there. With a new connection on Facebook, we reluctantly left for our afternoon check in at The Grand.

Texas Week 2: San Antonio, Padre Island, Houston, Galveston

The Alamo

Cruising the San Antonio River Walk

Tower Life Building in San Antonio

San Antonio carriage ride

Padre Island

Padre Island waves

Boy digs giant hole and eats s’mores

Scampling!

Texas State Aquarium

First Movie – The Peanuts 3D

USS Lexington

Children’s Museum of Houston scientists

Kidtropolis Market

Kidtropolis Vet Office

Musical instrument

SECRET spy mission

Playing pinball he made with Daddy

November 14-20, 2015 – For some reason I wasn’t very excited about Texas, but my pleasant surprise continued as we traveled south from Austin.

San Antonio, TX (November 14)
As we were parking in a lot at the edge of downtown San Antonio at 11am with ominous looking signs that said no buses or RVs, and matching ominous storm clouds, two police on bikes approached. I thought they were going to tell us we couldn’t park there but instead they came to warn us that we should lock up our bikes because the parking lot had a lot of theft lately. Looking around, we did see broken glass, so we took special care to lock everything up and chatted with the very friendly police who also gave us some good tourist advice and suggested we bring an umbrella.

We walked the 5 minutes to the Alamo. I had very low expectations as I had been there before on my teen trip and remembered nothing much, plus multiple people told us not to go. But, it’s one of the top tourist attractions in the US, and we were there. Turned out this time I really enjoyed it. We’d been in Texas for over a week and I’d visited enough Texas museums and sites to have a better sense of the history of the 1836 battle which lead to the Republic of Texas which led to the State of Texas and eventually the whole southwest becoming part of the US. We visited the shrine, saw Davy Crockett’s fancy vest retrieved from his home after the battle, and watched their video which turned out to be a reenactment by the History Channel, but the best part was a man dressed up as a soldier who told his story and showed us how to load and fire a musket.

A short walk took us to the San Antonio River Walk, a pedestrian walkway along the river one story below street level lined with restaurants and shops. It’s quite charming and we took an entertaining cruise through it followed by Tex-Mex lunch along the banks in a little on and off drizzle which never got big enough to send us inside. Then, Sophia and I opted for a ride around downtown in a Cinderella horse-drawn carriage while Mark and Zachary went to the Guinness World Records Museum. We were back to the camper before 5pm and all was well. A short drive around the lovely restored homes in the King William Historic District (thanks for the suggestion by the police to go there), and we said goodbye to San Antonio and drove to Padre Island for a late night arrival.

Padre Island & Corpus Christie (November 15-17)
What I didn’t realize really until after our three days on Padre Island is that it’s designated as a National Seashore. It’s the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world with 70 miles of coastline with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and a bay (and hypersaline lagoon) on the other. What that means is there’s vast stretches of coastline that, aside from some bollards marking where you can and can’t drive and some covered wooden tables, are pristine. The beach is quite different from California. It’s warmer so we could swim for a while, shallow even far out, and the waves come quickly but they are small and gentle. Plus, where we were the sand is thixotropic, like corn starch, and it seemed to vibrate in our hands. A ranger even showed up with a seining net and showed us some local little fish. We also had a nighttime fire on the beach where we make potatoes in our fire while Zachary dug a truly giant hole and Sophia invented “scampling”on the little dunes. The only downside, which we found all over the area, is the mosquitos which immediately attack if you’re not right on the beach.

Corpus Christie, the city you go through to reach the island, has many attractions including the Texas State Aquarium, the USS Lexington, and notably, the Century 16 Theater. The Aquarium was pretty good, the best part being a dolphin show and a cool shark exhibit. The USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier in service from 1943-1991 which was especially active during WWII, was very interesting. They have a self-guided tour climbing up and down and all over the whole ship with many anachronistic exhibits of life on the ship. Aside from the being at war part, seems like life on the ship might have been quite satisfying and sometimes thrilling.

The Century 16 Theater hosted the kids first time at the movies in a real theater, the 4:15 showing of The Peanuts in 3D. Zachary was surprised how big the lobby was, that there was more than one movie playing at a time, and asked if we were allowed to take our giant popcorn into the theater. Sophia was thrilled to choose candy from the giant candy display. Both were excited to have the 3D glasses, choose their seats, and watch the movie. I love Snoopy and I had just as much fun watching the kids as the movie.

Houston (November 18-19)
The Children’s Museum of Houston, which is the best children’s museum we’ve ever visited, captured us for the two days we were there. We could not believe all the great stuff they have there. The highlight for me was the “Secret” spy game where you become an agent and get a bunch of special gear to go on a mission to protect the secret crystals under the museum. It was incredibly well done with complex interactive displays and tools you had to use to solve the mission. 

Zachary was especially enamored with a musical instrument where you place wooden balls on a wide track and then turn a crank to move the track so the balls fall off the end onto their key on a xylophone. He was trying to set up songs and chords. And, a make your own pinball game using pegboard, wooden scraps, dowels and rubber bands, all of which you could move around to set up a pinball game and then play it. Sophia especially liked the amazing Kidtropolis city, an incredibly real and detailed interactive city where you could interact and have different jobs. She was mostly at the grocery store and veterinarian office. We didn’t see much else of Houston, but we sure had a great time.

Galveston (November 20)
Galveston is a resort island where we camped but the mosquitos limited our time there. We did walk through the bay side waters for a bit and then fled for the windier beach side where a great ranger told us all about their sea beans which wash up on shore from afar, carniverous moon snails which use their tongue to bore a hole in a clam shell and suck out the clam (you can then find the shell with the hole and make it into a necklace), and the sea purslane which builds a low web of roots to anchor in the beach. A stop at a good but overpriced fish restaurant was our last bit of Texas as we headed for Louisiana.

 

Texas Week 1: Home in Austin

Making fried green tomatoes

Camping by an oil derrick

Carschooling multiplication

Yet oil rigs still pass us

Selfie!

