Morning starts early at Cheyenne Mountain – since it’s a military installation, they have reveille at some early hour that was either 6:30 or 7:00 – I was still asleep, so I’m not quite sure. After the standard parade of dogs went by (always true in RV campsites), we embarked on a hike on some of 28 miles of hiking trails in the park, determined to get some exercise in before it got hot. The trails are super well-marked (see photo in previous post) and open to both hikers and mountain bikers (but not dogs!). Liz spent some of her time imagining what routes she would try to take over each set of rocks. We also encountered a tribe of pygmy nuthatches, so cute. n
We left to head to Salida and I began my traditional search for coffee shops, with a twist. I’ve been having some stomach problems for the last several months, so I’m limiting my intake of coffee (even decaf) – so it’s more a search for a coffee shop that has good non-coffee drinks. We were lucky this time, literally stumbling on Coyote’s Coffee Den in Penrose (thank you, Google), which turned out to be an all-purpose coffee shop, lunch stop, bar in the evening, small vineyard and vegetable garden. It must be THE (only) place to be in town. They even had gluten-free cakes and coffee-free drinks (for me) and biscuits and gravy (for Liz), which we consumed on a lovely outdoor covered patio.
Our next stop was much less successful – we saw the “Royal Gorge Park” on the map and noticed that it had a suspension bridge over a deep gorge on the Arkansas River. We should have paid closer attention to the fact that Google called it an “amusement park.” The road there was somewhat difficult driving and when we arrived we discovered that it cost $32/person to enter – because entry included access to a roller coaster, gondola and zip line. We just wanted to walk across the bridge – but that wasn’t an option, so we took this picture from the parking lot, turned around and went back the way we came.
We made it to the Riverside RV campground in Salida – which turned out to be on the side of the Little Arkansas River (not the real Arkansas river) and settled in. There is a 3-mile “Monarch Spur” bike trail from very close to the campground into Salida, which IS on the banks of the real Arkansas river. A fun way to spend some time in downtown Salida is to watch people playing in the kayak course – a strange combination of people floating in tubes and talented kayakers rolling in the rapids.
Our expedition was abbreviated by the sudden arrival of a summer thunderstorm, so we sped back to camp as raindrops started to fall and thunder rumbled.
We finally pried ourselves out of the house and into RVG. We’re a bit out of practice, so it took some time to get organized and get her provisioned. But we’re off on our next adventure.
Of course, before we left, Liz had to go on a bike ride (a mere 16 miles) and I had to get a few last bits of work done. So we rolled out around 11:30, headed south. Our first destination was Garden of the Gods, a site I had visited many years ago on a business trip to Colorado Springs from Bolt Beranek and Newman (the place I worked before TERC). It’s a park full of gorgeous sandstone rock formations – “massive red rocks sticking straight out of the ground,” as one article put it. It’s “owned” by the city of Colorado Springs, who promised the family that donated it to the city that it would remain free to the public in perpetuity. We biked the 6-mile loop around the park (I was on my e-bike) , with a new vista around every bend. I captured some of them below. My favorite picture is the one with the dark sky – it kept threatening to rain on us, but luckily the rain held off until we got to our campsite.
That’s Liz at the start of the ride
We’re now camping at Cheyenne Mountain State Park, also close to Colorado Springs. We have a lovely campsite, conveniently located across from one of the cleanest bathrooms I’ve seen at a campground. There are lots of friendly people, plenty of dogs to greet, and a remarkably well-marked trail system (see below). But the most interesting thing about this locale is its proximity to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, a Space Force installation and defensive bunker buried deep inside the mountain. Built in the early 1960’s, it contains 15 3-story buildings able to withstand a 30-megaton nuclear explosion and has filters that can capture chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological contaminants. Sounds like a good place to spend a pandemic. It was originally the headquarters of NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command), but those offices have moved down the road to Peterson Air Force Base.
No pictures of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex available, just some of the lovely campground and a rainbow over the edge of our bikes.
After Liz’s experience driving home alone with Tristan last year (when he wailed much of the way across the country), it was clear that reinforcements were needed, so we planned to travel together, leaving as soon after Christmas day as the weather allowed. (RVG behaves like an elephant on rollerblades on slick pavement.)
We packed her up, decorated her with fairy lights, sneaked some gabapentin into Tristan’s breakfast, and headed off on Boxing Day, since the weather was amenable. We left Izzie in Arlington in the care of a neighbor for the 10 days or so that I would be away.
Ready to go!
After stopping again at Liz’s cousin’s home near Syracuse, where they feasted us with cauliflower piccata and fine burgundy (after we did rapid tests in the driveway), we made the longer run to central Indiana. The pickings are somewhat slim for RV parks in the winter because the demand is limited and the logistics a bit complicated (recall that RV plumbing is, ah, exposed). We found a site at the S&H campground in Greenfield, Indiana. In my mind S&H recalls green stamps, not Greenfield, but we weren’t about to be picky. This campground was unusual in being about 5 miles off the highway (most of them are practically ON the highway) and having a large number of semi-permanent residents who had wrapped insulation skirts around the bottom of their “rigs.” Having just read Nomadland and seen the movie, we wondered whether there was an Amazon warehouse somewhere nearby that was employing people who were staying in this campground.
Look at the size of this campground!
There was also a Family Fun amusement park attached to the campground which was lit up as if it were actually open — but totally deserted. In spite of the weirdness, we had a pleasant enough stay, watching Jeopardy in the van and playing with a little orange cat who seems to belong to the campground.
Our next stop was Kansas City and another Bradley cousin — and the same fabulous BBQ (from Jack Stack) as in the May posting. We didn’t get a picture of Donna this time because she was on the move, taking care of her five grandchildren, all under six.
The last leg, as always, is Kansas. And more of Kansas. To break things up, we stopped for coffee at the Breathe Coffee Shop in Hayes, where Andee took a telecon on our trip West last spring. It’s interesting to be developing “known places” along the route: like the corner bodega that you always visit, but hundreds of miles from home.
It was also interesting to observe the different masking patterns as we crossed the country, from the careful east coast to the dismissive center—although we did see ONE mask when we stopped for gas in eastern Colorado.
The homecoming was, to put it mildly, not calm. We were too tired to unpack the RV, which turned out to be a good thing, as we woke up to howling winds and, soon, a plume of smoke a few miles to the southeast. Downed power lines had set off grass fires, which grew at terrifying speeds, moving hundreds of yards in just seconds. There was no fighting such a thing; first responders concentrated on getting people out of harm’s way and the evacuation zones grew rapidly. When the pre-evacuation zone got to the trailhead 1.5 miles from our house, we prepared ourselves to get back in the RV and run for it, but the call never came.
Thankfully for us, the wind was out of the west. Thousands of our neighbors in the towns to the east and south were not so lucky. Our friends and all of Liz’s PhD students are OK, but many of her colleagues have lost houses.
