Leland Kizer

He doesn't have a website, and you won't see him advertising his Old Ford Museum on a billboard. If you stick to the interstates, you won't find him either. But if you take the local road into Julesburg, Colorado, you might be lucky enough to meet Leland Kizer. A former big band musician, barber and collector extraordinaire, Leland is a treasure of a man with a treasure trove of history that he shares with locals and a few lucky tourists who happen by: stacks of LIFE Magazines and newspapers that date back to the teens, old gasoline station signs and gas pumps in pristine condition, military uniforms from WWI and WWII, old band uniforms and instruments and a handful of perfectly preserved Fords. Plus a barber shop that takes you back in time, especially on Mondays when Leland will still cut your hair for an old-fashioned reasonable price.

John talks with a couple of locals in front of Leland's barber shop.

As if Leland weren't enough of a rare discovery on our journey through Colorado, it turns out that the tiny (pop. 1,225) town of Julesburg sports three museums, which display an array of artifacts from local history. I loved these telegraph line insulators from the 1860s.

 Bottles of ink for manual typewriters.

Leland Kizer restored and donated this buggy to the Julesburg Depot Museum.

From eastern Colorado, we crossed into Nebraska, where we spent the night in Grand Island and treated ourselves to BBQ ribs and baked potato dinner. The plan was to head up towards Yankton on the James River on Monday, but our plans were thwarted by a storm cell and tornados. It was all we could do to battle the strong winds for an hour or two, and our gas mileage was cut in half because of the winds. So we're hunkered down in a hotel tonight watching Monday Night Baseball. Adventure, it seems, will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Diverse Paths to Service

"What's the Cabrini Shrine?" All I have to do is read a random road sign and ask a question and John signals for the exit. This time, we were in Golden, CO, where we found ourselves at a hilltop sanctuary dedicated to Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, patron of immigrants. Frances immigrated from Italy in 1889 to minister to persons of foreign cultures as part of Daughters of the Sacred Heart. Although she traveled all over and established 67 schools, hospitals and orphanages in the US, Europe and Latin America, she held a special place in her heart for the immigrant children of Denver, many of whom were orphaned when their fathers died in the silver mines. In 1909, Sister Cabrini purchased some land above Mont Vernon Canyon as a summer camp for orphan girls. Today, the stone girls' home still stands, along with a chapel, grotto and hilltop shrine to Cabrini's work. In 1946, she was canonized, the first naturalized North American to become a saint.

The hilltop shrine is 343 steps up and includes a gardens, a massive statue of Jesus, stone monuments to the Ten Commandments (the one below reads: Thou shall have no other Gods before me) and the original stones that Sister Cabrini placed on the summit in the shape of the sacred heart.

I almost forgot, here is the other path to service that we came upon after having visited the shrine. Both are equally holy on road trips.

Next stop: The Great Plains.

The Rockies

Friday took us across the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide after a restful night at a campground in Grand Junction. We're driving Interstate 70, which is much less traveled than I-80 and more picturesque. It took us through the Eisenhower Tunnel at a summit of more than 11,000 feet. When we descended, we stopped several times along the way to admire the views along the raging Colorado River.

Here I am making a peanut butter sandwich in the galley. 

(In case you're reading this, Mark Miller, I thought of you.)

The river is very high right now, but it's the rock formations and vistas that are most awesome.

John aims his binoculars on the old passenger train from Georgetown, which traverses the steep canyon on trestles some fifty feet above the river. Georgetown is one of several towns built around the silver mines that once dominated the eastern slopes of the Rockies.

Utah's Red Rock Country

 On a clear day, you can see forever.

Except for a few tourists like us and some entreprenurial-minded Native Americans selling beaded jewelry and pots in the parking lot, this breathtaking landscape is a stunning reminder of how empty this country really is. Thanks to a federal judge in Utah who last year struck down a BLM plan to permit off-road vehicles here, it will remain empty and unblemished for the next generation.

