Grand Teton Icons
What do Oxbow bend, Schwabacher landing, the Moulton barn and the snake river overlook all have in common? These are all iconic sites to see in the park. We set out early again this morning to beat the crowds and the heat to see them all. Although today was not a day for long hikes we did enjoy several short walks to see the sites.
The first stop was an early morning stop at Oxbow bend. A great place to spot wildlife, but even though we were there early in the morning we didn’t see any mammals. The coolest thing we saw at Oxbow was an Osprey carrying off a trout to its nest. A trout is perfectly streamlined for flight underneath a bird of prey.
A little further down the road we had a fantastic view of Grand Teton in the beautiful morning light.
Our next stop was at the Snake River overlook. This is the place where Ansel Adams took his iconic photo that put Grand Teton on the map. There are more trees now than when he took the photo in 1942. We did our best to recreate the photo using 2020 technology and filters.
As we were heading to the truck we overheard one young dad tell his three kids “Look kids there are some iconic Grand Teton crows”. The only thing I can imagine that would inspire a statement like that was if they too had been listening to Gypsy Guide in the car.
Further on down the road we went, this time our stop was Schwabacher landing. We were in luck! There was a mama moose and her baby eating and drinking in the river. This time I had our good old Canon SLR with the long lens so we were able to get some really good photos of the pair.
Once again we were really hoping to see a bear so we spent more time at a little more secluded pullout at Schwabacher but didn’t see anything but more birds.
The last of our iconic stops was on mormon row where there are some well preserved barns from the 1890s.
After seeing all of these iconic sites we decided to continue on into Jackson and wander around the town a bit. It was a Saturday so we happened to hit the farmers market for some great fresh bread. Other than that Jackson seemed pretty much like every other western tourist town.
Grand Teton - Cascade Canyon
The first ferry across Jenny lake leaves at 7am she said. We decided to shoot for the 7:30 crossing, which turned out to be a brilliant move. First we avoided lots of crowds, and second, we were up into Cascade Canyon in time to see a group of bull moose waking up!
One of the nicest hikes in Grand Teton is the Hidden Falls, Inspiration point, and Cascade Canyon combination. It is about a 480 foot climb for the first mile and then it evens out for the walk through the beautiful glacial canyon. By leaving early we avoided the people coming down the trail as we were heading up and it was generally a lot more peaceful.
The first stop was hidden falls, a beautiful waterfall on cascade creek that feeds into Jenny lake. The lake temperature is 60 degrees at the surface, “but gets a little more chilly if you dive down.” Not much chance of that happening.
A further climb leads you to inspiration point. On the way up this climb there are a couple of places to stop and take in some of the peaks in the Teton range. Including this picture of Teewanot. The contrast of the morning sun against the storm clouds over the peak was awe inspiring already. And yes we did hear thunder, but thankfully we did not see or experience any lightning!
When you arrive at Inspiration point you have a fantastic view of the lake. I love this shot that shows the ferry leaving the dock leaving a feather-like wake.
After inspiration point the trail levels out some, and so we were just enjoying a nice walk back into the Cascade Canyon. We caught a few raindrops as the storm clouds passed over us, but not enough to get wet. We happened to talk with a couple of guys coming down the trail who told us they had just seen a couple of moose laying in a meadow about 5-10 minutes up the trail. We were lucky enough to spot them when we arrived! It was a bit disappointing to see nothing but antlers, but It looked like they were beginning to stir so we decided to hangout a while and see if anything happened. During the wait we amassed a huge collection of very bad photos of moose antlers behind plants in the deep shade.
But sure enough after a 15 minute wait one of them stood up. This caused a second one to rouse itself as well. Eventually they ventured into some light bright enough to get a few decent photos. Although 99% of our photos are taken on iPhones these days we were glad to have brought along our old Sony A6000 with the telephoto lens to get a better closeup.
This little encounter reminded us how lucky you are to see wildlife while hiking along. The animals are so hard to spot if they are not up and moving. We often wondered how often we passed some kind of wildlife that was just quietly lying behind a bush a few feet away.
We continued further into the canyon now in hopes of seeing a bear (at a very safe distance). The closest we came to a bear was a surly teenager who ruined his grandma’s entire day with his behavior. A side note here - it seems that leaving early is a good strategy because it is mostly people our age on the trail and some families with younger happy children or cute babies in backpacks who get up early in the morning. We noticed a lot more teens on the trip down in late morning.
We arrived back at camp in time to make some lunch. I guess I really worked up an appetite because caesar salad with chicken never tasted so good. We voted for a lazy afternoon of reading, and checking out the beach. Around 4:00 we took a short drive up Signal Mountain to take in the views of the “hole.” Fun fact: The term hole was a common term to describe a high altitude valley. Further fun fact - the term “dude ranch” specifically the term dude was a pejorative term in the late 1800’s to refer to a city dweller who needed to be pampered and was very likely unable to look after themselves in the wilderness.