Frito Pie

Lone star in front of Bullock Museum

The County Line BBQ

With Austin Waldorf School 3rd grade at Green Gate Farms

The Thinkery wax creation

The Thinkery “Ellen”

The Thinkery strobe “picture”

Texas Capitol

Capitol door knob

Capitol Visitor Center

Hopdoddy Burger Bar with our waiter Forest

Capitol Street Bridge bats

Amy’s Ice Cream

Deers in the front yard

With Elizabeth

November 7-13, 2015 – Our new membership cards for the Bullock Texas State History Museum proclaim that we are “Texan Officially” and I’m kinda proud of it. Granted, we joined for the reciprocal museum benefits, but it’s hard not to catch some of the Texas excitement. The people are just so friendly and pleased to be Texan. Bring on the oil derricks and plates of BBQ, and while you’re at it stick the Texas star on absolutely everything! And it really is big. My understanding of Texas pride was clarified by a Capitol tour guide: it’s the superior feeling many Americans have, but just for Texas instead. And, now having visited a bunch of historical sites and museums, I have filled in some of the history that I somehow missed (Texas was it’s own country!?). “Walk in, swagger out” says the museum, and we did…

Arriving in Texas (Nov 7-8)
We drove into Texas at night. It was super sketchy as the speed limit was 80 on an undivided two lane highway, giant oil rigs were passing us, and there were fiery plumes of methane gas from oil derricks off in the distance on both sides of the road, We pulled into an RV park in the dark and woke up to… a view of an oil derrick. Sophia and I made fabulous fried green tomatoes from the Taos farmer’s market for dinner in the camper. They were truly great and sweet like candy.

The next day we woke up and drove all day through west Texas to Austin. I homeschooled Sophia in the car with our homemade chalkboard. A first time for both and we had fun choosing animals for all of her times tables. Then she had fun taking selfies and editing them on my phone – those crazy Waldorf kids do pick up the strangest skills all by themselves!

Our first real stop in Texas: BBQ dinner Hondo’s in Fredericksburg, complete with bar, live music, and mounted animal heads on the walls. Sophia had Frito Pie, served in the bag. She told me it was funny that the chips were cut into strips, and I realized she’d never had Fritos before. Oh how the mighty have fallen… selfies and now Fritos. We threw in Dairy Queen blizzards for dessert and then arrived so late into Austin that one place was closed and one had no vacancy, so we parked at Walmart. I love Texas already!

Austin – We make new old friends (Nov 9-13)
Our first day in Austin was a nice solid day of the sort you hope all days turn out, and the next day was even better. We went out to a great breakfast and then headed to the fantastic Bullock History Museum which has extensive exhibits on all aspects of Texas history. I enjoyed it, including an entertaining 4D history of Texas show, another Frito Pie for Sophia’s lunch, and a Gulf sign which brought back memories of the Gulf station my Dad owned and ran when I was a kid. Gulf is no longer in California, so it’s a thrill for me to see them here. 

We then headed to Zilker Park to ride their Zilker Zephyr electric train and play in their little playground. The park is exactly like Vasona Park in Los Gatos, complete with their holiday light drive through thing that they were setting up. But we knew we weren’t in California anymore because the train runs directly through the middle of the playground with no gates to block the walkways. There’s also a neat giant swimming place there but it was closed because of recent flooding. So far we’ve done well with the weather on our trip, just avoiding snow, big rainstorms and flooding by chance.

At night we hit the Container Store to fine tune some camper storage and Mark’s old friend Elizabeth who he hadn’t seen in 20 years came by to say hi. Then we had our second yummy BBQ dinner at the County Line including their amazing bread which was so sweet and fluffy we bought an extra loaf to go. Picked up the contact lens I had to shipped to the FedEx store here, arrived at an RV park late, and stayed up even later doing laundry and writing.

The second day in Austin we spent the morning at the RV park where on the way to shower the kids we discovered a small very nice pool and hot tub. We opted for swimming and Mark brought us breakfast to the hot tub of the yummy bread toasted with butter. We did eventually make it to the shower, and as we were packing up Zachary noticed a group of kids at a farm across the way. For some unknown reason I thought to myself, “I wonder if they’re from the Waldorf School.” We wandered over and it did turn out to be the third grade class of the Austin Waldorf School on a farm tour! Sophia was shy but thrilled to join them for about an hour. We bought organic veggies and pastured eggs from their farm store and said our thanks and goodbyes.

Next stop The Thinkery, a museum similar to Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose. We absolutely loved it! We played with a super cool wax drawing machine, a die paper cutter to make a helicoptery thing to fly in wind tunnel, a stop motion studio, big gear construction, strawberry paint in a kitchen science area, a kids play food area complete with chicken coop and stuffed chickens Sophia named, a water play area with drums that Zachary and Mark liked, and a great light area with fun strobe “pictures.” And, after we were the last ones to leave, we played in the big park next door which had great swings and climbing for their age.

We then made a quick stop at Trader Joe’s on the way to dinner at Elizabeth’s house where we had pizza and salad and met Elizabeth’s family. The kids were thrilled to be in a real house with new books to read and boys to play with. And, to top it off, turns out they live around the corner from our other friends Craig & Kim and they had a house filled with dolls and girls to play with. We were all feeling good having the chance to visit. 

We ended up “camped” in the cul de sac in front of Elizabeth’s house and it was exactly what we needed after having moved a little too fast earlier in our trip. Toys, games, two friendly dogs, and food in a real pantry! Deer literally walk around their neighborhood and hang out on the front lawn. And, my favorite part, getting to know their family. We hung out, went out for Amy’s ice cream (yum), baked cookies, and made a giant dinner at their house featuring our fried green tomatoes. Mark even got to visit their local PAMF-like clinic for an eye issue (now resolved). 

From their house, we did get out into Austin which continued to be great. We visited the Capitol which was grand and embellished but done with stye. Both the spacious grounds with paths and trees and the Capitol building itself are beautiful. There’s a very interesting tour which even held the kids interest for 45 minutes as we went through their impressive rooms with stars of Texas everywhere (engraved in doorknobs, drilled in wooden chairs, lit up in chandeliers). And, what doesn’t have a star says “State of Texas” or “Texas Capital,” even the hinges and golden elevator doors. You could feel the pride. The Capitol Visitor Center on the same grounds was very well done too. We drove around their main drag Congress Street, ate at their Hopdoddy Burgers and made it to the Congress Street Bridge where the bats did appear at dark and were fun to watch from the bridge. 

After a few days, we finally, begrudgingly peeled ourselves out of our new old friends’ nest and left Austin to head toward San Antonio. I took photos with Elizabeth, got her contact info, and we texted each other cute little messages as we drove for about 4 hours, made a stop at Camping World, and arrived at Braunig Lake Park in time to select a lakeside campsite and have shabbat dinner. Our last stop in Austin was the giant HEB market which, we realized later, is customized to the area. The one in Austin has a giant kosher section where we picked up a roast chicken, two kinds of prepared potatoes, and freshly baked challah for dinner. We were on our own again, but we’d brought along a great meal.

