WE DID IT!

We made it back to DENVER and have dropped off Harvey at RV AMERICA, and are heading back to St. Louis.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement, and for sticking with us!

It was so great taking you along with us on our 6,532 mile tour around the West.

We couldn’t do it without you.

We dropped off Jessica on Saturday night, a day earlier, as we made it back from Durango, also without internet.

Special thanks to Jessica for all of her hard, hard work in making this trip successful, Jennifer for her enthusiasm when we ran out of energy, and for keeping us sane.

Like I said to Jess, when we dropped her off in Denver: “This kind of trip is something so special that we’ll be exchanging Holiday cards every year for the rest of our lives.”

Thank you, Jess, for believing in me to make this film and for working so hard to make this film the best that it can be. It IS going to be great, and I can’t wait until we drink our special bottle of wine at the premiere!

Thank you, readers, for following us along the way, and for not loosing faith in us!
This film is going to be really special, and I’m very excited to share it with you in about a year from now!

Thanks to all of you we had a chance to see long the way, Mom and Dad, Chels, Jas, Chris, Janna, Melissa, Dave, Scott, Jay, Annie, Olivia, Scott, Heather, Joe, Hans, Audrey, (Jess’s friends in L.A.), Arnold (the Govenator) (he he he), Mer, Steve, Amie, LJ, Eric, and Megan.

And to all of the interviewee: Curt, Leslie, Judy, Lee, Matt, Al, Bob, Lee, Susan, Steve, Karen, Scott, Bill, Matt, Tom, Mike, Marian, Julie & Duane.

Special thanks to all of our archivists, curators and local historians, too many to name. Your help was invaluable.

As I leave you, I think of a saying that has been with me since working at summer camp my senior year of high school. “We have little time to gladden the hearts of those with whom we travel, so make haste to love and be quick to be kind.”

Peace to you, my friends, as we continue our trip of life together.

-Brandon

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Donate to a positive cause....Plus it's a tax write-off!

So, this morning was the first time on this whole trip, and frankly since a decade ago, that I had a Pop Tart for breakfast! Oh, the frosted covered, sprinkles on top, strawberry filled Pop Tart goodness. It’s as if I’m getting ready to head to the bus stop to go to junior high school.

Last night we all met up with Jen’s friends from camp. (Jen worked here outside of Durango a couple of summers) So, last night, Jen ended up staying overnight with her friend, and stayed in town while Jessica and I headed forty-five minutes out of town just outside the entrance of Mesa Verde.

This morning Jess and I filmed some of the cliff dwellings at the park and had a wonderful time in the wilderness, as we had a chance to hike around a bit and enjoy the b-e-a-u-tiful weather. We saw the three big dwellings of the park, but apparently there are 597 archeological sites that we haven’t seen in the park…. They are all smaller, but still, 597…. Geez.

We headed up the windy road forty-minutes from the entrance to the park headquarters where we had to secure our filming permit. I have a side note about what a HUGE headache getting a filming permit is.  Jessica has been working on getting all of our filming permits for all 12 of our parks, and filling out paper work, and having us write checks to each park.  Every park is different. Sometimes we need to have $1,000,000 liability insurance policy to film at a park, and sometimes we have to submit a $2000 (refundable) bond in case something happens, sometimes we have a location fee, sometimes we have to pay the staff we are interviewing, and there are ALWAYS some sort of administrative fee with this application and permit.…. Some parks just make life simple. These parks are: YOSEMITE, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, GLACIER, MT. RAINER, LASSEN, ZION and CRATER LAKE.

This isn’t an easy job, no matter what job you have. This is a JOB. This is the federal government. Enough said?

I once heard that “federal” is Phoenician for “paperwork and off at 4:30”…. I tease. Do I?

As we were driving to Durango yesterday, I was noting that Mesa Verde seemed like a park that was preserving man made structures, and not weird nature.  And that is what it is.

Mesa Verde is weird. The land is kind of interesting… there is a valley and you have a neat, once again, hard to build road, but it is what men and women have done to the land that is what makes this park. That is an interesting dynamic for being our last park on the trip. It’s neat… but not the awe and wonder and mystery that some of our other parks present. It was very cool to learn about the “Ancestral Puebloans” (formerly the Anasazi, but for political correctness have since been renamed) of the region. Why did they build here? Why on a cliff? Are they hiding? From what? What am I running from? I’d like to think that I’ve personally interacted, spiritually, which each park on our trip, but how do I connect with this one?

We had the opportunity to interview Julie Bell the park archeologist at Mesa Verde. She was wonderful at helping us understand why the “locals” might have done this, and why they “disappeared”. You’ll just have to watch the movie to learn about these interesting natives.

Once we packed up our gear, just Jess and I, we headed over to the park archives and met up with Greg, who helped us out quite a bit with photos and documents about the park history.  There was not ONE thing on the park-to-park highway in this huge warehouse of archives. It was kind of disappointing.

After leaving the archives we headed back to the RV park to just relax and take a break. The last few days have been a lot of time on the road and working hard to make things successful. –And with Jen gone, we have had to pick up the slack. Jess, more with the food and kitchen work, and me with travelblog and travel logistics.  Jen, we miss you!

Tonight, Jess made pizza, we had wine, talked about the unknown future, our fears, and listed to James Taylor’s new live album. With all of this uncertainty, James soothes the soul.

Tomorrow we are laying low - making calls and getting the tour of Jen’s camp.  We are looking forward to time in spending time in Durango and hanging out with friends.

-BW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We can't do this without you. Anything will help! Plus it's a tax write-off!

The hardest part about my job is asking for help. I, outside of filmmaking, work by myself. I self sustain. But when I’m making a film, I need help. I need someone like Jennifer who supports my ideas, passion, creativity, struggles, heartache, and joys. I need someone like Jessica who can find people to help tell our story. Someone who can find archival photos and articles about our specific history, that nearly no one has heard of before, and someone who can get permission to film and interview at the parks along the way. But the thing that we need to complete this chain is your help.

I figure that this film costs about $1000 a day to produce, so far, while on the road. And that doesn’t include any of our salaries. That is something that is real. Something that sets limits and boundaries to the quality of our film. – That is fine. That will be enough to make a wonderful movie.

You might ask why you would support such a crazy idea of financial risk? I want you to know that you will be supporting something bigger then just 3 people. You will be spending your money, directing attention to good media; quality, educational, programming. There is so much negative, mindless TV out there. Now is your time to spend your money wisely. Support a positive, grassroots idea, and from the bottom up.

What we need is your support to make this happen. We are now in this for the long haul. We have filmed it, now we need to put it together. We need the means to put it together.

The support you give will go directly to the production, not to our entertainment. Thank you so much for your support. We can’t do it without you. We can’t afford operators, no one is standing by, so use this website. It is also a tax write-off.

In our last fundraising effort, we mentioned that we wouldn't bother you until we arrived in Denver and I'm sorry about that, but this is very important and not based on a specific destination. Please keep following our story. We love sharing it with you.


Please donate here.

-BW

We have officially been on this trip longer then Noah and the rains, and Jesus in the wilderness!

Today, we interviewed Marian Albright, the daughter of Horace Albright, the assistant to Stephen Mather, the first National Parks director in 1916. Horace took the job as assistant when he was 26 (I think). -Just a few months younger then I am now. Marian told us some very memorable stories about the Park-to-Park Highway, and the inner workings of starting the National Park Service. It was great to spend time with her and hear her stories.

I can’t believe that in less then a week we’ll be back at home resting and relaxing for a few days as we celebrate how Thankful we are for our support system, friends, family and people and stories we have met along the way.

I know how our 1920 tour felt at this point in time… the air is colder being back in Colorado. The air seems thinner and crisper. And the anticipation of being back in your nice warm bed, is a feeling you get when thinking about being back home for the holidays.

Jessica and I were talking about how this trip is coming to a close, and we have just gotten comfortable! We know our roles and how to work with one another. It will be great to be back home, but this isn’t bad either.

When we have been talking with folks we meet along the way, we tell them that “We are making a documentary film about the National Park-to-Park Highway, which was a road system back in 1920 that connected all (12 at the time) National Parks of the west in one big loop.” People ALWAYS ask which parks, and so we say, “The trip started in Denver, then to Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone, and Glacier, then over to Mt. Rainier, down to Crater Lake, Lassen Volcanic” – And this is when everyone says, “Lassen? I’ve never heard of that”, and we say, “I know”. Then we move on to, “from Lassen, we continue south to Yosemite, General Grant (now Kings Canyon) and Sequoia. Then we stop(ped) in L.A. -Then over to Zion, Grand Canyon, and up to Mesa Verde and back to Denver”. And people are AMAZED. You look at them and watch them try and comprehend what a trip like that must be like…. And they can’t. – you know what they do, do? They ask you about a National Park that they have been to in their life that we didn’t mention. “Did you stop by Bryce or Olympic? Olympic is SO beautiful. You should have gone there too.” “No, we missed that one, because it wasn’t a park in 1920”, we reply. “Oh, um….. So what is your favorite park so far?” –Now, I used to answer some moment that I enjoyed at the park, like experiencing fall in Glacier was pretty wonderful, and Yosemite met everyone of my expectations, but now I confront their answer. “You can’t really ask me that. It’s like asking what my favorite candy bar is…different flavors for different moods. –So, why don’t you ask me what my favorite experience at each park is? You’ll love my answers.” And so, I tell them a few and our conversation drifts off to something else…. It’s as if we have disappointed them for missing an experience that they has a kid, or from a college spring break they had when they were a sophomore. The excitement for our trip kind of tanks. We end up closing our part of the conversation by saying, “This isn’t a vacation, really, it’s a job, and our corner office has a great view.”

The best part about a trip like this one is its rich depth. How well we now know one another. How well we have gotten to know ourselves. How well we have gotten to know each park. We haven’t spent a lot of time actually ON the park, but we have had time to see into the soul of the park, learn its history, and found appreciation for the people and land that is now preserved.

