road trips – Page 10 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

September 26 Blanding to Torrey, the scenic route

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here>

After gassing up in Blanding, to the tune of 3.09 per gallon, our route led us across one of the most scenic roads in America. Highway 95 crosses the great canyons of the Colorado River dropping to Lake Powell at Hite Crossing, and rising again on the east side of the Henry Mountains to Hanksville, Utah. We took our time, stopping along the way for photos, and I cooked breakfast for us while we parked in a wide spot at a canyon trailhead. Again, one of my favorite parts of MoHo travel, the ability to stop and rest, or cook, or eat, just about anywhere we want to do so.

I first drove this road on a wintry February day after traveling to Santa Fe in 1991 alone in my little red Ranger. I fell in love with Canyon Country then and have loved it ever since. In 1993 I spent six days in a small paddleboat with five other women and two river guides rafting Cataract Canyon of the Colorado River.

Today we crossed Hite Bridge at Lake Powell and I remembered how it felt to see that bridge rise up into view after so many days in the canyons. It was where we put out and then flew back to Moab in less than 30 minutes. It was a trip of a lifetime. I stood above Hite today, and thought again with amazement about John Wesley Powell, who adventured through these wild unknown canyons in a wooden dory, all the way to the Gulf of California.

It was a perfect day and a gorgeous drive, and after leaving Hanksville on route 24 we stopped along the Fremont River in Capital Reef National Park so that Abby could go for a swim. The park was busy with fall visitors, and we decided to bypass the visitor center altogether and go directly to our campsite at the Sand Creek RV Campground.

Sand Creek is an unassuming little place, a bit tattered, but the proprietress is a sweetheart and had saved number 11 for us. We are at the end of the park, with nothing to obstruct our view of the red mountains north of us except a bit of debris and some old ramshackle outbuildings. Twenty bucks with full hookups and the quiet and privacy make this a better choice for us than the fancy and more crowded Ten Thousand Lakes RV Resort just half a mile down the road.

September 24 Over the Rockies

We headed west over the Rockies today, no more agenda, no more visiting or guests, just homeward bound. Of course, between here and home lie the red canyons of Capitol Reef, my heart home and sweet spot on the planet. Before we slip into canyon country, however, I thought it might be fun to wander west via a different route than the fast, winding interstate across the mountains out of Denver.

We chose Highway 285 south from Littleton, across Kenosha Pass, famous for its mountain bike trails, turning west on US 50, the road that crosses the US from coast to coast. Another climb, Monarch Pass, looked challenging on the map. How in the world do we haul the baby car over 11.300 feet?! The best part of the day was going to be the ability to drive as long as we felt like it, and then stop wherever we wanted to stop.

The passes were a piece of cake, really, most of the way had two lanes and the steepest grade was maybe 6 percent. The MoHo has an automatic transmission downshift, so that makes the downhill sides of the passes easy and safe as well, even though we don’t have any extra brakes on the car. The aspens are turning at the higher elevations, and the colors were backlit by the afternoon sun.

The only problem with this plan is that it all went by much too quickly. We saw two forest service campgrounds on highway 50, just before 1pm, and thought it was way too early to stop. Once over Monarch Pass, however, the west slope of the Rockies opens up into big wide ranching country, and by the time we found a place to stop around 3, the landscape was as barren as any we have seen in Nevada.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the desert. Rabbitbrush and sage are familiar to me and camping in the wide open spaces is something we actually seek. But on this day, somehow, I thought I would be camping in the Colorado Rockies, among spruce and aspen. Instead I am at the Stevens Creek BLM campground on a reservoir of the Arkansas River, surrounded by sage and silence. The skies are clear, and at 7600 feet, I am sure the stars will be breathtaking.

Not far north is the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, a dramatic National Park, and yet the drive there looks tortuous and we have decided to continue west on 50 tomorrow morning and camp tomorrow night in Canyonlands, at the Island in the Sky, at Horse Thief BLM campground. Canyon country calls, red canyons, not black ones, and I am a bit like a horse heading for the barn.

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here>

September 17 Henderson KY to Johnson Shut-ins, MO

I only took a few photos today, they are posted here.

Today was a traveling day, leaving Indiana, crossing the Ohio River into Illinois, and the Mississippi River into Missouri. Again we took the side roads, but navigation in Illinois is considerably better than Ohio. The skies were clear, with full sunshine most of the day, but the haze on the horizon belied the humidity of the landscape we crossed. We stopped for a break in a small town along the route, and enjoyed the Midwest country crafts in the booths before continuing. I bought a great gourd painted like a witch to add to my Halloween stash.

As we approached the Mississippi Valley, the fields broadened, and wide terraces planted with soybeans ripened in the late summer sun. In the midst of navigating, I checked out the SoilWeb app on the phone and discovered the Drury soil series, mapped all along these river terraces. Just about every soil scientist who has mapped soils will know Drury, it’s a soil often used to define soil development in big river systems.

