From the San Juans to White Sands

[Voyager3]

My Dear Reader,

We are back. Hello and woof from Travis and Jenson. You said if I wrote something else you would read it, so let’s test it. The month of May was all about exploring the American West, taking the long way from Denver to Flagstaff for Expo and back again. When you last heard from me and the pup, we had wrapped up a 19,500-mile, 4-month trip across the upper parts of the continent picking up a quarter ton of trash from beaches, lakes and rivers. I realize a lot of it also ended up being about food and local history and a personal quest to be well. We did not end up making it down to Central America for a number of reasons, and I left you with this. “I'm uncertain of many things and certain of one. It's time to get on with living my life, whatever that means this time.” Classic 29-year-old me. But now this is 33-year-old me talking now, and let me briefly fill you in on what you missed. I’ll try to be concise, but life is weird. I promise I’ll get to the trip. This is called context.

“Don’t Throw Your Life Away” ended with distinct lack of pomp or circumstance. I tied it into visiting family for the holidays, where I learned valuable lessons concerning the differences between belonging and fitting in, and then languished for months in my hometown, trading momentum for good old inertia. Once I got spun back up a few months later, I began making my way back to Colorado.

Then what. Rode around in a red Cadillac in Cuba, and returned to find I had lost a friend and former coworker in Colorado to something that was probably curable. MotoGP in Austin with a friend I had made at Expo years ago, hopped the fence to sneak into one of the paddock hospitality rooms after qualifying on Saturday, where we watched motocross across from Dovi, Marc, and Cal. Met Dovi, shook his hand and exchanged words. I also met some new Chilean friends on the tower who extended an invitation to the fancy seats at turn 12 where I saw Marc fall over, and also to visit in Chile.





Then a big 30th birthday at Expo, took an Indian friend by the name of Candida on a tour of southern Utah and northern Arizona. She was also a Change Your World Fund grant recipient for her solo ride from India to Australia. Then there was Unrally at the Alvord, which went something like ride, party, ride, party, ride, party. The last party is the one that really got me. That old Jeep finally had a real engine problem on the way to the Oregon coast and was dragged back to be unceremoniously sold as a non-runner, still full of Alvord dust, to be replaced by a suburban. Took up that invitation to Chile in July. By October, I was holding a golden eagle in Mongolia where I also got my first taste of real inner peace for quite some time. I hope to replicate that feeling again someday without having to necessarily go all the way to a temple at the end of this valley, as it’s not very convenient to where I currently live.





A ’56 Chrysler Windsor and 7 or 8 motorcycles had come and gone by the time the pandemic was kicking off. 2020 was a blur, but one thing that did happen was I finally got my private pilot’s license. In a helicopter, no less. I was a line tech at the airport for a while, got an ear infection, now I guess I’m some kind of BMW mechanic for a local place, and there’s a 1972 BMW 2002 in the garage now. Oh, and I met a sweet gal here in Colorado who really likes me. So that’s really great.



ANYWAY

The ear infection, the lingering tinnitus from it, and the holidays which triggered the onset of the usual seasonal malaise all left me not feeling well enough to fly for months, and it was all getting me pretty down. I was really looking forward to breaking out and getting back to Expo West in Flag because it had been a couple years now, and it invariably cheers me ever so much. But then mom and sis said they wanted to take a trip to the Pacific Northwest during the couple weeks before expo and I said…… “Since I’ll be out, why don’t I just pick you up from the airport and we won’t have to rent a car.” Classic me at any age. So, they were going to fly to Seattle, and I would drive to go get them from Denver.

How’s this for more serendipity? My father also asked prior to my departure if I was going to be at Expo again because as it turns out, he was going to be visiting a couple of his cousins in Phoenix and Flagstaff around the same time, and we arranged to have him join me on the drive back to Denver. Just like that, my plan to find my way to a week of Expo had ballooned to fill up an entire month. And here’s what happened on my quest to find this smile again. (That’s me on the left in case you forgot).



