Happy Trails and Happy Tears: A National Park Odyssey Days 3-5

Texarkana to Big Bend via Fort Worth and Midland


The drive from Texarkana to Midland, our next destination, was a long one, so we had planned to break it up with a stop for lunch in Fort Worth.  A couple of years ago, Josh ate at a place called Joe T. Garcia’s, and he was so entranced with the courtyards and gardens there that he wanted us all to experience it together. 

Eating in the garden was lovely!

I wonder what ACU would have done if we had tried to crash?

When we arrived, we saw that there was an Abilene Christian University gathering of some sort going on there, and we briefly considered crashing it even though we’re both Lipscomb grads.  We thought that they might welcome us since Kinley is at the age where colleges are beginning to recruit her.  In the end, we decided to just take a table on our own surrounded by the well-manicured plantings and gurgling fountains on the patio.  The atmosphere caused us to consider adding some sort of walled garden behind our home, perhaps with a flagstone floor, so we dreamed and planned while enjoying our lunch.

The cheese nacho was my favorite part of the meal.

The food was good (though a family member tells us that there is FAR better Tex-Mex to be had in Fort Worth), but we especially liked the simple cheese nachos.  This is just a crispy corn tostada covered with yellow cheese, broiled until the cheese melts, and then topped with chopped jalapenos, but it was delicious.  Unlike normal nachos, the broiled cheese didn’t make the tostada soggy, even after several minutes.

With our tummies full, we loaded back into the Volvo and headed for Midland.  When we first started planning this trip, we decided that one of the things we most wanted to work into it was a visit with our friends Andrew and Yssa, and their house was our destination for the next two nights.  When we pulled up in front of their home, Yssa came running out, squealing with delight.  It was the perfect reunion, and I’m not ashamed to say I cried a few joyful tears.  Being with them and with their three precious daughters reminded me just how much I miss having them in Lafayette.

Love, love, love this family.

Yssa had a full slate of activities planned for us, so we didn’t have to deal with any decision-making, a welcome change.  She cooked two delicious dinners for us, and she and Andrew put their lives on hold to spend quality time with us.  We swam in their pool, hung out with them in their hot tub, and used their washer and dryer to do a couple of loads of laundry. 

Mixed grill and a fabulous salad were followed by homemade strawberry shortcakes.

On Thursday (day 4), Yssa’s plan was for us to visit the George W. Bush Childhood Home.  Admission was $5 for adults and $2 for students, and a lovely docent named Rosemary gave us a private tour.  It’s a small home, so the whole tour took less than 30 minutes, but we enjoyed reading the information in the exhibits and learning about the house that was home to two US Presidents, a First Lady, and two governors.  That’s an impressive resume for a tiny house in west Texas!  I would recommend a visit if you’re in the area.

This modest house was home to an American political dynasty!

From there Yssa and Andrew took us to K. D.’s Bar-B-Q for lunch.  Barbecue in Texas means beef, so we wanted to try some of their brisket.  When we walked through the screen door on the far side of the place, we watched our hosts in order to figure out what to do.  Each patron is supposed to pick up a tray and cover it with a piece of freezer paper.  Then you tell the server which meats you want.  There was brisket, of course, and I licked my lips as the attendant sliced off a slab of beef that weighed about a third of a pound and had a charred crust that made me want to eat it with my fingers before I even got through the checkout line.  Other meat options included ribs, sausages, barbecued turkey breast, chopped beef with BBQ sauce, chicken, and pork chops.  I thought the brisket was plenty for me and added a baked potato and beans to share with Josh as well as some cherry cobbler which I had no intention of sharing with anybody.

The locals on the front porch enjoyed making fun of the tourists taking pictures of the restaurant.

You then step over to have your paper with the meat on it weighed.  The price is $15.99 per pound, but there is a minimum charge of $8.25 for adults and $6.25 for kids.  After having everything totaled at the checkout, I followed Yssa over to a table to grab BBQ sauce plus cheese, butter, and sour cream for my potato.  Pickles and white bread were there for the traditionalists, but I didn’t take any.  I sat down and tucked into my brisket with vigor, taking care to ration that crusty exterior so that I had some with every juicy, meaty bite.  I used sauce, but only sparingly because the flavor of the meat was delicious on its own.  Do yourself a favor and eat here if you find yourself in the area.

I was glad that Andrew and Yssa knew what to do since grabbing a tray and lining it with freezer paper was new for me.

Look at that brisket.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.

