Six Observations on Another Cross-Country Road Trip, 2023 Version

Outside the Gettysburg Museum

 We're back now from our 4th cross-country road trip since 2016.  This one was shorter: 6,993 miles and 33 days.  And it was the first time we drove straight home without any layovers, taking nine full days of driving.

Each time we have taken a different route: across Canada, through the South, or upper Midwest.  This time we took a lower Midwest route which enabled us to bicycle a couple segments of the Katy Trail, a rails-to-trails path through central Missouri. It also gave us the opportunity to tour the Eisenhower and Truman presidential museums/libraries, Mark Twain's home, and Gettysburg, which also had Eisenhower's farm and retirement home. Somehow, we dodged the heat, floods, most of the wildfire smoke--except in Gettysburg and South Dakota.

Part way through our trip I published a blog with photos about the Eisenhower Museum and one about the Riding the Katy Trail.

The Eisenhower Museum

At a trailhead of the Kathy Trail, a State Park
that is 240 miles long and 100 feet wide

Our ultimate destination was daughter Skyler's home in northwest MA in the Berkshire mountains. This was the highlight of our trip. What made it so fun is all of her friends, plus daughter Feruza from New York and Nati and Jasmine Zavala from Washington DC.  And the food!  The photo link below reflects remarkable restraint in not including photos of all that we ate or drank. Besides eating , playing on the lake, and hiking, we saw James Taylor and heard the Boston Symphony at the Tanglewood festival.

The Becket estate and fun house

Hanging out on Little Robin Lake, Becket MA

At the James Taylor concert before the rain

One of several group-cooked meals

Adult Garden Games

I was going to wax eloquently about the whole experience.  But I reviewed previous posts and concluded that they conveyed many of our thoughts about what it's like to drive across the US and back.  The links to some are at the bottom, and I encourage you to read them. If nothing else, the photos say a lot.

But I have a few observations and takeaways from this trip: 

First, camping is sociable again!  The contrast between this trip and our 2020 and 2021 camping was hard to miss.  People now talk to one another in stores, gas stations, truck stops, and especially in the campgrounds.  It felt so good to connect with strangers and watch kids play in the campground playgrounds.

We passed this in heavy winds in the Columbia
Gorge.  It caught up with us in Idaho the next day.

Second, there are many more and larger RV's.  People are camping again, and living large on the road. We speculate that this was pent up demand from Covid restrictions and the supply chain issues of 2021. Some of the people we visited with now live in their 5th-wheels or motorhomes by choice full time, but some by necessity.

Third, there are many more wind turbines.  They are no longer just in the West, but all the way to the East Coast.  That also made for some tense moments passing the big rigs carrying the towers and blades. And speaking of wind, this year it seemed like we were constantly battling crosswinds, headwinds, and gusts.   

Fourth, there is more traffic, especially trucks.  People are back on the road again.  With 80 mph speed limits in some states, trucks passing us--especially in windy conditions--were good reasons to grip the wheel firmly.

Lunch stop with the Big Dogs

Fifth:  roads are better and under construction.  Difficult construction zones we passed through in 2021 are now smooth as glass.  But more than the last three trips combined, we spent many miles in construction zones.  On a 487-mile drive to Gettysburg, we encountered a 25-mile one-lane construction zone up and down the curvyAllegheny mountain roads.

Sixth:  America is BIG and beautiful, and--inspite of our divineness,  its people are still  friendly. I said this in the previous posts (linked below) but it is worth repeating.  Although we completely missed the desert Southwest this time, the contrasts are what make it so beautiful and interesting.  We loved watching the landscape transition behind the windshield within hours or days.

Downtown Welcome, MN in the distance

We kept losing track to time and
place, so we used this white
board in the trailer.

As always, it feels good to be home reconnecting with friends and enjoying the comforts of home.  And it feels great to not be behind the wheel or in an overly-cozy trailer.  But I'm sure that within a week or two, we'll get the itch to hit the road and go camping again.

