Author: Jon Arnold

Sort of a milestone with this post, as it chronicles the last week of our RV trip. Here’s how we spent our final week before returning to Indy.

We started our week at a quiet little campground near Rochester, MN, home to the famous Mayo Clinic. I had another pretty busy work week, but Amy and the girls did some touring. This historic home, the Plummer House, belonged to a prominent Mayo physician:

They also visited the Gonda Building on the Mayo campus. The Drs. Mayo (a father and son) believed art to be an important factor for healing, hence the art-filled beautiful buildings:

The on-site museum was technically for patients and their guests only, but the museum docent thought Amy and the girls looked harmless (and quiet) enough:

Upon returning home from a mid-week family ice-cream run, we encountered this 3-ish-foot-long snake. No idea what kind it was, but it was cool. My girls were screaming for me to get back in the car:

On Thursday we headed to our next destination: the EAA AirVenture event, the world’s largest annual gathering of aviation enthusiasts held in Oshkosh, WI. It’s sort of an aviation tradeshow, air show, and week-long festival all rolled into one. The moment we got to Oshkosh, it poured!!

The rain passed over quickly, and we made our way to the campground (a field, really, with hundreds upon hundreds of RV’s). See those muddy ruts?…those are mine. I actually got stuck in the mud with the RV, and those strapping men walking away helped get me unstuck:

There’s typically an etiquette (or explicit campground rules) about using one’s generator due to the noise and fumes they produce. Not here! Generators 24 hours a day, baby! Between all the airplanes and everyone running their generators, there has got to be a new hole in the ozone over Wisconsin:

A nice surprise one evening:

Like many of life’s opportunities, vans handing out free ice-cream don’t wait forever. Here’s Carrie and me seizing opportunity:

The Good Year blimp was a regular fixture in the sky:

We learned that aviation needs more chicks. Emily was accosted with encouragement from the various aviation folks she encountered to pursue her dream of becoming a pilot.

Many of the attendees actually flew in and tent-camped right there in the fields surrounding the airstrip. Sorta makes RV camping look mundane by comparison:

Saturday morning there was a little 5k race. Carrie took pictures, Amy and Em ran together…

…and Nat and I ran together.

The school bus shuttle service saved us a lot of walking. Here we are hitching a ride from the RV field to the airstrip where the air show was about to begin:

There were people and airplanes everywhere:

The airshow started simple, with several fly-bys of old-timey planes (Em just corrected me; those are P-51’s):

The Lockheed Hornet flying by at mach 0.8 was pretty cool. You don’t hear anything until it’s right on top of you, then it sounds like it’s ripping the sky apart.

Saw several parachutists too:

It got way more interesting when they started doing the arial acrobatics. That just looks fun. And how hard can it be?

Gun powder + Gasoline = Awesome! The pyrotechnics really won me over.

After the airshow was over, we walked around for a bit and grabbed some dinner.

…and then headed back for the night airshow. It was hard to get any good photos at night, but just think “airshow combined with fireworks.” I’ve never seen anything like it.

It ended with an excellent fireworks show, which more than made up for us not seeing any fireworks on the 4th of July.

…and then as a grand finale they blew up more gun powder and gasoline on the runway! YEAH!! (*high five*)

On Sunday we rolled out of Oshkosk and into Milwaukee where we met up with some friends for a tour of Lakefront Brewery:

My girls were a bit mortified; it was a sort of a rowdy tour (note the fist-pumps as the group “sang” the Laverne & Shirley theme song). Brewery tours are apparently very different from winery tours.

Otherwise, it was a really nice time to catch up with our friends Mike & Autum and Mark.

I had never been to Milwaukee before, but it seemed like a cool town. It was nice to see water again.

The next morning we drove to the outskirts of Chicago and parked at a truck stop so I could have a client call. Em and Amy took that as an opportunity to do some plane-spotting at O’Hare International Airport:

In addition to identifying planes, Em is getting pretty good with the camera:

Afterward, we tried to get a jump on the Chicago traffic, but I guess it’s always busy in Chicago:

It wasn’t too long before we saw the most exotic state sign of this entire trip:

We weren’t ready to drive all the way back to Indy just yet, so we stopped at one more national park: Indiana Dunes.

We were too tired to see the actual dunes; strolling along the beach at sunset was more our speed:

The next day Amy took the girls back to the beach with their inner-tubes from Spearfish. It sounds like floating in a lake was way more enjoyable than trying to float down a river:

This spot at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore would otherwise be lost in the blur of other campsites, but this was the final one of the trip:

After a couple hours of driving, we saw our first glimpse of the Indy skyline:

When we reached downtown Indy, we parked the RV on a nearby street where it was easy to park, and then walked the short distance to my mom’s house. We encountered my sister Shelley and her daughter Caitlin along the way:

It was good to see my mom again:

Clearly, the cat was thrilled to see us again too:

I’ll be honest, it was very hard coming back to Indy, partly because of the emotions involved with my dad not being there to see it, and partly because this trip has been so awesome that I hate to see it end. We’re already scheming RV Trip II: The East Coast. More info to come.

If you’ve been following our trip or otherwise want to know more about the RV lifestyle, stay tuned for our next post: the complete financial accounting of what it has cost for us to live and travel in an RV for a year.

