Home Again, Home Again

It’s a gray morning, but a great day to drive home, which is now in range.

Just a few miles up Skyline Drive, I slow down as I approach the Big Meadows area. According to the website yesterday, the Visitor Center here is supposed to be closed. But I see a few cars, so I pull in and park. Passport in hand I walk to the front door and am pleasantly surprised to find the Harry F. Byrd Visitor Center open. I have a nice chat with the rangers inside. One of them is going to Grand Canyon next month. So as my final tourist activity of the trip I stamp our passport and, as two new tourists start asking questions, I am out the door.

The Northern District is a more challenging road. I’ll guess it gets more traffic and visitors since the road is rougher—more potholes and patches. It also seems more aggressive with the turns and grades than it was down at the south end. I encounter a few more cars than yesterday. The day continues cloudy, so I skip picture taking at the overlooks. I just meander the curves and hills until I am out of the north end of the Park in Front Royal, Virginia. Soon I am back on I-81 and home is definitely where I’ll be by tonight.

6,575 miles in DD, plus side trips in Essie…it’s been a great trip. Thanks for tuning in.

One Last National Park

I was awakened about 1:30 AM by loud voices from my “neighbors” in or near the bus. Five or ten minutes later the engine started. I was irritated because I thought it was for warmth (another 40° night), and would be repeated through the night, but after a few minutes at various power settings, they drove off. I slept better after that.

I got a late start this morning, but in looking at the map for today’s drive, I realize I am paralleling the entire length of Shenandoah National Park. So I take a few notes from their website about visitor centers and campgrounds that are open and closed and get DD and myself together to drive Skyline Drive and maybe stay in one of their campgrounds tonight.

Most of the day I listen to the puzzling and sad details of the VA Tech shooting—truly a nightmare for the parents, families, and loved ones. So random and so senseless. My mind reels as I drive by the Virginia Tech exit off I-81 and listen to the story unfold on the radio.

Around 3 PM, I top off the gas tank, debug the windshield, and turn east on I-64. Twelve miles later, I turn north on Skyline Drive. Entering Shenandoah National Park through the unmanned contact station, a sign confirms that two campgrounds are closed and two are open with vacancies. The road is narrow, with no shoulders, but it is smooth and gentle—no harsh switchbacks or steep grades, at least in the southern district. It just follows the mountains contours in an unhurried manner (speed limit 35 MPH) but soon I am above 3,000’ (I think I was at about 1,500’ in the valley on I-81). I make it to Loft Mountain Visitor Center before ‘closing,’ but contrary to the website, the access road is gated closed. So I amble on to Lewis Mountain Campground. I do not overtake a single car in my direction; nor am I overtaken. In approximately 45 miles, I only pass about four opposing vehicles. Not very busy, here. The campground roads are very narrow for DD. I creep between the trees and try one “pull-through” site that is sloped too steep for comfort. I explore a little further on foot and find a better spot up over the hill and back around the loop—also a pull-through, which is handy.

The School Bus RV

Another chilly night, but I guess I should be grateful, hearing about the cold and flooding that is going on back home in PA. I search and find the local town post office to drop off a bit of mail and then I jump back on I-40 by 10 AM—a new record.

Tennessee is a long state. I came in the southwest corner and will exit from the northeast corner, so I expect to still be here when night falls.

At lunchtime, it has warmed up nicely and I pull into a nice rest area and park among the 18-wheelers in one of those long, diagonal pull-through parking spaces. A big truck pulls in beside, but a little behind me due to the diagonal arrangement. From my seat at the dining table, I am looking straight across the front end of his truck. As soon as he stops and shuts off his engine, three sparrows fly up and land on his grill. They flit in, grab a juicy morsel, then fly down to the concrete to munch it down. The bugs are out and these intrepid sparrows know where to find a hot meal! I guess they might be cleaning DD’s grill, too, because I find their calling cards on DD’s front body work the next time I do a walkaround.

Today I hear on the radio of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Such a tragedy. I end the day parked in a shopping center parking lot in Bristol, Virginia, about a hundred miles from Blacksburg and Virginia Tech.