After our lunch, we went to the Petroleum Museum where we learned about the oil industry in the Permian Basin, the area including Midland and Odessa.  While there we learned several myths about petroleum including the myth that oil in the Permian Basin is made of decayed dinosaurs and prehistoric plant matter.  (It’s actually made of prehistoric sea life.)  We enjoyed the art wing and the mineral room as well as the drive-through exhibit displaying all types of oil rigs.  We spotted some ground squirrels and a couple of jackrabbits on the drive, and we benefited from Andrew’s vast knowledge about native species and the oil industry.

One of the fun interactive exhibits at the Petroleum Museum

The minerals in the museum were impressive, especially to Knox.

The racing industry is dependent upon petroleum, of course, so there was a racing exhibit that Knox enjoyed.

That evening Yssa cooked us another lovely dinner, and then she took our family to the drive-in for the premiere of Cars 3.  Yssa drove Taylor’s truck, and the threatening rain did little to dampen our enthusiasm.  The movie was cute, and, I’m telling you, it was the best temperature I’ve ever experienced for a drive-in.  When we go to drive-in movies near home, we always get chilly and damp about halfway through the show, but here the wind seemed to wrap us in a blanket of dry warmth that made for a thoroughly enjoyable experience.  Well, except for the guy driving the diesel who ran his truck for the last half of the movie.  And the car two spots to our right with the screaming kid.   And the family in front of us whose mini-van hatch-back blocked part of our view.  But those were really minor things since just being with Yssa was a treat to be savored.

It was premiere night for Cars 3!

Ready for the show to begin!

On day 5, we got an intentionally late start since it was predicted to be 110 in our next destination, Big Bend National Park.  We decided we might as well get there later since we wouldn’t want to be doing any trails in that kind of heat anyway.  We said our goodbyes, promised to come again someday, and took off, grateful for lasting friendships.

Andrew had helped us plan our route and advised us to stop for gas in both Fort Stockton and in Marathon since running out of gas in 110 degree heat is even more ill-advised than getting in a hot mineral bath on a 90 degree day.  We drove a couple of hours, had lunch at Pepitos in Fort Stockton, and then stopped again an hour later in Marathon to top off the tank since the gas inside the park is more expensive and less plentiful.

The gas station is Marathon has a Little Free Library where Knox left one book and took another.  The bathrooms are spotless, they have free wifi, and they have a little burger counter that gets positive reviews on Yelp.  We had just eaten so we didn’t grab any food except for a couple of Texas candy bars to try.  Andrew had suggested that we try a Big Hunk which is kind of like a candy bar made of divinity and peanuts.  Not bad!  We also tried a Goodart’s Peanut Pattie which Josh liked better.

Big Hunk on the left and Goodart's Peanut Pattie on the right

We arrived at our second park at about 4:30, so we had just enough time to watch the movie in the visitors’ center, stamp the passports, grab the Junior Ranger booklets, and ask for trail advice before they closed at 5:00.  After that we drove on to the Chisos Mountain Lodge which would be our home base for two nights.  We had reserved a Roosevelt Cabin a year in advance, but it turns out that June isn’t high season in this park.  November is.  I asked as we checked in if there was any vacancy at the lodge for the night, and there was, so making reservations as far in advance as we did for this park probably wasn’t essential.

Our second national park of the trip - Big Bend

We were surprised (and dismayed) to find that our little stone cabin had no air conditioning, and we considered asking for a room in the less-charming standard motel area of the lodge because they do have A/C.  (Some of them also have views of The Window, a gap between two rock formations with a perfect sunset view.)  But we decided that having three beds in one room was a rare treat, and, figuring that the evening would cool off significantly, we chose to stay put.

Our little cabin was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression so it has no air conditioning.

After a dinner at the Lodge restaurant (which was fine but hardly memorable), we walked the short walk to the Window Trail to see the sunset.  The colors were spectacular, but the gnats were annoying and seemed impervious to OFF! bug spray.  After the sun set, we returned to our cabin and later enjoyed stargazing without the light pollution of less-remote areas.  We turned in, excited to tackle another day in the rugged beauty of the desert mountains.

Sunset on the Window Trail

Days 3-5

+1 for tearful reunions

+5 for friends who drop everything to take care of us

+2 for fantastic Texas brisket

+1 for desert beauty

-1 for 112 degree temps

-1 for no A/C in our cabin

Kinley, Knox, and I Take the Waters: National Park Odyssey Day 2

Want to listen to our podcast about this park?  Click here!

We visited our first park of the trip today!  After this, Josh bought me a whiteboard to use for numbering our pictures, but this one was a last-minute thought so it's scribbled on the back of our printed directions.

