hotel

Palisades State Monsoon

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 19: 6/20/24
From: Badlands National Park, SD (Cedar Pass Campground)
To: Garretson, SD (Palisades State Park)
Distance: 290 miles 

We “sleep in” today. Though we wake often in the tent, we manage to ignore the daylight until 8:30. It’s been raining on and off all night, too, but the tent has held up well. Fog covers the rugged peaks in the Badlands and we’re supposed to hit significant storms on the way east today. It’s going to be a tedious 4-5 hours on the road, especially with the incessant wind.

We pack up camp and head out to the gift shop, which has a diner where we expected to eat breakfast, but neither kid wants anything on the menu, so we leave with the intention of stopping somewhere else along the way.

We make a quick detour to a prairie dog “ranch” we saw when we came into the park, where we proceed to watch the critters poking their heads out and running around. You can buy peanuts in the store to feed them, which is probably why they are so tame and easily photographed.

There’s just one problem with relying on our own plans for breakfast. There’s nothing “along the way.” We end up at two different gas stations, both insanely busy. Is Summer Solstice a holiday in South Dakota? It certainly seems like everyone is out today. By the time we get any sort of food, it’s noon. Breakfast was basically yogurt and pastries. No one is complaining. (Lies. Husband is complaining. He wants eggs and bacon and something significant in his stomach.)

The next two hours on the road are some of the scariest. Lightning, thunder, wind, and heavy rain abound. We pass one car stuck in the middle of the grass that divides the highway. They must have spun out with all the water on the road. I’m getting worried that our campsite might be flooded out. When I check the weather forecast, there’s areal flood watches over the entire county.

I was looking forward to seeing this today, but I’m pretty sure that’s not happening. The weather on this trip continues to be wild.

When we reach the campground, there’s a small break in the rain. It lightens just long enough for us to set up the tent if we move at light speed. We get everything inside just in time for the next round of pouring rain. Split Rock Creek is roaring pretty good and I’m a little disappointed. I picked this site specifically because I know how much Husband loves the water (even when he can’t fish).

We spend an hour and a half just catching up on social media, reading, drawing, and napping and when the rain lightens again, we venture out for dinner. A sports bar in Brandon, SD called Tailgators calls our name and has plenty of gluten-free options.  The meal is incredible, as is the dessert. During dinner, we play each other in archery, basketball, and darts in Game Pigeon on our phones (it *is* a sports bar after all). And when we come out to the parking lot afterwards, it’s just starting to rain again. 

Back at the campground, we climb into the tent just in time for the next downpour. It looks like this will be our night! From the tent, we hear the roar of the creek just below us and train whistles from trains coming down the tracks on the other side of the creek. Plus thunder and rain. So much rain.

At 11 pm, the Sheriff drives through the park with a message playing on the loudspeaker that severe weather will be developing in the area over the next several hours. What does this mean for us? Is he telling us to leave? Just warning us that it’s going to get sketchy? We don’t know. What I do know is that our little tent site #94 at Palisades State Park ends up with a raging river on two sides of us by 1 am.

The storm gets so loud and vicious that I can’t fall asleep, despite Husband’s snores being drowned out entirely by the rain on our tent and the rushing water of the creeks. So at 1 am, I check the weather app and see that we’re now in a flood warning, which makes sense since I can hear the small trickle of a creek beside us now rip-roaring and emptying into the larger one. It’s already flooded half the campsite and is still rising. What I can’t understand is how the weather reports could be so wrong all day and into the evening, predicting an end to the rain in “2 hours” no matter what time of day I checked. Regardless of time, the radar always seemed to look like this:

I wake Husband. I know we’re *probably* okay where we are (the tent is on the highest ground on the site), but I don’t want to be a news headline for all the wrong reasons. And I can’t sleep when I’m terrified the way I am. I like data. I like being able to analyze data and figure out the *right* answer to problems. Husband thinks we’re safe where we are. But he agrees that if the kids and I aren’t sleeping because we don’t feel safe, then we should get a hotel. 

