Home -- for a little while

The border crossing line was long and slow, and when I arrived at the guard booth I discovered why. The border guard was cheery and chatty and before we finished he tried to convince me to take a detour to Mt Baker, and had several other suggestions for places to visit. Funny. At this point, of course, I was ready to head home.

I knew I was back in Washington State with my first sighting of a roadside espresso stand. I still remember my first visit to the state in 1995, when I marveled that all the old Fotomat booths had been converted into espresso stands and transported into remote parking lots in tiny towns all over Western Washington. I still don't know how they manage to stay in business. Then again, I happily paid nearly $3.50 for a "grande caramel-hazelnut latte" (the day's special). I don't even especially *like* lattes, but for some reason I just had to have one on this morning.

Before heading home to Seattle, I stopped in nearby Redmond for a nice breakfast of pumpkin pancakes at the Village Square restaurant with my dear friend Keith and his daughter Sarah. By mid-day I'd arrived at my apartment. The slide-show chronicles my arrival...

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Banff and Trans-Canada 1

Driving Trans-Canada Highway 1 west from Calgary, the landscape quickly morphed from flat prairies into the Canadian Rockies. The change in scenery took my breath away. I was surprised by how much I'd missed the grand western mountains! The town of Banff is cute and touristy, filled with hotels, gift shops and overpriced restaurants. (It reminds me of Whistler BC.) I'm not especially fond of super-touristy places, so didn't spend much time in town.

The scenery in the area is spectacular. When I first arrived I stopped at the Cave and Basin, a historic site considered the birthplace of the Canadian National Park system. The site consists of a small cave with sulfur hot springs, a replica of the 1887 pool and bath house, and wooden boardwalks through the surrounding sulfur marsh -- with a great view of the surrounding mountains. It's a nice place to start a visit to Banff to learn the history of the area.

After settling into my Tunnel Mountain campsite I took a walk to the Bow River Valley to get some much-needed exercise and watch the sunset. In the morning I hitched a gondola ride to the top of Mt Sulphur, which hosts an abandoned weather observatory used in the 1920s -- and of course spectacular views. On my way out of Banff NP, I stopped at Johnston Canyon to hike a short path to a decent waterfall -- worth a stop if you're in the area.

By mid-afternoon I felt compelled to hit the road toward home in Seattle. Nonetheless, in the late afternoon I couldn't pass up a tour of the 3 Valley Gap Heritage Ghost Town. An eccentric entrepreneur/collector has assembled dozens of abandoned buildings from the region into a little town complete with a saloon, school, hotel, Chinese laundry (etc.) and holds guided tours. The proprietor also collected trains and automobiles, so visitors to the ghost town are treated to a tour of a full-size railway roundhouse with several furnished rail cars, as well as a respectable collection of 14 fully-restored automobiles built from 1902 to 1929. This out-of-the-way roadside attraction has something for everyone.

Even without the roadside attractions, the drive along Trans-Canada 1 through Canada's national parks is truly spectacular and worth repeating. (I imagine it would be even nicer in the summertime on two wheels!)

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A tour of the Eurovan

For anyone unfamiliar with the joy of Eurovan camping, I thought a little pictorial tour might be helpful. I'm traveling in a 1999 VW Eurovan Winnebago Camper. I bought it on E-Bay from a dealer in Atlanta, and drove it home in November 2007. It had 93K miles when I bought it and 98K miles when I started this 2008 road trip (and yesterday it turned over 105K).

Amenities
The interior is equipped with a sink, double-burner propane stove, 3-way refrigerator (AC, DC or propane), propane heater, 12-gallon fresh water tank, 8-gallon gray-water holding tank, two double beds, two folding tables, swivel bucket seats, and a surprising amount of interior storage. The van top pops up to provide plenty of head room to stand while cooking, plus screened windows that unzip for ventilation. Click here for a pictorial review. It is a fairly comfortable set-up, especially for one person. The only thing I don't have is a toilet, and fortunately they're not too hard to find. (I keep a jar handy for emergencies. Click here if you need more info...)

