Mom to Ava and Hazel, partner to Dan. Commercial operations leader. Passionate about gardening. Likes a good policy debate. History nerd. Appreciates good design (my husband would say I tend to prioritize form over function...). Excited about this year, and about our national park system, America's "best idea" according to writer Wallace Stegnar.
This trip might best be summed up by our 26th President's father, Theodore Roosevelt Sr, who said... "Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster."
Here's to not being an oyster!
Let me start this post by saying that the minor complaints described in this post are indeed minor and emblematic of decidedly first world problems. I make this statement partly to protect myself from charges of whining – but mostly because I just finished reading diaries of early pioneer women. I typically avoid museum gift shops, but I make an exception...
I will admit that going into this trip I had a mental file of “check the box” parks. Parks I had never heard of and wasn’t especially keen to drive hundreds (or even thousands) of miles out of our way to see. Great Basin was definitely on this list. I had never heard of it, in part because very few people visit. For reference, Great Basin NP saw...
We spent Saturday and Sunday in Mesa Verde National Park, in the southwest corner of Colorado near the Ute Mountain Reservation. Mesa Verde is a fascinating park, in part because it was created to protect a cultural resource and not a natural one per se. It was created in 1906 to protect the cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people. The parks founding is an...
Why does my image of home start with fabric? Because if you know me well, you know I have never met a house that can’t be renovated – or at least redecorated. I am weirdly domestic for an ardent feminist. The next question is why am I renovating a brand new RV? That is the question Dan asked on repeated occasions. Easy answer – this is HOME for a...
I offer my sincere apologies to the State of Kansas. Ever since a cross country trip in my 20’s I have panned Kansas as flat and uninteresting. Turns out I was making the classic mistake of assumption based on the tiny snippet of Kansas I saw racing past my window on I-70. Pure laziness on my part! Yesterday, we had an opportunity to travel most of the state...
“Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. “Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman On the eve of our departure I thought I would reflect on a question we have been asked a few times… Why do this trip in the US? Why not show our kids the rest of the...