Here is the link to our curated photos, more or less in chronological order. 

And if you're interested in our comments from other trips, here are four more posts with photos.  They were more expansive and better said than in this post:

Reflections on a Cross-Country Road Trip from 2016

The Vast Midwest from 2019

Six Weeks and 8,800 Miles, Back to Eden! from 2019

Only 2500 Miles to Go from 2021

"What We Can, While We Can; What We Could While We Could."

Riding the Katy Trail

Cabooses often mark one of the 31 trailheads

 We’ve been fans of rails to trails for several years. They are basically abandoned railroad lines converted into walking and bicycle paths, made possible by the National Trails System Act of 1983. It preserves abandoned rail corridors through "railbanking," until funds can be raised to develop them into public paths. 

We’ve ridden quite a few of them, Our favorite is the Hiawatha Trail from the Montana border down to Wallace ID through numerous tunnels and over several trestles.  But the most famous one of all is the Katy Trail, over 240 miles long across much of central Missouri. It’s in the Rails-to-Trails Hall of Fame (organized by the wonderful Trail Link app), and rightfully so.  When planning our biennial cross-country road to the Berkshires of MA to see daughters Skyler and Feruza, we decided to try a couple segments of it.

Unlike many of our other adventures,
it was impossible  to get lost on the Katy Trail

Telegraph post from 1870

Nicknamed the Katy,  the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT) began in the 1870s, and ran through much of the Missouri River valley by the 1890s. It provided a vital link between the agriculture of central Missouri and the quickly developing American southwest. The last train ran in 1986.  

Through a lot of lobbying, fundraising, and persistence, the trail was finally converted to public use in 1999 and made into a very linear state park, 240 miles long by about 100 feet wide. Many of its 31 trailheads have cabooses from the MKT trains that plied the route as well as fascinating historical signs and a surviving depot buildings. We spotted some telegraph posts from 1870 along the trail, and marveled at the backbreaking work in the heat and humidity to elevate the grade above the wetlands.

A well-appointed trailhead at Clinton

The first day we rode about 38 miles in high humidity and 90 degree temperatures. The dust from the crushed limestone rail bed  coated the spouts to our water bottles and gummed up our gears.  But the novelty of it all made it fun until the return trip after a heavy lunch in Clinton, MO. We’re out of shape and our butts got sore.  Glad we decided not to ride the entire route, like some people do!

 

Along the path from Windsor to Clinton

One of the more boring and hot parts
of the Windsor to Clinton segment

Our second forays were based out of New Franklin, next to Boonville, founded by Daniel Boone's sons. 

Booneville:  The old RR bridge is in the background

We caught a beautiful sunset over the Missouri River the first night. For the third leg we drove to Rocheport, and cycled 17 miles along cliffs, the Missouri River and some Lewis and Clark campsites.  It was much cooler that day, shaded half the way by a dense deciduous canopy. We had limestone cliffs on one side and the mighty Missouri on the other.

Lewis & Clark campsite

Missouri River

Refreshing shade

Limestone cliffs part of the way

 

Mark Twain's childhood home

With our early start and quick finish we decided to break camp and head north to Hannibal, birthplace of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain.  Very interesting, but we don’t know how people got along back in the day without air conditioning.  Life when he was a kid was tough, but not as tough as it was for the slaves that worked for his family in his very early childhood. 

Well worth the read!

We've been listening to a fascinating audio book called These Truths--History of the United States by Harvard history professor Jill Lepore. She explores the origins of our divided nation and traces much of it to racism and all the compromises about slavery necessary to form this nation.  We highly recommend a print version, as she is a wonderful writer, but not a good narrator.

Update

And as an update from to the last post about the Eisenhower museum a few days ago, we toured the Harry S. Truman museum the next day. We found them both similar and yet different. Both pointed themselves in a good light and offered good perspectives from the standpoint of the First Ladies. Ike's seemed to have more emphasis on his pre-presidential days listing every posting he had since WWI.  Harry's had more focus on all the crises he and the US had ending the war and dealing with the new nuclear age, Korea, and the emerging civil rights movement.  