49 weeks into this trip, Amy is finally tired of everyone incessantly asking where we’re going, will there be hookups, what will we see/do, etc. Now she just says “consult the itinerary”…

We made it to Yellowstone this week, a destination we’d been looking forward to for a while:

A big highlight of Yellowstone was meeting up with the Strack family — Bob, JoAnn, and their daughters Claire and Sage. The Stracks are my sister’s neighbors from North Carolina, which is admittedly a tenuous connection on which to base a camping rendezvous, but they’re that cool. They are 20-some days into a month-long camping tour across Canada and the U.S., and we were really excited to camp and hike with them for a few days.

Amy gets photo-of-the-week this week. She shot this of Yellowstone Lake near our campsite during one of her morning walks:

Amy joining JoAnn for some morning pushups:

Bob is an organizer like Amy, so like two generals, the two of them planned out our daily maneuvers:

The detached father. The distraught mother. The scalding boy. All essential elements of good literature captured by the sign at Old Faithful:

One of many strangely beautiful formations that ooze out of the ground at Yellowstone:

The bubbling steamy water and the sulfur smell sort of have a toxic waste vibe:

…but then these beautiful pools look like nice hot tubs:

We were down wind from Old Faithful when it erupted, so we got a little wet:

It was cool seeing Old Faithful, the pools, and the hot springs, but it was crowded and we had to stay on these boardwalks. I just felt very…detached from it all. Afterward we went for a hike that was a little off the beaten path and had a great view of the Grand Prismatic Spring. These colors are simply amazing:

The moon rising above the lake by our campground:

The next day we drove from Yellowstone to Grand Teton National Park for some all-day hiking. Inside the park, we took a boat across Jenny Lake to get to a nice trailhead. Here’s Bob and Amy working out more details:

I liked the Tetons way better than Yellowstone. Less crowds; no boardwalks or fences:

Here we are stopping for lunch. I’ve really learned to love hiking for a while, and then stopping somewhere scenic for a packed lunch.

…and then being fueled up for some more hiking:

We took the trail to this calm spot in the river. We took our shoes off and waded in the water, though I could only keep my feet in there for about 10 seconds at a time. It was very cold but felt great!

Saw me a moose:

It was a pretty warm day, so I was surprised when we came upon a patch of snow by the side of the trail. The girls used the snow to cool their heads:

Amy, JoAnn and Bob at the end of the afternoon:

Towards the end of our hike, we stopped at a cool waterfall. Note the crowd (ugh..):

Back on the boat, heading to the parking lot on the other side of the lake:

Amy and JoAnn skipped the boat ride and hiked the long way back. We had to wait a bit for them to arrive back at the parking lot, but a round of frozen fruit bars gave the kids some extra patience (good move, Bob!)

I hope the Strack girls had as much fun with my girls as my girls had with them:

Dinner that evening for a trail-weary crew:

The next morning we packed up, said our goodbyes and headed on to our respective next stops. We had so much fun with the Stracks and look forward to seeing them again when we visit my sister and her family in October.

Again: Ugh! This was the line of traffic coming into Yellowstone as we were leaving:

A herd of bison was roaming near the road (which was only exacerbating the traffic problem.)

Yellowstone is huge (over 2 million acres). It took us 40 minutes after leaving the campground to get back to the entrance, but once we were out of the park it was only a mile or so to our camp spot in West Yellowstone. For the next few days we’re camping next to some other friends, Shawna and Matthew, who we met up with in Golden, CO last month.

West Yellowstone is a small touristy town right outside of Yellowstone National Park. The weather has been nice, so we walked along the streets and browsed the various shops on a couple evenings this week:

Amy, my girls, and Shawna took a trip to Earthquake Lake. The lake is a result of a major rockslide that occurred during the August 17, 1959 earthquake that tragically struck this vacation area. My then-12-year-old mom and her family were camping in Yellowstone just the day before the earthquake hit, making this site even more interesting to the girls.

There’s a quant little breakfast place right across the street from our campground, so that’s where we ate this morning. (I now have 2-breakfasts-worth of chocolate chip pancake leftovers that I’m pretty excited about.)

Late morning, my family, Shawna and Matthew drove into Yellowstone for a short hike:

Amy and I were marveling at how this Yellowstone river snakes along in a seemingly random fashion:

Stopping for lunch:

The trail we took ended at this field filled with cracks hissing out steam and holes either blowing out hot air or filled with boiling mud. My favorite was this 8-foot-tall “mud pot” that was puffing out steam. It sounded like a large animal breathing.

I was disappointed with Yellowstone until today. Getting away from the crowds and signs and boardwalks and getting to “be” in a place like this was what I was hoping for since we got here. It was cool to feel how “alive” the Earth really is. Our planet is amazing.

Our camping spot this week wasn’t all that great (and the internet was terrible), but it was very conveniently located just a few miles from Zion National Park. We would make 3 evening trips there during the week for some hiking.

On Monday night we took our first hike in Zion:

We didn’t have much time — it was a quick hike — but it gave us a feel for the park and what we might do later in the week.

We continue to make use of the shuttle services at these National Parks to get to different trailheads. They’re free, readily available, and they allow us to see so much more of the park in less time.

The east section of Zion has spectacular “slickrock” formations that we enjoyed climbing:

We were excited to see desert big horned sheep on the side of a nearby hill as we finished our hike on Tuesday:

…and then one by the side of the road as we drove out of the park:

On Wednesday, we got an earlier start so we could spend more time doing a longer hike.

