Getting ready for South Africa

We are getting packed and taking our various immunization pills. We leave around 6 pm on the 13th from Dulles, with one stop in Dakar, Senegal. We will stay over in Johannesburg, before flying the next day to Capetown. One of our first destinations is Robbens Island, to see where Mandela spent so many years.

Trip summary -- mileage, etc.

We made it home from Lexington, KY, on July 4, about 6 pm.
Here are some of the statistical details.

51 days, 50 nights
33 nights camping
11 nights in a motel
6 nights at a friend's house

mileage -- automobile 8,433
camper 5,353

states -- 15 (VA, TN, ARK, OK, TX, NM, AZ, UT, CO, KS, MO, IL, IN, WV, KY)

Two oil and filter changes; new set of car tires

Only two problems: (1) thrown tire tread from truck in TX hit and bent the left support for the step into the camper, making it useless. Fixed it at our Santa Fe campsite's workshop with the help of the camp's maintenance man. (2) the extreme amount of dust on the rough unpaved road into Chaco Canyon eventually caused the pilots on the frig and the heater to be reluctant responders, at best. The mobile RV repair man in Cortez, CO just outside Mesa Verde (where we stayed with the Esenwein's at their beautiful adobe home right across from the park) fixed the problem.

Aliner sightings: Memphis campground; Chaco Canyon campground; Million-dollar highway pass between Ouray and Silverton, CO, but it turned toward Durango while we turned toward Silverton; Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park campground; and Garden of the Gods campground in Colorado Springs.

June 30 - July 4 -- Trip home

We left Colorado Springs on the 30th to start home. The first day we got to Abilene KS, Ike's boyhood home. We did not get to see his library; got in too late. The next day we got to Nashville, IL, about 40 miles beyond St. Louis. On the way we stopped in Fulton MO to visit the Churchill Museum at Westminster College where he gave his famous Iron Curtain speech in 1946. The museum is very well done and is in the basement of the Christopher Wren church that was destroyed in the London blitz. The church was dismantled, moved, and rebuilt in the early 1950s at Westminster College to commemorate the speech. Then we drove to Lexington Ky, stopping along the way at Lincoln's boyhood home (age 7-21) in Indiana. All that's left of the farmhouse is the outline of the cabin's foundation that Lincoln lived in. We stayed a day in Lexington and saw the Kentucky Horse Farm (surprise, all about horses, and that picture is a statue of Man O War). We also took a tour of the bluegrass country which included a stop at Keeneland, a large horse farm that also has the Keeneland Race Course, where we watched horses at their morning workout (see picture).

June 26-29 -- Colorado Springs

We are camped in a private campground in the city of Colorado Springs. It has two pools, one for adults only. Maybe we will get to use them. We visited the Air Force Academy and the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame on the 27th. The academy is very different from Annapolis and West Point, spread out over miles of terrain. The academic and residential core are totally inaccessible to the public. Although we found it to be a visually stunning place, particularly the chapel, it is rather antiseptic, almost like a movie set that has been abandoned; you don't see anybody. It must be awfully isolating for the students, because it is far away from the city; one wonders when the students have any interaction with civilians.

For easterners like us, the hall of fame was pretty interesting, particularly the part that goes through the history of equipment development (saddles, ropes, boots, clothes, chaps, hats, etc.).

We drove Pikes Peak the next day, and it was spectacular. We took a short hike along the trail the more ambitious use to climb the mountain; you can see Sue sitting on a rock outcropping in one of the attached pictures. We then drove the Garden of the Gods, a red rock park right in the city that is very nice. We also took a short hike there. During our stay we also visited the Ice Skating Hall of Fame, which has an extensive collection of skates from wooden ones developed in Holland in the 16th century to the present, plus lots of pictures and videos of figure skating performances. The Broadmoor Hotel was impressive, much like the Coronado in San Diego or Homestead in Virginia. We joined friends from UUCF for dinner who had moved to Co. Springs in the late 90s, Gerry and Merle Stryker, and caught up on their news. Our last day we did something unusual for us; we stayed in camp in the morning and lounged around the pool and the sauna for a nice relaxing break. Very nice.

