Before breakfast, it started to rain, with intermittent thunder and lightning. I rigged a tarp over our sun shelter, but we still got wet. Since the floodwaters were rising and the forecast was not good, we packed up our campsite, even though we had paid for 2 nights. We enjoyed our drive through the park, and we stopped at the nearby Minuteman Missile Silo. Then we headed to Wyoming and the Devil’s Tower, which was not on our itinerary. We checked into a nice KOA just outside the park. (Thanks for the recommendation, Patricia!) We watched “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” with the monument right behind the TV screen.

After breakfast at Morg’s Diner in downtown Waterloo (Dan’s favorite so far), we hit the road. With a speed limit of 80 mph, we were going through gas pretty fast. We pulled into our reserved site before dinner. Apparently, it had rained during the day, since large puddles covered most of the site. We found a high-ish spot for our tent, but it was unpleasant jumping around mud and wet spots. I was not a happy camper.

We visited the John Deere Museum in Waterloo. Due to poor planning, we were unable to take a factory tour, which must be booked 2 days in advance. We had extra time in town, so we saw a movie (Mission Impossible: Fallout) and bought ice cream at Hansen’s Dairy. Our server Sadie was one of the Hansens, and she gave us a bottle of their famous non-homogenized milk to try. I made some yummy hot chocolate with it.

We stopped in Mentor, OH to tour the James A Garfield National Historic Site, using our interagency annual pass for free admission. He seemed like quite a dude. His wife built a beautiful library in his honor after his assassination, but according to Wikipedia, it’s not an official presidential library.

I selected a destination based on google’s estimate of the distance we could travel in 8 hours. Apparently, google assumed we’d be driving in the middle of the night, because she didn’t account for traffic on the Mass Pike. However, we arrived at Lake Erie State Park campground in time for dinner and sunset. On the way, we stopped at the Mohawk Valley rest area and viewed a lock on the Erie Canal.

We booked a guided backpacking tour in the Grand Canyon with REI Adventures. The trip is rated as “strenuous” and requires a training schedule and a doctor’s approval. The approval was the easy part. We are supposed to do a weekly hike, with increasing distance to 10+ miles and weight to 35 lb., in addition to cross-training 2-3 times per week. First, I hiked with our son James in the White Mountains in April. Then, Dan and I began taking short jaunts in Boxford with dumbbells or sand bags in our packs. We moved on to Mt. Wachusett after a month. Then my sister joined me in Ireland for a visit to my daughter Rachel. I dragged them up Ireland’s tallest mountain and endured their complaints of sore muscles. My muscles were fine after my training, and I tried not to sound smug. After returning home, Dan and I tackled several peaks in New Hampshire, including a couple of overnight backpacking trips. We only missed one weekend due to forecasts of thunderstorms. In addition, James joined us for a long weekend of kayak camping on the Connecticut River. It was a good test of our new equipment and my recipes for dehydrated meals.

June 22 We took a group AMC trip to Mount Washington. The guides drove us partway up the auto road, but we hiked several miles around the rocky summit.

July 14 We spent 2 nights hiking on Sandwich Dome and Mt Jennings in the White Mountains. Here I am making breakfast with our small stove (pink shirt). The weather on Sandwich Dome was very cool and misty.

Our itinerary is a bit tentative; we have left some time for unscheduled adventure.

John Deere factory, Waterloo, IA

Badlands, SD

Bighorn National Forest, WY

Yellowstone National Park, WY

Grand Teton National Park, WY

Dinosaur National Monument, CO

Loew family visit in Longmont, CO

Moab, UT

Whitewater rafting in Cataract Canyon, UT

Dead Horse Point State Park, UT

Capitol Reef National Park, UT

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, UT

Kanab, UT

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

Tombstone, AZ

Route 66:

Flagstaff, AZ

Canyon de Chelly National Monument, AZ

Petrified Forest National Park, AZ

Albuquerque, NM

Santa Fe, NM

Amarillo, TX

Tulsa, OK

Memphis, TN

Bourbon Chase in Louisville, KY

About a year ago, Dan suggested to me that we do another extended road trip to visit the national parks. We had spent a month traveling the US in 1990, when I was pregnant with James. Needless to say, there were some activities which I found daunting at that time, like hiking to the Colorado River from the rim of the Grand Canyon. This activity was the first one we planned for our current tour.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu