Springerville and Home

Thursday 11/1/12

On the  home stretch at last. One more Madonna to collect in Springerville AZ and then the drive home on US-60. One of the prettiest stretches of road in Arizona. I’m again slightly retracing my steps. I had stayed at Lyman Lake State Park just north of Springerville in May 2005 and had certainly been in town a couple of times at least. But once again, I don’t remember noticing the statue. I guess if it’s not on your radar…

Madonna of the Trail – Springerville AZ

 

And then we were home. Farewell Guy, it was a pleasure to meet you and spend a little time with you.

Guy saluting us in Ann & Tony’s, West Jefferson OH

 

344 mi, 7:06 hrs total, 5:35 hrs moving

[written 12/18/13]

Junkrassic Find

Wednesday 10/31/12

Garden City is in western Kansas so it wasn’t too long before we came to Lamar CO and our 6th Madonna. The “Big Timbers” mentioned in the inscription is for the large groves of cottonwoods growing along the Arkansas River here – a welcome sight after the hot dusty trail from Council Grove.

Madonna of the Trail – Lamar CO

 

Another find in Lamar is the petrified wood (former) gas station. According to Roadside America, it’s now an office, but I think that info’s obsolete. It doesn’t looked used to me. I do hope the building doesn’t get torn down – it’s very representative of a certain mind set in our exuberant it’s-mine-by-divine-right past.

Petrified wood gas station

“Built by W. G. Brown 1933”

Our next planned stop was in nearby La Junta CO. When looking at the Roadside America offerings, who could resist a name like “Junkrassic Park”? “Since 1990, retired farmer Johnnie Allen has been welding huge sculptures made from cast off farm implement metal.” – roadsideamerica.com. Our GPS took us in a fairly round about way (we had it set to avoid dirt roads and I guess it didn’t know they were paved) and there it was. It’s quite amazing to wander around and figure out the puns.

After a lunch stop in La Junta, we headed south to Albuquerque and our last Madonna of the day. Unfortunately the park was undergoing some significant renovations and this was all we could get.

Madonna of the Trail – Albuquerque NM

We didn’t want to stop in Albuquerque for the night so pushed on to Grants NM. We didn’t figure on how bad the rush hour traffic was going to be, however, and didn’t pull into the hotel until ~8pm local time. Maybe ~7ish body time? A bit later than I normally like to eat supper, but I did want some real food. So we took a suggestion from the list the hotel supplied and went up I-40 one exit to Milan and the Wow Diner. All I can say is Wow!. It was truly excellent food.

613 mi, 12:25 hrs total, 9:27 hrs moving

[written 12/18/13]

A long day but finally out of Sandy

Tuesday 10/30/12

It was a bright but very windy and chilly morning. I had scouted out a few Roadside America sights to add to our Madonna goals and one of them was here in Vandalia – the Kaskaskia Dragon. It’s rigged up with a propane tank and upon insertion of a token will breathe fire. Tokens are available at the liquor store across the street. It was too windy for us so we didn’t even check if the store was open yet. Oh, the dragon was built in 1995 and named after the hardware store the builder owned.

Kaskaskia Dragon

Then it was on to our third Madonna. She marks the western terminus of the National Road.

Vandalia IL Madonna of the Trail

The next Madonna was in Lexington KS, a bit east of Kansas City. On our way there, we stopped at a rest area just west of the Mississippi and realized that we had at last escaped Sandy. The wind was just a breeze and it was warm enough to take the jackets off. Ahhhh.

Lexington is now a small town off the expressway but it wasn’t always that way. Prior to the Civil War it was the largest city in western Missouri and you can see the prosperity in some of the buildings. It would have been nice to have spent a little more time there looking around, but we had a long day planned and had to get moving.

Lexington MO Madonna of the Trail

 

Also at the Lexington site:

Another reminder that we live in a glass house

Ken wanted to stop and see the I-70 Speedway. He had remembered it as somewhere near Odessa, which was just south of Lexington. Smartphone to the rescue, I found that it was close to where we would be getting back onto I-70. So off we went. The track appeared to be defunct, but we got a “we were there” picture.