The fires are out now: the wind died down overnight and a foot of snow fell over the next 24 hours. The university has gone to a remote start because Boulder is in no position to accommodate thousands of returning students right now, with so many students, faculty, and staff out of their homes and crews working to restore power and other services to many parts of town.
[Revision: now the Boulder Emergency Management team is saying that the fire was NOT caused by downed power lines, so the cause is still under investigation. There’s no question, though, that the 100 MPH winds and the long drought were major factors, no matter what the proximate cause.]
We left Minneapolis midday on August 29 after Andee and Joan walked around nearby Lake Harriet and Liz scoured town for a Sunday New York Times, then made the short trip to Big Cedar Lake, Wisconsin, to stay with our friends the Rushers (Cindy Rusher being one of Liz’s Olympic teammates). We tucked ourselves into their three-bedroom “cottage” where we had stayed on previous trips. The cats remembered the setup and made themselves right at home but were sad to find no mice, as Cindy had engaged exterminators in preparation for our visit. 😦
Left: the cottage Right: Izzie above the kitchen sink at the cottage
As usual, we enjoyed our stay, playing in and on the water, cooking and eating fabulous meals, and hanging out with dear friends. We especially enjoyed hearing about daughter Alie’s adventures, since she was just back from the Tokyo Olympics with all of her team-issued gear, which covered every surface of her bedroom. Between the two of us, we managed to use five kinds of watercraft: sailboat, pontoon boat, kayaks, jetski and stand-up paddleboard. It was Liz’s first time on a paddleboard and she did an unintentional backward somersault off of it – and left her sunglasses at the bottom of the lake as a result.
Two of the five kinds of boats we used!
We also had dinner ‘out’ at Timmer’s, a venerable old lakeside resort with a lovely patio. However, this was Wisconsin in the early fall, so we had plenty of insect guests at our table, so the bus station – where salt and pepper shakers usually reside – was equipped in addition with bug repellent. We went into the “city” of West Bend, where we visited another lovely coffee shop that serves as a community hub and a railtrail museum.
It’s always hard to tear ourselves away from Cedar Lake, but we finally did so after six days. Since all three of the Rusher kids live on the east coast, RVG did moving-van duty, including one daughter’s golf clubs (strapped to the ladder) and a big bag of cheese and smoked meats from Held’s, a local landmark that leans heavily on pig imagery.
Since by this time it was Friday of Labor Day weekend, there wasn’t an RV park site to be found east of the Mississippi, but luckily each of the rest stops on the Ohio turnpike has a dozen RV parking stalls, complete with water and electric (and bathrooms in the rest stop itself). So that’s where we spent the night, surprisingly comfortable. We managed to walk through the employee parking lot to a peaceful backroad through corn fields for a little exercise.
Rainbow near rest stop on Ohio Turnpike
Along Route 90 in New York, we discovered a museum with an intact lock from the Erie Canal and a small historical display – and no need even to exit the highway to get to it!
Left: Erie Canal museum on I-90; Right: amazing dinner at cousin’s house
Our last stop was in Baldwinsville, New York, to visit Liz’s cousin Noni and her housemate Tess, who welcomed the cats into the house (but didn’t realize that that would extend to having them on top of the kitchen cabinets!). Since they don’t have many visitors, we were treated to extreme hospitality and a fabulous dinner. We spent the night in their driveway, then drove across the rest of New York, along the Mass Pike and home to Arlington!
We’re on our way back to Boston, the van full of cats (both Izzie and Tristan), Colorado gin and peaches (to deliver to friends along the way), and everything Liz needs for the fall. We timed our departure to avoid rush hour in Boulder, which meant there was enough time in the morning to pick some green tomatoes from the garden and treat ourselves to breakfast burritos from a neighborhood restaurant, complete with homemade tater tots.
We made a reservation for our first night on the road at Camp A Way outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, just 500 miles away, which is not bad for a day’s drive. Our route took us past Ogallala, site of our previous RV adventure on Lake Maconaghey (see previous entry “Up the Lake without a Ladder”), but we decided not to stop. In fact, we made only one major stop on the way, in Gothenburg, Nebraska, primarily to get gas. At first, it looked like a boring outpost with the typical gas station and attached convenience store and little else. But I happened to glance across the “street” and noticed “Lasso Espresso” and the Sod House Museum. Since I’m always interested in cool coffee shops, especially in unexpected places, getting something at Lasso Espresso was a must. And mostly, it did not disappoint – it had an extensive coffee menu, local pastries, fancy chocolate and two young baristas, one with a T-shirt that said, “Complete human being inside; just add coffee.” However, when I tried to order an Italian soda with salted caramel syrup, she warned me that they made Italian soda with Sprite, so I would be better off with a fruity flavor. I quickly switched my order to an almond milk latte.
I also explored the sod house museum’s outdoor offerings – since it was closed. Most intriguing was a model sod house, complete with a table set for dinner, which I could glimpse through the window. The scene was completed by what the community brochure claimed was “the largest plow in the world.”
Camp A Way was one of the nicer RV parks we’ve stayed in – lots of family amenities, including a pool, hot tub (tiny), water war station (where you toss balloons at one another), a little creek, lots of trees, a store that sold ice cream (among other things) and a mask mandate in the office. There was also a little train that periodically ran around the campground, with a handful of children for passengers. But the most unusual piece of this campground was the couple we met who had five cats in a large outdoor cage. They were actually camped there semi-permanently, having sold their home in New York to adopt a nomad lifestyle. The wife had a contract as a cardiac technician at a local health center for several months and they were pretty planted – including a satellite TV dish. This was the first time we’d run into cats at an RV park; dogs are very common, but cats much less so. We considered a feline “play date,” but thought the better of it.
Our next stop was Minneapolis, to visit my good friend Joan Garfield, deliver two bottles of Colorado gin and have dinner with her and her husband Michael. Joan is an enthusiastic and superb cook, so we had been looking forward to this meal for days. Other than the sudden downpour that hit as we got close to her house, the day’s drive was uneventful. And Joan outdid herself, serving us an amazing sequence of courses: a special “Corpse Revival” cocktail, local cheeses paired with local jellies, watermelon gazpacho, a green salad that had no greens in it (pear, edamame and pistachio) and a Greek chicken skillet main course with homemade gluten-free flatbread. We barely had room for the gelato for dessert! We ate on her cozy screened-in porch, socially (but not emotionally) distanced, with RVG (and the cats) parked on the street in front of the house, well within view. We plugged the van in through the mail slot on the porch and slept on the street. Everything was fine after the restaurant down the street closed and the traffic died down – although Liz mentioned as I was falling asleep, “I hope this isn’t one of those cities where you’re not allowed to sleep on the street,” which kept me awake for a while. (Image below: Joan and Liz color-coordinated with the porch!)
