Bear Lodge

You probably know this place as Devil's Tower. The Native American tribes of the region call it Bear Lodge and a few other names. It's the busiest National Park site we've been to yet, mostly filled with people zipping in on their way to somewhere else. 

After a six hour drive across Wyoming on Wednesday, we got the last campsite in the park because we stopped to talk to the camp host on the way in, and he gave us directions on which loop to drive to get the spot. There were others behind us not so fortunate, and there was even a guy in front of us whose Andretti like driving meant he missed the spot. We think we'll stay a few days since there is great bird watching, nice hiking, an amusing prairie dog village, and Devil's Tower provides one heck of a backdrop! 

Off Road Training Wheels

The Minnie is officially an off the grid, dispersed camping, off road sorta vehicle! We’ve been winding our way through Wyoming—spent a few days in Lander, a night outside of Meeteetse, and arrived in Cody Friday morning. Cody was home base for me for a time—it’s where I did my student teaching and where I gravitated back to after college. I love this town, and I love this town’s people. 

While we have dipped our toes into some off road type excursions, training wheels firmly attached, we have kept the drives relatively short, and we were certainly not getting in over our heads or further than the Minnie could carry us. She’s not a four wheel drive rig, after all. We pushed ourselves a little further on Thursday afternoon as we headed to the Upper Sunshine Reservoir outside of Meeteetse. Perhaps we were less fearful after our relaxing soak in the natural hot springs in Thermopolis; whatever it was, we found ourselves venturing down a bumpy gravel road toward a place the Lander BLM office had suggested. As we began the trek we were greeted by three Sandhill cranes snacking in a rancher’s field, so we were feeling pretty darn good about what might lie ahead. 

We ended up at a lovely spot on the reservoir, with a few other folks camped on the other side. Peace and quiet, and white pelicans! Pronghorns were dining across the road and as evening set in, a familiar bugle drifted across the lake. An elk. Alanna had never heard an elk before, and she grinned from ear to ear. We woke up early on Friday, just prior to sunrise and when Alanna realized the colors that were starting to appear, she jumped out of bed, grabbed her camera and captured some of the most extraordinary pictures she has ever taken. 

Friday morning, we headed to Cody early to run errands and then meet up with old friends, with a plan to camp together for the weekend. When I lived here, Kate and her kids, Yancy and Hallie, were like family to me. Kate taught at the middle school and Hallie was in one of my classes, and I eventually ended up coaching Yancy. Twenty-seven years later, the girls are now women with families of their own, and Kate remains one of the funniest and funnest and kindest women I have ever known. We picked right back up where we left off and had one of the best weekends camping ever. 

Extraordinary camp food, majestic mountains, ample bear spray, one awesome kid, quiet, laughter and more laughter, a Minnie in the mud, a surprise arrival from Brad, thunder and lightening, hail, and snow up high, even though its July! More laughter, a roaring fire and s’mores, sound sleep, a short walk that turned into six miles because, “it’s just around the bend!”, fresh bear scat, and laughter and love and friendship. Oh, and an adorable puppy named Oscar. We’re getting one when the trip is over, promise. 

This is the Wyoming I wanted Alanna to see and experience. This is my Wyoming, a place that still lives deep in me and shaped who I became in so many ways, even though back in the day I was a bit of a tornado roaring through these parts. This is where I find peace, especially in places like the Little Sunlight Valley where we spent the weekend. And while I don’t think this will be our final destination—winter is a bit too harsh for us—I know we are coming back, again and again with months in between instead of years. I love Wyoming, especially Cody. 

And right now, I am loving that our laundry is done and we are freshly showered—thanks Yancy, Brad, Bliss and Kate!!

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A Canyon Saved, A Canyon Drowned

It would be easy of us to simply tell stories of exploring beautiful places, and skip the hard, uncomfortable truths that come with spending a year in nature in our rapidly warming world. For us though, the lessons we learn about our environment and our history as a country are just as important to tell.