It was a very hot day (the girls were grumbling) but when we reached the so-called “hidden canyon” it felt like an air-conditioned room. Ohh it felt so good!

Heading out of the canyon:

Stopping at an overlook:

By Friday, Amy was ready for more scenic surroundings. We broke camp after lunch and drove to Red Canyon in Dixie National Forest, UT. There were no hookups at this campground, but it was beautiful and quiet. We went for a little hike that evening to watch the sunset.

On the way back, we ran into a park ranger who had a couple telescopes set up:

It wasn’t quite dark yet, but he had this big one pointing at and tracking with the moon. The detail was amazing.

Later that night Amy and Em went back to do more stargazing with the telescopes. Carrie and Natalie stayed back at the RV and painted their toenails:

On Saturday, we drove into Bryce Canyon National Park for some all-day hiking:

I loved this place. The rock formations were incredible.

A mid-day popsicle/ice-cream break:

…and then back to hiking:

Just when I think I’ve “seen it all” with these national parks, we find ourselves in a completely new setting, amazed by the geological diversity of this country.

Amy and Nat making their contributions to the multitude of cairns:

It was hot, dry and dusty; we were so dirty by the end the day just from walking. It was showers for everyone that night.

On our way up from the canyon at the end of the afternoon:

I love how the sunlight reflects off the canyon walls and makes everything all orange-y:

More shuttle-riding:

I was hoping to get a spectacular shot of the canyon “amphitheater” but the lighting was all wrong. Still a great view for dinner though:

I figured the lighting would be better at sunrise, so we broke camp early this morning and drove back to Bryce. The girls kept sleeping, Amy went for a sunrise run, and I got the shot I was hoping for. (Click the image for a larger view)

After we were done at Bryce Canyon, we stopped at a nearby RV wash that we noticed yesterday:

The RV needed a wash bad. The bug guts were piling up.

The girls continued to (try to) sleep well into late morning as we drove. They had done a lot of hard hiking lately, and school is out now, so they’ve earned it:

I was very excited to reach the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah today. It’s just one of those godforsaken areas of the planet that I find fascinating and beautiful.

The Bonneville Salt Flats is where every land speed record has been set (the current record is over 600 mph!). Since there was nothing around to run into, we let the girls take turns driving the RV.

Then we hopped in the Scion and set an Arnold family land speed record! The girls squealed with delight when we hit 100mph. It was very fun!

[A special note to grandparents: The Bonneville Salt Flats is a vast expanse of completely flat, hardened salt. You can’t even see where it ends due to the curvature of the earth. There were no other people, cars or objects of any kind anywhere in the area. We drove our couple-mile stretch — a straight line — twice at more reasonable speeds just to make sure it was ok. Only then did I unleash the 4-cylinder fury of the Scion xB.]

We were going to boondock in a truckstop parking lot tonight, but we decided to “splurge” on slightly nicer accommodations of a KOA in West Wendover, NV.

Tomorrow we’ll head to Salt Lake City and settle there for the week.

It’s time for another tag-team blog post. Amy’s green; I’m blue.

JON: So, before we left Winslow last week, we did the obligatory stop at “the corner.”
AMY: Yes, we needed to stop here since we had the Eagles stuck in our heads. The city did a nice job marketing this corner.
JON: The flatbed Ford was a nice touch. Other than this corner though, Winslow was a letdown.
AMY: I didn’t think it was a letdown. I guess I didn’t expect that much from Winslow.

JON: On Wednesday we stopped at the big meteor crater between Winslow and Flagstaff. I first saw this when I was in high school, and I remember thinking it was really cool (and it is), but it didn’t “wow” me like it did that first time.
AMY: Even with all of your hype, I was still impressed. The museum was also a nice overview of meteors and outer space.
JON: Here’s a 180-degree view. (Click the photo for a larger version.)

AMY: I was very excited to get to the Grand Canyon on Thursday.
JON: Me too. We got to the south rim just in time to see the sun set, which was cool, but I was disappointed by all of the people there. The whole place felt like an amusement park.
AMY: We knew it was going to be like that though.

AMY: The long paved trails were calling me to a sunrise morning run. There was a small crowd at the popular viewing point but the majority of the miles was just me and the canyon.
JON: Nice morning lighting!
AMY: This might be one of my favorite runs of this trip.

AMY: We were only able to get one night at the south rim campground, and I wanted to visit the geology museum before we moved on. Good exhibits, but more crowds.
JON: I was thrilled that the crowds thinned out as we got away from the visitor’s center. I was afraid that every single overlook was going to have tons of people and those dumb fences.

JON: Here’s a 180 degree view from the south rim. (Click the image for a larger version.)

AMY: One of the more interesting exhibits was an outdoor timeline with rock specimens from each of the layers of the canyon.
JON: I loved this. I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that the bottom layer of the canyon — which you can see and touch —  is 1.8 billion years old.

AMY: We stopped in a visitor’s center and recognized this ranger from Joshua Tree. We remembered his great stories about the wildlife there, and he had equally entertaining stories about some of the Grand Canyon wildlife.
JON: He clearly loves what he does. These park ranges are so happy.

AMY: One of the nice things about Grand Canyon was that we were able to walk for a long way without having to worry about walking back.
JON: I hadn’t thought about it like that, but you’re right, those shuttles were nice.

