Did you know that Friday was World Smile Day?
It’s true. Apparently, Harvey Ball, the fellow who designed the ubiquitous yellow smiley face in 1963, decreed it to be so. The inaugural World Smile Day was celebrated nine years ago. There was a proclamation on the floor of Congress. Schoolchildren created smiley cards. The U.S. Postal Service unveiled a smiley-face stamp. Dignitaries showed up to… grin, I guess. This year, in celebration of the 10th Annual World Smile Day, the World Smile Foundation is sending packages of smiley cookies to U.S. soldiers serving overseas. Makes it kind of hard to be cynical about the whole thing, no?
Harvey, who died in 2001, called Worcester (Massachusetts) his hometown. On the first Friday in October, it is the epicenter of everything smiley. (Unless, of course, the Red Sox have been forced to end their season prematurely – then all bets are off).
Anyway, you don’t necessarily have to travel to Worcester to find happiness. You can go to Happyland. It’s a small town in Oklahoma. In what will be a continuing effort to offer possible small-town themes for RV road trips, I suggest any smile-seekers (and those seeking a certain satisfaction, even a perfection in life) try visiting these places:
Happyland, Oklahoma
Pleasantville, Indiana
Pleasureville, Kentucky
Carefree, Arizona
Delight, Maryland
Bliss, New York
Harmony, California
Nirvana, Michigan
Utopia, Texas
Eden, South Dakota
Paradise, Pennsylvania
Little Heaven, Delaware
Oasis, Nevada
Bountiful, Utah
Peaceful Valley, Colorado
Eureka, California
Bonanza, Oregon
Avalon, Mississippi
El Dorado, Kansas
Camelot, Tennessee
Or you can set the bar lower. There’s another town in Oklahoma, about 40 miles southeast of Tulsa at the southern end of Fort Gibson Lake. It’s a little crossroads called… Okay.
Posted: October 5, 2008 3:08 AM | Posted By:
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In my last post, I discussed what it’s like to drive the RV. Now I’ll answer the second most frequent question I’m asked: What do the kids do while you drive?
The answer: Usually, they sit.
Like many coaches, the Winnebago Adventurer has a couch set in the main living area and positioned right in front of a big TV. A couple of seatbelts can be stuffed into the couch or pulled out when necessary. So Luke and Jesse, who are currently ages 7 and 6, sit there, belted in safely. Now, we usually don’t drive very far in any single day. Rarely more than five hours. Sometimes only two or three. Often not at all. But when we do hit the road, the kids use the seatbelts.
Sometimes when I tell people this, they raise an eyebrow. They had envisioned a family roaming around the vehicle like you would a house. But I remind them that this is a moving house. Frankly, I’m not sure what the laws are in any one state regarding this, but hey, you’re not supposed to use seatbelts because it’s the law. You’re supposed to use them because it’s safer. Obviously, if one of the kids has to go to the bathroom, we can always pull over. (And trust me, when they were potty training, this was a very useful thing).
So what do the kids do while they sit there? Well, when they were younger, they would nap in their car seats. We would time our drives accordingly. Now that they’re older, they have lots of choices they can make. Sometimes they watch the scenery go by. Sometimes they draw… or make birthday cards for friends… or leaf through books… or do word finds and connect-the-dots… or play handheld video games. We keep a “driving box” nestled between them on the couch. It has all of that stuff in it.
Sometimes we listen to music. The RV is equipped with satellite radio. When the kids were really small we generally kept it tuned to the children’s channel. But I’m telling you, if I heard “Baby Beluga” one more time, I was going to go whale hunting myself. So now we usually tune it to a classic rock station. The kids get into it. Or did you know that there’s a Sirius channel called E Street Radio that’s completely devoted to Bruce Springsteen? It’s a road-tripper’s dream.
And often the kids watch movies on the big TV. Since we have plenty of storage space, we bring dozens of DVDs along on our two-month expeditions, occasionally borrowing from friends to replenish our film library – everything from Shrek to Spongebob. Some of them are old school, too – like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Pete’s Dragon (both of which are WEIRD stories, by the way).
Of course, the newer DVDs have all of this behind-the-scenes how-they-made-the-movie stuff, which Luke and Jesse love. In fact, Luke claims he wants to be an animator someday; Jesse says he hopes to be a writer. So it’s like a film school on wheels. Sort of. Anyway, it’s nice not to constantly hear “Are we there yet?”