There is a cluster of RVs parked near the entrance to the lot, but I elect to park off in a far corner. After I am all set up for dinner and a night’s rest, an old school bus with out-of-state plates and the school name on the side obliterated by black spray paint, pulls up beside me. There are four men and a dog in the bus. They are all bearded with long hair under knit hats pulled down over their ears. The worn-out jeans, camo pants, and old army coats or similar are all dirty. The youngest looks to be mid 20s, the oldest a senior citizen (perhaps a bit older than me), and the other two in between. It looks like four generations of the same unkempt person.

They go in and out of the bus singly and in pairs in all directions, perhaps to window shop at the numerous surrounding businesses and restaurants. A couple of them exit the bus to greet a balder fellow with a fuller, longer beard, who is wearing a windbreaker and is accompanied by a 20ish blonde with a scarf over her hair. They all go on board the bus. Later, three of them walked a long way across the lots, apparently to a Golden Corral restaurant. I can’t imagine what they are doing, but they keep coming and going all evening, and apparently are here for the night. My imagination is probably running away with me, but I’m a little nervous.

There's a Memphis in Egypt, Too!

41° this morning, but in the bright sunshine, it quickly got up to 58, where it remained all day as I ran across Arkansas and Tennessee. I pass through Little Rock and cross the muddy Mississippi at Memphis, with its Pyramid Arena prominent on the left and the tall buildings of city center nestled right against the river on the right.

I wind up the day in Dickson, TN, just west of Nashville. After I got set up for the night, I sat down to my computer to make a few notes and was delighted to find Diane on line. Our kids take it for granted, but instant messaging is pretty amazing.

A little dinner (microwaves are pretty amazing, too), a little Desperate Housewives, and I’m off to bed.

Fly Away Home

We are up early today, because Diane has an 11:45 flight out of DFW for home. Showers, breakfast, a quick kiss for Mom in the house, and I guide Diane out of the parking place into the driveway across the street and she easily makes a left turn up the street. I go the other way in Essie and meet her around the corner and we drive in tandem to a shopping center parking lot in Grapevine, just a mile or two from the airport’s north entrance. Essie takes us to the American terminal and in a few moments I am on my own again.

I return to DD, re-hitch Essie, and head for I-30 NE toward Little Rock, Arkansas. It’s 48° outside and the wind is blowing at 20 to 30 knots. It stays that way all day—I never see an outside temperature greater than 49. When I stop at a Flying J Truck/Travel Stop, I have to get on a windbreaker over my long sleeve shirt. This is my first experience with a “repeater” or “slave” gas pump, and it takes me about three trips inside before someone finally clues me in on how to work it. Oh well…

But on the up side, they also dispense propane, so after making another one-eighty to get my propane tank on the correct side, I get that tank filled, too. Good thing, too, ‘cause it ain’t getting any warmer tonight.

After I take a rest area lunch break, Diane calls. She’s already in New York, having arrived ahead of schedule. She has phone contact with Eric, who encountered a bad wait at the George Washington Bridge, but in only a few minutes he shows up and Diane is delighted to find that grandson William is with his Uncle Eric. They had to go hunting on Route 46, but they finally found El Norte again and had a wonderful dinner with harp music to boot.

Despite not really getting on the road until late morning, I put in nearly 300 miles for the day and pull up a little short of Little Rock, Arkansas, at DeGray Lake Resort State Park. As you can probably tell, we have found State Parks to offer good facilities at reasonable prices in scenic settings. But DeGray is something else again, living up to its Resort title. They have a hotel (a lodge in their parlance), conference center, golf course, stables, and a beautiful lake surrounded by lush forest offering all manner of aqua-recreation. Thankfully the wind has died down and plenty of spaces are available. I find a nice spot deep in the woods with water and electric service.

Our Favorite Food

Rick is at work today, so we chat with Mom and help with some bookkeeping and paperwork items. We run a couple of errands for her to the bank and post office. Mom gets dressed up and puts on a bit of makeup, but when it is about time to go to dinner, she says she isn’t feeling well enough to go out, so she sends us to go without her. We go to the local Mexican place and have a great meal. Back home, we join Mom for a little TV and company before bedtime.

The Turning Radius

When we get up, Diane tells me she heard some partiers during the night, but I must have been sound asleep; I never heard a thing. It is another beautiful morning with the sun on our left and the lake on our right. We run our departure checklist and motate to the dump station. While I empty tanks, I repair the potable water station hose, where some Park employee or a visitor has used electrical tape to attach a 4” hose end (with hose threads) to the rubber hose that comes from the freeze-proof water spigot via a vertical spring arm. I apply the Possum Lodge remedy—duct tape. That should hold it for a few more campers (if the beer bottle people don’t vandalize it).