I-70 Speedway sign in Odessa MO

We negotiated Kansas City and turned southwest at Topeka. Our next destination was Council Grove KS. I had been to Council Grove in April 2004 while waiting for my trailer to be repaired in Junction City. I had taken a day trip to the Tall Grass Prairie Reserve and had visited the Kaw Mission in Council Grove on my way back. I remember driving over to the reservoir NE of town so I must have passed the Madonna then, but I don’t remember noticing her.

Council Grove KS Madonna of the Trail

Nearby the Madonna was a strange looking object so we walked over to see what it was. It’s the remnants of the “Post Office Oak” and its protective canopy.

“From 1825 to 1847 a cache at the foot of this tree served as a post office
for incoming and outgoing wagon trains”

Supper was in McPherson at Bruno’s Wood Fired Pizza, an accidental but excellent choice. We pushed on to Garden City where we stopped for the night at ~10pm local time. I don’t know what body time we were on at that point. We would have stopped earlier, but, off the expressway, this part of Kansas didn’t offer much.

739 mi, 13:22 hrs total, 11:27 hrs moving

[written 12/16/13]

Racing Hurricane Sandy

Sunday 10/27/12

Guy’s estate taken care of and family visits made, we left Springfield this morning and headed north toward Lansing MI. On the way up we stopped at my younger brother’s in Parma MI. Ken watched NASCAR with my SIL and I went out to the pole barn with my brother and we yakked up a storm.

After the race, we headed into Jackson for some supper. Unfortunately we sorta forgot it was Sunday. Apparently all the nicer restaurants in Jackson are closed Sundays. Shades of our 4th of July visit. So we ended up at the Hunt Club, a bar/restaurant with solid mid-western food. Decent, but we wanted to treat them to something fancier. Oh well.

My original idea was to stay in Lansing for two or three days giving me leisurely time to sort through my belongings still there and decide what to take back in this load. Hurricane Sandy changed our minds, however. The outskirts were reaching all the way to the Midwest plus a cold weather bubble was dropping down out of Canada. Snow was predicted for tomorrow evening and we wanted nothing to do with it. So I quickly went through the house, grabbed some of the more obvious stuff without giving too much thought to it, and piled it in the living room.

I also did a couple of loads of laundry. Might as well, the machines are just setting there.

Monday 10/29/12

The morning dawned fair but breezy. We showered, breakfasted, I gathered some more stuff, and we packed the car. My sister drove in from Grand Rapids early and we had lunch together. I was glad that I wasn’t going to miss her. Older brother would have to wait until next year; he lives too far away for a quickie visit.

After lunch she headed off to work and we headed toward Vandalia IL – home to another Madonna statue. We had two roughly equidistant route possibilities – one through Gary IN and the other through Indianapolis. Hating that mess around Gary/Chicago, we opted for Indianapolis. That turned out to be a mistake, however, as we hit Indianapolis at evening rush hour. In a very windy and cold rain. Plus there was construction on I-70 southwest of Indianapolis. Did I say the traffic was heavy? Anyway, we got to our hotel after dark. We’ll the Madonna tomorrow morning on our way out.

442 mi, 8:31 hrs total, 6:44 hrs moving

[written 12/14/13]

Down Memory Lane

Friday 10/26/12

It has been a busy several days, but everything we could do has been done. Aside from the physical labor of going through everything to ensure that there were no hidden envelopes (found one) and packing up the books we were going to take, the bulk of the labor was deciding what might be junk, what might be personal family effects, and just generally helping the executor as much as and however she wished. One thing Ken was able to do was contact the appropriate people in the Amateur Press Association and help them load up the club’s stuff that Guy was storing. When Guy’s camera and computer finally came, I checked his email addresses to make sure we hadn’t missed contacting any group and copied his photos to my hard drive for Ken to look at later. We had already scattered Guy’s ashes where he had scattered his wife’s several years earlier.

