Vacation 2.0
From burying Mom, we had a great debriefing meal with the whole extended family and then our nuclear family took off driving. More. Driving. First we drove to Urbana, IL to visit some of our dearest friends. We weren’t there but one day and we hit the road again to Chicago to meet up with Aunt Janelle and Uncle Bill some more. I showed the family just how awesome Chicago is, including Navy Pier, a marina, the Shedd Aquarium, Soldier Field, Mexican restaurants, Grant Park, Lincoln Park, ‘the bean’, the Sears Tower or whatever newfangled name they have for it these days, a boat tour on the Chicago River, a walk out Union Pier, Michigan Avenue, McCormick Center (where we saw lots of old random friends and family and the educators’ convention!), Chinatown... all packed into two days! We were planning to stay a third day, but Bill and Janelle had to leave early and our vacation waits for no family!
So we took off for Madison, WI to stay a night with the Kings. We would have loved to stay longer, but our dance card was all full (and they have real working jobs anyway, I know, right, so lame), so we turned our wagons further north still to northern Minnesota (Da Mudderland!!!) and Becky’s cabin on the lake. Danae is getting pretty well-versed in the upper midwest and our weather was glorious. She just has an overactive imagination of igloos, penguins and polar bears starting in December, despite my insistence than isn’t the case.
After sufficient fun with old married lady Becky (married last year, woo-hoo!) we headed west for Addison’s birthday. For Addison’s birthday, we met up with Danae’s parents and summited the highest point in North Dakota, White Butte. Zane may have gotten a lame trip to Great Wolf Lodge for his birthday, but nothing is a cool as spending your birthday on White Butte, lemme tell ya, doncha know. Ya sure, ya betcha! We even had cupcakes on the summit! And to think Juniper slept on my back the whole way and didn’t even appreciate the summit.
We took pictures in sunflower fields, we went to the Black Hills and saw Mount Rushmore and we climbed 7+ miles round trip up to the high point of South Dakota, Black Elk Peak, also the highest summit east of the Rockies! (Guadalupe Peak is higher as east, but technically south of the Rockies and not east.) From there, we decided to drive to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, arriving around midnight and setting up camp. In the morning, we trekked around Devil’s Tower, visited with a family camping in a retrofitted school bus (which is now on my bucket list), and kept on driving to Thermopolis, WY.
In Thermopolis, we spent the day hanging out at a hot springs pool and water slide, then put more miles on the car to go to Yellowstone, but we stopped short. We kept looking for a campground, but they all said no soft-sided campers. Bears! Finally we found a campground who thought we would be safe in our hammock and the kids in their tent. We set up camp and then headed back down to Cody, WY, Rodeo Capital of the World for... well, what else, a rodeo!!!
When I married an Oklahoman, I assumed she would be well-versed in rodeo culture. Turns out, I was taking her to her first-ever rodeo! What an honor! What a privilege! What on earth did that horse just do over there in the corner? Gross. Well, at least there’s cotton candy and enthusiasm!
The kids have had books about Yellowstone we’ve read to them since forever. Their favorite is, ‘Who Pooped in the Park?’ about a family having a blast walking around Yellowstone staring at scat (not the jazzy singer kind of scat, the kind of scat that comes from one’s backside). We were finally in Yellowstone, surrounded by more poop than you can shake a stick at. First stop... walking around... ‘Olen and Danae?’ I turn and look. Somebody recognized us from the blog and Facebook friended us and recognized us randomly in Yellowstone! Good thing I wasn’t lighting up a blunt just then, that would have been embarrassing! ;)
At the same place, they found bison remains right next to a hot pot. People were speculating where it came from. Then a ranger came and explained the bison carcass hadn’t been there the day before and was more than a day deceased. No large animal would have moved it there. Except there were bootprints around. Some human had been playing a prank.
