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Sunday July 10th, 1988 DAY 1
The first day of our Western holiday. We had only planned to go about three hundred or so miles today, but it worked out to 450 by the odometer. So either the maps or the odometer is a bit out of whack.
Anna did very well today, very patient. Hopefully, we won’t have as far to go tomorrow.
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| Anna and Bonnie in front of our tent |
We are camped at a KOA near Benton Harbor, Michigan. Benton is on Lake Michigan, but we haven’t seen the lake yet. With the weather we’ve had, it might have dried up or been emptied to fill the Mississippi River.
Note: Campsites are marked with the tent icon:
We did drive through a few brief thunder showers today which helped cool things down a bit. Bonnie was the one who suffered the most today between the heat and her normal nervousness in the van.
We had a refreshing swim after setting up our tent here. KOAs have all the amenities and are great for “passing through” one nighters.
We had spaghetti and white wine for supper. A sun shower sprinkled us while Anna played in the playground.
There was not much in the way of scenery today. Anna liked the suspension bridge between Detroit and Windsor. She liked looking down on all the roofs. We had a brief view of a backwoods porno arcade called the Velvet Touch which I drove into thinking I was on my way to a gas station.
Tomorrow we hope to get through to Iowa somewhere. I am looking forward to driving through the Midwest. I last went through on our family trip to the west coast, twenty years ago. I should have brought Stephen King’s The Stand with me. I seem to recall that the characters followed a route similar to our own through to Colorado.
Monday July 11th, 1988 DAY 2
In a KOA just west of Des Moines, Iowa.
We drove even further today than yesterday, straining to escape the endless cornfields. Tomorrow supposedly we are going to cut back and only get as far as Lexington, Nebraska. The day after that we should be into Rocky Mountain National Park.
Today’s scenery was as nondescript as yesterday’s, not unlike Southern Ontario. Anna was terrific. She was quite easily entertained and played by herself a good part of the time.
Tuesday July 12th, 1988 DAY 3
KOA near Gothenburg, Nebraska.
Driving went well except for the last twenty or so miles when we were sent on a detour to another highway. Afternoon got a lot hotter than yesterday. Fortunately we were able to throw Bonnie into the Platte River near our campsite.
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| Chris and Bonnie at the campsite |
We checked the oil today to find to our surprise that there was none. This brought back waking nightmares of our Alaska trip where we blew the engine in the Canadian prairies. Hopefully caught it in time this time. I hope so.
After I wrote last night’s entry, I went for a short walk down to the swamp to watch the stars and fire flies. Didn’t stay too long for fear that Bonnie would get into some mischief such as skunks.
A bad accident apparently closed down the highway today, causing the detour I mentioned earlier.
Anna makes friends at each camp site, unfortunately she finds it hard to say goodbye sometimes.
We get into the mountains tomorrow. Hopefully the scenery will improve and the weather will be a bit cooler.
Wednesday July 13th, 1988 DAY 4
In the mountains at last! We are camped in a mountainside campground called Ponderosa in Estes Park, Colorado.
Another day of heavy driving. Everyone is near the cracking point. We need a few days in one place to unwind and pull ourselves together.
As we drove west, a few little white clouds slowly solidified into snow patches on the Rocky Mountains. We are hoping to get a site in Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow, or else to return to this site which is quite good and has all the conveniences to boot. The sites in the National Park have no electricity and there are no showers. But of course it would be worth it to do without these things to be able to actually stay in the Park.
While we were setting up here this afternoon, a ruby-throated hummingbird flew into the van and, fluttering at a window, could not get out. It reminded me of the dead hummingbird I found as a boy in my grandfather’s workshop in Haliburton. Such a beautiful, delicate thing. I netted it gently in a dish towel and brought it outside where it flew safely away. It came back later and sat for a long time on tree branch above my chair.
We had a rather disastrous dinner at a pizza restaurant tonight with Anna being excessively irritating. But one could hardly blame her after four days in a hot van.
Thursday July 14th, 1988 DAY 5
Camped in Rocky Mountain National Park at site #10 in the Moraine Campground. A good site, shady with neighbors not too near and washrooms not too far.
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| The campsite as it looks today. Hasn't changed much! |
We did very little today except recover from the last four hectic days of travel.