Magical Kittens, Sledding & Bats in New Mexico

Josh and Jex in Taos

Alpaca wool from Taos Farmer’s Market

Sophia’s beautiful creation

Zachary’s black compartment box

Magical Kittens in Taos

Playing ON art at Pop Gallery in Santa Fe

Eating spicy at The Shed in Santa Fe

Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe

Sophia’s poetry at museum

There’s no such thing as too much spinning – I love spinning

Balloon Museum

White Sands sledding

White Sands great flowers

White Sands playing with gypsum sand

Making delicious fried green tomatoes in the camper

Atole de Nuez at Los Altos Ranch Market in Albuquerque

Carlsbad Caverns

October 30 – November 7, 2015 – In New Mexico our first stop was Taos where we visited with friends. Then Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and south to White Sands National Monument and Carlsbad Caverns. What a beautiful state with great cities!

Taos – Friends & Halloween
We left Mesa Verde at noon and drove to Taos with a stop at a cute organic market for lunch supplies. We arrived in Taos just after 5pm and met our friends Josh and Jex for a quick walk with their dog along the Rio Grande and then off to a nice dinner at El Gamal, a Mediterranean vegetarian restaurant with toys and a pool table in the back, before parking in front of their house and heading to sleep.

Halloween! We woke up and walked to the Taos Farmer’s Market. The main difference from California is they have many more chilis. They had a nice selection of breakfast goodies including breakfast burritos, pretzels and scones, all with chili as one of the flavors offered. We bought interesting sourdough bread that the guy cuts off a super long loaf and sells by the pound. And, some local farm’s alpaca yarn that Sophia loved.

After breakfast we walked to the Harwood Museum where they had Dia de los Muertos activities which were very fun. First, decorating cigar boxes. Mark and Zachary were particularly engaged in making the inside of Zachary’s box black with impressively nice compartments, so Sophia and I did the skeleton scavenger hunt in the very nice museum where we searched for skeletons in the actual art. Some mask coloring while the boys were finishing their box, and then we walked to get Marshall’s Noodles for lunch (a cart in the little plaza – yum!) and headed back for Halloween prep.

We were definitely in the right place on Halloween. Sophia was enthralled with all of Jex’s makeup and the two of them had a great time as Sophia was immersed in making her kitty cat face. Jex also outfitted me with cat ears to match the outfit we’d brought along for Sophia and Sophia did my makeup so we could be Magical Kittens together. Zachary was, as usual, not interested in dressing up or trick or treating. The plaza had a small town feeling Halloween afternoon event, so, at 3pm off we headed to the plaza for trick or treating to all of the businesses, a costume contest, haunted house, and dancing at the side of the teen dance before heading home. A great time, and we were back “home” to hang out with friends by 7pm for a great evening. They made a particularly nice salad and Sophia fell asleep on their couch which we were talking. She’s big to carry to bed in the camper!

The next morning our friends left early for a trip and left us to enjoy their house where we made pancakes, showered, said goodbye to their pets many times (Mommy, why do we have to go, it’s so nice here), and headed out for Santa Fe. We tried to visit the very old Taos Pueblo but it was closed for an Indian celebration day, so we went on to Taos Gems & Minerals to take a look, and made a short stop on the Rio Grande and arrived at Santa Fe at 4pm. As you might imagine, I have been much more interested in museums than my traveling companions, so I got dropped off at the New Mexico History Museum to catch the last hour of it’s being open. Touring it alone without anyone hanging on me, asking me to look at something else, or telling me they are bored and why are we there and when can we leave, was nice. 

Santa Fe – Food & Art Galleries
Santa Fe is known for great food so we ate dinners out. We had one great dinner at Casa Chimayo and another at The Shed and everywhere we had the red and green chili sauce. Even Zachary, who is having his first spicy food, ordered his meal “as is” despite the waiter’s warning that it would be spicy and he loved it! We had good food in too when Zachary made pancakes from scratch. We stayed in a decent RV park well located in town and tucked back so it felt a little protected, although the entire morning we were homeschooling they were doing some sort of work in the lot next door that involved a beepy truck. We had some nice typical RV park experiences… we got change from some people at the park with a big fluffy dog that Sophia particularly liked and did laundry while Mark and Zack installed a new water pump switch in our camper. The laundry was in the men’s and women’s restrooms, so both kids helped with it. Zachary was especially into doing the one in the men’s room on his own.

Santa Fe is also known for art and walking around the Plaza we visited the Chuck Jones Gallery where I saw a Snoopy Flying Ace sketch by Charles Shultz that I loved ($17,000), and the Pop Gallery where the owner let the kids RIDE ON a piece of art that was like a teeter-totter spring diver. We also went to the Museum of International Folk Art up on Museum Hill, which was perhaps my favorite museum ever. Sophia and I spent a long time in the big Girard Wing looking at each little display while Mark and Zachary declared themselves done and retreated to the camper. Then Sophia was enamored with a magnetic poetry interactive piece and we made poetry together with her declaring my poem was ok but better when she added to it.

We also visited the Railyard Arts District where they had a great playground with the spinniest playground toys I’ve ever seen. The kids spun a lot, and Sophia declared, “There’s no such thing as too much spinning! I love spinning!” Well, it turned out there was because Sophia did not feel well after. Oops. I did drag her briefly through a couple of galleries before we reached a super cool clay store that she loved and then met the boys at REI. We made a few purchases including freeze dried backpacking dinners and astronaut ice cream. Guess we have to offset all that good food because we ate the ice cream right away as we drove to Albuquerque.

Albuquerque – Balloon Museum
We also stayed at an RV park in Albuquerque where we arrived just after 5pm just in time to pick up a part for our shocks that had been overnighted to us, checked into the very friendly RV park, played pool and pinball with Zack in their rec room, and went to the camper to make our freeze dried dinners. The kids were thrilled, declaring freeze drying to be amazing and marveling over how good the food was! They then made a cute stop motion video of halloween candy and candy wrappers before bed.

Feeling like we’ve been moving too fast, we decided to slow down in general. We relaxed in the morning and then headed through the old Route 66 (marked by neon signs) toward downtown which looks like San Jose with a little art deco flaire. We spent the afternoon at the International Balloon Museum where we had been with baby Zack on our previous road trip. Sophia was particularly into the kids area where you could velcro together your own balloon and fill it with air, do some neat paper folding and cutting with a fan that made your creations fly, learn to tie knots, and pilot in a balloon flying simulation game that was well done. She was also SUPER into this balloon capsule with lots of buttons and switches which she was in for about half an hour pretending she was in space and serving me space food. Zachary loved an interactive exhibit where you could fill a balloon with air and then launch it up a cable with buttons. It hailed while we were there and the front of the museum which has some interesting material for part of the enclosure was loud but nice.