Here’s a photo, taken about four years ago, showing what the kids USED TO do while we drove:
Posted: September 30, 2008 7:34 PM | Posted By:
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Of all the questions I get about my family’s annual two-month summer road trips, two are by far the most common:
1. How hard is it to drive an RV?
2. What do the kids do while you’re driving?
Regarding the first question, driving a house on wheels is different, but not particularly difficult. You can get the hang of it pretty quickly. In fact, very quickly. You learn to use your several side mirrors, take slow and wide turns, be extra careful during merges and lane changes, keep your eyes on the signs… Really, simply staying focused is the key (as it should be with every driver).
There are a few things about it that actually make driving easier. First, you’re higher up, so you have a better view of the road. Think how much safer is to be able to see several cars in front of you, rather than just one. Second, the Winnebago Adventurer that I drive is equipped with a rear view camera. Most every larger RV is these days. So I can see what’s right behind me by simply looking at a monitor next to the steering wheel. There are also side view cameras. So, for instance, if I want to change lanes and I put my left turn signal on, the monitor automatically switches to show me exactly what’s in that left lane.
That’s pretty cool stuff – something James Bond would drive if Her Majesty’s Secret Service ever sent him to Yellowstone.
Plus I’ll say this: After being nervous about driving the RV when I first started, I am now proficient enough to be on the U.S. Olympic Driving Team (I think it’s a demonstration sport in London in 2012). I’m telling you, my turns are a thing of beauty and masterly precision, like Shawn Johnson on the balance beam. I merge onto the highway like Michael Phelps diving into the pool. My lane changes are as smooth as butter, like a well-practiced relay team exchanging a baton.
Come to think of it, if Scrabble and mini golf also were Olympic events, I’d be giving Phelps a medal run for his money… what’s that? Oh, right. The second question: What do the kids do while I drive so masterfully? Sorry, we’ve run out of space… I’ll tell you next time..
Posted: September 26, 2008 7:51 PM | Posted By:
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Below is a picture of Paradise, Washington, at the base of 14,411-foot Mount Rainier. I drove through there in an RV a few years ago, winding through the national park on a glorious May morning and then stopping to snack and snap a few photos of the fifth-highest peak in the Lower 48. If ever a hamlet lived up to its name, at least aesthetically, it’s this one, right?
But what is winter like in this thin-aired hamlet, which receives an average of nearly 700 inches of snowfall EACH YEAR? And what does the future hold? I’ll tell you:
Paradise will be HISTORY. It will be gone.
Mount Rainier is actually a volcano, and someday a large lava eruption is going to melt the massive white sheet of snow and ice atop its dome. It will send a flood of rock and mud rushing toward the river valleys that radiate from the mountain. Paradise will be annihilated. Of course, this may happen many hundreds years from now. But still… I say see it while you can.
So there’s always more to the story. That’s why, as a writer and simply as a person with intellectual curiosity, I love the way I can visit these nooks and crannies in a house on wheels. In fact, you could find Paradise in lots of places around the country, and each one would tell a different American tale.
The Paradise in Oregon is in a sparsely-populated section of the state near Hell’s Canyon. The Paradise in Florida is a suburb of Gainesville. The Paradise in Pennsylvania is an Amish community. There’s a Paradise in Alaska, along the Yukon River, near something known as the Bonasila Dome. The Paradise in Illinois is on the shores of Mattoon Lake. The Paradise in Kentucky is on the banks of the Green River. The Paradise in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is along Whitefish Bay.
The one in Kansas is six miles from Waldo. The one in Louisiana is next to a town called Ball. The one in West Virginia is near a place called Looneyville. The one in Utah is located about 20 miles north of Eden. The one in Montana is between the towns of Plains and Superior (which would put Paradise at… oh, about Pretty Good).
More than 25,000 people live in Paradise, California. On the other hand, in Cochise County, Arizona, there’s a ghost town named Paradise. It’s an old mining community that used to boast 13 saloons and an open-air jail where prisoners were shackled to a chain run between two trees.
See what I mean? There are always stories to be told. So I vow to go out and find them.
