Mason, Ohio

From St. Louis it was back into Ohio to spend a day out of the car with Stormy, Dave and their 3 kids, Zane, Stone and Indica.

Zane & Ambiana

The kids enjoyed playing together, Colleen & Stormy enjoyed making Margaritas together. It seems everytime Ambiana earns a Jr. Ranger Badge Mom has a Margarita   I enjoyed spending Friday on the couch!

Columbus, Ohio

Saturday we headed out bound for Webster NY where the Scahill’s graciously offered their home even though they are down south in South Carolina. Passing through Columbus Colleen had us stop for an ice-cream lunch.

Niagara Falls, NY

Then it was back in the car with our next stop for dinner at Niagara Falls. We ate at an Indian place and then took in the views.

Webster, NY

Our stop at the empty Scahill place was brief but wonderful, it’s like a home away from home. We didn’t see the Easter Bunny and at 10:30am head out for the last 387 mile of what would be out 6,447 miles in 22 days.

Worcester, VT

We arrived home exactly 22 days to the hour from when we left and found to our surprise a foot of snow on our new land. We had planned to camp so we could clean before we moved in, the camp being a hunting lodge for 20 years but we moved right in, cleaned up the loft and spnet our 1st night in our new HOME!

We drove slowly out of the mountains through the foothills with the sunset on our backs and a thunderstorm out on the plains before us as we emerged from the canyon. Denver took too long to get through, am amazed at how much of it there is. Caribou Island was a short book but with a lot packed into it. I wanted it to go one but it sticks with you longer this way…wondering…I am on to the Dan Simmons’ The Terror, a historical tale about what might have happened to Sir John Franklin’s Northwest Passage Expedition of 1845. Two years caught in the polar ice sounds like a picnic after this roadtrip…just kidding, it doesn’t feel real unless we pack up the tent and drive 300 miles. We have acclimated to the car, all except Bobi who tolerates it…so listening to this tale spoke in the accents of the period i drive and drive and drive and the time jumps an hour and now it’s 2am that we pull into the state park just off off I-70 in Kansas so we can wake up tomorrow and got to the…

Oz Museum– Wamego Kansas

The Oz museum was visited by Katie, Bob and Maya when they moved West in 2009 and with all things Oz we follow their yellow brick road so with the soundtrack filling the car we roll into Wamego past the Oz Winery and park in front of Toto’s Tacoz.

The museum is a gift shop in front and a hall of memorabilia spanning the stories roots with the author F. L. Baum through all its incarnations and languages. They even have a nice small theater half way through where you can sit and watch a spell of the movie that drew you here(if it wasn’t the books or the Wiz or the Muppets and the Wizard of Oz.

There were early editions of the books, video of silent oz films from the 20’s, all sorts of memorabilia and bios and artifacts of all the principal actors. Ambiana spent more time in the gift shop because she was promised one thing and took her sweet time deciding between a stuffed Toto and a Snow Globe Glinda.

Glinda prevailed and we all went next door and had Munchkin Tacos and Tin Man Burritos…

…before loading up and driving East into Missouri…

Graham Caves State Park- Missouri

…where I set up camp and Colleen cooked us dinner while Ambiana & Jakobi wandered the woods picking flowers for our dinner table. The campground was empty and we slept like babes until 9AM when we packed and loaded up, breakfasted while we rolled, stopped to buy lunch fixins at a supermarket and headed to…

The Jefferson Expansion Arch- St. Louis, MO

We picnicked in the museum underground beneath the Arch, took a wander through the exhibits just long enough for Ambiana to collect her 5th Jr. Ranger Badge and would have gone up the tram to the top had there not being a 90 minute wait and had Ambiana not refused to go up citing Gamma getting stuck in her elevator this past summer. No matter,  we needed to load up and roll through Illinois and Indiana back into Eastern Time and a sunset arrival at Stormy & Dave’s just N. of Cincinnati  in Ohio.

Canyon de Chelly- Navajo Nation, AZ

The wind blow relentlessly the whole way north throwing a huge curtain of dust over the desolate dessert.

We find the campgrounds in the cotton woods by the river on the outskirts of  a Navajo town and are surprised to find it crowded. It’s free but so are most of the campgrounds out here. There is a Green Tortoise Bus chartered by a Charter Middle School from Washington and we camp across from it and join their evening community of skits and songs. I did the dishes and missed the brownies.