It will take some effort to keep Anna interested in the National Park since it has no pool and no playground. This makes it harder for her to meet other kids. I made her a swing:
It will be good to stay in one place for a few days and catch our breath. Anna seems eager to get up to where the snow is.
Friday July 15th, 1988 DAY 6
The road by our campsite has been busy all evening as the weekenders pour in.
Anna had quite a few nightmares last night. She told us a bit about them this morning. She is definitely a child of the VCR age, for after telling us about them, she asked if we could tape them. Obviously they were scary but worth seeing again.
We drove above the tree line today and over the continental divide. Anna got too tired to hike up to the snow and the altitude made me too weak to carry her all the way up.
The highway up is hair-raising and breath-taking: no guard rails and beautiful panoramas.
I am the only one of our party to touch the Rocky Mountain summer snow.
We dropped into the historical site of the Never Summer Dude Ranch which was apparently quite a going concern in the Prohibition Era. It was begun by an ambitious German immigrant and continued by his son who finally sold it to the National Park in 1974.
The guides at the ranch were very nice to Anna who chattered on to them.
A thunderstorm came up as we were leaving the ranch and driving was not the greatest for Chris as we retraced our route back to camp.
Saturday July 16th, 1988 DAY 7
A week into the trip! This was Anna’s luck day. She rode a horse with me, the camp wood and ice truck as well as a shuttle school bus in the morning.
The horse ride went quite well for the first half hour, but then Anna began to deteriorate, but she stayed on and we finished the hour long ride. The horse was called Duke and it was the first real horse ride for both of us. Fortunately, the horse knew what it was about.
Anna showed considerable interest in the variety of horse poop and the habit of horses to just stand and poop on the trail.
After a half hour she began to feel uncomfortable on her pillow at the front of the saddle. But she grew even more uncomfortable when I tried to lift her up and adjust the pillow.
I must admit I felt nervous at this stage too, since much of the trail was along steep mountainsides and rocky terrain. Horses are amazing agile for their size and weight.
We went into the town of Estes in the afternoon and I found a one shelf used book store where I bought The View Over Atlantis by John Mitchell and Hindoo Fairy Legends collected by Mary Frere.
Tomorrow we plan to head off in the direction of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.
Sunday July 17th, 1988 DAY 8
We are camped tonight in Dubois Wyoming, a few hours from Yellowstone Park, in the foothills of the Rockies.
We drove a great deal today through the desolate scrub of Wyoming. It was very hot, but of course everything cools down a lot at night.
We’re in a campsite that has a pool, laundromat and showers, so a big cleaning operation is underway.
We hope to get camped in Yellowstone tomorrow. Anna was quite good in the van today. She stayed entertained between tapes and stories. Her Pete’s Dragon obsession that developed during this trip continues unabated. At the playground tonight she sang the lines “There is room for everyone in this world, if everyone makes room.” And sang and sang and sang them ad nauseum.
Monday July 18th, 1988 DAY 9
Camped in Yellowstone National Park. We have a good site on the outer rim of the circle with a hundred feet or so of evergreen forest between us and the lake. Bonnie has gone for a swim. We strolled along the lakeshore. Anna has made friends with the kids in the campsite across the way.
We did little today but drive to Yellowstone, wait in line for a site and then rest up.
Tonight I sit up in the van puffing Winstons and sipping Yellowstone bourbon.
We hope to get to Old Faithful tomorrow before the crowds.
Tuesday July 19th, 1988 DAY 10
Did a tour of the thermal areas of Yellowstone today from Old Faithful to the sputtering mud pots. Anna was not much impressed with these things, but she was patient with our fascination.
We are still camped on Loop C site 101 at Grant Village. All the conveniences are close at hand including a steak house which we plan to get to one day soon.
We saw a lot of buffalo today along with many foolhardy photo fiends and videoheads walking up to them. A great number of people are gored by buffalo every year here.
It was good to see actual herds of buffalo in the wild.
Old Faithful was faithful and quite spectacular.
Anna had something of a tantrum this morning, refusing to wash. But she was fine for the rest of the day.