We must begin with a note on preparation of one’s vehicle. I actually did some this time. In the couple weeks before departure I replaced all the AC components. I’m really good at doing the condenser now because the first one arrived in the mail broken, and I only checked in the box when I had the front of the truck apart. The replacement then also arrived broken, but I was ready for this one and checked the box first. That’s called learning from your mistakes. I try not to make the same mistake twice. I make new, more exciting ones. So, I paid up and got one local, took the front of the truck apart again, and got the old condenser all the way out on the floor before I really got a good look at the new one. I HAD already assured myself was not broken at the store and, it was indeed not broken; it was just the wrong application and therefor the wrong size. I put it all back together again with the old one for a day and definitely got it all sorted the next time. I was also changing brake stuff at 9pm the night before my morning departure, so I just chucked a bunch of stuff in the back of a truck and left.

That’s a good lesson.

All you have to do is chuck some stuff you already have into the back of whatever you already drive. Then hit the road. It’s that easy. You’ll be disorganized for a while, but you’ll get it and it’ll be worth it. Doing long trips properly takes some preparation I’ve heard, but if your only goal is to get out the door, that’s still as easy as it ever was. If you’re finding yourself putting off your trip because you’re not quite ready yet, you may never be, but paths are made by walking. Go on.

Me, I had miles to cover to make the 1800-mile drive to the airport in 3 days. First stop, somewhere I had been before. Bear Lake, Utah/Idaho.

I didn't document much of the blast across southern Wyoming. I know there are lots of great parts of Wyoming, I’ve seen them, but this route on I-80 is just about getting across it so Jenson could swim in a lake and we could sleep in the truck on the shore of the same lake. What I found is that even though it was already pretty warm in Colorado when I left, it was still a little snowy in Idaho and all the towns are still very much shut for the off season.





The first night started so well. The wind coming down the mountains to the west of us was buffeting the vehicle and whistling around. The sound of driving rain on metal. It reminded me of the old school bus days. In fact, during my time as a line tech, I would sometimes sit in the fuel truck in the predawn darkness after safety checks and just listen to the wind around the truck. Feeling the movement and hearing the sound again was very comforting. The rest of the work was very loud and heavy and hot.

What was not hot was the inside of the suburban in the morning. It was 34 degrees outside at 5am, which meant it was also 34 degrees inside. Kiddo was in my sleeping bag so I couldn’t assume any different positions and the air mattress I had found on a shelf in a closet was comfy enough, but the air inside it was also 34 degrees. I had solved some of my space problems compared to the Jeep, but I had not solved the climate control problems.

Then again, there’s nothing wrong with a little voluntary discomfort. You will be training yourself to face unforeseen adversities and be confident that you can handle them. As Seneca said, “If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.” If you’re always too comfortable, when discomfort inevitably does come, you’ll be thrown off. You may even find yourself not thinking clearly in a crisis. A cold night should just be a cold night. Then when you find comfort again later, you’ll be that much more grateful. Which is exactly how I felt later when mom said, “if you need a room on the way, just get one and I’ll cover it.” Thanks mom.

And sure, someone out there has connected some dots and is thinking, Travis, you haven’t learned a thing from last time and you’re still just going out woefully underprepared because you’re fairly certain you’ll be somewhere where you’re not going to die. You’re just distracting us with stoic philosophy so we forget that you didn’t even look at the weather where you were headed.
Yeah. But then I wouldn’t have anything to talk about. And even then, if a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die.

 

[Voyager3]

Shortly before I was due to leave on this trip, I was told that a friend from elementary school had passed away. This time it seems it was not preventable, because he was sick for a day, and then he was gone. He was my age with so much to look forward to. I was not able to attend the service because I had to be on the road heading to Seattle, but I did write something and sent it on to be read to his family.

This is why we now find ourselves in Paris. We just don’t ever know how long we really have.





We found something interesting and also closed in Montpelier. The last standing bank verified to have been robbed by Butch Cassidy.





There’s also this, the world’s only captive geyser in Soda Springs. Released accidentally while drilling for hot water for a bath house, the water was shortly determined to be too hard for baths anyway. After a couple weeks of erupting constantly, it was finally capped after the Secretary of the Interior had telegrammed to say it was throwing Old Faithful off schedule. That was fine though, because people in town were growing bored with everything flooding anyway, and now it is capped and is released every hour on the hour by timed valve.



