Getting old sucks! (12/7/2023)

Getting old sucks! It really does! The past weeks have been menacing, period. Here I thought that retirement was easy street but forget it. I feel more stressed now than when I was working. Let me explain.

For one, multitasking is getting more difficult to do. Then there is making decisions, it seems that all the decisions I have made lately are rash decisions that come back to bite me in the behind; in other words, I seem to make the wrong ones or maybe costly ones. I feel more stressed out, compared to when I was working, and of late more anxious. Having read that anxiety may be an early warning sign of a pending heart attack does not help., it heightens the anxious feeling. Having joints that hurt more and more is another of my symptoms of getting old. Finally, there are the peeing issues at night when my full bladder wakes me up or first thing in the morning. It seems that I need to take the dogs for a walk (after coffee, the newspaper and breakfast) before the dam breaks. I can come up with a few more reasons why getting old sucks, we’ll find out by the end of this post (if I don’t croak from that heart attack first).

The details please! Except for the urinating issue, I have been detailed enough on that subject in the previous paragraph.

What happened in the past few weeks? It is mostly a combination of things. The news on things like the war in Israel; the state of our climate; the rating that our current president is getting even though he and his government are doing good work; we can go on. Reading the obituaries of famous people like Sandra Day O’Connor, Mel Brooks, or even Kissinger doesn’t help. These all contribute to my state-of-mind. Guess I am feeling my mortality. On top of that everything seems to go wrong in our home.

I mentioned that we had work done on our crawl space. We needed to get this done after we discovered that our toilet leaked all over our floor when we flushed. We had known that this would most likely happen since the builders of our home had made a huge structural mistake (in 1970). As part of this work, we had the entire powder room taken out and decided that we were going to put it back together by ourselves. This was going to be our first item of business when we returned from our trip in October. Deciding what materials to use and how to install everything took us some time, but I decided to work on it maybe an hour or two each day. Then we were able to borrow a wood splitter from friends to finally split the huge amount of wood that had been in our back yard since March. In other words, another week or so of no bathroom work. I think there is a saying about hell being paved over with good intentions.

In the meantime, we decided to throw a dinner party for friends and finally to make good on an item we sold at our church auction, a pizza dinner for four. We need to heat our pizza stone to 500 degrees (F) to successfully bake pizza in our stove. Lo and behold, here we notice that the glass in the interior of our stove had burst. Quick order a new glass so that this (YouTube) do-it-your-self guy can replace it. Once I got what I thought was the correct glass, we had problems. First the door did not come off the way YouTube told me it should. I found a work around, but then the glass did not fit, and we cannot find a replacement. Time to buy a new stove and postpone the party until the stove was delivered.

We decided that we wanted an induction stove to replace our gas stove. We had read that gas stoves fume off gases that are bad for the lungs, especially lungs of asthmatics. Well Donna is asthmatic and after some research we decided to check out LG. We found a nice one on sale at Lowes, or so we thought. After some good research we went for it; however, these rookie non-gas/glass top cooks bought an electric stove instead of an induction stove. We found that out after the installers had put it in and we briefly turned it on. We asked the installers to wait for us to figure it out, but they took off with our old stove, never to be seen again. Here we had a new stove we did not want. The weekend before we had bought some new steel pots and gave away some of our favorite aluminum pots and pans; aluminum does not work on induction. We spent almost the entire rest of the day wanting to return our new stove and looking for a replacement. Naturally we had already canceled the pizza dinner. We were now envisioning having to postpone the new date that we had agreed on since we expected to have to wait for the next stove.

It gets worse and worse, don’t worry. For a new stove to fit, I had to widen the opening in the countertop by maybe a half inch. I bought a diamond blade for my circular saw and went to work. I installed a guide for my saw, but halfway through it slipped and now my cut wasn’t even. Panic and disgust not only from me but also from the wife (“look what you have done to the resale value of our home” … honestly, I thought we were going to live here for at least another 10 years and by then the new owners would want a new countertop). We can and will fix that with spacers in between the top and the new stove. However, another week of powder room fix up lost. We finally received our induction stove, and we are happy for now.

For months I had planned a trip to the Winter Silhouette (bonsai) Show in Kannapolis, NC. Should I stay or should I go? I had booked a campsite in the Salisbury area. By Friday noon I got the assurance that it was OK for me to go on my solo trip even though Lowes was picking up the stove that we did not use as a return. I had a great time at the show on Saturday and around 5 pm I went to look for my spot.

Next issue. The camping was closed, gated up and what looked like, no way to get in. I had told them in my reservation that I would be late, especially since the website said that the office would close at 5. What to do, but to find a motel room. Finally, after checking in and dinner during a call with my wife she encouraged me to check my voice mail (about the stove removal). I had turned my phone off during the show. Well, there was also a message from the camping giving me the secret number to one of the padlocks on the gate (the gold one). Damn or better fuck, here I wasted another chunk of money on something I did not have to. I had my eyes on a bonsai that was for sale at the show, but it cost as much as my room and that Thai dinner I had (I was planning to make macaroni and cheese from a pack that night).

I went camping the next night and it was nice and relaxing. It brought down the anxiety level, but I just cannot look back at these days wanting to complain about old age. I know this is a long post, but as my wife tells me, I need to take time to relax and take it the way it comes (and express myself … sorry Madona).

Our busted stove

Enlarging the slide-in opening

Relaxed after a night of camping, ready to take on the world again

Best if show bonsai (American hornbeam)

Another favorite, a bald cypress

Buffalos and Nazis (11/24/2023)

We have been watching Ken Burn’s special intitled: “The American Buffalo.” What struck me (or better us), was that the millions of buffalo that were killed almost to extinction, were part of a sinister plan to eradicate the native American population, or what we call the Indians. Of course the killing was for the hide, but when there was a call for a moratorium, of sorts, it was decided to continue with the ulterior motive in mind. Interesting how killing buffalos would amount in genocide in actuality. The scheme was proposed by people (scientists) who while claiming to be conservationists, were racist or even people who believed in eugenics.