We stop at HQ/Visitor Center to get our Park Passport stamped and pick up a pin and a couple of T-shirts. Then we head for Mom’s, about 360 miles away. The drive is nice over a lot of flat land with occasional small bumps and dips in the landscape. I can’t get over how things have greened up since I passed through here two weeks ago.

We are looking for places to get a propane fill-up, and as we are driving through Wichita Falls, I am on the phone to a propane place and I misread the GPS and misdirect Diane at one of the interchanges. Five miles south of town I realize we are going down the wrong highway, a two-laner. We pull over onto a firm grassy shoulder to regroup the GPS to find out if it is faster to retrace or take a secondary road cutoff to the intended highway. Go back is fastest, so I get out and pace the distance across the road and onto the opposite shoulder, inspecting for good RV footing as well. (DD doesn’t do well on soft ground.) According to my fact sheet, kept in driver’s reach at all times, a 180° turn takes 63’ (25 Dean paces) of clear space to one side of the vehicle. This I know from some experiments in an empty sports complex parking lot in Augusta, Maine, last year. With my walkie-talkie I direct Diane ahead and partially into a gravel driveway just a little ahead. I climb on board and, with a break in the traffic, Diane completes the half circle without even touching the grass on the other side.

We arrive at Mom’s about 7 PM. After unhitching Essie, I direct Diane headfirst into the neighbor’s driveway, but there is no way to avoid driving the rear wheels over the curb and the water valve box, so we abandon that. It’s a simple maneuver, however, to have her back into the driveway across the street (I ask them first) and then she pulls straight into Dave and Monty’s place with no problem. With blocks under the jacks to spread the load, we are level and set for a two night stay with our steps just four feet from Mom’s driveway. At least this time, we don’t have our bedroom slide extending out over the centerline of the street!

We have some dinner from Mom’s refrigerator (they’ve already eaten), and have an interesting visit with Mom and Rick before retiring to DD for the night.

Trash and Treasure

The wind died down during the night and is calm in the morning. By mid-morning it picks up a little, but nothing like yesterday. In the afternoon, we drive to Lake Meredith. On the way, Diane calls the Recreation Area Headquarters and is surprised to learn that there is only one park building, and it is not on the property—it is in the nearby town of Fritch, Texas. So though we arrive at HQ after closing, we pick up a flyer on their campgrounds and find out they are a little more organized than it sounded on the website.

Though we will have a long drive tomorrow to Diane’s mom’s house, we decide to stay at one of the listed campgrounds called Fritch Fortress. The several mile drive from town is through an area laced with dumping grounds for old vehicles, old trailers, old boats, old appliances, old catfish nailed on fence posts, and a generous assortment of other detritus to tie it all together. However, when we get on park property near the lake, things improve and we find the campground very nicely laid out in well-defined campsites with sheltered picnic tables, fire pits, restrooms, all on the bluff with a commanding view of the lake. There are no hookups, but there is a dump station and potable water near the campground entrance.

While I am doing the outside duties as we set up, I find numerous beer bottles and cans scattered on the ground. This nice overlook is obviously the sight of informal local nighttime partying. As I pick up all the bottles and cans I see, I hope that no parties are planned for this Wednesday night. It is always a mystery to me why people won’t put their empties in a nearby trash barrel (there is one at every site here). I guess the really fun people just don’t have the time.

Anyhow, we enjoy the view a lot better knowing we leave the place a little cleaner than we found it.

Aflac & His Stunt Doubles

It was windy all night and it continues through the day. We go for a walk, leaning against the wind, down to the lake, the boat ramps, and the marina. I guess the wind speed at 30 knots, but later reports from the radio and a Park Ranger tell us it was 40 with gusts to 50 or 60 knots. There are whitecaps and waves blowing up to a foot or more high. We have a nice chat with the fellow who runs the marina. He’s really closed today due to the weather, and he is babysitting his 5-year-old grandson, while his dad, the Park Superintendent, is out on the water with two other rangers, teaching them the fine points of this dangerous and rough weather that only blows up this way every once in a great while.