The next morning we hit the visitor center, Ambiana and Jakobi earn their badges by picking up garbage and doing a crossword. then we head out and see why all these people including us came out here.

We drive the North Rim on our way to Colorado and stop at 3 viewpoints into the the canyon below. You need a guide to go into any of it other than one trail down because the Navajo still live down there; grow corn and raise horses…and give tours and work for the Park Service.

It is beautiful, made more so by the knowledge that people live below amidst all that beauty

People have been living down there for 2000 years…

We stopped for burritos in Cortez Colorado

Bibi takes her turn at the wheel; we headed up rt 60 over Wolf Creek Pass in the wind, rain and snow and turned North up rt 285 and arrived in Fairplay amidst a small whiteout which made finding Tony & Beth’s more an adventure than I cared for after 7 hours of driving.

Tony & Beth- Fairplay, CO

We spent a nice mellow day at Tony’s. Beth arrived soon after us last night from Florida where she was visiting her sister.

Ambiana loved Tony, they spent the whole day together.

Jakobi loved the dogs

. We made a yummy breakfast and they sent us off with Pizza and we watched their wedding DVD and we talked about Mom and Dad and just enjoyed being together (and not being in the car all day)

It was a quick visit but since Colleen informed me she wants to be back Sunday rather than Tuesday it had to be so we loaded up at 6pm and headed to Kansas.

Arizona Science Center

We are getting great use out of our COSI membership. The Arizona Science Center was lots of fun.

Ambiana got to see her big eye…

…put together a body puzzle…

…and we all enjoyed Colleen’s Alien Face!

Our motel pool stunk so we hi up the Sheraton where the wedding is taking place to enjoy their frio aqaua

Stacey’s Wedding

Stacey’s wedding was outdoors at the Sheraton and was beautiful as was she.

Anne Clancy, Stacey and Colleen; friends since 2nd grade.

Our great friends Anne and Bob Clancy from Chicago were at the wedding and it was great fun to see and spend time with them.

Jakobi hits up the watermelon at the reception!

Dining in style and I couldn’t eat a thing ’cause of my tummy:(

Colleen was feeling no pain, especially after 3 margaritas Her and Anne owned the dance floor

Ambiana and Jakobi lasted till about 9pm and then crashed out in a corner.

El Morro National Monument- New Mexico

…to camp for the night and stay til we all recovered as it was Tuesday and the wedding is not till Saturday and Phoenix is a 5 hour drive away.

El Morro was beautiful, high alpine grass and trees with beautiful sandstone bluffs encircling us.

We set up camp and made dinner, Ambiana stayed in the car the whole time and even ate dinner in there. Afterwards we bundled her in the jogger stroller then took a walk around the campground so Jakobi could meet the dogs.

In the morning the kids felt a little better, we had discovered a flat jogger tire the night before on our walk so Colleen gave the kids a homeschool lesson in tire repair

We packed up our site because we decided to head to Phoenix a day earlier and add an extra night in the motel. We then headed up to the visitor center to hike the sandstone cliffs and see the petroglyphs and climb the mesa if Ambiana felt up to it.

Colleen points out something to Jakobi

Native American & Spanish carvings in the cliff face.

Ambiana felt up to it so we hiked up to the mesa top very slowly and resting often.

It was absolutely beautiful up there with multi-colored sandstone and a box canyon in the middle

Ambiana spent time filling out the Jr. Ranger booklet and earned her 2nd badge of the trip and Jakobi got one too for helping her out.

Tonto National Forest- Arizona

We headed halfway to Phoenix and camped at 7,700 feet in Tonto National Forest.

There were patches of snow on the ground and we bundled up and ate dinner and then since it was too windy to make a fire we huddled in the car. We have a MiFi connection from Verizon so I can work while on the trip and I did some work. Gaelen’s school play was tonight and we had been thinking about him all day so when I checked my email and found a message from Eden’s Dad John containing a link to a video he had made with his I-Phone of Gaelen’s performance we were overjoyed. We watched it 3 times before exiting the car and crawling into our tent and shipping off to dreamland bundled in our warmies and sleeping bags. Here it is for you all to enjoy.