Exploring Custer - Day 3
The morning dawned crisp and clear, it was great to sleep with the windows open taking in the cool clean air. I made my coffee, and thanks to our range extender I was even able to read the news and extend my 73 day streak on Wordle. I had just finished wordle when I heard Brian lighting the campfire outside. The plan for the day was to start with a hearty breakfast and then head out to do the Cathedral Spires and Little Devils Tower hike. After hiking we will do the black hills loop drive, including Iron Mountain highway and the Needles highway.
We began with an egg bake cooked over an open fire. Delicious and the hashed browns on the bottom of the pan were wonderfully crispy.
The Cathedral Spires hike was wonderful, but Little Devils Tower was spectacular! The Cathedral Spires were the inspiration for Mount Rushmore. The hike up there was fine but when you finally get into the spires themselves you can see how inspirational they really are.
We arrived at a clearing with a nice shady area to sit, but there were also trails leading off in a couple of different directions. Brian and I were convinced there must be more so we explored a bit only to realize that there was not much more to see. When we got back Jane and Holly pointed to the sign below.
OK, so we were undisputedly at the end of the trail.
Just a short distance back down the trail was the turn off to head to Little Devils Tower. This was largely a climb and we were not sure where it was going to end, spoiler alert its up on top of these rocks.
The trail was full of little chips of Mica and in some places it was so fine that the very fine sand looked muddy! We also walked through a whole section of trail full of “fools gold.” Both Holly and Jane were sporting knee braces so we were trying to take care, and in fact one elderly lady we met on the trail referred to them as “brave”. We laughed about that for a long time. Unfortunately when we got about a quarter mile from the payoff to this part of the hike it was clear that those with knee braces were not going to go rock climbing on all fours.
That left Brian and I to make our way to the summit on our own. It was definitely a good bit of rock scrabbling. But the view from the top was well worth the effort. Just imagine standing on top of that little dome of rock. Nothing to block your view for 360 degrees.
Here is Brian making his way up one of the easier parts of the final push.
And here is the best I can do from the top. Pictures do not even come close to capturing what we saw.
On the way down we had one very funny moment when Brian’s water bottle slipped out of his back pack and went clattering down the granite. We thought for sure the women would hear it and think one of us had fallen down the hill. Just a little bit of extra character for the bottle.
The rest of the day we were in the car, enjoying the Needles Highway. There are three tunnels carved through the granite, but they are only 8 feet 9 inches wide and just over 10 feet tall. This is why we had to take the long way around to our campground! No way is the camper going to fit through this tunnel!
The Iron Mountain highway with its pigtail bridges and views of Mount Rushmore is also a great part of the drive. We didn’t see any bison or other wildlife. But we enjoyed the drive and the views.
At one point near the end we got enough service for some emails to arrive. Luckily I looked long enough to see an urgent email regarding one of our grant proposals that was due in just an hour or so. Apparently our part needed to be submitted. So I tried to log in on my phone and navigate the NSF website to submit our grant. Now the NSF site is a big pile of crap from the 90’s that is hard to navigate on the best of days with a desktop browser. Trying to navigate it in a half-panic on your phone is horrible. Let’s just say there is nothing responsive about the design and the design did nothing to anticipate the use of mobile devices. In the end I gave up and sent my password to the grant officer at Michigan, who ended up having to call NSF tech support because indeed the submit button was not where it should have been. It turns out that being an administrator and Principle Investigator is not enough to submit a proposal, I needed to have a new role as Authorized Organizational Representative. Of course the site itself does not say that. Dear NSF better error messages would help…
Dinner for the evening was our celebratory anniversary meal. Steak over the fire — someone left the sous vide in California! — baked potatoes, salad and a couple of bottles of really nice wine we brought for the occasion.
Mexican food so good…
Today (Day 2) was a day of driving across South Dakota. What do you see when driving across South Dakota? Billboards, lots and lots of billboards. Wall Drug, of course. But lots of others too, apparently the Firehouse Brewery is trying to be the new Wall Drug. They have signs and bright red fire trucks every few miles. Here are a few of our favorite slogans.
Mexican food so good that Donald Trump would build a wall around it!
I don’t even remember if the name of the restaurant was mentioned. But I would love to eat there to support the owners.
There is wisdom in wine.
There is bacteria in water
Love it, let’s have a glass of wine to celebrate the author of that sign.
I have to say that South Dakota is not a good value; it is pretty expensive scenery at almost $1.00 per mile! The reason that today was particularly expensive was the headwind. We were driving straight into a 20 mph wind gusting to 40 mph at times. Our gas mileage is normally 9-10 mph while pulling our camper, but today we were averaging 5.3. Yikes! I was beginning to think that today was our day for mechanical troubles until we stopped to fill up. I could hardly push the door open against the wind. Although relieved to understand why we were getting such poor mileage, Knutson’s van performed perfectly and with a diesel engine they were only using about a quarter of a tank to our 25 gallon fills.
We made it to the Badlands in the late morning and took the scenic drive through. The last time I was on this road, I was on my bike, so it was a different experience to see it from the truck.
The Badlands are so interesting with millions of years of geologic history on display. They have a map that shows what things looked like all those years ago and clearly this part of the world was under water.
After we got through the Badlands our final 100 miles for the day brought us to Custer State Park. I think it must be one of the most beautiful state parks in the country. Our camp sight was beautiful, if a little small to back into. We set up camp at the Sylvan Lake campground and after a round of beers in the shade we headed out for the short hike around the lake.
Dinner was wonderful, we had some delicious french dip foil sandwiches. Holly had made them with cheese and roast beef and then wrapped them in foil, we put them over the fire and they came out perfectly. Meanwhile we took on the task of trying to figure out the problem with the gas supply to the grill and griddle. By process of elimination we determined that it was the quick connect coupler on the camper that had to be clogged. The protective cover had either come off or we had forgotten to put it on, so it wasn’t too surprising that road grime was interfering with the flow. We took it off and washed it good with soapy water. That cleared it all up and so we are back in business to cook with gas. However we are having fun improvising our cooking over the open camp fire.
Unsurprisingly holly and Brian had not slept very well their first night in their van, so we called it a night relatively early.
The Adventures Begin
Every five-ish years we have a special trip with our good friends Brian and Holly. We were all married on the same weekend in June, but one year apart. Brian was my college roommate and my best man. So to celebrate our five year anniversaries we do a trip together. We have been to Door County, Hawaii, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, you get the idea. Every time we go it is an adventure.
This year is our 36th anniversary and their 35th. A few years ago we rented a 32 foot RV and visited Banff and Glacier. This year, we decided to keep the national park theme going and are heading to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. Since we have a travel trailer, Brian and Holly decided to rent a camper van and we would drive and camp together.
We were about an hour down the road when we got the following text from Holly.
So we pulled off in Saint James and parked behind the Caseys. After turning off the van and restarting the engine everything seemed fine. So we continued on down the road. We got all the way to Heron Lake when it happened again. So we pulled into the Conoco station and they called their rental company. Once again restarting the van fixed the problem. After the third time we decided to pull over in Worthington and get some help from the rental company. The first thing we learned was that the roadside assistance provided with the rental was completely useless. They said they found one place that could help us, in the little town of Lismore, that could get us in on Wednesday! Discussions ensued with the owner of the RV who seemed pretty knowledgeable and correctly diagnosed what the problem was. Meanwhile the rental company got busy trying to locate an alternative RV to bring to us. The RV was in “limp mode”. When the RPMs exceed 2700 the turbo is not able to keep up and goes into a mode where you cannot accelerate.
At the owners suggestion we continued toward Sioux Falls, with a stop for gas in Luverne where gas was just $4.09. While we were in town we made a quick stop at Papik motors where we were able to get the error code read, which confirmed the diagnosis. A little further down the road we got word that we should head to Chris’s Auto Repair in Sioux Falls. If you ever need some work done on your car in Sioux Falls I would highly recommend, they are the nicest group you will find. They did some more diagnostic work to figure out exactly what needed to be replaced. Unfortunately they couldn’t get the part until Wednesday, so the owner dispatched his mechanic to make the four hour drive to Sioux Falls with the part. We now knew that we were not going camp in the badlands, so we found a couple of sites at the very nice Lake Vermillion recreation area.
While waiting for the mechanic, we had happy hour and made some burgers. We were planning on grilling, but for some reason could not get the grill to light! Another mystery to figure out when we get settled in Custer. The induction burner and frying pan worked out just fine, so we had our burgers and enjoyed the views of the lake.
At around 9:00 the mechanic arrived, well it was actually not the mechanic but someone’s teenage son. Whatever! He got the job done and the RV has been running like a champ all day today.
Hiking the Wire Pass Canyon
Unfortunately our lottery attempts were a bust and neither of us got selected. So we did the next best thing and hiked Wire Pass. Getting to Wire Pass is about half the adventure as it is 7.9 miles off the highway on a very bumpy dirt and gravel road. Jane loves driving the truck in these off-road conditions, I just grit my teeth until we are there.
It turns out that the trailhead for Wire Canyon is also the trailhead for the Wave (also known as North Coyote Canyon.) We thought about just following the trail to the wave, but decided that if there were rangers checking passes that it probably was not worth it.
In the end Wire Canyon was great, lots of slot canyons to walk through and just a huge wall at the end. Not only the wall, but there are ancient Petroglyphs carved into the wall.
After eating out every night so far on this little camping trip we finally made dinner at the camper. Jerry found enough left over firewood to make a little fire and we cooked our curried pork satays over an open flame.