Parking
Mostly, I park at visitor centers, tourist information centers, and rest stops. They're free and quiet and generally have a restroom. Occasionally I'll stop at a truck stop or Wal-Mart; they're also free but tend to be noisy. Free overnight spots are pretty easy to find and easy to use, following a few basic guidelines. If I'm desperate for a shower or WiFi access, I'll pay for spot at a private campground (e.g., KOA, avg. $35/night). Public parks (state, national) are cheaper (avg. $15/night) but more difficult to find and don't have WiFi and sometimes not even showers.

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Summary
I often feel like I'm traveling in a space shuttle. The shape and color are somewhat similar, sure, but the bigger reason is that I'm sealed inside this climate-controlled, screened-in, locked-up shuttle craft in which I can see the environment I'm passing through, but don't have to touch it if I don't want to, and nothing out there will be able to get at me. After talking with Dan and Danny (hitch-hikers from Medicine Hat to Calgary), I feel that my trip through Canada so far could just as well have been a movie: pretty pictures seen through my window, but not really experienced. For the last part of this trip, I'm determined to get away from the van and stomp around on the dirt a bit. And talk to more people!

Hitch-hikers in Canada

Yes, I picked up hitch-hikers -- and lived to tell about it. Dan and Danny (their real names) needed a lift from Medicine Hat to Calgary AB, and I was happy to oblige. They are nice guys just out of undergrad hitching from Toronto to Banff and looking for adventure. I won't go looking for more passengers, but today I was ready to talk and listen and their company was a welcome change.

Blasting through southern Canada

I've learned that it is possible to travel for two entire days without speaking to anyone. With pay-at-the-pump for gas, boondock camping, and eating whatever food I have in my camp pantry, I don't really *have* to talk to anyone. This a very different approach to travel than I've taken in earlier legs of this trip. It's not that I've turned completely anti-social, I just haven't been able to find anyone I wanted to talk to. (It doesn't help that I'm fighting a cold, I suppose.) Even when cruising intentionally 25 KM off route in search of a diner or tavern where the locals would go, all I can find are other travelers.

I've been back and forth from Seattle to the midwest at least a dozen times and I'm having a hard time getting excited about doing it again. For this trip, I decided to head north from Minneapolis to Winnipeg and cut across Trans-Canada 1 to Vancouver. Turns out there's really nothing between Winnipeg and Calgary except farmland... much like what you'd find along I-90 or US 2 just south of here.

Fortunately, I'll be in the Rockies near Banff NP tomorrow. Even if I can't find anyone to talk to, at least there will be something other than farm fields to look at!

A storm blows over North Dakota

It is 7:30 PM and I'm stopped at a visitor center/rest stop near Grand Forks North Dakota. Angry black clouds blew in fast from the west, with lightning on the horizon. The rain is coming down in sheets and the wind is howling. The van is shaking and bouncing in the wind; even with the emergency brake, it feels like it will jump over the curb and into the grass. Fortunately, there's free WiFi... I'll stop here and wait out the storm, perhaps stay the night. If the WiFi holds out, look for at least one more post by morning.

Sister's Family in Lakeville, MN

After a long lunch stop in Madison, WI, a leisurely drive along the scenic routes in southwest WI, and an overnight boondock at a rest stop along the way, I pulled in for a stay with my sister's family. I always enjoy seeing how much my nephews evolve between visits. Phil is now as tall as I am!

We drove about an hour from their home to the Minnesota River Valley state park for some muddy fishing. I think we end up fishing every time I visit :) Huge fish splashed in the river but none made it onto the fish hooks -- this time. A quick stop at a local farmstand meant a fresh, hot apple pie for dinner. After dinner, we cozied into the kid's study room to watch a movie on the computer (Hangman's Curse).

Again, this was a brief visit, but I'm starting to get anxious about returning to Seattle to prepare for my GVI trip.

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POST SCRIPT
Reflecting after the visit with my mother and sister's family, and after seeing my brother a few weeks earlier... My family isn't exactly close-knit. We don't say, "I love you," we rarely phone or email, and our physical contact is limited to an awkward A-frame pat-pat hug at the end of a rare, brief in-person encounter. I think it's always been like this for us (or maybe just for me). I have always admired and longed for the closeness I see in other families. I daydream about building closer ties not just with my immediate family, but also with cousins, aunts, nephews -- but at this point the chasm seems very wide.

