The winds had decreased slightly by morning, so on the road we were and pressing for Des Moines. Kansas slowly passed by and the winds eventually eased off the further East we went. Late afternoon found us still well short of Iowa, so we rolled into Watkins State Park, south of Cameron, MO, just before they closed the gate. It was a wonderful, little spot for the night. It’s a sweet, little park if you find yourself in the vicinity. Great people, nice sites and lots of beautiful oak trees! The colors this year are gorgeous and so late in the season. Many just turning reds in many shades and hues along with the usual array of goldens. You’ll have to take our word for it, we didn’t take any pics! Oops! Continue reading
Month: October 2013
IOWA Trip Day 1 (which is all it SHOULD be!)
We headed out of Colorado Springs on a fairly warm, clear but breezy day. This is a 11 hour road trip we’ve made many times over the last almost 10 years. It is a familiar route and we were putting the miles behind us but the winds kept increasing. By the time we got to Limon, headed towards Kansas on I-70, the flags were flying straight out and hard on the flagpoles. Our trailer/truck combination handles the wind remarkably well so I had not realized just how the wind had increased. When we made a rest area pit stop just past the Kansas border, I took Abby out to the pet area. We had to lean into the wind or risk getting blown around. The lady at the visitor center said the winds were 40 mph with gusts to 50 mph. I didn’t like the idea of continuing but we had little choice (there are very few places to get off the road in Western Kansas) and the rig seem to be largely unaffected by it so we pressed on. We had only gotten a few miles down the road when one of the trailer tires picked up some construction debris blown onto the highway and blew out a chunk of the sidewall. Thankfully, only the tire, and not our trailer, was damaged again. God’s grace for us is apparent. But we are on the shoulder, again……this time in the midst of a howling windstorm. Continue reading
Leaving Montana meant traversing several more mountain ranges as we worked our way back to the East. One of the more spectacular vistas we saw was coming into Livingston, MT where Hwy 89 heads south into Yellowstone NP. (no pictures it was partly cloudy and just after sunset) I cannot imagine a more grand entrance to the park and we had hoped to make the trip into the park. Our initial plans for the trek back to Iowa included Yellowstone and then Mount Rushmore but with the parks being closed from the govt. shutdown and an unseasonable 48″ of snow being dumped in South Dakota we revised our route. Yellowstone remains on our ‘to be visited’ list.
We spent a very frosty night in Livingston parked out beside an Albertson grocery store. It was not a comfortable night and Matt did not sleep well. We ultimately got up quite early, hit a breakfast spot at 5:30 and got back on the road. This allowed us to make many more miles that day and we made it all the way to Cheyenne, WY. As we were pulling into Cheyenne we began to see billboards advertising the Sierra Trading Post factory outlet store. RHonda needed some clothes and we have always had good luck shopping online with them, so we went a little out of our way and gave her an opportunity to do some power shopping. I gave her an hour so we could get back and set up camp before dark. She almost made it (1.5 hrs) but unfortunately, it was nearly dark before we got out of there and that made finding the Famcamp at Warren AFB a bit challenging. We went back and forth in the dark and even got in the right area once but did not drive far enough. Eventually, we found it and got parked. Since it was another night of just stopping over, we didn’ level up, or extend the slideout, we read briefly and went to bed.
The following day we went on south to Ft Collins and stopped in to see my Uncle Bill. It was great to be able to spend time with him and his landlord, Susan, who is very talented working metals. She does the most fabulous, unique jewelry! Bill is working in a new medium for him. Kristina inspired him with her art pieces and he has started some wood burning pieces. Last I heard, he was preparing for an art show! So cool!
A few miles south of Ft Collins, we experienced a tire blowout! I had heard a variety of horror stories of about this scenario but it was no big deal at all. We lost the left rear tire on the truck and I had no trouble getting slowed down and off on the shoulder of I-25. The major bummer with this part of I-25 is the three lanes wide with solid traffic whizzing by at 75mph. We decided to call Roadside Service and eventually even asked for support from the State Patrol to get people to slow down and move over. The tire had picked up some road debris somewhere and was toast. Continue reading
Well the day has come. The one I didn’t want to come in many ways. We are leaving the Bitterroot Valley today. I trust that it is not forever but just for now. We have spent the last 3 weeks seeking direction. Matt is concerned the data is right and the winters here are gray and cloudy. People here offer the reasoning, This is the banana belt of Montana. Matt reminds me that the emphasis should be on ‘of Montana’ not ‘banana belt’ as most Montanans quote it. The grey, overcast winters would not be good for either of us but especially this solar powered wife. The breath taking views I have awakened to for over 2 months now will hold captive pieces of my heart along with some of the best memories of my life.