Cruising Lake Powell
Houseboat by sheer cliffs
private beach with no neighbors
billions of bright stars
After piloting a 50 foot houseboat for an afternoon, I think I’m ready to give cruise ships a try! It’s probably not that much different…
We arrived at the rental office and looked down, down, down the hill past where the water levels have been for decades down to the lowest point since the 1960’s. At the various marinas the self serve boat landings end 50 feet above the water level! That is gonna be a long way to schlep all this stuff was the common sentiment among our group.
Luckily the checkin process went much better than we were expecting, and after our orientation on the boat our person had a gator with two wagons attached to ride up the hill and fetch all of our stuff! The houseboat itself is a wonder, and much nicer than we were anticipating! There are lots of little details to remember about running the generator to charge the batteries, what things run on AC power and what things run on batteries with the inverter. For the most part you don’t really have to worry too much. We have just started the generator at the times we want to cook and while we are cooking the batteries get recharged. Plus there is a nice gas grill on the top deck for cooking as well.
Once we had everything stowed we were ready to get under way. They give you surprisingly little training for driving a giant boat, but one of the guides kindly accompanied us out of the harbor, watch over my shoulder and sharing a few tips for steering. The bottom line is that you don’t turn a houseboat on a dime, you need to anticipate and not oversteer.
Next stop was the Wahweap Marina, below the lodge, for some reason the kayak rental place we used cannot deliver to the boat rental place. So I already had to figure out how to go and dock this big thing. The pilot helping me out seemed very skeptical about the whole idea. “Maybe they can just bring the kayaks to you in a boat?” Despite his lack of faith I did find a place to dock and we got the Kayaks loaded and headed on our way. The general consensus was that Navajo Canyon was our best bet for finding a place to beach the houseboat. So off we went!
Part of the way back into Navajo canyon we found a magnificent spot! It was clearly a spot recently used as the holes for the anchors were already dug in all the right spots for us. So yay! That saved us a bunch of work. We may stay here until we have to leave on Sunday. We are truly disconnected here, no cell service at all, no WiFi or anything. Hopefully all is well in the world!
Ann and Jane did a little exploring in some nearby coves!
After a dinner of Peruvian Chicken we taught Ann and Jerry to play a new game. Before retiring for the night we all went on the top deck and lay face up on the mats — STARS — a clear sky and no light pollution makes for a spectacular view.
Driving to Page
Today was mostly just getting from Zion over to Page Arizona. We had to take the camper through the tunnel, which was interesting because they make the tunnel one way traffic whenever there is a camper or bus that needs to go through. The road is just a little too narrow for comfort and although two campers could probably pass each other many mirrors would be broken. From there we went through Kanab and then onward toward Page Arizona.
About 20 miles outside of Kanab we came to a sudden stop. There was a huge lineup of cars on our side of the road and no oncoming traffic except for the few cars we could see turning around. With no cell service it was a total mystery as to what had transpired ahead. We assumed it was an accident of some kind. But how long would we have to wait? After sitting some time the paramedics from Kanab came by heading toward the accident, so we knew it would be quite a while. Jerry and I decided to take a little hike up the road to see if we could find any information or even just to see if we could see the start of the backup. After walking about a mile we started chatting with another person who said that there had been a lot of smoke and the word was that a camper had tipped over and caught fire. Rescue crews were looking for volunteer vehicles to help clear the road. But nobody knew how long it would be before we could get underway.
We met people with timed reservations at Antelope canyon, and others on their way to Lake Powell every car on our walk back wanted to know if we had learned anything. We we tried to tell what we knew in ever decreasing detail. A few minutes after getting back to the car we could see the front of the line start to move. It was just about 1 hour delay. Luckily we were not on any time schedule. We could clearly see the problem when we got to the front! We hope everyone survived! This really made us think about the dangers of driving in remote areas, no cell service in this area? We can only imagine how long that RV burned before word got to the authorities and someone was able to respond 20 miles from the nearest town!
The other unfortunate thing about the day was that the wind was just howling 20 mph with gusts of much more. At our campsite we could hardly close our door with both hands! Needless to say we were not going to sit around in the camper in the wind, so we headed down to see horseshoe bend. It takes a bit to walk down to the viewpoint and on the way there we had convinced ourselves that the wind was letting up a bit. But when we got to the edge of the canyon overlooking the bend we were sand blasted! You could hardly stand it with the bits of sand and gravel whipping around and stinging your skin.
So maybe outdoor hiking is not a good idea today either. Maybe we should go into page to the brewery and distillery? That turned out to be a great call. Good beer, decent pizza and some really nice gin — made with botanicals. Yes, I am on vacation I had gin and beer.
Back at the camper the wind had calmed down so we settled in for a rousing game of “Mexican Train” dominoes. It was a game full of twists and turns, just when we thought we had it figured out Jane staged a dramatic last minute victory.