5 1/2 hours at Hot Springs National Park was not enough for me.  But such is the nature of a trip like this.  It’s kind of like a giant cruise on land.  Whenever we take a cruise, which we love to do, we think of our few hours in port as just a taste of a place.  We know that you can’t get a real feel for any city in just the few hours that the cruise ship is moored there, but we look at it as an appetizer portion of a place that we might want to return to later for the full entrée portion.  And in order to get to all the parks on our list for this trip, appetizer portions are all we can do for many of them.

Hot Springs is the smallest national park in the whole national park system, and my priority was to visit one of the mineral baths that is still in operation to “take the waters” as they used to say.  The heyday of mineral bathing was the early part of 20^th century when baseball players with aches and pains and veterans recovering from war injuries would come to take advantage of the healing effects of the spring waters.  Most of the guests in those days were men, so the men’s areas of the bath houses are much bigger than the women’s areas.  It’s ironic that today spas are mostly used by women.

The architecture of the bathhouses on Bathhouse Row demonstrated the opulence of a bygone era.

I had done some research online and learned that only two bath houses, Buckstaff and Quapaw, still operate on Bathhouse Row inside the park.  Like all national park lodges and restaurants, these are not actually operated by the National Park Service; they are operated by concessionaires who basically rent the property form the NPS and then run a for-profit business.  Since the Quapaw was closed on Tuesdays, I wanted to get to the Buckstaff by 1:30 for its limited afternoon hours. 

The Buckstaff Baths have been in continuous operation since 1912.

The Quapaw Baths

The website indicated that guests had to be at least 11 years old, but when we walked up the wide stairs to the porch lined with blue Adirondack chairs for lounging and bedecked with colorful blue awnings for shade, the brochure said 10-year-olds were welcome!  That meant that Knox could do it, too, (or at least that we wouldn’t have to be dishonest about Knox’s age).  For $33 per person, patrons get an array of services including a 15-minute soak in a private tub filled with hot mineral waters straight from the springs bubbling forth from Hot Springs Mountain. 

In my travels, I have experienced several different versions of therapeutic bathing from the onsen of Japan to the hot springs of New Zealand to the public baths of South Korea to hammams of Morocco to the après ski spas of Banff.  In my head I was picturing some sort of combination of these experiences, but the Buckstaff experience was entirely different for anything I’d ever experienced.  I wish that I had had a clearer picture of what was going to happen so that I could have been more prepared, but, I suppose, this just gives me even more reason to go back and do it again sometime.

Our family trip to Banff Springs, Canada in 2006 meant skiing and a late-night hot springs soak afterward.  My sister, Amanda, and niece, Elizabeth, pose with us for a picture.

Kinley and I enjoy a private room for our hot springs soak in Rotorua, New Zealand in 2005.

As we waited in line to pay, it became clear that Josh was not excited about the prospect of stripping down to his birthday suit and plunking himself into a vat of hot water on a 95 degree day.  In fact, he later admitted that he had a near panic attack about the whole thing.  In the end, only three of us signed up for the Whirlpool Mineral Bath package which includes the 15-minute tub bath, 15-minutes of your choice of four hot or cold towels placed on body parts that you designate, a 10-minute sitz bath, 5 minutes in a steam room, and a 2-minute “needle” shower.  After we paid, Knox was sent off to the right to the men’s locker room, Kinley and I were told to wait for the attendant to give us a lift to the second floor on the antique elevator, and Josh left to go take a 2:00 ranger-guided tour of the visitors’ center which is housed inside the most luxurious of the former bathhouses.

This flier explaining the treatments was hanging in each stall of the changing rooms.  Kinley later told me she didn't read it.

You may be wondering if I was worried about sending Knox off alone, and the answer is yes.  Knowing that my ten-year-old son was going to be naked and alone for the next hour or so did cause a bit of anxiety, but I was mostly worried about him hating the hot water and not being assertive enough to tell the attendant.  Knox is a very sensitive kid, emotionally and physically.  He has a very narrow window of air-temperature comfort (he’s usually cold and chooses to wear jeans on days that most kids his age are in shorts), he can’t STAND to have a wrinkle in his sock, and he is obsessed with scents – soaps, candles, detergents, whatever.  He also doesn’t like to disappoint people, so I could envision him sitting in the hot water and being miserable but not saying a peep to anybody about his discomfort.  It truly never occurred to me that he might end up loving it. 

