California Coast: Malibu to San Luis Obispo

We just spent four days camping along the coast. After having spent a week at Laguna Beach, we camped two nights at Pt Mugu State Park just north of Malibu and then two nights at Morro Strand State Beach further up the coast.

The campground at Pt Mugu was just beautiful, nestled in a sycamore grove at the base of a canyon and just across the road from the beach. It was just a couple of miles from the beach where all of the Gidget movies were filmed. At Pt. Mugu, the girls became friendly with two very nice little boys in the next campsite (Wyatt and Kevin), photos above. One of the best parts of roadtrips are the friends you make along the way.

After Pt Mugu, we headed north to Morro Bay, where we camped two nights at a campground on the beach. That campground was a little like camping in a parking lot- but, on the plus side, it was on the beach.

While heading up the coast, we made a side trip to Solvang. Solvang strives to be a "little Denmark". We added it to our running list of towns that wished they were in Europe. See photo above of the girls with the ornamental windmill in the background. A prominent citizen in this area (Los Olivos) is Fess Parker: you know, Davieee, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. He owns a resort and vineyard here. I guess he is sort of like what Clint Eastwood is to Carmel.

After leaving Morro Bay, we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur, along the Monterey Peninsula up to San Francisco. We're a bit behind schedule, so sadly couldn't linger. We figured that area- Big Sur & Monterey- deserves to be done right, so we put off touring it until another trip, rather than just rush from place to place.

The weather here is really interesting. All the way up to San Francisco the temperature on the coast was between 60 and mid-70s during the day. Just a few miles inland- 5 or 10 miles, temperatures were 20 to 30 degrees higher.

We have really, really enjoyed the time we've spent on the California Coast. This is absolutely an area we would come back to.

Disneyland

Two thumbs up for Disneyland. Even though it was peak season and the park was very crowded, Disneyland was really enjoyable. (And the adults on the trip are not generally big Disney fans). We found it to be much less stressful than Disneyworld in Florida; maybe because it's smaller. Whatever the reason, it was just a very nice day.

San Juan Capistrano

The Mission of San Juan Capistrano, only a few miles from Laguna Beach, where we're staying, is one of the better known of the chain of Spanish missions along the California coast. It is popular thanks to the song and the legend about the swallows returning each year on St. Joseph's Day. Grace and Irene (who both like historical re-creations and living history exhibits) visited the mission today. It was a really enjoyable trip; it takes about two hours to tour the mission complex, the museum exhibits and gardens. It was interesting for us because as East Coasters, we know less than we should about the Spanish colonization of the West Coast.

Legoland

Legoland, in Carlsbad California (between Los Angeles and San Diego), was something of a disappointment. In its defense, though, it is peak visitor season and the park might be much more enjoyable if it were less crowded. As it was, it was very expensive ($240 for the four of us) and then there were a lot of "extras" on top: $3 for the climbing wall, $10 to park,$8 for a happy meal, and so on. One felt a little nickel and dimed and it didn't really seem worth the money. In addition to the mini-land, (Legoland re-creations of various cities and monuments) there were also a number of kiddie rides. The lines for the rides were very long, made longer by the fact that so many adults- without accompanying children- were riding them. In one sense, its hard to figure out why adults would want to go on rides clearly intended for little kids, but on the other hand, after paying $75 bucks for a ticket, maybe some of those folks are saying, at this price, I am going to ride the choo-choo train no matter what anyone says.

It's also hard to figure out why the adult ticket costs more than the children's ticket in a place like this. One would assume that most of the adults there (except the ones riding the kiddie cars by themselves) are only there to accompany their kids: shouldn't the adult ticket be less not more than the child ticket in a child's park?

Irene went to the Legoland outside of London when it first opened (sometime in the 90s?) and remembered it very fondly. The re-creations of the various cities are totally cool and worth seeing (just not at this price). We probably wouldn't go there again.

Above is picture of the girls with a Lego-man and also a photo of Lucy being rescued from the climbing wall. She made it halfway up then froze like a cat in a tree. One of the workers had to climb up and bring her down. Grace made it all the way up to the top.