So at 2 am, I book a hotel 6 miles down the road. We aren’t even sure we can get out of the campground. When we try, we face a small bridge already under several inches of swiftly moving water, a veritable river flowing up and around both sides of it as well as through it. We make the right decision and don’t try to go through it, but it’s scary how quickly your mind thinks “Well, it’s just a couple inches deep. We could probably…” I’ve seen too many videos. Instead, we turn around to wake the camp host (a saint!) who instructs us to use a service road to get to the main highway and tells us if we can’t get out for whatever reason, we can move the tent to any open site.

We reach our hotel safely by 2:30 am, but it takes an hour for the adrenaline to wear off before I can even think of sleep. Water is no joke. It’s powerful and fast and unpredictable.

Older Child says the quiet of the hotel is weird after so many hours of listening to rain pounding the tent. They say it’s like being at the beach all day and then coming home and still hearing the phantom echo of waves in your ear. It certainly is.

I know people keep telling us we’re creating so many amazing memories for our family, but this kind? This kind, I could do without. For now, I’m just glad we’re safe and dry and can hopefully get a few hours of sleep.

Oregon – the Land of Many Climates

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 14: 6/15/24
From: Crater Lake, OR
To: Boise, ID
Distance: 418 miles (+ some)

Um, it’s snowing. In mid-June. We’re out the door by 8 am and the cloud cover above us is thick. But snow? I guess it *is* 32 degrees, so it’s not unprecedented. But also not exactly expected either. We’re east-coasters. June means warmth.

After a small snafu where we leave the park in the wrong direction thanks to zero reception, we head north through the Umpqua National Forest and Fremont-Winema National Forest where we continue to be snowed on for the next hour. This is surreal. When we have reception again, the Maps app turns us around again and we’ve basically taken a very roundabout way to get out of the park, but we didn’t add any time to today’s drive. Thankfully. 7 hours is 7 hours.

One thing I notice about Oregon is the purple wildflowers along the roadside. Some are close to the ground, and some grow a foot high or more. But purple seems to be the color here. As opposed to the white, pink, and red flower bushes (roses?) growing along California roads.

The surroundings quickly change as we drive back into the desert — still Oregon, but no longer woodsy and pine-filled. Sun, scrub brush, and dry hills. But it’s not hot here! It may look a bit like Arizona, but it’s definitely not. Still only 54 degrees at 11 am.

In this strange terrain we see two antelope — the first of the trip! And they dart when they see us, leaping across the desert scrub, their fluffy white butts to us.

After some time, Husband grows bored of this drive and begins to make up his own song. 

“There’s nothing out here
Nothing at all
I can’t even
Make a call

I’m just driving
In my car
I can see
So damn far”

I take over driving for the last two hours or so and we get stuck behind an enormous line of traffic for miles upon miles because of an oversized load that refuses to pull off the highway to let the mile backup pass him… Does Oregon not believe in 4-lane highways? What’s with all the secondary highways? I guess not enough people live here to make it worth it? Still, it was maddening to drive 35-45 miles an hour in a 65 mph zone for a good 15-20 minutes. 

We arrive at our hotel in Boise at 5 pm, sad because we’re officially back on Mountain Time and out of Pacific, officially on our return trip. Husband and Older Child go out for dinner while Younger Child and I stay in and catch a nap. I tweaked something in my neck today (yay), so I’m trying to give it a little bit of a rest. And a rest usually ends up meaning sleep, so… Husband comes back at 9:30 with dinner for me and Younger Child — the problem with going for dinner late on a Saturday evening is anything brought back will be brought back even later.

I  check the weather forecast for the next few days and am a bit gutted to find it’s going to be very, very cold at night for the next few nights. And we’re in a tent. So while most of my friends back home are headed into a dangerous heat wave, I hope they all think of us, shivering in our tent over the next few days.

Do I place an order for blankets at a Target in Jackson, Wyoming so we can pick them up tomorrow on our way to our next campground? Yes, I do. Because modern problems call for modern solutions and the internet is our friend.

Pivot

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Day 12: 6/13/24
From: Sequoia National Park (Potwisha Campground)
To: Golden Gate National Recreation Area (Bicentennial Campground Holiday Inn Express)
Distance: 294 miles

I am up at 5. Again. The variety of birds in the California wilderness is astounding and I have the Merlin bird app open to pass an hour before I even think about waking the kids. The California Towhee and the Acorn Woodpecker are fighting to see who can be the better alarm clock, I think.

