Road Trip: Arkansas to Indianapolis

The inspiration for this summer's adventure began with a family reunion in Pocahontas, AR. We lost my Great Aunt Faye in 2020 early during the pandemic and then my grandmother, Granny Bea, in the fall of 2022. I was close with both of them and picked up many life lessons from listening to the stories of their childhoods growing up as cotton sharecroppers during the Great Depression in rural Arkansas. They were twins but different in every measurable way except for their penchant for arguing with each other. 

 

Granny Bea                                     Aunt Faye 

Many of my memories of them happened in the kitchen preparing, making, eating, or arguing about food. 

My mom arranged a family reunion with the surviving family members from Texas, Detroit, and Arkansas, so we honored them with a true Arkansas experience including a 4th of July family fish fry, floating the Eleven Point River, shooting off fireworks in the yard, catching lightning bugs, eating constantly, trading family lore, playing with the youngest cousins, and riding Uncle Hoyt's 4-wheeler around the property. It was lovely.

Floating the Eleven Point River with the whole crew! We spent a morning floating it, and another day splashing and swimming along the shoreline. It was a huge hit with the girls. 

Happy birthday America!

Granny Bea's carport looks onto a beautiful tree covered property with trees. I have wonderful memories playing in the yard and have watched many a rainstorm from her carport. Our last day there, right after we left our final family hang, a double rainbow came out after a storm and I couldn't help feeling emotional due to to the symbolism of the two arcs of colorful bright light. 

P & S glamor shot. 

 

Opa wins the award for most books read to S & P while there.

Fireworks! 

After Arkansas we drove straight to Sheridan, Indiana to meet up with Mike's family. 

We had a delicious lunch with Aunt Beverly (Nana's sister), and Nana's brothers Kyler and Tyler.

Next we drove to stay the night with Jared and Mary, Mike's cousins who live in nearby Kokomo. They have a beautiful house, a great neighborhood for riding bikes, two awesome kids, and an above ground pool so S & P had a blast. They are both teachers so I enjoyed hearing their stories and perspectives, and I always enjoy talking and hanging with them. 

Pool fun at Jared and Mary's house. 

It was really nice to connect with family, both mine and Mike's, after the long break of COVID. Next up Columbus, Ohio to visit Walch and Isabel on our way up to the Upper Peninsula! 

TGIS 2023!

After another challenging year in education, Mike and I were particularly excited for summer and getting to spend some more time adventuring with the girls in CK/Chirp. After blowing it out last summer in Costa Rica and New Mexico/Colorado, we decided to spend some dedicated time in Texas in June before venturing out on adventures farther afield in July. For our longer July trip we used a family reunion in Arkansas and the return of the SNIT (!!) in Wisconsin to design a road trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a place we had heard was beautiful and well worth a visit. 

But first! I had been looking forward all year to my first backpacking trip since having kids. I'd wanted to do a trip in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico along the West and Middle Forks of the Gila River, and a frisbee friend Maureen "Mo" McCamley, a native New Mexican offered to come along! So here's a photo dump of that: 

The Gila Wilderness was the first Wilderness Area in the U.S. and is celebrating it's 100th anniversary next year! Wilderness Areas have the highest restrictions of any type of protected land in the U.S, so you can't take any mechanized vehicles into them, even bikes. 

The day we got there, the ranger told us that there was a wild fire just a few miles north of the trail, and headed toward the trail. We changed our plans by knocking off a day and switching the direction of our loop, and headed out into the smoky air hoping it would clear up and we would make it past the danger zone in time. Above is the annotated map of our trail with the extent of the fire as of the last day. 

Most of the hike was like the views above, with constant river crossings and the trail winding through high walled canyons. Every time we turned a corner, we would strain our necks to look up in awe and exclaim that it couldn't get more beautiful. We were lucky that the wildfire smoke was only hanging around each day for a few hours, and then would blow off. The first day we hiked 9 miles to Jordan Hot Springs. The second day we did a big haul of 12 miles, and up to the arid pass between the Middle and West Forks, when we could see the wildfire just a few miles away. The last day we had a short 6 miles back to the cars and were fortunate to thumb a ride the last couple of miles back to our cars. 

The next few weeks were a mix of Canyon Lake, Austin, and Houston to hang with friends and family. Photo dump from that time below: 

Summertime Sno Cones at Canyon Lake! 