Long wait in the middle of nowhere today. On the highway with no cell service. When we finally got to go we learned the source of the stop. We are thankful.
Zion Narrows - I Know how to Save a Life
Suddenly floating
Down the river goes my wife
Someone grab her hat!
It was a beautiful morning in Zion National Park, we were up early to get to the outfitters to rent our waders/dry suits for the hike in the Zion Narrows. This is a hike we have wanted to do since 2009 when we brought the kids with us to Zion. It was worth the wait and is definitely in my top 10 list of hikes.
The water temperature was 56 degrees and the river was flowing at 46 cubic feet per minute. So it was not too high, but it was rapid enough that a lot of the time we really needed our poles to stabilize ourselves. I was under the impression that the entire hike was in the river. Thank God it was not. A lot of the hike involves zig zagging back and forth to get to dry land to walk on a trail for a short distance before going to the other side to do the same.
I felt like an explorer as you could not see very far ahead, so at every turn there was another turn just up ahead and you never knew what was coming up next.
Our goal was to make it to the split and then walk a little further upstream to “Wall Street” where things get even more narrow. Which we did, we also explored a path to a waterfall. But that was not too productive, as there was a mini waterfall and boulder in our way. So we headed back.
When we arrived at the deepest crossing that also had a very strong current that was when things went awry. I was walking just ahead of Jane when I saw her start to float by! She had stumbled and done a slow fall into the deeper water. I was able to grab on to her and get her upright but not before a bunch of very cold water had gone over the top of her dry suit bibs! Her hat started to float downstream but luckily some nice young person was there to stop it. When we got out of the water on the other bank we looked back to find that Ann had stumbled in the water as well.
The dry suit did an excellent job of keeping out the water for most of the trip, and now it was doing an equally good job of keeping the water in! Which meant that every time jane got into a little deeper water the pressure on the suit forced the cold water inside the suit to squeeze up! Not comfortable. At this point our hike became a march to get back to the trailhead as quickly as we could to get the women out of their wet clothes. Unfortunately Ann fell one more time in the water and then took a tumble on some rocks on the land and bruised her elbow and banged up her knee.
Despite it all we still enjoyed some awesome scenery along the way. When we arrived at the trailhead it was quite a process to remove all of our wet gear. I pulled open the cuff on Jane’s dry suit and a gallon of water came pouring out. We still had a one mile hike to get back to the busses which was just about enough time for their wet clothes to dry out.
We were all amazed and surprised at the casual nature of the outfitters in town. Here is some stuff, try it on and let me know if you need a different size. Signing the waiver of liability was totally on the honor system, and paying seemed to be an honor system thing as well. How they knew what we had taken or paid for, or even returned is a mystery. I guess a dry suit is not something you are likely to steal, but it felt nice and refreshing to not have to sign and number and carefully check in and out each piece of gear!
This is a hike we would definitely repeat with our family if we ever get back here again.
We arrived safely back at our campsite where we packed up some drinks and our swimsuits and headed to the east side of the park. We needed to get inside the geofence area to get in the daily lottery for a chance to hike the Wave. They only allow 64 people a day into the Wave so it takes some luck. After driving even further than we wanted to we finally got enough cell signal to enter. It was kind of funny with four of us and four different generations of iPhones each with different signal strength trying to get the recreation.gov app to work with only a single bar of LTE signal!
After finally succeeding in getting two of us in the lottery we gave up and headed over to Ann and Jerry’s hotel to use the hot tub! That felt great. Jerry offered to buy us all dinner if we could go to a sports bar where he could attempt to turn us into Phoenix Suns fans.
The journey home starts today! One night in Vegas Baby! Specifically the Las Vegas RV Resort. Probably the largest RV park we have ever stayed at and hardly a tree in site, just campers parked next to each other as far as the eye can see.
Seminole Canyon State Park
After some city time we were excited to get back to nature. Its hard to believe that we only have six days left before we arrive in Indio. Living in the camper has somehow become our “new normal”.
We are back in desert country so our campsite didn’t have many trees, but it did have a great view of the sky and the horizon. We did a pretty long hike along the canyon rim where we were able to see the Rio Grande river and look across into Mexico. The hike was just over seven and a half miles so our feet were tired by the time we got back from this hot dusty walk.
Since this was our last opportunity to have a campfire and cook over an open flame we made the most of it and enjoyed some time under the stars. I played around with my new phone features and got a couple of nice nighttime shots.
In the morning you can see that we had a beautiful sunrise!
Winter Wonderland at White Sands
I was looking down at my phone or something inside the car when we made the transition. I looked up and saw this sight!
It looked like we had suddenly been transported to Wisconsin in the middle of January! Instead we were at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Not far from the Missile Range and the test site for the Manhattan Project.
We did some messing around on the dunes, enjoying the beautiful contrast between the white sand and the clear blue sky!