We saw bison (alive) and painter’s waterfall, geological activity to boggle the mind, elk, soaked in a river with freezing water on the backside and piping hot water flowing off the edge onto the chest, met travelers from everywhere, got caught in rain, saw rainbows in the sky and colors on the ground, saw geysers large and small, old and young, faithful and unreliable, and hit all the checkboxes for Yellowstone (except saw no bear or wolf). We left Yellowstone and discovered a great free campsite just between the Tetons and Yellowstone and froze our little fannies off, awakening to a bit of ice. The next day was a drive through the Tetons and Jackson Hole, discovering we aren’t nearly hip enough for such a place (although we did discover an amazing second-hand outdoor goods store, which is kinda like crack to me), and drove on to Vernal, Utah, one of many smallish-sized towns that should be dying in today’s America, but by all appearances is actually doing quite well, thank you very much.
We spent a couple nights in Vernal, soaking in the pool, eating at buffets and preparing for our big backpacking trip!
August 21 we hit the trail! The Uinta River Trail in the Unita Highlands Wilderness in Ashley National Forest. This is what we’d been waiting for! Starting out over 7000 feet, we hiked in 6+ miles and over a thousand feet the first day, setting up camp in the dark and rain on the sloping side of the mountain. The thing about the wilderness, there are no campsites! The next day was another four or five miles, in much heavier rain and freezing cold. We camped about 10,300 feet or so. I set up the hammock, but it was so cold and wet that all SIX of us slept in a two-man tent!!! What a night! The next day we just did a lazy two miles to Upper Chain Lake in the Chain Lakes Basin of the Uintas. It was so beautiful! We found the perfect campsite. Lyol and I hiked up to Fourth Chain Lake to take in the views and returned down. What a trip! But we weren’t done!
Danae and I decided to ditch the kids with her parents and go for Kings Peak, the high point of Utah. So the next morning, we carried the kids’ three itty-bitty backpacks, plus a fanny pack, plus a strapped-on tarp, plus strapped-on hammock and clothes and whatever else we might need, and we took off. And when I say took off, Danae has her own pace. She’s a bullet! Up and over Trail Rider pass. Through the Atwood Basin. Past Lake Atwood. Dressed up for rain. Undressed for sunshine. Dressed up for rain. Hide under the tarp... Up Roberts’ Pass. Back down. We made the decision to ditch what little of a trail there was and strike off cross-country. We invented a short cut to Anderson Pass, trudged across marsh and rock and hopping across streams. Back up on the other side until we arrived at the crest of Anderson Pass. From there we followed a theoretical trail, although it was really just trying to scramble up one massive boulder to the next. Finally, after way too long of this, we arrived at the summit of Kings Peak, 13,534 feet, the seventh-highest of the American high points, and about 300 feet lower than Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which we drove up last year.
By the time we got to the top, I was feeling seriously queasy. I blamed it on exertion, only having eaten a granola bar, a half a tortilla and a tiny hunk of cheese, and of course, the real reason probably had something to do with the altitude as well. Then all of the sudden, I felt my face and my hands go all numb and tingly.
‘Uh, Danae, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think we need to go down. Like right now.’ I was pretty sure I was getting high altitude cerebral edema and was about to die. The good news is, I was wrong...
All of a sudden, Danae dropped to the ground, trekking poles flying in opposite directions. ‘Well, I didn’t mean to alarm you.’
Danae told me she had sensed an ice pick of electricity going straight down from the top of the her crown into her brain. She was positive, and still is to this day, she was struck by some sort of lightening. I say ‘some sort’, because I didn’t see or hear anything like lightening or a thunderbolt, and I was standing about five yards from her. But she definitely felt something. And so did I. Once she flopped, the electricity in the air had apparently dissipated and I know longer felt the tingling.
Well, now this was excited. Thunder and lightening now started up all around us, as it will do at 6pm in the summer, when you’re on the highest point for hundreds of miles around. Here we were, thousands of feet above the surrounding area in a thunderstorm.
We decided to forego the ridge we had come up, as it seemed more exposed and where the lightening was mostly striking. We decided to go straight down the side of the mountain, a grade of probably 50-60 degrees of huge loose boulders, now wet in the rain. It took an hour to go down 0.3 miles, whereas we had been knocking off about two miles each hour walking across the flat basin. Slowed down by my nausea and fatigue, slipping and falling multiple times on wet and rolling boulders, once so badly I rolled over Danae’s trekking pole (borrowed from her mother) and snapped it in two, and sped on by Danae’s rational fear of being struck by lightening again, it was a stressful hour. We finally made it to the bottom over an hour later and had to go cross-country to find where we had stashed our fannypack with all the weight, by now in the pitch black. We kept on hiking down, this time following the trail for quite a ways down the valley. After zig-zagging long enough and not really making much progress toward our goal, we decided to make another short cut across the valley to the far side, this time in the dark.
