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BCoF 's Virtual 50-State Bucket List Tour, 2025 |
My virtual blog for
We’re going To Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana Monterey, Faraday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa Tennessee to Tennesse Chicopee, Spirit Lake Grand Lake, Devils Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete's sake And by we I mean myself and Lyn's a Witchy Woman   AmyJo-Downhill slide begins!   WakeUpAndLive  and her dog SproutSandraLynn  StephBee  Krista Princess Megan Rose  Richard ~ Looking for Luck!  Jellyfish And other companions to be named later! |
| So I know a guy who knows a guy. Actually, I know a guy who has a brother who’s a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas. So when we continued our tour of the fifty states (hosted by Lyn's a Witchy Woman ), we started in Las Vegas, the closest major airport to our next destination, Peach Springs, Arizona.Anyway, the brother who was the blackjack dealer knew someone who could set us up in one of those coach buses they retrofit for touring musical groups. So everyone was very comfortable on the three hour ride to Peach Springs, even Peyton (Princess Megan Rose ’s wolf) and Sprout(WakeUpAndLive ’s dog)!Halfway to Peach Springs we stop at Kingman, Arizona, turquoise capital of the world. After my snafu with the gift shop in Huntsville, I won’t forget to go souvenir shopping for my "Snegurochka"  again!While we’re shopping at one of the many turquoise jewelry stores in Kingman, I can’t help but wonder if StephBee was shopping or mentally coming up with an idea for a turquoise and silver bee MB!After shopping, we went to have lunch at Mr. D'z Route 66 Diner, which is located on Andy Devine Avenue. As it happens, the western film actor Andy Devine grew up in Kingman. Kingman also sits on the longest remaining section of the original Route 66. Mr. D'z Route 66 Diner looks as if it could be the set of a show set in the 1950’s. The shakes were great (I had the advertised Red Velvet milkshake), but the food and service were not the best. Well, I guess not every eating stop on our fifty state trip is going to be a memorable occasion. After lunch, we were divided about whether to check out Kingman’s Route 66 museum, or the Mohave Museum of History and Arts. We had just enough time to do one or the other before we needed to get back on the bus and head to Peach Springs. So we decided to split up. AmyJo-Downhill slide begins! , SandraLynn , Krista and Richard ~ Looking for Luck! went to check out the Route 66 museum. The rest of went to check out the Mohave Museum. The latterl focuses on preserving and presenting the history and arts of Northwestern ArizonaThe two exhibits in the Mohave museum that fascinated me the most were the Hualapai Native American Room and the 1923 caboose. The caboose was of special interest to me because, growing up, I always wanted to be the guy who rode in the caboose. It broke my heart when I learned the caboose had been automated and deregulated out of existence. We all met back at the bus and rode the rest of the way to Peach Springs on Route 66. Our bus wasn’t a convertible corvette, but we still got our kicks on Route 66. Once we got to Peach Springs, we pulled up to the Hualapai Lodge, where we met my old friend, Blake Quasula (Blake’s father is a member of the Hualapai governing council). Blake and I gave each other a bear hug and told each other a couple of Elizabeth Warren jokes. I then turned and introduced Blake to the rest of the group. Blake was going to be taking care of us while we were in Peach Springs (which serves as the as the administrative headquarters of the Hualapaui people). Blake took our group to Diamond Creek, the restaurant at the Lodge, where our group shared a potato chip nacho mountain and a platter of fry bread tacos. it definitely made up for our lackluster lunch experience! During dinner, Blake called me Bee You once, which got me more than a few looks from the other members of my group. When Jellyfish asked what was up with that nickname, Blake just laughed and changed the subject.The next morning, our first stop was the Grand Canyon Skywalk. The Skywalk is a horseshoe-shaped cantilever bridge with a glass walkway on the edge of a side canyon in the Grand Canyon West area of the main canyon. There is more than a little controversy about the Skywalk from outsiders, especially from former and current National Park Service members. But tribal officials point out the Skywalk generates much-needed cash to combat serious problems that plague the small two thousand resident reservation, including a fifty percent unemployment rate, widespread alcoholism and poverty. And there’s no denying looking down between your feet at an aerial view of the canyon below provides a unique view. Our next stop is a tour of the Grand Canyon Caverns, which just recently reopened after being closed for three years. Our group did the thirty minute “short” tour, since it was accessible to everyone. We took an elevator ride two hundred feet to get to the cave. It was pretty cool (both literally and figuratively), and it’s the biggest dry cave in the US. It made me curious about what was entailed in the more strenuous explorer’s tour. And though I appreciate the cavern’s uniqueness, when it comes to beauty, I have to say the Grand Canyon Caverns pale in comparison to the caverns I grew up with, the Blanchard Springs caverns. Our tour included an early dinner at an underground four table eatery, which was pretty unique, if a little