The next morning was my first opportunity to indulge my “find a cool coffee shop in a remote town” habit. The nearest town to Lake Mac is Ogallala, Nebraska, home to “Slow Lane Coffee Shop,” a woman-owned business. Indeed, it was just what I was looking for – a sweet little place with good lattes and a bagel sandwich for Liz. We walked the entire downtown of Ogallala, which took about 10 minutes and admired the main tourist attraction, one of the original Standard Oil service stations, including a statue of “Hugh,” the friendly station attendant. (https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/nebraska/spruce-street-service-station-ne/).
Liz with “Hugh” in Ogallala (holding my latte)
Our destination for the night was unknown – our plan was to visit a friend in the mountains of Salida starting the next night, but there was one unplanned night. So, as we drove along the rural roads of Eastern Colorado through towns with names like “Last Chance,” I started to call RV parks along the way. One after the other, they said they had no space for the night – one had JUST rented the last space, another actually had an empty spot, but it was rented long-term by a company, so they couldn’t rent it for the night.
Everything started to get a bit surreal as we started to consider where we might spend the night. In addition to wondering where we were going to bed down, we were driving through an seemingly infinite farm of windmills, which gave the landscape a monotonous, other-worldly feel. (I since learned that many farmers in that part of Colorado have saved their family farms from bankruptcy by leasing land to turbines.) Also, Liz was feeling achier and coughing. We considered the options: park in a Walmart lot (we’ve heard some Walmarts are willing to have RVs spend the night) or find a cheap motel. Spending the night in a brightly-lit parking lot wasn’t too appealing, so I started calling motels. The first thing that popped up on my phone was a B&B called “Rest and Restoration” in Falcon, Colorado (a suburb of Colorado Springs). I asked the woman who answered if by ANY chance she had a room – one bed or two – for the night. She answered, “Well, yes, the Faith Room is available.” Normally, this would have given me pause, but we were desperate, and the price was right ($95) so we booked it. “Give me an hour to get it ready,” she said, so we made two stops: one at La Mission, a Mexican restaurant, for dinner and one at Walgreen’s to get some COVID tests, since Liz was feeling worse as the day went on and we wanted to be sure we weren’t carrying anything to our friends.
The restaurant had colorful décor (see below) and surprisingly good food; after dinner, we headed out of town to the B&B. As I had suspected from both the name of the place and the name of the room we had reserved, it was next door to a church and most likely affiliated with it. We were worried about whether they would be put off by a gay couple – but since I had specified that we would be happy with any number of beds, we just assumed it would be OK. The room was spacious – a king-size bed and jacuzzi tub, plus a large picture of a “laughing Jesus” (see below). (We later found out that the other room was the “Hope” room!)
We were strangely embarrassed about carrying COVID tests with us – somehow it brought up images of STDs or pregnancy tests. At this point, Liz was feeling really yucky, but even so when her test was positive, we stared at it in disbelief, as we were both vaccinated back in the spring. Mine was negative, which was puzzling – but I also was feeling fine.
La Mission decor
Laughing Jesus in the Faith Room
To cut to the chase: we spent the night at opposite sides of the bed, had our breakfast outside on the porch to avoid getting near our hostess, stopped at an Urgent Care so Liz could have an official COVID test (which turned out to be positive as well) and headed home to Boulder, where Liz eventually had a monoclonal antibody infusion and I continued to test negative. Stay tuned, though, for our next adventure in late August, when we’ll be driving back to Boston with Tristan and Izzie.
Our pontoon boat didn’t actually arrive at our campsite until 8AM, thank goodness. We hadn’t quite realized how big the boat was, but you’ll see in the picture below that it dwarfed our van. Clearly we were supposed to have at least 4 people and multiple dogs in the boat, and we felt a little conspicuous taking it out without a crowd.
Large pontoon boat, small van
Liz lounging on the boat
The procedure is that they leave the boat at your campsite until you’ve put everything you want to take with you in the boat – then they tow it down to the water with you in it, give you a cursory lesson in driving and launch you. We had realized yesterday that we weren’t as prepared for a day-long boat trip as we might have been, so went back to the well-stocked store for two beach towels, a small cooler and some ice. We packed a sumptuous picnic, binoculars, a bird book and Liz’s fishing gear and were on the water by 9:30.
I’ve never driven a power boat, so Liz took the helm first. Soon we were out of sight of our camp, but still relatively close to shore and Liz decided to take a little swim. We cut the engine, threw the anchor into the sandy bottom and Liz jumped in. A short swim was all she needed, as the water was chilly. However, as she prepared to climb up the ladder to get back into the boat, she discovered that the bottom several rungs were missing. Getting back in boat was going to require an enormous amount of arm strength – more than she had. And I’m certainly no help in lifting someone much heavier than I am out of the water. To make matters even worse, the anchor was dragging and we were drifting away from shore.
We briefly considered calling the camp to get them to come rescue us, but decided that was a last resort. Liz thought she might use the anchor rope to haul herself up, so I brought it to her, but that didn’t work. We thought we might let out a lot of rope so she could be far from the boat and I could slowly tow her to shore. Finally, Liz had a brilliant idea: she used the anchor rope to fashion a loop for her foot (this has a fancy name in rock climbing: etrier), I braced the anchor rope spool against the side of the boat for leverage, and she climbed in. I suspect we then both looked like exhausted fish flopping around inside the boat – but at least we were both in it and not in the water.
At that point, we were ready to be on land for a while, so we ran the boat up on the beach (slowly), buried the anchor well and hopped out on a totally deserted beach. There was literally no one in sight and just a boat or two visible out in the lake. In spite of the fact that we had our newly-purchased beach towels with us, we ended up eating in the boat, as the sand flies were vicious. Liz did a little fishing in a small pool in which we could actually see a fish (no luck) and I took a long stroll along the beach to see the pelicans and gulls up close, as you can see below.
Pelicans on the beach
After lunch, we went up to the dam, where we had heard it was easy to catch a walleye near the rocks. Because Liz was the one with the fishing rod, I took the wheel. It was a bit nerve-racking for a while, especially when the wind blew or we came close to other boats, but I got the hang of it (see below). (And I forgot to mention in the previous post that I drove RVG for quite a while for the first time – so this trip had a number of new “driving” experiences for me.) Liz’s fishing attempts ended when her rod broke, so we motored back down the lake, then cut across to our camp. The wind had picked up, though, and we hit a few significant waves, so we pulled in with a pretty wet deck.
Of course, we let the camp guy know about the ladder – his response was “Oh, the people who used this boat yesterday broke it off, but I didn’t tell you because I never thought you would go swimming in the middle of the lake.” We didn’t say anything – but we thought – where WOULD you go swimming?? We were slightly miffed that he didn’t apologize more or charge us less.
We were both exhausted at that point – and Liz was achy from pulling herself into the boat. (Plus she had really big hair – just like a hedgehog..) We capped off the night with a campfire and s’mores – a rare event for me, since gluten-free graham crackers are hard to find.