We went up and over hills in the dark, across streams, boulder jumping. It was exhausting. We got to the base of the pass and found the first clump of ‘trees’ we had seen since Atwood Basin. We were planning to hike back to camp to surprise the kids by sunrise, but it was approaching midnight and we were exhausted. Down from altitude, my stomach was feeling only marginally better. We decided a 16-mile day that took us up three separate passes was sufficient and we hung our hammock in a stand of two juniper trees, neither one more than seven or eight feet tall. We crashed, listening to thunder and rockslides around us.
The next morning I felt great again and we chugged the 9+ miles back to the kids in a little over five hours, slowing down for the pass at the beginning of the day and the pass at the end of the day. We were happy to see the kids again, and the in-laws.
After their two days of rest, the kids were ready to head down the mountain. It was good they got a little rest from all the hiking while Danae and I killed ourselves. We hiked almost seven miles the first day down and seven miles the second day and covered the fourteen miles out to the car.
It was a pretty awesome trip hiking fourteen miles and fourteen miles out, going up to around 10,400 feet, with a two-year-old, a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, a 74-year-old and a 75-year- old for a week! Both old and young were pretty tough cookies, with everybody carrying their fair share. Well, I suppose the kids didn’t really carry their ‘fair’ share. Danae’s fair share was carrying Juniper, and Addison for a tiny bit, plus whatever else she could fit into the 3000 cubic inches under Juniper’s tushy. Zane and Lyol and Addison all had small backpacks with knife and whistle and compass and fleece and rain gear and food and water. Rollin and Dolores
carried all their own camping gear and some of the food. And I ended up with somewhere around 110 pounds, although I could still keep up with the five-year-old. Actually, Addison proved herself to be a strong hiker, as did everybody. She probably surprised us the most, however. That girl can go!
We had to make our own campsites, occasionally make our own trail, cross log bridges, go miles on end of rocky trails, crisscrossed with tree roots... it was hard going. But we did it! This brought our summer backpacking total to about 90 miles for our family (plus the 25 additional Danae and I did), or 4% of the distance of the Appalachian Trail. Maybe we’re not quite ready yet. I think our kids could probably do a 13-mile day here or there eventually after building up to it. But even at that rate, we’d probably need all 8-9 months to finish the Appalachian. Some day.
Anyway, back in Vernal, we got two more nights in the same two adjoining hotel rooms, and we ate two more times at the all-you-can-eat buffet. Yum! And OOF-DA! We also completed the ‘Vernal Challenge’, which I know you have all dreamed of completing yourself. We went to Dinosaur National Monument, we hiked to the top of Moonshine Arch, we visited the Utah Field House Museum, we looked at Petroglyphs at McConkie Ranch (and met the amazing old lady who lives there!) and we selfied ourselves with T-Rex, the green dinosaur in town. Most amazingly of all, I got to show my in-laws places in Utah they had never seen before! I think they’ve officially seen it all now! And for our labors, our reward for completing the Vernal Challenge was a sweet treat in town (where we also spent a lot of money buying other sweet treats (those conniving geniuses!).
Leaving our precious Vernal, we headed to Colorado, where we drove through Rangely and wondered if Danae and I would have ever met had Rollin and Dolores chosen Rangely over Jay. We camped in the White River National Forest. We rode on the Silver Plume train and toured the silver mine. We went to Johnson’s Corner in Loveland and bought donuts and cinnamon rolls. We attended a gorgeous (if rainy) wedding of Danae’s cousin in Aspen the day before Labor Day. Congratulations Travis and Ruby and welcome, Ruby, to the family (us in-laws gotta stick together ;) !)!
Then things finally got interesting...