Finally, we headed out to Costco and Home Depot and then to a giant Mexican market called Los Altos Ranch Market. Super great, I got a warm drink called Atole de Nuez and lots of fixings to made carne asada another day. We ate take-out tamales for dinner back in our camper. Continuing the theme of relaxing, the next day Sophia and I made hash browns from scratch and we spent the later part of the morning at common room at RV park trying to use their super slow internet and playing more pinball and pool. And, perhaps because I was not in “go mode,” I forgot to pick up my contact lens that I had overnighted there as one had broken. Remotely arranging for a package to be sent from an RV park in Albuquerque to a FedEx store in Austin is not as quick and easy as one might think. We left Albuquerque mid-day and drove toward White Sands, which was a long drive, and pulled in late a very cute Mountain Meadows RV park late. The owners were nice and the park was quiet and quaint but my relaxed family had lost it so we fed everyone and went to bed.

White Sands National Monument
We woke up arrived at White Sands mid-day. White Sands has these super cool sand dunes made of gypsum. It’s powdery and white and feels great. Located in a basin, the sand retains 90% humidity, so if you dig down just a couple of inches it’s like wet sand at the beach that you can play with and make sand castle-y things. And, it doesn’t blow around and when you are done you just shake it off. Great! You can sled down the dunes which was super fun. We created some fast sled tracks and Zachary added bumps and drops and curves to his. Sophia sprinkled her special sand “formulas” on the sled runs to make them even better. Great fun.

Then, we went on a sunset walk with the ranger which was very interesting. The plants grow up to keep their green parts above the sand and solidify it into a pedestal so when the dune moves with the wind they can stay there. Cute little animals like the Apache Pocket Mouse and Kit Fox live in there. The sunset was spectacular and that afternoon is a highlight for the trip. On the way out Mark helped three travelers whose exhaust pipe broke on a speed bump right at the park exit. Having saved the day, we drove toward Carlsbad.

Carlsbad Caverns
We camped at a nice lake about an hour from Carlsbad, but arrived very late and left early. I did quickly look outside at night and the stars were incredibly bright. The drama at the Caverns was that the elevator was broken so to visit you had to walk down the 1.25 mile “natural entrance,” then walk 1.25 miles around the “big room” that they are famous for, and then walk 1.25 miles back up uphill to get out. With a little concern about Sophia’s walking, I basically thought it would be fine, but they had a lot of signs and warnings with one Ranger telling us it’s like walking up 80 stories. We got our national parks book stamped, picked up a Junior Ranger book for Sophia to work on, got our tickets and audio guide and decided to go for it. It was great. It felt like a special time with only us hard core visitors in there!

The caverns were formed from acidic groundwater dissolving limestone deposits and then dripping water leaving calcium carbonate deposits which form spectacular stalactites (growing down from the ceiling) and stalagmites (growing up from the floor). It’s quite dramatic to see and fun to walk around in the cave. Of course, we made two stops at the snack place at the bottom, which was probably Sophia’s favorite part. On the way back up, Zachary was running. Sophia, who I showed how to walk backwards to “rest” instead of stopping, did great and she was very proud of herself. We hustled back to the visitor center so Sophia could complete her Junior Ranger book and got her third badge. This time she got a patch instead of a pin, and the ranger said she was “the hardest Junior Ranger he ever had.” Hmmmm.

Then we sat in their amphitheater and waited for the bats. Carlsbad is known for their bat flight. Mostly Mexican free-tailed bats fly out of the cave around dusk, swirl around in circles at the cave entrance, fly in and out, and then fly off looking for food in the night. The ranger explained that they migrate so someday soon they just wouldn’t appear, but as we sat and she answered questions, suddenly the bats did appear. It was worth the wait because they were super cool. Happy, we drove off for Texas.

Dipping into Utah & Colorado

Goosenecks State Park

Bluff Fort dress up

Bluff Fort craft room

Feels like something has come between us

Four Corners backbend

The famous Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde

On tour at Balcony House

Balcony House at Mesa Verde

October 29 – 30, 2015 – I’ve learned again that it’s really not possible to do it all. The clever snarky text in “ROAD TRIP USA” (super useful gift – thanks R&R!) makes most everything sound fun and I thought, “Sure, we’ll do that.” In reality, we are only taking one path and lots of the good sounding stuff is just a little too far north or south, or back to the east, of where we are. Lead by our desire to see friends in Flagstaff and Taos, we set a course which lead to just a couple of days where we dipped into Utah & Colorado. We didn’t see those old standbys like Bryce or Zion, didn’t make it up to Arches, Canyonlands or Moab. But, now I get more of how this works and can stop reading when I’m able to figure out that the interesting thing is 3 hours north of our path. We picked out our key destinations and the rest fell into place or kicked out of contention. Sorry Utah & Colorado, catch you more next time, but we did see some cool stuff there…

Goosenecks and Bluff Fort, UT
We woke at Goosenecks State Park where we’d parked in the dark the previous night and we were able to see the spectacular view of the drop off below us with a snakey river that had cut through the rock creating a layered canyon. A striking view that alone would be amazing but could almost blend in among all the stunning views we’ve been seeing. With our eye toward a quick stop at Four Corners and bee lining it over to Mesa Verde National Park, we got on the road at our typical crack of 11.

But then we had one of those great road trip finds that we just had to stop and explore. Lured by a cute little town with a historic loop sign, we bumped into a place called Bluff Fort. It’s a colonial fort established in 1880 by Mormon settlers which is re-built with a dozen cabins with furniture, clothing, photographs, and household goods of the time, and many cabins play an audio recording of the residents of that cabin from their letters and writings. They also have a craft room where volunteers hand make charming old fashioned feeling items to sell in their gift shop like rag rugs and quilts. And, they have some colonial style clothes to dress up in, which of course Sophia and I did, and we had our own little photo shoot on a covered wagon. Sophia also did a kids’ scavenger hunt among the cabins and earned a little homemade sack with 3 rocks – she and I love things like that! Last, with Mark and Zachary’s patience for our stop long worn out, we left them fiddling with the truck and watched an impressively well done film re-enacting the pioneers’ 6 month 260 mile wagon trip across Utah to get there. The contrast with our travel was striking. I opted for some super yummy homemade English Toffee from their gift store and off we went.

Four Corners (CO, NM, AZ, UT)
There’s only one place where four states meet, and this is it. Four Corners is on Navajo Nation land so we paid them $5 per person to get in, parked in the dirt lot, and walked into the plaza area. It’s both very official with a Bureau of Land Management marker surrounded by four shiny plaques, state names, flags, and raised platforms, and old-fasioned with Navajo vendors in little stalls lining the monument. It was surprisingly exciting to be there, and fun to run around in circles, “I’m in Colorado, I’m in New Mexico, I’m in Arizona, I’m in Utah, no let’s go back to Colorado!” The vendors are very proud of their wares and Sophia bought a turquoise turtle necklace that she has been enjoying. Then we got fry bread from a shack in the parking lot where the woman makes them by hand and it was super yummy. One with cinnamon sugar, one with salt, one as an Indian taco, it’s hard to go wrong.