Mom in Milwaukee

On the eastward-bound leg of this trip I could only stop for a quick dinner in Milwaukee before heading on to Columbus; heading west I made time to stay two nights and spent the day exploring the city with my Mom. A dozen years ago I used to visit fairly often when I lived in Chicago, but have only stopped in twice in the last dozen years. The city has changed!

We started our downtown trek seeking a book store, and found ourselves caught up in a charity walk/run. We continued our exploration at Milwaukee's Public Museum, which hosted a special community event for residents to show off their collections of... whatever. Stuffed animals, miniature tea sets, frogs, etc. I was delighted to chat for a bit with David, who proudly displayed his collection of early American photographs. He even made us a gift of a small tintype photo. (note -- Turns out David had attended a week-long Gettysburg seminar that my old school friend Joel recently attended. It's a small world!) My Mom is excited to participate in next year's show to display her massive collection of lions.

After the museum we hunted out lunch, and I was pleased to see the rejuvenation around the Historic Third Ward neighborhood. The area supports a vibrant public market, several small performance venues, art galleries, restaurants and bars, with condominiums or apartments on the upper floors of most buildings. It seemed like a very livable neighborhood.

We also visited my Mom's husband Okorie (aka Chief) at Bradford Beach, where he spent the sunny Saturday selling sunglasses from his push-cart. (His usual weekday for the last 20+ years is downtown at 3rd and Wisconsin. He's there consistently enough that you can see his portrait in Google Maps Street View if you enter 301 W Wisconsin Ave -- though you've have to mess with Street View a bit to find the right image. I needed to "walk" to 304 W Wisconsin before he came in clear. Look for the guy in a white outfit.) Bradford Beach was very busy for so late in the season. A live band entertained swarms of volleyball players and sunbathers at the tail-end of a sand castle contest. The sand was nice but the day was a bit hot, so we didn't stay too long.

After an evening of chillin' and laundry and cocktails it was nice to hit a real bed for a second night and then enjoy a second home-cooked breakfast. Though the stay was perhaps too brief for Chief's sensibilities, I really as eager to get back on the road with thoughts of hitting Seattle by the end of September.

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An alien in Berea, Kentucky

After treating the van to a 5,000-mile service at Deal Motors in Asheville, NC and then donking around on back roads for a few hours, I was ready to blow past some Interstate miles and head toward Milwaukee to visit my mother for a few days. Around 6:30 PM I pulled off the freeway into the tourist information center of Berea, KY, the self-proclaimed "folk arts and crafts capital of Kentucky." Lucky for me, Thursday night is the well-attended Berea Bluegrass Jam. How could I pass it up?

I parked the Eurovan along the edge of the town square and popped the top to make dinner as the musicians set up on stage and town folk set up folding chairs under the big tent in the grass. Mostly older farm couples and friendly dogs, I definitely stood out in the crowd. I could have been an alien with my shiny white Eurovan shuttle craft from a distant mother ship.

The Jam consisted of around 20 local musicians of all skill levels sitting in a circle on the porch of an old log cabin in the town square. Each musician took a turn leading a song, passing the mic to their left at the end. They continued around the circle several times for a 2-1/2 hour concert attended by ~80 spectators.

Mostly folks were curious about who I was and how I came to find the town. Three separate very nice older couples offered to let me camp at their farms 10 or 12 miles out of town. In the end, at the suggestion of the Jam festival coordinator, I just camped in the visitor center parking lot. I likely passed up an opportunity to share in a big local farm breakfast in the morning, but I hoped to get an early start the next day.

Instead, I shared my breakfast with a friendly black and white cat who had been introduced to me the night before. "City Kitty" lives in the town square primarily cared for by the visitor center manager, but I was told she truly belongs to the whole city. As I finished closing up my van to leave in the morning, City Kitty somehow convinced me to open up a can of kippered herring and dump half onto a small plate for her. I hadn't planned to stay for breakfast, but I swear, some cats exercise mind control :)

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On to Milwaukee next...