Posted: September 23, 2008 6:07 PM | Posted By:
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Summer officially ends in a few days, but let’s call it a beginning.
This past summer, in this space, I wrote about my family’s annual June-to-August RV excursion across America. My goal was to give you a taste of what it’s like to hit the road in a house on wheels – or, if you already do so, perhaps to add a few more ideas to the mix. So I took you with us – to Mount Rushmore and the Mall of America, to Wrigley Field and Disneyland, to the North Woods of Wisconsin and the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado.
Alas, summer is almost at an end. The Herzog Family 2008 RV Adventure is over. But, as the title of this post suggests, it ain’t just a summerthing.
Nearly thirteen years ago, as newlyweds who had never even set foot in an RV, Amy and I decided to buy one. We figured: What better way to sample life’s options before settling down? So we spent more than ten amazing months on the road. The trip began on a blustery December day in Chicago. Two days later, we awoke at a campground in Joplin, Missouri, to find our Winnebago Adventurer topped with a dusting of snow. Now, I don’t recommend driving into snow flurries, but as we made our way OUT of the wintry weather, it was a truly liberating experience. Soon we were soaking in the sun in Malibu – at a campground overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
So it can be a winter thing, too.
We became enamored with the house-on-wheels experience during that 48-state journey. But when it was over, we figured that was that. We sold the RV to a NASCAR fan and prepared to go on with our lives – albeit with a life perspective that had been changed forever. But two years later, our enthusiasm was rekindled when I was asked to write an article about a Northern California RV trip for a national outdoor adventure magazine. This time, it was late September. Amy and I (no longer newlyweds but still not yet parents) pointed an RV northward this time. We weaved through a grove of redwood trees. We strolled along the headlands in the charming coastal town of Mendocino. We went canoeing on the Russian River. And we realized that we wanted to keep exploring.
So, it can also be an autumn thing.
Since 2000, when our oldest son Luke was born, we’ve hit the road every year. We tend to travel during the summers because Luke (age 7) and his brother Jesse (age 6) spend the rest of the year in public school. But before the kids were in school, in 2005, we spent February and March touring the Southwest – everything from Sea World in San Diego to Painted Desert in Arizona to the Houston Space Center.
We returned home to California just as spring was arriving.
The RV experience knows no seasonal bounds. Spring, summer, fall or winter, there are plenty of options… and there’s plenty for me to write about. So this travel journal won’t be limited to the summer months either. Every few days I’ll be offering a road-tripper’s insights and observations. I’ll write about how we travel, why we travel, where we travel and whom we’ve met along the way. I’ll muse about cruising through both the smallest dots on the map and the grand iconic attractions along America’s highways. And I’ll explore the lessons learned while… exploring.
So here at the end of summer, this is the beginning of a year-round, cross-country collection of one traveler’s tales. Call it a blog, a journal, an online diary… I’m calling it YOU ARE HERE because… well, you are, aren’t you? And a wise man – maybe a Zen explorer? – once said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Here’s a photo that sort of combines the seasons. It shows Amy, Luke, Jesse and our Winnebago Adventurer way up high at Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California. The date was June 16, 2007. And yes, that’s snow.
Posted: September 19, 2008 7:57 PM | Posted By:
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We’re home – well, at our other house, the one without wheels. It’s remarkable how fast two months can fly by. A few times during the 2008 Herzog Family RV Adventure, I was asked (usually by newspaper reporters for whom life’s glass often seems to be half empty), “What’s the worst thing about your summer RV trips?” My answer: The fact that it has to end.
So… what did we do during our summer vacation? To most folks, I’d simply answer, “We drove an RV from California to Chicago and back – zigzagging our way through 14 states over 66 days.” (That’s because people are busy, and you never want to overestimate other peoples’ fascination with YOUR life). But to folks who might be inclined to know more – or who might read my travel journal – I’d say something like this:
We visited Disneyland, California Adventure, Legoland, San Diego Wild Animal Park, children’s museums in Palm Springs and Salt Lake City, the Denver Mint, the Colorado Renaissance Festival, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Mount Rushmore, the Mall of America, the Very Large Array, the House on the Rock and the Matchstick Marvels Museum.