 

Cousin time at Nana's! 

Doppelgängers Sybil and Aunt Ellen! 

Staying in Austin for a couple of weeks during the summer was definitely the right call for the girls, who spent entire mornings playing Lego, creating fashion shows (above), and playing together. Almost every afternoon involved a trip to a local pool. 

Baby Reid! 

Finger painting turned into body painting for Parker at Canyon Lake.  

Sybil spent a fun week at an Austin Parks & Rec summer day camp with her best friend Harriet, so we got to spend some quality time with Parker and spend some time purging and cleaning the house. After a month of staying around Texas however, we were itching to get on the road and excited to start our road trip to the Upper Peninsula! 

Introducing Cactus Killer & Chirp!

 Introducing the Cactus Killer and Chirp.  Ever since Papa died (and possibly b/c I had recently and Cara was soon to turn 40) we started to aggressively search and make moves on buying the toys that would take our family road trip adventures to the next level.  After our 2020 summer in New Mexico of dispersed camping from our Mazda CX-5 we started to daydream about a 4WD vehicle and a camper trailer.  We had also received a generous gift from Nana which allowed us to take our Craigslist searches a bit more seriously with the intent to buy.  In January of 2022, we first found Cactus Killer aka CK (named by Parker during one of our first adventure trips in it), a 2004 Toyota Sequoia with about 260k miles.  It was around the 4th truck we looked at and was the right fit for us.  Later in June and July, we came across the posting for a 2020 Taxa Cricket camper trailer and said "What the heck, let's do it!"  Sybil was the creative genius behind it's new name, Chirp.

After the cousins headed back to Houston, we decided the best way to break in the trailer and our new adventure system was to put it to the test with a 1,200+mile road trip to New Mexico and Colorado.  Our plan was to meet our friends, John and Sheila and their two girls (Evie and Lorna), in their family home in Pagosa Springs, CO.  Along the way we'd find a few dispersed camping sites in New Mexico to break up the drive and enjoy some nights out in the woods in our new to us trailer.  There was no buyer's remorse from me, but Cara was a bit upset after the girls did not sleep any better in the trailer than they did in our tent during previous trips. Note: S&P have been sleeping better now that they've had more reps.

attached and ready to roll.  Chirp is a 15' trailer so we are not too obnoxiously large out on the road.  We gave ourselves a week to recover and prep after the cousins left before we hit the road on our first RV adventure.

ready for adventure!

Our first stop was at Hyde Memorial State Park just northeast of Santa Fe, NM.  With an early start from home we were able to set up camp around dinner time and had time to settle in before our first night in Chirp together.

reading before bedtime, night 1.

We made it to Pagosa Springs the next day.  Our first stop was to meet up with John, Sheila and the girls E&L at a local park to play and swim in the river.

The next day we drove up to Wolf Creek Pass for a hike.  Along the way, we had a quick stop to check out Treasure Falls.

The following day we explored the Piedra River trail north and east of town.  Cara and Sheila snuck away for a trail run while John and I splashed with the girls and the dogs down on the river.

This was my first time to explore Pagosa Springs and southern Colorado, and it left an impression on me.  Hopefully, we'll have many more adventures in this area.  We had such an awesome time with John and Sheila's family.  Another highlight was the local Pagosa Spring Theatre company's Sponge Bog musical!

We took the scenic route home from PS and our first stop was a dispersed campsite along the Rio Chama just across the border in New Mexico.  We got to test our all the new features and creature comforts for the first time.  

After spending the afternoon swimming in the river, it was a luxury to be able to spray off using the outdoor shower attached to Chirp.  Although we only had one night here, we could have comfortably stayed a few more as we had plenty of water and power.

The next day, we continued south to our favorite, the Carson National Forest, for our next stop.  We found another dispersed spot and enjoyed some afternoon batting practice.

Further along on the way home, we hiked up to our first New Mexican hot springs and enjoyed a rejuvenating dip.  We made it home without any issues and were already looking forward to our next CK/Chirp adventure.

Shortly after we returned we celebrated Cara's 40th birthday with a trip to Krause Springs.  Our gift to her (and us) was time to make her own amazing birthday cake, which she got to use her baking blow torch to scorch the marshmallow frosting.

We love you Mama!  That wraps up, summer 2022.