Prelude -- An Epic Family Vacation or a Disaster in the Making?

We are going on a family adventure during the summer of 2013.  My wife thinks I am crazy for a number of reasons, but I am convinced that this is the perfect time for an epic journey. 

I am between jobs so there is a window of opportunity available for me to do this with my family that is unlikely to present itself again.  With kids aged 13, 8, and 6 I have the perfect chance to give them (i.e., “impose upon them”) a memorable life experience.

I have many memories of the trips my family took when I was a kid.  These were mostly in California and Mexico (the northern part of Baja California).  We would go camping along the coast in Southern California, in the eastern Sierras, or for a few summers, at Lake Comanche, east of Lodi in the foothills of the western Sierras.  We covered most of the state over my childhood – from the Anza Borrego desert in the south to Mount Shasta in the north.    

I remember trips to Yosemite as a kid where children chased bears through the campgrounds in the Valley and there were fire fall shows in the evening when embers were pushed over the cliffs from Glacier Point into the valley below. 

Firefalls in Yosemite Valley in the 1960's

According to Wikipedia, these fire falls ended in 1968.  Since they left an impression on me, I am hopeful this trip will leave an impression on the younger kids.  For some some interesting memories from people who witnessed these events (click this link).

Another trip that left an indelible impression on my young mind was a 1971 trip to my father’s family reunion in southeastern Idaho, which included ventures into Yellowstone and through Utah and the National Parks there as well.  Yellowstone had the ultimate cool things – boiling mud, spewing geysers of hot water, dangerous wild animals on the loose, clear and beautiful pools, rafting trip down the Snake River, bison, elk, bears, etc.  The beauty of Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, fishing in the Beaver Mountains of Utah, swimming in the Great Salt Lake all left impressions. 

I have traveled across the country a number of times.  The first was when I was twelve and was with my mother’s sister and her husband, who after having finished graduate school at Yale, were moving west to Northern California.  

The second time was in 1983, after having graduated from college and having driven from my parents’ home in Southern California to Washington, D.C. where I had taken a job with the Federal Reserve.  During that trip, in January, my brother and I took a very southern route through Arizona, El Paso, Jackson, MS; Birmingham, AL; Lynchburg, TN; the Blue Mountains of Virginia, etc.  This was in a 1971 Volkswagen beetle.  I remember having to lean out the window somewhere near El Paso and scraping the ice off the window with a credit card every time a truck would pass us as the flat window provided a perfect catch for snow melt that would freeze immediately upon hitting the glass in the cold weather. 

The third trip was again from Southern California to Hanover, NH in 1986 where I was attending my second year of graduate school.  I don’t remember much about that trip other than a quick breeze through Yellowstone and exiting the east side of the park and coming down into Cody, WY and an archway of elk antlers.  It must have been during this trip that I got imbedded with the first impression of “Wall Drug” the ubiquitous signs in what seems like every ¼ mile for 1000 miles in the mid west. 

The fourth trip was coming back from grad school to California in the early summer of 1987.  This trip was more of a simple get from point A to point B trip, but I had in mind to see a few of the more notable landmarks, including Mount Rushmore.  Unfortunately the thing I remember most is the thing I failed to see – after careful planning and a scenic drive through the Badlands, I pulled into the Mt. Rushmore National Park parking lot in a thick fog.  I waited a couple of hours, toured the Visitors’ Center, saw the film (as I remember it, narrated by Tom Brokaw), and waited for the fog to lift.  It never did and I, pressed for time, moved on without having actually ever laid eyes on the actual mountain. 

The fifth trip was in 2007.  Prior to June 2007, we were living in Manhattan.  Given the birth of our third child, we realized that it no longer made economical sense, nor practical sense to have three kids in the City.  So we had decided to move out to the suburbs to Rye in Westchester County.  Both my wife’s and my families are from the West Coast and she generally spends a fair amount of time in California with the kids visiting family during the summer.  We also realized that we needed another car when we moved to the suburbs.  With the expense of renting a car for the month or so she would be spending on the West Coast, and with the expense of our apartment in New York for one more month, we decided to move out of our apartment one month early, buy a car out west and, after seeing family in California and Reno, drive it back across country along the old Route 66.  

Signs in Barstow, CA

The kids were too young for that trip to have left much of an impression, but Twiggy and I enjoyed it very much.  However, some of the memorable sights of my previous journeys seemed tarnished this time around – particularly St. Louis where, after having toured the Gateway Arch and the Museum of Westward Expansion in its basement, we were struggling for safe and interesting places to explore with young kids.