The other night I hear tRump telling the audience that we need to round up all foreign nationals (illegal immigrants), claiming that they are bad for our country’s blood. If that is not a huge dog whistle, I don’t know what is. I am sure he was talking to the white supremacist who want to keep the white race clean. The icing on the cake was that he wants to build concentration camps and round up all the illegal aliens and stick them in them. Unbelievable. He proposes the same things that Adolf Hitler proposed and implemented in the mid-1930s and 40s.

Let me remind you, I immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1980s around the time that we celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary with my wife who is a (U.S. born) citizen. Being originally from the Netherlands, I was frequently (if not almost daily) reminded of the second world war and the atrocities that happened under the Nazi regime. An uncle of mine died in a concentration camp in Germany, and my father was in an interment camp in the Netherlands waiting to get shipped to Germany. I was raised as, what I have heard described, a second-generation victim, or maybe someone who has second hand PSTD (post-traumatic stress disorder). While I do not understand the complete dynamics, my father was very reluctant to talk about what happened to him. If you are a regular reader, you know we had some harrowing experiences in Uganda, and I sometimes feel that my father’s experience was all piled on top of that.

I am somewhat debating whether to retell my father’s Second World War stories or just bitch about the genocide I am recognizing all around me. However, this all brings my childhood back to me and the few stories told by my father. Naturally, my father and the Indian population of the mid 1800s have absolutely nothing in common, but the buffalos got me thinking (I once wrote a post about my crazy brain and thought process <here>).

It seems that my father was on the resistance. At one point he tried to flee the German occupied area and flee to Sweden. I have pictures of Latvia and Finland where he spent a winter. One story was at a soup kitchen in Latvia (I think it was near Riga). He told us that he was sitting across an old man with one of the Jew stars sewed on to his coat. My dad told us that he passed the obviously depressed guy his plate and underneath he passed him his identification card. Now, I ran into my last name online and this was a medical researcher in Latvia. Excitedly I contacted her wondering whether she was related to this older man. “No” she told me, my last name was common in Latvia and translated meant something like young deer. Here I thought my name was French.

Early in 1940 or 41 my father worked in northern France (near the towns of Beauvais and Conchy Les Post), where he was building something on an airport. I have photographs of my 18- or 19-year-old father on a roofing job. He told me that as a young lad he lived in a whorehouse and was well taken care off.

Eventually, he was arrested when he returned from his failed foray to get to Sweden. He was placed in an internment camp in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. He told us that isingle-handedly was involved in sabotage and was singlehandedly responsible for the derailment of a train that carried sand to the camp which was used for the filling of sandbags. He was punished and forced to stand for 48 hours in what was called “the Rose Garden.” The Rose Garden was a small plot surrounded by barbed wire that was guarded by soldiers who had the order to shoot when the prisoner moved. I am still surprised why the Germans did not plainly executed him for his deeds. Later in camp he got typhoid fever and was kept alive by his Russian guard who smuggled opium into his cell to keep him alive.

He was shipped to Germany by train and somehow, he did not end up in a cattle car but in a regular train car. My dad tells me he had a private guard. This guard was overwhelmed by the Dutch resistance and the threw him out of the train. The resistance took him to a nunnery in Belgium where he remained in coma for 10 days (I assume from the typhoid fever). My dad told me numerous times that he saw “the light.” The light that people see at the time of dying.

By the end of the war (1945) he had recovered and briefly joined the Canadian army when they freed the Netherlands. He tells a story where they were in a barn in the eastern part of the country, when a bomb came through the thatched roof and just hung there. He and the Canadians were looking at the bomb just hanging there. Eventually, one of the guys got on a chair and defused the bomb just hanging there in the ceiling.

These are some of the stories I heard at home and my father’s hatred of the German people his age and older. He had sleepless nights when there was a story on TV that dealt with the war. But then there was one TV show he loved and that was Combat. This series detailed the progression of the US army in France after D-day. I cannot check my dad’s stories for their voracity, truth or anything else; however, they have stayed with me for the rest of my life. Well, there things came flooding back to me after the buffalo movie and hearing what our criminal ex-president intents to do if he gets a next term (emulate Hitler).

My dad working on a roof in Beauvais, France at what appears to be an airstrip (1942)

My dad is the guy shaving (1941).  I think the town is actually called Conchy les Post.  I wonder if the ladies in the picture are the prostitutes my dad lived with.

Change of seasons but no changes in the world (11/3/2023)

It has been a depressing week for a person with liberal leanings like me. We witnessed a brutal fight in the Middle East, where it seems Israel has no regard for humanity; we had a mass shooting in Maine; the monster hurricane that hit Acapulco; reports in the Post on the horrible climatic situation in Hodeida in Yemen; and a Republican speaker of the house who is probably more dangerous than Jim Jordan. But let’s start at the beginning. Yes, what Hamas did was unconscionable. However, starting a full-fledged war and killing so many more people than what Hamas did, is not sitting well with me, it is unconscionable as well. I have always considered myself a pacifist, although this stance of mine has weekend substantially after the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. I am trying to follow that fighting and I am secretly rejoicing when Ukrainian forced manage to claim victory or that they managed to kill a substantial number of Russian soldiers. This softening around my pacifist edges in itself is somewhat depressing to me, where are my convictions, morals, ethics and empathy that I had in younger years? It seems that I have no dog in this fight in Gaza. I morn the deaths on both sides. However, neither in Ukraine, interesting, isn’t it?

If you are a regular reader, you all know my stance on gun control, or tighter management of weapons. I think I have written a post about every mass killing that occurred these past 10 years, and I will continue doing so. These assault type weapons need to be outlawed and shipped to Ukraine to fight the damn Russians. Maybe we need to ship the owners of these assault weapons as well; they seem to be itching for a good fight, otherwise why buy one of these weapons.