There have been parts of this trip that just haven’t been fun. Parts that just aren’t cheap. And parts that just aren’t fair. -All of that is washed away by having the opportunity to experience making a film. Experiencing the wonderland that is our National Parks, and experiencing time spent with wonderful souls.

I hope you have the time today, to look up, no matter where you are at, take a deep breath, and be thankful for this moment.

-BW

(I'm sorry if I mis-spelled anything. I didn't have a proof reader tonight.)

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help ...Seriously... We can't do this without you. Anything will help! Plus it's a tax write-off!

Day 40 – November 13, 2007 – Grand Canyon to Albuquerque, NM

The desert is dry.  I am desperately thirsty tonight, after not drinking nearly enough during the sedentary drive.  I wish I was one of those people who could keep important things on the front of their minds.  Things like, “you’re in a desert, maybe you should use lotion before your skin cracks to pieces, and even drink a little extra water to stay hydrated.”  I never keep these things in mind.  Instead, I complain at the end of the day about how dry my skin and my stomach are.  Only as those words are coming out of my mouth do I put 2 and 2 together… 

We said goodbye to fair Grand Canyon today.  Jessica got up early to catch the sun rising over the canyon and snap some amazing pictures for you all.  The main task of the morning was to look through the photo archives at the park, which was amazingly productive and easy.  Old photos are key to making a historical documentary, so I’ve heard.  We found 200+ photos that are candidates for the movie! 

We squeezed in an extra national park today.  Our 1920 counterparts stopped by the Petrified Forest, but it wasn’t designated as a national park until later.  So we stopped by too.  I remembered only the gist of a “petrified” tree: something about the trees being old and turning into stone.  What I forgot is that the trees are REALLY old - dinosaur old.  And I forgot that they are no longer trees.  They are just rocks in the shape of old tree trunks.  From a distance, they look like cut up trees strewn everywhere, but as you get closer, their color gives them away.  Jess made me try to pick one up.  They are deceivingly heavy and rocky.  They look like an optical illusion.  It can look like a tree or a rock, whichever you are thinking about at the time.  But it was very difficult to understand at once that it was both.

I’d like to share a quick word about RV life.  In order to function more smoothly, we have all figured out a lot about interdependence.  Of course there is still an important element of getting your own stuff done so the group isn’t waiting on you.  But the flip side is that in order for things to run smoothly, we are continually asking each other for help.  In no way is this more true than the movement of dishes, books, food, etc. around Harvey.  “Can you hand me my laptop?”  “Can I have a fork?”  “Mind if I sit there?”  These constant small requests would be annoying in a full-sized kitchen or living room – just get up and get it yourself.  Since getting something for yourself here usually includes making one or more people move from where they are, it became much easier when we learned to pass things around.  It also requires patience, since we need to wait until the person we are asking has a free moment, or available brain-space.  I give the three of us a big pat on the back for adjusting to this so well.  And I wonder, how much of this patience and willingness to help will stick with me as we return home? 

Thanks for tuning in. Tomorrow we are interviewing a woman whose father was one of the forefathers of the national parks!

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help ...Seriously... We can't do this without you. Anything will help! Plus it's a tax write-off!

One week left, can you believe it?  We got back to work today.  We worked reverentially, of course, keeping our nation’s veterans in mind.  The main task today was to interview Mike Anderson. Mike is the historian here at Grand Canyon. Not only did Mike drive for three hours on a federal holiday to come meet us, but Mike actually knows about the Park-to-Park Highway! He actually said something along the lines of “I was going to write a book on the subject, but it looks like I’ve been beaten to it.” This was great! Sometimes I feel like there are only maybe 10 people in the world who have even heard about the Park-to-Park Highway, and three of them are in this RV (by RV, what do I mean – “Harvey” or “Sunny”? Cast your vote by Wednesday at midnight).

I did some laundry today.  That, in itself, was not notable.  The television in the laundry room was.  The laundry room attendant stationed across the room from the TV was clearly the guy in charge of choosing the content and volume.  And it was a noisy room with all the washing and drying that was happening, so the volume had to be somewhere between jackhammer and head-in-a-jet-engine.  Regarding the content, I did not know that television programming could be so base.  The three shows that played during my time there were: Home Videos Capturing Near-Death Experiences, Cop Car Videos Capturing Near-Death Experiences, and some mixture between the two.  Each of these videos spent 1.3 minutes on any one of the videos and had a script that sounds like something I would write to make fun of that genre of TV.  “The parachuters formed the most dangerous maneuver ever, the quadrapole, when suddenly, the wind changed directions, causing a deadly chain of events that could have killed the parachuters and dozens of their spectators.  They might never live to see their children again.”  In a 30-minute show, I think 68 people faced imminent death, and I had to listen to the most tense music ever the whole time.  UG!  I had no idea T.V. has gotten so bad.

Watching the sunset over the Grand Canyon took away any residual bad TV stress I might have still had.  When Jess and Brandon got back from their interview, Jess suggested a short walk to the rim to catch the sunset.  God, was it gorgeous.  The earth is spinning so fast, and we can hardly ever see it.  The sun just slipped right after showering us and the canyon with red light.  Ahhhhhh.

Lastly, we met a friendly guy named Andrew who was also taking in the sunset.  He was from the Boulder, CO area (originally from England) and was taking a two-month tour of the Park-to-Park highway!  Well, he didn’t know anything about the historic highway, but he was following an almost identical trip to ours, except that he swung farther to the north than us.  He will also be back in Denver on Nov. 19th.  It was great to swap stories and share highs and lows with someone else on the “tour.”

Tomorrow we are off for Albuquerque! Make sure to get your votes in the Harvey v Sunny name-off. It's neck and neck!

-JP and JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help ...Seriously... We can't do this without you. Anything will help! Plus it's a tax write-off!

As I write you from the back bedroom of the RV (call it what you will), Jen is reading a book out loud to Jessica, Mer and Steve, who have set up camp on our fold-out RV couch, due the rain/snow mix that we are getting tonight.

Today was enjoyable for everyone, but different for me then the rest of the crowd.
When you are in a close-knit group of people for a long stretch of time, you become aware of who you are, and you have by this time, had plenty of time to know all the intricacies of the people you are with. And I’m not talking about focusing on the things that bug us, but the things that we have stored in our mind about the other person’s routines, or habits, or the way they do or don’t communicate.

I’m not sure how our 1920 tour, who did this trip in 76 days, handled being with the same people all the time, but for us on day 38, who you are, is really apparent to you and everyone else on the trip. That-is-to-say, that the person you are is more magnified when on a long, enclosed trip. If you drink tea in the morning, or if you don’t like tomatoes on your sandwich, or if you have to look at the map before we leave the parking lot, it all is about working with people and communicating what you need or think to make the trip successful. It’s about “teamwork” but this is WAY more magnified or intense then playing on a volleyball or basketball team or working on church council.

It is funny what people do when they want to “relax”. Some need to go for a hike, some need to be in a group of people (which is more of a “recharge”) and some need to be alone and lounge around.

Today, and most “relaxing” days, I am the latter. I just want to not move. Just be. Quiet.

There has been an ongoing debate as to whether I’m an introvert or an extravert. Should I start another online poll?

Mid morning, Jen, Jess, Steve & Mer went to check out the west side of the south rim of the canyon, and walked the rim trail. Steve and I were talking later on in the day that the canyon is so grand, that you can walk for miles and still have the same perspective, and the change would be more in the light, then the angle between you and the rock formations in the valley…

This morning it was sunny with a slight breeze, but by the time I met up with them at (the) El Tovar Lodge for hot coco, it was cloudy, cold and windy. The group, when I met up with them, looked a bit wind worn, and ready for a hot beverage. It sounded like they had a good “mosey” down the trail. Much more laid back then yesterday’s adventures.

While the group was out on their adventure, I had time to just sit around…. Relax… nap… not think about making a film…. Not thinking about telling anyone about the film I’m making…. Not thinking about the light….not think about what this film should be or not should be about… or what questions we needed to ask our next interviewee…. Not what route we need to take… or bypass….etc. I didn’t think about anything! –And once I stopped thinking about everything I have to think about all the time to make this film happen, I realized that I have to think about a lot to make a film.

It was nice to just be. It was a nice, much-needed time alone.  Which is worth its weight in gold when traveling with two others, any others, in an RV.

Overall this trip is really successful and we are working extremely well together…. We all fill a much needed role to make this happen, and make a good film, but we all bring our own experiences to the table and want to use our knowledge to be the most effective. It really is fascinating how we have been working together.

It is wonderful having Mer and Steve here for the weekend. They bring positive energy and rejuvenation to the three of us, which is always welcome.  It’s neat to share this experience with friends outside of our crew. They get just a taste of what this trip is like, but it’s great to hear their voices and see their faces.

There are no photos in this entry, on purpose. It’s about our sprit. Our excitement, passion and friendship that will make this film happen. This, I believe, is what making art is about. It’s about channeling all of these emotions that I have gone through in this entry, and harnessing them and outputting them into something. It could be a song, a poem or a film. It’s about the feelings, friendship and relationship with you, people, and the craft that is most important.

Someday, may you find yourself at a similar point of creating something magical, spiritual, artistic, creative, Godly.

-BW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Hiking in the Grand Canyon is backwards from hiking in most other places.  I know I’m stating the obvious here, but the easy part comes first, then the hard part: down, then up.  You can’t just hike until you’re worn out, then turn around and coast back to the trailhead.  It’s a little nerve racking.  These trails don’t mess around either.  We hiked down a cliff today.  Whoever made this trail really, really wanted to hike here.  They had to blast out good-sized chunks of the cliff, and build up level places to zig-zag down the cliff face.  It makes for really dramatic hiking.  The warning signs they have up at the trailhead also make for really dramatic hiking, “Do you know at what temperature your brain will FRY and cause you to die?”  (This is an actual quote, bolding is theirs.)  I didn’t know.  It is 105 degrees, apparently.  This particular warning was specifically addressed “to the young and invincible.”  The sign warned that we should only try to hike to the bottom of the canyon and back up in one day if we are prepared to deal with dehydration, heart failure and death.  I took a moment to ponder this somewhat spiritual question.  Am I prepared to deal with death?  Is anyone?  Fortunately, I did not have to decide today, as we were only going slightly farther than an overlook named “Ooh, ahh Point.”  Or perhaps, it could be named more aptly, “The very first spot you can turn around and keep your dignity intact Point.”