Heading East: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah

10 AM Thursday June 12, and we're outta the OC and on the road again. The first few days are always about putting miles behind us, so in the first 10 hours we drove from the Pacific Ocean to Utah, covering just under 500 miles. We spent our first night in a rest area on I-15 with about a dozen big rigs and the full moon shining down upon us. It was actually pretty glorious.

This was the view of the Utah mountains from our teardrop window this morning, and below, John catching up on email while sitting in the teardrop. In case you're wondering, we're traveling with a Verizon Jetpack 4G mobile internet device.

Driving along I-70 in Utah, we came across some cowboys herding cattle, branded with the moniker C-N. You can see the lead cattleman (on the white horse) cracking his whip. What you can't see unless you look very closely at the second photo is the little boy, maybe 6 years old, prodding the slowpokes with a big stick. 

This is where we are now, at a rest stop off I-70, in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah. It's a balmy 75 degrees, sunny and the perfect place for a jerky break and a blog update. Next stop: Colorado.

Baby Announcement

We're proud to announce the arrival 

of our new "baby" just in time for summer. 

It's a teardrop trailer, made by Little Guy. Inside, it's got a queen-size bed, bookshelves and plenty of birch cabinetry to store clothes and personal items. A battery charged while driving provides power for lights in the interior and galley. As you can see, the hatchback opens to a decent sized food prep area, with a sink and two-burner propane cooktop. 

Here it is on a test run at Crystal Cove State Park in Laguna Beach.

Perfect for two, the still-yet-unnamed teardrop is small enough to tow behind our Tacoma, so we can take it just about anywhere. The "bedroom" has a door/window on each side, and a fan/vent on the roof that keeps it cool, even in the summer sun. 

For buggy climates, we bought this pop-up screen shelter that fits over a large picnic table.

We can set up camp in under 15 minutes, and then: time to relax with a good book.

The whole set up is pretty sweet. 

So, look for us on America's highways and byways this summer. We'll be criss-crossing the country teardrop in tow, from California to Florida, with planned stops in Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Florida and Alabama. We might even show up on your doorstep!

Midd Kid

Middlebury, Vermont

We're loving our visit to the Green Mountains, and to Middlebury in particular, which is so beautiful. Here are a few scenic pix from the day before Hannah's commencement ceremony.

Periwinkle house with lilacs.

Looking east toward the Green Mountains.

An old RR depot.

Quintessential farm/silo view.

Creme brûlée for the creme of the crop. So proud of her!

Route 7

Route 7 is a scenic two-lane road from Massachusetts to Vermont that in the southwestern part of the Green State runs along the western edge of the Green Mountain National Forest. The scenery was, indeed, an almost neon lime color of new spring leaves, with picturesque rolling hills, red barns, and an occasional farm animal grazing by the roadside. A short walk in a state park took us to this lovely little lake.

After posing for a selfie, we completed our drive to Middlebury, where we'll stay through the weekend for Hannah's graduation festivities. Dinner at American Flatbread took us past Middlebury's amazing falls, running hard and fast with ice melt and spring rains.

Stockbridge sites

It may seem like we're covering a lot of ground here, but we've slowed down so much that we feel like we're relaxing. Or maybe we were moving so fast before that the way we're moving now just feels like slow motion. Either way, we're having a great time on the road again.

Today's adventure took us first to the Norman Rockwell Museum and Studio, which houses the largest collections of his paintings in the world, as well as all 323 Saturday Evening Post covers published from 1916 to 1963.

Rockwell's studio, where he typically worked 10 hours/day, 

both from live models and photographs. 

His recruited his models from the local townspeople.

In Stockbridge, we also visited the Sedgwick family plot of the local cemetery, where we found the tombstone for Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, who was the first freed slave in the United States, having sued for and won her freedom in a Massachusetts court in 1781.

Sunshine in the Berkshires

Inn at Stockbridge, where we're staying.

Lilacs are in bloom, filling the house with a lovely scent.

Lunch with John's good friends Ed and Kate at Haven in Lenox.