Home at last

Like all good things, and most bad things, our trip has come to an end. Thanks for all the comments.

This blog was really an experiment to work out kinks before a much bigger trip to China in the fall. We will also be taking a summer road trip to Canada, and will probably update these pages then too. If you'd like to follow along, either send me your email address, or subscribe to updates. Thanks again…

Dead trees for sale

As you enter the Petrified National Forest, a sign reads "Do not remove petrified wood under penalty of prosecution." At the gate to the park, a ranger sternly warns you that "It is against federal law to remove petrified wood." He then hands you a brochure that adds, somewhat unnecessarily, in my opinion, "Do not remove petrified wood."

The sad irony is that the warnings are not really needed. The vast majority of the petrified wood that could be picked up and carted off is already gone. What remains would typically require a backhoe to steal.

The vandals who did the damage are all long dead. Like many national parks, the Petrified Forest was opened up as a tourist attraction in the late 1800s by a railway company (Santa Fe). The main activity of the tourists was souvenir hunting, and they filled their pockets with so many splinters and sticks that that the area was set aside as a national park in 1910.

Still, there are enough big logs left to make the area very interesting. Millions of years ago, these logs belonged to a jungle. In summertime, they were washed into a flood plain, where tons of silt buried them. Over time, the silt replaced the wood and pressure rendered the logs into quartz. Finally, the land was lifted up, and erosion washed away most of the surrounding sand, leaving the petrified wood exposed. There are three major groupings of these rocks inside the park; all are fitted out with easily accessible walkways.

The main activity of tourists still seems to be the acquisition of petrified wood, however it is done in a slightly different way. Directly outside the park, in every direction, you can find rickety gift shops advertising the stuff. There, the logs sit in vast lots that remind you of auto wrecking yards, divided neatly into sections by size. For a few bucks you can get a paperweight, and for a few thousand, a nicely polished log. Of course, you would need a truck of some size to cart your log away, and a small army of movers to get it situated in your house. But it's a small price to pay for prehistoric contraband.

Cool Taos

(sorry, photos still out of commission, this is the sky in Montana)

Before our trip, we stayed at a KOA over the memorial holiday in California, where the population was decidedly sedentary. Here and there, scattered across the campground, were massive specimens of vacationing humanity. Most of them had their feet up on coolers and were engaged in a non-stop orgy of eating and drinking. One group of four people had even brought a portable oven and gleefully stuffed a 25 lb turkey into it. In these dark days of Atkins diets and 12-step clubs, it's refreshing to see such unapologetic gluttony and alcoholism in action.

As we headed north, we began to find our fellow campers more slender, but occasionally infiltrated by religious cults. In Missoula, for example, we met up with some ex-pat South Africans, whose women who wore bonnets and gingham dresses and sang prayers before dinner. I heard a 12 year old boy explain to his mother that the reason he had taken a bike from another boy was "because he has to learn to be more patient about adversity." I see a great future in politics for that young man.

As you turn south, things change again. The encampments of boy scouts, trout fishermen, and Church of Christ buses give way to vacationing teachers driving their kids across the country in hybrid vans.

By the time you get to New Mexico, everything becomes "cool" again. For a good example, you need look no farther than the upscale town of Taos, whose adobe buildings have all the appearance of having been built out of slightly melted coffee ice cream.

If you haven't heard of Taos, it's because you're not an artist. Its chief attraction is the Taos pueblo, whose adobe houses and church were an object of veneration for Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe. Even today the pueblo is a rite of passage for serious painters and photographers, who come hoping to measure themselves against the masters. Its residents, who are determined to exploit this mystifying stream of artists, open the doors early and charge per camera.

The rest of the town is quite a pleasant, sunny place. Its main square is composed of open air cafes, fair-trade shops, and dozens of "galleries" selling Native American-inspired art. We celebrated our return to this kind of civilization by purchasing fresh-roast coffees, and spending ten minutes deciding not to buy an interesting disk of green glass for $59.95.

But if you are the kind of person who finds it hard to resist a painted headdress or a piece of iron twisted into the shape of an eagle, I'd advise giving Taos a wide berth.

Weeding Kansas

(The photo this post is not from its location. You can find moose in Kansas, but they are almost always mounted over a fireplace. We had a mishap with our cameras and CF cards, and our pictures of Kansas and Nebraska were obliterated. This picture was taken in Grand Teton.)

After reaching the apex of our journey (The Mitchell Corn Palace), we made a swing through Minnesota, Nebraska, and Kansas. The excellent reason for this odd route was that neither of us had ever been to Minnesota, Nebraska, or Kansas.