Once upstairs, an attendant showed us into a tile and marble locker room and took each of us to our own curtained stall containing two old-school-style full-length lockers.  We each put all of our clothes, jewelry, and purses into a locker and put the keys around our wrists.  (There are more secure lockers for valuables in the lobby, but I didn’t use them.  And in the end, I was glad I hadn’t since I wouldn’t have had any money to tip my attendant if I had.)  We were supposed to “poke our heads out” when we were thoroughly in the all-together, and then the attendant brought over a full-sized white sheet and gave me instructions so that she could wrap me in it, toga style.

In my toga waiting for my turn in the baths

Kinley and I were then told to have a seat to wait for the next available tub.  Apparently, men almost never have to wait, but the women’s side usually has a wait.  After about 5 minutes the attendant took Kinley for her soak, and I didn’t see her again for more than an hour.  In the end, Knox was finished a full hour before I was, and Kinley was done 35 minutes after he was.  I kind of wish I had known in advance that you can’t really expect to stay with the person you come in with.

I was eventually ushered into another tile and marble room divided into more curtained stalls, each of which held an old-fashioned tub that was clearly an original fixture.  The tub was already filled to the brim with bubbling mineral water, and the attendant, Julie, helped me step out of my sheet and into the tub.  The supposedly-no-more-than-100-degree water was too hot for me, so Julie pulled a GIANT plug out of the bottom and then added some cold water.  She then put a board with a rolled towel behind me so that I could lean back comfortably, and left me alone.

This is NOT a picture from the Buckstaff because pictures are not allowed inside the bathing room.  I took this one in the national park visitors' center.  It is very similar to the one I used at the Bucstaff.

I made a valiant effort to stick it out for the whole 15 minutes, but I did have to add more cold water and even take a break by sitting on the side of the tub for a few seconds with my head between my knees.  It was so hot that I was afraid I was going to pass out and drown without Julie ever being the wiser.  I imagined the scene when she discovered my limp, naked form, bright red and lifeless, propped up in the ever-bubbling elixir.  It wasn’t pretty, even in my head.

Mercifully, the clock on the wall ticked on, and Julie came to escort me out of the waters and wrap me back up.  I was light-headed and wobbly, so she helped me to an adjacent room with eight or ten blue tables similar to massage tables.  Other ladies were there as well, and I reclined and began to allow my body to return to its normal temperature.  This was the part where I got to choose the hot or cold cloths known as hot packs or cold packs.  I chose a cold one for my head and another cold one for my feet, and I’m pretty sure that in my delirium I shouted something like, “Oh, Julie!  Bless you!  You’re my FAVORITE!” as she placed the one on my feet.  Julie placed hot ones (I suspect these were straight from the 143 degree natural spring) under my shoulders and rear end, and then placed a bolster pillow under my knees.  She brought me ice water and left me there for another 15 minutes, checking on me occasionally and bringing more water to begin to replace all I’d sweated out during my soak.

Next came what ended up being my favorite part – the 10-minute sitz bath.  After giving birth to Kinley, people kept telling me I needed to fill my bathtub with a couple of inches of water and then sit in it for a sitz bath.  I tried it once, and it was awful.  Why take a bath if only part of you is in the warm water?  The rest of you is just cold!  But, friends, I have seen the light.  The problem is that a real sitz bath requires a special shallow tub that no one outside of a 19^TH century bathhouse would have.  It’s similar to a shower stall with a 6-inch-deep porcelain tub as the bottom.  You back into it and sit down with your feet sticking out resting on a stool.  I loved it and found the temperature of the water much more bearable when I wasn’t completely immersed in it.  I was bummed when my time was up, but Julie helped me up, bustling me next into the steam room.

Again, this wasn't taken in the Buckstaff; it was taken at the visitors' center.  But this is what I would LOVE to have in my bathroom.  Actually, I think every  maternity ward ought to have one in every room.

This is how you sit in the sitz bath.  You're welcome.  The ones at the Buckstaff had stools for your feet and were in more of a stall for privacy.

This was a stainless steel room, again, about the size of a shower stall with a bench inside and a Dutch door allowing you to open half the door if you’re too hot.  Once seated on the bench, two stainless steel panels folded down allowing your head to stick out of the steamiest part.  I was probably left in there for three or four minutes which was fine.  Apparently, I let my toga sag a bit while taking the vapors, and when Julie opened the door to let me out, she got quite a shock.  Bless her heart.