"Give 'em Hell" Harry

The Truman Museum and Library

As an interesting coincidence, Harry roomed with Ike's brother in college. Also, Ike's first choice was to attend the Navel Academy, but he was too old, so he went to West Point instead.  History would have been a lot different if Ike had joined the Navy!

Sunset on the Missouri from an abandoned 
RR bridge

          

At one of the trailheads

 "What We Can, While We Can; What We Could, While We Could"

The Eisenhower Museum and Library, Abilene KS

Right across the street is the Greyhound Hall of Fame

 As we fought strong crosswinds with our small Airstream in tow across I-70 in Kansas, all we wanted to do was get through the Kansas winds and start some bike rides on the Katy Trail in Missouri.

But we kept seeing signs for museums and attractions at nearly every exit.  In addition to a local historical museum or mansion in nearly every town, there are also the largest hand-painted Czech egg, the largest spur, the largest belt buckle, the Greyhound Hall of Fame, The OZ Museum, the Prairie Museum of Art and History, the Buffalo Bill Sculpture, The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, The Evel Knievel Museum, the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, and the Territorial Capitol Museum, are but a few of the many places along I-70.

But the Eisenhower Presidential Library/Museum in Abilene was reason enough to take a day off from the stressful driving and immerse ourselves briefly in history literally the middle of America (well, actually 100 miles from the center of the continental USA).  It did not disappoint!

Main Street, Abilene in the torrid mid-day heat
 of June.  Actually, the town is thriving, as
it was never really a part of the rust belt.

Abilene was a wild cattle town at the end of the Chisholm Trail where cattle were shipped by train to Chicago in the 1870s. Wild Bill Hickok brought some law and order to it as its marshal. It is the home of many stately mansions, the Greyhound Hall of Fame, and a thriving agricultural center.  And it is also where Dwight D. Eisenhower grew up on the wrong side of the tracks at least a mile from the mansions, delivering ice to them as a teenager.

The Eisenhower home

Born in the early 1950s, we didn’t become aware of politics and US history until President Kennedy. So, until today all we knew about General and President Eisenhower, aka Ike, came from our interest in WWII, the Interstate Highway system, and his famous Presidential Farewell Address about the military industrial complex.  But a tour of his home and a several-hour visit to the museum gave us an appreciation of an extraordinary man (and his wife, Mamie) during an extraordinary century. Ike was born in the horse and buggy days and never had indoor plumbing until age 18.  He died just three months before the Apollo moon landing.

The living room (foreground).  The parlor was
only when special guests arrived.

The museum did a magnificent job of laying out what things were like in our country and the world from his childhood, to his distinguished military career, to college president, to NATO commander, to President and beyond. He was the right man for the right time, a likeable and hard-working person skilled in logistics and diplomacy.  He commanded respect from his adversaries and advocated for his “Middle Way” philosophy of balancing between “present and future needs, obligation with privilege, and security with liberty.” Mamie’s challenging life as a supportive military and presidential wife was also well chronicled.  

The D-Day planning table.  For security reasons, 
no photo was ever taken of the participants

The extensive artifacts, documents, and gifts of his presidency are property of the National Archives, which owns them and establishes a branch in all 14 presidential libraries.  But his pre-presidential items are not.  One of my favorites was the D-Day planning table from London, plus some of the unique gifts he received.

A gift from the King of Nepal in 1960

Having seen the JFK, Lincoln, and Senator Kennedy museums, we’re now inspired to see more.  We’re changing plans and going to the Harry Truman Library/Museum tomorrow.

We salute you, Sir!

After lunch we drove around town, gawking at 10-bedroom homes on tree-lined streets. 

