Month: April 2024

Aliens, Cadillacs, Canyons, and an Eclipse

April 10, 2024

April Fool’s Day found us in Roswell, New Mexico. 👽

Yes, really.

We anticipated Roswell being a touristy little dirt roadside stop that we would practically drive through, but instead, we found ourselves in a busy, mid-size town. On the way into town, we stopped to get a classic photo (look closely on the left, and you’ll see the crop duster that conveniently photobombed us) and then took a 2-hour driving tour with Roswell UFO Tour.

It is always fun to watch crop dusters doing aerial acrobatics

The tour visited many sites in town while linking eyewitness accounts of events at each location, stepping back to a country with fresh memories of WW2 and new fears of Cold War enemies that fueled still undeciphered events. It was fascinating to hear the “familiar” story of the alien saucer crash in the town where media, military, government, and locals found themselves trying to do their patriotic duty to avoid hysteria while possibly being prodded by bribery and thinly veiled threats.

The tour started from a Lego Museum that had phenomenal displays!

We then toured the International UFO Museum, which was thought-provoking as well.

Though we came as indifferent travelers, we left as skeptics of the official “weather balloon” narrative 🤔.

We camped that night at the free Randolf Rampy city park in Tatum, New Mexico (how could we not camp somewhere with our truck camper on it?)

and drove 165 miles the next day to Buffalo Lake National Refuge, where we could camp for free with our Senior Park pass (I love that!). The Lake is now primarily wetlands, and we saw neither man nor beast during our afternoon and night there. We will say that the drive there passes feedlots in Hereford and Bovina, so there are some farm smells when the breeze blows from the right direction.

It was a peaceful stop, and the next day, we headed first to Cadillac Ranch with our spray paint to make our mark. We were surprised by how busy it was for early in the morning and how close to the road it was. Pictures we’d seen made it look like the Cadillacs were way out in the middle of some desolate field, but in fact, they were a short walk from a frontage road by busy Interstate 40. We had silly fun, loaned our paint to others, and helped them with their photos before going to our destination, Palo Duro Canyon.

We spent three days at the “Grand Canyon of Texas,” spending each night in a different campground for a variety of reasons. On the day we arrived, we hiked the Goodnight Peak via the CCC Trail, which gave us a panoramic view of the Canyon.

We camped in the Mesquite Loop for the night and left before dawn to start the Lighthouse trail hike just at first light.

The morning started cool at 37 degrees, and as the sun rose, a coyote family serenaded us with their morning song. The birds joined in, one of whom we caught on video, and we were impressed by the range and variety of notes.

We hiked in solitude and were able to scramble up the plateau of the iconic “Lighthouse” for some photos and a snack before other hikers arrived.

On the way back, the sun made it considerably warmer (almost 70 degrees!), and we were glad to have camelbacks full of electrolytes and water to keep us going. The desert has taught us that once you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated, so it’s essential to be proactive, take fluids, and drink often. We camped that night in the Juniper Loop, and the electricity to our site was out, which wasn’t a problem with our solar and batteries. However, one of the workers went out of his way to ensure that our site and the one next to it had power. We chatted about how warm it was for April, and he mentioned that later in the season, they would only have mornings for maintenance and would spend the afternoons doing hiker rescues. He felt the sorriest for children and pets who had issues with the heat because the adults didn’t bring or provide enough water.

On Friday, we hiked to a nearby cave and a loop through the valley before changing campgrounds to the Fortress Cliff Loop.

This wall texture is interesting!

The wind picked up considerably, causing our Jeep Tour to be canceled, so on Saturday, April 6, we drove 260 miles to Lake Arrowhead State Park near Wichita Falls, Texas. The weather went from quite windy to quite stormy, and we arrived at the park in a deluge where you could barely see the road before you. As we backed into our site, the sun shone just long enough to set up camp. The weather the next day was prettier.

On Sunday, we drove to stay with our good friends west of Dallas for the solar eclipse. We mainly wanted to enjoy their company as the forecast called for overcast skies on the eclipse day. Bluebonnets, the Texas State Flower, and Indian Paintbrush carpeted the roadside and fields on our drives to their favorite haunts.

Other friends joined us on Tuesday afternoon, and the weather lifted to bless us with a perfect eclipse view!