Concerning the climate, the news was not very favorable. Climate change really seems to have hit home, and I wonder if we reached a point of no-return. Something must be seriously awry, for a tropical storm to form and blow up into the strongest Category 5 hurricane ever to hit Mexico. Couple that to reports that Hodeida in Yemen will soon become unlivable for long stretches of the year, shows that we are reaching the tip of the iceberg (figuratively or climatologically speaking). In full disclosure, I used to live in Yemen and spent quite some time on the coastal plains, including Hodeida. Regular readers know that my posts on climate change go back many years and it is not about Yemen or elsewhere, but our future generations.

Lastly the new speaker of the house, the third in-line to the crown (or is it called the presidency). This dude is dangerous. He seems to be an authentic bible thumper, a Christian Nationalist, who is definitely against the rights of women to choose what happens to their own body. Moreover, he was the leader in congress trying to nullify the election and he still does not recognize Joe Biden as president. This guy invokes God in everything he does but does not care about the little guy. He is smooth and absolutely dangerous.

In my eyes, all these items are eerily connected. We can all bring them back to the conservative trend or movement in this country. The Maga Speaker does not believe in global warming; he and the republicans are against all form of gun control (while being against birth control, an interesting contradiction in itself); of course, they are anti-Muslimism; you get the idea.

So now you are updated about my state-of-mind. What do I do about it, drink myself to oblivion? The problem there lies in that this solution is dangerous to my health and personal relations at home. Well, this blog is one of my outlets; I hope to inform and educate you, my readers; I even may be able to entertain or anger one or two. This past week I split a huge amount of wood to be used in our woodburning stove this coming and next winter. Physical exercise is good for the mind, soul and body. It was warm, high 70s or 25 to 28 degrees centigrade for the rest of the world. I did not get much time for my bonsai, but that changed when the weather folks told us that we were getting very cold temperatures. I needed to bring my tropicals inside or into the greenhouse. This occupied almost an entire day. Somehow the power cord that supplies electricity to the greenhouse had a short in it and I needed to replace it so that I could run a heater. All is good, the plants are safely tucked away and ready for the cold temperatures of the next few months.

What else do I do now we are not traveling and exploring? I try to spend as much time as possible in the outdoors. Spending time in nature, forest bathing, hiking gives me the solace I need. We try to get out and walk in the woods behind our home and in the area. Believe it or not, but with every step I take out there the beauty of nature reveals itself, again and again. Beauty in a fragile and threatened world.

The seasons are changing, and it was time for a 5+mile hike in our area. 

They are all tucked in and safe.

Am I really color blind? (10/25/2023)

As everyone that blogs should and it is something I haven’t yet, is speak out about the latest happenings in the Middle East. In the past I was somewhat neutral about what was going on; however, the attack by Hamas nudged my neutrality of kilter, a bit. Having lived in the Arabic/Islamic world for two years, I was somewhat sympathetic with their plight; I really believed that the Palestinians had an equal right to a country of their own as the Israelis (or in other words, Jews). While this opinion has not changed, the Hamas attack was horrific and I condemn it. However, in my opinion, retaliation by Israel will just worsen the divide. Yes, Israel wants to eliminate Hamas but the collateral killing will just harden the lines between the Islamic world and the Jews. Both groups are at fault in my eyes and actually, I am not sure if I see a way out. And I haven’t written about the plight of the hostages.

Now I have always claimed to be neutral in this case (but who actually cares about what I think). You can almost say I am colorblind when it comes to this case. It is this word colorblind that I really want to write about. The Washington Post (10/19/2023) had an article about the wish to abolish the idea of race designations the upcoming census. The article tells us that we human beings have 99.9% of our DNA in common with each other. In other words, we are so similar that race seems to be an artificial construct to claim superiority (especially by folks who have a white skin color). I have always argued in the genetics classes that I teach that the African population is evolutionary more advanced than the European folks, since the African folks have a lot more variability in their Ribosomal DNA than the other groups on earth. This shows that they have been in the evolutionary process much longer and all other ethnic groups originate from them. In other words, I don’t think I discriminate and I used to consider myself color blind.

From the Washington Post I learned that calling myself colorblind is actually discriminatory and that got me thinking. Is my neutrality with and consideration of the Middle East conflict as a conflict between Palestinian and Jews, me telling you that I am colorblind in this conflict, discriminatory? Interesting to think about. Here I am dividing the waring parties into two distinct groups, instead of just calling them plain human beings. It seems to me that a lot of warring and fighting comes from pigeon holing people into one group or another, whether it is religion, race, political belief, and so on. No folks, we are just human beings with what seems to be a lot of faults and weaknesses. Privately I wonder if strife would disappear if we consider ourselves equal human beings.

A lot of my readers will know that I was born in the depths of Africa, the Congo. I grew up in the Caribbean and was partially raised by a black maid, had black friends who I often played with or went fishing with after school. Somewhat tongue in cheek I used to tell my employers that they should classify me as African American to show how diverse their hiring practices are. Moreover, I sometimes tell black folks here that I am more African American that they are, having been born in Africa. Folks tell me that I do not have the correct skin color to be considered African American (I wasn’t born in what was at that time racist South Africa, but I am not count as a strike for or against calling myself African American) . However, I now feel emboldened by the article in the Post about colorblindness. I am human and no different than anyone else out there; however, I was born in Africa and have US citizenship!

Honestly, have no firm opinion about all this, but it got me thinking. I am contemplating about any solution to racial, ethnic and all other forms of discrimination. I honestly wish that all folks of different religions, skin color, country, sexual orientation, political persuasion would agree that they are human and no different than someone who is different than the. That they treat them with respect. Yes, I still wish for world peace!