We walked the Red Canyon overlook trail in the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area Tuesday morning. The trail winds through Ponderosa Pine and Rocky Mountain Junipers and looks out across a canyon at 770 million year old rock formations. It was truly beautiful, and then I noticed the oil slicks on the water and heard the whine of the motorboats below bouncing off of the canyon walls. As I stood there, I wondered what it looked like before the Flaming Gorge Dam flooded this ancient canyon.  

I had excellent reason to wonder as several days earlier we stood atop the Harper’s Corner overlook in Dinosaur NM and looked across the spectacular convergence of the Yampa River Canyon and the Green River Canyon.  A Golden Eagle soared overhead and we could hear the rapids 2500ft below. It was a magical place, but it was almost lost. In the 1950’s, a dam had been planned that would have flooded the Yampa Canyon, but David Brower and Wallace Stegner fought to preserve these two canyons and their rich archeologic history. They won and the dam was built 70 miles farther upstream on the Green River at Flaming Gorge. Today the Yampa remains the last wild river in the entire Colorado River system. 

As we’ve entered our fifth year of drought in California, there has been talk of new dams, yet in standing in these two places, one saved and one not, I thought it important to share what is lost, the beauty, the history, the archeologic and geologic record and the biodiversity. 

Glen Canyon, Hetch Hetchy, and Flaming Gorge took millions of years to become the places that we know and see today, and each housed countless fossils and Native American artifacts before the dams were constructed. They were beautiful wild places. In our lifetimes, even if those dams were removed, the land and the landscape can’t be returned to what they were. 

The West has always been an arid place, and is prone to droughts that last not just years, but centuries.  We shouldn’t have to lose more wild places so LA and Phoenix can have grassy lawns and so we can grow rice and almonds in the desert. As a society we must be more mindful of our own consumption, as well as the ramifications of our waste, and our need to “beautify” arid places with green grass. 

For us, living in the Minnie has caused a dramatic shift in our water consumption. We were never huge consumers, but now we are much more aware of how much water we use because we haul our water for drinking and dishes in 5 gallon jugs from communal faucets as we try to preserve the water in our tank for flushing the toilet! We are never guaranteed water when we stop, so though we are staying hydrated, we are also using less and less. 

Living in balance with our natural resources is an ongoing challenge for each and every one of us. Do I ride my bike to work, even though it may take longer? Can I afford a hybrid or electric vehicle? How can I decrease my water consumption? Should I buy my fruits and vegetables at a grocery store or at a farmer’s market, perhaps saving an immense amount in carbon emissions in the transport process? These are hard questions to answer, and there are so many more to consider. Right now, we hope that in some way, the solar panels we have on top of the Minnie help to offset the amount of gas this gal consumes, because it’s a lot. None of us are perfect, and we can all do better. 

We leave you tonight from the Wind River Mountains in Lander, Wyoming, one of the most beautiful and wild ranges in the world!

Nine Splendid Miles

When you read that a hike is one of the prettiest in the Southwest, you start with some pretty high expectations. 

Today, our last in Dinosaur National Monument, we drove a not very promising road through the sagebrush and then began our descent to the Jones Hole National Fish Hatchery. Suddenly, we came around a bend to sheer and massive cliffs of Weber Sandstone. It was a promising start to a glorious day. 

The canyon walls soared 1500 feet above and while in places the grass was unnervingly high, the creek was lovely.  After stopping to load up on mosquito repellent, we looked up just in time to see a herd of Bighorn Sheep just across the river.

Petroglyphs and pictographs abound in DNM, and today, we saw some of the best examples yet. 

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The hike ended at Whirlpool Canyon on the big and fast-moving Green River. Though we didn’t see any rafters float by, we did enjoy a picnic lunch on the beach. 

Just as we got back to the Minnie an Osprey took off from a lamppost and we watched as it soared above the trout ponds, no doubt looking for easy pickings for lunch from the hatchery’s growing stock. 

We drove up to Flaming Gorge tonight as storms rolled through, though we fortunately missed the inch of hail that littered the road.  After taking in the staggering views from the Red Canyon Visitor’s Center, we found more Bighorn Sheep, ewes and their babies, wandering in our campground. Pretty good day, and a terrific way to start week three on the road.

