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 2002 ARCHIVES for those who are catching up on our travelogues. There are lots of pictures below, so be patient--this page might take a few minutes to finish loading. For the webmaster's convenience (and why not?), entries are presented in reverse chronological order; in other words, if you prefer to read the whole story from the beginning, start at the end! These old archives will eventually be moved into the new Blogger travelblog, but in the meantime, they are presented here for your pleasure. (To read about our more recent travels, click on the View from the Peak button at left.) |
 2004
2003
 First entry, 2002
December 31, 2002 Marshall, TX We pulled into the campground about 4:30, just as the rain was ending and the sun was starting to go down. After registering, I was outside setting up when the campground owner came around carrying a small candle in a jar. A free gift, he said, a sample from the place down the road where they make them. "Smells real good when you light it up in the trailer," he offered. "Just a little Happy New Year gift for you." I thanked him, then asked, "So..where's the party tonight?" He answered, "No party." Then he pulled his jacket aside to show the pistol holstered on his hip. "But you'll probably hear this tonight. A bunch of us will be going across the way to shoot cats, cuz we don't got no fireworks." Then he smiled and scooted away in his golf cart to deliver more scented candles. To my knowledge, that was the first place we ever visited where the campground personnel were packing. And no, I DON'T think he was pulling my leg! We spent our evening quietly at home, watching Dick Clark and catching up on the laundry. December 28, 2002 Chicago, IL
November 12, 2002 Carthage, Missouri Week 1 went just as planned—very quietly. No appointments, no visits, no running around. The weather was rather cold and rainy, anyway, so we just enjoyed our cozy home, our satellite TV … and, of course, I worked. Actually, we did do some running around—nearly daily visits to Wally World for supplies as we took advantage of our first real opportunity to reorganize the fifth wheel. After almost six months on the road, we finally have enough experience to know that THAT thing taking up prime easy-to-reach cabinet real estate has only been out of the cupboard once, while THOSE things that we use almost weekly are stowed so high that the ladder has to come out or so low that someone has to hit their hands and knees. We repacked almost every cabinet in the kitchen/dining area…and we were mighty pleased with the results. One full box of “we still might need it eventually” went into the basement storage compartment, as did another, half-full box of “why did we ever think we’d want this?” The latter will be dropped off with friends/family for storage at the first opportunity. Week 2—OK, enough homebody stuff. Each day after work, it was time to explore. We visited the George Washington Carver National Monument, went to Joplin almost daily for shopping and dining, took several drives through the countryside to Neosha, Diamond, Webb City and other neighboring towns, just to enjoy the fall colors. On Friday, we headed to Lamar to visit Harry Truman’s birthplace. Too late…already locked up by 4:30pm. So we went about 20 miles west to Prairie State Park, Missouri’s largest plot of natural-state prairie land, host to buffalo, deer, coyotes, and what must be a hundred or more species of bird. We caught a glimpse of all, even though it was dusk as we arrived and full dark as we left. We made a note to come back earlier in the day, then went back to Lamar in search of dinner. We stopped at a very unassuming, but apparently busy place in a strip mall just inside town…and discovered a little piece of gustatory heaven! Friday night at Evert’s BBQ is an all-you-can-eat barbeque buffet, serving ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, wings, and salad bar, plus trimmings. None of that overcooked meat dripping in too-sweet sauce here—everything is seasoned and smoked, with a delightfully tangy sauce available on the table if you really want it. The wings were the best I’ve ever tasted, with a rich smoky flavor that I just couldn’t get enough of. Cory went back for seconds and thirds on the baked beans, which she declared even better than her own. Yes, we’d be back! The rest of the weekend was cold, rainy and miserable, so we hibernated. Week 3. Still raining. Early in the week, we inquired about my sister Susan’s plans for Thanksgiving in Kansas City…after all, it’s only a few hours drive from here. It’s a date! We’ll head up there and spend a few days during the holiday weekend. Meanwhile, would we like company at OUR place? Sure! We talked her into coming Thursday, so we could take her to Evert’s on Friday! And of course, while we were there, we went back to Harry Truman’s birthplace. The winds were really blowing as we arrived, just minutes before closing. But we got inside this time, and got a few pictures as well.
Cory reads the historic information outside the little house in Lamar. No, Harry's visage doesn't really float over the roof...and there are no yellow letters on the grass, either!
Susan and MJ outside the ACTUAL outhouse at Harry S. Truman's birthplace in Lamar, Missouri. Oh, please, DON'T "show-me!" October 22, 2002 Carthage, Missouri Since Labor Day, we've been up through Illinois (spent a week and took Cory's nephews to the Speedway in Rockford), spent several days in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (while I worked), then went up to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. We house-hunted in "the Soo" for three weeks and thought we had found something, but it fell through. We headed down to Door County for a rendezvous with friends, then came back through Illinois...and arrived back in Carthage last Sunday.
Between lots of work and lots of family and friends to visit, updates have been a low priority. Apologies to those who rely on this site for news. But we're hearty, healthy, happy to be sitting in one place for a while...and still having the time of our lives. August 28, 2002 Carthage, Missouri After an overnight in Oklahoma
City, we arrived in Carthage, just a few miles down the road from Joplin and home to
the 2200-acre complex that houses the world-famous Precious Moments Chapel. That's right,
Samuel J. Butcher, creator of Precious Moments, built his own version of the Sistine
Chapel in order to give back to God and the community. It's a two-story Is the chapel not your thing? Visit the Souper Sam Precious Moments Buffet or the Precious Moments Studio where the 63-year-old divorced Mr. Butcher still works designing new Precious Moments. You can select from thousands of the finished bisque figurines--including many available exclusively here at the Chapel site--in the Precious Moments Gift Shop. Or maybe you'd like to stroll through the Precious Moments rock garden. You can get tickets to visit the Precious Moments Wedding Island, or the Precious Moments Fountain of Angels light and sound show. With so much to do here, maybe you want to extend your visit with a stay in the Precious Moments Best Western Motel (pink brick!) or at the Precious Moments Cubby Bear RV Park!! Until you travel, you just never know what wonders abound in this fascinating country of ours...August 20, 2002 Santa Rosa, New
Mexico First, the Canyon. Fabulous! We spent five days in Williams, Arizona, at Railside RV Ranch, so-named because the tracks for the historic Grand Canyon Railway run right next to the campground. We heard its steam whistle four times daily (and a few clients heard it, too)! We spent the afternoon and evening of two days in the park, driving ourselves around the east end the first day, taking the shuttle through the west end the second. Twice, we saw the sunset in the Canyon. Despite warnings from locals that "if you don't go down inside, it's just a big hole in the ground," we were mighty impressed! Actually, we did think about going down on muleback, but when we learned that one must either commit to several days (who would watch the dogs?) or to spending 6 hours of a 7-hour daytrip on the back of the mule (they warn you, no getting off for rest breaks of ANY kind), we decided the view from the Rim would do quite nicely!
From Williams, we moved on to New Mexico with an uneventful overnight in Gallup. We thought about spending the business week in Albuquerque--for now, we've settled into a pattern of travel on the weekends, stop for work. Albuquerque looked like such a beautiful town, with so much to do, but that would have made a rather short travel day. Besides, while we were rolling down the highway, we had seen a billboard advertising Santa Rosa just two-and-a-half hours further: a State Park with water sports, scuba diving, fishing and boating, lots of restaurants, shops and motels in town... sounded like a great resort area! We checked the campground book quickly, and found there was a KOA with instant phones at the sites. Great! Easy modem access for what promised to be a busy week and cheaper than anything in Albuquerque to boot! So on to Santa Rosa we went. What a mistake. What the billboard didn't say...what the campground book couldn't tell us...was that this little town was almost totally dependant on tourists coming to the Santa Rosa Reservoir on the Pecos River. And the area had been hit hard by extreme drought. Years and years of extreme drought. The reservoir was dried up. Unfortunately, so was the town. Business after business was boarded up, victim of too many years without water to draw the crowds. The evening we arrived, we drove out to the Santa Rosa Lake State Park. We saw no other traffic. The facilities were large and modern, but the booth at the entrance was unattended, the huge parking lot near the top of the dam was deserted and the nearby visitor's center was closed. Driving across the dam in the truck, we couldn't see any water on either side. A large sign on the main restrooms warned that the lake (whatever was left of it) was closed to all recreational activity. We found two beautiful RV campgrounds; every site was level, landscaped and spacious with water/electric hookups and a sheltered picnic table and fire pit...and nearly every site was empty. We went down to the boat ramp...and found only a dizzingly steep 100-yard concrete incline that ended well above the current water level. Flood, hail, tornado, blizzard--I've seen many disasters caused by Nature's overabundance. Staring down that long, empty football field full of dry cement, I finally had some small understanding of disaster by scarcity. We spent a long moment in silent mourning for a small American town. Just two days later, like so many before us, we hitched up and left town ahead of schedule. August
9, 2002 Las Vegas, Nevada The drive from Tahoe to Vegas took two days, through some pretty desolate country. The dogs enjoyed it, though. Each morning, they ran through the desert as far as their legs would carry them, then slept the deep sleep of the innocent in the truck as we drove. Wish I'd had a camera when Murphy flushed a wiry jackrabbit--the old girl was gaining on him as they flew past me and, if he hadn't found a burrow at the precise moment he did, she'd have had him, too. She ran like she was a pup again, but like all of us who forget our age and overdo, she paid for it later, poor girl. She was moving a little slowly for a day or two after that quarter-mile sprint! Only later did I think to thank our lucky stars that it wasn't a skunk she'd flushed! In Vegas, we found a KOA with phone service at the site, which means, of course, 24 hour web access! We've caught up on a lot of research, visited with friends Carol and Dee, and eaten at some fine buffets (the Rio's Carnival Buffet gets our vote for best variety and quality...12 cook stations). Naturally, we've also done our bit to contribute to the local economy by participating in the region's primary industry. We've been conservative, so we haven't lost much...but we haven't won much, either. The day of the $1 blackjack table is all but gone in Las Vegas. We've found only one in the past six days. Even $3 tables are rare now. But my, don't they have a wide variety of penny and nickel slots! My favorite so far--Slot Poker, a nine-line slot machine that plays like a nine-hand video poker machine. Great fun...and I won $30! Downtown Vegas is no longer the sleazy, dirty place we remembered. Fremont Street has been canopied and closed to motor traffic...it's now a giant, three-block long glitter mall. We've spent a couple evenings just walking and watching the huge light-and-sound show in the ceiling called the Fremont Experience. Count on Vegas to make even a ceiling into an attraction. We wanted to get pictures, but the batteries in my camera were dead. Next trip, I guess... July
27, 2002 Crescent City, California No cathedral I've every seen inspired such awe. How can I begin to describe the majesty, the beauty, the peace and the sense of history that these old-growth forests of giants embody? Here's a hint for anyone who knows Cory and me--we were so entranced, we took a hike. Yes, that's right. We HIKED into the forest to have a closer look at Big Tree, the Cathedral Circle and dozens of other 300 foot tall, 1500+ year old living monuments. We smelled the musty, warm decay of the fallen redwoods, and ran our hands across the soft ferns and mosses growing at the feet of the ancients. We walked a gentle, shady trail occassionally dappled by sunbeams that persisted through the high canopy. We ducked into living caverns, rested against falled logs taller than even I...and we ran out of words long before we ran out of breath. Back at the campsite, nestled amongst more redwoods, we caught the tail-end of a documentary obviously intended to encourage tourism in the area. I paid little attention to most of it, but the narrator closed with a poem whose final lines stuck in my head. "Fall, O Traveler, to your knees. God stands before you in these trees." Indeed.
July 22, 2002 Port Orford, ORFirst
things first. The big surprise Penny Kelly had in mind for us last Thursday afternoon was
Columbia Gorge State Park. And it was truly something to see.
Penny and her niece Krystal joined Cory in front of Vista House.
The Gorge was gorgeous!
Cory and Penny at the overlook at Vista House. Thanks for playing tour guides, Kellys! As we drove deeper into the park, up and
down over the narrow twisting road, we enjoyed the sights of the Oregon rainforest at its
richest. Yes, this is true rainforest, right down to the dozens of varieties of ferns that
carpet the forest floors. Tall, thick, lacy and lush, they look right at home under the
hemlocks, cedars, firs and pines. And the wildflowers—what a riot of color! We’d have
counted that a very full afternoon, but Penny wasn’t through with us, nor was the
Gorge. Ultimately, we arrived at Multnomah Falls. This is the third highest waterfall in
the WORLD, nearly twice as high as my beloved Upper Falls of the Yellowstone. And we were
able to drive almost to its foot! The path that lets you walk in closer (close enough to
feel the spray, Penny says) was under construction and none of us were up to climbing the
many stairs of the alternative route, so we sat in the shade eating ice cream and watching
the falls for nearly an hour.
Multnomah Falls, east of Portland in Columbia Gorge State Park We left Portland on Friday, headed for the
Pacific. If you’ve never
driven Highway 101 down the Oregon coastline, make a resolution now to do it. I’m
running out of superlatives, but this is some of the most beautiful country we’ve
ever seen. We walked on the beach in Oceanside Friday
night, then drove up into the residential area. Yes, “up” is the right
word—the whole town is perched on a steep hillside and at times we weren’t sure
the B.A.T. would make it up the hill (that’s Big A** Truck, the seems-to-be-sticking
nickname for our F450). But the view from the top of that bluff was well worth the climb.
We stayed until sunset.
A view of Yaquin Point, off Highway 101
This crippled gull seemed to be a regular at the wayside near Yaquin Point. His right foot is only a stump.
The sun was just setting--and the wind was really blowing--when we arrived at the Oregon Dunes State Park.
Even the mundane is fascinating--we caught this view of the dunes from the back parking lot of a Fred Myers discount store!
Another roadside view from Highway 101
You don't even have to try to find great scenery--we were caught in traffic on 101 when an accident blocked the road, and this is what we enjoyed for twenty minutes. (Respect these mountain roads!)
Saturday night, we went down on the
waterfront in Florence, to dine at a place called International C-Food Market. We were
right on the docks, overlooking the fishing fleet. I ordered a half-pound of clams steamed
in garlic, white wine and herbs as an appetizer, then a dinner platter with fresh-caught
halibut, salmon, scallops, shrimp, prawns, calamari and local Dungeness crab and oysters.
Cory ordered….pizza. When the steamer clams arrived, I talked her into tasting one.
Her eyes lit up and she wound up splitting them with me, then finishing the broth as a
soup! My platter came, swimming in an equally savory broth, with a half a crab on top. Her
pizza arrived burnt. When the waitress explained that their wood-burning pizza oven
wasn’t working and they were cooking pizza on the seafood grill, I thought, “NOW
she’ll change her order.” Nope. She had them bake another pizza. I shared my
platter—the crab in particular was sweet and tender, but everything was great.
Cory’s second pizza finally came…burnt, but with the blackest edges cut off. She
took it home. We’ll see on our next dining excursion whether she learned any lessons
from this experience…
Well, I've been duly chastised..."Come on, put out more info and LOTS OF PICTURES. I'm living vicariously thru the two of you. Help me out here. It's like watching a serial. You can't wait for the next installment." Don't know if we can meet expectations, but will try. And here I was feeling so proud that my last update was only a week ago! Portland is a beautiful city. Sunday, my folks took us for dinner at a restaurant near Pill Hill with a panoramic view overlooking the city...and rather excellent macadamian-encrusted salmon, as well! We had a dessert called "hot lava cake"--a dark chocolate, ala-mode affair that oozed hot fudge when you cut into the cake. It was as spectacular as the scenery. We've been visiting with friends Penny and John Kelly, Chicagoans who transplanted out here over two years ago. They've been our willing tour guides, taking us Monday to the top of Mt. Tomah, a local long-extinct volcano, and yesterday all the way to the coast for a seafood dinner in Seaside, Oregon. Today, we're off to a secret site near Gresham--no hints except that "it's beautiful." We'll report later... We're falling in love with Oregon. From the mountains, to the ocean (is there a song in there?), to the towering Ponderosa pines of the high desert and the many still-active and extinct volcanic sites, this state takes your breath at every turn. Yes, we'll try to take and post more pictures, but for now, you'll have to trust me--we're spending too much time taking it all in to try to take photos of it. This state deserves a lot more hype than it gets. Oh, and the locals confirm--it's "Or-uh-gun", not "Or-eh-gone." OK--by special request--here's a portrait of my family taken this month while we were all together for the first time in 20 years. Clockwise from top left, that's sister Gwen, a doctor of pharmacy in Connecticutt, brother Jay, food/beverage manager of the year for a resort in California, sister Susan, who manages teleconference staff scheduling in Kansas City, father Harry and mother Mary, happily retired together in LaPine, Oregon.
We celebrated my folks 50th wedding anniversary on the 4th, with a wonderful party. The whole family (i.e., all my sisters and our brother) made the pilgrimage to LaPine for the celebration. And I found the camera!
Cory, overlooking Crater Lake in the National Park in Oregon, July 7, 2002
We caught 5 Coho salmon that had to go back (wrong season) and 4 Chinook salmon that headed for the grill. On the good ship Sea Pirate, out of Newport, Oregon, July 1
THIS is the rig...a 39' Newmar Kountry Star fifth wheel pulled behind a crewcab Ford F450...altogether, this train is nearly 63 feet long! We're having a great time headed through the west.
Wednesday and Thursday nights, we were in Spearfish, South Dakota, doing the usual tourist
things...Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood. We could have spent a month or more in the
Black Hills, and probably will another time. But this trip, we have places to be, so we
pulled out yesterday. Thought we'd go as far as Cody, but when we started calling ahead
for a site mid-afternoon, we found most places ahead of us had already filled their
"big rig" sites for the weekend, so we stopped early. How's life on the road? Managing time is the biggest challenge. I don't think either one of us realized before how even simple chores like running to the grocery store would take so much more time when you don't know where anything is. And there are always so many things to do, from cleaning and maintaining the rig to taking the dogs somewhere for a good run to seeing the local sights. I still don't feel like I've really organized my office--it just hasn't become a priority. Mostly, I work with my laptop right in my lap (imagine that!) in the recliner, outside at the picnic table, or in the passenger seat while Cory takes the wheel. Communication challenges also come up
more often than expected. My primary email account is set up to forward messages to my
wireless Motorola phone--I see the first 150 characters of each email so I know when to
connect and download new mail. This week, a message got "stuck." Between Tuesday
afternoon and yesterday at noon, I received the same message about 150 times (bless your
heart, Nancy H., I've seen your name a lot this week!)...and no other text messages got
through. No notifications of voicemail, no other email, nothing. I spent more than four
hours total on the phone with Verizon Wireless trying to resolve the problem, and that
doesn't count the 100-mile round trip I made to have my phone re-flashed (in vain). Still
don't know if it's fixed--we're in an analog service area right now and won't know until
we return to digital service, likely somewhere in Idaho. Meanwhile, we've started to think and speak of this rig as "home." It's a nice feeling. May 19, 2002 If you're looking to add stress to your life, I highly recommend the process of liquidating your belongings in preparation for moving from a 3-bedroom home into a 400-square-foot fifth wheel trailer. Our old buddy Murphy was at our side every step of the way. Our garage sale was rained out and, by local ordinance, we couldn't have another. The Salvation Army missed their appointment to pick up 75 boxes of household goods we didn't need, and couldn't schedule another pickup until our move day. The man who would "buy EVERYTHING" after our failed garage sale wouldn't buy our sofa and loveseat and we had to have them hauled to the dump. The folks who won our eBay auction for our 27-foot travel trailer didn't show up at the appointed time and place to finish payment and take possession--the sale fell through and we are faced with selling that unit long-distance. The last night in Bensenville, we were up all night trying to find places for everything in the trailer; our best intentions to be organized disintegrated as we simply stashed boxes in any available corner. People who bought a bedroom set from us missed four appointments to pick it up and finally showed up as we were pulling out of the driveway on the way to the closing for our (former) home. We were so rattled, we forgot to put the TV antenna on the trailer down before we pulled out, and caught it on a low-hanging branch on a residential street. At the closing on Friday morning, we learned that the lending bank had failed to send the required bank wire to fund the buyer's mortgage, so the title company couldn't cut our check. We stopped at the Newmar dealer to have the TV antenna repaired, then parked the whole long rig in a shopping mall lot and waited for an extra three hours, hoping the check would arrive. At 2 pm, we finally made the decision to hit the road and have it overnighted ahead of us to Kansas City, our first destination. Twenty minutes later, the title company called. The check was ready and they would FedEx it. As of late yesterday afternoon, it had not yet arrived in KC. But we woke up this morning in Hannibal, Missouri, with a lovely view of the Mississippi. The dogs seem to be adjusting to the ride in the trailer, and our new rig is drawing attention everywhere we stop. We'll post pictures as soon as I figure out which box in which cabinet contains the digital camera... April 2,
2002 What turned a 45-60 day delivery into more than 100 days? When we ordered the F450 with the Lariat trim and dual fuel tanks, the computer suggested that you can't have both. We picked the trim package. The dealer suggested, “Let's send it in with both and see what happens.” I suspect he forgot to see what happened, though I don't expect anyone will ever admit that. When I called for an ETA in early March, the computer showed a “materials hold” on the truck. To resolve it, the dealership needed my authorization to drop the dual fuel tank option. Of course, they had that authorization six weeks earlier. According the factory service representative, my order was received by the factory on March 23, exactly 60 days after I placed it. Moral of the story—follow up, follow up, follow up. But at least we can plan now... March 29,
2002 Time to start working on the official "We're Moving" announcements...where is that truck??? March 19,
2002 The house officially went on the market on the 15th. Meanwhile, I've decided I will add a toll-free J2 Communications number to the office armamentarium. So phone/fax/voicemail connections will be:
March 11,
2002 We've narrowed the field of real estate agents down to three, with a decision to be made this week. We have a room full of boxes already packed for storage...and even more full of clutter destined for The Big Garage Sale Part 1. Cory has been talking to a friend at work about selling her beloved 2000 Grand Prix. The 1995 Sunnybrook 26FK travel trailer will go on the market as soon as the weather settles into something like spring. The 1989 Dakota Sport pickup must pass an EPA emissions test before we can sell it and the 1999 Durango can't go on the market until the new truck arrives--it's our only tow vehicle. Our 2002 Ford F450 cab-and-chassis was ordered on January 23, but no ETA yet. Meanwhile, the Elite RV bed ordered from B&W Custom Truck Beds in Kansas is finished and ready to install. Our 2002 Newmar Kountry Star 39CKDA is also on order and expected to arrive near the end of the month--if we can spare the time, we hope to go to the factory in Nappanee, Indiana to watch its construction. But empty boxes are calling us... |
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vaulted
chapel with Precious Moments angels on the ceiling, stained glass windows of Precious
Moments characters portraying the 23rd Psalm along one side and the Beatitudes on the
other, 8-foot Philippine mahogany doors elaborately carved with Precious Moments
cherubs...and the walls are decorated by 12' high paintings depicting Old Testament
history and New Testament parables, all interpreted with Precious Moments characters! 
