heat

Gold in the Dirt, Gold in the Hills

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 11: 6/12/24
From: Las Vegas, NV
To: Sequoia National Park (Potwisha Campground) 
Distance: 391 miles

We leave Las Vegas by 8:30 and head to Goodsprings, NV to see The Pioneer Saloon. Last time Nate and I were here, we captured a video we weren’t expecting. That video is what made the kids want to come.

We reach the place an hour before they open and almost decide to skip it and just get on the road. But we’re hungry and there’s a new(er) enormous gas station/convenience store/beer distributor/casino with a White Castle where we can get breakfast.

By the time we finish with breakfast and restock our cooler with ice, the saloon is open and we can go back. 6 miles down the road again, we reach The Pioneer Saloon and the kids finally get to see the bullet holes in the wall. We show the bartender the creepy video and she says there’s still lots of recorded paranormal activity in the saloon including the presence of miners. She tells us about how Goodsprings was Vegas before Las Vegas was Vegas. It was the “it” destination. Which we knew since a plane carrying Carole Lombard and some crew members crashed into the mountains and Clark Gable drank at that very bar, hoping to hear better news than that of her death. A recovered piece of the plane is mounted to the dining room wall, but the majority of it remains in the hills, unrecoverable due to the difficult terrain.

But wait, there’s so much more than bullet holes! We didn’t know The Pioneer Saloon was featured in Fallout, and that Easy Pete from the game was inspired by a real person. We get the chance to meet Pete and he tells us all about the saloon, showing us the cool features of the saloon we knew nothing about. The original bar from 1860 is still in use and if you run your hand along the underside of the bar, you’ll feel a large hole where one could stash a gun if one were so inclined.

The parking lot? Well, people find gold there. Easy Pete dumped a few tiny nuggets from a shot glass into Younger Child’s hand, and proclaimed, “A gift, from me to you!” The kids stood in disbelief and thanked him. So we snap a few pictures and thank Pete again for sharing his experiences and knowledge of the saloon with us. 

By the way, the 3rd Annual Fallout fest is coming up in November. The first year brought about 3,000 people to the town of 176 people. The second year? 7,000. And the reason they moved it to November? People couldn’t take the heat and were passing out left and right. So anyway, it shouldn’t be 110 degrees if you want to visit in November and Easy Pete will be there to greet you.

We prepare for a long drive through the Mojave National Preserve and onward into California. Joshua trees stand out amongst the scrub and sand, like bizarre sentries from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. And then we hit full-on “you will die if you try to cross me” desert. It’s 108 degrees and not even noon. The desolation here is intense, the mountainous terrain in the distance mean and angry-looking. The last time we drove through, these mirror solar farms didn’t exist. There’s something very creepy about glowing towers in the middle of the desert.

Most of our drive through California is much the same. But the mountains slowly change to golden hills that look like they’ve been covered in a velvet blanket. When we’re about an hour from Sequoia National Park, the family begins to wonder if I put the  correct destination into the GPS. How can we be close to Sequoia when it’s still 104 degrees outside with citrus groves and vineyards on either side of us?

But the directions are correct. Our campground is at the base of the park, before the Giant Forest. After seeing our military park pass, the park ranger at the entrance salutes Husband and thanks him for his service, almost bringing Husband to tears. Once again, we arrive when the sun is directly on our campsite. So instead of setting up in 95 degrees (it’s dropped a little), we opt to take a drive to see General Sherman. It’s 13 miles up the General’s Highway, a windy road that’s almost as bad as Independence Pass in Colorado.

But when we finally start to see the Sequoias, the kids are astonished. They almost don’t believe us when we tell them the trees they’re looking at are small compared to some of the others. So when they finally see General Sherman, their mouths drop. A walk through the Giant Forest gives us all an appreciation for the massive towering trees and how many hundreds to thousands of years they took to reach that size.