Back in the Red Rocks

We’ve been just so happy the last few days, back in the red rocks of Utah, this time at Dinosaur National Monument. Dinosaur offers an interesting array of geology from a number of different geologic time periods, especially our favorite, the Morrison formation. The red rocks captured our collective heart a year ago, and in part led us to this trip.

Last summer, we were fortunate enough to spend a month traveling through the southern part of Utah and parts of the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. Our trip then, in a converted minivan, not a Minnie Winnie, began in Zion National Park, where we were first captivated by the redness, the height and the vastness of the rocks. Zion was fascinating from a people point of view as well. It broke my heart to see so many people treat it as a drive-by, meaning they were hustling through the major points of attraction, selfie sticks at the ready, and then racing back to the shuttle. We’d like to go back to Zion in the off-season and spend more time exploring both the front and back country. 

The quietness of Dinosaur is one of the reasons we are enjoying it so much. It’s Fourth of July weekend and the campground is just over half full. We were nervous about finding camping for this long, holiday weekend and had to laugh when we rolled in Thursday morning to so many vacant sites. The folks that are here seem intent on peace and quiet, good hikes and dinosaur bones! 

Yesterday we took a long hike through the washes and slick rock in the shadow of Split Mountain.  It was brutally hot, but it was stunning to walk through the different formations and the array of colors spanning millions of years. For the entire three hours, we never saw another person on the trail. 

This afternoon, we visited the quarry, which is situated above the visitor’s center. I’ve never seen such a terrific display of partially excavated fossils anywhere. A structure was built (and rebuilt) around this mountainside in order to protect and preserve the fossils. It’s the brilliance of our National Park System: preserving, displaying and teaching about these fossils as well as preserving the rest of the acreage that makes up this monument. It’s not easy though, since beneath this beautiful, untouched land sits an abundance of natural gas and oil. If it wasn’t for the preservation of this land by the federal government, we’d be camped amongst oil derricks instead of cottonwoods. Food for thought. 

In addition to the dinosaur fossils, we have seen petroglyphs and pictographs dating back a thousand years. To stand in the presence of such ancient objects is humbling. And, this morning, we visited the homestead of a woman who spent fifty years tending to her cows, chickens, and sheep, and her garden. She sought solitude and certainly could not have picked a better place for it. While hiking one of the box canyons near the homestead, we heard an odd huffing sound; not sure if it was a deer or a bear or a mountain lion bedded down in the tall brush under the trees, but we opted to make our way back out the way we came, all the while the peregrine falcons overhead screeching their familiar and very welcome call. 

Finishing this up, it’s poring rain outside, drops the size of golf balls, much needed moisture in the desert. Thankfully, we are not in a tent, but safely inside our wonderful Minnie. 

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Unseen Places Week 1

We're loading up in Provo, UT and have fast enough WiFi to load more than one picture per post, so we thought we'd put up a slideshow of the things we haven't gotten to show you yet. 

Summits, Ancient Trees and Darkest Skies

I summited my first mountain today, 13,063 foot Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park.  

I’ve never been compelled to climb mountains. I’ve always loved to run but hiked begrudgingly, until I bought my first pair of hiking boots a year ago before we set off on an excursion to southern Utah, where I learned to love hiking.

Tuesday morning, Lisa and I set off to hike the 8.6 mile Wheeler Peak trail and had agreed to turn around when we needed to; getting to the top was not necessarily the goal. Somewhere along the way it became clear to me that I wanted to climb to the top, not because it was the end point of the hike, but because it felt like a fitting ending to our old life in SF and a fitting beginning to our new chapter on the road. Lisa stopped at 12,000 ft., and we agreed that I’d continue on. It was about a mile more up a scree field at a 40 degree incline, but I made it and am so happy I did. Hours later, I am still saying, “I can’t believe I did that today.” It was big. 