Monday we lazed around, had a leisurely breakfast, read the Sunday funnies (see image of Liz lazing below) and finally took off from Cowpoke Rd. in the late morning. Our destination for the first two days of our trip was Lake McConaughy (the last syllable is pronounced “HAY”), a huge reservoir in northwest Nebraska, not very far from the Colorado border. A friend of ours who spends lots of time there calls it her “redneck Riviera,” but it’s nowhere near as crowded as the French Riviera. In fact, the lack of people is one of its main selling points.
Now, that’s what vacation should be!
Our chiropractor had recommended we stay at an RV camp called “Van’s Lakeview Fishing Camp,” on the south shore of the lake, and we had made reservations for two nights. (It’s at “H” on the map above.) We later learned that the south shore is the less-developed side of the lake and Van’s is the only privately-owned campsite on the south shore, all the others being state-owned. As RV camps go, Van’s was lovely – lots of large trees, a view of the lake from almost every campsite, clean bathrooms and showers ($1 for 5 minutes of water), concrete firepits, and a well-stocked store, half of which was fishing gear. Van’s does cater to families, and we noticed quickly that we were the only group without kids and/or dogs. In fact, many groups had reserved multiple adjacent sites and “circled the wagons” to create a large shared space for their sprawling human-and-canine families. Some of the RVs were huge (see “Road Warrior” below!) and our little van was definitely the smallest “home” around. The second image below is a view of the camp from the beach (it’s in those trees, well-hidden).
Our chiropractor had also advised us to rent a pontoon boat so that we could drive it to a deserted beach along the lake and have a picnic. Indeed, we could see that most of the beaches were inaccessible except from the water, so we immediately reserved a pontoon boat for the next day. We had a moment’s pause when we found out that it would cost us $295, but given the cost of lodging ($38/night) and the fact that we might never be back this way, we went ahead.
One of the unknowns of RV camping is your neighbors, since their front door is often less than 6 feet away from yours. This time, we were next to a young woman, her three children (ages 7, 6, and 2) and her mother. The two older children were curious about our van and came for a tour (uninvited) and asked a million questions. I was thrilled to learn from her mother that the girl was really good in math, so, in my role as math education promoter, I told her how great that was and we did some math together. She especially liked adding big numbers in her head (like 50 + 70). Below is a picture we took of them in back of our van.
Our curious neighbors
Early to bed, as our pontoon boat was arriving at 7AM!
Our vacation started with a trip to the immersive Van Gogh exhibit that seems to be traveling everywhere this summer. Actually, I think there are two such exhibits dueling their way across the country, confusing everyone. At any rate, the one we experienced was in an old airplane hangar at the Stanley Marketplace in Denver. It’s all part of a recently-developed neighborhood on the site of the old Stapleton Airport, which was Denver’s main airport until DIA was developed in the 1990’s. The neighborhood was originally called “Stapleton,” but was recently renamed “Central Park” (lovely, but confusing for anyone who has lived in New York) when people realized that Benjamin Franklin Stapleton, for whom the airport had been named, was not only a two-time mayor of Denver, but also a member of the KKK.
Enough about the venue – the exhibit is surprisingly wonderful, including an opportunity to sit on the bed in Van Gogh’s bedroom (see below). Most of it is a highly-coordinated projection of at least 30 screens in two large spaces with a soundtrack of Bach, Debussy, Satie, Chopin etc. The best part for us was that the projection was also on the floor – and the combination of colors plus music made a perfect dance floor for the youngest visitors. The most unusual part of the immersion was a “scent palette,” which sounded interesting, but was too subtle for me to appreciate (especially when I was wearing a mask).
After the show, we sped up to Cheyenne (Wyoming) to visit our friends there, had a wonderful reunion/dinner and bedded down in their driveway on Cowpoke Road.
While we could have stayed in Salina for my work call, we realized that would waste several hours of driving time and at this point, we were really eager to get home to Boulder. So I searched for a town about 1-2 hours west of Salina that would be likely to have a coffee shop with wireless where I could take my work call. College towns are the best candidates for this – and I was in luck, as Hayes, Kansas – home of Fort Hayes State University – was a 90 minute drive due west along I-70.
I had done my coffee homework and found a cute-looking coffee shop in downtown Hayes called “Breathe,” so we headed there. It was, indeed, cute – and unusual. It is run as a non-profit with all proceeds going to the community. According to their website, their mission is to promote intentional conversation: “Our belief is that coffee and conversation go hand in hand. Good coffee makes conversation flow easier. Good conversation makes coffee taste even better.” There was a slight church-y edge to Breathe (e.g. there is a Bible study on several nights and mentions of God on the website), but it reminded me that religion done right can build community. They are trying, in particular, to be a place where people can go if they are struggling with emotional issues, including domestic violence, and actively recruit people to commit an hour a week to be available to listen to people who need support.
They also make excellent coffee, have a big basement room usually used for study groups and workshops, have free, reliable Wifi and were comfortable with my parking myself there for three hours. I bought several drinks as “table rent” and had a large couch and coffee table all to myself for the duration of my meeting. Liz even managed to pass the time enjoyably walking around the quaint downtown (which used to be filled with brothels and saloons) and the FHSU campus. Below is a picture of my “office” and some of the self-portraits that adorned the walls, presumably from a recent workshop.
At “Breathe” coffee house in Hays, KS
And then there was more Kansas, followed by Eastern Colorado, which is a lot like Kansas. It was a cloudy day, so the mountains didn’t appear until we were quite close to Boulder. Izzie decided she wanted to be the first to see the mountains, so she parked herself on the dashboard right in front of Liz for much of the last leg. She also settled down on my lap to enjoy her “Zoom Groom;” you can see her blissful look in the second picture below.
Izzie, the intrepid traveler
Finally, we arrived at our Boulder home around 6PM, glad to be off the road and ready for some time at home before some road trips later this summer. Stay tuned.
I had done my research to find a cute coffee place in Effingham – Joe Sippers on West 4th St. looked like the perfect place. And it was – a little island of liberal caffeine in a flat Western town. There were several tables outside and it was very inviting – and closed for the holiday. So we spent part of the day looking for Starbucks – which I will go to only in a coffee emergency (which this was). We found one that was easy to get to just outside of St. Louis – it had great music playing, a barista with a rainbow mask, and a sweet outdoor patio. We went through St. Louis rather than around it in order to see the Arch, which shows up at first as a small thing on the horizon, then keeps growing – kind of like the Rockies as you drive across Nebraska or Kansas.
After Missouri comes Kansas – and Kansas and Kansas, over 400 miles of Kansas. Our destination for today was Salina, Kansas – at a KOA Holiday campground. There aren’t a lot of options along I-70 once you get through Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas. Many exits along the highway are labeled with the names of towns that are a good 50 miles away and significant towns (that might have an appropriate coffee shop) are often 30 or 40 miles apart. The other constraint we were under was a need for me to have wireless for a 3-hour work meeting on Tuesday morning. The Salina KOA had wireless – so at a minimum, we knew we could hang out there during my meeting.