It was unbelievable how moths, dragonflies, and even a few mosquitos appeared as the sky grew dark, just as if it were evening, and how the birds sang again after the eclipse as if it were the dawn of a new day. Natural events like an eclipse must be very confusing to the daily order of life!

We and our friends are headed in opposite directions to about as far east and west from each other as you can go on this continent, so we promised to exchange travel stories until we meet again. Certainly one of the best benefits of travel is the wonderful friends you make!

“Time and good friends are two things that become more valuable the older we get.”

Crater of Diamonds State Park and Hot Springs National Park

April 18, 2024

After the eclipse, we moved to the Doctors Creek Unit of Cooper Lake State Park in Cooper, Texas, for several days. It was beautiful springtime between the intermittently stormy and wet weather, and we enjoyed hikes around the park.

On Saturday, April 13, we drove to Murfreesboro, Arkansas, stopping in Paris, Texas, to see the Eiffel Tower and its distinctive red cowboy hat on top!

In Murfreesboro, we toured the Ko-Da-Ha Indian Village, which has a museum, partially excavated mounds, and even a “salted” field to search for crystals, arrowheads, and gems. It was fun to poke about the field and find a few sparkly crystals.

We camped several nights at the Army Corp of Engineers park at Lake Greeson, just 8 miles from Crater of Diamonds State Park.

On Sunday, we went to Crater of Diamonds State Park, where I’d purchased admission tickets online ages ago, to search the diamond field. We walked the tilled areas and talked to other diamond hunters for several hours before bumping into a couple of SKPs from Benson who shared where they rented their equipment.

On our way back to camp, we rented equipment from Crystal Towne for the next day, which we picked up first thing Monday morning. Larry strapped the wagon to the rear steps, and we were off! For several hours, Larry dug the heavy wet clay and gravel from the drainage area, hauled it up to the wash area, and used screens in the water to sort out the larger rocks.

The man across the wash station from us makes regular pilgrimages here and gold prospecting. He entertained us with his adventures as Larry consolidated eight buckets into one bucket of concentrates.

After lunch, we returned to Crystal Towne, where Kirsten helped Larry become proficient with the Saruca screen.

This screen has to be shaken and rotated in a certain way to have all the “heavies” (where the diamonds are) into the center bottom, which is the center top, when expertly flipped over.

Larry ended up with 2-quart ziplock bags of centers to sort later for small diamonds. It was a surprising amount of work, and two days was a good sampling for us. Is there a diamond in these little rocks?

On Tuesday, we drove about an hour to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for a two-hour trolley tour. As we went to the town’s highlights, the guide entertained us with the “dirt” on early political control and corruption.

We followed his advice to have lunch at Grateful Head’s Pizza before picking up some mail sent general delivery from our mail service in Texas to Mountain Pine, near our Army Corps of Engineers Park at Stephen’s Park.

The campground was just below a dam, and that seemed eerie night with all the fog on the water! On Wednesday, I arranged a two-hour side-by-side tour with Hot Springs Off-Road.

Jeremy took us out by ourselves and, after several obstacles to test Larry’s driving skills, announced that Larry blew him away and exceeded his expectations.

We had a blast going over trails for the next two hours, mainly two diamonds in difficulty but some harder three-diamond ones.

We are so impressed by the ability of the side-by-side in comparison to a Jeep—maybe we do need one to explore the Southwest!

After showers and changing clothes, we drove back into Hot Springs to find the home plate where Babe Ruth hit a ball over 500 feet (into a nearby alligator farm!) and his statue at Majestic Park.

We rounded out the day with a private soak at Quapaw Hot Springs on historic bathhouse row and finished off with cool mint towels for our faces.

No, not this one!

We mainly headed south and east on Thursday in stormy weather toward our next adventure on the Natchez Trace. We had lunch before touring a WW2 Japanese Internment camp museum in McGhee, Arkansas.

It was very informative, as last year, the museum in Minidoka, Idaho, was not yet open for the season when we walked around the facilities.We camped for the night at Lake Chicot State Park, where we learned at the visitor center that this is the largest oxbow lake in the US, formed due to the Mississippi River changing course. The Army Corps of Engineers has put in pump stations to keep out the silt so it is a clear water lake. Our campsite neighbors were cleaning the crappie they had caught that day in the pouring rain. I must admire that tenacity, but I fish while others catch!!