At this point, Julie told me that if I wanted to tip her – which, she insisted was completely optional – I needed to go back to my locker now.  I had wondered during my hot pack session how I could show my appreciation for all the care and attention Julie had given me, and now was my chance.  If I had known this in advance, I would have been sure to give Kinley $10 to tip hers as well, but as it was, I only had two fives total.  I gave one to Julie and asked her to give the other one to Kinley’s attendant.   These ladies work really hard running from client to client in a hot, steamy room all day, and they deserve a tip better than what I gave if for no other reason than that dealing with heat-crazed naked ladies should come with hazard pay.  But my hope is that this post will help future patrons plan to take extra cash along.

The last step was the needle shower which was really just a lukewarm shower in a marble stall with eight shower heads.  It didn’t feel anything like needles, and I would have liked the water to be cooler since I was still feeling kind of like a limp noodle.  Maybe they really meant to call it a noodle shower?

The needle shower I used was similar to this one at the visitors' center.  At the Buckstaff, each pole only had two  showerheads, though, for a total of  eight heads.  There isn't a shower head above your head which was nice since it kept my hair relatively dry.

Kinley and Knox were in shower stalls that looked more like this one.

Anyway, after that I headed back out to get dressed and meet up with the fam, thoroughly expecting Knox to give me a tongue lashing for putting him through such misery.  Both kids were waiting outside in the shade with their dad since the building isn’t air-conditioned.  Lo and behold, Knox had loved it.  Kinley, on the other hand, was scarred for life.  It seems she wasn’t quite prepared for that amount of indecent exposure and will probably hold this against me for the rest of her life.  Oh well.  That’s why we have therapists.

Josh was excited to take us on a tour of the beautiful visitor’s center sharing all the tidbits he’d learned from a ranger who’d lived in Hot Springs all of his life.  We watched the short national park video (I think these are always worth your time if you can work them in), and then we took a short walk to Display Springs where we could see the water streaming straight out of a rock wall.  

Copper gutters, stained glass, and art pottery tiles are just a few of the original details in the most beautiful national park visitor's center I've ever visited.

A full view of the visitors' center

The preserved men's gymnasium, the assembly room, and the men's baths in the visitors' center made it easy to picture turn-of-the-century guests taking advantage of the amenities.

The information in Josh's tour and the movie helped Kinley and Knox complete the booklets for their Junior Ranger badges, so they took the pledge before we left.

Josh stamps Kinley's national parks passport.

Knox and Kinley take the Junior Ranger pledge with one of the park rangers in the lobby of the visitors' center.

One of the former bathhouses, Superior Bathhouse, is now a restaurant and craft brewery that uses the hot spring water to make its beers.  They also make their own root beer, so we headed over to have a snack.  We ordered the spicy pimento cheese, the giant Bavarian pretzel with three dipping sauces, and root beers all around.  Everything was yummy!

You should definitely visit Superior Bathhouse if you visit this park!

 After that, Josh bought empty gallon jugs (2 for $2.25) to fill with spring water from the public fountains, and we headed for the fountain in front of the administration center.

This placard detailing the chemical analysis of the natural hot water hangs above the free public fountain where we filled our jugs and water bottles.

Fun Fact:  Hot Springs National Park is the only NPS site in the nation that allows you to take away resources.  The motto, “Take only photographs; leave only footprints,” doesn’t apply here.  Locals cart away hundreds of gallons per week from the various fountains scattered throughout the parks, and it’s all completely legal. The water coming out most of the fountains – even the decorative ones – is at an average temperature of 143 degrees.  There are two cold fountains, but they are Ozone-treated whereas the hot fountains are straight from the ground and completely safe to drink. 

We bought two jugs to fill with the water which Knox thought was especially tasty.  I liked the 143 degree temperature of the water since I like to drink mugs of warm water.

We filled two jugs and three water bottles with the supposedly-healthy liquid and decided we didn’t have time to do any of the trails if we wanted to get to Texarkana in time for dinner.  Josh had found a barbecue place called Naaman’s that was highly recommended by Texas Monthly, so off we went driving past a beautiful nearby lake and several state parks worth future explorations.

Sadly, Naaman’s had closed an hour before we arrived, so we ended up splitting some too-salty gumbo and a lackluster po’ boy at a local place near our hotel.  Then we put our suitcase/overnight bag plan into play for the first time and sprawled across several parking places choosing clean clothes for the next day and swapping out dirty ones.  It’s a good thing the parking lot was dark and deserted or Kinley might have been scarred by embarrassment twice in one day.  But that’s what therapists are for, right?