Next is a lesson on when to surprise someone and when to give them a heads up. If you’re pretty sure they’re going to be there, go ahead and try a surprise. If there’s a chance that maybe they won’t be and they popped into town and weren’t going to be back for 3 hours, then maybe give them a heads up. Especially if it’s been 4 years since you were there last, would have enjoyed a visit and might not be through again for 4 more years. I messed that one up, sorry Vickie. If any of you ever pass by this corner of Idaho, swing by the bar in Atomic City, go see the EBR-1 reactor, go to Craters of the Moon. There’s a lot of neat stuff in this part of Idaho. This time though, it all mostly fell into the category of stuff I had seen before and I had many miles to go before I slept, this time in a bed. Today’s agenda was again very simple. Get most of the way across a western state and find Black and White Dog a lake to play in. We did that again.



















Cute, ain't he?



Another tip if you’re eating out, go to whatever restaurant the locals recommend, and then don’t think too hard about what to get. Even if you have some ideas, just ask your server. I love that. What’s your favorite meal? If they smile when suggesting it and it suits your appetite, that’s the one. Then they smile more. Favorite drink? Yes, I’ll have that. Bing bang boom. Then I can look them in the eyes and remember I’m just here for the experience, and that includes them.

If you’re actually good at this overlanding thing, you’ll already have your own sweet campsite, and a heater of your own maybe, and you cooked your own fab meal. I didn’t bring anything to cook with, so I was happy to have someone else make me a meatloaf and bring me a beer.



Idaho. Go to there. Really, cause sometimes it looks like this, and it’s really a swell place for someone who likes to say “wow” a lot. If you’re looking at a map for roads to try, find Riggins, ID on that map, and follow up to that big hill north of White Bird and at least consider it. Going south would also be acceptable. I will not be held liable if it’s not lush and green when you go through, but this time of year, when it’s drizzly, cloudy and looks like this? Lovely.







And then here’s a neat thing. North out of Lewiston across the river and up to the plateau above, it immediately turns into those endless rolling hills of the Palouse region. Aside from the road you’re on, a telephone pole, or an actual farm house, it’s just all farms, all the time. I do wish I had more time to explore the area, but that will have to be for another time. I was in Washington now, and this time had to arrive near enough to Seattle that I could get into the airport the following day without too much trouble. I didn’t want to cross over the mountains and get too close to the city, so a normal night in Ellensburg put me within striking distance of it.

 

[Voyager3]

Now it’s May 1st. I know, please don’t feel cheated because I really left a few days ago. I had to take some creative liberties here because The 30 days between and including April 28th and May 27th was a little unwieldy. Today is the day that I have a relaxing morning followed by a short drive to the airport, and my mom and sister are comfortably and efficiently transported from the east coast to here without issue. My plan went fine. I took my boy to go swim, after all it is his most favorite thing to do. Mom and sis, nah. Their flights met in Dallas, but sis was just yards away from the gate and they closed it on her mid stride running to make the connection while mom was already standing in front of the agent explaining she’ll be just a minute. Oof. Now no matter what, they were going to be delayed. No worries, more swimming and then heading into Roslyn for a healthy breakfast, buying books, apples, and cherry jelly. I was sitting on a bench in the sun outside a soap shop, listening to the proprietor convince someone delivering something to her to try this hot chocolate, and watching the people mill gathering in town for a local mountain bike race.





Ring ring. It’s sister. “How close are you to Spokane?”

“Really nowhere near, and it's backwards. I will, I guess, but I don’t want to if there’s another option,” I reply.

“How far from Portland?”

“Really not much closer.” Mind you, their bags are still on their way to Seattle, no matter what we have to find a way there anyway.

“Seems we found another flight into Seattle, but first we have to make a connection to Houston.”

Oof part deux.

Anyway, we went on this hike up by Snoqualmie while they worked all that out.





We still had more time so we found some big town park a little closer to Seattle and took a nap, then something like 8 hours late, I found them and we carried on another few hours into the wiggly darkness that deposited us at Lake Quinault around midnight.

Please allow me to show you why people bother going to the Olympic Peninsula. If you like the color green, don’t change the channel.







There he goes again.














Here’s perhaps one of my favorite photos of the trip, might as well get it out of the way early. Feel free to pause here as long as you need.




Peaceful, isn’t it? That’s a real place. As I keep getting flung forward in time, ever more aware that one day the party will go on without me, I am trying to figure out what it is for me that leads reliably enough to a sense of contentment. I feel like my persona has changed so many times in the last dozen years. The image of the way I wanted others to think of me. Happiness was external. It was in stuff, and other people’s opinions. I was comparing up to other people’s lives, and it was very much a moving target. Perhaps you’ve been there, too.