From White Sands we went back to our campsite at Leasburg Dam and hooked up to head further west. We had opted for a KOA in Wilcox AZ for the night so we could have all our tanks clean and empty for the final drive to Indio.
Little did we know that Wilcox is some kind of wine Mecca for the state of Arizona. Who ever heard of an Arizona wine anyway? We had to give them a try so after making camp and doing a little work with the good WiFi. We headed to the Coronado Winery to test a few wines and enjoy some of their food. The wine was actually really good, I ended up buying a bottle of their Rose to take with me and Jane bought a bottle of the Sangiovese.
Its been an incredible trip and all we have left is about six hours of driving on I-10 tomorrow! Depending on how early we get on the road we will be in Indio by early to mid-afternoon. Lots to look forward to there, and looking forward to reconnecting with all of our Indio friends, golfing partners and pickleball players!
Big Bend National Park
After a beautiful night at Seminole Canyon, we were on our way to Big Bend National Park. This is a good time to see this park as Big Bend is definitely not on the way to anywhere. The park is huge, and very remote. It borders the Rio Grande and has some spectacular hiking.
Getting into our “pull through” site was our first adventure. It was on the wrong side of the road for our camper so first we had to drive down the road the wrong way. The site is on a hill and half of the site is very sloped so we had to pull up to the level area and leave the pickup blocking the road until we were leveled and unhooked. Thankfully the rangers around here are very friendly and understanding. One even told us that he would block traffic for us when we left if he was around to make it easy for us to go the wrong way. I love a friendly rule breaker!
After some sandwiches for lunch I worked a bit and read with the idea that we would do the hike to the Window sometime after 4:00. This turned out to be a great decision as we ended up in shade for most of the hike and on the way back we had just beautiful light on the mountains. This hike was downhill from the start and uphill all the way back!
This was the end of the hike where we could see the plains below the window from our valley!
On the way back we had several opportunities to enjoy the beautiful lighting! This one is my favorite, I really love the reflection of the mountains beyond in this tiny pool.
I also loved the contrast in the lighting, from the shadow we were walking in to the canyon walls still in bright, late afternoon sunlight!
We didn’t get back from the hike until after 7:00 so after a drink and a bit of rest it was dark by the time I started the griddle for supper. We had decided on fried burgers. I haven’t made a burger on a flat top in forever, but let me tell you, it was great! Nicely browned on the outside and we toasted some buttered buns right next to the burgers! It took me right back to my childhood having burgers at the Cafe in Storden Minnesota with my grandma Sundahl.
This morning we were up and waiting for the sun to clear the canyon wall so we could position the solar panels for the day before we took off on our sightseeing tour. It was great.
We followed the Ross Maxwell road (an early park super) and it was beautiful! The highlight of the trip was the view of “the notch” No! not the one on the iPhone or the new macbook pro, but a gigantic notch between the mountains carved out by the Rio Grande! This was our first view of it from about 10 miles away!
When we got closer it was great to get out and walk into the canyon. The drought is so bad that the Rio Grande is very low .
So low, in fact, that we were definitely in Mexico for a few minutes!
San Antonio - Welcome to Texas
We pulled out of the campground in the dark. The first time I can remember us breaking camp in the dark. It was not that early it is just that the Fall schedule of the sun is getting later and later. The weather forecast for New Orleans called for stormy weather later in the day and checking the radar as we left town confirmed that we were in for a day of driving in some nasty weather. A huge line of thunderstorms was just moving through San Antonio and Houston and slowly moving its way east.
We actually had to pull over in Beaumont at a rest stop to wait out the worst of the weather. Parked between a huge fifth-wheel camper and a big 18-wheeler we were pretty sheltered from the wind. So we ate an early lunch, checked our mail and watched the rain pound the windshield. With the worst of the storm past us we still drove through heavy rain until just outside of Houston. At which point the wind really picked up and was gusting to 36 mph. That made the drive from Houston to San Antonio pretty difficult.
By the time we got to the RV park it was after 5:00 so we had been on the road for 11 hours and were ready to just relax and have a drink. We cooked some steaks and topped them with left over warmed up crab sauce from Galatoires. Quite good.
Thursday morning we had a leisurely breakfast and then took off on our bikes for a nice little ride on the Saldado greenway that runs right by the KOA. Our neighbor warned us that the trail was flooded in several areas, but speculated that it might be dried out by now. He was correct except for a couple of slippery muddy areas.
After showering and finishing off some left over pizza for lunch we headed to downtown San Antonio to visit the Alamo and find a good dinner spot on the Riverwalk. The Alamo took a lot less time that we expected and the Riverwalk was pretty quiet. Lots of volunteers were working to set up chairs for the river parade to celebrate the “Day of the Dead”. Unfortunately that parade is for Saturday night so we did not get to see it but I bet it would be pretty cool.