Four men are outside on the docks, fishing in this gale! To our surprise, we see them bring up a nice crappie--they are catching a bunch of fish. As we are walking away, we see the Ranger boat come in. We bet they had quite a ride.

We return to the comfort of the RV and enjoy a lazy afternoon and another beautiful sunset as we stay another night.

Snow And Wind

It rained last night off and on. Some light, some heavy. Finally a thunderclap woke me around 7:30. I had been wondering when that would happen. So I got up and rattled around for a while inside, but then I couldn’t stand it…all this free water and DD so dirty. It was 42° when I got up, so I put on a plastic poncho and went outside, got my long-handled brush, and started moving the dirt around. With a couple of buckets catching the water runoff I got most of my mission accomplished, but by the time I was through, it was snowing! And by the time I go back inside, it was coming down heavily! I check the outside temperature. Hmmmm, 36° now! Oh well. It’s not a perfect wash job, but she looks a lot cleaner than she did before.

An hour or two later, the sun comes out and melts it all off. We hit the road and Diane puts in a lot of miles. We stop at a Camping World store on the west side of Albuquerque and then we stop for gas another couple of miles down the road. We opt to eat “lunch” as we drive through Albuquerque on I-40…just simple finger foods, which I fetch from the kitchen.

We are trying for Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, in Texas, but in the middle afternoon I finally get around to checking into the camping situation there. Yikes, they have a dozen or so camping area, but not a single hookup among them. It seems like you can just sort of park wherever you want within certain areas and camp for free—a lot like we did in Kaibab National Forest. That’s okay, but our estimate for the NRA is looking pretty late. I check out state parks again and we decide to go to Ute Lake State Park, still in New Mexico and a couple of hours short of Lake Meredith.

The temperature is pleasant and we have a nice level pull-through site with water and electricity at their “Windy Point” campground. That’s an understatement; we have come on the windiest day of the year!

The Downhill Side

We get an earlier than usual start, in honor of the 9:30 tour reservation we made yesterday. Last night I found that the water faucet at the restroom across from our campsite leaks continuously, so I put a bucket under the flow and use this waste water to wash Essie. By the time we pull in the slides, pump ‘n’ dump, and get on the road we know we aren’t going to make the tour time. We just didn’t try; I think yesterday’s experience at the Visitor Center sapped our desire.

We top off with some reasonably priced gas in Page, AZ, which is right across the dam. Good thing, because we don’t see much civilization for the next several hours. I, always the passenger, get the sleepies after a while and go in the back to take a nap. This is actually the first time I have ever tried this. The two lane highway we are driving across the high desert varies back and forth between smooth and bouncy. I wake up on some of the bounces, but the bed offers a very comfortable ride and I actually get some ZZZZs—about an hour and a half worth . That feels better.

We get hungry for lunch and can’t find a flat place to get off the road. But soon we pull into a parking lot behind a Chevron station in Ganado, AZ, and realize there is a Burger King inside. So that’s for lunch. I went around to the generator at the left rear to adjust its altitude compensator to the 7,000’ elevation, and while I was crouched down was surprised when a dog wandered up behind me and started licking my hand. Real friendly—a pit bull mix. Then she is joined by a collie mutt with white eyes, and then a golden retriever mutt, and yet another—just a small nondescript mutt. They love visitors! It’s Easter Sunday and business is brisk at the BK Lounge.

Later, near Gallup, NM, we cross the continental divide at 7750’ elevation. Soon we are a few miles south of I-40 at Bluewater Lake State Park.

Don't You Wahweap For Me

We drive west then south through Kanab Canyon, which is almost as pretty as Bryce, though not nearly so big. There are many caves along the red cliff walls, stream-fed pools at the bases, and hoodoos among the mixed strata that include uplifted angles and wavy swirls along with the basic horizontal layers. We gas up in the town of Kanab as we move out onto the plateau still at 5,000’. It is beautiful country with the sagebrush, small pines and cedars, against an edging of red mesas.

The campground at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area sneaks up on us and we miss the turn. To make a 180 with Essie in tow, we turn at a sign to a scenic overlook and that turns out to be a miserably long ripple-washboard gravel road. In due time, we get back to the main road (after a nice look at Lake Powell) and go back to the Wahweap Campground.