Bonnie continues to perk up. Today she was watching the scenery out of the van window, something she didn’t do over the prairies, but who can blame her. It is cooler here for her.
We also saw some elk today. We have yet to see any bears. If we do, I hope it is from a safe distance.
Wednesday, July 20th, 1988 DAY 11
We drove the northern loop of the Yellowstone figure 8 today:
We saw the Yellowstone River Canyon which is quite a spectacle, though a bit overdone by Mother Nature – too much yellow.
We traveled through prime bear country, near Mount Washburn, at around lunchtime and saw no bears.
We stopped briefly at the Visitor’s Center in Mammoth Hot Springs, quite an established community for the middle of the wilderness.
The drive home was uneventful except for passing the scene of an apparent buffalo incident. A boy was being tended by park rangers. A whiplash collar had been put on him. Up the road a little further the ambulance sped by us on its way to the scene. People love to break the rules and enter dangerous situations. Let us hope they live to regret it.
At the same spot we saw buffalo running. They can really move, a fact belied by their cow like appearance.
Tonight we had dinner at the steak house and the meal went very well. Anna listened through earphones to my Walkman most of the time. This seems like a good strategy for getting a little peace in the restaurant.
This is to be our last night in this campsite. Tomorrow we should be in Grand Teton National Park.
Thursday July 21st, 1988 DAY 12
Now camped at site A13 (fortunately we are not superstitious) at Colter Bay in Grand Teton National Park:
We rolled in this morning, got our site and then went for a refreshing swim in Jackson Lake. Even Bonnie went in, as there is apparently no rule forbidding pets on the beaches. The “beach” was made up of stones averaging about two inches in diameter and was very hard on bare feet.
The Grand Teton Mountains are very striking mountains with their needle pinnacles and the contrast with Jackson Lake.
We drove on past Jenny Lake to the south and looped back at Moose Junction.
This evening we had a camp fire and sang songs. Anna likes suggesting themes for ad lib blues songs.
At the Visitors Center this afternoon, we saw an interesting movie about the Californian Jahi Indian Ishi who was the sole survivor of his tribe. The last remnants of this tribe managed to elude the white man and live a secret life in a valley in the California. This movie was based on Theodora Kroebe’s book Ishi in Two Worlds. I bought a more popular account by the same author entitled Ishi.
Friday July 22nd, 1988 DAY 13
Still at the same campsite. This morning we went over to the showers for our weekly clean up. After that, we went down to Jackson Lake and let Bonnie have a dip before we cooped her up in the van for a few hours, while we went on a one and a half hour cruise of Jackson Lake with commentary by a park naturalist. It was a good cruise. We saw several Osprey nests in the tops of dead trees. The Naturalist mentioned that this area is overdue for a major earthquake, which sets one thinking to say the least. I hope San Francisco doesn’t fall into the sea while we are there.
We took a walk of about a mile to get to the Marina. After the cruise, we went back to the shore for a little swim. After that we came to the campsite and Anna had a nap in the van while we had a lie down in the tent.
Around suppertime, the sky went black and it looked for a while like a bad storm was coming. It is very dry here and a strong wind began whipping up the dust.
But the time we had the campsite cleared and everything battened down for a storm, the sun came out again and the evening steadily improved. Now there is a clear sky filled with stars.
Last night was very cold, everyone in the tent was cold except for me. I don’t know why I was warm, but I was.
Saturday July 23rd, 1988 DAY 14
Same place. We hit the road again tomorrow. Today, we visited some historical sites such as the Cunningham Farm and the Chapel of the Transfiguration.
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| Chapel of the Transfiguration. Can I ring the bell? |
In the afternoon, we relaxed on the shore of Jenny Lake.
In general, it has been a very restful day. We celebrated two weeks on the road tonight with a fine bottle of Beaujolais and some good steaks on the barbecue. We make hotel reservations at the Holiday Inn in San Francisco.
Sunday, July 24th, 2988 DAY 15
We are camped at the Lagoon Amusement Park, just north of Salt Lake City.
Anna had a great evening going on all the rides.
She even went into the House of Terror. She ran in before I could grab her. You go through it in a little two person car on rails. She came out looking totally blasé, saying she saw a skeleton and was a bit scared.