At least the night eventually cooled down. We kept the rain fly off the tent and the windows unzipped, so the tent is comfortably cool this morning. I have no idea how long it took to get that way, but at some point in the night, as the temp fell, we all found our way inside sleeping bags.

When I get out of the tent, I notice a small shiny spring in the middle of our campsite. Husband thinks it must have come off of something we own, but I prefer to think a raven left us a gift sometime during the night since we’ve been befriending them everywhere we go. I’m going to miss the ravens when we head home.

We leave the campsite by 7:30 and hit up the visitor center for stickers by 8. Along the way, we encounter a black-tailed deer and two social ravens. See? The ravens have become our friends! Down the last stretch of the General’s Highway and back onto the main highways that will take us northwest to San Francisco we go.

We cross the Golden Gate Bridge, shrouded in fog and get a glimpse of Alcatraz. It’s 2 pm by the time we arrive at the campsite and when we pull up, we all stare in dread for a moment. Sun? No, there’s no sun here. It’s foggy, misty, windy, and 54 degrees midday. And our campsite has a 1/4 mile walk-in down a steep hill. Older child takes a spill on the gravel and scrapes up an ankle, a thigh, and both palms. To add insult to injury, at the bottom of the hill is a clearing where there is only a port-a-potty for our bathroom needs. The kids revolt.

And I don’t blame them.

The view of the Golden Gate Bridge is spectacular, but even that’s not enough for me to want to stay. It’s time to pivot. I use that wonderful cell reception to find a hotel less than a mile away. Now both kids feel bad and say they could just suck it up, but guess what? *I* don’t want to be freezing in a tent all night, have no running water, and have to use a port-a-potty. We’ve done pit toilets a few times on this trip, but this is a new low. So yeah, I look forward to the hotel, too.

From there, we head over to Muir Woods, (Which requires a parking reservation — beware! We managed to book one before heading over.) and take in the Redwoods over the course of 3 miles of trails. We stick mostly to the flat boardwalk and paved trails, which is better for my joints. 

The trees are beautiful and so very different from the sequoia we saw yesterday. Walking amidst so many at one time is magical. And I love that the path is handicap accessible. It’s heartening to see. (In fact, I was impressed just a few days ago when we saw the National Park Service laying concrete on some paths at Bryce Canyon.) It’s encouraging to know that people with disabilities aren’t being left out of seeing and appreciating the natural wonders of our world. And…Husband finds a beautiful ring that fits my finger while looking at the giant clover for a four-leaf. No four-leaf, but I’ll take the ring, thanks!

After Muir, we check into our hotel and virtually collapse. We’ll need to figure out where to order food as we won’t be making any camp meals tonight, but the warmth of a room and the promise of a bed is simply heavenly and we’re soaking in the atmosphere. The wind outside is relentless and we can hear the incessant chiming of the flagpole. Still, no one will complain as we’re just thrilled to be inside. Unfortunately, my hip subluxed getting out of the car today, so that may be my body’s sign to slow my roll a bit. I wonder if it’s due to the extreme changes in temperature. It’s not every day you go from a high of 111 degrees to 53. And colder temps are coming.

Dinner from Floodwater, the restaurant directly next to the hotel, is divine. Pizza, burgers, pork rolls, they have a bit of everything you could want. We’d hoped to play a game of Oregon Trail cards, but everyone is too tired, so we end up asleep just after 9:30 — so tired that no one even cares about the snoring. A plus.

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.

You Can’t Have it All

/ L. Ryan Storms / Leave a comment

Original Post: February 15, 2016

They say all good things must come to an end, and perhaps that’s why I’ve put off posting this last blog entry!  

On day 21, we were up at 5:30 due to a crying baby in the camp site across from us (seriously – what is with these parents???) and while Nate packed up the tent, I headed to get sunrise photos.  The sun was coming up quickly, though, and I only hoped I’d reach the lake in time!  This may have been the only instance in the entire trip where I was behind the wheel of our car.  Nate claimed the road for his own.  Though I was briefly distracted by an elk, I did managed to make the lake in time for a sunrise shot. Whew!

