India Ink

Days 15-16: Sprint to the Finish

On day 15, somewhere east of Iowa, the urge to sleep in the comfort of my own bed overtook the urge to try out more funky lodgings. I marathoned my way through the remaining states, stopping only to fuel myself and the car.

And I'm finally home sweet home!

I'm here just long enough to unpack, return the rental car, repack and regroup, and hop on a plane to go...back where I just came from.

Yep, I'm heading back to the west coast for my next project, in Southern California.

It's been a heck of a road trip:

--16 days

--5,015 miles

--12 states (OR, CA, AZ, UT, CO, NE, IA, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY)

--Too many iced coffees to count, keeping me alert for driving

Thanks for making this trip with me, I've been enjoying all your comments!

 

Day 14 of Road Trip: Iowa

Sculptures from Pappajohn Sculpture Park in Des Moines, Iowa.

My favorite was this Panoramic Awareness Pavilion (above and below), a combination of colors, mirrors, and light.

 

Three Dancing Figures - Keith Haring

 

 In the Morning - Anthony Caro

 

Moonrise East August and Moonrise East January - Ugo Rondinone

          

 

Nomade - Jaume Plensa

 

Back of a Snowman (White) and Back of a Snowman (Black) - Gary Hume

 

Where:
John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Des Moines, Iowa

Day 13 of Road Trip: Carhenge

You've heard of Stonehenge? Presenting, Carhenge. Just like Stonehenge, except with cars instead of stone boulders.

Why, you ask? In the words of its creator, why not?

The next time you're bored playing charades at your family reunion, this gives you another activity option.

The "Fourd Seasons" (below) is composed only of Fords and inspired by Vivaldi's Four Seasons "suggests the Nebraska landscape’s seasonal changes as wheat is planted, grows, is harvested, and then the field lies barren during a windy winter."

Where:
Carhenge & Car Art Reserve, Alliance, Nebraska

Day 12 of Road Trip: An Epic Fail

Lest I've given you the impression that my road trip has been all rainbows and unicorns, running smoothly as per all my well-laid plans, let me tell you about one epic fail.

In keeping with my goal of trying out funky lodgings on this trip, I was intrigued by a placed called the UFO Watchtower. It's a complex in a remote corner of southern Colorado where hard-core UFO chasers gather to spot and document UFO sightings and discuss alien abductions. It also includes a campground, so I thought it would be a fun place to pitch my tent for a night. (For the record, I am not a UFO chaser, but I do think it's arrogant to think that we are the only life form out there. So yes, I do think there is other life out there somewhere. And what a great blog story an alien abduction would be...!)

The first thing that went awry is that I spent way more time at Arches National Park than I intended to. By the time I got to the UFO place that night, it was almost 10 PM. A couple hours before arrival I called a number given on their website to make sure I could camp there and was told I could, but that the gate would be chained and I would need to unlock it to let myself in.

After wrestling with the chain for a while, I managed to get it undone and the gate opened. The only thing I could make out in the pitch darkness was giant "Aliens Have Landed" signs and other alien paraphernalia. I slowly drove around for 10-15 minutes trying to figure out where the campground was, where to pay for it, or where to pitch my tent. The fact that the temperature was dipping below freezing and it had started sleeting wasn't helping matters any. I was wishing some alien WOULD show up and invite me into their (very warm) UFO.

At the very end of the complex, there was one lone van with a tent next to it.

That spooked me more than the potential of an alien abduction. There was no way I was going to get any sleep, wondering who the only other crazy person was (besides me), sleeping in the freezing cold, waiting (I'm assuming) for aliens to show up.

I hightailed it out of there (after wrestling with the chained fence once more), and went in search of the closest hotel, about a half hour away. It didn't meet the criteria for a funky lodging, but it did offer some color: a police car and ambulance were there, escorting out some fellow who claimed he went into a coma when his energy drink exploded. (I'm just reporting here, not judging...)

When I woke up the next morning, it was 21 degrees out, and my car was completely iced over. Probably just as well I didn't try to spend the night in a tent.