We ended up at the Iron Cactus for a very early of mexican food and Margaritas. It was good, but not great. I had some chicken enchiladas verde and jane had fish tacos. We thought about having a campfire when we got back to the camper, but the wind was still very strong so we decided to hold off on that and play some games in the camper instead.
Food Fun in NOLA
We arrived in New Orleans on Sunday, not the best day to visit restaurants, but we were able to make it work for us.
- Sunday Night Galatoires on Bourbon Street
- Monday Midday food tour of the French Quarter
- Tuesday Night Commanders Palace in the Garden District
That is quite a lineup! Both Galatoires and Commanders Palace required coats for men, so I had to bring a sport coat all the way down the river just for these two nights. It was definitely worth it. Also, New Orleans requires proof of vaccination to even enter a restaurant or bar! Good for them
We started with a pre-dinner drink at the Absinthe Bar, where we happened to sit next to two women from LaCrosse Wisconsin! I had never had an Absinthe drink before, but it was a real treat. If you don’t know, Absinthe tastes a lot like black licorice.
Galatoires is an old school restaurant, white and black tile on the floor, mirrors on the walls, servers dressed in black suits. Very nice. We started with a potato souffle, which was very thin slices of potato that were somehow fried and puffed in the middle, served with a nice aioli. We were advised to eat them quickly, before they deflated and we had no trouble following that advice. We followed that up with a bowl of gumbo that was spicy and brown and very delicious with chunks of shrimp and sausage.
For our main course I had been waiting to try some New Orleans Shrimp Etouffee, which did not disappoint. Everything starts with the Roux and I’m on a new mission to make a nice dark brown Roux. Jane had a combo meal of a very rich crab dish Crab Ravigote - think crab dip - and Shrimp au Vin. It was so good but we brought most of the crab dish home with us. (something to top our steaks with tonight!)
Monday we had a fun food tour, it was a nice small tour group. The other six all knew each other and were from Washington state. They had just finished a seven day river cruise from Memphis to New Orleans. I’m not sure why you would do a food tour of New Orleans if you didn’t want to try shrimp gumbo but whatever. They enjoyed their red beans and rice instead. On the tour we tasted the following:
- seafood sausages - shrimp, crawfish, cheese and rice in a casing. The inside tasted great, but the casings were kind of distracting as they didn’t want to break so the sausage just kind of squirted out.
- Shrimp Gumbo — did you know that the word Gumbo originated in Africa and is the word for Ochre?
- Jambalaya
- Fried Alligator bites with Muffaletta Sandwich
- Wood Fired Oysters with parmesan and butter! This is the way to have Oysters!
- Pralines for desert!
Our guide, Jack, was very knowledgeable and did a great job of mixing in the history of the French Quarter with food talk.
Tuesday evening, we had dinner at Commanders Palace — a fitting meal to celebrate the end of the ride! We headed into the Garden District with plenty of time to check out the architecture as well as a few of the bars. We actually ended up having a little taco appetizer at The Rum House. Commanders palace is one of the oldest restaurants in the country and has had many famous chefs including Paul Prudhomme and Emeril LeGasse. The food was delicious once again. We had to have more Gumbo but for my Entree I had to go for the pork chop served over polenta. Jane had the pecan crusted fish — a Paul Prudhomme creation. For desert we even had to try the bread pudding which was quite delicious.
End of the Line - Riding the Delta
Yesterday was the official end of my Mississippi River ride. I rode way out on the delta to Venice, or the southernmost strip of land in the state of Louisiana. A few parts of the ride were scenic but a lot of it was still just along the highway. Thankfully the traffic heading out that direction is pretty light, so even though it was a four lane road I could have one lane to myself.
I got off to a bit of a rocky start as I thought I was just going to follow the highway, but a mile into the ride I checked the map only to discover I was off track. So I did a U-turn and headed back to my missed turn onto a nice side road. After a mile or so on the side road I could see a bridge ahead and the dreaded orange highway signs. The bridge was out! My only option was to go back to the highway I had left and continue as I thought! The highway bridge
Miles later, and just a couple miles short of the end I could see our pickup sitting beside the road. Jane was waiting for me to give me the news that the road ahead was under water. Not deep, but definitely not bikeable.
So we put my bike in the bed of the pickup, and fittingly drove the last two miles to the southernmost point in Louisiana where I did pose for my final photo op.
To recap, Jane and I covered 2,550 miles from the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca to this pretty un-flashy finish line. I didn’t ride every mile of that but I rode the majority of it for sure. I learned a lot about the limitations of my body and the day after day grind of riding a long distance.
The drive back to our campground outside of New Orleans was pretty uneventful. We had to take a ferry across the river at the cost of $1.00. It runs every 30 minutes and appears to take about a dozen cars each trip. Definitely not a money maker when you consider the crew of three!
We really enjoyed looking at all of the large houses up on stilts! We even saw two entire high school buildings built on stilts! Very new, so we were guessing these schools were built with money from FEMA after Katrina. Here is a nice example of one of the fine houses we saw.