Roads Less Traveled

I've been using a TomTom ONE XL-S to help with navigation around the US. It has a nifty feature that allows me an option to avoid freeways. When I'm not in a hurry and I want a better feel for an area, I select this option. (Lately I haven't been in much of a hurry!) Often it seems that my TomTom leads me on a wild goose chase as it routes me through residential areas, frontage roads and rural routes. Sometimes it sends me several miles in one direction and suddenly "recalculates" and then directs me to turn around and retrace all or part of the route. I might find it irritating if it didn't lead me to such interesting places.

Unfortunately, my 6,000 lb VW Eurovan is not well designed for taking the steep twisty roads I've found myself on lately. I keep trying to glide through the curves the way I loved to in my sporty VW Jetta GLX or on my BMW R850 motorbike, but instead of hugging the road this van lumbers along with a high center of gravity and hesitant brakes. All my gear in storage bins, cupboards and duffel bags in the back of the van shifts around every time I turn, brake or accelerate.

Though the van is GREAT for camping, it simply isn't any fun on twisty roads!

Asheville, NC

I've left historic USA and entered progressive USA. Downtown Asheville, North Carolina is an amazing ultra-funky organic vegan-friendly homophilic hippy-dippy home of dread-locked, hemp-wearing lesbians and long-bearded hillbillies who seem to thrive on new music, 24-hour coffee shops, free wireless, microbrews, and a dozen varieties of yerba mate. This is a hotbed of yoga, homeopathy and massage therapy. The art scene is progressive, the restaurants are fresh and creative, and the environmental movement is in high gear. In short, downtown Asheville is a great deal like Fremont in Seattle, only more so. I feel right at home.

Outside of the downtown area, Asheville seems remarkably diverse. It is home of the venerable Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa and the fantastic Biltmore Estate. Funkiness may be isolated in the downtown area, but environmental awareness and a focus on health and well-being seem pervasive, even in the surrounding suburbs.

Restaurant recommendation: Over Easy Cafe
For breakfast some locals recommended Over Easy Cafe (32 Broadway, Asheville NC 28801, 828-236-3533). I had the omelet special of sundried tomatoes, shallots, spinach and Gorgonzola cheese sauce with whole wheat toast and side of fresh fruit -- $10. The food was amazing, and the friendly unobtrusive staff well suited the comfortable atmosphere of the place. I highly recommend it.

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Jonesborough, TN

Jonesborough is the oldest town in Tennessee, founded in 1779. Presidents Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson and James Polk spent time here. It is a lovely, quaint town with benches lining Main Street inviting visitors to sit with an ice cream cone and watch the world go by. Jonesborough is also home to the International Storytelling Center. Every bookstore and coffee shop advertised evening storytelling hours. Though I didn't stay long enough to join in, I imagine any of the dozen or so guided tours of the town are simply fantastic. I probably should have stayed to check it out.

I was struck by the contrast between this place and other historic towns I've recently visited. This is clearly a place proud of its long history, but unlike the others, this town seems to embrace its evolution. Historical sites from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries co-exist here. You'll find a log cabin once owned by Andrew Jackson across the street from the first abolitionist print shop and a block from 1940's vintage soda fountain/sweets shop. I truly enjoyed exploring the carefully recreated 17th century Jamestowne and 18th century Colonial Williamsburg, but I felt that I had re-entered the real world within the comfortable and natural mix of history in Jonesborough.

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Jamestown, VA

Jamestown is the first known permanent settlement of British in North America, originally settled in 1607. Visitors to the area have a choice of two attractions, and I recommend a stop at both.

Start at Historic Jamestowne, operated by the U.S National Park Service. This is the archaeological site of Jamestown with ongoing excavation and research. Many of the building sites have been re-buried following excavation and the foundations reconstructed for tourists to explore (see photos). You can explore their well-designed archaeological museum and see many interesting 400-year-old tidbits that were unearthed on the site. Otherwise, you can walk along the river and imagine the view of America's first English settlers. It is a peaceful place.