What I'm mostly bummed about is that I didn't stop to get some pictures of the alien signs. I'll be back to check out the place during daylight hours.

Where:
UFO Watchtower, Center, Colorado

Day 11 of Road Trip: Arches National Park

Arches National Park in eastern Utah has over 2,000 stunning natural stone arches and other gorgeous geologic formations. In the 5 hours or so I spent there, I saw just a fraction. This is one place I would love to come back to and explore more.

Where:
Arches National Park, Moab, Utah

Day 10 of Road Trip: Pando

I learned some new science on this trip: the most massive living organism in the world is a grove of quaking aspen trees in central Utah. The grove is made up of thousands of trees, but they are not individual trees; they all share a single root system and are genetically identical. The whole collection is considered a single living organism called Pando (Latin for "I spread.") Read more about it here.

The grove was not easy to find (no address, just directions within a very large park on dirt roads) but worth the search. I've always loved aspen trees, and these were in peak form, leaves shimmering gold in the autumn sun.

Where:
Fishlake National Forest, Richfield, Utah

Day 9 of Road Trip: Hot Springs and Hippies

I am now several days behind on my trip postings, so you get two posts today!

Next up in the "funky lodging" series: Mystic Hot Springs in central Utah. Water from natural hot springs is fed into a series of 8 bathtubs and 2 concrete pools. They are at different elevations in relation to the hot springs, and therefore have slightly different temperatures, between 98 and 110 degrees. The main pool (above) was a comfortable temperature for me, and I loved the beautiful red rock, especially with the setting sun on it.

I woke up early the next morning and watched the sun rise from one of the bathtubs.  I thought I was the only one up this early, until I noticed a couple enjoying (ahem) a tub slightly above mine!

The hot springs also has a campground, or you can rent a converted school bus and "be a hippie for a day." I was really hoping for the hippie bus, but I didn't book in advance and they were all taken by the time I got there. So I settled into a pioneer cabin instead, which is basically a converted shack with no electricity and a bed. A tiny house before tiny homes were a thing! But it did have a rug in front of it, for elegance, as well as a hammock and a duck pond right next to it.

The bus below was not one of the bus rentals, it was just one of many vintage items scattered around the place, adding to the hippie vibe.

Where:
Mystic Hot Springs, Monroe, Utah

Day 8 of Road Trip: Prairie Rose

I thought I left my heart with Fifi at the Hicksville Trailer Palace. And then, two days later, I met Prairie Rose.

Prairie Rose is the name of a restored sheepherder wagon that is now part of a glamping bed and breakfast, a few hours from the Grand Canyon. It sits on Navajo Nation (native Indian) land and has been in the host's family for generations.

It was my little house on the prairie for one night. And I think I loved it even more than Fifi... (sorry Fif..)

The inside was charming and comfortable, with colorful blankets to provide warmth on a below-freezing night.

The whole compound consists of two wagons, two glamping tents (in the foreground below) and several native Navajo lodgings called hogans, all of which are in the middle of a vast prairie.

The whole ranch is completely off the grid: no electricity, no water, outhouse toilet only.  The only noise was an occasional coyote howling. I was reassured that there were working dogs on the ranch who would protect me from the coyotes!  The sky was pitch black, except for a giant almost-full moon rising. (This was a couple days after that beautiful harvest moon.)

In the morning, a breakfast basket gets delivered to the wagons by the host (below).

The Navajo breakfast consisted of coffee, blue corn porridge, and apples & nectarines.

 

Hmmmm.  The Queen Mary in Long Beach, Fifi in Hicksville, Prairie Rose in Arizona. Gives new meaning to "a girl in every port..."?

 

Where:
Shash Dine EcoRetreat, near Page, Arizona

Day 7 of Road Trip: Joshua Tree National Park

The gnarled branches of Joshua Trees (Yucca brevifolia) make for interesting silhouettes.

Day 7 of my cross-country road trip, and I haven't left California yet. Time to pick up the pace?

 

Where:
Joshua Tree National Park, San Bernardino County, California