pricey. The selection the eatery served was very limited: Buffalo, salad or pulled pork. As a rule, I don’t eat any pulled pork served west of Arkansas, so I had the Buffalo. It was a bison patty served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, topped with onion rings and BBQ sauce. It came with fries, and was pretty good, though I do a better Buffalo burger. I use the same seasoning I do with my Buffalo chili. After dinner, we headed back to the lodge for a great night’s sleep. The next morning, we split again into two groups. Half of us were staying on dry land, and would be doing things like helicopter tours and such. The rest of us were hitting the river! Blake was taking us down the river, and told the group to watch out for me, as “Bee You is a crazy <expletive>!” Yeah, I thought I had left that nickname back in the past a long time ago. The highlight of our two day trip (to me at least) was the stop on the first day, at a landing that would lead us to Travertine Falls. Our group scrambled among boulders along the shore until we accessed a short and narrow stream called Travertine Canyon. Blake led us up a series of rope ladders that led to Travertine Falls. We all took a turn under the falls and let me tell you, that water was cold! When we got back to the river, it started getting rough. We beached our raft again so Blake could scout out THE rapid waiting for us: the Killer Fang. The rapid is called that because the river wants to channel you to a drop where an underwater rock is waiting for you, like a sharp, giant fang. Blake got us all together and told us the strategy. When we got closer to the Fang, we would stay to the left of the river. This would put us in a current that would actually pull us toward the Fang, so at the last minute we would pull hard even further to the left. Blake’s plan worked like a charm. We got out of the current and bypassed the Fang completely. When we got to our campsite that night, we engulfed our supper, then slept like the dead. The second day was a lot easier than the first, and we got to enjoy the scenery more, before being picked up and taken back to the Lodge. We had another great meal at the Diamond Creek restaurant, where we exchanged tales with the rest of our group who had stayed on dry land. The next day we boarded our bus and headed back to Las Vegas. From there, we boarded a plane that was heading to Little Rock and our next destination: Arkansas! |
| Not too long ago, I took a number of online courses on volcanology. Not something I got to use too much back home, but it was knowledge I could use first hand while visiting Alaska. Except on Lyn's a Witchy Woman ’s Magical, Not-So-Mysterious Tour, we were heading in the wrong direction. Well, perhaps somewhere further down the line in our fifty state tour, I’ll get to put my amateur volcanology skills into action! We started our journey by flying into Anchorage, Alaska. Nearby Mount Spurr (eighty miles to the west) was softly rumbling, but nothing to worry about. More than a decade ago, Mount Spurr erupted with a huge ash cloud, shutting the airport down. Nothing like that was going to happen to us today! We were barely off the plane when our group and our belongings was whisked off to the Denali Star, the twelve hour train ride between Anchorage and Fairbanks. The skies were clear and, as we approached the small town of Talkeetna, we saw Denali rising like Olympus above the Susitna River. I’ve always wanted to summit Denali. It’s one of the Seven Summits. I’ve done Kilimanjaro and Mount Kosciuszko, but Denali captures one’s dreams. Well, maybe some day. It seemed like the Denali Starr was all window, with an open air platform at the rear of the train for when it slowed down or stopped between stations. And speaking of stations, when we pulled into the Denali Park Depot, I remembered to go to the gift shop to pick up something for my "Snegurochka" . Thanks for the reminder WakeUpAndLive !Not long after we left the Denali Depot, we saw wolves, which we were told was an uncommon sight from the train. I couldn’t imagine what Princess Megan Rose ’s wolf thought about the sighting. Or WakeUpAndLive ’s dog Sprout!We passed through the amazing scenery of Denali park before crossing the Mears Memorial Bridge (one of the world’s largest simple truss bridges) over the Tanana River and into Fairbanks. It was still light outside, but at this time of year in Fairbanks, it’s always light. Even for those few hours that the sun dips below the horizon, it never gets truly dark. Fortunately the hotel we stayed at had blackout curtains for our rooms, so we all slept solidly for the night. I got up early and headed down to the hotel’s restaurant for a cup of coffee and whatever breakfast sandwiches they had on hand. The vehicles that were going to take us to Chena Hot Springs weren’t due for a few hours, so I was going to take a little side trip on my own before then. As I left the hotel, I saw AmyJo-Downhill slide begins! , Noisy Wren  , SandraLynn , StephBee , Krista and Richard ~ Looking for Luck! wander Into the restaurant, in a sort of a singular collective. I gave them a wave, but I don’t know if any of them saw me leave or not.The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO] has two offices: one in Anchorage, and the other was right here in Fairbanks, at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was early, but apparently everyone kept strange hours during Alaska summers. The folks at the AVO didn’t get many tourists, but they were happy to talk to me. We discussed Mount Spurr