Mesa Verde National Park, CO
Finally we made it to Mesa Verde and got there just in time to hit the visitor center and then drive up their 40 minute road to the top where all of the stuff is. We tourned the Mesa Top loop which was fascinating. We learned about the evolution from pit houses to masonry multi-story cliff dwellings, from about 500-1300. They had examples of all types of the structures as we drove and stopped along the loop. It was all new to me and especially timely as Sophia is studying shelters for school. The earliest ones started in about 550 as the nomadic people decided to settle down by digging a big pit in the ground with a stick, covering the top with wood and some mud, and putting a ladder through it to get in and out – basically the structure that would come to my mind if I had to build a shelter. The structures evolved over 500 years to move vertically up out the ground, have higher and stronger walls from sticks and mud and later bricks, and eventually taller structures that reach multi-story multi-room condo-like amazing structures. Eventually, the Ancestral Puebloans moved the structures into cliffs which are reached by scaling down the rocks from their farms on top. Truly spectacular. For us, it started to rain just as we were finishing the loop at dark and we headed 30 minutes back down to the entrance of the park where the campsite is located. It was fun in the camper to eat canned soup (which the kids are super into since being at my mom’s house) as they worked on their Junior Ranger books. 

It rained heavily overnight and we got up very early to head back up the hill in the fog. We arrived at the museum in time to look around, figure out the questions to the Junior Ranger book stuff we didn’t know (“olla” is the name of the pottery that women used to carry water), watch the film about the park, and buy tour tickets. Sophia got her second Jr. Ranger badge of the trip and Zachary declined with a shrug even though he’d done his book.

They have many different sites at the park, and we were going to quickly tour Spruce House but after about 70 years of people touring it and keeping watch on a large overhead rock above it, the geologists had literally closed it that week from a concern about rock stability. So, we headed to a very interesting ranger-lead tour of Balcony House. Even the kids thought it was super cool and fun. It’s a two-story masonry cliff dwelling built in the 1200s in an alcove with farmlands above. Living there would be cooler in the summer and warmer and dryer in the winter. Plus, you could just throw anything you didn’t want out the front, but try not to fall out as there’s basically no wall and it drops off into a deep canyon. Your primary staple would be corn, ground with stone which will get a little bit into your corn, so by about age 40 probably all of your teeth will be ground away too and you’ll die soon. But, the buildings looked like they would have been cozy and fun to live in and the hillside view was spectacular. Around 1300 the people abandoned the dwellings for unknown reasons and moved elsewhere. Taking their cue, we headed out at noon and headed toward Taos, NM to meet up with friends.

Arizona is Cooler than I Thought (& Home to “Ellen”)

Route 66 old gas station

Charming old diner at Caverns Inn

Old firetruck at Caverns

Fairy Storytelling

Sedona Dia de Los Muertos

Representative old stuff at Gold King Mine

Slide Rock

Sunset Crater volcano

Wukoki Pueblo at Wupatki National Monument

Hiking in the Grand Canyon

Sunrise at Lake Powell

Glen Canyon Dam

Family pic in Lower Antelope Canyon

Lower Antelope Canyon amazingness

Lower Antelope Canyon

Monument Valley photo bomb

October 21 – 28, 2015 – Arizona surprised me. I recalled a hot flat desert from a fancy resort that my family went to the only year we went away for Thanksgiving and some fuzzy memories of band trip there in college. This time it was different. High desert, coldness, hip towns, and amazing landscape everywhere.

First stop: Lake Havasu
At Lake Havasu we camped right on the lake which had a nice beachy feel with swimming and playing with shells. Then a visit to the very random “London Bridge,” which is a bridge purchased in London, dismantled, and rebuilt there including redirecting the Colorado River to create the area around the bridge. It creates a harbory setting but the bridge feels too big and out of place to me. There’s some shops, including a candle shop where they make elaborate candles onsite and a little gift shop in which occurred perhaps the most random chance encounter. In the gift shop as part of her ongoing search, Sophia found another personalized item with my name on it. We asked the shop lady and she proclaimed that everything personalized always includes “Ellen.” Sure enough there were keychains, mugs, magnets, even an ash tray with my name. I told her this is extremely uncommon, but she was surprised. It turns out she is the one who makes all the items and HER DAD is the one who makes the keychain with Ellen that we found in Palm Springs, and they both think Ellen is a perfectly reasonable name to put on personalized stuff. So just these two people are responsible for sudden windfall of Ellen items.

Second stop: Route 66 and the Grand Canyon Caverns
Route 66 is fun, nostalgic, and a little depressing. We headed north from Lake Havisu and arrived at Kingman just as the Route 66 museum was closing (note to self: don’t use 14 year old guide book published before museum existed). Kingman is on the west end of the longest preserved stretch of the once mighty Route 66 stretching diagonally from Chicago to LA as a main artery from the 1930s to 1970s. All the little bypassed towns around there sat dormant for about 10 years until one guy, Angel Delgadillo, lead the successful charge to have the 89 mile stretch between Kingman and Seligman Arizona declared historic and conjure up new interest in driving it. So we did. On the nostalgic side, there were cute old gas stations complete with vintage gas pumps, soda machines, random interesting kitchen appliances, and a lot of old rusted cars which where interesting and charming in that context. The barber shop where Angel cut hair is now outfitted as a lively gift shop and lined with photos of him being interviewed with worldwide interest. At brother Juan Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive-in they have great chocolate malts and a lot of fun. They pretend to spray mustard on us as we order and offer a little bundle of straw for a drinking straw and then replace that with a giant bundle of rubber banded drinking straws to choose from. It must have been quite an experience when 9,000 cars per day drove the “Mother Road.” On the depressing side, it really was bypassed and all the rest of the copycat gift shops surrounded by the rusted cars feels lonely. It’s more like the first sad part of the 2006 “Cars” movie (based on this area) than the end when Lighting McQueen helps revitalize the town.