Sunday morning, just before the wedding, Danae and her friends, Emily and Heather, FINALLY settled on Iceland as their destination for a 40th Birthday Party for Emily. The plan was for Emily and Danae to go to Dublin for a few days before then heading to Reykjavik to meet up with Heather for another 4-5 days. So just before packing up and leaving the hotel for the wedding, we bought: 1) One-way ticket for Emily from Atlanta to Baltimore, 2) One-way ticket for Danae from Denver to Washington, DC, 3) One-way tickets for Danae and Emily to Dublin from Baltimore, 4) One-way tickets for Danae and Emily to Reykjavik from Dublin, 5) One-way ticket for Emily from Reykjavik to Baltimore, 6) One-way ticket for Emily from Baltimore to Atlanta, 7) Super-romantic Bed and Breakfast 50 minutes outside Dublin for Emily and Danae. I also went ahead and booked a smart phone photography workshop slash walking tour of Dublin for the day after they arrived and Riverdance VIP tickets and dance lessons for Emily’s birthday!
After the wedding finished in the late evening, we drove overnight from Aspen to Denver overnight, dropping off Danae at the airport and arranging for my dad to pick her up in DC, swing by his house for Danae to grab some stuff, and then drop her off in Baltimore to meet Emily. Then the kids and I, after sleeping in the car, started driving solo, four kids, and myself, alone, in the car, from Denver to DC. Yay! Fun fun FUN! We made it to Council Bluffs, IA and I decided the kids (and me too!) had been of great spirits and patience. So we got some Taco Bell and Wendy’s frosties for lunch, got a hotel (for $36!) with a pool and free breakfast, swam a
long time, ordered in Red Lobster (which is interesting for vegetarians, but possible), then slept. Then next morning was free breakfast, more pool time (the kids had been really good on the drive and earned it), then on the road to St Joseph, MI, where we stayed with my BFF Krystian, who had just bought a house and graciously allowed us to sleep on his bare floor. Along the way, I had decided we had done a bit much fast food, so we stopped at a grocery store and bought loads of fresh fruits and vegetables and water and made our meals out of that. Once at Krystian’s, we put the kids to bed and talked late into the night.
The next day was a beautifully wasted day at the beach. We walked out the pier, past the lighthouse, we swam in the water, which was pleasant, and even got sunburned in mid- September in Michigan! That night was pizza and some good exhausted sleep for the kiddos, and for us too, once we finally stopped talking, but you know how old friends can go on. We woke up, packed up, loaded the car, breakfasted at Cracker Barrel with Krystian’s parents (I lived in their basement for a year in high school) and hit the road again. We made it to DC and Dad’s house well in the dark and fell asleep, but not before stopping at a rest area and trying to get Heather to Iceland on-time despite her flight being canceled, and sending Danae directions to the various places they were supposed to go in Ireland.
We took advantage of Danae’s absence by going to the library, as well as scheduled appointments for all kids for dental appointments and vaccines, as well as dental appointments and vaccines for the grown ups.
We also hadn’t yet purchased Danae any ticket back from Iceland, so we decided to go and join her! Tickets were less than $300 each! So we flew out to join her the day Emily and Heather were leaving.
The kids and I packed into five personal items and two carseat bags, because WOW Air charges for checked bags AND even for carry-ons! So we had to put everything in front of our feet. That’s everything for freezing cold Icelandic rain, and diapers and clothes and everything else. I even squished in 33 pounds of food, since food (and everything else) in Iceland is crazy expensive.
Danae reserved a motorhome and I got a taxi with all the kids to go pick it up. The family renting it to us was incredible. If you wanna rent a motorhome in Iceland, let me know and I will put you in touch with them. They are awesome and immediately make you feel like family. We loaded our stuff in, unpacked, set up the carseats, familiarized ourselves and headed back to the airport to meet Mommy after being apart for eight days. Yay for reunions!
Our week in Iceland was awesome! First of all, I told Danae to screen all email and only tell me what was urgent. Otherwise, my phone was only used to fly my drone and take pictures! A week without email was tremendous. Fantastic. Highly recommended. But we saw waterfalls and icebergs and glaciers and hiked and saw whales and glimpsed the northern lights and swam in natural hot springs and ate lots of skyr and... we did it all! We drove around the ring road circling the entire island. What a week! Iceland definitely warrants its own blog!
After driving about 15,000 miles in three months, we spent the last couple weeks of vacation just lounging at the lake, going to appointments, shopping, packing, and spending some quality time together. And then, we came home!