Laguna Beach, California

We'll be spending a week in Laguna Beach, California with Mike's brother, Pat. Laguna Beach is just gorgeous: for a visitor, it seems like a perfect beach town. It has a huge summer-long arts festival, tons of public beaches and good shopping and restaurants. Most importantly: it's beautiful. The weather is just wonderful right now, and the house we're staying in, like many of the houses here, is on a hill overlooking the Pacific. We completely understand why people live in Southern California. Above is a picture of Laguna Beach from their tourism site (link in the sidebar) as well as a picture of Mike and Pat on Pat's deck.

Primm, Nevada

This was so far a low point in our trip. We're heading to Laguna Beach and needed a place to break our journey before crossing the California Desert. We chose Primm, right at the Nevada/California border. Primm is made up entirely of three casino resorts (all low budget). We stayed at the most low-budget of all, Buffalo Bill's. This might have just been a nice affordable weekend for some folks there; but for all too many it looked like they were spending their rent money. Casinos are really good at separating people from their cash: this place was really dark, so you couldn't tell whether it's night or day (No," oops, the sun's coming up, I should call it a night and head home"), no clock to be found anywhere in the place, the pool shuts down at 8:00 so nothing to do but hit the casino, and all amenities radiate around the gaming area, you have to cross the casino floor to get to the hotel, restaurant, kiddie game area, etc.

On some level, though, the low-end places are more honest about what their business is all about. The industry likes to glamorize itself by calling it "gaming" rather than "gambling" and their customers "players" instead of "gamblers". The fancier places may have nice restaurants, showgirls, albino tigers and Blue Man Group, but, in the words of our President, it's all lipstick on a pig. We were pretty glad to leave.

The Mojave Desert was blazing hot (of course), and where we came through, there were a number of very odd looking mines- salt or gypsum or something. It looked like a scene out of a science fiction movie. General Custer said about another desert "It's like Hell without the fires"; that kind of nails the Mojave in July.

One bright spot: about an hour southwest of Primm, in the middle of the Mojave, we stopped for breakfast in Baker,California, home of the world's largest thermometer and this terrific over-the-top Greek Diner, the Mad Greek Cafe. Photo above.

Grand Canyon

We're leaving the Grand Canyon today after a two night stay. A lot of people told us, "it sounds cliche, but you must go to the Grand Canyon. It's something you can't miss." They are right; everyone must see the Grand Canyon.

More than 90% of Grand Canyon visitors go to the South Rim, so we went to the North Rim, to avoid the crowds. We came up from the South, so went through the Painted Desert and by the Vermillion Cliffs before we started to go up into the Kaibab National Forest and then to the Grand Canyon. When we were down around 4,000 feet in the desert, it was about 100 degrees at 11:00 a.m. When we came up to the Canyon, at 8,000 feet, we were surrounded by a beautiful pine forest and the temperature dropped more than 30 degrees!

It was so beautiful and comfortable we decided to stay two days. We stayed at Jacob Lake Inn, in the National Forest about 45 miles from the rim. The Inn was built in 1923 and is a classic mountain lodge,with cabins and motel units and a restaurant/ gift shop. We would definitely stay here again.

The recession is impacting tourism. No matter where we go, we have no problem finding a place to stay or signing up for recreational activites- raft trips, etc- on the spot. Nothing seems to be booked anywhere. The Grand Canyon Lodge was booked, but even that place had vacancies later in the week; the Lodge is the sort of place you would expect to be booked for the Summer at this point. This is really too bad for the comunities that rely on tourist dollars; I hope things pick up soon.

Canyon de Chelly, Navajoland (Arizona)

Today we visited Canyon de Chelly. Grace had really wanted to go to the Four Corners and stand where the four states meet, so we detoured a few hours to go there. You hate to say something is in the middle of nowhere, because it is generally somewhere to somebody, but as much as something could be in nowhere this pretty much is. Above is a picture of the two girls at the Four Corners.