So today we went sightseeing down towards Cincinnati. If you don’t count a drive-by on I-75 in 1993, I hadn’t been back there since leaving in 1982. First up was my ex’s and my first house. The area was almost unrecognizably changed. The Voice of America antenna farm across the street was gone and it looked like a pricey sub-division was going in. Our house had been altered quite a bit and was for sale. Going to the listing gave me the opportunity to see the mods done on the inside, too.

Then it was over to the apartment complexes Ken had lived in at that time. I remembered the first one, but drew a total blank on the second. The area was looking pretty run down now – I don’t remember it being that way in the late ‘70s.

Lunch at the Century Inn. I had never eaten there (didn’t eat out much at the time) but it has been in business since 1806. Surprisingly (or not) Ken ran into somebody he knew.

From there we went to the GE plant we both worked in and drove around the parking lots. Quite a change from our time; it was practically empty.

Finally we headed down to Union Terminal. Naturally we had to park some distance away since the day had turned cold, blustery, and rainy. Inside was quite pleasant tho. Union Terminal is now a museum complex. We bought the combo ticket and arbitrarily chose to go first to the Natural History Museum. It was very good but the Cincinnati History Museum was even more interesting to us. Alas, we had to skip much of it since we were running out of time. We had dinner plans and needed to get back.

So back out into the even heavier and colder downpour and into the I-75 rush hour traffic. It was really slow going all the way back.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I didn’t think to take my camera out. After all, how do you photograph a memory?

[written 12/12/13]

Back to Ohio

Sunday 10/21/12

On September 15^th Guy Miller passed away at 86 in Jackson WY while on a AAA trip of western National Parks. Ken had talked to him the night before and he was having a ball. Hats off to you, Guy, doing what you loved right to the end.

Since Ken had spent a lot of time in Guy’s company in the last few years, he offered his assistance to Guy’s executor – who gratefully accepted it. It took forever (or seemed to) to get Guy’s ashes and personal effects sent back to Springfield, but, finally, they were.

So it’s another road trip to Ohio. We took the car instead of flying since we’ll be bringing some of Guy’s books back and we’ll be heading up to Lansing to pick up some more of my stuff. Since we’re so close…

Yesterday was just a brutal day on the road, pushing as far as we physically could take it. We had planned to stop for the night in Joplin MO, but couldn’t find a room. So we pushed on to Springfield MO, nope, and finally ended up in Marshfield MO. I suppose there might have been something earlier, but we wanted to stay close to the expressway.

Today we took off bright and early made good time heading east. Other than the usual stops requisite to fully functioning bodies, we made only one sightseeing stop. We collected the Madonna of the Trail in Richmond IN. It only involved a tiny detour, after all.

Madonna of the Trail, Richmond IN

 

Sat.: 1272 mi, 18:59 hrs total, 17:16 hrs moving – as I said, brutal
Sun: 571 mi, 9:20 hrs total, 8:11 hrs moving

[written 12/12/13]

Home Again For the First Time

Thursday 9/6/12

A few days ago Ken had gotten a call from the friend who was checking on the house. He had found some water in the garage and determined that the water heater was leaking. Ken was able to tell him where the shut off valves, circuit breaker, and drain hose were and Lenny is a handy person so a potential disaster was averted. Since the problem was taken care of, it shouldn’t have made any difference; but, it niggled at us. That, plus I (we?) was getting tired of being on the road. Extended travel from hotel to hotel is sure different than living in an RV.
So we’re heading back home. And for me, it’s the first time. Yes, I lived in that house last spring, but it really felt more like a long visit. Now the car’s trunk is filled with things I considered my core essentials – the items I felt defined me and mine. These will now go in the house and help make it feel like I belong there.

Sign on the hotel across the street from ours.
We both found it amusing

We got an early start and made it down to Kanab UT by early evening.