From burying Mom, we had a great debriefing meal with the whole extended family and then our nuclear family took off driving. More. Driving. First we drove to Urbana, IL to visit some of our dearest friends. We weren’t there but one day and we hit the road again to Chicago to meet up with Aunt Janelle and Uncle Bill some more. I showed the family just how awesome Chicago is, including Navy Pier, a marina, the Shedd Aquarium, Soldier Field, Mexican restaurants, Grant Park, Lincoln Park, ‘the bean’, the Sears Tower or whatever newfangled name they have for it these days, a boat tour on the Chicago River, a walk out Union Pier, Michigan Avenue, McCormick Center (where we saw lots of old random friends and family and the educators’ convention!), Chinatown... all packed into two days! We were planning to stay a third day, but Bill and Janelle had to leave early and our vacation waits for no family!
So we took off for Madison, WI to stay a night with the Kings. We would have loved to stay longer, but our dance card was all full (and they have real working jobs anyway, I know, right, so lame), so we turned our wagons further north still to northern Minnesota (Da Mudderland!!!) and Becky’s cabin on the lake. Danae is getting pretty well-versed in the upper midwest and our weather was glorious. She just has an overactive imagination of igloos, penguins and polar bears starting in December, despite my insistence than isn’t the case.
After sufficient fun with old married lady Becky (married last year, woo-hoo!) we headed west for Addison’s birthday. For Addison’s birthday, we met up with Danae’s parents and summited the highest point in North Dakota, White Butte. Zane may have gotten a lame trip to Great Wolf Lodge for his birthday, but nothing is a cool as spending your birthday on White Butte, lemme tell ya, doncha know. Ya sure, ya betcha! We even had cupcakes on the summit! And to think Juniper slept on my back the whole way and didn’t even appreciate the summit.
We took pictures in sunflower fields, we went to the Black Hills and saw Mount Rushmore and we climbed 7+ miles round trip up to the high point of South Dakota, Black Elk Peak, also the highest summit east of the Rockies! (Guadalupe Peak is higher as east, but technically south of the Rockies and not east.) From there, we decided to drive to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, arriving around midnight and setting up camp. In the morning, we trekked around Devil’s Tower, visited with a family camping in a retrofitted school bus (which is now on my bucket list), and kept on driving to Thermopolis, WY.
In Thermopolis, we spent the day hanging out at a hot springs pool and water slide, then put more miles on the car to go to Yellowstone, but we stopped short. We kept looking for a campground, but they all said no soft-sided campers. Bears! Finally we found a campground who thought we would be safe in our hammock and the kids in their tent. We set up camp and then headed back down to Cody, WY, Rodeo Capital of the World for... well, what else, a rodeo!!!
When I married an Oklahoman, I assumed she would be well-versed in rodeo culture. Turns out, I was taking her to her first-ever rodeo! What an honor! What a privilege! What on earth did that horse just do over there in the corner? Gross. Well, at least there’s cotton candy and enthusiasm!
The kids have had books about Yellowstone we’ve read to them since forever. Their favorite is, ‘Who Pooped in the Park?’ about a family having a blast walking around Yellowstone staring at scat (not the jazzy singer kind of scat, the kind of scat that comes from one’s backside). We were finally in Yellowstone, surrounded by more poop than you can shake a stick at. First stop... walking around... ‘Olen and Danae?’ I turn and look. Somebody recognized us from the blog and Facebook friended us and recognized us randomly in Yellowstone! Good thing I wasn’t lighting up a blunt just then, that would have been embarrassing! ;)
At the same place, they found bison remains right next to a hot pot. People were speculating where it came from. Then a ranger came and explained the bison carcass hadn’t been there the day before and was more than a day deceased. No large animal would have moved it there. Except there were bootprints around. Some human had been playing a prank.
We saw bison (alive) and painter’s waterfall, geological activity to boggle the mind, elk, soaked in a river with freezing water on the backside and piping hot water flowing off the edge onto the chest, met travelers from everywhere, got caught in rain, saw rainbows in the sky and colors on the ground, saw geysers large and small, old and young, faithful and unreliable, and hit all the checkboxes for Yellowstone (except saw no bear or wolf). We left Yellowstone and discovered a great free campsite just between the Tetons and Yellowstone and froze our little fannies off, awakening to a bit of ice. The next day was a drive through the Tetons and Jackson Hole, discovering we aren’t nearly hip enough for such a place (although we did discover an amazing second-hand outdoor goods store, which is kinda like crack to me), and drove on to Vernal, Utah, one of many smallish-sized towns that should be dying in today’s America, but by all appearances is actually doing quite well, thank you very much.