This being our last night on the road, we decided to get out the table and set up the RV as a real dining room (albeit with bench seats). Add a tablecloth, candles and a vase with flowers (cut from my mountain laurel bush right before we left Arlington) and, while you wouldn’t mistake it for a restaurant, it passed muster for us.
You might also notice in the “dining room” picture a piece of art on the wall behind me. It’s a print I made in a monoprint class a few years ago. During last fall in Boston, we decided that one wall of the RV needed some decoration – and I “framed” the print and gave it to Liz for Christmas. I’ve included a close-up of it as well; the leaves at the bottom are real, covered in ink.
Fancy dining room with art in Salina, KS
One thing we had forgotten about Kansas until this trip – it’s where the Wizard of Oz takes place – at least until Dorothy gets blown to Oz by the tornado. There’s an Oz Museum somewhere (maybe we’ll visit it next trip) – and the Salina KOA had its share of Oz-y touches, including a tin man and an appropriately named “road” (really just a dirt lane between the RVs).
Oz-y touches at Salina, KS KOA
Tomorrow is our last day on the road – and the day we re-introduce Tristan and Izzie.
Today we drove through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana and camped in Effingham, Illinois at the Camp Lakewood Campground. This is the last day we’ll be able to rack up that many states in a day, as the states get larger as we go West. Even though there were only 15 miles of West Virginia, I had definite flashbacks to the Deer Hunter and memories of doing research in the “hollers” near Parkersburg in my first job at Abt Associates.
In spite of the semi-profane name of the town (which I’m sure has been pointed out to the residents numerous times), our campsite was lovely, as RV campsite goes. We used to judge them much more harshly, but we’ve re-calibrated over the past year and now think any campsite with trees is worthy of note. This one had lots of trees, a lake, a lounge, clean bathrooms (which we are no longer afraid to use) and free chocolate chip cookies when we checked in. There were packs of kids running around, riding bikes, and fishing in the lake – we witnessed the catch of one bluegill. There were even comfy rocking benches set up around the property and below is the view from one of them.
On the shores of Lake Pauline in Effingham, IL
The only downsides were that the Internet didn’t work and our nearest neighbors were strange (again, something we’ve grown accustomed to). We put out our patio mat (purchased at the end of last season after we saw how handy they are) and our portable chairs and toasted our road trip with canned prosecco (yes, prosecco does come in cans – and it’s not too bad).
As usual, there were LOTS of dogs at the campsite, so we got our share of doggie fixes. We were awakened in the morning, though, by an unusual occurrence: the arrival of an Emergency Medical Services vehicle with lights flashing – apparently summoned by our weird neighbors. We never did find out what was happening next door, but we’re relieved to know that one can call 911 from an RV campground and get service.
On Saturday we drove from Maryland to Pittsburgh to see my family. We stopped to see my oldest nephew and his family (picture below), then had dinner with my sister and her husband, my stepmother, and my middle nephew and his wife. Everyone came out to the RV to get some “Izzie time;” we couldn’t take her into the house because of my sister’s two large and somewhat rambunctious Bernese mountain dogs, Fiona and Fletcher.
My nephew and his family (and Liz and me)
Fletcher and Fiona
We camped on the street in front of my sister’s house, grateful that, unlike last year, we could go into her house to eat and use the bathroom. It’s amazing how much more we appreciate these little things after not having them for a year.
And just because this post is so short, here is a bonus picture of Izzie in the RV, burrowing under my sweater and backpack.
We left Boston on Thursday morning, May 27. Our first stop was ½ mile away – at Kickstand Café in Arlington Center. I had pre-ordered a pack of 10 Vietnamese fresh rolls for our journey and they were waiting for us – for FREE, a lovely “good-bye for the summer” gift from the wonderful staff at Kickstand. For those of you in Arlington, please patronize them this summer to make up for my lack of business!
Left: my deck the morning we left. Right: Liz enjoying fresh rolls from Kickstand with peanut sauce
Our destination for Days 1 and 2 was Easton, Maryland, where Liz’s 97-year-old Aunt Lorna lives in assisted living. Lorna is Liz’s mother’s older sister and is the only one of the three sisters still alive. She is a lover of cats and of crab, so we set out to bring her plenty of both. We took Izzie in to see her several times over the course of 24 hours – and Izzie become a famous “therapy cat” at the residence. On Friday night, we bought a whole pound of jumbo lump crab from Lorna’s favorite local restaurant and a six-pack of local ale and the three of us polished it off – with Lorna doing her share.
Aunt Lorna encountering Izzie
We camped those two nights in the parking lot of Lorna’s church. Liz had gotten official permission from “Pastor Jeff” (who lives next door to the church) beforehand and we got to thank him early one morning as he trudged across the parking lot to the garden that the church maintains. We stuck our head out to say hello and were happy to discover the guy in gardening clothes and flip-flops was the aforementioned Reverend.
Our “host” church
On other visits to Aunt Lorna, we’ve gone to the local Amish Market, and this was no exception. We bought too many interesting cheese spreads and some kettle corn and enjoyed the local culture – like the signs pictured below. On the right is a picture of the pig roast in the parking lot of the market.
Images from the Amish Market in Easton, MD
We also took a lovely bird walk at a local Audubon sanctuary, Pickering Creek, and saw a large flock of glossy ibises as well as many nesting swallows in little houses. Unfortunately, we also saw a bunch of ticks, including on the back of my knee and Liz’s torso. We think we removed them quickly and safely, but will be on alert for Lyme symptoms for the next few weeks.
A swallow guarding its family from us.
One of my favorite tasks on road trips is finding local places for lattes wherever we stay for the night. In Easton, it was Whole Note Coffee, less than a mile from Aunt Lorna’s assisted living. There I was introduced to pistachio milk – the latest non-dairy milk on the market. It’s similar to almond milk, but a bit creamier and with a sweet edge.
Masks are definitely less common than last year – and less common than in Massachusetts (although that may have changed on May 29 in Mass.) But this coffee shop still required masks when ordering, which made me feel even better about them, as I’m still not totally comfortable unmasked indoors. Next, on to Pittsburgh.
A quick account of Liz’s trip from Boulder to Boston, in preparation for a longer trip back to Boulder with Andee and Izzie.
Liz made the drive from Boulder to Boston in just 3 days. She spent the first night at her cousin’s house in Kansas City, enjoying KC Barbecue with family. She had planned to find a truck stop for the second night, but I intervened and suggested she might do better at a campsite with an advance reservation. She acquiesced and I found a campground in Marengo, Ohio, just north of Columbus for her. She arrived in time for dinner on Sunday, much to Izzie’s and my delight. A few highlights from her journey below.
Liz here, writing from Boulder after 2088 miles in RVG with Tristan keeping watch for road hazards:
Some people have radar…others have cats
The world changed during those miles: the Georgia results, the riot in DC. But the Colorado sky, which knows nothing about such things, was still there to greet me.