JON: The parking lots were so crowded that we had to improvise a parking spot, apparently provoking the ire of the park rangers. We found this “love note” upon returning to the RV.
AMY: I’d love to see them try to tow us!

AMY: We decided to head to the north rim, which gets only 10% of the Grand Canyon visitors.
JON: I think it’s crazy that it’s only 10 miles from the south rim to the north rim as the crow flies, but over 200 miles to drive!

JON: Carrie and I signed up for an afternoon of mule-riding in the canyon.

JON: Carrie started taking horse riding lessons when she was 5, so she was right at home.

JON: It was a great way to experience Grand Canyon (though it was harder on my butt than I anticipated.)
AMY: Em, Nat and I hiked the same trail, but due to the dust and mule manure it was not a very pleasant hike.

AMY: This mule ride was one of the few things Carrie has asked to do on this trip. I’m really glad she got to do it.
JON: Yeah it was fun to do something special like this with her.

JON: There wasn’t an ounce of B.S. in our guide, Kitty. We liked her!

JON: We even got cheesy diplomas certifying us as official “Grand Canyon Master Muleteers.”

AMY: After a full day of mule rides and hiking, we took a scenic drive to end the day. Here we are at Point Imperial, the highest point in the park at 8800 feet.

JON: It was quite a view. Click the image below for a larger 180-degree panorama:

AMY: This stop turned out to be a great place for a dinner picnic:

AMY: This is another stop on our scenic drive called Cliff Springs. This short hike turned out to be the “up close” hike into the canyon I had been hoping for all day.

JON: This was the last stop, Cape Royal, known to be a good sunset spot.
AMY: It also offered a 250-degree view of the canyon that I was eager to see.

JON: You shot this photo of Natalie; I love the lighting.
AMY: I have come to love our sunset-watching hikes. They are good times to sit and enjoy the girls.

JON: This was what I hoped the Grand Canyon would be: smaller crowds and amazing views. I’m glad we found these spots. Of course, we had to hop the fence to get to this point.

AMY: Happy Father’s Day! The girls and I enjoyed making you your favorite breakfast.
JON: It was great, eating a delicious breakfast with my family. I say this every year, but I swear I feel like every day is Father’s Day. 🙂 

JON: My Father’s Day presents were perfect: A box of Cap’n Crunch, a box of Little Debbie Nutty Bars, a pouch of Big League Chew, and a portion of Natalie’s half-eaten carrot cake that I had been teasing her about sharing with me. 🙂

AMY: We drove just 80 miles on Sunday to Mount Carmel Junction, Utah to be near Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks.

JON: The internet has been a real challenge here, but it’s otherwise a quaint little corner of Utah. I love the neon signs across the street.

AMY: This week I’m looking forward to seeing Zion and Bryce, two more great National Parks to experience (I dream about being a park ranger!) I hope to see as many as we can before we start heading home. 
JON: “Home” is where we park it! It’s hard to believe we only have a few weeks left. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Bonneville Salt Flats at the end of the week…I think that’s the last “must see” place for me, at least for this trip.

This was sort of a climactic week for me, as I have been looking forward to Utah since the early days of planning this trip. Even with the bar set high, Utah did not disappoint and at times flat out assaulted me with its unbridled beauty.

Our campground was about 10 miles north of Moab, and offered a spectacular “Utah” view:

There was this cool old church building nearby:

…and a Western kitschiness that I found rather charming:

After dinner on Tuesday, we took a hike in Arches National Park to see the famous Delicate Arch.

This improbable geological wonder was magnificent. I loved being there and seeing something I had previously only seen on postcards. I also loved that this was simply something we did on a Tuesday after dinner.

There’s a lot to see in Arches National Park, so we went back on Wednesday to hike some different trails.

This is Landscape Arch, the longest natural arch in the world at 290 feet. It just doesn’t seem possible (and indeed, it’s only a matter of time before erosion and gravity prevail):

The Double O arch at the end of our Wednesday hike:

The sun was setting fast, and we still had a good 2 miles to go before we’d get back to the car:

Emily was not very happy to still be hiking at dark:

On Thursday we hiked around Island In The Sky, one of the areas of Canyonlands National Park:

These overlooks make one understand how Island In The Sky got its name. It’s like a view from an airplane:

Our dinner with a view:

More hiking and amazing overlooks:

This is me after taking a little 1.5 mile trail-running experiment. It about killed me. I blame the thin air and not the fact that I’ve not exercised for 3 months.

We ended the day with a stop at an overlook at Dead Horse State Park:

On Friday we hit The Needles area of Canyonlands, which is 65 miles south of Island in the Sky:

I didn’t think Friday’s hike was quite as spectacular as the previous nights’ hikes, but it was still a beautiful walk, lovely weather, an we practically had the whole place to ourselves.

That night we boondocked at a BLM campground called Windwhistle, just north of the The Needles where we hiked that day. There was no light pollution anywhere; the sky was filled with stars.

Click the image here for a larger 180-degree view of the sky that night (this was done using 30-second exposures):

On Saturday, we headed for Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. Ever since playing Red Dead Redemption back when we were just planning this trip, I have dreamed of seeing this place. I was so excited to finally be there!

This is Felix, our awesome Navajo guide who took us on a 2.5 hour Jeep tour of the park and backcountry:

This girls were initially apprehensive about riding around with a stranger…

…but they warmed right up when they realized they could stick their heads out while we drove around:

I should have arranged my girls to mirror the respective heights of the 3 sisters rock formation off in the distance. Oh well.