 

After our fun this week, we agree — Life is too short to stay on the pavement!

Natchez Trace

April 22, 2024

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444-mile journey through history and time that crosses three states as it follows the “Old Natchez Trace.” We’ve traveled along the southern part, and this year, we decided to camp from the middle north towards Kentucky, which is the direction the “Kaintuck” boatmen would have used returning home after floating their merchandise down the Mississippi River. From Lake Chicot State Park, we wound our way east through the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta backroads to the Kosciusko Information Center of the Parkway in Kosciusko, Mississippi. This town honors a familiar Revolutionary War hero whose statue we have walked by many times at the United States Military Academy West Point, where he was instrumental in designing the garrison defenses. Hello, old friend!

After a brief stop at the visitor center, we started our drive on the Natchez Trace Parkway, stopping at Cole Creek for a pleasant walk through a water tupelo and bald cypress swamp. 

Spring is here!

This wayside stroll set the tone for the frequent short stops and hikes we would take along our route.  At French Camp, we split a fried catfish lunch at the Council House Restaurant, owned and operated by Christian French Camp Academy, where students are the staff and profits are used to fund scholarships. The fish was outstanding, and the premise reminded us of the College of the Ozarks, one of our special places.

French camp also has a historic village to visit.

We arrived at Jeff Busby campground mid-afternoon and got one of eighteen campsites at this first come, first served campground on a Friday!  It was a rainy spring day, but we did get a hike up to an overlook where we waited out a storm, though it was still too misty to see much of a vista.  Earlier this year, I had arranged eBike permits to bike the Tanglefoot Trail, so we prepped everything for a ride the next day.  We were acutely disappointed when the stormy weather continued, and after a wistful look at the trailhead, we made the difficult decision to save this bike ride for another time.  Continuing on the Natchez Trace, we stopped at Bynum Mounds before landing in Tupelo at Elvis Presley’s Birthplace, which still stands in its original location.  We bought tickets to tour the home, stood in the bedroom where he was born, watched a movie in the museum, and attended a multiscreen video church service in the church where he first sang. The whole experience was remarkably well done and Carol, the docent at the church was a real treasure!

Other stops for the day included Old Trace and Confederate Gravesites, Pharr Mounds, and the Tenn-Tomm Waterway Overlook. 

We camped for the night at Piney Grove Campground on Bay Springs Lake and Army COE Park, which reminded us of our summers at Lake Hartwell. 

On Sunday, we stopped at Colbert Ferry to watch some fishermen head out onto the windy cold water, hike around Rock Springs and Sweetwater Branch, and drive the one-way 2.5-mile section on the Old Trace. 

This meadow is begging to be wandered through!

The Old Trace was the perfect drive for a truck camper, and we felt like modern-day “Kaintucks” traveling up the Trace. 

We stopped for the day at Meriwether Lewis and stood soberly before the monument atop his grave. We’ve been to so many stops on the Lewis and Clark Expedition that it is fitting we are here at last.

The campground is first come, first serve, and we arrived early enough to have a choice of sites.  Larry worked on running wires for the RAM digital rearview mirror from the backdoor of the Ute.  It is a challenging project, but he’s whittling away as we travel! On Monday, we finished the Natchez Trace with stops at Fall Hollow Falls, Jackson Falls, Gordon House Historic Site, and the Double Arch Bridge. 

We celebrated with a delicious breakfast at seventy-year-old Loveless Cafe served by Chaz, a fine young man and devoted father.  We might have exchanged stories and photos of our families! 

Friends we met along the way had recommended we make a stop at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, so we took the two-hour tour there, learning the history of the Corvette and seeing the sinkhole where some of the Corvettes fell in overnight in 2014. 

Larry’s favorite

Our first impression of Kentucky is that we will return to see more of it!

 

If your pulse isn’t faster, see a doctor, something is wrong!

Mammoth Cave,  Abraham Lincoln sites and Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill

April 28, 2024

After the Corvette Museum, we drove to Mammoth Cave National Park. We spent the next several days exploring above ground, below ground, over the river and (some unintended off-roading) through the woods.

