Whether or Not, We Drive

Like the farmers and truck drivers I find myself surrounded by, I spend most of my time these days looking at the sky, trying to predict the weather. Mostly, it's been raining. Thunderstorms. Torrential downpours. Biblical-style flooding. It's like being in a carwash for hours. Here's a view from the window of our trailer on Monday night.

Ominous skies on the Tennessee River.

We often wait for the rain to stop at a rest area. Here we are with the big dogs in Georgia. 

It's No Lie

Monday was laundry day in Burlington, Wisconsin, which turns out to be a pretty famous place. First, it was a stop on the underground railroad. It's also home of the Burlington Liar's Club, which celebrates the art of lying and tall tales. Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo is from Burlington, where he spearheaded the local high school team, the Demons (no lie). And if that's not enough of a claim to fame, Burlington is Chocolate City, USA.

Nestle has been producing chocolate there since 1966, including Crunch Bars, Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Toll House chocolate chips, and Quik hot chocolate mix. Farfel was the Nestle mascot before the Quik bunny. Every Memorial Day, Burlington hosts Chocolatefest, and huge sculptures are made in honor of the event. Here's a recent winner:

And here's a sculpture of John and me ;)

Ten Days In

Being on the road makes it difficult to keep track of time and place. Memories of places and events melt into one another like ice cream in summer. In ten days, we have traveled through eight states and three time zones. Tonight we continue our trek east into Wisconsin, adding another place and experience to the feast.

The Mississippi raged at St. Anthony's Falls because of all the rain, but at least the sun was out. 

Our visit to Minneapolis has been great. John has been working (so maybe it's been less great for him), but I've had lots of writing time and am pleased with my latest draft of the play I'm taking to Missoula Colony (more on that later this summer). We also had a chance to see friends and family, and I saw a new production of Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker at the Guthrie.

We stayed for a post-play discussion with the cast from Out of Joint, a touring theatre company from London. The production was directed by Max Stafford-Clark, who commissioned the play for the Royal Court theatre in 1988. After the show, Thomas and I had a lovely lunch and stimulating conversation at Wilde Roast Cafe on St. Anthony Main.

Minneapolis always means an opportunity to see family. Josh and Maurissa took us to their favorite restaurant, The Sample Room, and we were very fortunate to meet the newest Becknell, Chris and Elissah's son, Grayson, who immediately stole John's heart.

Maurissa and Josh

John and Grayson at 16 days old.

And for Minnesota-lovers, one more photo, of a band playing at the Saturday Farmer's Market by the Guthrie. Only a Minnesota band would have this great moniker.

Have a listen. If you close your eyes, you, too, can be in Minnesota with Dylan's Wagon Wheel. :)

Downed Trees and Repairs

The weather that drove us to stay Monday night in Elkhorn turned out to be a disaster for eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Although we didn't witness firsthand the tremendous damage to Pilger (about 75 miles north of where we were staying), driving northeast on Tuesday took us past hundreds of downed tree limbs, uprooted trees, mangled farm equipment, roof damage, and flooded rivers, creeks and farmland. Residents were cleaning up for hundreds of miles. Fortunately for us, the thunderstorm that hit Tuesday night didn't start until after a hot but clear day of driving.

Our route took us from Nebraska into Iowa at Missouri Valley, which is part of the Lincoln Highway, America's first transcontinental road, built in 1913.

We passed thousands of acres of corn fields. Luckily, I can happily gaze at them for hours (and I did.)

We took Route 71 north to the aptly named Storm Lake, where we ate a bit of lunch by the water before continuing to Okoboji/Spirit Lake, where we stopped for two hours while John led a board meeting via phone for Soldier's Heart. I ate a piece of blueberry pie in the local diner and talked to a woman who worked in the quilt shop about barn quilts.

The rest of the day was spent traversing Minnesota, including a stop for beer, burger and baseball at Big Dog Sports Bar in Mankato, where the burgers were buy one/get the second half-price. Today, we got settled in a Minneapolis hotel so John could get ready to teach tomorrow and through the weekend. The trailer is spending the weekend at Reid's house. Here are a few pix of John and Reid fixing the hitch wheel stand that got bent during the trip.

Now it fits again.

All this, and it's not even the first day of summer. And more rain is predicted for tomorrow. 

For those of you in sunny southern California, Happy Solstice!

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!