We have been camped in Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada for a of couple days. It’s our first national park of the trip! There are very few people here, and the park is amazing, so while we are glad it is a hidden gem, folks are missing out.  It’s one of the dark sky parks, as certified by the International Dark Sky Association.  There is no light pollution up here so when we got up at 2am to look at the stars we could even see the Milky Way. 

Great Basin also has groves of my favorite tree, the Bristlecone Pine.  I’d never heard of them until we visited Cedar Breaks National Monument last summer.  They are the oldest multicellular organisms on the planet, and grow only in the southwest above 9500 ft. in dry, nutrient poor soil. They grow very slowly and are highly resinous so they don’t decay when they die, just remain standing in their crazy sculptural forms for thousands of years.  The trees in the grove we hiked to were 3000-4000 years old. It is breathtaking to stand in their twisted shadows with the knowledge that they sprouted in 1500 B.C.E. and are still growing. 

We've loved our visit here, and will descend the mountain tomorrow for supplies & our next adventure, wherever that may be.

This particular tree was born in 1230 B.C.E. and is still living.

Manzanar

We went to Manzanar on Friday. For those of you that don’t know, it is a National Historic Site. Why? During World War II, Japanese Americans were interned at this and ten other locations for the simple reason that they were ethnically Japanese. As a teacher and student of history, this is a place that I have wanted to walk for some time. I wasn’t fully prepared for what I would feel and what it would bring to mind. 

We arrived after noon to a blast furnace of near 100 degree heat. No wind. Just heat. The air-conditioned visitor’s center gave us relief for about an hour while we toured the extremely well done exhibits. In the 1940s, none of the barracks were air-conditioned, nor any of the mess halls or the latrines. The people that were forced by their government to live in these American concentration camps had few if any modern conveniences, or privacy, or dignity. 

After the exhibit hall, we jumped into the Minnie and did the driving tour. The first stop was two reconstructed barracks and a mess hall. Very haunting, to walk the same pathways as those who were interned at Manzanar, and while the exhibits were again very well done, it was really the time walking along in the sweltering heat that had the biggest impact on me. I just could not imagine spending my days confined by my government, surrounded by barbed wire, baking in that heat. Relief came in the summer in the form of wind, but that relief brought dust that coated every square inch of everything. 

I wonder today about how they returned home. How did one think of the US as home after such an experience? They did, though, return home, to San Francisco and Oakland and Seattle and Portland and so many other towns and cities across the west and this country. And in their return, they continued to prove that they were indeed as worthy as the rest of us, to be called an American, just by showing up and living in their skin each day. 

This was an appalling time in our nation’s history. I think to myself how could we ever have gotten to such a place, and then I realize we may be there again. The current political climate espouses such hateful rhetoric, it scares me tremendously. Is there any chance that those who practice Islam could be confined as the Japanese were? Would the American people allow this horrible segment of our history to repeat itself? There’s the part of me that laughs at such a notion, no way could this happen in this day and age, and then there is the part of me that knows it’s not that far-fetched, given the hate and ignorance that permeates too many minds and places and spaces. 

I encourage you to walk the grounds of Manzanar or Tule Lake or Heart Mountain, and if you can’t physically make that happen, then read and watch and listen. Understand this part of our history, understand where we are today, and never assume it can’t happen again. 

Signing off from Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada after a 400 or so mile drive today. It’s Pink Saturday and while I miss seeing the Pink Triangle on Twin Peaks (we had a great view from States Street!), I am grateful to be sitting in the quiet, next to Alanna, surrounded by pink canyon walls, with lesbians from Oregon camped across from us. It’s pride for us, for today.

Ladybug Heaven

We are camping for three nights in ladybug heaven! When we first pulled into Minaret Campground at Devils Postpile National Monument, we thought the swarms might indicate we were driving into mosquito hell. Turns out, the ladybugs had just hatched and thousands upon thousands of them were zigzagging all about the camp. We took it to be a good sign. Of course, we are alongside the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River, so the mosquitos, large ones, are here as well, but the ladybugs make it all alright. 