After the Four Corners, we went on to Canyon de Chelly where we stayed the night at the Thunderbird Lodge. We really liked the Thunderbird. You have a couple of classes of National Park Lodges: the fancy ones like Ahwanee in Yosemite and El Tovar in the Grand Canyon and then the more basic ones; Thunderbird fits into the more basic category. It's a moderately-priced Indian-themed motel located on the site of an old Navajo trading post. There is a really good cafeteria with American and Navajo specialities, a gift shop and guide service. The national park is administered by the National Park Service and the Thunderbird Lodge is run by the Navajo.

We had heard so much about Canyon de Chelly, and are really glad we were able to come here and see it. Unfortunately, because of the heat, we only stayed a day and didn't do a tour of the canyon itself, which is supposed to be the high point of a visit. Because this is an important site to the Navajo, and because people are living on the canyon floor, you can only go into the canyon with a licensed Navajo guide. The guide services also looked pretty affordable.

We had to satisfy ourselves with a one day visit and an auto-tour around the canyon rim though. We're heading up to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon today, which at 8,000 feet should be much cooler than where we are now.

Above is a picture of the Thunderbird Lodge

A Post From Grace

Today we just got to Arizona from Utah.Yesterday in Utah my dad and I went rafting on the Colorado River.On the way to Utah we stopped at the Four Corners(Colorado ,Arizona,Utah,and New Mexico)

Bluff, Utah

We're finding that the places we're staying along the way are as much fun as our "destination" stops. We spent the night in Bluff, Utah, not too far from the Four Corners, Monument Valley & Navajoland. This little town has a beautiful river, rock art sites and a reconstructed Mormon settlement. The travel books we read mostly talked about the Four Corners area being- besides a gateway to tons of national parks and monuments- a cowboy region. That may be, but from what we picked up in the little time we were here- it also has a growing arts & music scene. (And a great community paper). These little stops are turning out to be the gems of our trip. Above is a picture of Grace and Lucy playing in a covered wagon at the museum, and also one of a petroglyph in a state campground along the San Juan River.

Arches National Park & Moab, Utah

We spent two days in Moab, Utah, where we toured Arches National Park and where Mike and Grace went on a rafting trip down the Colorado River. Arches is as beautiful as everyone promised it would be, but we found it to be a little too hot for us this time of year (100 degrees). Moab is a really neat town, completely centered around adventure sports and the national parks, but with a progressive (for Utah) feel and a visible arts and culture scene. Sort of like a Woodstock in the high desert.

For folks who don't get to the national parks very often: the park service has a terrific junior ranger program which really engages young children (ages 6 to 12). Apparently, kids have been getting more and more disconnected from the outdoors over the past few decades; I think the junior ranger program is a really nice way to help reconnect the next generation with the outdoors. In the program, kids work on activities specific to the particular park or monument,and upon completion they get a pin and certificate or patch from the park ranger. Grace and Lucy have done the program in a few parks so far. Above is a picture of the two of them being sworn in as junior rangers at Arches.

Glenwood Springs, CO

We stumbled on Glenwood Springs as a place to break our journey through Colorado. What we assumed would be just a highway junction turned out to be a major travel destination- lots of American and international tourists. (Maybe everyone else already knows about Glenwood Springs & Glenwood Canyon, and we just need to get out more). It's a year-round resort with skiing in Winter and rafting and hiking in Summer. The town was developed in the late 1800s as a vacation spot for the wealthy; it was built up around a natural hot springs and has some beautiful old hotels to accomodate tourists taking the waters. Above is a picture of the hot spring pool today.

Doc Holliday is buried here. He came in the hopes that the hot springs would help his tuberculosis. No luck there, I guess; he died within six months of arriving. Above is a picture of Mike next to his tombstone.

We are going to start a running list of "towns that wished they were in Europe". Glenwood Springs is going for an Alpine look with faux-Swiss motels and Bavarian restaurants -mingling with Mexican restaurants and a Sioux trading post- (though this area was orignally inhabited by the Utes). The Mexican restaurants may actually be authentic.

Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods

The Garden of the Gods is this gorgeous public park with canyons and redrock formations located not too far from Pike's Peak. The park has miles of trails and paths and lots of outdoor activities as well as a nature center. This is Colorado Spring's town park; basically it's their Central Park. We took a little bus tour of the park; our guide explained the park got its name as follows: the two cowboys who first discovered the valley were stunned by its beauty. One said to the other it would be perfect for a European-style beer garden. The other, appalled by the idea said, no, this is no beer garden, this a garden of the gods!.