Jessica won a battle today.  We have not yet mixed business with recreation on this trip.  That is to say that we haven’t done any filming while we are hiking.  Today was our first exception.  Because of the crowds at every decent lookout here, we couldn’t quite get the shots we wanted from the road.  We really needed to find a spot a little bit farther away from the people so we could get a great pan of the Grand Canyon scenery.  So, as Jessica has been hoping for since the beginning, we packed up the camera and tripod into backpacks and hit the trail.  It worked out better than we expected and we had a beautiful day for hiking and filming.  I did get to spend a few silent moments trying to absorb the Grand Canyon.  Isn’t it funny how unnatural it is for me to just shut up and look for a while?  The National Parks are a great place to do this. 

Meridith and Steve did arrive late last night after a much longer day of driving than we expected.  The aforementioned good time was had by all, substituting a couple great beers for the previously predicted Californian wine.  It is great to have them here with us, and a nice break from the monotony of three.  They are excellent hikers and really a fun and energetic couple.  Though they spend the night in a tent outside, I have been surprised at how well the five of us fit into Harvey.  Maybe we should even try a sixth? 

After the hike today, the five of us went to “lunch” at 4pm at the Bright Angel Lodge where we were served by the most deadpan waiter.  At least I think he was joking a couple of times.  It sounded more like someone had told him he should try joking around sometime and he was giving it a shot with us.  The food was wonderful, especially since we were all starving.  After dinner, we all got ice cream cones and watched the sunset in the canyon before heading back to do some grocery shopping and mill around in Harvey.

It will be below freezing tonight, and back up to 60 tomorrow.  We have a pancake breakfast planned, as well as more hiking around to check out the views.  Should be great. 

-JAW


Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Once we got going this morning, we had a beautiful drive.  First, our route took us through the park into a very long tunnel. I don’t just mean a long tunnel, I mean a skinny tunnel. This tunnel was built in the 1930’s and I guess in that era they did not anticipate the potential for RV’s.  We had to get a special permit to go through, and they had to stop traffic at either end so we could drive through the middle. Pretty intense. Between Zion and the Grand Canyon are continuous eroded cliffs and canyon formations for the entire 6-hour drive.  We got to parallel the Colorado River and watch the river drop lower and lower into a growing canyon.  Pretty amazing stuff.

Of course I got to see the Grand Canyon today for the first time.  I talked way too much.  It really is a scene that needs to be absorbed reverentially.  I plan on taking time this weekend to do just that.  Wish me luck.

We are meeting up with my close friends Meridith and Steve tonight at the campgrounds.  They aren’t here yet, but I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.  When they get here around 9:30, we will laugh and hug and exchange a gift (for Meridith’s recent birthday), and talk in our tiny living room for a couple hours while drinking Californian wine.  It will be a wonderful time.

We don’t have a lot of work to do here until Monday.  For better or worse, we ended up here on a weekend, and a holiday weekend at that.  We convinced one person to let us interview him on Veteran’s Day on Monday, but the archives won’t be open to us until Tuesday.  In the meantime, I’m looking forward to a chance to take it all in here.

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help save the tea kettle... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Day 35 – November 8, 2007 – Zion National Park

The first order of business today was to interview an interpreter, Tom Haraden, at the Nature Center here in Zion.  The Nature Center is closed for the season, so it is a very large and empty room.  It was a welcome change from the usually tiny offices and libraries that we normally shoot in.  Plus, Tom is a great guy, one of those friendly faces that we were hoping for in this leg of the journey.  Here are the two things that Tom would like everyone to know about Zion: 1) Zion rhymes with lion.  Please do not accent the “o.”  And, 2) Wind does not cause erosion. Water does.  Apparently, if you get those two things straight, you’ll be ahead of most visitors to the park, and Tom will be able to tell you all the other cool things he knows instead of working with the basics.  By the way, Tom knows lots of cool stuff.

Next, we fiddled with ridiculous insurance stuff that Grand Canyon is requiring of us (even though we are making almost no impact at all on the landscape or visitors there).  That sucked up a small chunk of our day, unfortunately.  But finally, we ran out of work to do in Zion!  Jess and I took the chance to dash off to another hike.  This time, we tried to get out of the valley, and as far away from the road as possible in the time allotted.  It was a steep, but steady climb with rewarding views, brilliant colors, and narrow canyons.  The canyon walls had formed into amazing natural sculptures from all the wind erosion.  ;)  Check out the photos.  Though we love Harvey (or Sunny, cast your vote NOW), it was great to get away.  I could see how backpacking in this park would be a completely unique experience.  I feel like we got a little taste of what Grand Canyon will be like. 

Tonight is a giddy night.  We’ll be watching a movie later, but for now we’re just a little hopped up on sugar, and every half-burp is reason enough for another round of giggles.  Tomorrow we leave for the Grand Canyon, the last granddaddy park on the tour. 

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help to tell the story of one of the greatest road trips in American history... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Wow! That is all I have to say.

So, last night we arrived in Springdale, Utah, just minutes outside of the Zion south entrance, and we arrived in the dark...complete dark. No moon dark. We awoke this morning with a sunny skies and a wonderful elevated panorama of cliffs and buttes in a full 360 of views. It was truly amazing. We had no idea what we had driven into the night before, except for Jen noticing that we were driving on a scenic byway.

This morning, Jessica and I met with Leslie, the park curator at Zion, and she was a wonderful help with finding old photos and documents from our tour time period, however, Zion did not have much of a collection from the 1919, 1920, 1921 era, due to the park establishing at the end of 1919.

While Jess and I were digging thru the archives, Jen was re-entering lost data due to the crashing of her hard drive a few days ago. Thankfully, she had backed all of her data a few weeks ago, so catch-up wasn't too much time and energy. (This is a note to you, the viewer, to back up all-important documents, no matter how new or old your machine is).

In the afternoon after having lunch in "Harvey" (which might be our new name for Sunny) (Get it... HAR-VEE? ((RV)) we decided to split up for a while as Jen and Jessica went for a small hike up into the canyon at the end of the valley.

While I finally enjoyed some Guy Time, by myself, I had the chance to go film a few things on my own. It was nice to just observe the canyon, the light, and the fall leaves, and see what I could capture to help the viewers get to "that place" when you watch the film. It was nice to just be out there with the camera and enjoy the spirit of the sandstone canyon.

After that joyous time, we met up and decided to head out of the valley, back towards the camp site. Jen found another place that sounded interesting to hike so we grabbed the still camera and headed to the Upper Emerald Pool. We started this hike as the sun was heading out of the valley, and by the time we were done with our 3-mile loop, it was too dark to see the details of the path that we had to traverse. Luckily, the downhill side of the loop was all paved and smooth sailing back to Harvey.

Tomorrow, back into Zion to interview Tom and film more scenic landscapes.

Thanks again for following our journeys.

SUNNY OR HARVEY? Sound-off here.

-BW

(Sorry if there are any type-os, or mis-spellings... the ladies are asleep, so no one to proof read).

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help to tell the story of one of the greatest road trips in American history... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Three states, one day. Are we on the East Coast? Today we drove from Las Vegas, Nevada through a slice of Arizona (we’ll be back for you soon enough, Arizona), and up into Utah. We got an amazing start to our day with, as our one-eyed RV park host claimed, “the best showers in the world”. Really, no joke, they were. Each one had its own spacious room with recently redone tiles, big mirrors and one of those showerheads you can detach. What a way to wake up!

After finally pulling ourselves out of our master-suite bathrooms, we did a little grocery shopping and were on our way. The first thing we saw when we got on the freeway was an exchange between two cars. This was not a friendly exchange as things were being thrown between the two fast-moving vehicles. We were stunned. Then, one made like it was going to exit while the other car was in fast pursuit, but then quickly veered back into the through lanes before the other car could switch back. Intense. Luckily our mood lightened as the next thing we saw on the freeway was a big 18-wheeler hauling nothing more than a pink “big wheel” tricycle. Ah, comic relief.

Driving through the desert, we stopped to film some Joshua trees. We pulled off the freeway and followed a dirt road that took us a little way away from the interstate, but the more we looked at what was on the other end of the road, the more convinced we became that it was a missile silo. Scary.

After leaving warheads and Joshua Trees behind us, we took in a quintessential desert sunset: red mountains, pink clouds and a thorn in my shoe. *sigh*

We are presently at the RV park a half-mile outside Zion learning that we don’t know as much as we thought we did about how to melt semi-sweet chocolate. (It’s harder than you’d think.) Worry not, trusty followers - we are committed to figuring it out, regardless of how many mistakes we have to eat until we get it right.

Into Zion tomorrow to dig in the archives and start shooting the park. Thanks for tuning in!

-JP & JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help to tell the story of one of the greatest road trips in American history... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Don't think that someone else will help us. We need YOUR help!

Like anything affiliated with PBS, it’s fundraising time. No need to sigh or change the channel. You like this stuff. You like learning about people and their stories. We are trying to preserve more stories. If you enjoy this Travelblog, want to support the film, and/or want to support us, please help support the production of Paving the Way.  We encourage you to sponsor $1-$5 per day of the tour. We are on the road for 46 days. The support you give will go directly to the production, not to our entertainment. Thank you so much for your support. We can’t do it without you. We can’t afford operators, no one is standing by, so use this website. It is also a tax write-off.

This will be the only time we ask for help until we are back in the Denver area, so please keep following our story. We love sharing it with you.

Please donate here.