We strolled through the streets of San Luis Obispo (California), Santa Fe (New Mexico), Park City (Utah) and Deadwood (South Dakota). We drove past cacti waving us into the hills of eastern Arizona and broad mesas welcoming us into northern Utah and great fields of corn ushering us through central Iowa and massive rock spires towering over us in the Black Hills of South Dakota and a bevy of bison ignoring us in Wyoming. We experienced 118-degree heat in southern California… and then mountaintop snow flurries just two weeks later in Colorado.
We climbed a twelve-story tree house in Iowa, clawed our way toward the top of the Great Sand Dunes and roamed the Garden of the Gods and hiked through Cave of the Winds in Colorado, fished off a pontoon boat in Wisconsin, braved a waterslide in Minnesota, swam in a wave pool in Nebraska, watched a pirate battle and a jousting competition in Las Vegas, and made our way to the top of Pike’s Peak on Independence Day.
We spent time with family in Santa Barbara and the Santa Ana Pueblo in New Mexico and the North Woods of Wisconsin and the suburbs of Chicago. We watched a hot air balloon launch at the Winnebago-Itasca Grand National Rally. We heard Hootie & The Blowfish at an open-air concert. We sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field. We tasted blackberry pie in a place called Pie Town.
Funny, though. Usually, when I finish a trip like this I most vividly remember specific moments – images that emerged as sublime: A field of sunflowers – all facing the same direction – in Nebraska. A lavender sunset backlighting the Missouri River in South Dakota. An array of colorful sailboats gliding along a pine-rimmed lake in northern Wisconsin. A rainbow arching over a northern New Mexico reservation. A snowbow dropping from the heavens over Colorado Springs.
So THAT’S how we spent our summer vacation.
The trip may be over, but this travel journal lives on. One thing about our expeditions into the nooks and crannies of this country: They make it impossible for me to ever suffer from writer’s block. If anything, I suffer from sensory overload. So I hope to be writing frequently – about people and places and observations and insights and any other discoveries I’ve made while cruising America in a house on wheels.
Meanwhile, would it surprise you to know that I pretty much have next year’s trip already mapped out?
Posted: August 14, 2008 3:07 AM | Posted By:
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Las Vegas is the kind of a place where everyone walks around with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other shoulder… and the devil somehow has the angel in a headlock. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas… except if one happens to be writing a travel journal. Then all bets are off…
So here’s what happened in Vegas… written in dialogue form – a conversation between me and the devil… well, actually a devil’s advocate:
Devil’s advocate (DA): What? You drove an RV into Vegas? How exactly does that work? What did you do? Valet it at the Bellagio?
Actually, there are a bunch of RV parks in and around the city. In fact, we stayed at the Circus Circus KOA. That’s right – a campground attached to the casino, just off The Strip. The swimming pool came in handy, as the thermometer was just north of scorching. And by the way, one of my all-time favorite movie scenes actually involves an RV in Las Vegas. It’s from Lost in America, a scene where the wife (played by Julie Haggerty) loses the “nest egg” in a casino binge, and the husband (Albert Brooks) desperately tries to convince casino management to give it back. He even offers a great advertising pitch: “Casino With a Heart.” It doesn’t work.
DA: Fine. Vegas is RV-friendly. But is it appropriate to go there with kids? What’s next? Family movie night, and you rent 9 ½ Weeks? What can you possible do with kids in Las Vegas?
Well, nothing really, unless kids like carnivals and circuses and magic and pirate battles and ancient pyramids and castles and jousting competitions and… Let’s just say that if you asked Luke and Jesse where Las Vegas ranks among their favorites places we’ve visited during our 2008 RV Adventure, they’d put it right near the top, alongside Disneyland and Wisconsin’s House on the Rock. Luke’s says he wants to live in Vegas someday. Judging by his eagerness at trying a couple of magic tricks we bought for him there (Houdini’s Magic Shop is ubiquitous in the casino shopping areas), he just may have a viable act.
We watched the circus acts in Circus Circus, won a few stuffed animals at the carnival midway, and roamed the hotel’s Adventuredome amusement park (where we tried everything from a Ferris Wheel to a Spongebob 4-D ride). Then we went to The Venetian, where we…
DA: The Venetian? Isn’t that one of those newer upscale casinos? What can you possibly do with kids there for under a hundred bucks?