Our guide Felix grew up on these lands; he took us to all of his favorite spots:

Felix showing us some ancient petroglyphs:

…and more caves and arches:

Here’s a 180-degree panorama from the end of our tour (click for a larger version). It was amazing.

Know what else is amazing? Jeeps. We want one now. (Seriously, the “roads” that Felix took us down would have been impassable in a regular car, but his Wrangler handled them with ease.)

After dinner that evening, we took a hike around one of the “mittens” (the one on the left):

Our hike took a little longer than expected; I had to hustle back in time to snap another panaroma before the sun got too low. Click the image for a larger view:

Amy and girls caught up with me a few minutes later and we watched the sun set on Monument Valley. For me this was a high point of the day and of this entire trip:

We boondocked last night in the Monument Valley parking lot:

It was chilly and windy this morning (note the dust blowing off in the distance), but Amy and I got up early to watch the sun rise:

During the day, this little hut is bustling with Navajo booking their horseback riding tours. I just liked how serene it looked in the morning light:

We left early this morning and headed a couple hours south to Canyon de Chelly, one of the longest continuously inhabited areas in this region. Currently, the Navajos live and farm on the canyon floor.

It was a beautiful place and a great hike, but it’s also the setting of a sad story of most of the Navajo being forcibly removed in the 1860’s.

This afternoon we arrived at Homolovi Ruins State Park, standing on the corner of Winslow Arizona (ohh I’ve just been dying to use that line!) Contrary to what I’ve been told my whole life, it’s not really such a fine sight to see. The town is small and forgettable, and this state park is smack dab in the middle of nothingness. I would do another panorama, but it’s literally this in all directions:

The sunset was nice though. We’ve not yet decided how long we’ll stay in Winslow, but we’re not leaving until we see that huge meteor crater.

This past week was pretty action-packed — our hikes totalled over 20 miles! — so I think everyone is ready for a little rest. It’ll be a temporary break though, as we’ll be hiking at the Grand Canyon by week’s end.

Monday morning was Memorial Day, and the running of the Bolder Boulder 10k for Amy, my Uncle Walter and about 50,000 other people. It was a beautiful day in Boulder, CO:

I waited at the finish line hoping to snap a photo of Amy dashing by, but never saw her. When I caught up with her in the stands shortly after she finished, it didn’t look like she had even broken a sweat:

Amy ran in honor of my dad and the others we know who have served in our military:

Amy and my Uncle Walter after the race:

A couple hours later, we went back to a full stadium to watch the elite runners finish (they started much later than the rest of the crowd) and a short Memorial Day ceremony. There was supposed to be sky divers from each branch of the military landing on the field, but they had to scrap that due to high winds. Bummer.

A picnic on the lawn outside my Uncle Walter and Aunt Sue’s hotel:

That evening we went to a place called Larkburger in Boulder, which had one of THE BEST burgers I’ve ever had:

Good shakes too:

Tuesday morning, my Mac went on the fritz again; this time it was the hard drive. I don’t know why I’ve had such a run of bad luck lately, but my GOOD luck is that I’ve been in places where a Mac repair person has been just down the road. Rick at Macintosh Computer Itech was able to salvage all of my precious data and get me back up and running by the end of the day. Thank you Rick!!!

That evening, we took a stroll with our campground neighbors Shawna and Matthew into downtown Golden. There was some crazy bicycle event going on:

Nice sunset over a nearby hill:

We ended our walk with some frozen yogurt:

As I mentioned last week, Shawna was one of my girls’ first (and favorite) babysitters from when they were little, so they really enjoyed spending time with her in her RV. Plus, she and Matthew have a cat:

…and a PlayStation 3:

More girl stuff at Shawna’s:

During a mid-week shopping trip, Carrie got her ears double-pierced. It looks great on her!

We intended to go on a hike with Matthew and Shawna on Thursday, but it got too late. Instead, we strolled around the fairgrounds and visited the horses:

Friday, however, we did do our hike up South Table Mountain, which is sort of the icon of Golden:

It was more of a walk than a hike, but it provided a spectacular view of Golden. We got there just in time to watch the sun set:

That’s the Coor’s plant down below. I wanted to take a tour (and try some free Coor’s) but we couldn’t fit it in to our plans for the week. *Sigh*…we can feel the time running out for this trip.

I found a nice and quite spot to work just down the road from our campground: Red Rocks Community College.

The peace and quiet was wonderful, but the stupid-fast internet was even better. To put this in perspective, I need about .5 Mbps to do my work. I’m really happy when I have 1 to 3 Mbps. It’s a luxury when I get 6 or 7 Mbps in a 4G area. This was almost 60 Mbps. I’ll still be talking about that place to my grandkids.

Saturday, we drove up to Rocky Mountains National Park. As expected, there were in fact many beautiful rocky mountains:

The weather was a little flakey though. It thundered and rained during lunch, so we had a picnic in the car. (Natalie doesn’t like thunder.)

The rain stopped after lunch and we did some climbing:

Future river rocks, just waiting for their year to tumble down into the water:

A park ranger had a monocular sighted on a big-horned sheep grazing on a nearby mountain side:

I loved this place, but it was crowded. We’re not really used to that, but we figure we should expect to encounter more crowds now that schools are letting out.