The landscape changed almost immediately when we entered Missouri, broad valleys breaking into the complex hills and winding roads of the Ozarks. The heat was increasing with each mile, and by the time we reached Johnson Shut-ins State Park it was 94 degrees and the humidity was high. With the park completely reserved for the weekend, the attendant sent us to the equestrian area, lots of space, no shade, but water and electric. Good enough for a hot day! Setup, turn on the air conditioner, and watch a movie!

Late evening was cooler, and we went for a bike ride to explore the campground before settling in. You haven’t heard night songs until you have heard the bugs in the Missouri woods. I recognized the crickets, but all the other deafening sounds were who knows what. It was perfectly dark and the moon is just about half full. With the windows opened, the air conditioner off, and the Fantastic Fan going full blast we slept just great.

The rest of the photos for this day are linked here>

September 13 Mercer PA to Casstown OH

Leaving the western edge of Pennsylvania, we traveled toward the Ohio River, attempting to stay on back roads in order to see the countryside. Once in Ohio, however, the challenge was on. Southeastern Ohio is formed in the worn down foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, in addition to narrow winding roads, there are many small towns just a few miles apart, surrounded by meandering rivers and rolling hills.

Our maps were too small a scale to have all we needed, the iPhone didn’t work at all, so I had only the GPS to figure out our route. Garmin Girl was as frantic as I was, because trying to type in a town and a street took some time, and often we were there before I could get it all figured out. Mo was driving, and I think by the time we got to Casstown I was more worn out from navigating that she was from driving all those curvy roads.

Another reason for driving the back roads, was to drive far enough south to see a bit of West Virginia. Just across from East Liverpool, on the Ohio River, is the small West Virginia town of Chester. We saw the big bridge crossing the river, and managed to find our way across, meandering through town thinking we could cross back to Ohio on the Newell Bridge. Maybe not! The Newell bridge was very narrow, had a weight limit, and a toll! Instead we meandered back across the interstate bridge and again found our way south and west through the back roads of Ohio. Of course, we did this in order to add the state of West Virginia to our travel map! I have heard several ideas about how this is done, but the one we follow is that if you drive in the state, you get to claim it!

The forests in this part of Ohio have been logged and burned repeatedly, and are somewhat scraggly. We were on a road that showed a dotted blue line, meaning it was a scenic route, but we couldn’t find any signs saying what scenic route we were viewing. We spent the day winding along the hills, through small towns and farms, until we reached the portion of Ohio that is reputed to be a center of Amish culture.

The AAA book on Ohio listed the restored town of Roscoe as a “Gem”, and being directly on our route we stopped in to view some of the shops and buildings. It was charming, with a nice visitor center, and a living history museum that might have been interesting if we had the time to actually spend. Instead, Mo dropped me off on the extremely narrow street at one end of town and picked me up at the other, after some time for me to shoot photos of some of the structures. It was very hot, something new for us, since we have had cool rainy weather for most of our trip. At this point, we followed Mo’s friend Millie’s advice and detoured north to Berlin.

What we found after arriving, was that Berlin is merely a very commercial central area for “Amish Country”, and the only way to really experience this area would be to travel much more slowly. It takes time and a small vehicle to actually savor the slow lifestyle, to amble up the country lanes to visit farms and purchase Amish goods. Instead we parked in a big parking lot advertising Amish tours, buggy rides, and crafts. We stayed a very short time, since everything seemed incredibly generic and commercial and we wanted to arrive at our host’s home at a reasonable time.

Traveling west again toward Dayton, the roads finally leveled out. Long, straight, level, and headed due west into the setting sun. The blinding sunlight served to illuminate nothing but the giant bug splatters from goodness knows what cloud of species battered our windshield along this route .Passing Urbana, blinded by the light, we got a glimpse of rows and rows of huge mansions along the main highway, quite close to the road, and incredibly close together. Photos were impossible, but I discovered later that these kinds of homes seem to be very common in this part of the Midwest and would present more than enough photo opportunities for me.

It was with grateful and worn out hearts that we pulled into the long winding driveway of Mo’s friends Don and Millie. The connection goes back more than 40 plus years, and Mo has attended the weddings of each of their three daughters, worked on her Master’s with Millie, camped with the family many times, and shared many life experiences during the time most everyone lived in the Bay Area of California.

Don and Millie relocated to Ohio a few years ago in order to be close to their three daughters, all living here with their husbands and families. I had visited Don and Millie with Mo when they lived near me in Oakhurst, California, near Yosemite, and was delighted to see them again. The driveway led to a beautiful brick home on 7 wooded acres, with huge lawns, a creek, and an RV pad for the MoHo, complete with water, electric, and sewer. Perfect!

Millie fed us supper and after a bit of visiting these two weary travelers settled into a much needed rest.