The nature trail that starts a block from my home and runs down to the wild Bitterroot River and back through the mixed forest will remain a treasured part, too. Just last Friday, I became one of the first to enjoy the 100 yard completion to this end of that trail. The trail is a labor of love built by 3 local people’s tenacity and perseverance. Two of the three are our own Travellers’ Rest owners, Jim Anderson and Mary Morris. We have heard and seen some of the smaller challenges they have faced which would have made a lot of folks quit but they pressed on through those AND bigger challenges, over an 8 year period, creating a legacy benefiting families for generations to come.
On this trail, I have been blessed to stumble upon a moose quietly grazing in the marsh as I took a resort guest for a walk and had the thrill of watching the ospreys feed on the river and raise their young, including the first flight of the young! The young bucks often are sparring in one of the fields and the ducks of all varieties have come and gone to a neighboring pond. Always when you turn around, right behind you, are the ever changing, but always constant, views of the rugged Bitterroot Mountains and breathtaking glacial canyons with their unique splendor. Currently, they are dressed in a lacey coat of white from the unseasonable first snow storm last night.
We leave behind hikes that have beckoned us, left untraveled; canyons unexplored, rivers and hot springs not experienced but they will remain for hopefully a future chapter of discovery. A piece of my heart will stay here in what is sometimes called, “the last best place”. We decided that with 3.5 million acres of public lands here, we could live here and be over a hundred years old yet never experience all Western Montana offers. The million dollar question is, will we? Only God knows and He is saying, “no, for now”. So we ‘saddle up’ and move out with the bumper sticker one of our favorite CDT hikers gave us in the window stating, “Keep it Wild”. For Montana is and I rejoice that there is a place in this great land of America that still is. Goodbye, Montana, and thank you for the treasures! Please don’t change.
* We often say that when we get ready to leave and it always triggers an old song in my heart by Steven Curtis Chapman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVFPjIp6nkk if you care to listen. The chorus says, saddle up your horses, we’ve got a trail to blaze……..this is His Great Adventure! We do and it is…
We interacted with some interesting people in Montana, some new connections and some reconnections. I enjoyed reconnecting with one of the teammates I went to Bolivia with on our Engineers Without Borders trip. Nicole Mosby had relocated to Helena for a new job opportunity shortly after our trip to Suncallo and we maintained sporadic email contact through the years so when our route to Glacier took us close it seemed like an opportune time to reconnect.
As fate would have it Nicole accepted a transfer to Missoula within the engineering company she works for and that made it even simpler as Missoula is the closest “big city” to Darby, about an hour north. We had a great time catching up and sharing over breakfast one Sunday morning and asked Nicole to come down some weekend and see where we were staying. She was able to do so before we left and we got to spend more time together and take in the Apple Festival in Hamilton. Being with her again made me realize how much I missed interacting with her.
A new connection we made was Dan Nelson in Helena. We went up to meet with him on a recommendation from Wendell (a family friend of the Taylors) and look at a new energy balancing technology he is developing. Dan is a physicist with a deep interest in quantum mechanics and has created some fascinating mathematical patterns related to the bodies energy systems. It’s a little hard to explain but essentially it is a revolutionary way to approach the balance, flow and distribution of energy in the body. It could be said that it acts as an energetic form of acupuncture. Dan demonstrated the technology on each of us and we both saw significant improvements over the next few weeks.
We also met Dave Burner, a local resident of Darby who is the retired CEO of BF Goodrich Aerospace, and had some interesting conversations on the local economy. Tamara Rackam, a very talented local massage therapist who also taught us some basic principles in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) which is another energy balancing modality. And many other folks who were guests at the resort.