Unfortunately, we’ve also finally hit the part of the trip where mosquitoes abound. Meh. Back to the campsite by 8, we set up our tent just in time for dusk to the sound of chirping crickets and distant fellow campers. Remember those cooler temps AccuWeather told me we’d have? Lies. These temps were for the Giant Forest about 4500 ft above where we are. Instead, it’s 88 degrees with zero wind. It’s going to be a long, hot night.

The Most Expensive Day

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 10: 6/11/24
From: Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
To: Las Vegas, NV
Distance: 272 miles

It worked! Husband sleeping in car and rest of family sleeping in tent resulted in sleep for everyone. Husband has some DayQuil and has been feeling significantly better even before taking it, but now even more so.

We spend a lazy morning making eggs and pancakes and doing dishes before breaking down camp and heading out a little after 9 am. We reach Las Vegas around 2 p.m. and the heat and crowds are both insane. It’s 111 degrees when we pull in, but people are everywhere. Since we have an hour to kill before checking in, we hit up the one place we missed the last time we came to this city. Husband is a happy camper. We get to visit the shop from History Channel’s Pawn Stars. Husband buys a few “souvenirs,” and then we head to the Luxor to check in.

I booked this hotel because I thought the kids would get a kick out of staying in a pyramid. I’m not wrong. They love it. Of course, they love almost everything here. It’s insane. We get to the hotel at 3 and figure we’re perfectly on time, not realizing the check-in process would take almost an hour since the line is so long, it looks like an airport ticket counter. While waiting, we discuss plans for the evening. Since it’s so hot, we scrap the idea of walking the strip, and on a whim, we buy Blue Man tickets while standing in line for check-in.

The Luxor from outside
The inside view from our floor looking down.
The inside view from below, looking to our floor. That tiny light on the 27th floor is Husband waving his cell phone at us.

When we finally get to the rooms, we collapse into beds, nap, take showers, watch tv, and generally exist before heading to the food court for dinner, which is a $50 extra-large pizza that would be $18 at home. Ah, Vegas prices. Finished with dinner, it’s time for the show, which is conveniently in the same hotel. (Why do you think we really booked it? I don’t want to go anywhere today. We’ve done enough.) We get to our seats about 15 minutes early, and are asked almost immediately if we want an upgrade. Free? Yes! Of course, yes! We’re led to seats 4 rows from the front and we marvel at our good luck. What a treat! So glad for the folks who work this show. These seats are incredible.

The show? Even more incredible. The kids were smiling from ear to ear for the entire hour and a half. I swear I’ve never heard such laughter in my life. But Husband and I were doing the same. It’s impossible not to. We always knew the kids would love this show. They haven’t stopped talking about it since we left the theater. The Blue Man Group is the perfect mix of art, music, athleticism, and comedy. So much talent, it’s insane.

Afterwards, we figure we’ll walk the strip for a bit, but it’s still 99 degrees out. The breeze makes it bearable, but not by much. We get about a mile down the road when Younger Child and I call it quits and head back to the hotel so they can text with friends and I can catch up on the blog I haven’t been able to post because we’ve had no reception for days. Older Child and Husband decide they need to ride The Big Apple rollercoaster. That’s a hard pass from me, so an escape to the room is perfect. They come back proclaiming the ride more “intense” than they expected.

We each claim a bed of our own and for one night, everyone enjoys the comfort of a queen-sized bed.

Into the Fire

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 6: 6/7/24
From: Santa Fe, NM
To: Mesa Verde National Park, CO by way of Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area, NM
Distance: 318 miles

Up at 7, but Husband was up half the night with a migraine brought on by the IPA he had with his shrimp tacos last night. Maybe there’s some obscure rule that says we can’t *all* get good sleep at the same time. Because I slept like a baby. It was amazing.