The better parts of the family at the Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo, TX in 2007

The point is that I don't remember most of the trips I took, even those I took as an adult.  But I do remember parts of all of them, even those I took as a kid.  I hope the trip will leave snapshots in my children's minds just as I have snapshots in mine of the trips I took both as a child and as an adult.

My children live in an environment where many families that do travel tend to stay east of the Mississippi unless they are going to a large city on the West Coast or high-end skiing in the Rockies.  (Europe sure, but anything in the middle of the North American continent is just “fly over country”).  I want to leave them with the realization that real cowboys do exist and our nation is more than East and West Coast cities.  My girls scream at the sight of a bug, yet ask to go fishing.  I am more than willing – in fact, I am anxious -- to get them to bait a hook with a live worm and to gut a fish after reeling it in.  I want to broaden their experiences beyond that which they can get living a quite normal and broad life in the area in which we live.  I want to leave the impressions on their brain of the natural beauty of America that my family left on mine. 

Thus, given the window I have available with my employment situation and my kids’ ages, I decided that this summer would be the perfect opportunity for an epic road trip.  I also want to see Mt. Rushmore with my own eyes. 

This trip is likely to have a binary outcome.  We will either be a close-knit family upon our return or we will be fighting like cats and dogs.  We will be traveling in a minivan and staying in reasonably priced hotels/motels.  There will be times when we each have plenty of space and there will be times when it will be cramped.  There will be short driving days with lots to see and there will be long driving days with the primary goal of covering distance in the car.

The reason I decided to create this blog is many fold.  First, I wanted to chronicle our adventures.  Second, I want a reason for the kids to contribute and to think about what they see and what they like and what made an impression on them.  The electronics available to kids these days (DVD video in the car, iTouch and Nintendo DS games) provide them with entertainment during the inevitable long boring stretches of drive and keep them from squabbling too much which is good for everybody in the car.  But they also provide a distraction from interesting things that might catch their eyes otherwise.  So I would like to have them contribute on a basis on which they are capable.  This will also allow family and friends to keep up with our adventure.  It is likely to be part Family Vacation, part Modern Family….and hopefully not too much War of the Roses.  

Itinerary

Clark: "Hey, hey, easy kids. Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two minutes... or perhaps you don't want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth, which is only four short hours away?"  From National Lampoon's Vacation
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The parameters of the trip were defined even before we decided to go.  My previous job mandated that I take two weeks of continuous vacation at some point during the year.  We had already booked and paid for a trip to Hawaii in August.  Thus, we decided to drive west to Los Angeles, fly to and from Hawaii out of Los Angeles, and then drive a southern route home. 

I have planned it out trying to choose destinations and activities that will leave impressions on my kids – and that Twiggy and I will enjoy.  It is highly unlikely that I will ever prioritize a trip to South Dakota for my kids to see Mount Rushmore.  As the trip took shape that means that getting as far west as the Badlands in South Dakota as soon as possible, seeing the sights and getting somewhat active -- Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, a float trip down the Snake River, a dude ranch in Wyoming.  Added to that is seeing family in both Nevada and California on the eastern side of the Sierras.   

Our planned route west

We are then going to Hawaii (Oahu, Kauai, and Maui) as long-planned, then heading back east along a southern route via Hoover Dam, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Nashville and the Outer Banks.

Our planned route east

All-in-all the trip just on the mainland and without any side adventures is mapped out to cover over 7600 miles and is estimated by AAA to take about 121 hours driving time.  

Some of the return trip will cover ground we traveled in our 2007 trip over Route 66, particularly from the West Coast to Oklahoma.  As I have alluded to in my previous post, when re-visiting some sites that left good strong impressions in my mind, sometimes they appear less impressive the second time around.  Sometimes they reinforce the reason why I wanted to see them again.  Niagara Falls "held its value" from the time I saw it first as a twelve year old to the time I went with the family a few years ago.  On the other hand, St. Louis, outside the impressive architectural structure of the Gateway Arch, did not live up to the impression I had been carrying around in my mind.  

At the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, 2007

As I think about it now, I wonder if it is the case that natural beauty tends to always be that, whereas visiting different cities is really about different experiences and much more about human interactions and those can vary.  Each time we visit British Columbia, I am awed by the natural beauty as I am whenever we visit certain parts of California.  

The point I am working up to is that on the return leg we want to revisit some of the sites in the West that we visited in 2007.  However, it is unlikely that I will find that awesome Mexican restaurant in Flagstaff again or, even if I did, that it would live up to expectations.  I am curious as to whether the rock shops in Holbrook, Arizona -- which I think the kids will really enjoy now at their ages -- will be as impressive this time around.  Hoover Dam will probably hold its own, but who knows?  So we are taking some risk in covering the same ground, but that risk is entirely Twiggy's and mine, not the kids since they don't remember the earlier trip.   

Hoover Dam

Pre-trip Thoughts

Claire: "I didn't want to get halfway into a trip to Yellowstone before Phil discovered what malevolent hellspawn we have for children... whom I love very much."  From Modern Family
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Twiggy --

In my much younger years, the term “road trip” usually meant a group of crazy college kids heading south to Rocky Point, Mexico for a long weekend.  Most of the time it was a last minute trip with not a lot of thought as to even where we would stay.  We would just pile in the car, make sure we had enough money for gas, food, and cheap lodging, and go!  Fast forward 20+ years.  My how my life has changed......  Today my definition of a road trip is piling our family of 5 into the Toyota minivan and driving cross country and back for a total of 6 long weeks.  This trip, however, has not been thrown together last minute, but has been meticulously planned over the last month by Randy.  Every aspect of this trip, from total mileage and distance we must cover each day, to obscure sights we will see along the way, even down to restaurants we will attempt to hit, Randy has left no stone unturned. 

When Randy first suggested yet another cross-country family road trip, I thought, or at least hoped, that it was just a passing idea.   But as he started to plan the trip and talk about his idea to our friends, they all (or at least all the husbands) thought it was a brilliant idea as well as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  The wives, however, had a completely different perspective on the trip.  They, like me, only saw endless hours trapped in the car with restless kids, no washer and dryer for days on end, and, dare I say it, way too many fast food stops for convenience or hungers sake.   

We moved to Manhattan in 2004, and it has always been my summer routine to travel to CA for 6 to 8 weeks in July and August.  Whether it was with just Reagan in the summer of 2004, or with all 3 in tow in the years after, it has always been “my thing” to leave and give the kids a taste of the west coast.  This was no small feat, especially when the kids were much younger and relied on me for everything.  Randy would then typically join me in Del Mar for the last 2 weeks, where we would rent a beach house and enjoy the last few weeks of summer before all returning to NY.   This has been the tradition for our family so needless to say I am a bit sad that we will not be making our usual trek. 

Having said all this, I do believe that this opportunity will probably never present itself again (let’s hope because that means that Randy will go back to work soon), and that this will be a wonderful learning experience for my children.  Hopefully this summer will be a summer that they will always remember, one that will create life-long memories and maybe even one that they will re-create for their children in years to come.  For better or worse, this will be our summer of 2013.

An Early Start -- Days One and Two

We were walking to the Roadhouse for dinner just before 7:00 last night in the sporadic rain.  Twiggy and I were discussing what a waste of a day it had been as we were just doing last minute errands and waiting around to leave early in the morning.  We decided right then, half-way down the block to leave immediately. So we went back to the house, secured the place, gathered the remaining items we had spread about and set off.    

A quick look at the map gave us a reasonable goal of Lewisburg, PA, the home of Bucknell University, a little over 200 miles away as our target destination for the evening.  That would be a drive of a little over three hours, put us well on the way and allow us to see The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Tuesday afternoon instead of Wednesday morning.  That makes our Wednesday drive much easier.

So into the minivan everybody piles.  It is about dusk and the light is getting worse. I had made up a sheet for each child that listed the state and showed a picture of that state's license plate.  The goal is to check off each state when you spot a vehicle from that state.  Immediately upon hitting the highway, the kids start competing and fighting as they play.   Accusations of cheating, unfair seating advantage, etc flew at high decibels.  We were thrilled when the light finally dimmed enough to discourage the kids from even trying to continue the game.

Anyway, we got to Cleveland early enough to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the next day.  It is a really interesting place for adults to spend time -- a real museum that spends a lot of time and space detailing the history and roots of Rock & Roll and its evolution.  Needless to say, this does not hold the attention of a six- or eight-year old.  Having said that, on the other side of the spectrum, there were a lot of people considerably older than me at the venue.  I thought to myself "This is interesting, either their are a lot of old people in Cleveland, or this museum is particularly interesting to those people older than 10 when the Beatles first hit the stage."