-BW

Heading east today.  Finally.  I think it is fair to say that Monday hit us like a ton of bricks today.  Strangely, all the problems and roadblocks that we had on Friday were still here on Monday.  Hmm.  The parks ahead of us have been more difficult to work with than the parks behind us.  Not a great feeling as we head into the last leg of the trip.  Isn’t it so much nicer to know you’re headed to a place with a friendly face/voice waiting for you?  Of course, my computer decided to crash today too.  Well, we figured it out today, anyway.  That’s fun too.  So we will be finishing our journey with only *gasp* TWO laptop computers for the three of us.  You may roll your eyes, but we are frequently all three crunching at the same time in the evenings.  Anyway, the task today was to drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.  We took the long route to try to catch a view that we missed and decided to air out some laundry along the way, so the trip took us the whole day.  We drove straight past Joshua Tree National Park through some pretty amazing desert.  Thank God for the view today.

Before our long, somewhat painful, trip back to reality this morning, we all had a great 2-day break!  Brandon and I tried to drive up to the Hollywood sign, and saw the most amazing shanty-mansions on tiny roads.  We saw rollerskating dancers on Venice beach, and ate at amazing restaurants.  Yoga, movies, relaxing – it was a great weekend. 

There was a high point to today.  Since we needed to swing by the Apple store to take my computer into the ICU, we had a great excuse to visit The Strip here in Vegas.  Brandon and I have not really been to Vegas before, but it is old hat to Jess.  This was certainly the highlight of my day.  We had no desire to gamble, nor time to really even get out of the car.  But a drive down the strip was enough for this trip.  What a crazy place!  I saw the Eiffel tower, a pyramid, a huge pirate ship, a small chunk of New York, a tall needle thing, a golden lion, some ads, then more ads. I made Brandon drive because all the billboards are really big TV screens, which suck me in like a tractor beam.  I pretty much just hung my head out the window taking pictures and trying to see as much as I could, yelling “dang!” all the way.  I see how it appeals to so many people.  I could have spent much more time there simply walking down the street, looking around, being advertised to.

By Jessica Potter (Eat your heart out, Gary!)

We are hoping for better luck and a figuratively sunnier sky tomorrow as we head into Zion National Park.  Until then, is anyone looking for a very stylish laptop-shaped paper weight?

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help find sunnier skies... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Hello folks!  Sorry about the delay in writing.  Just give us a little free time, and we forget all our duties.

Today was Los Angeles highway driving day.  We prepared ourselves as much as we could.  Has anyone seen L.A. Story?  Fortunately, it was not open season on the highway today.  I have to report that it went very smoothly.  We got to our destination 30 minutes early due to the good traffic.  I was quite impressed.

Our interview this morning was with a historian for the Southern California AAA.  This was the second stop in our pretentious tree tour.  Pretentious trees are really pretty.  Check out the photo of this one.  I could spend a whole day climbing that tree.  Brandon and Jessica got to search the archives and found lots of great pictures.  AAA sponsored the original 1920’s tour, so they had lots of what we need.

Afterward, we met up for dinner and drinks with two of my old roommates from Juneau, Alaska.  Hans and his wife Audrey live here, and Joe was coincidentally in town on business.  The adventure of the evening was finding parking for Harvey, the RV.  (He has two names now.  Deal with it.)  First, we scoured downtown and found a great lot.  Then when we got back to Scott and Heather’s for the evening, we had to look around for a spot in the neighborhood, and found a perfect spot - just 10 blocks away.  So we just call Scott in the morning to have him come pick us up. 

We’ll take the weekend off from blogging, but we’ll update you on what’s been going on when we get back.  See you then!

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

On our way into town today, we got to drive through Malibu, where there were apparently some forest fires earlier this year.  I did not see any of the destruction, but I think Jess and Brandon got a look at some of it.  I was much more focused on the multi-million dollar homes that we were driving past.  They inspired the first of many “dang!” exclamations from me on this trip.  It usually doesn’t sound so hick.  But when we’re driving around a very very fancy, well trimmed neighborhood, and my little midwest self can only think of one thing to say, and that thing is Dang, it feels a little hick somehow.  In my defense, these homes are ridiculously big, beautiful, and perfectly landscaped with plants and trees I’ve never seen before.  What else is there to say?  Seriously, I’ll take some suggestions, because I haven’t come up with anything better yet.

On our way into LA, we got to stop at a great fish restaurant called the Reel Inn.  I got to eat scallops.  I just pretend that they are fresh from the LA ocean we are smelling as we eat, but I somehow suspect that is not the case.  It was a great little dive that Jessica guided us to.  Just what I was looking for on the coast.

Brandon and I will be staying “with” our friends Scott and Heather while we are in town here.  They do not have a guest room, and we happen to have brought one with us.  So the plan is to stay in the RV, though we’ll be parked outside their place.  Anyway, Scott works for Sony Imageworks.  He just finished working on Beowulf, and has a few weeks off after working his butt off for the last few months.  Which means that he got to give us a tour of the Sony lot when we rolled into town this afternoon.  It is a little disconcerting to realize that TV is not as fake as we thought.  Did you know that real people make TV shows AND movies?  Real 3-D people.  So weird.  Walking around the lot was a really fun experience.  I was so shy.  I just thought that I might see famous people, and they might look at me!  The last time I remember feeling shy like that was when I was in highschool touring colleges with my parents.  There were so many good looking people walking around everywhere! 

That night, we ate out at a fun salad restaurant called Tender Greens, and Scott and Brandon took off for a screening of ‘We Own the Night’ back at Sony.  I took the evening off and waited for Heather to get home from work.  Heather is an excellent photographer and is presently working as a Studio Manager for a big dog in the industry.  It sounds like her boss bears some resemblance to Meryl Streep in ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’  Yikes!  She has lots of fun stories about famous people and what the industry is like on the inside.  We’re glad to get a few days to spend with a couple of our favorite peeps.

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We are in Denmark. Denmark, California, that is. Apparently the town of Solvang was founded years ago by the Danish, and the town still keeps its original character. Not sure exactly why, but I’m guessing it has something to do with tourism. All the streets are lined with windmills, and the red and white of the motherland’s flag stretches as far as the eye can see.

On the way to Denmark, we stopped – where else – but at the Pacific Ocean. Finally! We descended from the hills into San Luis Obispo, and once we could see the glimmer of the water we pulled off the 101 and walked amongst the surfers down the bluff and got our first sight of the glorious Pacific! Even though I don’t normally like birds, the gulls hunting after their lunch in the water were a treat to watch. They would fly right along the surface of the water, and if something looked good, they would dive down and come up with a meal. Yum!

Watching those birds feast got us a little hungry, so we did what any normal person would do – beeline to In-N-Out Burger. For those of you not familiar with In-N-Out Burger, it is one of the many glorious creations to come from the state of California. To say it is just “fast food” doesn’t do it justice. They make your burger with love and they are as polite as the staff at a Ritz-Carleton. The meat is never frozen, they ask you how you would like your onions cooked, the tomato and lettuce are as fresh as if they were plucked from your garden, and when they call your order number, it is always followed with the word “please.” Needless to say it was delicious.

Tomorrow we continue our West Coast adventure and enter Los Angeles. Pray for us on the 405 with our 30-foot beast. Thanks.  

-JP

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help to gas up Sunny... Plus it's a tax write-off!

In the town of El Portal, CA, outside of Yosemite. Price gouging anyone? Can you say 40 Gal. Tank?

We got done early in Sequoia National Park and left there this morning on our way to a few days off!  We decided to make a bee-line for the coast, since we’ve been “on” the West coast since we got to Seattle, and still haven’t had time to actually see the ocean yet.  Can you believe it?  Funny thing is, we still haven’t gotten there.  Turns out the road to the coast is littered with wineries.  They all looked pretty lonely, and in need of visitors, and we were happy to oblige.  We stopped by Sylvester and J. Lohr wineries and enjoyed the weather, people and views immensely.  I haven’t really done many wine tastings before this trip.  It is so much fun to just stop by and get to taste six different wines without paying for anything!  I always debate whether my 6 wines should just be the fanciest, most expensive on the list, or whether they should be the wines I might actually want to buy.   I’ve been mixing it up.  I think I will change my strategy now and only try wine I can’t afford to buy, thus keeping me safe from spending money!

After our winery tours, we found our way to our fancy Wine Country RV park.  This has to be the fanciest RV park ever.  It is way too over-groomed, with perfectly shaped grassy patches by each parking space.  In fact, I think every blade of grass is parallel to all the others.  We could have paid $20 more a night to get a paved parking pad instead of a perfectly nice packed gravel one.  (Why would anyone care?)  Brandon and I walked around tonight and looked in all the fancy RV’s with their slide out living rooms and bedrooms.  We had rv nv.  Of course, I wouldn’t want to pay another dollar more than the gas we are already spending, thank you very much. 

We took much advantage of this fancy RV park last night.  Brandon and I swam, and sat in the hot tub while Jess got some long boarding in.  We all went star gazing, and played pool and ping pong.  Jessica, for the record, is clearly Princess of Ping.  She apparently comes from a long, regal line of ping pong kings.  And she wiped the walls with Brandon and I. 

Tomorrow, we are headed to Santa Barbara on our way to L.A.  It will be another fabulous day off! 

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help to gas up Sunny... Plus it's a tax write-off!

No enchanted forest today, folks.  Today was a workin’ day, like I said it would be.  Brandon and Jessica spent the morning in the Park archives and the afternoon recording a great interview with Bill Tweed.  The archives are in a teeny tiny cramped room with two guys and three computers. Instead of going through all the photos and making the three of them share just one, we burnt four CDs of the photos. We got some great ones, including a photo of cars that had driven onto the “auto log.”   It was a giant sequoia that had fallen and the Park built an approach ramp for fun, silly photos. Score!

Next was our afternoon interview with Bill Tweed. Personally, my favorite part of the day was trying to get to Bill Tweed’s house.  He lives down a narrow, windy road that starts inside the park.  We could not get the RV all the way there.  So we hauled all the recording gear down a very steep hill, past a snarly, barking dog who wasn’t in a yard and then back up another steep hill to get to Bill’s place.  Once we were there, he had the best garden I had ever seen, and a great view out the front and back of his house.  A house on the borders of a national park is really an okay place to stay, if you aren’t driving around an RV all the time.  Bill was great on camera.  We’ve discovered in our many interviews that there is a spectrum from the cynical historian to the cheery park interpreter, and Bill was right down the middle – full of great information presented in an engaging manner. To top it all off, he even drove our gear back to the RV for us, which saved us a lot of sweat and cussing.  Thanks Bill!