We spent a couple nights in Vernal, soaking in the pool, eating at buffets and preparing for our big backpacking trip!
August 21 we hit the trail! The Uinta River Trail in the Unita Highlands Wilderness in Ashley National Forest. This is what we’d been waiting for! Starting out over 7000 feet, we hiked in 6+ miles and over a thousand feet the first day, setting up camp in the dark and rain on the sloping side of the mountain. The thing about the wilderness, there are no campsites! The next day was another four or five miles, in much heavier rain and freezing cold. We camped about 10,300 feet or so. I set up the hammock, but it was so cold and wet that all SIX of us slept in a two-man tent!!! What a night! The next day we just did a lazy two miles to Upper Chain Lake in the Chain Lakes Basin of the Uintas. It was so beautiful! We found the perfect campsite. Lyol and I hiked up to Fourth Chain Lake to take in the views and returned down. What a trip! But we weren’t done!
Danae and I decided to ditch the kids with her parents and go for Kings Peak, the high point of Utah. So the next morning, we carried the kids’ three itty-bitty backpacks, plus a fanny pack, plus a strapped-on tarp, plus strapped-on hammock and clothes and whatever else we might need, and we took off. And when I say took off, Danae has her own pace. She’s a bullet! Up and over Trail Rider pass. Through the Atwood Basin. Past Lake Atwood. Dressed up for rain. Undressed for sunshine. Dressed up for rain. Hide under the tarp... Up Roberts’ Pass. Back down. We made the decision to ditch what little of a trail there was and strike off cross-country. We invented a short cut to Anderson Pass, trudged across marsh and rock and hopping across streams. Back up on the other side until we arrived at the crest of Anderson Pass. From there we followed a theoretical trail, although it was really just trying to scramble up one massive boulder to the next. Finally, after way too long of this, we arrived at the summit of Kings Peak, 13,534 feet, the seventh-highest of the American high points, and about 300 feet lower than Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which we drove up last year.
By the time we got to the top, I was feeling seriously queasy. I blamed it on exertion, only having eaten a granola bar, a half a tortilla and a tiny hunk of cheese, and of course, the real reason probably had something to do with the altitude as well. Then all of the sudden, I felt my face and my hands go all numb and tingly.
‘Uh, Danae, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think we need to go down. Like right now.’ I was pretty sure I was getting high altitude cerebral edema and was about to die. The good news is, I was wrong...
All of a sudden, Danae dropped to the ground, trekking poles flying in opposite directions. ‘Well, I didn’t mean to alarm you.’
Danae told me she had sensed an ice pick of electricity going straight down from the top of the her crown into her brain. She was positive, and still is to this day, she was struck by some sort of lightening. I say ‘some sort’, because I didn’t see or hear anything like lightening or a thunderbolt, and I was standing about five yards from her. But she definitely felt something. And so did I. Once she flopped, the electricity in the air had apparently dissipated and I know longer felt the tingling.
Well, now this was excited. Thunder and lightening now started up all around us, as it will do at 6pm in the summer, when you’re on the highest point for hundreds of miles around. Here we were, thousands of feet above the surrounding area in a thunderstorm.
We decided to forego the ridge we had come up, as it seemed more exposed and where the lightening was mostly striking. We decided to go straight down the side of the mountain, a grade of probably 50-60 degrees of huge loose boulders, now wet in the rain. It took an hour to go down 0.3 miles, whereas we had been knocking off about two miles each hour walking across the flat basin. Slowed down by my nausea and fatigue, slipping and falling multiple times on wet and rolling boulders, once so badly I rolled over Danae’s trekking pole (borrowed from her mother) and snapped it in two, and sped on by Danae’s rational fear of being struck by lightening again, it was a stressful hour. We finally made it to the bottom over an hour later and had to go cross-country to find where we had stashed our fannypack with all the weight, by now in the pitch black. We kept on hiking down, this time following the trail for quite a ways down the valley. After zig-zagging long enough and not really making much progress toward our goal, we decided to make another short cut across the valley to the far side, this time in the dark.