Move on to the Jamestown Settlement, managed by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. This is a recreation of the original Jamestown settlement (using much of the research conducted by the archaeologists at the other site, I suspect). The visitor's center houses an impressive museum filled with dioramas and video moving the visitor from regional pre-history to the present day -- with a heavy emphasis (of course) on the rise and fall of the Jamestown settlement. After walking through the maze-like museum, visitors land outdoors on a walking path to living-history exhibits of a Powhatan village, the settlers' fort, and the three ships that delivered the settlers from England. From the web site:

Today at Jamestown Settlement, the story of the people who founded Jamestown and of the Virginia Indians they encountered is told through film, gallery exhibits and living history. New gallery exhibits and a new introductory film trace Jamestown's beginnings in England and the first century of the Virginia colony and describe the cultures of the Powhatan Indians, Europeans and Africans who converged in 1600s Virginia. Outdoors, visitors can board replicas of the three ships that sailed from England to Virginia in 1607, explore life-size re-creations of the colonists' fort and a Powhatan village, and tour a riverfront discovery area to learn about European, Powhatan and African economic activities associated with water. In the outdoor areas, costumed historical interpreters describe and demonstrate daily life in the early 17th century.

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I didn't make it to the nearby Yorktown site that makes up America's Historical Triangle, but when I return to the area I'll plan for a full week -- at least. I really enjoyed my stay in historic Virginia.

Colonial Williamsburg, VA

Back here on the East Coast, I've discovered that Colonial Williamsburg is exceptionally fun. If I have the story right, the town was pretty much a mess in the 1930s, with many buildings in disrepair or ruined. J.D. Rockefeller Jr partnered with a local minister to buy up a bunch of the town and fund restoration of 88 original colonial buildings, and then funded a trust to reconstruct about twice that many. Now it's like a huge theme park, except that it is in and around peoples' homes. I found it fascinating. I ended up staying in the area two full days (well, I went to Jamestown too, but didn't make it to the third big history site, Yorktown). I could see coming back here for another several days at some point, there's so much history there to learn about!

The company running Colonial Williamsburg is exceptionally fussy about authenticity, and the place is swarming with costumed actors with history degrees. Several times each day there are scripted programs and it is rather like a progressive play -- where the audience must move from building to building to follow the whole sequence. On my second day I hooked up with one of the sound technicians and got a "backstage" tour. The whole neighborhood is rigged with a wireless sound system, with a different frequency for each major performance area. As the actors move from one area to the next they have to switch receiver packs (a drawback in the setup), but the sound techs just carry around a briefcase with a wireless sound board about the size of a small tablet PC. There are two techs who leapfrog coverage of the different acting venues. In addition to the techs, there's one production manager on the grounds keeping an eye on the whole shebang. What fun!

I parked the van last night in the Colonial Williamsburg motel parking lot to save some cash (to keep a low profile I didn't even pop the van top -- man, it was stuffy inside!) and snuck out of the parking lot right at dawn. After driving much of the day along the Blue Ridge Parkway, tonight I'm at a campground a bit outside of Asheville NC, and will swing through there tomorrow. I'm a bit behind my original schedule, but who's keeping track ;)

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p.s. Thanks, Matt! I enjoyed the tour.

Philadelphia

After dropping off Zach and Matt at the airport near Hartford CT, I meandered through CT and NY to finally stay at a KOA in the Poconos about 2 hrs north of Philadelphia. I slept in late and didn't get to to the city until around 11 am. Rain started almost immediately. I parked the van near the old city and hooked up with a walking tour, then browsed through the historic neighborhoods in the pouring rain until around 5:30, when I found Eulogy Belgian Tavern featuring hundreds of Belgian beers. The food was ok, too :) I stayed there watching the rain and trying to decide where to go next and got to know some of the other people at the bar.

A whole group of people had come in after their company picnic and turns out they were in the sourcing systems dept for GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceuticals. (That's precisely where I was at WaMu.) It was a fun group and we talked shop and about my van and travel etc for a few hours, then a few of us went for cheap Indian food. I ended up crashing for the night on a sofa of some guys who live in the "gay-borhood" near 11th and Linden. It was very tidy, and I got a nice hot shower and coffee in the morning with and directions to a nearby cafe for breakfast with wireless. It was a bit surreal, but I feel that I got to see more of real life in Phila than you get from the $14 costumed-character tour.

City of Brotherly Love -- indeed.