As the sign warns,
"Beware of The Thing"

Then we toured the Dr. Seelye over-the-top home built in 1905. It was wired by Thomas Edison and furnished with many purchases at the 1905 World’s Fair (including the only surviving bowling alley of its kind). He made his money creating patent medicines and selling them via an army of salesmen fanning out across the country by horse and wagon. He hung out with George Merck and E.I. Lilly, and Mentholatum Deep Heat is his only surviving invention.

The Seelye Home, built in 1905
No expense was spared. Unlike
others of the era, it was very
tastefully furnished and decorated

The home was 11,000 sq. ft
and 11 bedrooms

Kathy bowling in the basement
under the watchful but encouraging
eye of the docent

"What We Can, While We Can; What We Could, While We Could"

Here are a couple of bonus picks from the road to here:

Crossing the Snowy Range from Saratoga
to Burlington, CO

South from Nebraska along the Colorado-Kansas border

A minnow among whales in our RV 
park outside of Abilene

Our Greek Odyssey

 Ever since I met Kathy, she’s been wanting to take me to Greece.  She was there as a college student in 1972. Well, we finally made it 52 years later, and I wonder why we didn’t go sooner.

 What did we like the most?  Everything, especially the food. With hundreds of beaches and 80% covered by mountains, Greece is the total package: Snow-capped peaks, beautiful beaches, bustling cities, quiet villages, nighttime outdoor dining, ancient ruins, history, friendly people, amazing food, and tourists—lots of them! We found it very easy to get around, and prices were cheaper than in most of Europe and the States. The busses and ferries were always on time.

 

And these were just the appetizers for a
memorable lunch on the Crete plateau.

Our five weeks flew by.  We could have done Kathy’s itinerary in four weeks, but we would have felt rushed and wouldn’t have had as much time to savor the experience and meet more people.  And unlike our Camino de Santiago trek, we spent multiple nights in all eight places. 

 

So how did we do it? 

Kathy pretty much planned everything via the Internet before we left. We took only carry-on luggage that converted to backpacks, and we almost always took public transportation. We stayed in Airbnbs for all but two nights.  In the three large cities--Thessaloniki, Athens, and Heraklion (on Crete)--we arranged semiprivate walking culinary, architectural, and historical tours through Trip Advisor and Airbnb Experiences.  The rest of the time we asked our Airbnb hosts, consulted the All Trails app for hiking, and befriended local merchants and waiters for must-do activities.

 Here’s how our five weeks broke down: 

 

1. Thessaloniki, in NE Greece

The 2^nd largest city in Greece.  We only spent 2 ½ days there, and that was about enough.  It was the least favorite of our Greek destinations, but if we had not been to the other places, we would have loved it for its history, world-class archeological museum, and our food/architectural tour. We were blown away by seeing ruins almost everywhere.

One of several monasteries in Meteora

 2. Meteora in north-central Greece

Jaw-dropping! This is now one of our all-time favorite places. It was an amazing combination of natural and man-made wonders. In the Middle Ages hundreds of Eastern Orthodox monks and nuns inhabited over 24 monasteries constructed on high stone outcroppings and cliffs. Today, only six are occupied, with about 10 residents in each.  And the springtime scenery was gorgeous.

3. Skopelos Island—Where Mama Mia was mostly filmed

It felt weird to be in one place for a whole week, but we adapted. We were privileged to be there for the Greek Orthodox Easter, observing processions and being the only non-Greeks at a special Easter Sunday dinner with lots of wine, music, lamb, and dancing.  We also rented mountain bikes, hiked, and got reacquainted with cribbage on our balcony overlooking the harbor.

 

The Skopelos harbor. Our apartment was
on the far right just past the tree, and above
our favorite restaurant that befriended us.

4. Athens

As a bucket list city, Athens exceeded our expectations. The sights, the people, the history, and the food were all remarkable.  Seeing the iconic Acropolis and other historical sites—some over 3,000 years old—and walking in their presence were experiences we will long remember. Unlike Egypt or India, these ruins are such a big part of our Western history, thus making them special to us.