Well, we had a quick dinner at a deli. Corned beef and matzo ball soup (who knew Venice had good matzo ball soup?). And we strolled along the Grand Canal to St. Mark’s Square, where the kids were mesmerized by the living statues and the jugglers and the mimes. In fact, one of the latter picked Jesse to come up to the stage to participate in a routine – and he bowed at the end to great applause. The moment combined one of my favorite things (my son overcoming his shyness) with one of my least favorite things (mimes). So the dinner was cheap, and the entertainment was free. From there, we headed across the street to Treasure Island, just in time to catch their pirates-versus-sexy sirens pyrotechnic song-and-dance battle.
DA: Now that sounds a bit inappropriate for kids…
If you’re paying attention, yes. But the constant (and eventually tiresome) stream of sexual innuendo was WAY over the heads of a first and second grader who simply marveled at the whole scene. So while Amy and I rolled our eyes, the kids barely blinked. Now, the next afternoon we made our way to the Luxor… you think two little boys think it’s cool to enter the world’s largest pyramid? And then we walked next door to the Excalibur hotel-casino… you think they liked walking into a castle?
DA: Yes, but what can they DO in there?
Well, how about dinner at the Tournament of Kings. We watched the Knights of the Roundtable joust and ham it up while we ate Cornish game hen and broiled potatoes without the use of silverware. It was like professional wrestling on horseback, but hey… you gotta do it at least once in your life. Each knight represented a different country. We were supposed to root for the Russian knight, who was a bit of a scalawag. Believe it or not, the French guy won. Anyway, the kids were cheering as loud as anyone…
DA: Okay, okay, I get the point. The kids enjoyed Vegas. But what about you? It all sounds a bit… over the top.
Over the top? Of course it is. It’s Las Vegas. Subtlety is against the law. It’s the metropolitan version of Elton John’s oversized glasses. It’s a city as subdued as of one of Cher’s costumes. There’s a Liberace Museum there, for crying out loud. Apparently, even the mimes have their own way of doing things. Jesse swears she whispered something to him…
Posted: August 11, 2008 3:52 AM | Posted By:
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For a good time, call 866-730-9097. By that I mean, for a good laugh. That’s the number for Vegas.com at Hoover Dam, and if your sense of humor is juvenile enough, it sure sounds like the guy is swearing a blue streak: “Prices for the DAM tour are $30 per person. DAM tour tickets must be purchased in person. Children under the age of eight are not permitted on the DAM tour…”
Our stop at Hoover Dam yesterday was a totally spontaneous decision. We were planning on spending the night in Henderson, Nevada, just south of Las Vegas, and the big dam was just a half-hour away. The kids are under eight, so we didn’t take the tour. But just seeing a piece of construction that required more masonry that the Great Pyramid. Well, that’s impressive…
I was thinking that there are probably four examples of iconic American construction – the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Gateway Arch and Hoover Dam. I’d seen the first three; now I can cross the latter off the list.
Really, though, the most spectacular moment of the day occurred a few hours earlier, as we drove south from Utah toward Nevada and found ourselves crossing a corner of Arizona for a couple-dozen miles – a breathtaking drive between red-rock mountains and alongside a river that looked exactly like the chocolate stream in the Wonka factory. The kids were looking out the window as we drove (they sit buckled into a couch) and they let out a simultaneous, “WHOA!”
I can’t put it better than that.
Here’s a DAM photo:
Posted: August 8, 2008 5:38 PM | Posted By:
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As we drove through Wyoming over the past few days (we’re in a place called Beaver, Utah, after spending the day in Salt Lake City), it felt like déjà vu on wheels. That’s because we kept seeing the same two signs alongside Interstate 80.
Anyone who has driven through South Dakota knows that Wall Drug signs are everywhere in that state, like grasshoppers and hay bales. Well, Wyoming’s Little America truck stop and hotel may rank second. Every few miles, we were told a different factoid about the place – that it offers 31-inch TVs in each room, for instance, or that it boasts a 24-hour mechanic. The place can’t help but be underwhelming once you stop there. So we didn’t.
The other sign we kept seeing as we rumbled through Wyoming? STRONG WIND POSSIBLE. This one was more on the mark. Wyoming is one windy place, but in my experience it ranks second to New Mexico in that category. Actually, not New Mexico – northern New Mexico. Really just the city of Gallup, New Mexico. It’s like driving in a wind tunnel.