Tonight there was a big rain, lightning, and hail storm over our campground.  We have learned that forest fires are important to the existence of the giant sequoia groves, but we are still hoping that we don’t find ourselves in one. Tomorrow we’ll be shooting some more footage of the park before making our way to Los Angeles.

-JAW & JP

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help to save us from cussing... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Today we saw an enchanted forest. We stood in awe.  We hugged the trees. We forgot all about work.  I cannot really explain the wonder of seeing a giant sequoia older than Jesus.  It certainly is bigger than Jesus.  One interpretive sign mentioned that a 6-foot tall human looking up at a giant sequoia is similar in scale to a mouse looking up at the 6-foot tall human.  Jessica put words to something that the three of us all felt today; “There is something wrong with this.”  They are just too big.  I am glad I am not a mouse looking up at a mobile human.  It already felt a little tense just looking at them, like the trees could uproot themselves and stomp me if they wanted.  We were there at a great time of day in the later afternoon.  The sun was slanting in and making the thick air cast a fairy tale feeling over the whole experience.  It was much later that we woke up from our trance and realized that we are here to film, and we should probably get to work.  

A quick note of warning: If you ever plan on visiting this amazing park, and I highly recommend that you do, do not bring a 30-foot-long RV.  The road into the park recommends that no vehicles over 22 feet take that route.  The guy at the park entrance asked if we were comfortable driving our RV, and said that we should probably be fine, since the road construction wasn’t happening on a Sunday.  So, we took the route.  It was a nail-biter.  Brandon drove up, and I drove down.  Driving down that route reminded me of how I used to drive go-karts as a kid.  I’d turn the wheel all the way in one direction, and then quickly, all the way the other direction.  It seemed more like a joke than a road.  I’m glad we did that road in the second half of the trip instead of the first!

We saw a great sunset behind “11 mountain ranges” on the way down.  The scenery couldn’t have been better.  We got back to our campsite tonight and met our first Southern California evacuees!  Since reaching central California, we have seen a TON of the rented Cruise America RV’s on the road.  They are not nearly as awesome or as subtle as our RV America RV.  But that is what this evacuee-family is driving, and now I’m wondering if lots of families are renting RVs because they had to evacuate from the fires and decided to take the chance to get out of the smoke for a bit!  We’ll try to research this hypothesis and report back to you all.

We just laughed so hard our sides ache. This is Jessica now. Brandon and I went for an after dinner stroll and when I came back in the RV Jen was telling me how Brandon was doing something with photos on his computer. I mean, of course he is, he always is, but for some reason I tried to find out what Jen was talking about. I wont even try to explain it, but we put together a little slide show for your amusement. ENJOY!

Tomorrow is a work day.  We have archival research in the morning and an interview with Mr. Tweed in the afternoon.  Also of note: we will not be watching any more of the World Series after tonight.  Who cares about baseball anyway?

-JAW & JP

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We need your help, seriously... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Day 23 – October 27, 2007 – Yosemite to Visalia, CA – Halfway done!

Jessica would like to rename the famous Half Dome at Yosemite.  After finding out that there never was a Full Dome, she has decided that the name is slightly misleading and they should rename it as “Eagle’s Beak.”  She doesn’t have a huge following yet, so you can be among the first to join the movement, if you’d like.  When we woke up this morning, it was warm and cloudy.  The forest fires that are raging in southern California are sending a bunch of smoke our way.  Together with the clouds, it didn’t look like it was going to be a great day to get the glamour shots we wanted from Yosemite before we left.  Fortunately, the moping around this morning and stalling as much as we could worked beautifully when the skies cleared for the early afternoon.  It was a gorgeous day, and we got exactly the footage we were hoping for.

Satisfied and light-hearted, we started to leave the park.  Then we saw yet another small cluster of people pointing up at El Capitan.  Some background: El Capitan is a PREMIER climbing spot for some of the premier climbers in the world.  El Cap is a huge, sheer rock face and the climb is usually done in 2-4 days.  Days.  (They have to cook, eat, rest, sleep, and poo all while dangling on the side of a cliff!) 

This face is impressive just to look upon.  Since we’ve been here, we’ve been scanning the face as much as we can to find some of these climbers. Since they have to haul their whole camp up the rock with them, and it takes a while to get up, I just knew that someone had to be up there.  We looked all four days and found nothing.  That is, until we yelled out Sunny’s window as we were leaving to a small group, “Do you see climbers?”  They said yes!  So we jumped out of the RV and ran over to check it out.  Turns out we REALLY underestimated the size of this rock wall.  The reason we couldn’t see any climbers is not because they weren’t up, but because the wall is just that big.  One guy had a telescope up to watch the action.  Yeah, a telescope.  To add to the excitement, a climber from Australia who had just been on the wall the previous night was there on the bridge, watching with us and answering all our questions.  She was super friendly, and didn’t seem too bummed that one dude in her group was climbing too slowly, so her group of three didn’t make it to the top.  She said, “yeah, well I got to spend the night up there, and it was a full moon.  It was great.”  Wow.

Okay, then we tried to leave the park again, but on the way up and out of the valley, we had to stop again at an amazing overlook of the valley.  This is the gorgeous, breathtaking, everyone must have a picture of it, overlook.  We were not alone on this overlook, however, and it was one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had in a while.  Everyone was from some other country besides the US, or some other world inside the US.  It was really like a zoo with people doing crazy calendar poses for each other along the overlook wall.  What country poses like calendar girls and GQ guys everywhere they go?  Apparently, that’s the country that was visiting Yosemite today.  They were so SERIOUS about getting these sexy poses in front of nature’s beauty!  It was really silly.  Usually, our documentary filming is quite a peaceful time, but this was such a zoo!  It just added more good humor to our day as we drove on to Fresno. 

We got to Fresno this afternoon and sent Brandon to go get his hair cut while Jessica and I shopped at Trader Joe’s.  Jessica has been raving about some tortillas.  If it is possible that they are as good as she says, then we have some awesome lunches coming up.  After making camp in Visalia, CA, Brandon cooked us breakfast for dinner and we watched our sad Rockies loose game 3. 

Tomorrow we’ll get to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.  None of us have been there yet, and we have a full 3 days to explore.  I can’t wait!

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support the "Eagle's Beak" Fund... Plus it's a tax write-off!

The “transportation museum” of Yosemite is behind a forest service ranger station, with a tin roof, and enclosed by enhanced chicken wire walls.  It holds four very old, dirty vehicles:  a snow plow, a tour bus with a canvas top, a red fire engine, and a railroad hobo cart, still on some tracks.  To be fair, only one person we met tried to refer to this place as the “transportation museum” and he used air quotes as he said it.  Apparently, old vehichle preservation is not the forte of the National Park Service.  These vehicles would be pretty neat shoved into the entry foyer of different buildings, or even in a display room somewhere.  But when they are freezing and thawing every year and probably housing untold creatures each winter, they are not as impressive, I must say.  We went to take a peek in the gate today to see if it was worth getting in to see the old cars.  It was not.

Most of today was spent on Tioga Road.  It goes north of the valley, and crosses through Yosemite.  It is a very long road, and we were, honestly, hoping to see more than we did.  The highlights of the trip were finding the old Tioga road, and finding hitchhikers.  We got to drive along the old road for a while and get a feel for what a one-lane route felt like, as well as getting some great footage, and sneaking in a quick hike to May Lake.  On our way back down, a couple of hikers needed a ride back to their car where they started their 21-mile day.  They were very nice, and I was personally hoping to give my hitchhiker karma a boost.  I have definitely gotten more rides than I have given at this point.  One of them was a film editor in nearby California, and was quite interested in all the filming gear sitting around the RV.  He’ll be keeping an eye out for Paving the Way in 2009.  We’re reaching viewers one by one if we have to!

We wanted to spend another night in the Valley, but of course it was all booked for the night.  So we are back out in El Portal again tonight without internet.  Isn’t it amazing how crippled I feel without my sweet internet? 

Tomorrow, we’ll grab some quick footage in the park and head to Fresno for produce and a haircut.  Until then,

-JAW

(Photos coming soon.)

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support hitchhiker karma... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Today was a simple day.  Jessica and Brandon spent the day with their noses in stacks of books, photos and newspaper clippings.  According to them, it was a very successful day for looking at papers inside.  Yosemite has a huge archive for National Park historical information.  They found lots of great photos as well as some neat video footage from 1920.  Awesome.  We have found significant variation in our ability to find great stuff at the different parks.  Yosemite is on top of the list. 

I had the morning off, and squeezed in a quick and strenuous hike up Yosemite Falls.  If you haven’t been to Yosemite before, I’ll tell you that it’s main area is Yosemite Valley.  It is a striking valley with huge, steep cliffs on each side.  Which means that if you have just over an hour off for a hike, your main option is to go straight up, which I did.  I probably did 45 switchbacks in as many minutes.  It was grueling, and great – just what I needed after so many days in Sunny, the RV. 

We had a terrible time finding a place to stay tonight.  The cell phone reception in Yosemite and outside it is pretty patchy at best.  I finally had to just drive to the RV park in El Portal where we were hoping to stay in to find out if they had space available.  They did, but no internet!  Once again, we have kept you waiting.  So sorry.

To cap off the evening, we caught the second game of the World Series at the only local pub in the motel next door.  It was a slow and uneventful loss for our Rockies, which are the worst kind, really.  Tomorrow, some filming and maybe a hike!

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support the Colorado Rockies Baseball Team... Plus it's a tax write-off!

What a day, what a day!  Yosemite is one of the three granddaddy parks we’ll be visiting on this trip, and it’s a doozie.  We had an interview in the valley, so we headed straight there.  I have seen pictures of El Capitan and Half Dome for years, and today I got to finally see them in person.  Yellow leaves were falling everywhere.  A young buck was sitting in the shade about 20 feet from where we parked the RV for the day.  Just sitting there, hanging out.  Of course he was.  Since it is late fall, all the waterfalls are dried up for the season, but you can tell where the falls usually fall by the smears on the rock.  But we didn’t let that get to us.  It is so amazing just driving around here and looking at the huge cliffs.  Even the people-watching here is awesome.  People are here from all over the world.  I heard a new accent with every eavesdrop.