Amy wanted to see how it would be running at 12,000 feet. She seemed unaffected, at least with a short distance.

This was the highest point that the road would take us: 12,183 ft.

Click on the image for a larger 180-degree panorama:

Snow!…

Even with the ominous clouds, the Rocky Mountains were simply breathtaking:

Saw a marmot too:

Amy is making an effort to get me in more photos, so here you go:

We had passed several elk off in a field or up in the woods, but this guy was hanging out right on the side of the road:

Our final hike for the day got rained out. Only Amy and Em were brave enough to handle it; the rest of us stayed dry in the car.

This morning we hit the road but didn’t get very far before we had to cool our heels. Literally…the brakes were smelling bad after a long decent from the mountains.

It turns out that our supplemental brakes (the contraption that presses the brake pedal in the car when it feels the RV stopping) wasn’t working. Not good. Here I am trying to do some troubleshooting:

I got it working again, and after letting the RV brakes cool for about an hour, we hit the road. However, just a few miles down the road, the supplemental brakes were failing again. I was not about to tow a car down another mountain without the car being able to help us stop.

We pulled off, disconnected, and Amy and Em drove the Scion separately:

Good thing, because it was more of this for miles. It would have been smelly brakes all over again:

Emily took this photo from the Scion as they drove behind the RV. I like this because it shows a part of Colorado that I didn’t have an opportunity to photograph. It was a beautiful drive with the roads winding through the mountains, and even a quaint tunnel or two. I also like this photo because it’s the only one we have of the RV lumbering down the road:

We wanted to get to Moab, Utah, but we’re going to have to Walmart it tonight in Grand Junction, CO. We need to get our supplemental brake fixed before we do any more traveling, because driving separately is a real bummer.

It’s hot here. Hard to believe just yesterday we were playing in the snow.

[UPDATE 6/4/2012: Turns out the brake malfunction was simply due to the thin air of the Rocky Mountains. It’s working fine now. That’s great news that nothing is wrong with our unit. Or is that bad news that it doesn’t work where we needed it the most…in the Rocky Mountains?!?]

Early in the week, our friends Steve and Tawn and their kids Clay and Ruby joined us for dinner in the RV. They, too, are on a bit of adventure, having moved from Indy for a two year teaching stint at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. This is the family that kindly secured us a camping spot on the base.

Amy and the girls got to see more of the base than I did. One of their stops was at the Cadet Chapel, known for its really cool architecture:

Aware of Emily’s interest in airplanes and space, Steve was kind enough to give Amy and the girls a tour of the aeronautics and astronautics labs at the Air Force Academy.

On Tuesday night, Amy and I got a rare evening out: Steve and Tawn invited our girls over for a pizza dinner and game night while Amy and I did a dinner hike at Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs.

I took Wednesday off, and we all gussied up as best we could for the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony. The girls were really excited about having a reason to dress up:

With the President in town for this event, security was tight:

Scanning the crowd for mischief-makers:

The Secret Service kept watchful eyes on the crowd as well:

The soon-to-be-graduated class of Air Force cadets:

After all of the cadets were seated and a few other dignitaries were introduced, the President made his grand entrance:

The Air Force Academy gets a presidential visit for a graduation once every 4 years, so it was fortuitous timing that this coincided with us being in Colorado to see it.

More Secret Service, and SUVs ready to whisk the president away should any trouble break out:

There were over 1,000 cadets graduating this day – it took a couple hours to get through the list of names. The President saluted and shook hands with every single one of them.

One of the USAFA graduation traditions is to let children onto the field to catch the cadets’ hats after they throw them in the air. There was supposed to be $20.12 secured inside each hat for the kids to keep (as well as the hat.)

After baking in the sun for a couple hours, some sweet, sweet cloud cover rolled in:

In a show of precise timing, right as the class of 2012 was officially dismissed, the Thunderbird F-16s roared over the stadium:

…and hat’s were thrown in the air:

…and there was much rejoicing:

With the ceremony over, the President began to work the crowd on the field:

…and after a while made his exit:

I’ve read that the President’s limo is so weighed down from bomb- and bullet-proof materials that it only gets about 8 miles-per-gallon. I know the feeling, Mr. President…I know the feeling.

Emily and Natalie with the hats they caught (and they each had $20!)

After the graduation ceremony, the Thunderbirds put on a pretty cool air show:

As if there hadn’t been enough excitement from watching an Air Force Academy graduation, seeing the President of the United States, and watching the Thunderbirds do aerial acrobatics in their fighter jets, Emily’s loose tooth fell out from eating popcorn:

At the end of the afternoon, we visited the Olympic training center, also in Colorado Springs:

We saw the facilities for gymnastics, volleyball, shooting, wrestling and swimming.

It was a quick but interesting view into the rigorous lifestyle of Olympic hopefuls, especially considering the summer Olympics start in a couple months.

We ended the day with a fantastic dinner and wonderful company at Steve and Tawn’s house. We are so appreciative of them for an exciting week and truly one of the highlights of this trip.

We left Colorado Springs on Thursday and headed toward Boulder for Amy’s “Bolder Boulder” 10k race on Monday.

Apparently, Boulder does not welcome us RV folk — there are no RV parks to be found in the entire city. (This is the first major city in America we’ve found that does not have RV parks.) The best we could do was a fairgrounds RV park in Golden, CO, about 45 minutes from Boulder. Oh well.