and Great Sitkin and they showed me all the real time sensors and live camera feeds they have access to. It was pretty cool! I did make sure I got back in time for our trip to Chena Hot Sorings. I don’t think our ride to Chena Sorings was as scenic as our train ride up here, but I felt like we saw more wildlife. And you don’t realize how big a moose is until he’s standing right next to your vehicle! They put us up in cabins as soon as we got to Chena Hot Soring# and then we went exploring! Some of us wanted to go straight to the resort’s outdoor spring fed lake and get soaking. It had felt like we had been going nonstop from the moment we stepped off the plane just yesterday morning. The rest of us wanted to check out the sights. So we all agreed to meet up for dinner. The first place we went was the Aurora Ice Museum, which is 25 F year round. They handed out parkas to all of us before we entered, and gave us a fifteen minute tour of the ice sculptures and other displays at the museum, before letting us loose on our own. We of course stopped off at the ice bar for an apple-tini (the only drink they serve) in specially carved ice glasses. We then went on a guided ATV tour of the surrounding area, though to be honest, we were enjoying traveling over the rugged terrain more than the view of the terrain itself. We all reassembled that evening at the restaurant at the Chena Hot Springs resort, where they do the farm to table thing. I had the blackened halibut, which was done to perfection. Over supper, we talked about how this would probably be the perfect place to view the Northern Lights, when the twenty-four hour days wouldn’t interfere with the viewing. I mentioned I had seen the Aurora Borealis three times in the Ozarks, but those were just colored skies. It wouldn’t be anything like the light shows one got to see up north. Later that evening, as I was soaking in solitude in my cabin’s hot tub (filled with the local, pungent mineral spring water), I was thinking about the last two days, and wondered what lied ahead for our group! |
| Fifty states in fifty days. Well, fifty states and the District of Columbia in fifty one. Fortunately, the organizer of our journey, Lyn's a Witchy Woman , wasn’t expecting us to be modern day Phileas Foggs. NASA’s Space Camp for adults, for example, was going. My journey started a day before we were all supposed to meet in Huntsville, in my farmhouse in Arkansas. I was up in the wee hours of the morning, kissing my sleeping "Snegurochka" before heading out to my aged Expedition. I carried out a few thermoses of coffee that I had picked up at a coffee house called the Midnight Oil, in a town half an hour northeast of my little farm.My dog Rosey, who’s part black German shepherd and part something that makes her ornery, intercepted me before I got to the back door. I promised her I’d be back in a few days, possibly with a new friend or two for her to meet. Mollified, she let me pass. I didn’t get on the interstate until the small town of Hazen, about an hour and a half west of Memphis, Tennessee. By that time I had a chance to stop at a little diner called TJ’s for a bag of sausage sand homemade biscuits. I also grabbed some donuts at a Shipley’s along the way. Both of these places opened early for the local farmers. And I do mean early. Our eclectic group was coming in from all over the world. Some were taking flights direct to Huntsville, others flew into Memphis. I was picking up the latter group, at eight in the a.m. It was a tired but excited group that loaded up in my Expedition, and they quickly divvied up coffee, doughnuts and sausage and biscuits. Fortunately, they left me a maple bar! About halfway between Memphis and Huntsville we stopped in a small town (less than three thousand people!} of Iuka, Mississippi (pronounced eye-you-kuh). While we were there, we stretched our legs by walking the summit trail of nearby Mount Woodall which, at eight hundred and six feet, is the highest point in Mississippi. Then we went to the Cream and Sugar in Iuka for meatloaf sandwiches. We got to Huntsville about seven that night, tired but content, and ready to begin our real adventure. The next morning all our group headed over to the NASA facilities for our three days of Space camp. After orientation, they first got us settled into our bunks. Yep, you read that right. Bunks, not Rooms. There wasn’t that much of an argument about who got the top bunk as when I was a kid! The next thing they did was take our group, along with other space campers, en masse to the multiple gee simulator. Remember those carnival rides where you were on the inside of the outer wall of a circular cage? Then the cage would start spinning around, pressing you up against the wall? That’s what this was, except fancier! After we got to experience what several gees feel like, we split into different groups for different projects. We were all going to do everything from jet simulators to underwater activities. I went with the group that was going to build and test heat shields first. Okay, I admit, I have a secret engineering geek inside of me. But the class where we learned about the history and science of heat shields, then designed our own heat shield and tested it against simulated atmospheric recently…I was in geek heaven! The next three days went by too fast. I learned they have an advanced Adult Soace camp, that lasts almost a week. I’m definitely coming back. And it would be cool if the group I came with was the group I came back with! |
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