At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

After leaving the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, we were making our way to the hotel which the GPS systems, including Google Maps had a hard time locating.  The hotel is in an area of town that is recently gentrified and only opened three weeks ago. While we where trying to locate the hotel, we were caught in an amazing hail storm.  Hail about the size of marbles started falling from the sky.  I was fearful that it would damage the car and tried to take refuge under a medium-sized tree.  It was somewhat fruitless however and throughout the approximately 10-minute long event, was worrying that we would get a cracked windshield or sunroof.  Subsequent to this, I noticed a lot of cars with pock marks from storm damage -- whether they were from this storm or earlier ones, I don't know.

Days Three and Four -- I have some advice for the Intelligence Community

Renditions and water boarding, sleep deprivation, continuous loud music, fingernails on a chalkboard  -- hell, that is a walk in the park compared to the third day in a minivan with three tired and bored kids.  Note to the Intelligence Community: Stick a Taliban in a Sienna for three days with kids and drive around the desert.

The days have been long, and I have been somewhat of a drill sergeant in getting the kids out of bed and on the road.  The alarm has been set for either 6:00 or 6:30 and out the door by 6:30 or 7:00 depending on whether the hotel has a breakfast or not.  We have not arrived at the hotel until 9:00-9:30 after a late dinner.  So the kids have become worn out and disinterested over the last few days.

That changed at the end of the fourth day.  I'll get to that later.

First Impressions:


Iowa City has a homeless problem, western South Dakota is under-rated, and again (note-to-self) never, ever eat at a national park concession if possible.  


We passed a lot of birthplaces of this President or that person along the I-80 drive from Cleveland to Iowa City.  I thought to myself, this is interesting....there are a lot of accomplished people from the mid West, but they all seem to have made their names elsewhere and few had returned.  Ronald Reagan did not retire to Dixon, IL.  But then again, Nixon did not retire to San Clemente, nor did Clinton to Arkansas.  


Iowa City was merely a transit point, but it left an odd impression on me.  The area around our hotel, which was in a good area of town, was so infested with homeless people that it reminded me of Van Ness Boulevard in San Francisco, where the territorial homeless occasionally get in fisticuffs over the prime hustling territory.   The homeless in Iowa City were not necessarily threatening, but it makes for some uncomfortable avoidance of eye contact and trying to spirit kids through gauntlets of homeless people while searching for a place for a quick bite.


So we were out early and headed to South Dakota.  Our goal was the western part of South Dakota.  It was a long drive and the kids were getting very restless by the time we got to the town of Wall.  I remember the billboard signs for Wall Drug aligning Route 90 from my trip as a kid.  It seemed like there were hundreds, if not thousands of them.  We decided to stop  there, allow the kids to stretch their legs and see what the fuss was about.  

I have to give the owners credit.  There is not much in the town of Wall.  The Wall Drug business itself spans multiple blocks and includes a book store, a rock shop, dining, etc. etc.  It is its own little mall.  It would not be impressive in any suburb of a larger city -- in fact it would be very kitschy, but quite impressive in the literally the middle of nowhere.  And it probably seems more impressive than it really is given you've just arrived after multiple hours of driving through nothing.  I wonder if it is more impressive driving from East to West than from West to East for that reason.  It seems that Wall Drug basically creates enough traffic to support a number of other small businesses in town.  

Just west of Wall, the trip starts to get interesting.  A few miles south of the town, is the western entrance to the Badlands National Park.  After quickly exploring Wall Drug near dusk, we decided to take the 20 mile or so loop back through the Badlands.   When we got there and the scenery changed, the kids immediately lit up and stopped squabbling.  Highly worth the drive through, especially in the low light of morning or evening which makes the different colors more vivid.  

In the Badlands

We made the mistake of eating at the Cedar Pass Lodge, the in-park concession.  It was late as we made our way toward the south entrance to continue the drive to Rapid City.  Let's just say the service was awful and the food was worse.  It should be a crime that this place is allow to stay in business.  Regardless, the overall trip to the Badlands was a great experience and gave the kids a sense of what might come, perking them up overall.  The comments coming from the second and third row had changed from intra-sibling sniping to "oohs" and "awes".  

Day Five: "Nothing on a Bun"

Finally, we arrived at the part of the trip where, the days will still be full, but we will be stopping and seeing more and simply covering ground less.  

Western South Dakota is under-rated in my opinion.  Growing up on the West Coast, I never really considered South Dakota as the "West", but as I learn more about the area, it is probably more authentically "West" than many other places.  Its is hard to remember that Ohio was consider the far west not that long ago in this nations' history.  

