Colorado Vacation: Part 1 - The Trip West

Remember that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

After working all day Thursday, we left home about suppertime. We made it as far as Bryan's Aunt Julie's house, in Oklahoma, where we spent the night. On Friday, we drove to Muskogee for breakfast at Braum's. (Mandy: "Is a chili cheese frank just more direct than a chili cheese hotdog?") Last week, Bryan spent two dollars on an app for his iPhone called "Roadside America." It's software that helps find oddball tourist attractions near where you're traveling. The first Roadside America stop on this trip: a statue commemorating the first Girl Scout cookie sale. (Bryan: "That was SO worth two dollars.")

Oklahoma!

For the long weekend of the fourth of July, we made plans to visit Bryan's Aunt Julie and her family, on their farm in Oklahoma.



It's a pretty place, about fifty acres, of pasture and woods. There's a pond with a little boat and a rumor about some kind of wild cat. There's an orchard and, just next to their property, some farmland planted in corn, and then a wildlife preserve, and then the Arkansas River. Lee and Claire, Bryan's cousins, showed Mandy around and helped her ride one of the horses.



The girls would be great friends, I think, if they lived closer together. Claire's only a year or two older than Mandy, and they both get along better with books and animals than with most other girls their age. Seeing this in each other, I think, gives them a kind of comfortable, uncomplicated friendship that I hope continues as they get older.



Because of an awful accident several years ago, Aunt Julie doesn't get around too well. In the house she does fine with a cane, but when she works out on her property she drives a 'Scout', a sort of giant complicated four-wheeler with a bench seat and a bed to haul stuff around in. She took us down to the river in the Scout, Bryan and I in front with her, and the girls perched in the back, yelling over the wind. We talked as we watched the sun set over the river, and then it was back to Aunt Julie's for the night.



We slept late on Sunday, and I enjoyed the warm, quiet afternoon in the orchard. Bryan helped me hang the hammock, and I spent hours out there with a book.



We think the most interesting animal at Aunt Julie's place is Strawberry the Cat. Strawberry is a conversational cat. She has long discussions with people, and when you pet her or rub her back or ears, she has a continuous stream of comment about it. And she really means what she says - she's not just meowing, there's inflection in those words of hers. During a quiet afternoon, sitting on the porch, you may hear yowly noises coming toward you: it's Strawberry, and she sees you there, and she has something to say. She's coming. Hang on, don't go inside yet: you need to know all about this.



Aunt Julie's neighbor-lady had grandkids in town for the holiday, so she'd rented the pool at the nearby state park for the evening on Sunday. We were invited, too, and though we didn't know the other family very well, Bryan and Claire and Mandy had a good time horsing around.



And then, it was time for fireworks. We'd stopped at the Walmart in Sallisaw to pick out some fireworks, and Bryan and Mandy had gone a little overboard. But we enjoyed all of them, the sparklers and the Roman candles and the little fizzy colorful smoke things.





We enjoyed the neighbor-lady's fireworks, too, a little farther away and a little easier to photograph.

Bryan spent some time on photographing the night sky without fireworks, too. It was so dark at Aunt Julie's farm, away from the lights of town.



We drove home Monday. I wish Mandy had a place like that, acres of woods and fields to just wander and climb around in. But I think we'll just have to content ourselves with hikes in the woods, and bike rides in the country, and occasional trips to places like Colorado and Aunt Julie's.

Colorado Vacation, Part 7: Amarillo to Home

This is a multi-part trip report, if you haven't already you should start with Part 1. Remember too that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

We overslept this morning but still took time to enjoy the Belgian waffles at the hotel's free breakfast bar, which Bryan has been looking forward to all week. Mandy woke up a little grumpy but a trip to Cadillac Ranch, just a few miles from our hotel, fixed that.


Click to see this panorama larger.

Cadillac Ranch is a sort of strange public art project, a set of ten Cadillacs half buried in a cornfield just off the interstate. They're stuck into the ground at the same angle as the sides of the great pyramids. There's a pulloff on the access road, and a gate, and a path.



The black paint we'd brought from home worked fine, and though our white didn't work we found some red paint in the scattered cans around the cars. Bryan played photographer for the most part while Mandy and I tagged Cadillacs. As we left, we gave our cans to a very appreciative bald guy who'd forgotten to bring his own.