Heading West, getting close to home
As Barack Obama said on November 8th, 2016, “the sun will still rise tomorrow.” Nonetheless, there is work to do.
I wish all of you strength, truth, health, and equilibrium in the coming year.
In spite of my good intentions, blogging has fallen off the stack on this trip, so I’m creating one big post during our last evening out. There’s no Internet here in Hickory Run State Park in the Poconos, so I’m not distracted by email – and I’ll post what I’ve written when we get back to Internet-land tomorrow. (Now that I’m actually posting, it’s 5 days later – apologies!)
We spent a fair amount of time before our departure preparing the RV for transporting Tristan and Izzie – two carriers, lots of special cat blankets, etc. – see below. And on the first day, they clearly had moved right in (also see below). For those who don’t know our two cats – Tristan is slightly bigger and darker, more brown than red. He’s in the foreground in the picture below. Liz took the third picture below, of all three of us asleep on one of the RV beds.
We’re probably some of the few people who plan their departure based on when the Tour de France stage of the day is over…so we left Tuesday morning right after Lennard Kemna arrived at the summit of the day’s climb. Nebraska was just as long going from West to East as it had been on the trip out and we didn’t make it all the way across on our first day. We camped at a KOA in Gretna, Nebraska, slightly West of Omaha. It was a friendly enough place, with a pizza shop in the office. It also had a tiny mini-golf course (I guess that’s redundant…), a splash pad and a separate dog play area.
Our destination on Wednesday was our friends Cindy and Jack Rusher’s house on Big Cedar Lake in West Bend, Wisconsin, where we planned to spend a day or two. This required crossing all of Iowa before getting to Wisconsin – and in the process we missed a turn, so the trip dragged on longer than we had hoped. On the way, we spied a Dunkin’ (what used to be called Dunkin’ Donuts), so we knew we were making our way East. Liz got me an ice coffee, which Izzie helped me finish. (She (Izzie) will drink anything that has milk in it…)
Izzie next to the empty ice coffee – who me?
We arrived at the Rushers’ house to a traditional Wisconsin dinner – boiled brats and cheesy potatoes – with some other Wisconsin friends who drove up from Madison to meet us. In addition to a lovely large house on the lake, Jack and Cindy recently acquired a small cottage in an adjacent lot for use as a guest house. We and the cats moved into the cottage – and somehow ended up staying until Sunday morning, enjoying an unexpected vacation. Highlights included a “cocktail cruise” one night in the motorboat, long walks on nearby conservation land and a kayak trip to visit one of the springs that feed Big Cedar Lake. We saw hummingbirds, chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches, great blue herons, kingfishers and pintail ducks. I participated in a webinar on “engaging students with authentic data” and recorded my part for a virtual choir that Coro Allegro is putting together for the Terezin Music Foundation gala on November 9.
But we think Tristan and Izzie may have enjoyed the stop even more than we did. The cottage was the perfect playground for them with many climbing opportunities and even more windows from which to watch the lake. But the best part of the cottage was its other residents: mice. Izzie and Tristan spent a lot of time sitting together, staring at a heat register that we figured must be pumping out mouse aroma. And the third night we were there, Izzie excitedly brought us a gift in the middle of the night – her first mouse conquest, solidly dead. She regaled us with a long story about the chase, until we flushed the mouse down the toilet and she settled down again.
Unfortunately, we also heard about RBG’s death while we were in Wisconsin and spent a sober evening considering her legacy and the future of the Supreme Court. We briefly felt uncomfortable about the RBG stickers we have on the back of the van, but then decided they were a good way to honor her memory.
After several more yummy dinners, hot tub soaks and lunches by the lake, we managed to tear ourselves away and resume our eastward trek. On Sunday we made it to Western Ohio, where we stayed in one of the nicest campgrounds we’ve yet encountered, at Sauder Village in Archbold, Ohio, one of those “living history” sites. The campground is actually affiliated with a nice inn, so in non-pandemic times campers are allowed to use its pool and hot tub. There was also a walking trail into town and a cute coffee-shop-in-a-trailer, both of which I took advantage of. Revival Coffee was just started this summer, when its co-owners lost their jobs due to the pandemic and decided to start a coffee camper, so I was happy to add my support to their endeavor.
Revival Coffee in Archbold, OH
Five hundred miles of driving found us still in Pennsylvania (which rivals Nebraska for being wide). Route 80 through northern Pennsylvania is beautiful, but full of trucks, hills and curves. I spent much of the afternoon in the back of the van trying to keep the cats quiet and out of one another’s hair/fur. If we’re both up front, they tend to want to join us, and I’ve found that if I’m on one of the beds in the back, they’re more willing to both lounge with me and leave the driving to Liz. Here is one of the sweeter pictures we have of Izzie, who was enjoying a petting session in my lap.
Izzie, the affection hound
We camped last night – our last night out for a while – in Hickory Run State Park near Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. (If you don’t know the story of how Jim Thorpe got its name, look it up..). The Poconos are a beautiful part of Pennsylvania; I spent parts of several summers at Camp B’nai B’rith in Starlight, PA, so the area has positive connections for me. Liz ,it turns out, has less fond memories, as she did rowing training near Jim Thorpe back in the day – and didn’t enjoy it.
We in the final stretch now, on Route 84 through New York and Connecticut and then hitting the Mass Pike at Sturbridge. I’m ready to be in a real bed and for the cats to have more space to run around – but I am also dreading the amount of work it will take to move back in after over 3 months away. We’re looking forward to re-joining our community in Arlington – while still missing our friends in Colorado. Shanah Tovah to those of you who celebrate the Jewish New Year.
The next morning we left the RV park and Liz insisted I take a picture of this sign at the exit because we had seen variations of it before – and it’s so representative of the RV culture.
Typical exit sign at RV campground
We then headed into Cheyenne for the third and last of my coffee shop adventures. I had looked up local coffee shops and found Paramount Coffee, in the old Paramount movie theater. The baristas were masked, as were the other customers, the coffee was good, and they even had a gluten-free chocolate donut in the pastry case – which I rationalized with “how often do I get a gluten-free donut? – and, besides, I’m on vacation.”
Our last stop was for Liz to get a COVID test in preparation for her knee surgery. It was what we call the “brain swab,” where they get a sample from up high in the nasal passages. Liz said it just made her want to sneeze and wasn’t nearly as bad as she anticipated. (And it was negative…and her knee surgery went well!)
Our next trip in RVG will be from Colorado back to Boston, along with both Izzie and Tristan. Maybe I’ll blog that one too…
Guernsey State Park is also home to a CCC Museum. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25. Many improvements in public spaces were accomplished by the CCC and this museum is no exception. We were greeted by a statue of a well-built, healthy man (member of the CCC, of course) and were the only visitors to the museum. It was a spectacular building – but some of the exhibit text reeked of racism in the way it described conflicts between Native Americans and pioneers. We marveled in particular at how much labor had gone into the quarrying and transporting of stone for the building.