On Thursday night we drove to Boulder to meet my Uncle Walter and Aunt Sue, who flew in from Florida the night before. Like the half marathon in Santa Barbara, CA back in November, Walter will be running the race with Amy on Monday.

Staying at the fairgrounds here in Golden wasn’t completely random: it’s the current temporary home of our long-time friend and former babysitter Shawna and her husband Matthew. Shawna is a traveling nurse, so she and Matthew are living semi-nomadically in Colorado. It was pretty cool to meet up with them; their “house” is literally just a few spots away from ours right now. We had them over for dinner on Friday and we’ll be hanging out with them some more before we leave in a few days.

On Saturday, we drove back to Boulder to spend time with Walter and Sue. Amy was happy to troll through the Boulder Farmers’ market:

A particularly hard-working street musician:

Emily and Natalie were thrilled that Walter and Sue’s hotel had a nice pool:

We did a Sunday morning hike up some local hills that overlooked Denver:

My beautiful 12-year-old:

Walter and Sue joined us in the RV tonight for the traditional pre-race pasta dinner:

After dinner, Walter entertained us with stories about him and my dad growing up. Some of them I had heard, but many were new. It was good to hear stories and remember my dad.

Amy and Walter have an early morning tomorrow for their race, so she will be going back with Walter and Sue to stay the night at their hotel.

The girls and I will need to leave the RV around 6:30am to see Amy finish around 7:45. These races are always pretty crazy, and with over 50,000 runners (no, that’s not a typo), I expect nothing less from the Bolder Boulder. But it’s also pretty exciting, and Amy loves her races. So, go Amy go! 🙂

Our stay in Santa Fe was another great week in New Mexico (we really, really like New Mexico!) On Tuesday, we did a little bit of walking and sight-seeing around town:

We saw the Loretto Chapel and it’s “miraculous staircase” — a spiral staircase without any obvious support. I was expecting something a wee bit more miraculous, but ok, nice stairs:

Nearby was the oldest church in the U.S., built in 1610:

…and the oldest house, built in 1640:

We had heard a lot about the food here, so we did a rare dinner out to try some New Mexican cuisine. I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to spicy food, but it was still quite delicious.

On Wednesday afternoon, a bunch of girls and their horses descended upon the quiet rodeo fairgrounds where we were camping. It was some sort of girls’ horse club, which understandably stirred up some horse-envy with Carrie.

Watching these girls practice their barrel racing turned out to be some nice family entertainment:

Amy took a cooking class on Thursday morning…I’ll let her tell you about that:

Amy: “I had seen an advertisement for this local cooking school in a tourist guide. I was immediately excited about the opportunity to attend a class that taught southwestern cooking.”

“I decided on a class called ‘Chile Amor!’ The New Mexican chile is the state vegetable and I had heard about the legendary Hatch (NM) Chiles, so I was intrigued. The rest of the family doesn’t like spicy food so I was hoping to learn to prepare this infamous vegetable in a way that my family would like. It was a fantastic class! I learned how to prepare three different chile sauces (all mild) and homemade corn tortillas. I spent the rest of the week finding the local ingredients and I am eager to prepare this for the family.”

As I mentioned last week, my laptop was on the fritz, but Fred here at Computer Medics in Santa Fe really helped me out. He rented me a loaner (and put my hard drive in it) so I had everything I needed to get in a good workweek. My laptop was shipped to Apple for repairs, and I got it back by the end of the week. All is right with the world again.

The design software that I use for my work recently had a major upgrade (Adobe CS6 Suite…yum), so I was really eager to download that. It was several gigs worth of data which would have put us way over our monthly limit, so we went to the library to use their internet. Connectivity issues aside, libraries offer a nice change of work environment and I always get a ton of stuff done there.

On Friday, we took a side trip to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument for a picnic dinner:

Afterwards, we took a quick hike (more of a walk, really).

These rocks are made of layers of ash that came from surrounding volcanic eruptions several million years ago. They take on the cone- or tent-shape when the ash-rock erodes underneath a harder “cap” rock. It was cool, but I wish we could have stayed longer. They hustled us out at 6:30.

As I predicted, the girls spent a lot of time outside visiting the boarded animals at the rodeo fairgrounds where we were staying. They named this horse Kitty (his real name turned out to be Leroy):

This cow woke me up every morning with her incessant mooing, which wasn’t a bad thing I guess:

Part of Amy’s search for chile sauce ingredients took her to the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning. She said it was an impressive spread of local vegetables, herbs, honey, flowers, baked goods and handmade items that is open year-round.

The girls and I stayed back, slept in and then played on the rodeo equipment:

We left Santa Fe late Saturday morning and headed back towards Taos. Along the way, we stopped at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, NM. I was expecting a quaint, quiet museum, but it’s really a conference/retreat center which was sort of busy.

Just up the road, however, were some cool red rocks that we stopped at and climbed on a bit:

We met up with John and Sue — long-time friends of Amy’s parents — who live just outside of Taos. We camped in their driveway on Saturday night.

They live off of a dirt road in a pretty remote area, so their view is quite spectacular:

We had a great time eating dinner, learning more about their travels (they traveled full time for seven years), and learning more about beautiful New Mexico.

The girls enjoyed the hot tub outside:

I regret not having a picture to go with this, but I woke up about 3am and realized I had forgotten to turn off the supplemental breaks in the car. I didn’t want the car battery to drain, so I got up and went outside to shut it off.