One particularly interesting stop we made along the way was the Grand Canyon Caverns. It’s the largest dry cavern in the US, formed by millions of years of rainwater dissolving the limestone and when the water table dropped it left these huge underground caves, complete with calcium carbonate formations. The caverns are cool, and the experience and stories really make it. We took an elevator 200 feet down to walk around these huge cavern rooms, heard how 1927 discoverer Walter Peck originally thought he’d found gold and then opened the caverns to travelers by lowering them down there with a rope(!), saw the model of a 11,000 year old giant sloth discovered there, and viewed US government bomb shelter rations for 2,000 people should they need to shelter in the caverns for up to 2 weeks. They even have a hotel room setup to sleep overnight in the cavern! Above the caverns they have developed a whole business which must have been quite fun in the day – a big diner in front where now just a few of us had complimentary breakfast, a great looking old diner in the back with tons of booths and giant pies for dessert, huge dinosaur sculptures around a little mini-golf course, horse back riding, and the requisite old cars including a big firetruck we climbed around on.

Third stop: Bearizona, Flagstaff (Fairy Storytelling), Sedona (Dia de Los Muertos), and Jerome
We left Route 66 and headed toward Flagstaff, but first we stopped at Bearizona! A wildlife park with great animals, all of which were rescued or born at the park. We went to both their walk through area with a roomy version of typical zoo-like enclosures and their big open areas you drive through. As the animals are known to attach bike tires and parts of campers, we went on their bus and the animals came right up to the bus for food. Super cool, my favorites were the baby bears, bighorn sheep, and some great wolves. They also had a great birds of prey show, a haunted house Sophia did not like, the largest gift store I’ve ever seen, and bad amusement park quality food.

We continued to Flagstaff which is a super cool, hip, and cold. It’s like the SF Bay Area condensed into a smaller walkable town and relocated to Tahoe. Lots of brewery/restaurants (yummy Friday night dinner with friends from Burning Man), well-stocked outdoor gear shops, herb stores, etc., decorated with cool murals and surrounded by trees. And, it’s all connected by FUTS, the Flagstaff Urban Trails System which has 50 miles of paths. We parked in front of a friend’s house and walked everywhere. Saturday morning we headed to the library where our friend Radia presented a fairy story time with stories, dancing, and another friend Haven accompanied on the sarod, an Indian stringed instrument. She dressed like a fairy, with Sophia declaring, “You have to see Radia, she looks so different you can barely recognize her!”

After storytelling, bagels, and taking care of shopping in Flagstaff with our friend Coop guiding us to his favorite spots, we drove on a beautiful road to Sedona where we camped for one night to attend a Dia de Los Muertos festival at Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village, an upscale shopping center fashioned after a Mexican village. We ate the sweet Pan de Muerto and tamales, saw a great fire show, and had fun wandering around with friends.

In the morning, we left Sedona and headed southwest on 89 to the old copper mining town of Jerome perched up on a hillside and went to Gold King Mine, a crazy collection of old stuff in a mine-like setting. The boys loved all the old machines and cars and Sophia did not. We had a late lunch at a cool cafe in Jerome, The Flatiron, and then hit the Nellie Bly kaleidoscope store which has the most amazing kaleidoscopes I’ve ever seen. Zachary was excited to show me ones he thought were cool, and Sophia was particularly sweet at picking ones especially for me to see – great eye, she knows what I like! We then drove back to Flagstaff and on the way made a stop to take a photo in a surprisingly special spot… Slide Rock is a AZ state park with natural water slides that conjured up a memory of Arizona. For reasons unknown to me, my sister and I went to Camp Akela, a sleepover summer camp in Arizona. A highlight of camp each of those two summers was a trip to Slide Rock. I had no idea where it was until we drove by. It was closed for the night, I took a photo out front. We then parked in front of our friend Coop’s house in Flagstaff so Mark could use his garage shop to make a bike rack part in the morning. The two of them were in heaven.

Fourth stop: Sunset Crater Volcano, Wupatki National Monument, and the Grand Canyon
After spending the morning making stuff, homeschooling, and using our friend’s printer to update our house insurance to cover renters, we headed north toward the Grand Canyon. On the way, we visited Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki National Monuments which share a loopy road off the path to the Grand Canyon. At Sunset Crater we started with the usual stop at the visitor center. They had some interactive computer displays that Sophia especially liked and was unhappy to leave prematurely as we hustled off to take a short, very interesting walk on the Lava Flow trail at the base of Sunset Crater. Around 1100 the cinder cone volcano suddenly formed and erupted over a few months, sending the local farming people away from their lands. They took the long beams off the roofs of their pit houses and brought them north to settle at Wupatki. This was our first experience visiting these types of dwellings and it was fun to see and learn about. Wupatki has some very interesting pueblos of the Ancestral Puebloan people living there in the 1100’s. The multi-bulding, multi-room Wukoki Pueblo was especially cool and Zachary got really into it. It’s a big multi-story community center complete with housing and a ball court. They had small doors and entered mostly via ladders through a hole in the roof. Also indoor fires with ventilation tunnels and deflection stones. On one of our walks there, Mark made up a hysterically funny story about the creation of the world.

In the afternoon we headed up to the Grand Canyon, with a beautiful view of the Painted Desert in the distance, and arrived at the Desert View tower in the Grand Canyon literally just as it was dark. We were the only ones there which was nice. We drove along the East Rim to the Grand Canyon village and bought some snacks in their amazingly well stocked market before camping at Mather Campground. We had a nice campfire and met Petra, a traveler from Germany who came over asking for change. She is traveling around for an entire year on her own. A 35ish year old German chemistry & philosophy teacher, scout leader, and hiker, she averages 6-10 miles a day on her many hikes.

The next day we enjoyed the GC Visitor Center and then walked from Mather Point to Yavapai Point where they have a Geology museum and a spectacular view. Then headed back along the East Rim stopping at Grand View where the kids and I ended up on an impromptu mini-hike. Probably 20 minutes, but it was cool because it was very steep steps and rocks around switchbacks heading down. Sophia was thrilled with the hike as she said, “I never thought I would actually hike down here into the Grand Canyon and I never thought it would be so cool. And this is my first time in the Grand Canyon. I envisioned it very differently but it still had a lot of red mountains.” We then sprinted (literally) out to Desert View and up the tower for a quick look before leaving the park for Lake Powell.

Fifth stop: Lake Powell (UT), Glen Canyon Dam, Lower Antelope Canyon, and Monument Valley
We arrived in Lake Powell in the dark, of course. It’s the second largest resovoir in the country behind Lake Mead, formed in the 1960s by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam. You can drive out and camp right on the shore. Not being California, you can make a fire right on the beach and there were only about a dozen groups there. We parked for a couple of hours above the beach unable to figure out how to drive down to the water without sinking in the sand. We decided to walk down and encountered a local, Kathy, on her quad. She was unbelievably helpful and jumped in her Jeep to escort Mark in our camper down to the beach. Sophia and I waited on the beach where Sophia made a “foot made fluffy sand factory” by dancing in a square she drew on the sand to fluff up the compacted sand. By 9:30pm, after Kathy directed her friend Mark to dig us a firepit (!), we had our own campfire going right on the beach with Zachary covering my cold feet with “hot sand” and a rock that he was heating in the fire. Then Sophia made her own hot rock kitchen where she buried hot rocks to heat up sand in the ground and then scoop out to put on our feet too. The full moon made it very special.

I awoke on my own at 6:45am exactly at sunrise time I’d looked up the night before! Sunrise was gorgeous and I had some nice time on my own and took some great photos. We hustled the kids out of bed and through breakfast for a 9:30am tour of Glen Canyon Dam. Built in the 1960s for 340 million dollars, including the dam, the roads, and the entire town of Page, it’s created billions of dollars of electricity (and controversy as it is daming the Colorado River). 

After the dam, we toured Lower Antelope Canyon which is perhaps the most picturesque place I’ve ever been. Just a little nondescript slot from above, it opens like an A below to sandstone which is carved by water and rocks in flash floods over 1 million years. Our tour guide James from Dixie Ellis tours directed our photos as we climbed up and down ladders through the canyon. Truly spectacular!

We had lunch at a little cafe with yummy sandwiches and then headed north toward Monument Valley. It’s an absolutely beautiful drive with amazing views and rock formations everywhere. Monument Valley itself looks impressive as it appears driving in from afar as it’s fairly flat land with big monument-like rocks randomly placed. Turned out Monument Valley itself was closed for a Navajo Nation vacation day, which meant the visitor center was closed and there was no fee collection, but the gift store and path to drive through were open. It was difficult to understand what to do as surprisingly the gift store employees had no idea how visiting the valley, about 200 yards away, worked (“It’s a different company down there.”). But it seemed like thing to do there is drive through to get closer to the big rock formations, or you can pay about $75/person for them to drive you when they are open. Since it was getting dark we didn’t get to drive around, but that was ok. I was tempted to stay in a tee-pee hotel that the proprietor approached us about in the parking lot, but we had to get to Taos by Friday night to see friends so on we went. We drove out of Arizona in the dark toward Utah.

Joshua Tree and Zombies!

Black Rock Campground

Don’t hold cactus even if your mom tells you to

Lichen!

Hills around Black Rock Campground

First fire of the trip

Playing piano in the camper

Zachary making my photo better

Hidden Valley hike

Joshua Tree landscape

Sophia working on her Junior Ranger book

Sophia’s apple crisp dessert, made inside during rain

Cholla cactus, don’t hold this either

Daddy and Sophia

Junior Ranger!

October 19 – 20, 2015 – I grew up less than 3 hours from Joshua Tree but I’d never been there so I was excited. It turned out to be even better than I imagined. Bought our National Parks Pass and headed in. The park has two desert ecosystems, with the higher Mojave Desert on the west part of the park having the iconic Joshua Tree (which is actually a species of yucca plant, a monocot in the lily family – thanks botany homeschooling!). And, there’s granite rocks everywhere that look like they have been piled up but are actually formed by water flowing through fractures in the monzogranite. Sounds simple with a limited palette of plants and rocks, but the effect is a magical landscape. We went on a number of short mile-ish hikes at various locations in the park – Black Rock Campground into the surrounding hills, Hidden Valley to see great rocks with some climbers, and Barker Dam in search of desert flowers while Mark and Zachary went on a bike ride. Aside from the kids general reluctance to hike (“Why do we have to keep going on these walks?”), the only mishap was when I picked up a dead cactus pad which seemed harmless and asked Sophia to hold it for a photo and it super spined her. Oops. The second night we camped at Jumbo Rocks, my favorite campsite name yet. Zachary’s campfire was rained out a few minutes after he started it, foiling Sophia’s campfire apple crisp plans, but it was a quick storm and in the morning we scrambled around the rocks with the kids. They were very excited to explore the rocks, with Zachary blazing a trail and Sophia becoming increasingly confident hiking about. She picked up some good technique and tried some new moves.

The lower Colorado Desert ecosystem doesn’t have the Joshua Trees. Their disappearance along our drive happened so suddenly, I found myself suddenly depressed and wanting to turn around to drive back to the trees. But onward we went and the loss was tempered by the appearance of awesome cholla cactus which look like a big white bushy cactus and come with a sign not to touch because it is super sharp and will jump onto you. OK, got it. First sight at the beginning of the path around the cactus garden: an 8th grade class doing a trust walk through the garden. Love it. Next stop, the Cottonwood Ranger Station where Sophia received her Junior Ranger Badge. The ranger announced it to everyone in the little station. Sophia was initially shy, but proudly posed for her picture off to the side wearing her badge and sweet paper ranger hat. Our last experience in Joshua Tree was a little walk in a palm oasis where Sophia and I had to try three times before finding the advertised path with intermittent little signs about how native people survived on the land. We did finally succeed by driving around to the campsite at the other end and starting from there. It was worth it as it was perfect for her school curriculum and Sophia said she loved it. No complaints on that hike!

The day was complete with some good travel experiences as we headed north toward Lake Havisu. First, we were getting grumpily hungry and I yelped a random BBQ place for dinner which turned out to be in a trailer next to a bar. It was yummy and the kids were fascinated by the bar. Then we arrived to the Lake Havisu campground in the dark around 8:30pm. There were more than 100 RVs parked there but not a single person or thing outside and every empty campsite was marked reserved. I started thinking about zombies and was feeling irrationally uneasy when we found one available site. We started to back into it when out of the dark a woman appeared and started helping Zachary direct Mark’s parking. Turned out she was was the camp host and explained there had been a big storm which drove everyone inside. So we didn’t see any zombies, but the swimming in the lake in the morning was quite nice and Sophia went far out into the water with me which was fun.

Palm Springs, CA

“Party Cakes” for dinner at Elmer’s Restaurant

First reading glasses, from Walmart!

A Badger! The subject of Aachary’s 4th grade animal report

Mountain goat on carousel at the Living Desert

Garden in the Living Desert

At the Living Desert

In Palm Springs Tram

On Palm Springs Tram

Top of Palm Springs Tram, it’s cold

I love a good sign – which way?