Our final stop in the area was at the Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site, just outside of the State Park. These are ruts from wagons that traversed the Oregon Trail, cut several feet deep into sandstone. I have to admit that I wondered how they knew these ruts were from wagons and suspected someone might have built an historic site around some naturally-occurring gullies in the rock. But nonetheless, they are impressive. See image below, with Liz for scale.
Liz in Oregon Trail ruts
We almost headed home after these spectacular sights, but we wanted one more night out. We considered Curt Gowdy State Park (named for a Boston sportscaster who must have been born in Wyoming), but couldn’t get reservations with so little notice, so we settled for AB RV Park just outside of Cheyenne. As RV parks go, this one was OK – there were a few trees and it wasn’t too crowded. It REALLY impressed us, though, with its on-site BBQ restaurant. We abandoned all pretense of healthy eating and chowed down on ribs and brisket.
The next morning we set off again on our bikes to Edness Kimball Wilkins State Park, just a few miles from our campsite, along (not surprisingly) the North Platte. It was a lovely ride and I seemed to be flying along effortlessly. Unfortunately, Liz informed me this was because we had a serious tail wind and going back to the campground would require much more effort (she was right).
One of my favorite things about the state park was the signs they had posted on trash cans to remind people to socially distance. As a math educator who has worked in zoos, these were totally up my alley (see below).
Visiting the state park also gives me an excuse for a short diversion about the role of women in Wyoming’s development. “Edness” is a female name and Edness Wilkins was the first female speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives in the mid 1960’s. Before that, she served as assistant to the first female governor of Wyoming (who was the first female governor of ANY of the states) in 1925. Wyoming was the first state to give women the vote, and Laramie has a Museum called the Wyoming Women’s History House, which celebrates the achievements of 13 women from Wyoming.
We visited “It’s A Grind” on our way back to the campground and discovered, as I had hoped, that it was a sweet spot, following health precautions cheerfully and with good humor.
Sign from “It’s A Grint” coffee shop in Casper
Our next destination was Guernsey State Park, another of Wyoming’s parks-on-a-reservoir, but first we knew we had to stop in Douglas, where Jennifer, one of our Boulder neighbors, was born. Most people know Douglas (if they do at all) as the home of the “Jackalope,” a fictional animal apparently invented by whimsical taxidermists. But we knew from Jennifer that Douglas was also the location of a POW camp for Italian and German prisoners during World War II and that the only remaining camp building had been turned into a small museum. Indeed, once we found it, with the help of Google Maps, it was fascinating. The walls of several of the rooms are decorated with murals painted by the prisoners and apparently several marriages between prisoners and local girls resulted. Look up Camp Douglas, Wyoming if you’re interested in more of this unusual history.
Guernsey State Park is another unheralded gem. Not only is it situated on a spectacular reservoir, but it was the site of a CCC camp in the 1930’s and boasts some of the most beautiful “rustic architecture” I’ve ever seen. On our way to our campsite, we drove to “the Castle,” which is actually a picnic shelter, although I thought it would make a great wedding site, particularly in these pandemic times. Next to it is a fancy bathroom that the CCC workers apparently called “the million dollar biffy,” as it was an extravagant expense. These pictures capture only some of the magnificence of the setting and the architecture.
Finally, we settled down in our campsite among the calls of killdeer and gulls. Here is a view of our camper in “living room mode,” with the front seats swiveled backwards to create more of a living space.
Today was the day we planned to bike the North Platte Rail Trail, which starts about 5 miles from our campground, which was actually in Evansville, east of Casper. We were thrilled to discover, though, that there was a way to bike from the campground to the start of the Rail Trail along the Casper Bike Trail. When we got to it, however, we discovered that it was not paved, but made of largish gravel and sand. This was especially bad for Liz’s road bike – but also turned out to be challenging even for my e-bike, which has wider tires.
I resigned myself to biking on the shoulder of a highway – but in another lucky break, there was a lovely frontage road parallel to the highway, which we later noticed was a very popular biking route. It also had the advantage of going right by a coffee shop, It’s a Grind, which we visited the next morning (more details in the next post). The frontage road took us to the paved part of the Casper Bike Trail, which led directly to the Platte Rail Trail.
I enjoyed the Platte Rail Trail, on my e-bike but Liz was less happy about the uneven pavement. It was also a bit difficult to navigate, as it goes by several bridges across the North Platte, some of which are on the trail and others of which lead an unsuspecting rider onto a golf course or into a neighborhood; we did follow several of those bridges and had to double back. But here are some interesting observations about the trail:
Instead of bike loaner stations, there are life jacket loaner stations (see image below). People apparently float downstream on the North Platte, but there are some dangerous stretches, so there are multiple signs warning floaters to wear life jackets – and places to pick them up or return them. I did wonder if they have to have volunteers shuttle them back upstream every few days.
The trail goes through Acoma Park, a cultural gathering place in Casper. It has a painted labyrinth, a “learning circle,” an archway made of books and one of those life jacket stations.
The trail also goes by the Casper Whitewater Park, a short stretch of rapids that would have been a lot of fun to go through in a kayak (leftmost image above).
There were a surprising number of sculptures along the trail – including one in the middle of the river. (The image above is NOT in the middle of the river.)
We finally turned around and made our way back to the campsite, 30 miles in all. As a reward for our long ride, Liz bought us Klondike bars at the campsite office. But before we could eat them, we had to move to a new site, as we had decided to stay another night. The new site was in the “long-term” area of the campground, where, we think, some people have permanent housing. As one campsite proclaimed, “Home is where we park it.” We had a nice chat with our neighbors at this site – and enjoyed meeting their three dogs: Finley, an old Norwegian Elkhound; Eisenhower, a young, handsome German Shepherd, and Sadie, a little mutt.
Tomorrow, we plan to explore a nearby state park and patronize “It’s A Grind.”
Before we leave Seminoe State Park, here is a picture of one arm of the reservoir – and a shot of the pronghorns.
Our next destination was Casper, which I had discovered has a remarkable system of bike trails. We COULD have gone back south to Sinclair and taken major roads to Casper, but Liz and I don’t like backtracking and share a sense of adventure, so we chose to drive over dirt roads to Casper. Our first stop was the Seminoe Dam, built in the mid-1930’s, with rockwork still impressive today. Soon after the Dam, we were delayed by a group of mountain goats, many with radio collars on (probably part of the “wildlife management area”). Then many more miles of mostly very bumpy dirt roads, which made our trip to Muffy and Al’s seem like a trip on a city street. When we got to Alcova Dam, where we stopped for lunch and the road became paved, we discovered two casualties: Liz’s fishing rod got unattached from its reel – and one of our gallon jugs of water sprang a leak.