637 mi, 10:06 hrs total, 8:59 hrs moving

Friday 9/7/12

365 more miles on the road and we pulled into the driveway a little before noon. We had a quick bite to eat and Ken jumped in the pickup and headed off to Home Depot for a new water heater.  Lenny came over later and the two of them removed the old water heater and put the new one in. I’m glad we didn’t have to go without hot water for very long. In the meantime, I emptied the essentials out of the car and started setting things back up. We’re home.

365 mi, 5:37 hrs total, 5:11 hrs moving

[Written long after the fact – 12/9/13]

Yellowstone, Day 2

[This was the day that had me mentally stalled. Digital cameras are wonderful because they allow, nay, encourage you to take lots of photos to increase the chances of getting *just the right one*. However, that has its own price. When I finally forced myself to attack the day’s pictures, I whittled them down from well over 600 to *just* 234.]

What’s a first time visit to Yellowstone without seeing Old Faithful? Cliché, I know, but we’re tourists, after all. So I called about the expected eruption times for today – one was ~10:30am and the next was ~noon. We decided to be leisurely and aim for the noon-time eruption rather than rush for the earlier one.

So that’s what we did. On the drive down to Old Faithful, we took the Riverside Drive on the Madison river (rough and not that interesting), the Firehole Canyon Drive (nice), and stopped on Fountain Flat Drive to photograph a bison and hot spring.

Lone bison grazing by the Firehole River.
Not too exciting after the herds at Custer State Park

Hot spring by the Firehole River.
It looks so tempting, at least near the outflow

When we got down to the Old Faithful area, it was the expected zoo with people crawling all over the place. We took our turn and had our picture taken by the sign. Then wandered over to the benches by the geyser to wait. It wasn’t too long, maybe 20 minutes or so, and we got our picture.

Old Faithful. We were there.

Then back to the Lodge (which one?) for some so-so & pricey food and to plan the rest of the day. The walk around Geyser Basin was tempting to me but we decided to skip it due to time constraints. We had decided this would be our last day here and we were picking and choosing what to see. Long hikes to see a feature weren’t going to happen.

So we slowly drove back toward West Yellowstone, stopping at

Black Sand Basin: (hover mouse over to see captions)

Midway Geyser Basin:

Firehole Lake Drive:

White Dome geyser was very satisfactory.
We sat through several eruption cycles

Fountain Paint Pot:

We did coincide with a busload of people here, but managed to dawdle enough to finally shake them.

When we hit the intersection at Madison, we decided there was enough time and energy left for one more bit of sightseeing more. So we turned right and went to Gibbon Falls. The falls themselves were nice but not that impressive. The scenic overlook area, however, was beautiful. I don’t know when it was done, but it reminded me of the CCC construction I’ve seen in other places. Lovely stonework.

Gibbon Falls

The Gibbon River above the falls. You can see the smoke haze still in the air.

On our way out of the park, it was wildlife time. We saw a bunch of people pulled over by the Madison River so we stopped, too. That’s usually the best indicator of something to see. It turned out to be a small group of elk crossing the river. We then looked to our right and saw this big buck just sitting there.

He wasn’t easy to see at first

Young buck and two females had just crossed the river a little upstream from the big buck

Ten minutes down the road, this lone female was grazing peacefully
and didn’t care one bit about us

 

[written 12/9/13 – way too long afterwards]

Yellowstone via the Beartooth Highway

I have a cousin who lives in Bozeman MT and I debated whether or not to detour to see him (and subject Ken to yet another family visit). I finally decided it’s a shame to be so close and not stop by so I called Sunday and left a message. When we hadn’t heard back by last night, Ken went ahead and made reservations in West Yellowstone for tonight and tomorrow night – that was all we could find open by that time. It wasn’t until just before we went to bed I realized that Duh! this was Labor Day weekend and they probably were off someplace! So I quick shot him off an email telling him of our reservations. Unfortunately, I sent it from an email address that I don’t check on my phone (one of the hazards of multiple email addresses) and didn’t see his wife’s reply until too late. We were already committed to our new direction.

