Ron and Kathy's Mid Life Adventures: Getting Out of Dodge

Like most people 4 ½ months ago, we thought things would be mostly back to some sort of normal by now. We hoped we’d still be able to fly to London in May to see our first grandchild and fly there again for some extended daycare starting late in August.

Our only non-selfie of two road trips

We thought we’d still be able to spend a week at our daughter’s mountain home in the Berkshires and take in Ringo Starr and Judy Collins at the Tanglewood Festival. And my brother Neal and I were supposed to be backpacking this week in southern Colorado. Not to mention in-person Rotary, Assistance League, and Capital Manor meetings, hosting dinner parties, going to concerts, and dining out.

Please don’t feel sorry for us, as we have it pretty damn good. Unlike so many others during this Covid crisis, we are healthy and solvent, and so are our kids. We don't have to go to work. We are merely inconvenienced. At first, we enjoyed the novelty of it all with new recipes, romantic dinners, binge watching, sleeping in, video calls, in-home workouts, and books. We’ve done our part to isolate, distance, and mask up. But that said, every once-in-awhile, it feels so good to get out of town, or even out of the house. Time for a socially-distancing road trip or two!

Camping alone at a Harvest Host
winery near the Columbia Gorge

With self-service gas, a full trailer pantry and fridge, and self-contained toilet and shower, it was easy to maintain distances in the wide-open west. Not since we left the Peace Corps in 1980 with four months of unstructured travel through Burma, Nepal and India, have we traveled without a destination or itinerary. Very liberating! And there is something very therapeutic about the expansive horizons or the West.

The John Day Fossil Beds and Painted Hills in June

We haven’t been to this area in decades, and it was better than we remembered it. The Painted Hills are beautiful!

One of many colorful views

We kicked it off with a first night at our favorite place in all of Oregon—the Metolius River near Camp Sherman. We’ve made it a point to camp there every year for the past 35 years, except for last year when we were on a cross-country road trip.

Wizard Falls on the Metolius River

We also hiked in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness outside Prairie City. Also better than we remembered, but more crowded.

Strawberry Lake Wilderness

Here are some of our best photos of that one-week trip, mostly in chronological order.

The Columbia River, Idaho Panhandle, Montana, and the Beartooth Mountains in July

We went up through central Washington, following the Columbia River to the Canadian border. The stunning road to Grand Coulee Dam is like a mini Columbia River Gorge, but without all the heavy traffic.

Steamboat Rock, below the Grand Coulee Dam. We camped
in the trees on the other side and climbed to the extensive top.
(Photos from the top are available in the photo link below.)

Driving toward the Grand Coulee Dam

Here's a link to a few photos from the Columbia River segment.

After we got to the border in a week, we decided, “What the heck—let’s head SE.”

NE Washington and the Idaho panhandle, while beautiful, creeped us out. Too much in-your-face flag waving and open-carry firearms, even in the local Saturday market. (Dude, do you really need a 45mm, large clip military pistol to sell us some organic lettuce??)

Camping (Glamping) at a brewery

Fortunately, much of Montana was less politicized and more beautiful. One night we stayed at a Harvest Host brewery outside Livingston. (Harvest Host allows self-contained RVs to stay on their farms, wineries, ranches, and breweries.) In one of our rarer encounters with humans, a local Harley rider helped us level our trailer and gave us some travel tips. As we were picking up our pizza, some other masked locals told us what roads to avoid and what we absolutely had to see. What a stroke of luck!

We changed plans and saw the Big Hole National Battlefield and some historic sites. Our masked conversations at the brewery sadly reminded us of what is lost in this whole Covid world—the opportunities that result from random connections with friends, acquaintances, and strangers. And the social nature of camping has also changed. Our Airstream has always been a conversation magnet with fellow campers. Now, everybody keeps to themselves.

SW Montana countryside. We drove the
scenic byways nearly the entire trip

The Beartooth Mountains in northern Wyoming on the border with Yellowstone were spectacular. In fact the 68-mile white-knuckle road was probably the most beautiful drive we have ever experienced in North America. (Jasper to Banff is now second.) The steep roads and countless switchbacks were so worth it. And the mosquitoes thought we Oregonians were delicious.

Switchbacks and the 6-8% grade on the
68-mile Beartooth Highway (not my photo)

View from our campground at Island Lake

Beartooth Peak in the distance

Here is a link to curated photos of the Montana countryside and the Beartooth Mountains.

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During long stretches of road when we weren't navigating switchbacks, we listened to the biography of Frederick Douglass. While it waded into the weeds with too much lengthy detail, we learned just how brutal slavery was and how the North and our churches were so complicit with it—way more than we were ever taught in school. And the same with the Jim Crow laws and racism. Although we have always believed that Black lives matter, this biography reinforced it big time. Plus, we learned a lot about what daily and political life was like in the 19th Century.

We’re glad we went, but glad to be back home in our queen bed and our three-butt kitchen with a large fridge!

Note: You can see more photos and detailed commentary on my Facebook page and on Instagram @Kelemenron.

Quarantinewhile…

One of our bright spots since mid-March is to wake up to what we have named “Hazelgrams.” Shanti and Alan in London delight us nearly every morning with a Whats App photo or video of Hazel, now over four months old. She's talking up an incoherent storm and learning to crawl backwards. Hopefully we’ll get to meet her in person someday….