Mountain goats on the road
We tried to fix the water jug with bandaids (taking a cue from the CruiseAmerica people who had used bandaids to fix the ceiling of our bathroom in the rented RV) to no avail, so we stopped at the Casper Walmart for another water jug, some seltzer and various other RV needs (like soup spoons). I have to admit I’ve never been in a Walmart before, but I now understand their appeal – there was NOTHING they didn’t have. The quality wasn’t always top-notch (like the 98 cent thermometer that had no mercury in it), but they had an amazing array of merchandise. Also, they are insisting on masks – and they have VERY wide aisles that they’ve made one-way.
We had made a reservation at River’s Edge RV Campground on the eastern edge of Casper – the river in question being the North Platte. The North Platte seems to be everywhere in Wyoming – also in Nebraska and Colorado, so you will be hearing about it again. We waded into the river – or, more accurately, slid down the mud bank. Not the best swimming, but it cooled us off. (See image below of Liz rinsing off afterwards, using our outdoor bathroom access.) We had appetizers looking out on the river from a newly-constructed gazebo and had a socially-distant conversation with a couple from Kansas.
Two other notes: Wyoming is a land of wind farms – a good choice, given the winds that howl across the state and the relative lack of people to be bothered by wind turbines. We’ve seen parts of wind turbines being transported everywhere – on the highways and, on our way into Casper, by train.
Part of a wind turbine moving through Casper by train
We’ve also met lots of people who are on their “virgin” RV trip. Not surprisingly, many people have decided that RVs are the way to travel during a pandemic – like us, a large number of them never considered it before. So, the sociology has been interesting – we think we’ve met people along the way who we would never have encountered in an RV park before this year. The folks next to us in Casper were from Marin County and had rented an RV to travel to Michigan – but they had to drive to Salt Lake City to find an available RV! We’ve also discovered that RVG is unusual – most other people have much larger vehicles and are curious to see how our van is appointed. So, RVG is getting lots of attention and well-deserved admiration.
We both slept incredibly well in Muffy and Al’s driveway, although I woke up several times, considered looking out with a flashlight to see if I could spot some moose, then fell back asleep before I could do anything about it. We had our first breakfast in the RV (see image below), played a bit more with the dogs, then headed off to what we knew would be a less elegant night at Seminoe State Park.
Partial view of breakfast…
Our first stop was in Laramie for coffee. We have fond memories of Laramie from a previous trip and wanted to check it out again – and we were not disappointed. Laramie is the home of the University of Wyoming, so it has an intellectual vibe, at least in the center of town. The town has also done some serious soul-searching since the Matthew Shepard incident and rainbow flags are hung over many downtown businesses.
We found a delightful coffee shop, Coal Creek Coffee, which proudly claims to be home to “Malcontents, Revolutionaries and Do-Gooders of all types.” Everyone inside was masked, sanitizer was everywhere, and there was a shared outdoor eating space down the street. We took a walking tour of downtown Laramie, including a large number of murals, two of my favorites of which are pictured here.
Part of a Laramie mural
Clever trompe d’oeil in Laramie
We proceeded along the “old highway” instead of Route 80, which took us to the town of Medicine Bow, where we stopped for lunch in the parking lot of the Medicine Bow Museum. Apparently, the author of “The Virginian” used the town as a setting for his novel, so everything in the town is called The Virginian. Well, not everything – but the main commercial establishment is “The Virginian Hotel, Eating House, Saloon, Motel and RV Hookups.”
The road to Seminoe State Park leaves I-80 at Sinclair (a company town for Sinclair Petroleum – the one with the green dinosaur mascot) and winds 35 miles through gorgeous scenery to the Seminoe Reservoir. There was nothing on the road until we got to the park, so we were lucky to have gotten gas in Sinclair. Our campsite sat near the reservoir, although the shore was rocky and swimming wasn’t really an option. Most other campers had boats, so we had to content ourselves with wildlife viewing: a group of pronghorn antelopes who crossed the park access road in front of us and flocks of mountain bluebirds, including one who must have considered itself an “authorized vehicle”. We also put up our “dining room table” for the first time and had an elegant dinner, complete with table cloth.
Authorized bluebird
The remains of dinner on our elegant dining room table
Our first day’s drive was relatively short – to visit friends in their cabin in Tie Siding, Wyoming. The town is named for its origins: as the site of the closest suitable trees to Laramie, it was the source of lumber for railroad ties while the Union Pacific Railroad was being built. Our friends, Al and Muffy, have a “cabin” (more on that misnomer below) 8 miles down dirt roads from the highway. The directions begin: “make a left across the highway directly onto a dirt road when you see the “Fireworks” sign at Tie Siding.” Proceed down 3 miles of dirt road to a turn onto another dirt road for 5 miles, just past the Tie Siding Volunteer Fire Department, then left onto their road. Much of the second road was very washboard-y, making this a true “shake-down” cruise.
Muffy and Al have a gorgeous house in the woods, surrounded by hummingbird feeders and wildflowers and frequented, they tell us, by moose, elk, deer and various smaller critters. It is full of elegant rugs and artwork, two friendly dogs, and the best dishwasher either Liz or I had ever seen. When we arrived at this “rustic” destination, we had plentiful cocktails and a fabulous dinner on the porch before retiring to our first night in the RV.
Muffy and Al’s “cabin” with RVG in front and Sophie the dog.Our first night – so cozy!
So, we’re back on the road – in OUR OWN RV!!! Liz and I figured that, given the pandemic-caused restrictions on travel and the issues we had with our rented vehicle, we might as well just buy an RV and use it to travel between Colorado and Boston for the next while. As you might imagine, RVs are selling like very large hotcakes these days, so we didn’t have too many choices – but we’re SO happy with the one we ended up with. It’s a red camper van (Winnebago Travato, if you want to look it up). And here it is being christened.
Christening our camper van!
So, if we’re going to christen a conveyance, it has to have a name — and this one’s name is RVG. (Say it out loud if you don’t already get the pun.) I ordered an oval sticker with RVG in red – and Liz ordered a “I Dissent” sticker – so she will be properly festooned by the time we hit the road tomorrow.
She also has the nickname “party bus” because she has a large awning that rolls out from the side and it has LED lights embedded in it. We’ve already had several outdoor socially-distanced gatherings under the festive awning.
We are now in the process of packing up to go on a multi-day vacation to Wyoming – fitting everything we need into all the little compartments. We decided to go to Wyoming rather than southern Colorado because there are only 500,000 people in the whole state – and 5 million in Colorado, so fewer people who might be infected – and lots of gorgeous scenery. It’s a very empty state – especially good during a pandemic. We have good friends who live in Cheyenne (capital and largest city, with a population of 64,000) and when they need to get away from all the crowds there, they go to their quite-isolated cabin south of Laramie. So we’ll spend our first night outside their cabin, then head north.
Yes, you will get to see the inside of RVG as we travel. You’ll just have to tune back in.
Andee and Liz's RV Trip 