And that route took us on US-212 through Red Lodge, over the Beartooth Highway, and into the NE entrance of Yellowstone. What a wonderful drive. Serendipity occurred when we approached Joliet and saw some roadside junk art. It turns out that this was the Charles Ringer Studio & Gallery. Don’t know if there is an “inside” or not, but the stuff outside really tickled our funnybones.

The big guy was the one that caught our eye first. =>

Then, maybe twenty miles later as we drove through Red Lodge, we saw this guy. He must have had a good downhill run! Naturally, we just *had* to stop and take his picture.

Finally we were on the Beartooth Hwy. This was a gorgeous drive even though it could have been even more spectacular. As you can see from the picture, it was very hazy. This was mostly (all?) from various forest fires around the West. BTW, people with big rigs, I think you could make it over this road if you’re OK with the strain it would put on your engine and brakes. I don’t remember any particularly narrow areas or overhangs. And the rest areas even had parking spots painted for long vehicles. As a former 5th wheel owner, I’m still somewhat conscious of these things.

After a stop in Cooke City for an early lunch (Chili with onions, cheese, and crackers. Good, but I don’t remember the name of the place.) we made it to Yellowstone National Park. My first visit, but, naturally Ken had been there before.

Ken doesn’t seem too happy here

But I got him to smile on the way back to the car!

 

Tower Falls

From the entrance, we wended our way to Tower-Roosevelt keeping a not-so-eagle eye out for wildlife. We didn’t see any. At Tower-Roosevelt, we turned south; our next goal was Artist Point. But first there was Tower Falls. Actually, first there was a traffic jam. They were either clearing the road after a landslide or they were removing the side in preparation for some road construction. This road was scheduled to be closed Sept. 22.

Our car in line with the rest

Earthmoving equipment moving some earth

We reached Artist Point without any further incident and took our turn at the railing to get pictures of the Lower Yellowstone Falls. As you can see, it’s also very hazy here. Not the crisp clear picture Ken took in the past and has hanging in the living room. Of course, looking west in the afternoon doesn’t help. The afternoon lighting did give a nice glow, however, to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone when I turned around and took a panorama picture in the opposite direction.

From Artist Point, we turned around and did the rest of the South and North Rim drives. Naturally stopping at each pullout. It was still pretty crowded so we were lucky to get parking spots and needed to elbow our way through (politely!) to get to the prime spots.

At the Brink of the Upper Falls, Ken climbed up on these rocks to get a better view/picture of the Upper Yellowstone Falls. He wanted me to take a picture of him up there to commemorate the feat.
When we finished with the various Yellowstone River falls, we headed on over to Norris Basin to finish off the daylight before leaving for West Yellowstone and our hotel. This would be my first view of Yellowstone’s thermal features.

The path down into Norris Basin

Porcelain Springs – not very active

Actually, it was pretty disappointing. When Ken was here in the late ‘90s, he said this area was very active. He was especially looking forward to Porcelain Springs. Well, it certainly wasn’t very active when we were there. [Looking at the photographs now, I can see the great delicate beauty in the pastel colors and shadows of late afternoon. But at that time…]

After Porcelain Springs we decided to skip the rest of Porcelain Basin and look for something else before we headed to the hotel. When we got back to the museum area, we asked a ranger about the level of activity in the basin and if there was something else exciting to see here. We stressed that we weren’t going to be in Yellowstone very long and were just hitting the high points. She suggested Steamboat Geyser as a reliably erupting feature, so we hiked off to the Back Basin. And, sure enough, this was an active geyser. Not real spectacular, but bubbly enough to satisfy my desires.

Steamboat Geyser – at last, some action

After Norris Basin, we stopped at Artist’s Paintpots but it was really getting too close to sunset to see the colors. That was our last stop and we headed out to West Yellowstone to check into our hotel and get some supper.

Oh. We did see some wildlife. On our way out, there was a lone elk grazing by the river.

 

223 mi, 10:54 hrs total, 5:27 hrs moving. Highest point: 10,934 ft

[written 12/2/13 – long after the fact]