Walking in the woods gives me time to contemplate things like this.  I am actually slightly color blind and often have a difficult time distinguishing between the leaves and a red bird, kike a cardinal.

Advice anyone? (10/12/2023)

How would I have reacted as a 55-year-old if I, as my current 70-year-old self, was able to return and tell that 55-year-old self what to do, how to live his life, or what not to do? Or how would I react right now when my 85-year-old self returned with all that advice, if I even make it to 85? An interesting question, isn’t it? I based this question on a YouTube video I saw, in other words, I am not that original, but it got me thinking.

We recently came home from our trip across the country. As I wrote <here>, we followed part of the Lewis and Clark Trail going west, but had to cut the voyage short, and dropped south to the Los Angeles area after we got to the continental divide <here>. At the divide we came upon (one of) the source(s) of the Missouri river. When they reached the divide, the Lewis and Clark expedition spent some time in this general area, meeting the Shoshone Indians, figuring out the trail further west, and negotiating for horses. Lewis celebrated his birthday during that stay, and he wrote the following “self-assessment” in his diary:

"This day I completed my thirty first year, I reflect that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the happiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now sorely feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended. (Spelling corrected by me)

I dash from me the gloomy thought and resolved in future, to redouble my exertion and at least endeavor to promote those two primary objects of human existence, by them the aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestowed on me …"

The man who led the expedition to open the west had self-doubt and did not think he had achieved anything to further the happiness of humanity. Lewis discovered and described a large number of new plant and animal species. He described the medicinal use of these plants by the Indian population he came across. He studied the various tribes they encountered. In fact, he greatly advanced the information for succeeding generations.

A few years after their return, Lewis reportedly committed suicide. Some say he was murdered, but the interpretation of events has been questioned. Regardless of Lewis’ untimely death, if his older self or we were able to go back now and tell him what a hero he would be considered, or how revered he now is by humanity, what would have happened? Would his depression have lifted, or would he have quit and gone home, would he have lived to a rip old age? We will never know, will we? But I had that thought on top of the divide: if he only knew.

Wow, this is a post with a lot of question marks, I feel like I haven’t found that key in a lot of my posts. But this question got me thinking. What would I like to tell my 55-year-old self that I know now but did not know then? Or conversely what would I like to know about me in the future 15 years from now? (when I told my wife what I was pondering her immediate answer was: “eat more vegetables.”)

My posts go back only 10 years, so I have no reference here. This blog started out as a photo diary anyway, and I have never kept a diary to find out where my head was at the time. I was most likely unemployed sometime in 2008. They had closed the office where I was working; thank goodness I had a few consulting jobs and the conditions of my lay-off were good. In addition, I was drawing social security during the weeks I had no consulting income. It was tight, but we weren’t hurting.

It was around this time fifteen years ago that I was getting excited about a job with the state that I applied for and was about to be interviewed for. We all know now that this was the job that I was going to get for the next 14 years until my retirement. Is there anything that I would have told myself to dissuade me from taking the job? Hell no, there have been very few moments that I hated the job or regretted taking it. I love to teach and that’s what the job turned in to. Eat more vegetables? I lost around 20 lbs. since then and I have been able to keep them off. Yes, I would love to lose an additional 20. The only thing I can come up with is: “follow your bliss.”

What would I want to learn from my 85-year-old self? I am not sure, I currently love life and I just hope that I can hold on to it for another 20 years or so, of course in good health. On a positive note, my financial advisor estimated the other day that I will live to the ripe old age of 92! Guess, I need to eat more vegetables and salads. This post isn’t a “rest of my life resolutions.” As I mentioned in that post, I hate resolutions. But this was something I was pondering after that YouTube video where the maker asked exactly that question: “what advice would I give my 10-year younger self about van life?”

Lemhi pass, the continental divide and the border between Montana and Idaho.

The supposed source of the Missouri River in Lemhi pass

The valley where Lewis camped and celebrated his birthday

Nomads, the conclusion (10/8/2023)

We are home arriving a few days ago. On arrival we felt both happy and sad at the same time. Happy to be home, sad that it was over, thirty-four days of travel of which most of them on the road. Yes, we spent a week sleeping on a guest bed at our daughter's and four nights in a motel bed, but we did spend the majority of those days that we slept in a motel in the van.

Here is a summary of our itinerary, listing the places we spent the night: (Home –) Twin Knobs Campground, Cave Run Lake (near Morehead, KY) – Babler State Park (near St. Louis, MO) – Big Lake State Park (near St. Joseph, MO) – North Sioux City (SD) – Gettysburg (SD) – East Totten Trail Campground (near Coleharbor, ND) – Miles City (MT) – Lewistown (MT) – Great Falls (MT, two nights) – Dillon (MT) – Logan (UT) – Cedar City (UT) – Henderson (NV) – Long Beach (CA, a week) – Kingman (AZ) – Flagstaff (AZ) – Albuquerque (NM) – Alamosa (CO) – Dodge City (KS) – Lee’s Summit (MO) – Rend Lake (near Mt. Vernon, IL) – Ashland (KY) – Natural Tunnel State Park (VA, three nights) (– home)

 

We drove 4695 miles going and 3277 miles returning. This makes sense considering on the way there we ended up north in North Dakota. I don’t know the exact amount of fuel we bought, but at 18 miles per gallon I can estimate that we burned 440 gallons of gasoline. This could have been less if we did not have to idle the van to keep our doggies cool.