We had an interview with one of the nicest people on earth today, Scott Gediman. Scott is the man here at Yosemite, he’s been hooking us up left and right, even comped our campsite tonight. We interviewed him in the conference room.  We have seen our share of National Park conference rooms, and Yosemite is definitely the winner - it has a lovely fireplace, cushy leather chairs, and blinds that actually work. Scott told us about the first car ever in Yosemite in 1900, turns out they took the “car” apart, brought it in by stagecoach, and then reassembled it in the Valley. Good thing we didn’t have to do that with Sunny, our RV.       

Smitten by the park, we decided to stay here tonight.  This is a first.  We are generally staying outside the parks so that we can get electric hookups, showers and internet.  Sorry for the delay in the update tonight!  We just couldn’t miss the chance to get some real camping in here.  Well, I shouldn’t claim we are “really camping” when we had dinner at the Ahwanee bar and we’re sleeping in the RV.  We sat next to a table of people who were all really good looking and seemed super campy-trendy.  We really couldn’t stop looking at them or at least commenting about them.  I accosted one of the woman in the bathroom and find out that they were world class backcountry skiing and climbing guide instructors.  These were not even just guides.  It was a conference of people who teach the guides how to guide.  Geez.  Yosemite.

We also did some grocery shopping at the Yosemite Store and took the free hybrid shuttle back to our campground.  Jessica and I took advantage of a bright full moon and an empty meadow to get some quality star gazing in.  I know you’re not supposed to star gaze on a full moon night, but it really makes the constellations easier to find.  Try it! 

We have two more days here in the park.  Tomorrow is library and archive day.  We’re hoping that Friday will be a play day.  Keep your fingers crossed for us. 

Yet another gorgeous day in California…  Jessica has been gloating during this whole trip about how great California is.  I think Brandon and I were looking forward to some bad weather here, just so we could prove her wrong.  Fortunately, she could not have been more right.  We are seeing the first palm trees of our trip now.  They are scattered among the fields, not quite the presence that they have down farther south, just little hints that we are approaching something tropical. 

We drove south today through farmland.  Maybe it’s just because I was raised in the Midwest where there seems to be only corn and soybeans, but even the farmland here is more interesting.  We saw a lot of orchards and vineyards all day today.  Avocados, watermelon, oranges… they are all more fun to look at on a long drive than corn.  Here’s one thing I noticed about orchards.  They are not like forests at all.  The ground underneath many of them was kept spotless.  Is there a vacuum cleaner for orchard floors the size of a Midwest-style combine?  Just a thought.

California also has a lot of these pointy pillar-trees.  Never seen them before, but everybody has them here.  They seem really pretentious.  I wonder if they’ll grow in St. Louis. 

We spent a lovely two hours in Sacramento today getting an oil change on the RV.  It was a pain in the watoosey finding a place that would do it.  Why did the Chevy guys tell me to bring in my Ford?  I told them I had a Ford and yet, they don’t have the filters I’ll need.  I don’t know either. 

Lastly, our RV park tonight has a little goat petting zoo.  This is the awesomest RV park so far.

Finally, tomorrow is Yosemite!

-JAW

I haven’t gotten used to riding around in the RV yet, at least not in the back of it, where the living quarters are.  Have you ever been looking at your bed as the things on it are being shaken around so much they are falling off?  Also, we keep carefully rearranging our one food cupboard so that we can find things and not spill other things.  But every time we open it, everything has shifted around again.  It’s a little bit like we have a strangely messy fourth roommate who keeps scrambling up our stuff, then quietly leaving the mess behind.

Today we drove around Lassen Volcanic National Park.  The road through was closed until 3pm.  Of course we needed to get through at about 2pm to get to our 3:30 interview on time.  So we took a 2-hour drive instead of a 45-minute drive.  When you look on the bright side of this, you realize that it was an absolutely beautiful day, so who cares?

We interviewed Karen Haner, who works as an interpreter at Lassen. Brandon and I (this is Jessica now) timed ourselves to see how fast we could set up all the equipment for the interview, I am proud to say that we have cut our time in half. Let’s see if we can half it again at Mesa Verde. Since our tour didn’t even make it to Lassen, we weren’t too stressed about the interviewing going perfectly, but Karen was great. She talked about Lassen being treated as the stepchild of the parks, being ignored by locals and being left out of funding. Perhaps that is why there was no money for roads at Lassen? She even mentioned a Lassen Loop that the two gateway towns, Redding and Red Bluff, promoted. Brandon cleverly remarked that it was the “Lassen Lasso”. Ah, he’s so punny.

(back to Jen)

The sad and ironic news from today is that we didn’t get see Lassen almost at all.  We are already on the way to Yosemite without really getting to see Lassen.  Grrr.  If only we could have at least driven through the park! 

The closing shot today was of blue mountains in front of the dying sun sending its last few rays out over an old volcanic field.  There were lots of places that looked rocky like this out there.  It seemed super weird to me at first, until I realized we were only a few miles away from a fairly active volcano.  If anyone can explain this photos to me better than just, “yeah, those rocks are from volcanoes,” then have at it!  We let go of our interpreter just a couple hours too early.

Lastly, we had chocolate cake tonight, a la Jessica.  I’m sure someone out there is having a birthday.  We were celebrating for you, buddy.

Tomorrow we are headed through California to get to Yosemite.  We’re hoping to avoid the “Armageddon” forest fires.  The game continues.

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support the beauty of the sunset... Plus it's a tax write-off!

So you already heard from Brandon a bit about our awesome RV neighbor from this morning.  The next awesome part of the day was the weather.  I think there was a magic curtain of warmth at the border of California.  After so many days of cold snow and cold rain, I actually wore sandals today.  We stopped at a rest stop during the drive today to eat lunch outside and throw the football around with the park maintenance guys.  As we go up and down in elevation and drive north and south, we seem to be running through seasons faster than we can celebrate the changes.  So today we had a mini-summer celebration. 

Lassen is a volcano that erupted on and off from 1914 to 1917.  It was made into a national park in 1916 when they realized that this was pretty cool.  I’m surprised it wasn’t crowned as a park sooner.  As we approached the park, we could see Mt. Lassen sticking up all by itself, just begging for a lot of attention.  But the place was deserted when we got there this afternoon.  In fact, we talked to people who lived 3 hours away from this park in Oregon, and even they had not heard of it.  We took some beautiful footage and photos today of sunset on the mountain.  Looks like a lot of people are missing out on a cool park.  We’ll try to explore a bit more tomorrow and let you know. 

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support the story of Lassen National Park which no one has heard of...yet... Plus it's a tax write-off!

ANOTHER ROLLOVER -->>

This morning Jessica went for a walk and ended up discovering this wonderful picnic nook along side the river just upstream from our RV site.  When she came upon this babbling stream, she noticed that there was river rocks stacked, usually three or four rocks high, on top of each other, balanced, as if they were glued, or pinned together. Not just stacked on the flat side, they were stacked on end, very weird. Usually they would range about two and a half feet tall. Jess ended up coming back to the RV and wrangled Jen and I to come check “something” out. She showed us, and we couldn’t believe our eyes. Jen thought that they were “balanced” and I just couldn’t believe that, and said that they had to be drilled and pinned or something… for what we could see, there was no evidence of glue residue or anything.  Jessica then noticed that there were more rock sculptures/magic tricks up the path on the other side leading to a permanent trailer behind the trees.

SO, being the skeptic, I picked up a small rock, and said, that if I could hit it, we would have a better idea how this wacky sculpture worked. So, I nailed it–not hard, but square. It started teetering around and fell over…. I couldn’t believe it! -One, that I even hit it, and another that the rock was balanced at all! It was as if I had seen a ghost, or witnessed a Jesus type of miracle. My face froze for a second and then I did a “hee-bee-gee-bee” dance… “Oh, My God, Oh my God, I can’t believe it… How was it standing?! That doesn’t make any sense!”. We snuck behind the bushes as if we were 12-year old kids throwing crab apples onto the highway. We then took a breath, and with Jessica giggling, and Jen saying “I told you!”, we went back to the stream and just couldn’t believe it. –I then saw a person by the trailer, walking, as if to catch us. And I said, “There’s a guy! There’s a guy!”

We then snuck back behind the trees and started sneaking back to our RV. Once out of the nook, we started walking around to the older RV where this guy lived, wanting to investigate more. Jess said that we –well- I should apologize and say I’m sorry to this person for ruining this personal “Stonehenge”. I once again just wanted to get out of there and peal away in our RV, and have a great “sneaky” story to tell, we did walk up to the front of this RV lot, and noticed that there were some magic trick sculptures out front too.

After kind of snooping out front from the road, this gruff looking man came out and confronted us.  I gathered myself, and knowing that he had been watching us, I said, “I’m SO sorry, I just couldn’t believe that they were actually standing!” We shook hands, and the ladies followed right behind me. “Oh, it’s alright”, the man said, “most people can’t believe it”. We ended up talking with Gary Burke for almost an hour, after walking thru his back yard of over three-dozen sculptures and getting photos and video footage of him creating another sculpture.

Gary was such a nice, gentle man, with a Zen-like, gift for making things appear impossible. I’m still in awe just thinking about it.

Thanks, Gary, for sharing your art with us. It was great meeting you along the way. Once again I’m sorry for challenging and wrecking your work.

-BW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support our adventures... Plus it's a tax write-off!

Like anything affiliated with PBS, it’s fundraising time! No need to sigh or change the channel. You like this stuff. You like learning about people and their stories. We are trying to preserve more stories. If you enjoy this Travelblog, want to support the film, and/or want to support us, please help support the production of Paving the Way.  We encourage you to sponsor $1-$5 per day of the tour. We are on the road for 46 days. The support you give will go directly to the production, not to our entertainment. Thank you so much for your support. We can’t do it without you. We can’t afford operators, no one is standing by, so use this website. It is also a tax write-off.