The Badlands National Park in South Dakota was the last of our vacation destinations before heading back to rainy eastern Pennsylvania.  Leaving the Grand Tetons, on what officially capped three weeks on the road, I knew we had quite the drive ahead of us and even though I’d hoped to get one of the camp sites just inside the park, my expectations weren’t high.  Like Jenny Lake Campground, Cedar Pass Campground is first-come/first-served.

The drive was one of the most interesting along the way, particularly when we had to stop for a herd of cattle being driven across the road by a couple of real cowboys.  People really do still have these occupations!  I think I’ve been working in an office for too long!  The only thing that would have made the sight better was if the cowboy’s horse hadn’t spooked, misstepped, and fallen.  On the pavement.  On top of his rider.  You would think that since I had a camera in hand, I might have tried to capture this moment.  Perhaps the fact that I didn’t means I have a shred of human decency and capturing the image wasn’t as important as making sure both rider and horse were okay.  (Other than hurt pride and human anger, both seemed fine!)

You can see the horse’s misstep here…  This was right before it happened!

We originally stopped for lunch at a Subway, but upon seeing the line that went out the door and around the side of the building, we decided to review our options.  A good thing we did.  We found the Trucker’s Outpost Cafe, where we learned that there was a festival or a rodeo in town (that explained both the number of people and horses in the direct area!), and had a better meal than we could have gotten at Subway anyway.  The meal was surprisingly good and the rest from driving was a welcome change from hours in the car.

We arrived at Cedar Pass Campground in the Badlands around 5 pm, and even though we had figured it would be the case, I was disappointed that there was no spot left to pitch a tent.  We instead turned around and booked a room in an ‘eh’ motel just outside of the park.  (Yes, ‘eh’ is an official rating.)  It wasn’t ideal, but getting a shower was an unexpected delight and very much welcome!

Nate points out the sheer drop just a few feet from where he stands.  No thank you, I’ll stay in the parking lot. That’s what telephoto lenses are for!

I’d always wanted to photograph the Badlands landscape at night and couldn’t wait for the opportunity to do so, but finding the right place to take a photo isn’t easy when you’re tripping over your own feet and hoping not to step on a snake.  So, we gladly took a trip to the park during the daylight hours first, just to ensure that we’d get to where we wanted to go when we were ready.

The landscape is quite breathtaking and it’s easy to see why the park was named Badlands.  It’s a lonely place and though it’s a national park, crowds don’t dominate here the way they do at the Grand Canyon, which gives visitors a hint of what it might have been like for the Native Americans who lived here centuries ago.  There’s something very quiet and very spiritual happening here.

As we ate our dehydrated camp meal while watching the sun set from the parking lot of a lookout, we noticed thunderheads off in the distance.  I fought the excitement building in my gut.  A thunderstorm!  In the Badlands!!  

Since I’d first begun planning this trip at age eighteen, I had hoped to encounter a wild thunderstorm in the Badlands.  How amazing would it be if Mother Nature actually obliged?  A part of me hesitated, though.  I wanted beautiful night skies, too!  But you can’t have it all.

Or can you?

Mother Nature – far fiercer than she looks through a wide angle lens (sigh…wrong lens).

We returned to the hotel to work on loading photos to the computer and conversing with the outside world.  Hooray for wifi.  By 10:30, we decided it was time to venture out again.  We were hardly out the door when we realized that the storm we had seen rolling in the distance was producing massive lighting strikes.  This was nature demanding our respect!

But of course… I hadn’t brought the right camera lens.  Nate insisted that we return to the motel to get the lens so that I could capture the sight, and we did, but by the time we were back to the park, the storm had more or less run out of steam and we were left with not much on film.  But, oh the experience!  It was worth more than any photo I could have taken!

Back to the lookout point for some night photography.  The Badlands is, without a doubt, the perfect place to capture stunning silhouetted landscape and the Milky Way stretching far overhead.  

In the end, I got both my thunderstorm and my clear night skies.  It was the perfect way to end the vacation, and sure, it wasn’t quite over yet, but the heart of our trip revolved around the natural beauty that can be seen and visited throughout the expanse of this amazing country.

So, as election season begins to rile friends, family, and neighbors across the United States, I encourage you to remember that this country was built on much greater things than what politicians would have you believe are important.  

Travel.

Experience.

See it for yourself!