We head to the breakfast buffet at the inn, which is delicious and loaded with an array of southwestern goodies. Pinto beans, mixed veggies, chili, plus your regular fare like eggs, biscuits and gravy, fresh fruit, cereal, pastries, and oatmeal. We eat in the beautiful courtyard where I’ve decided I’d like to set up permanent residence.

Then we’re on the road to Cabela’s for a seamless pickup of the air mat I ordered yesterday. Mat in hand, we head northward to the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area, the land changes drastically again. We drive through several reservations which are nothing more than rock, dirt, and scrub brush from the road. Breathtaking and lonesome.

Along the way, we pass someone in the desert who’s riding a bike loaded with supplies. “Where is he going?” I ask. “Where is he *coming* from???” He’s coming from the same whole lot of nowhere we just came from. I can’t imagine riding a bike on a desert highway. We soon figure out he’s heading towards the town of Cuba, NM just a few miles down the road.

By the time we’re 45 minutes from our destination, the surrounding land is low grass and scrub. Younger Child says it’s “Minecraft terrain.” Indeed. A half hour out and we start pointing out angry alien faces in rocks. 

We travel twelve miles down a dirt and gravel road to the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area and park, load up on sunscreen and water, and head out into the wilderness in hopes of seeing this:

What we didn’t plan on: Being there at the beginning of the hottest part of the day, there being NO maps at all of the trails, and the distance would would have to travel to see what we were hoping to see. 

So in the end, we didn’t see it. But we still walked 2 miles in blistering heat with no shade and got some cool pictures regardless, plus saw 75 million year old petrified wood. Still, everyone is surely wondering what Mom was thinking putting this one on our list, but when Mom planned this in January, it wasn’t a real feel temperature of 100 degrees.

We get back to the car, down more water, and blast the A/C for the next hour, stopping at lunchtime not to eat lunch, but to eat ice cream at a gas station. Because ice cream is the only food that even remotely sounds good right now. 3/4 of us have heat-related headaches. Older Child says Dad must have played his headache card last night.

We did get to see some horses in the wilderness area. Wild? Or Navajo owned? We don’t know. And without cell service, we can’t find out…

Older Child and I drank several bottles of water to try to get rid of the heat headaches…and found out later we both desperately had to visit a restroom but there’s nothing nearby. It was a fun hour.

We got to Morefield Campground in Mesa Verde National Park and were immediately greeted with stunning 360 degree views. There is no direction that isn’t incredible.

A short time later, we set up camp in a beautiful site with sun and shade and trees. A gust of wind tries to take our tent away before we have it staked down, but we hold on.

Minutes after we arrive, both kids are approached by a kid from another camp site who asks if they want to play tag with him. They help us finish setting up and then head over to play for a half hour before dinner. Older Child jokes they want to play snake tag, where you run around in the grass with no shoes on and see who gets bitten by a snake first. Yes, my kids are weird. They ended up not playing any kind of tag, snake or otherwise. Instead, they played Mancala and lost twice to an 11-year-old named Caleb.

A quick camp meal and some local exploring for Husband and kids, while I play with photos on my computer at the camp picnic table and receive a visit from a sweet black-tailed doe. At 9, we head to the amphitheater for a presentation by a park ranger about some of the animals in the park.

When we get back to our campsite, Mom makes another *very* bad decision. Older child is concerned about a noise in the grass and trees behind our tent so I take a flashlight behind to look and then fake freaking out at a bear. The kids *lose* it and it’s a mixture of laughter and tears for the next hour as adrenaline clears system. I am an awful mother. This is the kind of prank their dad would pull, not me… I may never get over feeling guilty over this one.

To try to ease the tension, I pull out my camera and show the kids the earth’s rotation by focusing on the North Star and keeping the shutter open to create star trails. They are intrigued and we agree we’ll try it again tomorrow night with a little more preparation beforehand.