I’m finding now that the ability to be at peace has come from being able to sit and be quiet and really understand where thoughts come from. Seemingly from nowhere, and what happens outside is distinctly different from what happens within. Or at least it can be. It’s very easy to have an emotional reaction to an outside event and find myself as a passenger. I don’t want to react to things, I want to respond to them. Once I had experienced, briefly at first in Mongolia, the feeling of seeing these thoughts coming from farther away, to recognize them, let myself feel them and then let them go, well then I had the first piece to the puzzle. Tension is who I think I should be, relaxation is who I am.

Perhaps regular meditation of any kind would be helpful. Inhabiting this space, where the proverbial snow leopard of peace might briefly alight on a rock where I can catch a glimpse of it, is still difficult for me. I’ve always liked to observe the world around me, but now I am attempting to improve my ability to turn it around on myself. I’m just trying to inoculate myself against the tempests when they do come and to be calm out in the world. Uh oh, I feel a Robert Louis Stevenson quote coming on again. I’ll pull it from the old big trip when I was trying to figure this out staring at a mural of orcas and butterflies in Alaska,

"Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."
33-year-old me has had more of these successes than 29-year-old me did. Until you give up on the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it’ll never be where you are. That being said, if you have the means, do go find this place, because it’s pretty great.

 

[Voyager3]

Ahhh. The Pacific Ocean. Here it is, and who do you suppose was especially happy to see it again?







I’m a huge fan of the upper Pacific beaches in particular. I like the moodiness and drama of the prevailing weather and how quickly the atmosphere seems to go about its business. One becomes very aware of the eddies and currents of the fluid we live in. Stand down there on the sand or rocks and put yourself between the gales and the cliffs. Inhale that first big breath of air that has just blown in from halfway around the world unimpeded.



This was also where I began to hint that not only was this place lousy with bald eagles, but that I knew just where to look. What a feeling to say, “around this corner you’ll see some” and be right. Those of you that know me from before know not to get your hopes up about seeing many pictures of wildlife. There are a few, the fox that bit me was a particular standout from the before-times, but I’m doing this all with a phone still.

We’d be cruising up from Kalaloch and up to Ruby Beach for some greys and blues, before heading inland again to go find the Hoh Rainforest for more greens and browns.





Any guesses as to what town out here could possibly be this popular and why?





Forks, WA. Something about vampire books and the movies based on those books.

Gimme the stick.

No.



That boat is Bananas.



Now back into the trees. Here are some snaps from the Hoh rainforest.







And an overnight stop at Crescent Lake. I hope the ladies are enjoying their time out here. My sister is out from Greenville, SC where she’s a full-time veterinarian and part-time ninja warrior.





Then get this, I drove all the way through Port Angeles, WA without anything on the vehicle imploding. I drove all the way across it without incident in mere minutes, smashing the existing record which was a week. I may find myself struggling to make this new story really compelling because of the lack of constant calamity this time around. I’ll stick with it if only for the typing practice.

Onwards.

Here’s a place I did like the first time around. Port Townsend, Washington. It was here that I found that neat old car place full of neat old car things and the same sushi I had 4 years ago. The same menu item, not like the same ingredients, still just sitting there waiting for me to finish. Really, we were here to catch a ferry to the San Juan Islands, somewhere I had never been before and would very much enjoy.

 

[Voyager3]

We arrived in Friday Harbor and settled into a B&B on the island because we would be here for a handful of days which we would pack full of hiking, kayaking, a museum, whale watching, donut eating, and all the other vacation type merriment one would hope to do. The islands aren’t very big and we did get to see a lot of San Juan Island right away, starting with the Cattle Point Lighthouse on the southern tip.











This kind of donut is called a fish taco, the one kind of food I miss maybe more than any other living in Colorado. This one was captured at the north end of San Juan Island in Roche Harbor.







This photograph is for those of you who like blues.



The waters around the San Juans on this day were this calm for our entire voyage to search for whales. They do have humpback whales in them, and we did find a few. No orcas this time though.





And then some of this, why not right? Island stuff.