As I write this we are about an hour away from our campground in San Antonio! We have covered more miles today than we would do in a week while I was biking! We left early this morning under the cover of darkness and its been quite a trip. The severe weather that is affecting the entire country made no exception for our day of travel. We had to pull over to a rest stop outside of Beaumont Texas to wait out a severe thunderstorm. It was an early lunch but it worked nicely to park in between an 18 wheeler and a fifth-wheel camper.
We enjoyed 3 fun nights in New Orleans which I will cover in a separate post! We have about a week of travel left before we arrive in Indio with more adventures yet to come. We are looking forward to a visit to the Alamo tomorrow and some of the great national parks in the state of Texas.
Natchez Trace
After days of really flat, really boring, riding / non-riding today was a welcome breath of fresh air. The Natchez trace is a really nice ride! Its a two lane road with a 50 mph speed limit and very few cars.
The trace dates back to prehistoric times when bison followed the same path from the river to the Nashville area. Later native Americans and others would “trace” the same path. Natchez is the oldest western settlement on the Mississippi river dating back to 1746.
Today Jane and I did the ride as a relay. She dropped me off and I rode for 28 miles, testing my lower back which seemed to survive the ride quite well. Meanwhile, Jane hiked a bit and then drove on ahead of me and parked the truck and camper so it would be waiting for me. Then she took off on her bike heading towards Natchez, a little more than 33 miles. I drove the camper to our camp site and got everything set up for the night.
The day did not start well as we had a nail in one of our camper tires so the pressure was way down, and my removal of said nail did not make the situation any better. We slowly made our way to a Vicksburg tire shop about 5 miles from our campground. The place was a pretty low budget place, with no big bays or fancy equipment, but where the most friendly guy helped us out! I went inside — no counter, no receptionist — and waited next to a guy remounting a tire on a rim. When our tech noticed me he asked how he could help and I told him of our trouble. He followed me out and had us pull the trailer a bit further forward. He grabbed a jack and a “bacon strip” patch kit and his compressor hose. Less than 10 minutes later he was done. The charges were a shockingly low $10.00! I only had a 20 dollar bill and he didn’t have any change so we agreed to call it good at $20 and we were on our way. I was so elated that we didn’t have to sit around for hours waiting to get something done that it seemed like a bargain!
The “bacon strip” kit is a larger version of what I use for my fat tire bike. So now we are wondering if we can buy our own larger version for the camper as well.
After getting showered at our campsite we both realized that we hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, so we headed into town to the Natchez Brewery for a beer and some very good pizza. I’m suspecting it will be an early night.
Google Maps — You. are. Fired.
Due to my back pain I rode with Jane today from the Mississippi River state park to Lake Chicot state park. I’m not too sad as it was 80 miles of highway riding through flat (and mostly harvested) cotton fields was not so appealing.
After crossing the river into Arkansas we were ready to get to our campground. Google maps wanted us to turn right, so of course we did. The road sign for the state park said to go straight but hey, what do they know. A hundred yards later we were screwed…. We were on the North Levee road with no way to turn around. Think Gravel, dust, and steep grades on both sides of the narrow gravel road.
Crap! 7.2 miles and then we are supposed to turn left onto Audubon Trail. Which then goes to our campsite. What else can we do except take it nice and slow, raise as little dust as possible, and hope that nobody comes from the other direction!
Well, 7.2 miles later we get to our turn for the Audubon trail and that is exactly what it is! A trail! The road goes left but at the bottom of the levee is a gate, chained closed. I hop out to investigate and see if it is locked and what is on the other side of the gate. Well it isn’t locked but the other side of the gate has not seen any traffic in a very very long time. We would be driving in a pasture, with a barely discernible path. 100% something you would never pull a camper on!!
At this point our only option is to curse Google in the most colorful language possible, and try to very carefully turn the camper around by backing into the turnoff. Jane very skillfully backs the camper onto the ramp and then begins to pull to go back the other way. The wheels begin to spin. No way!! stop and go and spin, stop and go and…. the traction catches and we are turned around. Now all we have to do is drive another 7.2 miles back the other way on the same dusty gravel.
By the time we get back to the main road, the truck is beige instead of nearly black. The camper is covered in dust, and neither of us is in a very good mood. We follow the signs toward the state park and I thoughtfully suggest deleting the Google maps application from Jane’s phone. This way is about 17 miles longer than Google’s way but it is much better and we arrive safely. The ranger gives me a knowing chuckle when I suggest that maybe the park should have a notice to ignore Google maps when trying to get to the campground. We are not the first! Nor will we be the last I suspect.
We will follow the instructions to try to get Google to make a correction.
In the meantime for the search engine side of google here are some key words that may help the next unsuspecting traveller.
Arkansas Chicot State Park, directions, Audubon trail, north levee road, ignore google!! Audubon trail is NOT a road!!