We visited or drove through: VA, KY, IN, IL, MO, NE, IO, SD, ND, MT, ID, UT, NV, CA, AZ, NM, CO, KS, MO, IL, IN KY, TN, VA, a total of 19 different states. Personally, I added North Dakota and Nevada to the list of the states I have set foot in. Before this trip I had been to all the other states on this list. How long did we spend in these states? In total we spent 8 nights in CA, MT 5 nights, MO 3 nights, VA 3 nights, SD 2 nights, UT 2 nights, KY 2 nights, AZ 2 nights. We did not sleep in IN, IO, ID and TN and in the others only one night. Does this reflect our love, enjoyment or dislike of a certain state? To some extent, we really liked Montana and Missouri; in addition, we drove from one side of the state to the other (east to west, and in Missouri again from west to east on our return trip). Both states are big, but yes, we enjoyed both and fell in love with Montana. Kansas was liked least <here>. While I loved the countryside in certain areas of Kansas, we were bothered by all the feedlots, the looks, the smell that they produce and as a result the huge number of flies we had at our camp site. It was almost too much and it made us wonder if vegetarianism was the answer. Getting the hell out of Dodge seemed appropriate.

What did I or we learn from this trip? This country is damn big! No wonder it took Lewis and Clark so long to get across <here>. I realized that I still miss the desert, or maybe being an arid-land ecologist, observing all the changes in the plant life. I am and will stay a biologist or ecologist at heart. You read that folks complain about the monotony of the Great Plains; however, to me this area is fascinating. This includes the land use, differences in vegetation and most likely soils, the prairie potholes, the limitless sky, you name it. Moreover, I realized during the trip that the desert still remains my second love (after my wife/family/dogs of course). I have often written about forest bathing and my love dor wandering in the wood; I even presented a sermon on the subject. Yes, we drove through forests in Montana, New Mexico, Colorado and even in Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia, and loved it. However, I wonder if traveling through and spending time in the prairie and desert gives you the same benefits as experiencing the forest.

What did we learn about camping? You run out of time! Our van is small, and with two dogs we tend to cover the bed, a place where they spend most of their time while driving. The cover is used to keep the allergens (read dog hair) off our pillows and bedding. It generally took us 30 to 45 minutes to set the van up for sleeping once we decided it was time. Getting ready to get on the road in the morning is a different story. We never got on the road before 9:30. Stowing everything and cleaning up takes a long time. Thank goodness we both have our tasks and overall, it went very smooth. Usually, Donna would walk the dogs while I got the van ready for sleeping and driving the next day. I would make coffee in the morning while the dogs got their walk and breakfast, and at night I would make our evening coffee while Donna did the dishes. But still, it is a process to arrive at a site and depart the next day.

A little about camp sites. We stayed at commercial RV sites, KOAs, US government and County sites, and a town park. While KOAs started out as the last resort, they are the most expensive, later in the trip they became a great fall-back option and actually a preferred option at times. We found that commercial sites packed as many campers or RVs into their places as humanly possible. The sites were on gravel, which is a pain for the dogs, and two of the sites were next to livestock holding areas, smelly and teaming with flies. With the possible exception of the camping in Lewistown, MT, we left none of the commercial sites with the thought that it was so nice that we should return soon. Commercial sites charge around $50 per night.

KOAs are generally cleaner, have larger plots per camper, often have trees, clean restrooms and shower facilities, recreation facilities, a store, and sometimes a restaurant of sorts attached to it. Now, if you are passing through this may not be important, but it is nice, albeit more expensive. The cost for a night is close to $80 or even higher in desirable locations.

We fell in love with the State and County parks in Missouri and Virginia. They are relatively inexpensive ($20 to $35) and as good or better than the KOAs in my opinion. They miss the miniature golf, camp store and swimming pools, but they are clean, have nicely spaced sites and are well managed. With the special government pass, the US government sites are $10 per night. We stayed at one in Kentucky and in North Dakota. They were the two favorite sites on our trip. Finally, the city park site in Gettysburg, SD <here>. It seems that some of the small towns in the mid-west have opened their city parks to camping. They even provide electricity, water, bathroom and shower facilities to the weary campers. This is all for free, but a donation is welcomed. Moreover, you are expected to spend some money in town. We had breakfast at a local coffee shop the next morning. We loved the place and will return.

Something we never realized is that the public camp sites, like those owned or operated by the federal, state, or county governments have camp hosts. We encountered a camp host for the first time during our camping outing in July <here>; I wrote about them thinking they were unique; however, I now realize how ubiquitous they are. Hosts are folks that are volunteers who stay in the campground for free and manage things. At the campground in Lee’s Summit, Missouri and Rend Lake, Illinois <here> they even handled the registration and money. Camp hosts will bring firewood and ice to your camping site, and they all seem to drive around in golf carts to check on you and occasionally to chat. Now the town park site in Gettysburg <here> had no host and we were all alone, but the sheriff lived across the street.

As I mentioned above, we stayed in motels four times during our trip. Three of them were weather forced, in North Sioux city we read 108 on the thermometer <here>. In Cedar City we were hit with thunderstorms, and just outside Las Vegas we hit the heat again <here>. We had agreed to meet up with our friends who were moving from Yorktown wherever our paths crossed and stay in a motel <here>. The dogs behaved in the motel rooms, so it was actually not bad. Motel rooms are more expensive than camp sites and therefore are something to avoid.

Concluding this long post, we had fun. Will we do something like this again? Yes, probably but we need to plan the season better to avoid extreme heat, cold or inclement weather. Thirty-four days? Who knows, but first some shorter trips exploring our immediate area and the East Coast.

Google gave me a location map for September, and this shows the route we took.

Our dog Jasper is happy to be home, not to wear a harness and cuddle with mommy.  

Nomads, day 34 (10/4/2023)

We are home after 34 days on the road and let me tell you it feels good to us weary van travelers. This is how day 34 transpired:

Day 34: Natural Tunnel State Park – Gate City – Abingdon – Salem – Home

On the evening of our 33rd day it came to our attention that our battery was dead. I had put a bug-screen in the passenger window and lowering the window resulted in partial opening. After a little I figured out that it wasn’t a malfunctioning window, but a dead battery. I tried to start the vehicle but to no avail. I approached the folks next to us and they had one of those starting gizmos. We made a deal that we would try to use it in the morning; however, that did not ease that evening’s sleep.

Now try to jump a Ford Transit Van. We finally found out that the battery is located underneath the driver’s seat. However, you don’t jump the vehicle on that; you could not sit in the seat and turn the key. After looking under the hood we found a place for the positive jumper cable to attach to, but the negative was not to be found. We clamped it to the body of the vehicle; no that did not work. Back to the manual: jumping the battery, page 188. Ah, there is this one bolt sticking out underneath the hood hinge where you need to attach it too. Which bolt? The photograph is very unclear. Let’s try this one; success!!! We can get on our way.

Breakfast in Gate City and off we go. Gate City, the county seat of Scott County is a lovely little town, and we may need to return to explore it. We drove a few miles through Tennessee (Bloomingdale) and then permanently back into Virginia. I had to drive through Abingdon, a town I like a lot and to show Donna around. We eventually made a brief stop at the start of the Virginia Creeper Trail, fleetingly walked a short distance on the trail with the dogs. It is a six-hour drive home from there, so without further hesitation it was on to home. A quick burger in Salem and a gas and coffee stop interrupted the drive which got us home around 5:30.

We found that our home was in great shape. It smelled good, probably thanks to the dehumidifier we had installed in the crawlspace just before leaving. The dogs were happy and so were we. Thirty-four days on the road is long (yes, we stayed for a week at our daughter’s and slept in a real bed). The home survived, my bonsai trees are looking great; in all, we are happy campers (pardon the pun).

This is the end of this series of my travel blog. I still plan to write a summary post, in which I will try to summarize the trip, discuss some of our experiences and what we learned. So, stay tuned.

The beginning of the Creeper

I was so happy to be able to Donna this 150-year-old (or older) white oak at the beginning of the trail

Nomads, day 31 through 33 (10/3/2023)

The plot thickens! Somewhat on the spur of the moment we questioned that, while constantly driving from point a to point b can be fun and the landscape we drove through was often beautiful, were we really camping or was this just on a road trip? As a result of our deliberation, we decided to make an in-between stop at one of the Virginia State Parks. It was the weekend and looking online the only state park close to our route with an open camping spot were Grayson Highlands and the Natural Tunnel State Park. Since we visited Grayson Highlands already in July, we decided to go for the “Tunnel.” We could have easily driven home from Ashville but we decided we needed a break from driving and book two nights at the state park to relax, which gave us about a day and a half to explore. So, without further ado:

Day 31: Ashville (KY) – Wise (VA) – Natural Tunnel State Park (VA)

Days 32 through 33: Natural Tunnel State Park

By 3 pm on day two we decided that we enjoyed our brief “stay” camping so much that we asked the camp office if we could extend our stay by another day. There was room, so we stayed two whole days. We arrived around 3 pm on the first day, so technically we had two and a half day to explore this (actually) great park.

On the first day (day 31) we drove only around 120 or so miles. Like usually, we had a slow start (I’ll write more about this in my summary report, later this week), and followed US highway 29, south to the park. Still very mountainous, the surface of the road was poor. While the speed limit was 55 mile per hour, every darn vehicle, including big rigs, flew by us at an estimated speed of 70. It is amazing that nobody obeys the speeding laws, it makes you wonder what laws we teach our kids to break, or maybe it makes the increasing crime rates somewhat explainable. The drive through the Kentucky mountains was nice and the road got worse when we entered Virginia.

After setting up at the camp, we took a walk on the “Lovers’ Leap” trail. From the Lovers’ Leap view point you can clearly see why this is a tunnel state park. There is a huge natural tunnel through which they constructed a railroad. According to the legend, two native American lovers from different tribes (a Cherokee and a Shawnee) jumped to their death after their love affair was forbidden by their tribes. In other words, a native American Romeo and Julliette. We wondered if every culture has a story like it.

The weather was glorious at the park and as we mentioned above, by day two we were wondering if we could stay another day. Finally, a vacation, no driving but just a morning hike, shower in the afternoon and sitting in the shade, knitting and writing. Absolutely perfect; a great break from constantly driving and checking in late at the next campground.

The drive home will be long as I will briefly describe in my last post on our adventure of 34 days. After that I will write an overview of the trip. In other words, two more posts to follow and after that back to my regular writing schedule.

Relaxing with no place to hurry to

A view of Lover's leap

The tunnel

The tunnel

Relaxing (knitting) after a nice hike and a shower

Nomads, days 29 and 30 (10/2/2023)

Day by day we are getting closer to home. Albeit relatively slow going, on average we are driving 350 or so miles each day. At the end, soon, I will write an overview/opinion piece on this “more than a month trip in a camper the size of a large hotel van.” But then first, stay tuned for my next entry for a plot twist. First things first:

Day 29: Lee’s Summit (MO) – Tipton – Jefferson City – St. Louis – Rend Lake (near Mt. Vernon, IL)

Day 30: Rend Lake (MO) – Mt. Vernon – Evansville (IN) – Morehead (KY) – Ashland (KY)

Both days were crazy, but in particular on day 30, we drove 420 miles, had a side trip to Evansville, and we lost an hour going from Illinois into Indiana and Kentucky. What technically would be a 6-hour drive, puts you 7 hours later at your destination. On that day we had a nice breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Mt. Vernon, where we also looked for a wool store in town that appears no longer exist, followed by the need to restock our dogfood, literally put is on the road a little after 11 (or 12 noon Kentucky time). At the Cracker Barrel we finally saw evidence what is reported, you are allowed to camp in their parking lot.  A side jog and visit to that wool store in Evansville and grocery shopping in Morehead resulted in the fact that we reached our destination around 8 pm that day, leaving little time to enjoy our destination and forcing us to eat dinner in the dark or by the one plug in lights we have and the two battery operated lanterns. We also have and old USB Christmas light strand that we plug in for atmosphere; however, it does not contribute much to ambient light. Now, the KOA in Ashville wasn’t the greatest KOA we ever visited, although we did not have the time to explore it and the surroundings. Message to self: “Better planning recommended.”