And if you need someone to help you plan…I’m really good with Excel.

Viva Las Vegas

/ L. Ryan Storms / 1 Comment

Original Post: August 6, 2015

Bring on the crazy!  Day 9 meant Vegas time.  Life in Las Vegas is supposed to be pretty fast, right?  Everything on television and in the books, at least, seems to imply that’s the case.

Oh, but didn’t your mother ever tell you that not everything you see on TV is true?

But before I get ahead of myself…

We left the Grand Canyon, with me still on Ibuprofen, and headed to Vegas. I was still bummed that my ankle was in pain, but by my calculation, I had several days for it to heal before I intended to use it in any sort of vigorous activity.  We were ready to live city life for a bit, culture shock though it might be. 

And it was.  But first, a stop for car maintenance.

We stopped at Jiffy Lube to get an oil change and tire rotation as we’d now traveled our 3,000 miles (what responsible car owners we are).  But, Jiffy Lube was anything but jiffy.  Over a torturous hour later (spent watching golf on their mini-tv, snooooooooze), we were on our way to the hotel.  Despite the delay, we still arrived at the hotel an hour earlier than check in, but the hotel had a room available.  Thank goodness.  This scored The Mirage major points in my book.

The lobby of The Mirage is everything a Las Vegas hotel lobby should be.  Gorgeous and reeking of money (and stale cigar smoke from the casino).  But, we soon discovered that that appears to be the case for everything in Las Vegas. 

We were too tired to worry about the lunch that we skipped, so we headed to our room on the 19th floor for a nap.  A glorious nap.  In an even more glorious bed.  We hadn’t slept in a real bed since St. Louis (although there was a cabin bed in Kansas) and the feeling of sinking into pillows was divine.

When we woke up, we were more than ready for dinner and I practically salivated in anticipation of In-and-Out Burger, which I had been told by a coworker was the best burger I’d ever have.  I was ready to put her words to the test.  Finally ready to leave, we exited the room and entered the hallway only to hear a strange noise.  Pausing, we waited.

Wait.

Really?

Yes, the person (Um, people?  One would likely assume.) was having a good time doing exactly what you think should be going on in a Las Vegas hotel mid-afternoon.

Moving on.

We headed to the elevators, giggling a little on the way.  It’s true.  Some of us never really do grow up.

Remember that culture shock I mentioned?  Our drive to the local In-and-Out was enough of a shock in weirdos alone.

Where else can you see this: 

Ass-less chap-wearing Native American.  Where else, I ask you?

And this:

If you’re going to wear a diaper in public (and he had a pacifier, too), you’d better be prepared for the ultimate wedgie.

And this:

At least these guys are wearing clothes.

There are no words.

Onward to dinner.  Best. Damn. Burger.  I’ve ever had.  Yum.  Why on earth don’t these exist on the east coast?  Why are we resigned to eating McDonald’s and Burger King when west-coasters dine on gourmet fare such as this??  Something here is wrong.  In the name of equality, I urge you all to rise up.  Rise up and help to bring the In-and-Out Burger to the east coast.  We deserve this.  You deserve this.  (More importantly, I WANT it.)

We made it down to the Monte Carlo just in time for the Blue Man Group.  It was a phenomenal show – funny, entertaining, and interactive – a good choice and definitely recommended.  Plus, you can pose for a photo with a sweaty blue man afterwards.  And who doesn’t want that?

We spent a half hour or so at the casino, put $10 on red and won twice.  That was enough for us.  (About two times more than I needed, to be honest…)

But of all of things we saw and did in Vegas, there was one thing we DIDN’T do.  (No, it had nothing to do with the strip clubs, we had no desire to do those…either one of us…and yes, I believe him.)  We completely forgot to see these guys:

One of Nate’s favorite shows, it had been on our list of things to see in Vegas from day one.  But we had been so distracted by everything to see that we forgot to check in with Pawn Stars.  How?  How could we forget it?  Las Vegas is like ADHD on crack.  We didn’t stand a chance at remembering anything we had thought of before coming in.  Should you travel this way, you’ve been forewarned.  Vegas is a vortex.  You won’t remember half of what you do, and you’ll likely be distracted by every– oh, look, a squirrel.  

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real reason why what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.