The big score was still to come, though. Eagles are easy. Whales, no big deal. The big trophy is the banana slug. Been keeping my eyes peeled since Quinault.
We got over to Orcas Island for a day, which actually isn’t named after the orca, otherwise known as the killer whale, which isn’t a whale at all really, it’s a dolphin. The coincidence arises from the shortening of “Horcasitas” plucked from somewhere near the middle of the name Juan Vicente de Guemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo. Already I’m grateful there was any shortening at all, and this actually goes to illustrate a point that you don’t even have to do any of the hard work to have something named after you, because Juan was the just sponsor for the expedition undertaken by Francisco de Eliza, who himself wasn’t even the man in the party who is credited as the first European discoverer of the islands. That would be a man under Eliza’s command, Gonzalo Lopez de Haro.

Anyway, we went on a walk there.







This little critter actually took me ten days to find. I tried to get the ladies as excited as I was, maybe it worked, maybe it didn't.



With that last discovery, the northwestern portion of the trip was drawing to a close so we went back to San Juan Island, and the following morning we hopped on another boat back to the mainland.





We did make one last stop to see something interesting to me. And old, old wooden ship. But I did notice that while it looked pretty good in the article my mom showed, the picture was from the 60s and well.... the Equator is in quite a sorry state these days. Still, this is what’s left of a schooner that once carried Robert Louis Stevenson around the south Pacific. It's maybe the last hull of its kind from the time period, and sadly it’s falling to pieces under a shed near the marina in Everett.



“Hence, lacking courage to return to my old life of the house and sick-room, I set forth to leeward in a trading schooner, the Equator, of a little over seventy tons, spent four months among the atolls (low coral islands) of the Gilbert group, and reached Samoa towards the close of ‘89. By that time gratitude and habit were beginning to attach me to the islands; I had gained a competency of strength; I had made friends; I had learned new interests; the time of my voyages had passed like days in fairyland; and I decided to remain.” - RLS

 

[Voyager3]

Mom and sis flew out of Seattle the following day, and I carried on my way. The northwestern weather had been cooperating for their whole visit, and then on my drive out the coast it absolutely chucked it down for hours. What a great reason to take a break in McMinnville and visit the Spruce Goose again.



At least this old wooden airplane is being well preserved, and golly is it always impressive.

The run to the coast after that was a good one, and I was interested to see how I felt rolling into Newport again after all these years. The last time I attempted it was when the Jeep finally threw in the towel and limped into Corvallis. I then rented a car in some miserable weather to go and feel miserable in the seaside town where I left the bus years ago, and I didn’t get any of the closure I thought I needed. And even after that I continued to wear my old Newport Fire hat. I'm not a member of the department anymore. I don’t live there. I like it, and it was a fine chapter in my life, but as the Buddha said of the makeshift river raft, it is useful for crossing over, but not for holding onto. I’ve been dragging this raft with me for years, ever present on my head reminding me, I used to be a certain way.

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." - Havelock Ellis





After visiting Otter Crest, one of my favorite beaches to see at low tide, I swung by the department one last time and rang the bell. When the chief answered and recognized me, I took that hat off, walked inside with him to have a chat, and I haven’t put it back on since. It now sits happily on a shelf at home next to my World Challenge winner’s circle hat from my racing car days, allowing me let go of another old persona, and hold on to the memories.

I then had some dinner overlooking the water, stopping on the way in to pump up someone’s tire in the parking lot and leaving a little note to remind them to get it looked at, Cheers from Colorado.

We then headed to Nye Beach, one of my favorite spots to bid farewell to the day.





While watching the sunset, a girl wandered over and we got to chatting, all the while watching kiddo run around firmly in the present. We talked about the past, and the future, and choices we had made. She had just arrived in Newport to do Forestry Service things, and I was just leaving to head south and west. This time I didn’t look back.

 

[Voyager3]

Of course, one has to stop and look at the Sisters, even if it’s just briefly. Then to get out of Oregon, it’ll seem like ages on the loneliest road in America. Wait, you say, what about US 50 in Nevada, the road called the Loneliest Road in America? I’ll get to that road as well, but when you designate a road as such, then people come to see if it is....and then it isn’t as much as it was before.



I managed to make Winnemucca that day and tested my patience some more as I was informed that the pizza I ordered went missing and they had to make me another one. Not the worst problem in the world. Then it was dark before I could go find a campsite, and I didn’t refill any water anywhere before I did, so I let Black and White dog have whatever was left and drove south out of town a bit till I found somewhere to park off a dirt road somewhere to get some sleep.

See, I wasn’t going to be lonely today at all. Not with all these crickets around. Unfortunately, there’s really no way through each swarm but to drive over them. Sorry. Then others come to eat their dead friends, and then they get squished, and then some more come to eat those, and so on. Eventually, I'm sure, some of them do in fact cross the road.







In Ely, not only was the Nevada Open Road Challenge in town, but I stopped in at this pharmacy to get some things and it turns out it was also a soda fountain and sandwich shop. A refreshing break full of tasty treats like a chicken sandwich with cranberries and sunflower seeds on house made bread, and an ice cream soda.



And before I knew it, I was back in familiar territory that’s home to almost exclusively good memories. I found the same campsite I had last time I was in the area years ago, but not before being offered a bratwurst wrapped in bacon from a young couple I passed while driving around the woods to see what else I remembered. Thanks Ezra and Diamond for the snack, and again, rad names.



I’m sure this kid remembers being here. Probably chasing all the same critters he was back then. I really like aspen groves, and he really likes critters.







Of course, this particular route was partially about seeing some old familiar scenery, but mostly it was about food. If I'm anywhere within a few hundred miles of the Burr Trail Grill, I seem to alter my route to stop and have the sugar wings and whatever else on the menu appeals that day. At the start of the pandemic, they put out a message that they were selling some non-expiring gift certificates and that all the proceeds were going to the staff to make sure they were going to survive the time being closed. I immediately sent my support to them again, and then the following year took my date out there for lunch on a tour of southern Utah. I just can’t stay away so here we are again. Everything is going really well.





Those of you who have been to this part of the world know this is the area of Utah where the scenery changes every hour you’re on the road, and it’s fabulous. The drive today passed through all the good stuff up to Escalante, past Bryce which I've been lucky enough now to have seen a few times including once with snow on it, and all the way down to Lone Rock at the bottom of Powell, and boy was I in for a shock. Even having kept up on some of the news from the region regarding this crazy drought, I wasn’t ready for this.



This lake is down 100 feet since I was last here this time of year in 2019. According to an article from April, they’re just a little over 30 feet from having to shut down electricity generation at Page where 5 million people get their power from, and they’re already at a reduced capacity. The decisions made in this part of the world are very soon going to be water or power. It’s getting pretty desperate. I’ve never seen Lone Rock actually alone and it’s not even close. I knew Mead was bad as well, but I was also going to find later that Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison isn’t doing much better either. It's alarming everywhere and not getting any better. That night though we did get a little mood correction in the form of the lunar eclipse viewed from the roof of the suburban on the newly expanded beach. It sure is hot in Page already, and that meant I was ready the next day to finally start that climb into Flagstaff for a week of Expo fun. There was a moment somewhere in Nevada or Utah when I sent a message back to my friend Ian in Colorado asking him how far Flagstaff was from Denver, and he said “675ish” miles. We’d been at it for 3500 miles already and were still 1000 miles away.

 

[Voyager3]

After my short stint working for them before the ownership change, and the trash cleanup trip across Alaska and Canada thanks to the Change Your World Fund, I continued to return to Expo as a volunteer and by now I’ve been to many. My 33rd birthday was spent setting up tables and chairs and such for the festivities and I was thrilled to see so many old friends and make a handful of new ones. Maybe I feel so good out there because of them, maybe it’s also down to how many birthdays I’ve had there now, it's always an event to look forward to again. Perhaps it’s just because I was on the road and moving around a bunch and everything was novel and exciting again.

Expo of course is always good. After the work was done and I could enjoy myself around the show, I sat in on some classes and presentations every day. We arrive again at the picture from the beginning and how I came to be here with an old friend Jim on the right, and some new friends Tim and Marisa in the middle. If you haven’t heard of them, they are the Notiers. Their stories of traveling 2Up on their KTM down Central and South America are great so far and I’ve already read two of their books that I bought at the show. They have more coming from Africa, or as much as they could manage before the global shutdowns. Because of the thing. Check out their stories in the books and on social things as Notiers Frontiers. The three of us became fast friends even before I bought all their books, and I wish them well on their next leg up north. Great folks. And if nothing else, this trip was a success just because it brought this version of me back.