Day 2

+1 for Victorian architecture evoking turn-of-the-century gentility

+4 for cheap spa experiences

+1 for cute shops and gilded-age hotels

+2 for delicious, free water

-1 for not enough time

-1 for missing a highly-rated barbecue experience

-1 for settling for a disappointing dinner

And We're Off: National Park Odyssey Day 1

Our 6-week, 23-national-park odyssey has officially begun!  Packing certainly didn’t go as we had planned, and so we got a later start than we had intended.  Our original plan was to use those plastic drawer thingys in the back of our Volvo as storage for our clothes.  We wanted to find a way to avoid each of us schlepping 6 weeks’ worth of luggage in and out of a hotel every single night, and we thought that having the drawers filled with our clean clothes and having an overnight bag with our toiletries and one night’s clothing would be a brilliant plan.  And it still seems like it should have worked.  But in reality, it was an epic fail.

There are those of you who would not have waited until 7:00 on the night before you plan to leave to go to Wal-Mart to purchase the plastic drawers that were the linchpin of our plan.  You would have bought them a week or more in advance.  You would have already done a test run where you packed all the clothes you intended to take into the back of your vehicle to make sure it all worked the way you envisioned.

We are not that kind of traveler.

Josh measures the drawers we planned to buy to use for our trip.  And while they fit, they didn't hold nearly all of our stuff.

And, consequently, it wasn’t until after midnight on the night before we were to leave that we came to admit our folly and accept defeat.  We were not going to be able to fit everything we needed for six weeks into drawers.  We had bought enough drawers for each of us to have one large drawer and part of another drawer, but that was nowhere near enough for even our clothes.  And we still had shoes (hiking boots, tennis shoes, the cowboy boots required for our upcoming mule ride into Grand Canyon, water shoes for the hike in Zion, etc.) and other gear to fit in!  We had to come up with another plan.

We decided to try to each pack a large suitcase with our clean clothes but then use overnight bags for toiletries and a change of clothes each night.  This was similar to our original plan but used suitcases rather than the easier-to-access- and-open drawers.  Josh and I would share an overnight bag, and Kinley and Knox would share one.  Before checking in to each hotel, we planned to stand at the tailgate getting clean clothes out of our big suitcases and putting one change of clothes (or two or three if we were staying more than one night) into our overnight bags.  Then we wouldn’t have to lug the big ones into the hotel.

Plan B: four large suitcases and two overnight bags plus a couple of baskets for snacks.

Even now, I’m not 100% sure why the drawer thing wouldn’t hold everything but there’s plenty of room for four huge suitcases in the back of our 2008 Volvo. (And if you’re more visual-spatial than I am and you completely understand it, just do me a favor and keep it to yourself for now.)  And if you’re one of the people who heard me talking about this packing plan weeks ago and thought, “That’s never going to work, but I’m just going to smile and nod and let Gina enjoy her illusions until the harsh lighting of the garage on the night before she leaves illuminates the facts for her,” well, you’d better keep that to yourself, too, or else I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore.  But, for heaven’s sake, tell me next time.  Just politely pull me aside, gently remind me of my lack of spatial sense, and tell me how to do it the right way.  You might even want to refer to this post as you delicately try to convince me that I’m out of my mind.  I promise I’ll thank you for it eventually.

But packing woes notwithstanding, at 11:12 am on Monday, we pulled out of the driveway headed for Memphis and our first stop.  A family friend was hosting us for the night, and we were looking forward to some Memphis barbecue for dinner.  The 8 ½ hour drive was uneventful, and we arrived in Germantown (a suburb of Memphis that reminds me of Green Hills in Nashville) hungry and happy to be out of the car.

Our friend Alan and his lovely girlfriend Holly were waiting for us, and we all walked together to the nearby Germantown Commissary.  The tiny hole in the wall was located right by the railroad tracks and had a line of 25 people waiting outside at 7:30 on a Monday night.  We put our name in and sat down to chat and wait.  

Alan, Josh, and Knox wait for our name to be called outside the Germantown Commissary.

After an hour or so, we were taken to our table inside the cramped but charming dining area, walking on appropriately-greasy brick floors and past glass cases displaying coconut cream pies, caramel cakes, and homemade banana pudding.  Tammy, our server, served up delicious pulled pork sandwiches, deviled eggs, and the best house-made chips I’ve ever had.  I cannot say enough about these chips.  They were EXACTLY the right texture – not tough, not soggy with just the right crunch – and they were well-seasoned.  And best of all, they were $2.75.  Kinley had an appetizer portion of the barbecue nachos that was larger than she could finish and still only $4.75.  In fact, the bill for all 6 of us was less than $55.  I haven’t eaten at a barbecue joint that was that reasonably priced in a long time.  If you find yourself in Germantown, check it out.

