Death Valley | Wing's World

If you read the previous post, you’ll know that RT 2014 came with extra drama. But the following year, as memory and these photos remind me, the sun SHONE on Red Rover and her occupants.

Our blessings started with a quick detour in southwestern Oregon’s Illinois River scenic area, which we’d driven past for years.

Ok, wow. Our bad. Some of these rocks were emerald-green with serpentine.

Sunny riverside or pitcher-plant-filled swamp, this place deserves the word “awesome.”

Next up: a precious visit with our now-toddling twin cuzzies in Oakland.

This lets our own kids off the hook, grandchildren-wise.

We then made our Big Left Turn a bit earlier than some years, skipping LA to head straight over the mountains and into Death Valley.

These tamarisk trees are invasive…but their shade still feels pretty good!

Winter did catch back up with us in Albuquerque, but we took advantage of the snow to go for an extra-beautiful hike with our friend Beth in the Tent Rocks National Monument (one of our favorite spots when we lived for half a year in Santa Fe twelve years before).

Not many photos follow, so we must have zipped across the lower half of the country again…but then found ourselves once more in the Asheville area, soaking up the Blue Ridge. Since I grew up in NC, these mountains were my earliest benchmark of beauty.

Next up–the perennial apex of our trip: Durham, NC, my hometown. There, as always, we hung out on my folks’ little farm, which is slowly being donated to the adjacent Carolina Friends School, which they helped to found.

Since the place is undergoing these changes, I took some photos to document the delightfully messy present that was also my childhood.

My folks’ basement speaks volumes about their commitment to the athletic, outdoor life.

Remember those blessings I was talking about? In 2015, we were gifted with the opportunity not just to cheer for our beloved Tarheels on TV, but to attend a game in person.

The Heels promptly lost. At home. To DUKE. Some of you know how horribly terrible that is. Kind of the opposite of a blessing, in fact. Moving on…

Since I had published Book Two of my YA Flying Burgowski trilogy, Headwinds, at the end of 2014, this road trip featured another reading at Durham’s famous Regulator Bookshop. This time I enlisted my old middle school English teacher, Henry Walker, and a couple of current Friends School students, to do a dramatic reading with me!

Still going strong after 40+ years of teaching. Thanks, Henry. For everything.

Yet another blessing, as we headed home: discovering this amazing chunk of scenery in the Arkansas Ozarks.

I know, right? We’d never heard of it either.

So pretty–all that beautiful brown sandstone!

At least I think it’s sandstone. In my next life I wanna be a geologist.

We stayed in a state-run lodge as nice as anything you’d find in a national park.

I took the opportunity of the lodge’s high bluff to emulate my book’s flying-girl heroine.

On the way home, latitude I-40, we stopped to recreate near our favorite chunk of North Texas–but this time, instead of Palo Duro, we discovered its cousin, Caprock Canyon.

As if all this scenery weren’t enough, we made time for a quick detour back to the Mother of All Gorge-ousness, the Grand Canyon. Only for a day hike–but I made the most of it.

7 and a 1/2 miles down to the Inner Gorge view…then 7 and a 1/2 miles back up the Bright Angel Trail.

Luckily there was a little scenery along the way.

Looking back down…wishing I could still be down there.

Near Page, AZ, The Mate and I took a slot canyon tour–not the overly-famous Antelope Canyon, but a smaller one.

Photos absolutely obligatory here, for couples.

Blessing #…oh, I’ve lost track…was meeting Adventure Buddies Tom & Kate (by now you should remember them) outside of good ol’ Joshua Tree National Park for three days of desert togetherness.

We also drove down near Palm Desert to walk through a beautiful oasis there, traditional lands of the Agua Caliente Cahuilla Band of Indians.

So much better than another frickin’ golf course.

Driving home on the eastern side of the Sierras, we found public campgrounds still closed, but managed to squeeze into a small private one.

Sunrise was a special blessing all its own.

Next along the way: Mono Lake. We only had a couple extra hours, but…it’s right there!

After passing by so quickly last trip, we got a little more up close and personal this time.

In northern California, near Susanville, we scored what is still one of our all-time favorite rail-trails. I mean–come on!

A river canyon AND our own dedicated bike tunnel? Stop it!

Next, a state park in middle Oregon, near Prineville, by the Deschutes River…

The campground was closed, but they had these cool rustic cabins. When snow flurried that night, we were grateful for the extra insulation!

Final night, before entering Washington? We camped in Oregon’s famous Columbia Gorge. A fitting reminder of what gorge-ousness exists in our very backyard.

OK, OK–next time we won’t just tack you on to the end of a multi-week road trip! You deserve your own.

Final lesson from this retrospective of 6 years ago? All road trips are gifts. But some gifts have more facets than others. 2015 was extra special that way. Leaving me extra grateful.

Foodies, sorry–that’s “desert” with one “s.” You’ll have to try someone else’s blog for the caloric kind. I’m writing about dirt today.

We just spent a day and a night in Death Valley, where the dirt looks like this:

(Courtesy Wikipedia)

and this:

(Courtesy Wikipedia)

We were hoping for wildflowers, but a heat wave a couple of weeks ago seems to have sped them through their cycle too fast. We enjoyed a few glimpses of yellow and purple, but most of the color came from…dirt.

The cool thing about America’s deserts, though, is that they come in infinite variety. You may be familiar with the red-rock areas like Arches and Grand Canyon; we are, which is one reason we didn’t route ourselves that way this year.

Sorry, Zion, not this year!

Instead we found ourselves discovering little patches of Amazing, like the tiny tip of Nevada where we saw Joshua Trees and wild burros,

(Courtesy Wikimedia)

or the western edge of New Mexico, where the earth seems to have neglected to clean up the results of a brief spell of vomit:

(Courtesy Wikimedia)

Of course, this being the weirdest US weather year in recent history, everything we saw while pulling into Albuquerque was covered in snow, and I was too chilled to stop and take pictures. But I think I’ve made my point for now, which is that we Americans are SO lucky!! We don’t have our just deserts–we have a whole glorious smorgasbord of sand and dirt and rock to choose from.

So the next time you feel deserted? Think about it–is that really such a bad thing to be?