Before leaving Flagstaff, I joined pop and his cousins for a visit and dinner, then returned to the campground to spend a final night with friends at Expo. The first day out of Flag with the only plan to push on east to make it to an overnight somewhere near White Sands in New Mexico. We first saw a sign for Meteor Crater. Many years ago, we all as a family had seen it from the air on a trip in my dad’s old Beechcraft Baron, but none of us had ever seen it from the ground. Luckily for us it’s only half a dozen miles or so from the highway and it was fun to see it from a new perspective. It’s 4000 feet across and these days 550 feet deep, the result of an estimated 150-foot-wide chunk of space rock traveling fast enough to explode on impact with the force of 2.5 million tons of TNT. It’s said to be the best preserved and first confirmed crater of its kind on the planet and it’s worth the slight detour to check it out.



Another thing I forgot was out here was the VLA (Very Large Array), but weirdly neither of us managed to get a snap of the nearest dish as we drove by and somehow, I forgot to stop. The 27 radio telescopes that make up the array move in and out on tracks to adjust the collecting area depending on what is being studied. Unfortunately, the center itself is currently closed to the public.



Also on the route chosen was Pie Town, and I really wanted a piece of pie. What I got was this New Mexico special, an apple pie with green hatch chilis and pinyon. Amazing.
But no time to dilly or dally, because we still had to make it to Alamogordo on this long day, past all the threatening but unproductive storms, and the smoke from the monster Black Fire.





The gypsum dunes at White Sands are certainly white though. They are another mesmerizing product of very interesting natural forces over very long time periods. This is the largest area of such formations in the world and I’m very happy to finally include them on some trip. Walking around barefoot on the gypsum was wonderful, and it really does flow through one's fingers so well. Lots of evidence of tiny hardy creatures scurrying around, some of which are only found within the dunes.



















Always good to visit the world's biggest something. How could we pass up seeing the two of the world’s biggest somethings in a single day?



Now though we had to point north back towards my home state of Colorado, right up the middle.

Intermediate stop on the way, Santa Fe. The old town part of Santa Fe is pretty neat. It's old and funky and full of all kinds of shops and historical sites, like this building. This is the San Miguel Church, the oldest church structure in the United States. The sign says “the original adobe walls and altar were built by Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico under the direction of Franciscan Padres in 1610.” And so that’s what I'm gonna tell you about it.





As we cruise out of town, we see the last bits the deserts have to offer before finding the bigger mountains signaling the arrival into Colorado.

 

[Voyager3]

We had lots of time to get to Durango, and we spent some of it finding places to relax, seen here.





Durango itself is a cool place. Lots to see downtown, right in the middle of all the hiking, rafting, skiing and other such outdoor things people like to do in Colorado. There's a nice railroad museum at this end of the narrow-gauge railway that connects Durango with Silverton. One day I’ll have to take that train ride.





On the way to Silverton by road it’s possible to find sights like this to let your pet otter have a swim. I mean, it doesn't get a whole lot better than this, does it?





Coming over the hill into Silverton, you can actually see one of the trains pulling into town.



And here are those trains. I’ll be back.



Again, we see the limitations of the old phone camera, but at least I looked left in this valley at just the right time to pull over and show my dad something he doesn't get to see a lot of living in Florida. It was a moose. And then after watching a little while realized there’s also a little mooselet hanging around as well. We had binoculars to look through, and that was great for us to get a good look at the pair. You only get this. Terribly sorry.



The mountains however hold very still, and the rest of the drive over the million dollar highway was great. We drove through Ouray to go spend the night in Montrose. Yes, we should have overnighted in Ouray because it’s just cooler, but I had one more thing I wanted to get done on this trip, and I thought I might as well put myself closest to Olathe to knock out an appointment the following morning.





I went to see a local Ag spraying company there as I had met the family at the Aerial Applicator state convention in Greeley, CO back in November. They had extended an invitation to me back then, and I was finally able to take them up on it. I learned a bunch, the guys there are very friendly and very smart and the job is really interesting. It was however, finally time to knock out the last day of driving.





As I alluded to before, here’s the state of Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison. Slowly turning back into the Gunnison River. Welcome to the age of scarcity.



I know one good place to stop on the way and yeah, it’s somewhere to eat, so we stopped at K’s in Buena Vista, still going strong after 67 years.