After dinner, we walked back to Alan’s by iPhone-light because of a bizarre power outage, and then the kids went for a swim in his salt-water pool.  The power came back on before bedtime, but we still turned in relatively early to get ready for another day of travel.  The next morning, Alan made us breakfast, and then gave us a precious gift of an old samovar that his late wife Debbie had once smuggled out of Ukraine.  Josh once smuggled an Imperial samovar out of Ukraine to give to one of his favorite college professors (I’ll ask him to guest blog about that story sometime), so we certainly appreciated Alan’s gift.

Josh shows off our new samovar, a gift from Alan.

Knox poses for a picture with his rich uncle Alan (Alan's preferred title for himself in spite of the fact that we're not related at all).

Grateful for dear friendships, we set out for our first national park, Hot Springs.

Day 1

(I totally stole this idea of doing a rating system from Mike and Angela at We MarriedAdventure.)

-2 for packing drama

+1 for barbecue at Germantown Commissary

+1 for awesome accommodations with Alan

+1 for unexpected gifts

Passport to America: A Family Journey of 23 National Parks in 47 Days

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Packed and ready to begin our crazy 47-day adventure

As a child, my family and I visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park many times.  But my parents weren’t hikers.  They grew up in the era of Route 66, so they were motorists.  We drove through the Great Smoky Mountains year after year, occasionally stopping at a roadside creek or for a quick picnic on the grass beside the road.  We took the obligatory family picture at the park entrance sign and then headed back to the motel pool.

When we took our only family vacation that involved an airplane, we flew to visit Yellowstone National Park.  We drove straight through it, from the south entrance to the north entrance.  We stopped along the way to photograph wildlife by the road, and we walked the concrete path around Old Faithful.  We watched it erupt.  Once.  Then we got back in the car and continued our quest northward.

So it wasn’t until I visited the Smokies with my husband’s family years later that I realized there was more to do in a national park than drive through it.  Visitors’ centers!  Trails!  Ranger-led activities!  All of these were wonders that I’d never experienced from the back seat of our family’s blue Oldsmobile.

Once my eyes were opened to all that America’s National Parks have to offer, I couldn’t help but share it with my students.  With the help of a grant from the PublicSchools Foundation of Tippecanoe County in 2004, I wrote a unit that allows my 4^th and 5^th graders to research and share about a national park of their choice.  The unit is a weeks-long study of the chosen park’s history, flora, fauna, available activities, and distinguishing characteristics.  I guide my students through the research process, but they have to extrapolate based on the facts they find.  I make suggestions about which feature of the park should be featured in a student-made diorama as a part of the project, but for parks I’ve never visited, it is difficult to decide what feature is the most important or the most impressive.

When my students come to me for help and ask, “Should I create the Trail Ridge Road, the Coyote Valley Trail, or the Continental Divide for my diorama?” I want to be able to give an informed suggestion.  When my students ask, “What is there to do in the Grand Canyon?” I want to be able to give them answers based on my own first-hand experiences. 

On this trip, we will visit twenty-three national parks in forty-seven days, and afterward I will have more background information to help my students as they research their chosen parks.  In addition to that, I want Kinley and Knox to have a national parks experience that I never had as a child.  I want to help them earn a Junior Ranger badge in each of the parks we visit so that they don’t have to wait until they’re married to learn all that our country’s parks have to offer.

Since "my traveling shoes are high heels," saying that I’m not much of a camper is a gross understatement.  Thus our family will stay in national parks lodges when they are available so that we can immerse ourselves in the parks.  Many of these lodges such as Chisos Mountain Lodge at Big Bend, El Tovar and Phantom Ranch at the GrandCanyon, and Zion National Park Lodge are pieces of history themselves.  Reservations at those must be made up to 15 months in advance, so Josh and I have already made our reservations at nine lodges along our route.

On June 1, 2016, Kinley and I set our alarms to wake up at 7:30 to make our reservation for El Tovar at the Grand Canyon.  I logged on to the lodge's website 20 minutes before the reservations were supposed to go "live" at 8:00.  Josh had spoken to someone in reservations over the phone the night before to check on procedures so that we'd be ready to go and armed with a plan the next morning.  He learned that when reservations for May 2017 went "live" on May 1, 2016, the hotel had received one million calls in three hours.  He told Josh that calling in would be like trying to win a radio contest - we'd get a busy signal over and over, but we should just keep hitting redial.