We went up and over hills in the dark, across streams, boulder jumping. It was exhausting. We got to the base of the pass and found the first clump of ‘trees’ we had seen since Atwood Basin. We were planning to hike back to camp to surprise the kids by sunrise, but it was approaching midnight and we were exhausted. Down from altitude, my stomach was feeling only marginally better. We decided a 16-mile day that took us up three separate passes was sufficient and we hung our hammock in a stand of two juniper trees, neither one more than seven or eight feet tall. We crashed, listening to thunder and rockslides around us.
The next morning I felt great again and we chugged the 9+ miles back to the kids in a little over five hours, slowing down for the pass at the beginning of the day and the pass at the end of the day. We were happy to see the kids again, and the in-laws.
After their two days of rest, the kids were ready to head down the mountain. It was good they got a little rest from all the hiking while Danae and I killed ourselves. We hiked almost seven miles the first day down and seven miles the second day and covered the fourteen miles out to the car.
It was a pretty awesome trip hiking fourteen miles and fourteen miles out, going up to around 10,400 feet, with a two-year-old, a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, a 74-year-old and a 75-year- old for a week! Both old and young were pretty tough cookies, with everybody carrying their fair share. Well, I suppose the kids didn’t really carry their ‘fair’ share. Danae’s fair share was carrying Juniper, and Addison for a tiny bit, plus whatever else she could fit into the 3000 cubic inches under Juniper’s tushy. Zane and Lyol and Addison all had small backpacks with knife and whistle and compass and fleece and rain gear and food and water. Rollin and Dolores
carried all their own camping gear and some of the food. And I ended up with somewhere around 110 pounds, although I could still keep up with the five-year-old. Actually, Addison proved herself to be a strong hiker, as did everybody. She probably surprised us the most, however. That girl can go!
We had to make our own campsites, occasionally make our own trail, cross log bridges, go miles on end of rocky trails, crisscrossed with tree roots... it was hard going. But we did it! This brought our summer backpacking total to about 90 miles for our family (plus the 25 additional Danae and I did), or 4% of the distance of the Appalachian Trail. Maybe we’re not quite ready yet. I think our kids could probably do a 13-mile day here or there eventually after building up to it. But even at that rate, we’d probably need all 8-9 months to finish the Appalachian. Some day.
Anyway, back in Vernal, we got two more nights in the same two adjoining hotel rooms, and we ate two more times at the all-you-can-eat buffet. Yum! And OOF-DA! We also completed the ‘Vernal Challenge’, which I know you have all dreamed of completing yourself. We went to Dinosaur National Monument, we hiked to the top of Moonshine Arch, we visited the Utah Field House Museum, we looked at Petroglyphs at McConkie Ranch (and met the amazing old lady who lives there!) and we selfied ourselves with T-Rex, the green dinosaur in town. Most amazingly of all, I got to show my in-laws places in Utah they had never seen before! I think they’ve officially seen it all now! And for our labors, our reward for completing the Vernal Challenge was a sweet treat in town (where we also spent a lot of money buying other sweet treats (those conniving geniuses!).
Leaving our precious Vernal, we headed to Colorado, where we drove through Rangely and wondered if Danae and I would have ever met had Rollin and Dolores chosen Rangely over Jay. We camped in the White River National Forest. We rode on the Silver Plume train and toured the silver mine. We went to Johnson’s Corner in Loveland and bought donuts and cinnamon rolls. We attended a gorgeous (if rainy) wedding of Danae’s cousin in Aspen the day before Labor Day. Congratulations Travis and Ruby and welcome, Ruby, to the family (us in-laws gotta stick together ;) !)!
Then things finally got interesting...