We drove much of the day, arriving here about 4 pm. I went on only one ride, since driving through the mountains on the way here with no guard rails on the roads was as much of a hair raising ride as I required.
The camp is quite good. Fortunately, we have a shady site, which was good since we had to leave Bonnie in the van.
I went on the Tilt-A-Whirl with Anna and immediately regretted it. I always avoided that ride when I was a boy because it always made me feel extremely dizzy and nauseous.
I noted as Anna got on one of her first rides that she was in car #4 and was 4 years old. Thereafter, she had to go on all the seats marked 4 on all the rides.
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| "Are we there yet?" |
Tomorrow, we plan to see a little of Salt Lake City then cross the desert to Reno. I hope it won't be too hard on Bonnie. Today's heat was bad enough.
Monday, July 25th, 1988 DAY 16
We are at the KOA camp near Elko, Nevada tonight. We rolled in around 5 pm or so and now we are on Pacific time. There are slot machines in the saloon attached to the came, since we are in Nevada, and so far I have resisted trying them. The last time we played slots was on the ferry to Newfoundland and we won enough to buy dinner. I may go over later and try with whatever change is in my pocket.
We stopped off in Salt Lake City this morning, just in time to see a big parade in the downtown. I'm still not sure what the occasion was, but there were floats made by everyone from Pizza Parlors to the Mormon Tabernacle. There was even a float from the Toronto chapter of the Mormons ("From our sister nation to the north").
We had luck in our Salt Flat Desert crossing -- it was overcast with even a few showers, so even though we were crossing late in the day, the temperature in the van never exceeded about 90 F for long.
I find the high scrubby hills around here to be deceptive as to distance and size. It is hard to get perspective on them unless there is some human landmark on top, such as a house. I walked a bit through the sage brush with Bonnie tonight and it is bigger than it seems from the car. The sudden hills often seem unreal.
We walked the block or so around the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. We were frequently stopped by people admiring Bonnie and asking what kind of dog she was. Travel will seem unfriendly when Bonnie is no longer with us.
We tried to walk through the Mormon Tabernacle grounds with Bonnie, but a lady with a walkie talkie stopped us, saying that they love dogs but not on the grounds of the Mormon Tabernacle.
We plan to leave early tomorrow to beat the heat and hopefully get past Reno.
Anna enjoyed the surprise parade today and continues to travel very well.
Tuesday, July 26th, 1988 DAY 17
We are now camped at Bliss State Park in California on Lake Tahoe. The park is beautiful, filled with huge old pine trees. We drove for much of the day through the desert. Rain started to fall when we hit California and showers continued intermittently until about 8 pm.
We decided to walk out to the lighthouse here, with Anna in the stroller, but the map was not really to scale and it ended up being a lot longer than it looked. We got separated at one point, Chris heading for the parking lot, and Anna, Bonnie, the stroller and I headed for the lighthouse. Anna and I scrambled down the cliff to the lighthouse, which was a crumbling wooden shack:
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Rubicon Point Lighthouse |
We caught up with a very worried Chris at the parking lot. The view from the lighthouse over Lake Tahoe was spectacular.
I've always thought of Lake Tahoe as an overdeveloped resort area, but this park is wild and beautiful.
We were glad to finally get out of the desert, but we were lucky that it was intermittently cloudy over the desert and not full heat.
Tomorrow we reach the luxury of the Holiday Inn in San Francisco where we hope to soak up some California wine and sunshine.
Anna has been great during all the hard traveling of the last two weeks.
The first thing that hit us in California was the rainy smell of the evergreens, a smell distinctly absent in the desert!
Wednesday July 27th, 1988 DAY 18
At the Holiday Inn on 8th Street, San Francisco, or as Anna would say: SAN FRAN SIT SCHOOL.
We rolled in late this afternoon, right around the rush hour, but managed to get here without getting lost or having to backtrack.
We drove around Lake Tahoe this morning -- an odd combination of traffic jams and wilderness.
We went through a hot section of California to get here, but the temperature is cool on the coast.
We had to park the van in an outside lot, a bit of a worry, but there's not much else to do.
We walked a long way in both directions down the main drag looking for a restaurant and finally ending up in the Holiday Inn dining room -- mediocre but welcome after a day of travel.