 5. Hydra (Pronounced Hee-dra), 42 miles by boat from Athens

Our Hydra apartment upstairs
on the right. Nice deck!

 The charming tourist island of Hydra had no vehicles, other than a few custom-built garbage trucks, a fire truck, and an ambulance. Therefore, all we heard were the roosters, doves, church bells, human voices, horse and mule hoofs, hand carts, and pedestrians plying the steep steps and smooth stones of alleys. We channeled our inner mountain goats and hiked about 7-10 miles a day. Also, a movie taking place in the early 50's was being filmed there, which was fun to watch.

6. Sifnos

Too mountainous for an airport and with a harbor too shallow for cruise ships, this rocky gem of an island was a delight. We hiked a lot, got lost a lot, and ate a lot. We hiked to what the Sifnos tourist brochure boasts as the oldest archeological site in Greece, dating back to 4,000 BC. I sampled the Aegean Sea, diving from rocks beneath our Airbnb. I think the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon coast is warmer. We befriended Costa, who ran a Greek food specialty shop.  He taught us the fine art of making Greek coffee and schooled us on how to drink ouzo and raki.

 

Sunset from our modernized Sifnos Airbnb.
We thought it was new, but it was actually
100 years old.

A monastery near our apartment 

7. Santorini

Santorini—What can we say?  It’s overrun, thoughtlessly over-developed, and ostentatious and/or tacky in parts.  But it is also stunningly beautiful and has some amazing things to see and do.  Kathy arrived at night by ferry in 1972 and took a mule up the crater to Fira, then wandered the alleys to find a place to stay. Now there are luxury hotels everywhere.  We hiked a lot and climbed a mountain to see the ruins of ancient Thera. But the most impressive was the archeological site of Akrotiri. Discovered in 1967, it is like Pompeii, only the people escaped by ships 3600 years ago. The volcanic ash preserved frescos, vases, and three-story walls.

 

Buildings from 3600 years ago. The frescos
on the walls are now safely in the Santorini
archeological museum

8. Crete

We may have saved the best of our five weeks in Greece for the last. It was warmer, greener, more colorful, and had more vibrant street life than did the four other islands we visited.  And oh yes, the food and wine—definitely the best!   So much Greek history and mythology originated here. 

Traditional windmills on the Lasithi Plateau

Located equidistant from Cairo, Italy, and Istanbul, it was the center of commerce and cultural exchanges as early as 5,000 years ago.  We rented a gutless Toyota Yaris for two days and drove the coastline to the colorful old Venice port city of Chania. Unlike Heraklion, it didn’t get bombed during WWII, so we could see just how different Crete originally was from the rest of Greece. However, besides enjoying Heraklion’s nighttime street life and food scene, the highlight of our visit was driving the switchback road to the 3,000-foot plateau of Lasithi.  Beautiful, just beautiful!

 

More Photos

What can I say about five weeks in Greece in the typical length of my blogs?  Not enough! Hopefully a few of our better photos, mostly in chronological order following the numbers on the above map, will help.  Click here.  They're best enjoyed on a device larger than a cell phone.  So, pour yourself a Greek/Turkish coffee, some mint tea, or a shot glass of ouzo and enjoy!  

And if your are into food as much as we are, here is a link to some of our food photos.  Don't watch on an empty stomach! (Note: you'll see a couple of gyros photos.  They always add French fries to them.)

And no blog of ours would be complete without a couple of photos of 3-year old Hazel.  We sandwiched our Greek trip with a two-week visit in St. Albans, UK beforehand and a week afterwards. And it was fun hanging with Shanti and Alan, and getting to better know Alan's Australian parents who were there on our second visit.

Proudly displaying a sticker after
we took her to her first dental appt.

What kid doesn't love pasta?

We can't keep up with her during
the .75 mile walk each way to and
from her daycare.

And what kid doesn't love puddles?

Reading to her animals.  (Courtesy of Babette
Hampson, Hazel's Australian grandmother who
just took this photo today.)