Back at the hotel, we loaded the car one last time. Groom, Texas is not only the home of the second largest cross in the western hemisphere; it's also the location of the intentionally crooked water tower at the long-defunct Britten truck stop. Our drive has taken on the distinct feel of a goofy route 66 teenager road trip. Mandy refuses to get out at the water tower, preferring to stay in the car and listen to her audiobook rather than crouching in the ditch with her parents, taking pictures.





The art deco gas station in Shamrock is the last item on Bryan's list of roadside attractions. Now it's just a long slog home. We eat lunch at Chipotle in Oklahoma City, a snack in Van Buren, and we're home around bedtime.




Click to see this panorama larger.

The story continues...
Part 6 - Part 7 - Postscript

Colorado Vacation, Part 1: Home to San Luis Lakes

Remember that you can click on any of the photos to see larger versions of them.

We leave Benton at six and arrive late at Lake Eufala State Park. We get a nice, flat tent site far away from anybody else, and we set up camp in the headlights of the car. The bugs are terrible and it's very hot; we'd packed sleeping bags expecting chilly temperatures at elevation, and didn't really think about the night or two we'd spend in the muggy midwestern summer.



We wake up sticky and gross, but since we leave before seven, the campsite's "free". We stop in Okemah to see the first exciting roadside attraction of our trip: a row of three water towers helpfully labeled "HOT", "COLD", and "HOME OF WOODY GUTHRIE." The hand dryers in the Valero gas station bathroom are incredibly powerful: we giggle as the skin on our hands and arms flaps loosely. We're in a place we've never been before, and it feels like our trip has started.



Bryan's been inexplicably excited about seeing the Oklahoma panhandle, so I helpfully drive so that he won't miss a minute of the tremendous excitingness of, um, not much. We play a game in which we have to find things starting with each letter of the alphabet. It takes nearly an hour and includes two minor arguments and such thrilling items as "C is for Cows" and "N is for Nothing."



I don't mind driving on trips, I really don't, and I try to explain this to Bryan. What I mind is that, when he's the passenger, he's bored. He sings. He pokes people. He makes stupid trumpet noises with his mouth. He starts arguments about dumb things just to entertain himself. Today he discovered "licking by proxy," a technique in which he slobbers on his hand and then tries to wipe it on the driver. This is incredibly irritating and, more importantly, seems tremendously unsafe. I try to get him to drive as much as possible; licking by proxy is much more difficult if Bryan is the driver.

On the advice of a coworker, we eat at a ratty-ass motel diner in Raton, New Mexico called The Oasis Restaurant. The review I read had indicated that the food was good but that the carpet in the rooms was threadbare pink shag. (We chose this eatery over the one with the review that said "Bring a gun.") We all order from the Mexican side of the menu: Damn. Yum.



About bedtime, we arrive at San Luis Lakes State Park in Colorado at 7,500 feet. We add layers of fleece and down before setting up tents next to the corrugated-metal ramada. It's the tallest thing here; all the trees and bushes are waist high. We don't know what it looks like by day, but the nearly-full moon rising over the nearby mountains, over the lake, is beautiful.



The story continues...
Part 1 - Part 2

2009 Tour de Meers

On Memorial Day weekend, we headed west to the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma. We arrived at Camp Doris much too late to stake out a camping spot, so we went on to the pasture doubling as registration area for the annual Tour De Meers bike ride. The next morning, cars parked all around us as we staggered around our campsite, changing our clothes and cooking our breakfast. We set out to ride the longest loop, 67 miles, which would have taken us through the wildlife refuge and up through the country north and east of the park; we were turned around at about fifteen miles, though, by a bad thunderstorm. We were disappointed that our ride was only thirty miles long, but happy that this change meant we got to ride through the refuge twice.

It was a warm day, but we had plenty to drink. We have to remind Mandy to drink enough; it helps to keep powdered drink mix to make the water taste better.

Whose idea was it to give the little kid the number 69? It wasn't ours; we each got a bag full of goodies with tshirts, water bottles, ink pens, tourist junk, and our race numbers. The bag that said "Mandy" included a tag with her number on it.

One of the Wichita Wildlife Refuge's big attractions is the buffalo that range across big portions of the park. The entrances are protected by cattle guards, which means that the huge animals roam freely up to and across the roads within the refuge. We rode up about fifteen feet from this fellow and another male buffalo; later in the day, we counted nearly sixty females with their calves on a hillside as we passed. Every time we visit we have a buffalo encounter; last time it was a big male heading toward us on a trail in the parallel forest. (We stepped politely aside to let him pass.) This time, the night after our ride, we finally found a place to camp at Doris but unwittingly set up our tent in a favorite buffalo supper spot; Mandy and I ended up stuck inside the tent as we watched a big male buffalo crunching his way slowly toward us. We sat stock still in the tent door and listened to his breath against the grass; he came within about five feet of us before calmly moving on.

There's a long-abandoned rock bungalow along one of the roads in the refuge, complete with a cellar, this outbuilding, and what appears to be the remain of a roadside stand of some kind. The shade of the porch made a good picnic spot on Sunday morning, and the hill behind the house proved excellent for kite-flying and lizard-watching.

Just a we tucked the green kite under our arms to return to the car, a rangers' truck pulled up into the driveway. Two very serious people came across the yard toward us. "Is everything all right?" I asked. "Is this a non-kite-flying area?" They weren't sure how to respond to that; apparently not, they supposed we could fly a kite here, but most people don't, and they thought we might be digging up cactus or something. Apparently we just looked suspicious. I've never been almost arrested for flying a kite before.

On Monday morning, before leaving for home, we left our camp set up and climbed up Little Baldy, a short hike with a very impressive view of the Wichitas including a lake or two and the visitors' center. We always leave before we want to.

Here's a little guy we met on Monday morning. The warm pink granite boulders in the Wichitas shelter lots of lizards, and they tantalize Mandy; they're friendly enough to be interesting and ALMOST slow enough to catch. Also on Monday, I frightened a snake sunning itself in my path; he slithered quickly up a nearby tree and almost lost himself in its branches. Another favorite of Mandy's is the prairie dogs in the "town" near one of the roads; she could sit, stock still, and watch them for an hour or two if we'd let her.

Tucson Honeymoon: Day 2

This is a multi-part trip report... if you haven't already, you should start with Day 1.

Start: Lake Fort Smith State Park (AR)
End: Santa Rosa State Park (NM)

Daily Mileage: 642
Total Mileage: 814

It's cold today, and windy, and the shoppers at the Del City Walmart in Oklahoma City are bundled up like little children sent out to play. We see the cheerful retarded greeter coming on duty, happily shuffling along behind a helpful coworker, carrying his lunchbox. It's a little Playmate cooler, and he's carefully written "I Love Star Trek" across the white top with a magic marker. There are some Klingon words, too, but we can't read Klingon.

We pass some wind farms in the afternoon. Some turbines are very close to the road, closer than we've ever seen them, their elegant silvery arms spinning slowly in the blue sky: peace in motion. We see cotton bales the size of truck beds, lined up and waiting after harvest. We pass a field with a pickup parked at the edge, two little boys racing up and down on top of the long rows of last summer's round bales.

The land starts to look different in Texas, little red dirty canyons and miniature mesas in scrubby brush pastures. Sunset on the plains is prettier than in other places, I think. It's simpler; we see more light and fewer shapes.

After much discussion we drive past the Big Texan in Amarillo, that icon of great American gastronomic excess, to eat a smaller supper elsewhere. It's lit up and gaudy and the parking lot is jammed with fat men and pickups packed in for a steak supper. Everything in Texas has a star on it; it's the state shape.

We arrive in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, in the late evening. We're sure we've traveled back in time; this town must have been a major waypoint on old Route 66, and nothing's changed since. No one's painted, or even cleaned the gutters. The hotels and restaurants have names like "The Oasis" and "Bud's Place", with awkwardly angled 1950s-style roofs and pink neon lighting. The RV parks have teepees and concrete dinosaurs. The town is seedy and the road to the state park is badly marked.


Our garden gnome standing watch at Santa Rosa State Park.

Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3