A Posting From Grace

Sorry I didn't write before, I just forgot about the blog. Last Monday, we went fishing in Ohio. When we were done, Lucy got into the car and started to eat crackers. When mom was strapping her in, a finch landed on the edge of the car and it was falling so mom tried to catch it, but then (this is the funny part) it landed on Lucy's head! Lucy and I were totally calm but,mom was freaking out and dad was shouting Get the camera!Get the camera! Before dad could take a picture the finch flew away.I love this trip a lot and, I'm doing a lot of fun stuff. Today I'm going to a ghost town and Garden of the Gods in Colorado.

Goodland, Kansas

Due to unexpected car trouble, we ended up spending an extra day in Kansas, in the town of Goodland by its Western border. The western half of Kansas is endless plains; the roadside signs invite travelors to "break their journey" in this town or another. None of them even pretend to draw visitors as a destination in itself. In Goodland, the mechanics at the car repair place drew my husband's attention to this giant-sized copy of Van Gogh's sunflowers (picture above). They told him, with no little amusement, that it was the town's only tourist attraction.

Overall, though, we liked Kansas a lot and and found the people to be very warm and hospitable. Mike says he came away with increased repect for Kansans and has to hand it to them for making a decent life in a pretty harsh environment.

Home, Home On The Range

We visited the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in the Flint Hills of Kansas today. The preserve is owned by a nonprofit trust and managed by the National Park Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Kansas Park Trust. The reason for this funky ownership model is because of local politics: it took years to create this preserve because of community suspicion of federal government ownership of land. (This might also explain its relatively low-key presence: there was no signage along the road to help direct us to the preserve- though it wasn't at all hard to find). We had a fabulous time on our visit: there is a great information center, several trails through the prairie and a free, ranger- guided 90 minute bus tour through the preserve. While the priairie was once the largest of America's seven ecosystems, only 4% remains. If anyone finds themselves anywhere near Kansas, I would strongly recommend a visit to the preserve to see a really interesting piece of our history. Above is a picture of Grace and Lucy with Ranger Ron.

Jefferson City , MO, July 4 Weekend

We had a really nice weekend in Jefferson City. Our cross-country guidebook was pretty dismissive of Jefferson City, writing it off as an oddly slow state capital. This was not our experience at all. There is a compact little downtown, that feels like small town America, but which has all the amenities you might want. The dominant feature is the state capitol building that looks like a mini US Capitol.

There was a terrific weekend-long July 4 celebration around the capitol building, with 3 bandstands, rides and amusements, various displays and a beer garden. And night time fireworks, of course. We had a memorable Independence Day here.

Though we didn't have time to go there, the City is also not too far from the Lake of the Ozarks, a huge lake and big resort area.

We would stay here again if we were ever in the area.

Mound City, Eastern Ohio

We made a visit to Mound City, or the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, outside of Chillicothee, Ohio. The Park encompasses a series of burial mounds which are the remnants of a civilization that flourished in the Eastern part of the US from about 200 bc until its decline around 500. (A second "lost" civilization supplanted them, and lived here for another 1,000 years or so.) This society was really far flung, running up and down the US between the Mississippi to the Appalchians, with mounds found as far South as Louisiana. Artifacts found in the mounds came from as far away as the Pacific Northwest and the Gulf of Mexico. US 50 running though southern Illinois follows an old causeway across the flood plain made by these ancient people. The causeway runs all the way to St Louis, I think.

What was surprising, and a little embarassing, is that until this road trip, we knew nothing at all about this established and widespread society that was here before us. What's not suprising is that most of the mounds around the country have been degraded and destroyed by development. This is too bad, since so little is known about these people to begin with; the destruction of their remaining sites makes it harder to learn more. If you get a chance, visit Chillocthee of some of the other mound-builder sites. Here's the link: http://www.nps.gov/hocu

Above is picture of Grace at the mounds.