This is not a particularly good section of town. The chief worry is the van.
Thursday July 28th, 1988 DAY 19
Spent the day walking about San Francisco. In the morning we took Bonnie along and walked into the downtown area, the financial and Chinese areas. Bonnie, as always, was a considerable conversation piece, that is until she pooped in the middle of the sidewalk in Chinatown.
I look down 8th Street tonight, under a full moon, still a fair bit of traffic at 10:30 pm.
The most interesting aspect of the area where we are staying is the street people with their fully loaded grocery carts, frequently sporting a dog or two or a cat. I saw one who had what looked like the pistons from a car on top of his cart. Another had a junked bicycle. Anna enjoying a puppet:
San Francisco streets alternate in the blink of an eye from elegant, upper class steel cages to open apartment slums. A little way down Market Street and you get into the tourist district. Of course every storefront had pull-down corrugated steel doors or else pull-across steel caging. The city is full of eccentrics.
We got back from our morning walk at lunch hour, ate a bit and rested. then went for a swim in the hotel pool.
After our swim, we walked in the other direction, past the library and opera house and on through the Japanese section.
We went on to the Kabuki Theatre Complex to see the Disney film Bambi with Anna. The theatre complex was marvelous, with a proper little cafe attached when I had an espresso. Anna woke up from her stroller nap just in time for the beginning of Bambi. The slow moving first half of the film came close to losing her interest entirely, but then came the shooting of Bambi's mother and the forest fire that reawakened her interest.
Near the opera house we passed a store and I saw a Charlie McCarthy that looked like a working ventriloquist dummy. It was a good plastic replica with a working mouth. There was also a Groucho Marx and an Emmet Kelly or some similar clown. I am tempted to buy one, probably the Charlie McCarthy. I've always wanted a ventriloquist dummy, but most are very expensive.
After Bambi we walked back towards the hotel, stopping at MacDonald's for supper, so that Anna could get a "Bambi Meal" which includes a plastic figurine of a character from the movie, in this case the rabbit Thumper.
After getting back to the hotel, I decided to go back to some bookstores we had passed in the morning. I bought three books:
Master of Space and Time by Rudy Rucker
Lectures on Don Quixote by Vladimir Nabokov
On Beckett: Essays and Criticism edited by S.E. Gontarski
The first two are books I have wanted but could not find in Canada. The last is a good Beckett criticism collection that was prohibitively expensive in Canada.
I made a point of getting back to the hotel before nightfall. This is not a district I would care to walk through after dark.
Friday, July 29th, 1988 DAY 20
Almost three weeks out. Hard to believe that we have as many again to go. After several years of two week vacations, I feel somewhat guilty, as if I am playing hooky from work.
We had a good day. This morning, we took a cable car across the top (literally) of city to Fisherman's Wharf.
We had coffee and a snack at a cafe then went on the harbor cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge and by the infamous Alcatraz Prison.
We had a crab lunch and then strolled a long way around the wharf district.
Anna had fun with the street performers:
Anna had a ride on the Venetian Carousel which was a double-decker merry-go-round.
We took a cab back across the city, since there was a long line for the cable car and Bonnie had been left in the van. We got back to find Bonnie ok. In the afternoon, we had a swim and relaxed before setting off on a trek to find the Italian restaurant Original Joe's for supper. We had a good Italian meal and Anna behaved very well.
The cable car ride was jerky, but exciting. We saw Lombard Street, the most crooked street in the world:
Saturday, July 30th, 1988 DAY 21
Had a good but exhausting day. We bicycled over to Golden Gate Park through the Haight-Ashbury area of town, over some quite punishing terrain (ups and downs!) The park was quite something and deserved more time than we could give it. It got quite crowded in the afternoon. We had to get back to let Bonnie out of the van, but we were quite tired out by then anyway.
We went out to eat at McDonalds tonight, since we didn't have the energy to tackle anything more ambitious. Tomorrow, we plan to drive around the city and see the zoo, then leave town.
Wrote postcards to my parents, Eric and Sabrina and my ex-work.
I sit now, after 11pm, puffing Winstons, drinking Bud and looking out over the city from our aerie perch on the 13th floor (discretely renamed the 14th).
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