Let’s return to day 29. We took US Route 50 to Jefferson City and the interstate highway after that. We passed through some cute towns including Sedalia (“This is a cute town; hey, look a home for sale”). Just outside Sedalia we found a Dutch Sandwich and Bulk Food Shop. Bulk did not refer to folks trying to bulk up your waistline, but those sandwiches were humongous and eating a few of those would put some bulk on you. Remember, Dutch refers to Pennsylvania-Dutch and has very little to do with the country I originated from. Anyway, a wonderful ham sandwich later we were on the road again. We hit St.Louis right around 4:30 pm.

The camping at Rend Lake, an hour away into Illinois was strange but actually, ok. It seems to be a state owned or operated site. Their website mentions first come-first service camping, but there is none. They squeeze you into an already reserved site where no one is. Our site had no running water. The camp host was difficult to find, the rest rooms were not very clean, so it felt awkward. However, it is at a great location. It cost us $20 per night (we stayed one night) and I can imagine why some folks just park their motorhome or trailer there for the entire summer. It would make a stay $140 a week, which is less than the average one-night stay in a motel room for us (remember we have to pay for the dogs to stay in a motel room, as well).

In all, I have little to report since they were driving days. I’ll discuss more about our experiences, camp hosts and alike in my summary posts, a few days from now. But first we need to end this adventure. Stay tuned.

Breakfast at the Lee's Summit campground, operated by the county.  It was a great place and only cost $20 

A quick stop on the way for a brief walk at Knob Noster State Park (MO), we absolutely needed to take care of the needs of our pouches as well

The sandwich shop in Tipton (MO)

A visitor (banded tiger moth) in our van during the evening in Ashville (KY)

Nomads, days 27 and 28 (9/29/3023)

We are getting closer to home, although on the spur of the moment we decided to extend our trip by cone more day. However, that is not the subject of the day; you will have to wait for the next post for that update. In this report, we are now about to turn east and head for home.

Day 27: Alamosa (CO) – Walsenburg – La Junta (CO) – Dodge City (KS)

Day 28: Dodge City – Spearville – Newton – Kansas City – Lee’s Summit (MO)

Now I am wondering myself, why mention these towns or cities in between? The reason for one is, so you the reader can follow the route on a map or some mapping program. Secondly, the locations mentioned here are somewhat significant on our travels. La Junta and Newton were lunch spots. In La Junta we had our first Sonic on our trip (actually in our life), but since we are traveling with dogs, lunch is in the van with the AC on. Moreover, at Sonic you can park under a canopy, somewhat in the shade. Sonis was not what you call fine dining; but it was ok. In Newton we stopped at a BBQ chain. That one was OK and we were somewhat enchanted by that small town.

We got gas in Walsenburg. One of the (not so) secret goals of our trip is to find yarn stores and boy, it looks like there was one right across the gas station. To our mutual disappointment, Edla’s had shut down. From the looks of it, the shop might have been closed for the past 40 or so years.

Other reportables include the huge windmill array in Spearville, and on day 27 the wonderful descent from 7500 feet in Alamosa to the shortgrass prairie in eastern Colorado. We drove along the Santa Fe trail (another thing to follow one of these days, or maybe the Oregon trail, or even the Mormon trail).

Finally Dodge City! Folks who know me know that during my lunch hour I used to go for a walk whenever I was working at the office in Richmond. My excuse was always that I needed to “get the hell out of Dodge.” In other words, it was time for me to put action to my words and get the hell out of Dodge. However, to leave you first have to enter and I needed to visit the famous western town Dodge City. Naturally, we needed to stay at the Gunsmoke TV park and visit Boot Hill. The camping was overrun by flies, and fair. Truthfully, we had our share of flies during our trip, but being in feedlot country really contributed to the number of flies that pestered us (and Radar). Dodge City, been there bought the t-shirt (literally).

We fell in love with the camping location in Lee’s Summit. This was at a county park and simply delightful. It was clean, well maintained and cheap ($20 per night). County parks have not disappointed us, to date. On the way over, we hit another wool store that was closed.

The last item in today’s report was the weather. For a weather channel junkie, somewhat science guy, and a meteorologist as wife, it was fascinating to watch the “dry” line set up. This is an imaginary line in the sky where thunderstorms develop and move east. It is a line between the dry desert air and moist air coming from the Gulf of Mexico. It was beautiful and from just west of La Junta to Dodge City we watched them develop. Based on the radar on our phone, one particularly large one seems to develop near Tucumcari, NM. It was beautiful to watch it grow to an amazing huge storm of an hour or so. In Garden City, just before Dodge City there were another few that were developing. Unlike what we have in Virginia, where thanks to the trees, we were treated to a visual spectacle watching storms develop. It was so nice to see the horizon.

The descent from Alamosa showed scares from a burn that must have occurred a year or so ago.  Root sprouters like aspen seemed to have survived the fire 

Developing thunderstorms on the "dry line"

Garden City thunderstorm

I shot the sheriff

Nomads, days 25 and 26 (9/27/2023)

So, we made it to Flagstaff and camped at a KOA campsite again. Although we hate to admit it, they have become one of our favored establishments. They are predictable and have relatively roomy sites and usually very friendly. What did we do the next two days? I for one was very excited, knowing that I would really immerse myself in the ecosystem that I dearly love: the southern Colorado Plateau high altitude desert. We were going to meet up with friends for the next two days and visit places we used to live in. But first things first.

Day 25: Flagstaff (AZ) – Gallup (NM) – Albuquerque

Day 26: Albuquerque – Santa Fe – Tres Piedras – Alamosa (CO)

It was especially day 25 that was so familiar to me. We had lived in Gallup for three years in the early 1990s and this was the next homecoming for us. We were able to contact Gwen, one of our best friends when we lived there and were able to visit her for three hours before moving on to meet our next batch of friends. But first Gallup.