In fact, along those lines, I’ve put together a list of state superlatives (well, at least for the Lower 48). These are just one man’s opinions, and they tend to change with each RV expedition:
Windiest: New Mexico
Flattest: Nebraska
Hilliest: Pennsylvania
Buggiest: South Dakota
Emptiest: Wyoming
Greenest: Virginia
Brownest: Nevada
Most geologically diverse: California
Least geologically diverse: Kansas
Most inspiring: Montana
Most spectacular: Colorado
Most underrated in general: Iowa
Most underrated scenery: Idaho
Most tourist-friendly: Wisconsin
Best accents: Maine
Most road kill: Louisiana
Anyone got any others? Delaware may be tough…
Here’s a photo of the sun setting on our Winnebago Adventurer in Cheyenne, Wyoming:
Posted: August 7, 2008 12:08 PM | Posted By:
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Sometimes during a long journey, the best moments come in unremarkable places and in unexpected situations. Like in the middle of a state in the middle of the country, and like when life’s lemons suddenly emerge as lemonade.
We’re in Gothenburg, Nebraska, about smack-dab in the middle of the state, which is itself where the map of America folds. If you don’t know where Gothenburg is, it’s about eleven miles west of Cozad. Does that help?
We’re in the homestretch of the 2008 Herzog RV Adventure – we should be back on the Monterey Peninsula in about ten days. And we’re heading west with a head of steam, cruising along I-80 at 70 miles per hour. Well, at least the parts that aren’t under construction. Tomorrow, we make our way into Cheyenne, Wyoming. Yesterday, we drove through Omaha and stopped at a KOA Kampground in an eastern Nebraska hamlet called Gretna. We’ve stayed at a bunch of KOAs on this trip, mostly because they are guaranteed to be family friendly. This one had a pool, free mini golf, badminton, horseshoes, nightly ice cream socials, hayrides and pizza delivered to your RV door.
It was Friday movie night at the KOA. They showed “Bee Movie.” You’ll see why this is relevant in a few seconds.
Anyway, the moment that will stick with me occurred tonight. It didn’t happen during our mid-day stop at the Island Oasis Water Park in the city of Grand Island (you’d think, by the name, that we were in the Bahamas) – although the wave pool and lazy river were much appreciated as the thermometer reached triple digits. Yes, the Herzog family has resumed its role as a heat wave magnet.
No, the big moment occurred after we parked in our site here in Gothenburg. Luke and Jesse noticed a small playground about 100 feet from the RV and ran to check it out. About five minutes later, I looked out the window to see Jesse lifting his shirt up. Luke was examining his abdomen.
It turns out that Jesse had just experienced his first-ever bee sting. And his second.
But here’s the thing: Jesse was a brave little guy. He clutched at his stomach, but not a tear flowed. And Luke led him back to the RV, softly placing a hand on his shoulder as he did so. Trust me when I say that those two qualities – Jesse’s courage and Luke’s compassion – are, let’s say, not necessarily always exhibited by those respective little boys.
Anyone who wonders whether or not these lengthy summer RV excursions are good character builders for two growing boys… well, that bee sting moment says it all.
So Amy and I beamed. We offered Jesse a Special Jesse Night, and he chose to utilize his chip on behalf of a Family Movie Night. We watched a DVD on the big TV in the RV – “Galaxy Quest” (if you haven’t seen it, go rent it immediately – I dare you not to enjoy it). And the kids went to bed with smiles on their faces, almost as wide as ours.
Nothing has brought our sons closer to one another than our journeys far and wide –although, as you see by this photo of them sleeping in the spacious queen-sized sofa-bed, sometimes they get a little too close.
Posted: August 3, 2008 3:12 AM | Posted By:
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I played golf with my good buddy Jimmy a few days ago. Eighteen holes, not-to-difficult municipal layout, perfect weather. Yet I still managed to hack my way around the course in 107 strokes. Jim shot a solid 87 and spent most of his time in the fairway; I hit more trees than a lonely woodpecker. Still, I had a great afternoon – even though I couldn’t drive straight.
Anyone see an RV trip analogy coming? That’s right, the same thing happened today in Iowa.