June 23, 24, 25 -- Great Sand Dune NP and train ride

Headed to the Great Sand Dunes, which means back to a more arid environment. Went over several passes of 10,000 feet; very pretty, then slowly descended to the desert valley. The San Luis Valley varies from 10 to 100 miles wide and seems to be surrounded by mountains. Very fertile with irrigation; second largest potato producer in the U.S. We saw several forest fires in the distance, and realized they were right at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. We camped at San Luis Lake State Park about 10 miles from the dunes; very arid and almost deserted. Over to the national park and the fire was quite visible from the park, with big balls of fire and lots of billowing smoke. A slight shift in the wind pattern and they would be evacuating the campground, or if another direction it might cause our campground to close that is 10 miles away. It was actually pretty exciting. Next day we tried to take our preferred hike at the dunes, but it had been closed due to the fire. We took another which afforded great views of the dunes from up high in the surrounding forest. Then went to Zapata Falls, a half mile hike to a falls that can only be seen by hiking 100 feet through a roaring creek and entering a cave. That part of the hiking was pretty treacherous, so Sue declined. It was quite a view in the cave. On the return, I had to help an 8-year old get back; his Dad had gone forward with a little sister and the boy was terrified of proceeding. But we got back in one piece, and he was even enjoying it by the time we got out of the stream. That night the sunset was spectacular and the moon almost full and darting in and out of odd-shaped clouds. Quite a beautiful entertainment. Next day we took the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, but again got bit by the fire bug. Turns out some vandals had set fire to one of the trestles on the second half of the ride, so we could only go on the first half from Antonito to Osier. (And Emil, Grandma and Grandpa saw Thomas the Train working very hard; he took enough of a rest for us to get a good picture.) It was still quite nice, gradually moving up a series of plateaus until it entered Toltec Gorge with sheer rock walls. Big lunch provided in Osier, accessible only by train and unpaved roads. Up above 10,000 feet and rather inaccessible. All this was quite nice, but the national and state parks were plagued with no see ums and mosquitoes. We just about ran out of repellent, which was not always successful. Also, when we returned from the train trip, a Friday night, much to our surprise the campground was full.

June 20, 21, 22 -- Gunnison National Forest,, One Mile Campground

Finally into the trees at 8700 feet in the national forest, camped next to the Taylor River, which joins the East River to make the Gunnison. Drove a loop through the area, which took us to Taylor Reservoir set in Taylor Park (a valley on top of the mountains) which is gorgeous. Then on to the town of Tincup, which used to be a mining town but now is occupied in the summer only. We ate at Frenchy's, the only eating place in this one road town set high up in the mountains. Then we drove the Cumberland Pass, which is above 12,000 feet, on about 14 miles of unpaved road. Very scary road, but the views are unbelievable and you feel like you are on top of the world. There are a lot of ATVs up here; while at Frenchy's, there must have been 50 of them pull up for a rest. Dennis also took a raft trip down the Taylor River, a class III set of rapids. He shared a raft with two father-son teams from Finland. Both men are MDs, and the younger boy is just starting his studies to become an economist. So of course I had to tell them my favorite economist joke, which I will spare the readers of this blog. At any rate, this has been a relaxing couple of days, with no "spectacular" sights that just have to be seen. This morning was also a car maintenance day, so we drove into Gunnison to get our 45,000 mile service, which should see us through to the end of the trip. We have gone over 6,000 miles so far. We are sitting outside in a very nice and casual bar/restaurant/outdoor store in Almont just down the road from our campsite, which happens to have WiFi. We will reward them for their service by having dinner here. We move on to Great Sand Dunes NP tomorrow.

June 18, 19 -- Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Camping at the national park here; nice place. The canyon is impressive; sheer black walls rising more than 2000 feet from the river. We drove the rim road and visited all the overviews of the canyon, some of which involve a mile round trip hike. The views are uniformly impressive. Some of them are such a steep drop that you cannot see the river below. Others, the canyon twists so much that you just get a glimpse of the river. We took a beautiful hike at the end of the rim road, the Mark Warner hike, no not VA's former governor but the guy who was most responsible for getting the canyon set aside as a national monument, before Clinton made it a NP in 2000 something. Gave us a great view of a long stretch of river moving through sheer canyon walls. We also went to an astronomy program at the park. The ranger gave perhaps the best talk I ever heard in the parks. Learned a lot, and they had four telescopes set up and two set of powerful binoculars. We saw Saturn, the moon as I never saw it befor, with incredible craters, sister stars, and a dieing (sp?) star that looked like George HW Bush's thousand points of light. It was impressive. We also drove to East Portal, and 16 degree road down into the canyon where the diversion tunnel of the Gunnison is located. The day we left we took the boat tour of the upper canyon, which is quite nice but not nearly as high as the largely inaccessible lower canyon.