A burger, a milkshake and one last look backwards at the ever photogenic Mt. Princeton and we were soon enough back home in Westminster, Co.



I’d been out just about a month and covered 6000 miles of the American West again. It was nice to see all my immediate family, and for them to join in. It was fun to see them experience some of these things for the first time, and the slow way over the ground. Like the big trip through Alaska, it was nice to blend a lot of time solo with having some company for parts of it. We have done lots of international travel as a family, most of which happened when we were all still together and my sister and I were still kids. We’ve always been grateful to our parents for that early experience being world citizens, and here we are all these years later still finding reasons to meet in far-away places and keep exploring, even if it’s right here in our own back yard, as they say. If you’ve been to these areas, I hope you saw some things familiar to you that triggered a flood of memories about a family trip you took years ago. If you’ve never explored the U.S. west of the Rockies, I hope you saw some reasons to come check it out. The views are big, the ecosystems varied, and it’s easy to find meaningful corners of the planet all to yourself. Though when you do find them, the people are friendly, too. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experiences.

 

[Voyager3]

So those are the things that happened in the month of May this year. Roughly. Quickly compiled without good notetaking or journaling as it happened. I wasn’t even thinking about writing something up for this when I started, but I reread “Don’t Throw Your Life Away” when I returned and felt compelled to. If you do go read the previous tales now, I do apologize because the pictures that should be there for the first few pages lost their hosting from whatever site I was using and they are missing.

In all the time since those experiences, life continued marching on. I continued to be a lucky boy, flinging myself all over the globe, but keeping those memories to myself and not writing about them. This was partly because while I had experience sharing here, the trips I was taking were not overlandy, and I didn’t feel they were necessarily in the spirit of the Portal.

It was partly also residual fatigue from the constant sense these days that we are all an act, and we are all the audience, everywhere, all the time on social media. It was difficult for me to create content daily and I took a big step back. At best I posted “Brb” on Facebook posts on my way to Santiago or Ulaanbaatar, and then shared neat photos with very little context later so that the online persona kept being buoyed by the amazing things in those posts. Even if my life was looking mostly good from afar, I still struggled all the other times when I wasn’t out doing something. Bliss comes in waves.

Without getting carried away, I suppose I’m still here typing away to remind you that a great life is nothing more than a series of great, well lived days strung together. For me, and I imagine for you, especially if you’re still seated there patiently waiting for me to wrap this up, those days are more obviously great when out traveling. Where everything is novel all the time, where we get to make decisions constantly about the direction of our own lives, where we get to practice that voluntary discomfort now to be better at handling the uncertainty of it all later. Remember that while we read books to learn things, we have to read ourselves to unlearn. Sometimes we need to grow, and sometimes we need to just be at peace. You must know how lucky you already are to be in the midst of those strings of great days out in the world, or to be reminiscing on them, or to be on the cusp of a brand new adventure. Thank you, Dear Reader, for allowing me to hold your attention.

One more. “We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best that we find is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds many.”

Yours (as you decide),

Travis and Jenson

 

[ITTOG]

Welcome back!!! I have wondered about where you have been. Glad to see Jenson is back as well. What about the Jeep, do you still have it.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[Voyager3]

Welcome back!!! I have wondered about where you have been. Glad to see Jenson is back as well. What about the Jeep, do you still have it.

Thanks kindly. That kid's average speed is still crazy high. I had a couple guesses on the trip that he was 1 and I can hardly believe he's already 9, you'd just never know. Unfortunately no more Jeep. By the time it had whatever head issue it ended up having, there were so many other things backed up that I wanted to fix, and it was just better for me to replace it. I found the suburban pretty quickly and sold the Jeep not really running and full of dust from the Alvord desert. It ended up working out fine, because the guy who bought the Jeep for cheap also saw the old Chrysler in the garage and traded me a dirt bike for it that let me double my money on it and reclaim my garage for all the other motorbikes that would come through after that. There are lots of XJs around if I should ever want another one.

 

[BLand Cruiser]

That was amazing. Thanks for writing it up. FYI, I missed you by just a few days in Page when I was on my way to the Arizona strip.

 

[Voyager3]

That was amazing. Thanks for writing it up. FYI, I missed you by just a few days in Page when I was on my way to the Arizona strip.

Thanks so much! I'm glad I made myself give it a go then, if you liked it. Too bad, we could have compared bug deflectors.