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Roadtrip 2008, Westbound

Today begins the solo portion of my Eurovan adventure. For the past three weeks I've been traveling with Zach to move all his stuff from Seattle to his Dad's place in Columbus OH, then to visit their family cottage in South Bristol ME, and finally a stop of several days at his Mom's place in Winsted, CT. This morning I drove Zach and his brother to the airport in Hartford for their flight to Holland, and started on my way southwest for a meandering return trip to Seattle.

I've always enjoyed traveling with Zach. He's easygoing, tidy, considerate, occasionally funny, he has great connections everywhere for interesting people to visit and places to stay, and he's simply great company. Nonetheless, I'm rather looking forward to finally traveling alone. Travel with another person always involves some compromise unless you're a totally self-centered ass (I'd like to think I'm not.) For the next three weeks, I can set and then change my itinerary on a whim. I can choose to buy or to make meals as I like; I can splurge on a campground with WiFi and showers, or boondock in a truck stop if I'm feeling frugal. I can linger over sights that intrigue me without feeling rushed, or if I get bored I can just move on without worrying that I'm rushing someone else. For the next few weeks, it's all about me, me, me.

Interestingly, I also expect to spend more time communicating (blogging, emailing and phoning) than I did when traveling with Zach. That's partly due to where we stayed (not much cell service or WiFi in South Bristol or Winsted) and partly because I was kept very busy with Zach's friendly family, but there's another aspect to it as well -- something I'd like to change about myself. This is tough for me to articulate... I'll need to find the right words for a later post.

Boston Area

Hurricane Hanna drenched us as we drove from Maine to Boston. We got a late start on Saturday starting with breakfast at the cottage followed by lunch with Zach's grandparents at Morse's Sauerkraut Factory in Woldoboro, then on to Freeport for some outlet shopping (home of L.L. Bean). It was 5 PM before we made it onto the highway outside of Freeport, and by then the rain was coming down in buckets.

My brother Paul from Phoenix was visiting his friend near Worcester, MA. This was (sort of) on the way to Boston and we didn't have any more specific plans to meet up, so I was eager to drop by. He was waiting for friend Fallon's bartending shift to wrap up at Al Fresco Trattoria & Bar in Holden MA, so we joined them at the bar around 9 PM to wait out the crazy hurricane rain. Fallon was great enough to invite us to use her guest room for the night, which was perfect since the van had sprung a leak in the driving rain (add that to the list of repairs!) Hanging out with a bartender after shift meant a LATE night, but we were still grateful for a warm dry place to sleep and free parking for the van.

The route to Boston took us past both the Walter Gropius House and the nearby DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park. Walter Gropius, founder of the German design school known as the Bauhaus, designed the house as his family home in 1937. If you have an interest in mid-century design it is well worth the stop.

Our time in the city of Boston was far too short. We parked the van in Alewife Station and rode the Tube into the city. Arriving around 3 PM, we inadvertantly started out walking away from the old city and by chance discovered the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA), and managed to get in for the final day and hour of the Anish Kapoor exhibit. Since my interest was the old city, I told Zach I wanted to eat dinner in a building at least 200 years old, so we went on a hunt. The Beantown Pub may not have been quite so old, but they are "the only bar in town where you can drink a Sam Adams beer while looking at his gravestone across the street!" We finished dinner near dusk, and spent the next two hours just walking around looking at some of the older buildings by streetlamp.

Another day in Boston would have been great, but we were on a mission to get to Winsted CT to stay with Zach's Mom and brother Matt for a few days before their departure.

Walter Gropius House

DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Garden
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Boston
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South Bristol, Maine

We've arrived in South Bristol, Maine. It was a quick trip and I believe Zach was dismayed to find the cottage in need of much repair. Nonetheless I had a nice time visiting with Zach's brother Jon and his girlfriend Jenny, who were also staying at the cottage. I also enjoyed our visit to John's Bay Boat Company, where Zach had worked between high school and college. We also stopped in to see Sam and Tina at their home on Rutherford Island. As always, everyone we encountered offered warm hospitality.

This was my third visit to the cottage and weather was better for photos in previous years, so the photos below are a compilation of shots from all three trips.

Photos: Maine is wonderful