For now, bed. An early wake up so we can head out to see the Pueblo dwellings along the mountain in the morning. Animals are also most active early in the morning, so who knows? If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll see a bear on the way…

Here We Go…To Kansas

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Original Post: July 21, 2015

In the beginning of the trip, I would take a photo of our next destination  from wherever we were when we started that day.  This habit didn’t last long…

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Kansas was not on my hotspot list.  I mean, other than Dorothy, who have you ever known to actually WANT to go to Kansas?  (I think even Toto would have opted out if he’d been given the chance, but dammit…Dorothy just had to ask “Toto, too?”  Poor dog.  He not only came from Kansas, but he had to go back!)

Shortly, before we left for vacation, I had taken a quiz on one of those ridiculous internet sites to see which state I should live in, as if answering 15 questions online could actually be a legitimate determining factor in where I’ll hang my hat.  And the result – you guessed it – was Kansas.  How on earth I could answer that I loved the ocean and still get a state smack-dab in the middle of the country as a result was beyond me.  The last thing I’d want to do is end up in any part of “Tornado Alley.”

I believe my exact words just a few days before we left were, “If I thought I could actually make it from St. Louis to Aspen in a single drive without going insane, I would definitely try.  But since we need to sleep at some point, Kansas it is.”

The drive through eastern Kansas provided endless views of slow rolling hills that eventually flattened into plains that went on for miles.  By the time we reached western Kansas, we’d seen more corn and more oil pumps than I had realized could exist in one state.  Our only saving grace?  The time of year we chose to travel.  Had we booked our trip just a few months later, those miles of landscape (though long and unchanging) would not have been visible at all.  Instead, higher and heartier corn would have meant stunning views of – wait for it – corn.  For 9 hours.  Corn and sky.  Thank goodness for June.

I was a bit hesitant when we stopped at a rest area and found a piece of molted snake skin.  I guess I hadn’t really thought I’d see any snakes.  Did I know they were out there?  Sure, the same as I knew rattlesnakes inhabited Hawk Mountain in our part of Pennsylvania, but since I don’t encounter evidence of their existence 99% of the time, I can keep them filed away in the “imaginary monster” files of my mind.  Suddenly, they had become much more real.

This surely came from the belly of a fairly good-sized snake.  Glad I didn’t get a chance to meet him.

When we finally arrived at Cedar Bluff State Park, I was impressed.  I had not expected to be at all intrigued with this strange land in the middle of the country, but there was actually a serene beauty in that tall grass which swayed like waves in the wind.  And wind there was.  With no mountains or tree lines to block it, the wind was constant.  I would be the last person to complain, however, since it meant we had some relief from the 102 degree heatwave.

We checked into our cabin, aptly named The Jumpin’ Catfish.  (Yes, I’d had Nate in mind when I booked that one.)  It was adorable.  From top to bottom, it was cute as can be – and covered with walking stick bugs (on the outside…not in – thank goodness!).  Funny how some bugs can creep you out completely and others are, for lack of a better word, cute.  Walking sticks definitely fall into the latter category.  So, if you happen to stop in Kansas and need a place to stay, Cedar Bluff State Park is it.  A great camp!

Nate fished the reservoir (of course) and we both enjoyed spending the evening on the porch of our cabin, watching the sun set and the lightning bugs buzz through the grass.  Perhaps the most memorable part of Kansas was the incredible birdsong.  I have never heard birds sing like the ones we heard there and it just added to the serenity that was the prairie.  If I didn’t know that tornadoes frequent the state every year, I could have contemplated buying a little cabin of our own in the area. Birdsong aside, I think I’ll pass.

We spent the evening experimenting with our cameras and scopes, practicing for the nights we knew we wanted to get some great dark sky shots, and despite the lack of geographical contrast to use against the sky, we got some pretty decent photos.

We headed to bed fairly early, knowing that we’d be up early and on the road to the “real” vacation tomorrow.  (Are you sensing a pattern, yet?)  Aspen, Colorado and Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.  Finally, a change in landscape!  

And we survived Kansas.  Nary a tornado in sight.