Photos for the rest of this day are linked here

September 8 Toronto

The few somewhat gloomy photos I have for this day are linked here.

Glen Rouge Campground is owned by the city of Toronto, located in a linear greenbelt parkway called Rouge Park, dissected by the Rouge River. The grounds are well maintained, with laundry facilities on site. These consisted of two washers, one of them broken, and two dryers, one out of service. With more than a week of laundry collected, I decided to try to find a laundromat where I could actually get the laundry completed in something less than a full day. Mo decided to go with me so I wouldn’t have to wander off into the city alone, and we set out to find a laundry.

The camp hostess suggested a place a few miles west toward town on Kingston Street, which sounded reasonable, but at the early morning rush hour, Kingston Street was backed up cars in all four lanes punctuated by stop lights. The fresh, almost antiseptically clean suburbs gave way to seedier neighborhoods and crowded apartment buildings with varying degrees of window coverings that included aluminum foil. Maybe these are the kinds of neighborhoods that actually need laundromats, since most of the fancy townhomes near the area we left behind probably had their own in home laundry facilities.

About $12.00 Canadian, and four loads later, we emerged with clean bedding and fresh clothes. Watching all those folks doing laundry reminded me of the days when I did diapers for three babies in laundromats, too poor to own a washer that worked. Life is good. Now I only go to laundromats when I am traveling.

Another supposed amenity of Glen Rouge Campground is the excellent security. Last night it was severely lacking, however, and somewhere around 2am our next door neighbor hosted two cars full of drunken party goers. They entertained us with raucous conversation, loud music, singing, and falling down sounds until the last car pulled away around seven this morning. When we reported this to the camp hostess, she made some mumblings about security, and I got the impression that maybe the security personnel may have been part of the party. Our other neighbors are just fine, sweet and just conversational enough to be fun but not intrusive, and they love the cat and dog. We will be leaving tomorrow morning, and I am hoping that the rowdy neighbor is too worn out from last night to keep us up again tonight.

With laundry handled, we took Abby to a doggie day care and once more took the train to town for another day of exploration. Toronto has so many interesting offerings, but the Royal Ontario Museum called me most, with the exhibition “The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracotta Army” in residence, it was something I didn’t want to miss. The ROM, as it is affectionately known here in town, is just a little over a mile north of Union Station on University Street. It was a great chance to walk more city streets and observe how the demographics and energy of the neighborhoods change throughout the city.

Queen’s Park is at the center of the University of Toronto campus, and has the most amazing collection of huge hardwoods, oaks, maples, and others, that I have ever seen. In the dark shade of a dreary day, I found it impossible to capture the immensity of these trees in a photograph. The main building of the University was as imposing as any castle I have seen anywhere, and the cosmopolitan atmosphere was impressive.

We finally found the ROM north of Queen’s Park and entered. There was an extra fee to see the Terracotta Army, but it was well worth it. After complete immersion into Chinese history of two hundred B.C., we emerged into the rest of the museum. Much like the Smithsonian, the sheer volume of the exhibits is overwhelming. I decided that the only way to truly visit a museum of this stature would be slowly, a day at a time for each section. Since we didn’t have that luxury, we wandered a bit aimlessly through the halls and rooms and stairwells. Photos weren’t allowed, but mental images include a totem pole from British Columbia spanning all four stories of the building and a domed ceiling tiled with gold and inlay that was as intricate as any we saw in Turkey.

After all that walking and wandering, we were starving, so took advantage of what is known in Toronto as “street meat’”, the hot dog stand. Hot dog is a misnomer for what we ate today, with the juicy succulent meat sliced diagonally and roasted on an open flame right before our eyes. The condiments included fancy colored peppers and a sweet corn relish among the usual goodies. We sat on the steps of the ROM and watched people passing by while munching down the best hot dog I ever ate in my entire life.

The Museum station of the TTC Subway was right there, and it was a quick, 4.00 jaunt to Union Station just in time to catch the express GOTRAIN to our home station at Rouge Hill. After two days we were getting to be old hands at finding the stairs, hallways, and platforms of the transit system.

After picking up Abby from her caretakers, we desperately needed some internet time to handle business affairs, and finally found free wireless at the local coffee establishment called Second Cup. Much like the Starbucks of the old days, they had great coffees, comfy chairs, a fireplace, and free wireless. Time to catch up on banking and email, and try to get photos up and maybe a blog post or two at least! By the time we left the place was full of interesting people, talking, computing, drinking and eating; definitely a hoppin’ place to be in the suburbs of Toronto on a Wednesday evening!

We plan to leave by 6 in the morning to drive to Niagara Falls and miss the worst of the Toronto traffic, so the alarm is set for 5. The rain comes and goes, but it stopped long enough for us to get the bikes and the kayaks loaded up again and get things ready for an early departure tomorrow.