Sunday morning, just before the wedding, Danae and her friends, Emily and Heather, FINALLY settled on Iceland as their destination for a 40th Birthday Party for Emily. The plan was for Emily and Danae to go to Dublin for a few days before then heading to Reykjavik to meet up with Heather for another 4-5 days. So just before packing up and leaving the hotel for the wedding, we bought: 1) One-way ticket for Emily from Atlanta to Baltimore, 2) One-way ticket for Danae from Denver to Washington, DC, 3) One-way tickets for Danae and Emily to Dublin from Baltimore, 4) One-way tickets for Danae and Emily to Reykjavik from Dublin, 5) One-way ticket for Emily from Reykjavik to Baltimore, 6) One-way ticket for Emily from Baltimore to Atlanta, 7) Super-romantic Bed and Breakfast 50 minutes outside Dublin for Emily and Danae. I also went ahead and booked a smart phone photography workshop slash walking tour of Dublin for the day after they arrived and Riverdance VIP tickets and dance lessons for Emily’s birthday!
After the wedding finished in the late evening, we drove overnight from Aspen to Denver overnight, dropping off Danae at the airport and arranging for my dad to pick her up in DC, swing by his house for Danae to grab some stuff, and then drop her off in Baltimore to meet Emily. Then the kids and I, after sleeping in the car, started driving solo, four kids, and myself, alone, in the car, from Denver to DC. Yay! Fun fun FUN! We made it to Council Bluffs, IA and I decided the kids (and me too!) had been of great spirits and patience. So we got some Taco Bell and Wendy’s frosties for lunch, got a hotel (for $36!) with a pool and free breakfast, swam a
long time, ordered in Red Lobster (which is interesting for vegetarians, but possible), then slept. Then next morning was free breakfast, more pool time (the kids had been really good on the drive and earned it), then on the road to St Joseph, MI, where we stayed with my BFF Krystian, who had just bought a house and graciously allowed us to sleep on his bare floor. Along the way, I had decided we had done a bit much fast food, so we stopped at a grocery store and bought loads of fresh fruits and vegetables and water and made our meals out of that. Once at Krystian’s, we put the kids to bed and talked late into the night.
The next day was a beautifully wasted day at the beach. We walked out the pier, past the lighthouse, we swam in the water, which was pleasant, and even got sunburned in mid- September in Michigan! That night was pizza and some good exhausted sleep for the kiddos, and for us too, once we finally stopped talking, but you know how old friends can go on. We woke up, packed up, loaded the car, breakfasted at Cracker Barrel with Krystian’s parents (I lived in their basement for a year in high school) and hit the road again. We made it to DC and Dad’s house well in the dark and fell asleep, but not before stopping at a rest area and trying to get Heather to Iceland on-time despite her flight being canceled, and sending Danae directions to the various places they were supposed to go in Ireland.
We took advantage of Danae’s absence by going to the library, as well as scheduled appointments for all kids for dental appointments and vaccines, as well as dental appointments and vaccines for the grown ups.
We also hadn’t yet purchased Danae any ticket back from Iceland, so we decided to go and join her! Tickets were less than $300 each! So we flew out to join her the day Emily and Heather were leaving.
The kids and I packed into five personal items and two carseat bags, because WOW Air charges for checked bags AND even for carry-ons! So we had to put everything in front of our feet. That’s everything for freezing cold Icelandic rain, and diapers and clothes and everything else. I even squished in 33 pounds of food, since food (and everything else) in Iceland is crazy expensive.
Danae reserved a motorhome and I got a taxi with all the kids to go pick it up. The family renting it to us was incredible. If you wanna rent a motorhome in Iceland, let me know and I will put you in touch with them. They are awesome and immediately make you feel like family. We loaded our stuff in, unpacked, set up the carseats, familiarized ourselves and headed back to the airport to meet Mommy after being apart for eight days. Yay for reunions!
Our week in Iceland was awesome! First of all, I told Danae to screen all email and only tell me what was urgent. Otherwise, my phone was only used to fly my drone and take pictures! A week without email was tremendous. Fantastic. Highly recommended. But we saw waterfalls and icebergs and glaciers and hiked and saw whales and glimpsed the northern lights and swam in natural hot springs and ate lots of skyr and... we did it all! We drove around the ring road circling the entire island. What a week! Iceland definitely warrants its own blog!
After driving about 15,000 miles in three months, we spent the last couple weeks of vacation just lounging at the lake, going to appointments, shopping, packing, and spending some quality time together. And then, we came home!
No comments:
Post a Comment