The drive to Gallup was amazing; it included I-40 at its worse, Navajo souvenir shops, the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Parks, and a lot of reminiscing (“been here, remember this or that”). The entrance into New Mexico was as dramatic as I remember. The landscape changed from flat, high-altitude desert to the red rocks and cliffs that Gallup is famous for. Gallup looked the same, except that I think they moved the Walmart (which was overrun every weekend by folks from the reservation who came down to shop). At least I think it was. They had built what looked like town houses along the interstate. Gwen told us later that it was low-income housing. And there was a dog park in Gallup. It was great catching up with an old friend talking about old friends that we were not able to catch up with.

A little about the desert. Short grass, fourwing saltbush, sagebrush, an occasional juniper and other assorted plants. Having lived in Gallup, the species (looking from the van) and the sparseness felt so familiar. These were all species I had done research on during my career out west or know from the bonsai folks I follow. We spent a lot of time with Gwen and her late husband Mark visiting spots in the desert, looking for petrified wood, hiking the woods and exploring the lave fields and lava tubed in the Mal Pais.

The road from Gallup to Albuquerque was similar, we drove through the lave fields near Grants ("remember camping on the ridge with our daughter in her play pen and us almost starting a forest fire or meeting those folks from Florida who decided to travel the U.S. after their home was destroyed by hurricane Andrew?") before descending into the Rio Grande are. Maybe with the exception of the Indian Casinos, it was also familiar. I remembered the day that I was varnishing the floor in our living room, and I ran out of varnish. I jumped in the car and drove to Lowes in Albuquerque for another can and drove back. This was a three-hour trip, and it was snowing all the way. I continued varnishing when I arrived home. The floor looked great afterwards. Ah, to be young again!

In Albuquerque we met our friends Jean and Steve who were moving to Arizona for a temporary job. This was a motel night for us; we ended up going to dinner together and afterwards we said our goodbyes. Time for us to sleep in because of a date we had in Santa Fe after 10:30, while they got up early so they could reach the Phoenix area by nightfall.

The next day we had a wonderful get together with Ruth and Terry in Santa Fe. Terry and I used to commute together to the coal mine we worked at, and they took care of our daughter when we needed it. We had a great time catching up and getting pointers for our trip further north and east. At their recommendation we followed the route to Tres Piedras and a stop-over at the home that Aldo Leopold built as the time of his marriage and acceptance as head forester of the Carson National Forest. I felt like stepping on hallowed ground. It felt very special!

We ended our trip in Alamosa at the KOA campground (did I mention our like of KOAs?). We had spent some time in Alamosa in the past to attend a wedding between good friends, which is the reason why we chose this for our trip home. Jean and Steve told us that I-40 sucked; moreover, we wanted to stay away from the large highways. Alamosa is at 7500 feet elevation and famous for the Sand Dunes National Parks. It was predicted to be 34 degrees that night. A microbrewery and dinner out later we settled into the van, small space-heater on and hoped for the best. Ah what a grant two days in familiar territory and with old friends.

A quick walk in Flagstaff in the Pondarosa pine forest near the KOA

The desert

On the road between Santa Fe and Tres Piedras (honey I am home)

Aldo Leopold's home

Nomads, days 23 and 24 (9/25/2023)

On the road again. We left Long Beach. Here what we did the first two days on our return trip:

Day 23: Long Beach – Barstow – Kingman (AZ)

Day 24: Kingman – Grand Canyon – Flagstaff

Leaving the LA area made us realize that we had spent a week in polluted air. Driving the freeway out of the basin you could see the haze and we clearly broke out of it when we popped into the surrounding hills. According to the air quality apps the air was relatively clean; however, two days after we left our daughter texted us the latest updates and the air quality had deteriorated substantially. We had been in luck, folks told us, no Santa Anita winds and reasonably clean air. It had been relatively cool (low 70s) in what we had been told, the hottest period of the year.

When we left Long Beach for Kingman I had set the gps on my phone to drive via Palm Springs and Johsua Tree National Park. Unbeknownst to us our GPS reset itself to take the shortest route via Barstow (leave it to Google). This was somewhat upsetting to us since we drove down this way and we both hate to backtrack. However, it is the shortest way and we got to enjoy Interstate 40 (I-40) in its whole glory. Boy, what a terrible road that is! However, some 20 miles outside Barstow, we got to enjoy the Mohave desert in its full glory: hot, and sandy, with a lave field interspersed. Eventually the ocotillo cacti started coming in, indicating that we were entering or maybe approaching the Sonoran or sometimes called the Colorado desert. I had a ball, since I was trained as an arid land (desert) ecologist.

The highway follows the original Route 66 (yes, from the song), and this was fun as well, since we lived along it in Gallup, New Mexico, some 30 years ago. We were reminded of Route 66 all over Kingman.

That night it drizzled for a large part of the evening, and somewhat to my surprise the world still felt dry. You could hardly see the impact of the drizzle on the ground. “I am really back in the desert,” was my first reaction. On our way to the Grand Canyon the weather got increasingly worse, which somewhat in hindsight could be contributed to orographic lift, at least the wind direction was correct to attribute it to this phenomenon. It was off-and-on pouring in the National Park and the canyon was filled with aa dense fog. You could not see the other side, nor the bottom. Still, it was nice to see and be there.

Getting away from the canyon, the weather became remarkably better and once arrived in Flagstaff the sun was out. We tried to make a campfire, failed miserably but went to bed well satisfied. It was nice to be back on the road again, but this time it was in the direction home.

In Kingman, AZ

The Mohave desert in its full glory

Grand Canyon in the fog (the next three picture).  The first one could easily be a bonsai.