Looking for signs indicating OK-6 after pulling off I-40W I apparently weave back and forth between lanes and am pulled over. Jakobi is on Colleen’s lap, both car seats are in the front seat and the cop is fine with us because I’m not drunk. Apparently there is a bar near where he pulled me over and DWI’s common. He confirms that I am on OK-6 and that I should have brought my fishin’ pole because the fishin’s good up at Black Kettle. We arrive 30 minutes later and pull into the campsite. The wind has been blowing fierce all night but we are protected down here in the lee of a dam. There are several tents and rv’s in the campground which is free and in the morning we see a turkey hanging in a tree at one of the campsites.

Ambiana is feeling a little better, she eats her pancakes but once we pack up and get back in the car she is not feeling well anymore. We drive into Texas and head for Amarillo where we want a burrito and find a Science Center we can get into with our COSI pass.

The wind is ridiculously strong and buffets us as we get out, Ambiana we load in the jogger stroller and wheel her in like an invalid, she got my ‘I’m sick’ gene and wallows in it; whines, complains crys, has to be carried or rolled everywhere. But once inside, after salmon and cheese lunch she is up and off and all over the Science center. We get directions to a burrito place but when we finally find it it is closed asis every other one we manage to locate. Moch is grumpy now and we don’t want to cook outside in the gale so we end up at ‘Cheesies’ where Colleen has a margarita, splits fish and chips with Ambiana and I have the worst chicken fajita quesadilla ever. YUCK. They did have a giant fish tank with yellow and blue fish which Jakobi really liked. Then it is off to New Mexico.

As we ascended into New Mexico the temperature descended. We camped at 9,800′ above Santa Fe at a campground Colleen and I recalled as we winded up the mountain to it that we had stayed at back on our Southwest backtracking trip of 2004.

It was 28 degrees when we arrived at the campground. It was 88 degrees 2 days ago. When we awoke in the chilling dawe we noticed there was snow on the north side of the ridge we were camped on. We stayed long enough to pack up and then headed down the mountain and north to Ojo Caliente.

Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs

Anafeather recommended Ojo Caliente to us, hot springs and spa, definitely my idea to come here as Colleen found it too bourgeois. And it was…but so what the place was sweet, all adobe and up against a weathered sandstone cliff.

definitely not kid friendly though they are tolerated until 6pm and are reminded constantly that this is a ‘whisper zone’.
The big pool which is all they are allowed in is barely warm and after last night we were a bit bummed. but the other pools were hot and when we sought and were granted permission to take them into one of the warm pools both Jakobi & Ambiana declared it was too hot and were content to splash around in the cool pool.

We camped next to a sweet couple, Cassi and Alec from Gunnison Colorado, they had a 2 year old boy and and a 10 month old daughter and Jakobi was always over at their campsite. I took the gals for the afternoon so Colleen could enjoy the pools and she came back sunburnt on half her body as she fell asleep in a hammock. I got the nocturnal slot and thoroughly enjoyed my 2.5 hours in the sauna, steam room and hot pools, drinking cupfuls of the warm mineral enriched Lithia spring between soaks and sweats.

Ambiana seems to rally when there is something to do like swim but then sinks back into her wallow; her stomach hurts or her head and she wants daddy snuggles and then its into the car for another stretch of continent.

I drove us out of Kentucky and into Missouri rolling over the Earth through the sunset and a sky full of stars. We camped for a night in a campground and were treated to an immense early morning thuderstorm with lots of lightening and thunder but little rain. In the morning we looked around for the campground people but found no one so we left them with a silent thank you and drove an hour west to Mansfield where in 1894 Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder moved with their 7 year old daughter Rose. Our bedtime book for the past year or so has been a ‘Little House’ book and when we finished the last of them, discovered a series about Their life here in the ‘Land of the Big Red Apple’. There turn out to be 3 more series about Laura’s mom Caroline, her grandmother Charlotte, which we are reading now and which takes place in Roxbury Massachusetts, right near where Katie, Bob and Maya lived. There are T stops named after places in the books. Our next series is about Martha, Charlotte’s mother and Laura’s great-grandmother. So here we are pioneering pilgrams all.