Cloudless sky. Zero moonlight. No light pollution to speak of (there were just a few tiny lights way off in the distance.) Yet I could see my surroundings perfectly thanks to the collective light from a zillion stars.

I thought I had seen starry skies and the Milky Way on this trip already, but not like in middle-of-nowhere New Mexico. It was unforgettable.

The next morning we went to a nearby local favorite hiking spot in Carson National Forest:

It was a great climb and a great view. I particularly loved the constant smell of pinyon pine in the crisp air.

I stitched together a 360 degree panorama. Click the image for a bigger version:

We had such a great time with John and Sue, and we are grateful for their hospitality. This certainly won’t be our last trip to New Mexico, so we look forward to our next visit with them.

We spent most of the afternoon making our way back to Colorado.

We’re now staying at really nice campground on base at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs:

Some friends from Indianapolis moved out here last year to take a teaching position at the USAFA, and they kindly invited us to attend the Air Force graduation ceremony on Wednesday (and they got us this sweet camping spot too!) The President is going to be there, jets will fly over, etc…it’s sort of a big deal.

We’re all very excited to see the pomp and circumstance surrounding an Air Force graduation. Some pilots were doing some training exercises this morning; fighter jets were screaming over and around our campground. The ground was shaking. It was awesome!

I’m pretty late on getting this post out, but I had some technical difficulties: my Mac fried, and it took me a couple days to snag a loaner. More on that next week.

As for last week, we really enjoyed our stay at the National Forest campground in Colorado. We would visit this overlook many times during the week, as it was just a 2-minute walk from our camp spot:

On Monday, Amy and the girls took a field trip to the Anasazi Heritage Center, which is a museum that illustrates the native cultures of the Four Corners region. Amy said it was one of the best little museums she and the girls have been to, and it’s all stuff relevant to a book they are reading for school right now.

Midweek, we took a side trip to Lowry Pueblos near Cortez, Colorado. These were built around 1060 AD, so pretty old:

It was a typical school and work week otherwise:

Another trip to the overlook to watch the sun set (that’s Mesa Verde off in the distance):

Friday morning, Amy, Em, and Nat attended an event held by Cortez’s Annual Birding Festival. (Not interested in birds, Carrie stayed back at the RV to work on a separate school project.)

They of course did some bird watching:

…and then made bird feeders:

Saturday morning we broke camp and headed to Mesa Verde National Park:

Wild horses, just running across the road:

We had an excellent ranger-led tour of the ruins of Mesa Verde. Our guide was an exceptional storyteller who wove archeology and anthropology into our thought-provoking tour:

This site was called “Balcony House.” It was a smaller site, but also a smaller group which was nice:

These ruins date from about 700 years ago:

We saw the main site, “Cliff Palace,” from a distance during a short walk after our tour. Interesting side note: Mesa Verde is the only National Park that exists to preserve the works of humans.

There was a wild fire 10 years ago that took out a big chunk of the trees and vegetation. They say it will take a couple hundred years for everything to grow back.

It was pretty cloudy when we were there, but on a clear day you can see mountains 90 miles away. This point is above 8500 feet:

One of the more exotic sights of the Southwest: rain!

The Scion continues to be quite a trooper, despite the dented face full of mud and bugs:

On Mother’s Day, everyone got up early to make a killer breakfast while Amy was out running:

We had camped in the Rio Grande gorge the night before and got an interesting view after driving out of it. It looks like a big crack in the earth:

We stopped at the Taos Pueblo on Sunday afternoon:

This pueblo has been continuously inhabited by the native Red Willow people for over 1000 years.

We bought some bread from one of the local shops:

At another local shop with Esther, the owner. She, like most of the others here, has lived in this pueblo her entire life without any electricity or running water.

I was surprised to learn that the walls of these buildings are literally just mud and straw (I figured there was some sort of a curing process to make it weather resistant.) Esther explained that the reason these buildings are still standing is because they’ve been maintained by their inhabitants for 1000 years. Every September, they just pack on whatever mud the 50 days of rain per year have washed away. Amazing.

I was intrigued by their cemetery full of crosses. Esther explained that their beliefs are sort of a mash-up of their original native beliefs and the Catholicism that was “forced upon” them by the first Spanish explorers 500 years ago.

After leaving the pueblo, we stopped at Taos Cow for some all-natural ice cream:

This was just a cool overlook off of a bridge that crossed the Rio Grande. It’s a beautiful gorge and river, the only down side being you get that Duran Duran song stuck in your head.

And then we came to the Earthships of Taos, NM. This gets added to my list of favorite places.

These so-called earthships are homes made out of natural and recycled materials.

Solar and wind power, solar heating, and rain-water collection systems are just a few of the things that allow these homes to operate sustainably completely off-grid. It’s basically the RV lifestyle, but applied to a home. It was unanimous: we want one, and are going to explore this option for our next house.

Tires, cans and bottles are used as filler material when creating the cement walls:

Just think: turning this…

…into this:

This was just a cool old truck that was sitting on the premises:

We made our way to Santa Fe for the week. We intended to stay up in the mountains at a remote state park, but the internet was non-existant. So, we’re staying at a mostly vacant rodeo fairgrounds on the outskirts of town:

Not as scenic as the mountains, but I have GREAT internet. And with horses and cows right outside our RV, the girls are getting plenty of fresh air.