Now, I happen to love Iowa. In fact, all things considered, I’d rate it as probably the most underrated of all the states. I’ll have to put together a Top Ten list one of these days. What I love about Iowa is the fact that it seems to be brimming with charming towns. There’s always a stretch of Main Street that seems like something straight out of a Jimmy Stewart movie. And many of these towns announce themselves with clever and hyperbolic slogans. Yesterday, we passed through Tipton, Iowa (“Where dreams happen!”). Today, we coasted through Vinton, Iowa (“City of Lights”). What? You thought that title belonged to Paris?
Anyway, we could have just settled for a straight drive. Point A to Point B – in our case, a simple trek through Iowa, from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines. But what fun would that be? The best of Iowa is along the back roads, and an RV was made for such exploring. So I took us on a couple of detours. Strangely, both involved the use of trees.
First we drove to a little town called Gladbrook, home of the Matchsticks Marvels museum. For the past three decades, a local fellow named Pat Acton has been sculpting… well… marvels out of matchsticks. One matchstick at a time. The museum – they call it a tourist center – houses several of his creations. There were large-scale models of the space shuttle Challenger, the Wright Brothers’ Flyer, the USS Iowa battleship, a brontosaurus, a crooked house and the U.S. Capitol building (are those last two redundant?).
These are bigger than you’d think (the U.S. Capitol is 12 feet long) and painstakingly detailed (the Challenger is accompanied by an elaborately-sculpted launch pad). Ripley’s Believe It or Not has purchased 15 of Acton’s creations for their museums throughout the world – from Jackson Hole to Jakarta. Acton’s most extensive creation to date – a model of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that required more than 600,000 matchsticks – has been shipped to a buyer in Spain. I’m telling you, it’s pretty cool stuff.
In his day job, Acton works as a career counselor in the nearby burg of Marshalltown – which happens to be where we headed next. There we found an attraction (adjacent to the Shady Oaks Campground, in fact) known simply as “The Big Treehouse.”
It’s sort of like Johnny Appleseed meets Donald Trump. There are twelve levels attached to a 50-year-old maple tree, each section given a name. Treetop Walk. Bird’s Eye View. The Loft. Bell Tower. Stargazer Point. There are 140 wires running everything from lights and ceiling fans to a television and a telephone. And there is Mary.
Mary is in her late eighties. She was our tour guide. It was a one-hour tour that could have easily been, say, a twenty-minute experience. But then how could she have pointed out the kitchen with the working sink and the makeshift dumbwaiter and the birdhouses made of license plates from 38 different states and the inflatable parrots and the motion-sensor raccoon noises and the swinging benches and the faux outhouse that opens up to reveal an animatronic peacock?
Really, I’m not making that up.
Once again, though, we didn’t regret the detour. Okay, perhaps it was the road trip equivalent of shooting a 107 on a muni course. But it was an afternoon well spent in heavenly Iowa.
Posted: August 1, 2008 3:22 AM | Posted By:
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As a sports fan, I can fully understand the “recreation” part of “recreation vehicle.” My RV journeys have taken me on a tour of some of the nation’s classic sports venues. I’ve driven though cities and towns whose names are forever attached to iconic sporting events: Daytona, Florida... Augusta, Georgia… Cooperstown, New York... Canton, Ohio. I’ve seen Notre Dame’s Golden Dome in South Bend, Indiana. I’ve roamed beneath the twin spires of Churchill Downs in Louisville. I’ve enjoyed a walking tour of Claiborne Farm (in Paris, Kentucky), where six of horse racing’s 11 Triple Crown winners were born. I’ve looked down on the gridiron at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and at the diamond at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
But I’m not sure anything quite compares to Wrigley Field.
A couple of days ago was Amy’s birthday, and (before we celebrated with an evening barbecue) she spent much of the day with her mother – lunching, shopping, relaxing. Me? I spent it with 41,000 people, all of them with the same mission – to cheer the Chicago Cubs to victory. It was an EVENT, in the sense that it was a sold-out Saturday in perhaps the ultimate sporting venue. Not only that, the Cubs – who have not won a World Series in exactly 100 years – are in FIRST PLACE. And it’s almost August. So cheering the home team on this particular day was a bit like having a front row seat to Halley’s Comet.