The Black Hills area encompasses some impressive history as well as interesting geology.  Gold rush towns such as Deadwood (and its association with Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane among others), mining towns such as Lead, the National Park/Memorial areas such as Mount Rushmore, Jewel and Wind Caves, the Badlands, etc all are seemingly interesting places to visit and would take more than a day to see.  

For our transit we had to pick a few of these to see on our way through so I chose Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, and Jewel Cave.  

From our accommodations in Rapid City we drove first down to Mt. Rushmore about 25-30 miles away.

At Mt. Rushmore

 


After we toured to Memorial, and were on the way out, I asked Twiggy what her impression was.  She said that it was bigger than she expected.  I told her mine was that it was smaller than expected.  In the Visitors' Center, the same Brokaw-narrated movie that I saw in 1987 was playing.  It seems dated now and grainy given the proliferation of high definition and a bit clumsy with the mandated closed captions on a narrow (non-wide) screen.  

The themes in the movie quoting the founding fathers and emphasizing freedom seemed as quaint and old-fashioned as the quality of the film, given the terrorist events and the expansion in the security bureaucracy and government since the film was made in the 1980's.  

However, the Visitors' Center was redone as was the parking area in what was clearly a multimillion dollar renovation.  It is a very nice facility.  Yet, we couldn't get a pencil to help the kids fill in their Junior Ranger programs.  This is the same impression and comments we would hear later from locals in Teton National Park with regards to their new Visitors' Center and lack of Rangers.  Seems like the physical structures must be under a different budget....  

From Mt. Rushmore, we drove the 17 miles to the Crazy Horse Memorial which is still being built/carved/blasted.  This memorial has been in process since 1947, with the first blasts being done in June of 1948.  The original sculptor died in 1982, but his family has taken over competing the memorial.  There are impressive plans for a Native American museum and a whole complex for the future. Only Crazy Horse's head is completed at this time and that was unveiled in 1998.  It is unlikely to be finished for another 10 years or so.  Given its position on the hills in the distance and the the fact that it is not complete, it is hard to get a sense of the scale of the project.  However, when you learn that it will be about ten times the size of Mt. Rushmore (with Mt. Rushmore fitting inside Crazy Horse's forearm) and the largest sculpture in the world, it sinks in.

The Crazy Horse Memorial today
(note the blasting in the lower middle of the picture)

Scale model of Crazy Horse Memorial at completion

After leaving the Crazy Horse Memorial, we travelled another reasonably short distance to Jewel Cave National Monument.  I was excited to let the kids explore the cave, since on our previous journey we had gone into a cave in Arizona and the kids loved it.  However, I made this mistake of not booking a tour ahead of time, and most tours were already sold out with one left 3 hours in the future.  So we nixed that idea and decided to push onto Cody.  

As we drove toward Cody and passed through Sioux Falls we saw a billboard for the Boot Barn...a boot and western clothing chain.  For our upcoming stay at the dude ranch, we needed to get a few pairs of boots for the kids, hats for most and a few shirts.  Given we just got granted a few hours by getting stymied on our plans for Jewel Cave, we decided to pop in here and get everything done.  A few hours later, everyone sized up and outfitted, we are in the midst of checking out.  The manager was being a bit difficult and Twiggy says, "Forget it, we're leaving".  I realize that we probably don't have another two hours to spare in the time before we get to the dude ranch.  So Twiggy heads out the door on principle leaving everything on the checkout counter, and I sheepishly stay behind and make an unprincipled, but practical decision to wrap up the transaction.  Twiggy was right, but I knew we didn't have the time.  Needless to say, there were some long periods of silence in the car between Sioux Falls and Cody.   And the Boot Barn is on our ^%$list.

First impressions of Cody -- big enough to get done what you need to do, well regarded museums and attractions, perfect location given its eastern entrance to Yellowstone, and reasonable food.  

We stayed at Cody Cowboy Village.  Quaint accommodations consisting of a number of cabins grouped around a small pool.  Really nice people who were very helpful in guiding us onto the most interesting route as we journeyed forth.  It is a collection of small cabins set around a small pool.  We find it nicer to have accommodations that are separate -- if even by just a few feet -- as it limits our possible noise pollution on fellow travelers...particularly given Grant's tendency to constantly be doing shadow jump shots every time we stand still for more than a few seconds.  

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Randy: "Where do you want to eat dinner?"


Twiggy: "I don't care, just nothing on a bun"

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