But it's actually a good thing, because it brought us through God's country. God talks to you a lot in Kansas. "Life is the only choice," He says on many billboards. "Have you read my best-selling book?" He asks. He then reminds you, "There will be a test." Whoever put up that sign—and many similar ones—should reread the best-selling book in question, and particularly the part about taking his name in vain (Deuteronomy 5:11). It does cover such things as portraying your Lord as a smart-ass.

Still, it's good the people of western Kansas have found God, because there's not much else to find there today. It is a desolate place. Every inch is farmed, but typically by mechanized means. You hardly ever see anyone, merely neat groups of stainless-steel silos and parked combines. Years, ago, that wasn't the case. Kansas was dotted with a thriving network of small prairie towns, manned by an army of homestead farmers.

Today, the towns are still there, but many many of the people have gone, and their neat barns and cottages have long been plowed under. Instead you find towns with ghostly rows of brick buildings, abandoned storefronts, cracked sidewalks, and faded signs. It's strange that the heartland of the country should seem so empty.

We'd actually like to come back here some day and poke around some more. Places like this can have interesting secrets.

Kamping

The American institution that has largely supported our trip is Kampgrounds of America, or KOA. This picture is from the first (and in our experience best) KOA in Billings, Montana.

Typically, when we roll into a campsite, we have a time-saving system that ensures that our nights are relaxing and refreshing. We start by unloading our camp chairs. Then, I take one of these, open a cold beer, put my feet up, and undertake the arduous duty of overseeing Nicole, as she sets up the tent, builds a fire, and cooks dinner. In all, it usually takes about 20 minutes from parking to hors d' oeuvres.

For some reason, KOAs have a reputation for being glorified trailer parks. And some do look remarkably like them. The bigger ones always have a number of rough-looking trailers that seem to be permanent habitations. (The chief evidence is that they don't have tires).

But with rare exceptions (Grand Island, Nebraska, for example), KOAs are remarkably nice. Typically, you get a plot of grassy ground, a fire ring, a picnic table, water, electric, and WiFi. If you're one of those people who bathes regularly, they have showers. Their convenience stores are also reasonably priced, and the bathrooms are clean.

The first one was founded in 1962 by a Billings businessman named Dave Drum. By 1969, there were almost 300. The peaked at 900 in the early 1980s, but now number only 450, with some of those in Japan. Even so, trends point upward. With baby boomers increasingly buying RVs, KOA added 13 new campgrounds last year.

A-maize-ing

As the symbolic eastern frontier of our trip, we have picked the town of Mitchell, South Dakota. The reason? In a state full of manufactured tourist attractions (Sitting Bull's Cave, Old MacDonald's Farm, Mt. Rushmore) Mitchell has perhaps the best gotta-see-it of all. The world's only corn palace.

Some people—and not one of them should be allowed to reproduce—will say that the reason Mitchell has the world's only corn palace is because Mitchell itself invented the corn palace. I find this a travesty. We can't blame Mitchell because no other town has ever acutely felt the lack of a corn palace and dared to build one.

Mitchell's citizens came up the idea in 1892 as a way to put the town on the map. It turns out that Lewis and Clark, those bastards, had said that South Dakota was so barren that nothing could ever grow there. Mitchell proved them wrong. Every year, the city buys bushels of native South Dakotan corn, genetically engineered to have different colored kernels, and nails them in hokey patterns all over the building.

It's quite the attraction. 500,000 people will show up this year—including a carload of confused-looking Indian women in saris who followed us there. They took pictures and looked at us very politely, though every last one of them was thinking that America's time on the world stage should pass, and soon.

I would agree with them, except that I think Mitchell is an extraordinary place. It takes a special kind of person to walk up to complete strangers and say, with an entirely straight face, "Have you seen our Corn Palace?" I don't think I could do it. And, yet, the town has so many people who can.

At Wounded Knee

Though the Pine Ridge reservation may have the name of a tract-home development, it has nothing in common with one. We had a few free hours and decided check out Wounded Knee, the site of where the last major "engagement" between the US Army and the Sioux. You can find a good description of it here.

Though the incident looms large in Native American history, you'll find little there to commemorate it. This picture shows the site where the massacre occurred. You'll notice there is no visitor's center, no museum, and no informational kiosk. Up close, you can only find a few swap-meet style tables selling trinkets and a blue plaque explaining the event.

Why so little commemoration? Well, today Pine Ridge is one of the poorest places in the world. Not in the US, in the world. Average income is $3,800 per year. 85% of the people are unemployed, 97% live below the poverty line. Life expectancy for men is 47 years. By comparison, the life expectancy for men in Bangladesh is 63.

Oddly enough, it has plenty of rich farmland and many beautiful horses.