The drive down to the camp was a challenging one. For three miles it was a one lane road, which I drove in the lowest gear possible, just creeping along. Fortunately, we were able to successfully navigate the few times we came across other vehicles, including the shuttle bus that ferries most visitors from Mammoth into the monument. When we pull out Friday morning, we are going early, with the sunrise perhaps, to avoid traffic!

I was relieved to make it down without much worry or concern since just the day before I smoked the heck out of the brakes descending Monitor Pass. Oops. Big oops, actually. I didn’t even realize that my foot was resting on the brake! Rookie mistake and lesson learned. If you come across a Minnie Winnie descending a mountain pass slowly, it might be us, so please be patient! We’re just not in a rush, and we want to get down safely and with brakes intact!

The Devil’s Postpile is spectacular! I’d never heard of it until Alanna said it was a must see this first week. Turns out it is the best example of columnar basalt in the world! It’s super cool and definitely unlike anything I have seen before. Today, we hiked to the Postpile as well as to Rainbow Falls and Lower Falls, somewhere around eight miles. We are over 7,000 feet in elevation, so we are being pushed, yet what better way to get in excellent hiking shape than to put some miles on the boots and some mountain air in the lungs! Over coffee this morning, Alanna said, “I love lacing up my hiking boots again.” As do I, and we are both excited for the miles and the sites and the wonders that lie ahead. 

Now that my feet have stopped aching, it’s time to hit the hammock, smell the pine, listen to Minaret Falls (where we are hiking tomorrow) and enjoy some more of ladybug heaven.

Day Two

Six miles of hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail, a learning experience in how to brake on mountain passes and a wild sunset. Not a bad way to spend the solstice.

Farewell SF

It’s time to say goodbye and thank you to San Francisco, from Sonoma. I’m sitting on the deck of our friends’ house. In months like May, it’s warm and sunny, but cool enough at night. The lavender is in full bloom; three deer, two of them young bucks, have been up and down the creek bed all weekend; the trees have fully leaved, providing essential shade and a beautiful mix of greens; and it’s calm and peaceful and perfect. This is what we will set out in search of shortly, both in the day to day in the year ahead but also for our future home. We need the serenity and the feeling of home that Sonoma has so consistently given us. 

First, though, we must stay goodbye to San Francisco. I’ve been here for fourteen years, Alanna for thirteen, transplants, as so many are, neither of us necessarily expecting to stay as long as we did. It was over eleven years ago that we found each other, or rather, I found Alanna. Those of you who know the story know it as a sweet one, chivalrous even, and it produced an enduring love that neither of us could have imagined when we crossed the Bay Bridge into this wonderful city for the first time. Us, thank you San Francisco, you gave us Us, and if this was all that we had received from you, it would be more than enough. 

Amazingly, you also gave us a legal marriage! I don’t think either of us imagined when we arrived, or even when we had our “illegal” wedding a few years before Gavin Newsom made Us legal, that we’d see the gains that we have, especially in the last decade. Thank you SF for giving us Gavin Newsom and his courage and his foresight. Thank you for giving us a legal wedding in Mayor Newsom’s office, officiated by the man himself, surrounded by close friends and some awesome girls from Burke’s Class of 2008! Living history, we all were, together. 

We’ve been fortunate to build beautiful relationships here, both personal and professional. While it tears us up to leave our friends, we know we have to, and we know that we carry the strength of these relationships with us, that they will endure, that we will find each other again, and that we are more open than ever to being a friend because we have learned how with each of you. Thank you, our dearest friends, for your patience with us and your love and your care and your support. You have allowed us to grow, squirm, cry, run away and run back. Find us, on the road or in our next home, find us and spend time with us, and don’t let us forget the wonderful humans we found by the Bay. 

Who could have predicted when we arrived that our professional lives would have evolved as they have, and that we would leave here feeling so accomplished and competent and valued for our work. For the last ten years, I have been fortunate to work with the incredible kids and their families at Katherine Delmar Burke School. During that time, I have been inspired and supported by the most amazing professional educators. Thank you to my Burke’s peeps for challenging me to be my best self and for always having my back. 