As the fates would have it as we pulled up into the parking lot across the street from the house Ambiana informed us she was not feeling well and could not make it through the tour of the house. I carried her outside and she spent a few hours napping. I went into the museum which was full of artifacts from the book. Ambiana surfaced enough to go back in with us all and she marvelled at Pa’s fiddle, pictures of Laura and Rose and Almanzo, the slate Laura used as a girl and the teaching certificate she received in ‘These Happy Golden Years’.

After walking the grounds, soaking in the place and having a picnic lunch in the parking lot we drove to the graveyard to pay our respects to their moldering bones for they all live on in our souls. Ambiana was listless, it was in the 80’s and hot & she didn’t want to get out of the car so it was just Jakobi and me and the graves.

We left the graveyard and drove an hour into some Missouri town and ran some errands, hit a thrift store and found a local park to make and eat dinner. Jakobi chased birds and swung in the swing; Ambiana lay sprawled on a blanket and pooped her pants. Back in the car at sunset heading West with the gals snoozing and TC Boyle’s Channel Island saga in my head: it’s about Nature and our relationship to it; Ama wants to heal it, Dave wants to save it but it’s more about themselves than it is Nature.

We left Columbus on rainy evening at 7pm and drove into Kentucky, the temperature rising every hour until we were at 70 degrees.

Wepulled into the Mammoth Cave campground around 1am and set upfor my gals and carried them to bed. I’m to keyed up to sleep so I wander the campround for a spell before turning in.

We went on the self-guided tour and walked into a huge cave.

We took the Frozen Niagara tour.Jakobi fell asleep as we went in.

I always imagine what it would have been like to just stumble across this cave. What acool place to explore and hang out in.

Our last tour ended around dinner time so we fired up Coleman Stove and made dinner and then headed West to the Little House on Rocky Ridge

Our first stop in Columbus was at Graeter’s Ice Cream, Colleen’s favorite ice cream place where we all had ice cream for lunch and watched them make ice cream in the factory

Next stop was Trader Joe’s for groceries and then we met up with Susan at Udi Pie, Colleen’s favorite Indian restaurant. Kurtis wasn’t feeling well so he stayed home and we missed him but it was nice to see and eat with Susan.

Our home in Columbus is on Kelso Avenue with Colleen and Mike!

We pitch our tent in our usual spot in their backyard and enjoy their hospitality. Colleen took off a day from work and spent it with us at Highbanks Metro Park…

…where we fished in the stream for critters

Jakobi & Ambiana with their nets! We had a picnic lunch, played hide and seek in the playground and went for a nice run on the trails and even saw an Adena Indian Burial Mound.  Back on Kelso Avenue Colleen and Mike made us a yummy pizza meal and then saw us off on our way to Kentucky and Mammoth Cave National Park.

We arrived at my cousin Kim’s house on a rainy Monday morning and spent a relaxing day with her and Lucy and Sam and my cousin Beth daughter Kendalyn. Ambiana and Jakobi LOVED the basement playroom full of all kinds of toys that light up and make noise. Zach came home from HIGH SCHOOL (He’s 15!!!!)  at 3pm and Brian got home at 6:30pm and we enjoyed a yummy dinner with them and then bedded down in that basement playroom for the night.

Ambiana and Lucy playing with paper dolls

Sammy, Lucy, Ambiana, Jakobi and Kendalyn

On Tuesday we headed downtown to the Great Lakes Science Center for the morning. It is on the Lake Erie waterfront right between the football stadium and the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. We get in free with our C.O.S.I. membership.

There was a great exhibit about the new NASA space program Constellation which replaces the Space Shuttle and is designed for a lunar mission. There was an actual Apollo capsule on display which was cool to see.

After lunch we headed over to my Uncle Dick & Aunt Elaine’s to see my Poppa who came to town to see us.

After a yummy spaghetti dinner at Kim’s, Brian and I headed downtown to watch the Indians play the Red Sox.It was my first visit to the not so new anymore Indian’s baseball stadium. It was a cold (37 degrees) but beautiful clear nice sunset evening for baseball. Only 9,000 of the 42,000 seats were filled for the game. Our seats were high above home plate.

YOUUUUUK!

Moch at the game!

Denise and Brian Maruna joined us for the game, that’s Kim’s husband Brian, my cousin-in-law, behind them.

The Sox lost 3-1 but with good friends and family there who cares.

Everyone gathers on the steps on Wednesday morning to see us off to Columbus Ohio.