This will be the only time we ask for help until we are though the Los Angeles area, so please keep following our story. We love sharing it with you.

-BW

Well, today we took the day off!  Woo hoo!  We generally wasted the day by sleeping in, catching up on email, and solidifying our plans for the rest of the trip.  I do recommend wasting a day off like that.  Of course, by the end, we began thinking that a fabulous day off should not be completely wasted, so we sprang into action.  Jessica did some research and found us a winery not far from the route to Lassen.  We hustled over there, and got in the door just before the 5pm closing time. We had the loveliest wine ambassador ever.  She had no problem serving us a “full tasting” even though it kept her until 6:30.  On top of that, she was a delightful person to chat with and threw in some pretty awesome goodies with our order.  So if any of you find yourself in the Ashland area, we highly suggest stopping by Weisinger’s winery and having a chat with Misty there.  www.weisingers.com

We stayed in the winery parking lot to have a leftover dinner and then drove to our campsite for the evening.  We finally got to watch Spanglish, which we bought near Yellowstone.  A remarkably good movie to cap off our lovely, lazy day. 

Tomorrow is a driving day.  We should be catching up on chores and going to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  Stay tuned!

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support our passion for storytelling... Plus it's a tax write-off! Anything helps.

Well, our luck turned around again today.  And why wouldn’t it?  We got to Crater Lake today under the same cloak of gray that we traveled under yesterday.  We found out the rim road was closed and there was snow almost everywhere.  Not exactly great news, but we did get to drive up to the rim, and get some gloomy video and photos and get back down to the visitors center before our interview. 

We have started a bad habit when we get to our interviews of saying, “I’m going to go in and just check in, then I’ll come back out to grab a bite of lunch before we set up.”  This has been said on probably 4 or 5 different occasions and has yet to actually happen.  What does happen is that we go directly into setting up and conducting the interview and we never get lunch.  Of course, we don’t realize that we skipped lunch until we are dealing with three grumpy people suddenly in a small RV.  So I tried to make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the crew, but I wasn’t able to deliver them to the set before our interviewee, Steve Mark, historian at Crater Lake, showed up.  I retreated, defeated to the RV to eat my own PB&J and catch up on some light reading. 

Just when the interview should have been wrapping up, the clouds parted, and I saw actual sun.  Not just a brighter sky.  Actual sun.  So I went upstairs with the sandwiches and the news that we should try to get some more filming in due to the great weather.  We packed up quickly, devoured a couple of sandwiches and got back up to the rim.  It was freezing cold, but the sun was out, so we couldn’t have been happier.  We even convinced a very nice ranger (who used to teach JROTC at Jessica’s high school – go Patriots!) that he should keep the overlook open for an extra three minutes for us.  Later, I helped him take down the American flag from the visitor’s center, so it all worked out.  (He saluted the flag twice!)

Roll over image to see how our day changed.

To cap off the lucky swing to our day, the photo archivist, Mary, at Crater Lake was an extremely helpful woman who pulled all kinds of pictures for us that we might be interested in, and was cheerful and friendly and charged us $0 for each photo that we needed.  Yep, you read right.  Nothing.  Her position is apparently funded through an independent organization, so we can donate to them to thank them for her time.  What a difference from *ahem* other experiences! 

Having accomplished everything we needed done at Crater Lake, and because the rest of the rim road is closed, we are taking off early to Lassen National Park and will try to get an actual day off tomorrow!

We want to thank you all for your support after a difficult day yesterday.  We noticed you upgraded us from "road weary" to “road warriors.”  It’s good to know that you all are out there!  It’s a bit funny to realize that there are more than three of us on this trip together.

To wrap this up, the quote of the day regarding our lovely RV park tonight:
“At least there was a plunger.”

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support the Plunger Fund.. Plus it's a tax write-off! Anything helps.

The word for the day is ROAD WEARY.  I feel that it takes a special combination of factors to reach this specific stage.  I’ll tell you a bit about the day, and at the end, you can decide which factors led to the weariness. 

Today was not focused much on getting work done.  Our tasks for the day included seeing just a little bit of Portland, Oregon before we left it behind and getting much closer to Crater Lake National Park.  That was it, really.  I know that during the drive, Jessica spent a good deal of time making phone calls to arrange our coming interviews and archival searches.  But on the whole, it was a driving day.  A drizzly, 11 seconds of sunlight, gray driving day.

I really wanted to buy some fish from Portland.  I missed out on the market in Seattle, and I just wanted to get some tasty salmon to cook for dinner tonight.  I assumed, incorrectly, that a town named “Portland” might have some great markets by a port somewhere.  I also assumed that I could navigate us around this particular city given that I had a map and pretty decent skills in this area.  (hear the arrogance?)  So with Brandon driving, and me at the map, we got a very frustrating, circular tour of downtown.  This means that we circled it 4 times before figuring out how to get off the interstate.  Then once we got off, every road we wanted to turn on was an overpass, or an underpass, or a one way, or a no left turn.  I’m going to go ahead and blame the map for this one.  I have never been so confused or frustrated.  It was only when Brandon insisted that I put the map away and we would try to figure it out by intuition that we got anywhere at all.

In the end, we found a mostly legal place to park in downtown Portland, walked around the whole city and ate at a seafood restaurant (instead of purchasing fish to cook ourselves), where we all ordered exactly the same meal with just a little bit of delicious halibut.  In the end an enjoyable few hours spent in good company.  We saw the 11 seconds of sunlight as we were walking around.

Then it was back on the road for the entire afternoon in gray, drizzling-to-raining weather all day.  Hours of it.  Then night hit, and I was driving in light rain with incredibly bad visibility and we got off track again, even though we were nowhere near a big city.  So we decided the nearest RV park would have to do.  It’s lovely here and the rain continues to come down outside our mobile oasis.

Of course, all this weariness brings the three of us to think again about our 1920 counterparts.  I imagine that those jokers got turned around a time or two.  I know they had bad maps, with unlabeled roads.  I’m sure they had days of rain in the Pacific Northwest.  And I know they had all these conditions before they were halfway done with their own trip.  How did they DO it?! 

We push on.  Tomorrow is Crater Lake.  You will love the pictures.  Even if there is snow.

OR Trivia: Did you know there is no self-serve gasoline in Oregon?  The whole state! 

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support the Bengal Tiger. Plus it's a tax write-off! Anything helps.

We hopped out of bed in time this morning to make it to our first and only interview of the day.  It occurred to us that when we say, “today we had an interview,” that not all of you would know what that might entail.  So we finally took some pictures of the process for you.  It usually takes about an hour to set up, one to two hours of asking questions and recording answers, then another 30 minutes to tear down.  It really is quite a process.  I think the setup is getting quicker each time, since we’re each getting used to our tasks. 

The next item on our list was to scour the Mt. Rainier NP archives for old photos that would be useful in the movie.  Unfortunately, they wanted us to pay $68 per photo, which is a little strange, since the same photo at Yellowstone cost us $10.  There is, apparently, some ridiculous method of delivery which involves sending the original photo by pony express to a photographer who takes a picture of it, then sends it to Istanbul to be developed, and after something involving a Bengal tiger, Brandon will get a print of the photo.  This transfer could not be done digitally and significantly cheaper, otherwise who would pay the tiger? 

After that adventure, we took off for Crater Lake.  We only got as far as the Washington/Oregon border, which is where we are hunkered down for the night eating popcorn and watching predictable movies on tv.  Tomorrow is yet another driving day.  As far as I can tell, our one mission, besides getting to Crater Lake, is to find and eat some fish before we leave the Pacific Northwest.  Should be a great day!

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Help support the Bengal Tiger. Plus it's a tax write-off! Anything helps.

Today was our rest day.  That was the plan, at least.  We decided that instead of resting, we should do laundry, fill the propane tank and do two more interviews with historians who live in town.  Okay, not exactly a rest day.  More like a packed-to-the-gills day.  We stayed just outside of town last night, and the first thing we noticed on our way to the first interview today was how beautiful this city is.  It was even a drizzly, overcast day and still the lushness of every lawn, and the simple architecture were charming enough to make us stare. 

Our first interview of the day was with Al Runte.  He tried to convince me that it was really hard to get things to grow in Seattle.  I think he must be judging on a curve.  He had a beautiful and lush yard.  Maybe he hasn’t been to Denver in a while?  Al is an expert on the railroads, yet he somehow was able to give us a great interview about our Park-to-Park Highway.  We went straight from there to another interview in yet another adorable neighborhood with Bob McIntyre. 

On an unrelated note, we watched the Rockies on TV tonight.  Can anyone believe the Rockies are in the World Series?   

Tomorrow we are off to Mount Rainier National Park.  I’m sure we’ll have some more beautiful pictures of rain for you tomorrow!

JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Twelve hours, three states, two time zones, one straight line. Today we drove from Kalispell, Montana, just outside of Glacier National Park all the way to Seattle, Washington. Ira Glass, host of This American Life, navigated us through some early morning Montana fog and into the panhandle of Idaho.  I nearly spit out my hot coco listening to a show where the theme was Special Ed, and someone was telling a story about “developmentally disabled people travel across America in an RV interviewing people they meet along the way”. Seriously. No joke.

We are still learning about living on the road. We are out of propane and were forced to eat out instead of cooking dinner. Aw shucks. But now we have to live in the leftover smells of Mongolian beef and moo shu chicken. 

Tomorrow we head into the big city for two interviews. Let the West Coast segment begin.

JP

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Day 9 – October 13, 2007 – Glacier National Park

The first task of the day was to drive the old train route along the south border of the park to get some beautiful footage for the movie.  In general, the train tracks were below the present highway, but we found a good road that took us down to the tracks.  It was a really neat area, with a train tunnel just 100 yds up the tracks.  So we hiked all the way down to the tracks, climbed up and over the tracks themselves with the bulky camera equipment, and narrowly missed the train that came 30 seconds later.  Oh geez.  And we had been talking a minute ago about filming a shot from inside the tunnel!  Eek.