What an inspiring gift it has been to me, to watch Alanna’s professional journey, from the histology lab to a compassionate, extraordinary personal trainer. I loved hearing the stories of her clients, and the great care and respect she had for their willingness to work hard. 

There’s just so many things about this magical city that we will miss, so much that we have learned and discovered. The list is long, so I’ll just hit some highlights as I suspect some of the things we love about this place will surely weave there way into what awaits us on the road. Jacarandas in June and July; the Alemany Farmer’s Market, each and every Saturday; Frances and Dosa, our go to spots; the foghorn, but not necessarily the fog; progressive politics, activism and protests; The Castro—yes, we still need gay neighborhoods! parrots, whose squawk makes us smile;  the “treehouse” we called home the last four years; Charlie the Wonder Cat; Pride; Dubs and Giants, though Cubbie blue still runs deep; Batteries to Bluffs Trail, on a sunny day; Fort Point.

While this post began in Sonoma, the writing wrapped weeks later in SF, just today as a matter of fact. It’s a day filled with so many emotions, waking up to learn of a horrific hate crime in Orlando, with 50 of our fellows dead and many more injured. How many families and loved ones and lovers in the shadows had their lives altered in ways unimaginable? We’re leaving the bubble in a week. What’s it gonna look like out there? I can’t help but wonder, and worry just a bit. 

We plan to walk as slowly as possible in this next last week of residence, to soak it all in and live in gratitude and mourn the loss of innocent lives. Thank you, SF, for giving us all of this, and so much more. Mostly, thanks for Us.

The Dress Rehearsal: Gearing up to Go, and Let Go

Alanna and I are getting ready to leave our San Francisco life. We’ll be hitting the road in a quick four weeks, so this weekend we went for our second test run in the Minnie Winnie, camping at Black Butte Lake outside of Orland. 

Gearing up to go is keeping us busy as we sort through what we need, what we can chuck and what needs to go into storage. It’s been a multi-month process, with Alanna and her Tetris skills packing our lives into boxes at home and puzzling through how and where we will fit the essential pieces into a twenty-three foot motorhome. It’s an interesting exercise as we examine the things we have and talk through their usefulness or value to us. If we haven’t used it in a year or two or five, do we need it? Can someone else put it to better use? Do we sell it on Craigslist, put it out on the sidewalk or drive it to Goodwill? 

Only what we deem as the absolute essentials are coming on the road. We’ve never done this, though, lived in a motorhome for a year. What’s essential? How many t-shirts and socks and plates and spoons? We don’t want to cart something around in the storage compartment for a year if we’re only going to use it once or twice or never. It’s a challenging puzzle to put together, and we’re having fun with it instead of agonizing over decisions. 

That’s key, having fun instead of agonizing. What’s the point of fretting when so much amazing adventure lies ahead? We know everything will find a home in the Minnie and we know that if we leave behind something that we realize we can’t live without, we’ll work through that problem. 

For now, we’re enjoying Black Butte Lake, welcomed on Friday by Ospreys nesting at the entrance to the camp. Just started a fire in the ring—it’s chilly tonight. Napped in the afternoon with an unusual May rain providing the ambient noise. This morning, early, too early, a bird that I had never heard before startled me awake with it’s sorrowful and shrill call. I lay there and listened and wondered. 

The rest of day was filled with bluebirds, woodpeckers, a killdeer sitting on a ground nest, trying desperately to keep the eggs safe from the curious humans who kept stopping and talking and watching the nest. Through binoculars we watched six raptors pick apart some small carcass across the lake. We ran, we walked, we sat, we talked. Space is opening up, for both of us, in our minds and hearts. This trip will be one filled with simpler and slower ways to be in the world, immense curiosity, learning, learning and more learning, and love. 

Before all of that, however, we have to stay present for the goodbyes. We have to figure out how to leave the place we have each called home for well over a decade. We have to hold and love our friends, and say goodbye with faith that we will meet again, maybe on the road. We have to leave jobs we love and people that we care deeply for. We have to do all of these things and do them well and right, perhaps for the first time in our lives.