We checked in at Mammoth Cave Visitor Center, where several seasonal rangers were already weary of answering questions. One commented that they would never assume what hike or activity a guest may like but look at the list and decide on their own. Another ranger said they never did any trails above ground or across the river. In contrast, the cashier at the cave tour counter was very cheerful, helped Larry get his Lifetime Senior Park Pass, and gave us both 50% off the two cave tours I had booked. Later that morning, we had an excellent ranger for our 4-hour, 4-mile Grand Avenue Tour. He was full of information and history, so the time and distance seemed to fly by. Only one section had features like draperies, but it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for being the longest cave in the world, with over 400 known miles!

We waited until the evening of the following day to take the Star Chamber Tour by lantern light. That gave us the morning and day to work on projects. Larry did more work on cables and wires for the rearview camera, and I made several weeks of Prince Edward Island Provincial Park reservations when they became available that morning. Pumpernickel took a walk.

A young ranger led the Star Chamber Tour with a great sense of humor and more history to share. We walked for about two hours in a different cave section from the one we had seen the previous day. It is the Star Chamber because long ago, guides would hit the soot-covered ceiling with rocks to reveal the limestone underneath, making a “star” on the black surface. Our favorite part was when the rangers took all the lanterns (simulating sunset) and left us in darkness for several minutes. Then, they returned from a different direction in another tunnel (simulating sunrise). More tours are available at Mammoth Cave than we experienced, but it was a good overview of what is underground.

To explore above ground at Mammoth Cave, we drove to the Green River Ferry to cross the backcountry of Mammoth Cave. The ferry was very short-maybe 90 seconds-and runs along cables to go back and forth.

We explored Good Spring Church and Cemetery before going north and east on a gravel 4WD off-road to Little Jordan Cemetery.

It impresses us that as we’ve traveled this region of the United States, cemeteries, even in the middle of nowhere, are adorned with flowers reflecting respect and love. We did find a more leisurely route back to the ferry and then completed several hikes above ground – Echo River Spring Trail, River Styx Spring Trail, and Green River Bluffs Trail.

We left the National Park campground to stay in Singing Hills RV Park for the last night in the area before driving to the R & S Amish Store on Saturday to purchase fresh, warm donut holes. What a delicious treat! We went by “Kentucky Stonehenge,” where a private citizen had arranged (how?) huge stone pieces in their large yard and neighboring fields to resemble Stonehenge. We stopped to take pictures and admire all the effort that must have gone into it.

Our next stop was Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace, with a monument in his memory around a cabin believed to be his birthplace. It was on the land he was born, and though a small place, very well done. We learned about his early life at the museum before we walked to the spring and around the property perimeter.

Next, we drove to his boyhood home nearby and learned more about his time there. We walked out in a field he helped to farm as a boy and to a nearby creek he may have played in. It is always a treasure to be where someone great placed their steps and spent their time.

Another Junior Ranger badge!

We boondocked that night at Salem Lake, a city campground run by Hodgenville. I had obtained an online permit, but the camp area further down from the day-use area was blocked off, so we parked with the passenger side facing the lake and watched locals fish in the late afternoon.

One couple brought their two kayaks, and the man capsized his in the middle of the lake! Another fisherman took his boat out to help, and we were relieved to see all ended well. A good reminder to always wear your life vest!!

On Sunday, we attended Mass at St Monica’s in Bardstown, a very cool town for a return visit. Afterward, we went to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, where we joined a general tour and learned about the history and lives of the Shakers of this area. We spent a few hours on a perfect spring day touring the buildings and farm area, which were so green, peaceful, and idyllic.

We camped that night at nearby Cummins RV Park on the Kentucky River, a very nice, small campground under new management, working constantly to upgrade it. Their work shows not only in the grounds, but also in small touches like painted trees and animals on bathroom walls—butterflies, birds, and even a cute little mouse. In the evening, we sat in the Adirondack chairs on the river across from the waterfall and just enjoyed the vibe.

Kentucky is so much more than we expected!

 

Did you know?

Abraham Lincoln is related to John Hancock, the Wright Brothers, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, and President Gerald Ford, and (of course) both Bush Presidents!