They have hook-up sites here, but they are $32, which is pretty pricey for a government campground; however, the decision is out of our hands, because they are all taken anyway. So we take a non-hookup site, but the price is right at $9.50, since I get half off with my Golden Age passport. Choice is limited and the spaces are small and tilted in various ways. I put DD up on some blocks—one layer under the left front and right rear, 3 layers under the left rear. A little adjustment with the jacks and we are set for the layover.

It’s late when we go to the Visitor Center to get our National Park Passport stamped. To get into the Visitor Center, which is separate from the dam, I have to send my key ring, which includes a 2” penknife, back to the car. It has a 1.25” knife blade, a tiny pair of scissors, a nail file, and a toothpick in it. Very dangerous, just like me. I am made to take off every piece of metal on me (ha ha, I smuggled my wedding ring through the metal detector). I have to take off my belt so I can get into the gift shop to buy a postcard and view wall displays on the history of the Glen Canyon Dam. I know there is a need for some security and there are some things that need to be protected, but our freedoms are blatantly being taken away by the Homeland Security Police and we are passively accepting it. Our government has misplaced its priorities in a futile attempt to make it impossible for a tiny fraction of extremists to do any harm. It is being used as an excuse to justify all manner of previously unthinkable government behavior. In the parking lot I am a proud American, but somehow, in the gift shop, they have taken some of that away from me.

Anyhow, it is near closing time, so we get our passport stamped, buy a few souvenirs, and make reservations for a tour of the dam in the morning. Diane introduces me to Lisa, one of her Grand Canyon classmates who works here, and we chat until they turn out the lights and ease us out the door.

I Do, You Do, Who Do

It’s 39° this morning, but again, a beautiful day. Our campground does not have site hookups, but we need to wash some clothes, so we decide to go ahead and do it on generator power, since there is water and a dump station nearby. It turns out the washer is a little finicky about its electrical source, so we have to experiment a little before we get successful results.

We set off in Essie to take the 18-mile drive that hits 13 beautiful canyon overlooks. The canyon views are spectacular and the hoodoos are amazing. Whatdoos? We didn’t make this word up; it’s right out of the official Park Service brochure on Bryce. “Hoodoos” are natural rock spires that are the result of wind, water, and ice erosion over the years. The canyon is full of them. We visit every overlook and see them all. The highest overlook is at 9,115’. “Nevermore” showed up at a couple of the overlooks to add a comic touch to the breathtaking beauty. All these sights are a priceless asset to our wonderful country.

We stay here a second night.

From The Bottom Up

In the morning we enjoy the beautiful view, but break camp early. We are off to see Zion National Park. As in Grand Canyon, the Park Service at Zion is relying heavily of the use of shuttle buses to stem traffic, pollution, and parking problems. The drill here is to park in the town of Springdale and catch a free park shuttle town loop bus to the visitor center, where you pay your entrance fee and then ride the other shuttle loop inside the park to see many of the best sights in the park. In contrast to Grand Canyon, at Zion you are in the canyon bottom beside the Virgin River, looking up at the canyon rim high above. We see rock climbers dangling from ropes as they scale the cliffs high above. What a sight—the geology is fantastic. We take a hundred pictures while the bus completes its loop and the various stops where the hardy go hiking to see even more spectacular sights.

By late afternoon we are on our way to Bryce Canyon. Hwy 9 eastbound out of Zion has a lot of climbing switchbacks with beautiful views and a mile long tunnel that has restrictions if you are driving a rig like ours. What we have to do is drive Essie separately (to meet the vehicle length restriction) and when we come to the tunnel, opposing traffic is stopped (in due time) at the other end and we drive through the middle of the tunnel where the vertical and horizontal clearance is best. There is a $15 fee for this service, but it really doesn’t take much of a wait and is way better than the great circle route to Bryce. The scenery on this drive is equal to that on the shuttle bus scenic drive—maybe better. I’m driving Essie and I take lots of one-handed pictures as I go. Diane follows in DD. Actually, I haven’t touched DD’s wheel since we left Grand Canyon; Diane figures I got to drive all the way out here and she just can’t get enough.

We arrive at Bryce just before sunset and we find a few spots available in the one open campground inside the park (ta da!). It’s pre-season and their second campground isn’t open yet.