I’m going to make Brandon post a picture here of the river rocks of the area. I saw them all over, and it never got old.  Blues, purples, pinks, and yellows.  They were used in all the concrete mixes here, so the sidewalks match the rivers.

This afternoon we walked, not to a road or a railroad track, but to Avalanche Lake.  The two-mile trail to the Lake was dark, damp and filled with tall trees and moss. Really reminded us that we are in an “inland Pacific environment”, hiking on the West side of the Continental Divide now. We are really starting to see the ecosystems fade into one another. Tomorrow is a driving day, looong driving day. Seattle, here we come!

JAW & JP

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Today we saw deciduous conifer trees.  We heard about them from friendly ranger Andrew in Yellowstone, but then we saw them.  First, I thought that it was a strange concept.  How can an ‘evergreen’ change colors with the seasons?  Then I thought it would be neat to see them.  I did not expect to be so blown away.  We just kept driving past one and then another saying, “That can’t be true.  No way.”  Then we’d pass another.  It was kind of like looking at a picture of your parents when they were much younger; you know it is true and totally possible, but it seems so unlikely that you just keep staring.

In the original 1920 Park-to-Park tour, our fearless travelers loaded their cars onto a train and rode to the other side of Glacier because there were no roads.  So today we found the old train depot and got some footage of the tracks.  Later, we went on a walk on the road that was the next main entrance to the park in the 20’s.  There was a strange old bridge on that road that had been destroyed by a flood in the 60’s.  Then the new one was built on the remnant arch of the old one.  It doesn’t look like it will really hold anymore, though most of it looks super spiffy.  One of my favorite parts of this walk is that the river rocks were a beautiful mix of colors.  It dawned so slowly on me that they couldn’t have been placed there, and that they must be naturally occurring.  You can take the girl out of the city…

We interviewed Matt Graves for the movie today who is one of the year-round interpreters in the park.  We have found that the park interpreters tend to be really good storytellers, and know a lot about park history.  Hmmm.  Of course it was a great interview. 

If anyone is interested, the RV park/ bed & breakfast we are staying in this evening is for sale.  22 acres, 2.5 million dollars.  It is by far the coziest, homiest, and wooded-est park we’ve been to.  A real bargain.  It has a stupid name, but you could change that.  Brandon and I looked at each other when the lady asked us if we wanted to buy it… Maybe next year?  (as soon as we’re millionaires)  It also has a volleyball net with just enough sag in it to make nighttime volleyball seem like a good idea.  We’d recommend it.

We get another whole day here – more on Glacier tomorrow!

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Relatively speaking, today was a pretty chill day.  We got up and hung around the RV camp for a couple hours before taking off for a day of driving.  Now, I’m not a huge fan of a day where the plan is to be mostly sitting in a car, but I just could not get enough of the scenery!  Montana was out in all her glory today.  Our drive was mostly flat, but we seemed to be surrounded by mountain ranges on 2-4 sides almost the whole drive.  Did you know that even the little roads in Montana have a speed limit of 70?  This really helps justify taking the scenic routes.  We pulled off in the bustling town of Ringling for lunch.  Maybe the brothers are from there, but I doubt it.  The town had maybe 9 buildings in it.  Yes this is cliché, but really, what is life like in a town like that?  We parked near the one-room post office and noticed that when the wind was still, there was absolutely nothing to hear at all.  Nothing.  Our ears were ringing with quiet.  What an amazing experience for a city-dweller.

Later, as we traveled through yet another awesome canyon, we finally saw what we came to find… the old highway!  It was grown over, in places washed out, and followed right along the river itself.  It was so satisfying to go stand on it, and try to imagine those silly guys traveling through at the *screaming* pace of 12 miles an hour in their brand new cars. The much newer paved road that we were on (with our huge, yet-to-be-named RV) was so strikingly different.  When we got out and started hiking along the old road, all the sounds and smells were all of a sudden surrounding us.  All of a sudden, our 70 miles per hour doesn’t seem as great.  Well, there are pluses and minuses I guess…

Tonight we got to watch a little TV while Jessica made us some delicious raisin-garbanzo bean stew.  Fantastico.  Great way to end a feel-good day.  Stay tuned for news from Glacier National Park tomorrow.

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

We didn’t actually enter the park today.  We conducted two interviews in the research library for Yellowstone. It is, without a doubt, the nicest building in Gardiner, MT. Makes you realize how big of an impact a park like Yellowstone has on the towns that act as entryways. Our fist interview today was with Lee Whittlesey, the park historian, who called the Park-to-Park trip a “colossal waste of time.” But I’m sure the future documentary film historians won’t say anything of the sort about this trip.

After our interviews we walked out into the parking lot to the site of Jen, with a new punk hairdo riding around on my longboard. While Brandon and I were conducting interviews, Jen ran some errands and one of them was chopping off most of her hair!

For pre-dinner activity we wandered into town by way of the Junior High.  The Gardiner Bruins were in serious competition on the gridiron with their adversaries from Bozeman. We finally found a spot for dinner after passing about five “old west saloons” that featured identical pool tables, video poker, and bar stools inside. We ate at the “town café”. Inside were two dining rooms, one completely filled with Asian tourists and one with people from the town; we opted for the latter. For dessert I had my first taste of Huckleberry in the form of ice cream. Apparently Huckleberry is a Montana thing. Tomorrow we check out some old photos in the research center and then will actually go back inside the park to film!  -JP Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

This morning we passed Buffalo Campground, then Buffalo Trail, and I think we might have been in Buffalo Canyon.  But somehow we were still surprised when we turned a corner and almost ran into a Buffalo.  Sometimes the pieces fall together slowly…

Well, if you couldn’t already tell, we’re in Yellowstone.  From all reports, it’s the traffic-jam capital of the national parks.  Fortunately, that is not OUR report.  We can report that it is snowy, very old, and full of animals that have been rolling around in the protected thermal areas.  (They never read the signs.)  We have had some cold nights so far on this trip, but when we got into the park today, we dove headfirst into winter, as if we stepped through some mysterious curtain.  Yesterday, Wyoming looked pretty barren.  That changed so dramatically today as we got closer to Yellowstone.  Snow-capped mountains, canyons, and trees were finally out the window again.  Unfortunately, I am not a flowery writer, because the views today were just stunning, and I don’t quite know how to share that.  It was awesome.  You should come here.  (How’s that?)

The main event today was an interview with a Yellowstone transportation historian at the Old Faithful Inn.  We set up to shoot in what we thought was a tiny room, but it turned out to be the honeymoon suite.  (Seems that trends in hotel architecture have changed somewhat since it was built.)

Tonight, Jessica made us some tasty pesto pizza, and Brandon attempted to make margareets for dessert.  Margareets are a marshmellowy treat, and even when they don’t work, they still work.  It was a great day.  I’m looking forward to Brandon’s next dessert attempt, and spending yet another two days in this amazing scenery.

-JAW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

DARK & WINDY! I’m writing from the back of the R.V. as we head from Shoshoni to Thermopolis, in the dark. One doesn’t realize the amount of light pollution they are used to until they are in Wyoming in the dark.  Jen has been driving most of the day from RMNP to Thermopolis.  She is such a trooper! I took the wheel for a while to give her a tension break, and give me a break from reading, and I can’t believe how well she was doing. The R.V. is one big sail! As we headed north on I-25, the wind, of course, was sweeping across the road from left to right. It is hard not to over compensate while the wind is pushing you into the shoulder. Once the sun went down, and we started to head west, (into the wind) things chilled out considerably.

I don’t know if you have ever heard of “This American Life” from National Public Radio, and if you have listen deeper, and if you haven’t heard of it, check it out when you have moment. It’s a wonderful radio show that follows a person’s story for about 15 minutes of their life for a specific reason. This could be you or me, or someone across the street. The topic for which they are chosen is different for every episode. Real stories. Real People. A real way to pass the miles in the dark.

Filming today was wonderful. We captured little sections of what could have been the 1920 route. We had good luck finding places to pull the R.V. off the road to stop and film.

Now leaving and reflecting on RMNP, I will forever remember the sound of elk bugling across the valley at night, the color of golden aspens against the crisp blue sky, the briskness of the morning, and feeling the sun upon my face as it rose into the valley. It was so beautiful to watch a morning sunrise in the mountains.  Because of the curve of the earth, the sun reaches the tips of the mountains to the west before the sun reaches you. As the sun rises you see the light sneaking its way down into the valley to greet you. The anticipation and stillness is something spiritual.

Special thanks to Thomas Drath for taking us up Fall River Road at RMNP in his wonderful Honda Pilot. You really helped us out!

-BW

Add your thoughts by adding a message to the Message Board.

Up before dawn today.  Before.  I’ve always enjoyed getting up early to watch a sunrise, or go on an adventure and today was no exception.  We got to a valley in time to catch a 50-member herd of elk running around, bugling and generally having a horny party in the dim hours of the morning.  On the flip side, I’m not quite sure I am cut out for being behind the camera.  Did you know that if you want to catch audio sounds of wildlife and other natural beauty, that means you have to stay perfectly still for a long time?  I knew that, intellectually, but I had not tried it on a very cold, dark morning with the sniffles.  You can’t shift your feet on the gravel when the wind changes direction. You can’t jump up and down to get warm.  You can’t crack stupid jokes to your friends about the horny party that sounds more like nine-year-old girls joking around.

It is a beautiful weekend day here, and the park was packed with people.  One thing that makes an interesting National Park experience is traffic jams.  I prefer the traffic jams here to the ones on I-70 coming back down from the mountains after a day of skiing.  Here, they generally don’t last too long, and the other people are always stopping to check out some wildlife, so I can too while I’m stuck in traffic. 

Lastly, we got a chance to drive the old Fall River Road.  This is the exact same route that our fearless travelers took in 1920.  We passed a Toyota 4Runner on the way up the pass when it had to pull over due to overheating on two separate occasions.  All I’m saying is that I’m glad I’m not on this trip in a pre-1920 model…

-JAW