Hiking game

Sunday, October 18, 2015 – My favorite outing day of the trip so far, thanks to the suggestions of my brother-in-law Andy. We drove to Palm Springs and arrived first at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. Conceptually, it’s a zoo and gardens with desert animals and landscapes. But the experience there is great. It’s huge (and hot) and feels like you’re just out and about in the desert, but with all the animals and landscapes conveniently there for you. I especially loved walking through the little unpaved paths which immerse you in the various desert landscapes. Sophia liked the black footed cat, a wild cat that looks like a pet cat. We saw a badger for the first time ever (how is that possible I’ve never seen one). Zachary was especially excited because it was his 4th grade animal, “Before it was just a little picture in a book, but now I can really see it!” They even have a desert animal carousel, a fun model train area and a decent little market cafe where Sophia declared, “They really know how to make a kids meal here.” Half a peanut butter a jelly sandwich, a usually off-limits juice box, animal crackers, and a cheese stick (which went to Zachary), if you’re wondering. Sophia used her own money to buy some of those colored rocks you stuff in the pouch at their shop and off we went.

It was late afternoon when we drove over to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. To my skeptical eye, it had the look of a tourist trap. A giant front entry with $10 parking, a bunch of parking lots with shuttles, a fully stocked gift shop, and a person taking your picture on the way into the tram waiting area for our 4:15 tram. Sophia wisely decided to skip the photo which I said we would not be buying, “It’ll make me too sad later to see it.” After that, it quickly got super cool. It’s the second steepest tram in the world with two Swiss-made cars which hold 85 people each and the floor rotates as you go (but surprisingly, not the railings to hold onto which really are necessary when you go over each tower and the car rocks). It is extremely exciting. We ascended 2,000 feet from the heat of Palm Springs to a mountain top environment where Mark with his down jacket was the only one who was completely warm. They will have snow soon but not yet, and you can overnight wilderness backpack from there (it’s the gateway to the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument). We ate, looked at the spectacular views, and opted for a short nature hike around a beautiful meadow. Everyone was in good sprits, with Zachary making up a game where he could only walk on wood or rocks and Sophia following along and playing together. I could hear a happy little angel music soundtrack playing in my head. It’s happening! Sophia even found a keychain in the giftshop which had my name on it. I’ve looked at probably 1,000 of those giant racks of personalized whatevers and literally I’ve only ever found my name once. This was a source of some grief as a child. Sophia insisted I buy it, the woman at the shop declared that to be a good argument, and now I do own a Palm Springs Tram “Ellen” keychain. Zachary got one too for his growing personalized keychain collection which was started previously with gifts from Pop Pop. In our happy place, even the tourist trap shops are a joy.

After watching the outdated video on the making of the tram and local wildlife, we headed back down the tram in the dark which was super fun too. Mark lead us to Home Depot for a sprint around the store just before closing to gather some camper project stuff. Had a late dinner at a yummy local diner where they give you a basket of cheesy biscuits at the table and a little brown paper kids activity book with the dot-to-dot squares game I remember loving playing with my sister. Ended up “camping” in the Walmart parking lot. It’s a service Walmart provides to self-contained travelers which is convenient, free, and aside from the loud late night dumping into the trash bins and adjustment to the idea that we are actually in a WALMART parking lot, just fine. Of course, as Walmart knows, we ended up shopping there the next morning. I did find some organic produce which I’m expecting to become hard to find as we travel, some odds and ends that we needed, and my first pair of reading glasses! They’re the lowest prescription at 1.0 and I only need them for really tiny writing or projects like sewing, but there it is. Mark did his renaissance-man-MacGuiver-thing with some camper projects, and at the crack of 11am, we were off for Joshua Tree.

Idyllwild, CA

First firewood

Making pizza

More making pizza

Shabbat pizza!

Camper at Marion Mountain

Cool boulder at Marion Mountain

On our fun hike

Picnic table at Marion Mountain

Pinion Flat

Friday, October 16, 2015 – In our minds we are a well oiled machine, like those army recruiting commercials, “We do more before 8am than most people do all day!” We get up early, get ready and fed, homeschool, run through our departure checklist (with, of course, each child bounding about doing their items on the list), and drive off into a new day. In reality, we like to lounge. So, we drove out of San Diego in the early afternoon and even then then kids and I badgered Mark into stopping at Rita’s Frozen Custard (come on, we’ll eat it in the car so it’s just a few more minutes). In our defense, before departure, Sophia and I did make clocks for our homeschooling while Zachary and Mark cleaned up from our new fridge installation, but still. We then stocked up at Trader Joe’s in Temecula (more space in the new fridge and freezer is awesome!), bought firewood, and arrived at Marion Mountain campground in the dark. At that point I lobbied for a quick pasta dinner, but we stuck with our original plan to make homemade pizzas. A short hour later, we were having our first Shabbat in the camper with 8 made-to-order mini pizzas. No pizza is as good as the one your kid makes expressly for you. Fire restrictions ended our campfire plans which was just as well because it was already late. Did I mention we like to lounge?

Saturday, October 17 – Up in the hills from the town of Idyllwild, Marion Mountain is a big circular campground with nice big rocks and hiking trails. They have particularly nicely situated wooden picnic tables, just the right size for me which is a little smaller than your average table. I love a good picnic table! We homeschooled with more botany for Zachary and stories of Cain’s children and drawing Adam and Eve with Sophia (Mark first schooling effort, lead with only a few protests from Sophia which I secretly loved, “Mommy does my homeschooling!”). Then we went on a short hike and it was like a little homeschool helper had set up the path for us – moss, lichen, mushrooms, decomposing trees – we encountered everything I’ve been talking about with Zachary. I was more excited than my student, but it was pretty good. We also became involved with pine cone sap which Sophia made into “nature stickers” by putting sap on the back of a piece of moss and sticking the moss onto a different rock. That was super fun until she wanted to clean the sap off her hands.

I said goodbye to the picnic tables and we drove down to the town of Idyllwild. It’s a little mountain town that looks to have a nice community. Halloween flyers in the shop windows advertised their town haunted house, with all teenagers invited to sleep over at the town center next Saturday night. Our experience was limited to their shops which had the most random collections of things ever. Antiques and cotton candy, a goth-y clothing store with random knick knacks, a hunting shop with guns and also playground balls (you know, for kids). Sophia and I used one of their balls to practice our times tables. It was pouring rain. Welcome in the drought, but funny considering the previous day we were sweating in the sun. We couldn’t take refuge in the bakery which closed at 3pm (on a Saturday in a town with giant signs beckoning you to stop there), and many other shops closed at 5pm, foiling our entry into the jerky shop, so we left to head to Pinion Flat Campground 30 miles away. We arrived just as it was getting dark. The sign at Pinion Flat says it’s a National Monument, and I think I don’t know what that means because while it is indeed a flat place, there’s nothing much around. It did have some cactus, the first of the trip, and we could hear loud music coming from somewhere we could never identify. We had our pasta dinner with the almost last of my homemade sauce, and I insisted we did Havdalah to end Shabbat.