Reservations for El Tovar can actually be made online, but reservations for Phantom Ranch, the park lodge at the bottom of the canyon, could only be made over the phone.  My plan was to call but to try simultaneously to make the El Tovar reservations online.  So when I logged on at 7:40, I was just checking to be sure I knew the website and the type of room I wanted to book.  I clicked around for 5 minutes or so checking, and then I hit refresh.  At 7:45, the El Tovar reservations site was live!  Fifteen minutes early!

My heart raced as I frantically clicked on the room type that we wanted (and could afford), and three minutes later we had our reservation, more than a year in advance.  Since the website was open early, I thought that maybe the phone reservations would be, too.  Kinley and I started calling, me on both our land line and my cell phone, and Kinley on her own phone.  Three lines.  We called that way for an hour - dial, listen to the busy signal, hang up, hit redial - and then Knox woke up and joined us, taking over my cell phone.  For another half an our we continued the pattern - dial, listen, hang up, redial.  Our movements became so mechanized that we all worried that if we actually managed to get through and  heard the ringing sound, we wouldn't even recognize it in time to prevent ourselves from hanging up!  And if by some miracle we did get through without hanging up, would there even be any spots left at Phantom Ranch for the June dates we wanted?  Was it already sold out?

And then, after more than an hour and a half of calling on three lines, I heard Knox say, softly at first but with growing intensity, "Mom, Mom, MOM, MOM!!!!"   With wide eyes he thrust the phone toward me, bouncing excitedly.  The phone was ringing.  When the person on the other end of the line answered, we learned that we weren't too late.  We were gong to get to stay at Phantom Ranch!

As I finished up on the phone and celebrated with the kids, I thought about how different this experience was from the trip I took with my parents. We had made mo hotel reservations in advance.  None.  And when we got out to see Old Faithful, we learned about the Old Faithful Inn.  We naively asked if there was any vacancy for that night.  Of course, they were fully booked.

We were so completely clueless!  I'm sure the hotel's guests had made reservations a year earlier, just the way I have now done for our trip this summer.  So our little family bustled back into our blue Oldsmobile to continue on our route, hoping for a roadside motel with a vacancy.

Speaking of routes, here's ours.  And, obviously, we have reserved places to stay for every night of the trip.  I hope you'll follow along with us this summer!

Route                                                                                                        National Park Lodge (if applicable)

6/12  Lafayette-Memphis                                            

6/13  Memphis-Hot Springs NP                 

6/14  Texarkana-Midland, TX (stay 2 nights)

6/16  Midland-Big Bend NP, TX (stay 2 nights)                                     Chisos Mountains Lodge

6/18  Big Bend NP-Carlsbad Caverns NP 242        

6/19  CCNP-Guadalupe Mtns. NP—Saguaro NP (stay 2 nights)

6/21  Saguaro NP-Petrified Forest NP                    

6/22  PFNP-Grand Canyon NP (stay 2 nights)                                       El Tovar Lodge

6/24  Mules to bottom of Grand Canyon NP                                        Phantom Ranch

6/25  GCNP-Kingman, AZ                                             

6/26  Kingman, AZ-Joshua Tree NP—Disneyland (stay 3 nights)

6/29  Disneyland-Pinnacles NP                  

6/30  Pinnacles NP-Sequoia NP/Kings Canyon NP (stay 3 nights) John Muir Lodge

7/3  Kings Canyon NP—Yosemite NP (stay 3 nights)                         Half Dome Village           

7/6  Yosemite NP—Durham (stay 3 nights)

7/9  Durham—Lake Tahoe                          

7/10  Lake Tahoe—Baker, NV (stay 2 nights)       

7/12  Great Basin NP-Zion NP (stay 2 nights)                                        Zion NP Lodge

7/14  Zion NP-Bryce Canyon NP (stay 2 nights)                                    The Lodge at Bryce Canyon        

7/16  BCNP-Capitol Reef NP/Arches NP/Canyonlands NP (stay 3 nights)

7/19  Canyonlands NP-Monument Valley             

7/20  MV-Mesa Verde NP                                                                            Far View Lodge

7/21  MVNP-Black Can. of the Gunnison NP        

7/22  BCGNP-Great Sand Dunes NP (2 nights)                                     Great Sand Dunes Lodge 

7/24  GSDNP-Rocky Mtn. NP (2 nights)                  

7/26  RMNP-Topeka, KS                                               

7/27  Topeka, KS-*Cahokia Mounds, IL  

7/28  Cahokia Mounds, IL-Lafayette                       

Total national parks: 23

New national parks for Josh:  13

New national parks for Gina:  18

New national parks for the kids:  21
Total days traveling: 47