My sister Laura has sporadic season tickets at Wrigley, and she thought it would be fun to take her nephews to their first REAL baseball game. By that I mean, their first big-time, major league game. We’ve been to a couple of minor league games in the past two summers – one in Montana, and the other in Virginia. The one in Virginia was the boys’ first ever professional ballgame, and they were thrilled to hear that, hey, if they catch a foul ball, they can keep it. By the second inning, they were actually lamenting the fact that we hadn’t snagged one yet.
“I’ve been going to games for 30 years,” I told them, “and I’ve never, ever caught a foul ball.”
Three innings later, I caught one.
It was an unforgettable moment. Unfortunately, it also set the bar of expectations pretty high.
Funny thing is, my kids really don’t have much interest in sports at all. Funny because I began my career as a newspaper sportswriter… and I used to write for magazines ranging from Sports Illustrated to Basketball Digest… and my first book for adults was about sports (The Sports 100: The One Hundred Most Important People in American Sports History)… and my last six children’s books have been alphabet books about sports… and I swear I’ve read the Baseball Encyclopedia from cover to cover. So you can say I have an interest in sports.
But I don’t watch a lot of sports on TV. So my kids don’t watch a lot. And they don’t really have the desire to play a lot. So they haven’t really learned the basics. And they don’t seem to care.
In fact, if it weren’t for our summer RV trips they might not know a thing about baseball. As it is, they’re only gradually (and reluctantly) learning the basics. And let me tell you, it is EXHAUSTING watching a baseball game and having to explain EVERYTHING to one little boy sitting on each side of you. Jesse, who seems to have at least some athletic genes, started to get the hang of it rather quickly. His older brother, Luke, however is more of the artistic type. He was, well, slow to catch on. I can’t even begin to count how many times I pointed something out to him – “He just hit a double!”… “That’s strike two!”… “One more out to go!” – and Luke turned to me and said, “Is that good or bad?”
Of course, Cubs fans have been asking that of themselves for a full century now.
But you know what? The game went into extra innings. And Daddy decided it was time to go home. But his sons wanted desperately to stay. Wearing their brand new Cubs hats, surrounded by diehard Cubs fans, singing “root… root… root… for the Cubbies…”, they found themselves converted to the cult of Cubdom. Is that good or bad?
Oh, and here’s the funniest thing of all: I was born and raised a diehard White Sox fan.
So this post will self-destruct in five seconds…
Posted: July 28, 2008 2:09 PM | Posted By:
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My mother turned 65 today. Happy Birthday, Mom! So where did she spend the evening? At a Hootie and the Blowfish concert. Ah, but she wasn’t nearly the oldest person there. That honor would likely belong to my 92-year-old grandmother.
Perhaps I should explain.
Amy and I met at Highland Park High School. We grew up here, in Chicago’s northern suburbs, where our RV is now parked after a quick foray through southern Wisconsin. Highland Park is also home to the Ravinia Festival, which brings in musical acts ranging from Willie Nelson to symphony orchestras. You can buy tickets for the pavilion or sit on the vast lawn that surrounds it. My mother opted for the latter, celebrating her birthday with family (her mother-in-law included) and friends. For me, it’s one of the great perks of our RV excursions – we get to time our arrival in special places on special occasions.
Unfortunately, we (that is, Brad and Amy and Luke and Jesse) were only able to stay for half of the first song. That’s because they didn’t start playing until 9 p.m…. and we’d already been there for more than three hours… and the kids had been up since 5:30 a.m. (because we did an early morning TV interview on Fox news in Chicago)… and the inevitable meltdown happened just as Hootie and Co. took the stage. But we did get to enjoy the opening act – a country rock group called the Drew Davis Band. They played one of my all-time favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd tunes – “Gimme Three Steps.” And we had a fantastic picnic, along with nearly two-dozen family and friends… and some 14,000 other people.
Before arriving in Chicago, we had left Iowa and pointed the RV toward Madison, driving along a beautiful stretch of road – scenic Highway 60 – through the Wisconsin River Valley. We stopped for a few hours at an attraction called the House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin… and… I just don’t have the time to describe how remarkable it is. Google it. Read up on it. Visit it. It started as a quirky house on a rock (hence the name) built by a fellow named Jordan, but it now houses an almost unfathomable array of artifacts and collectibles and assorted wonders – from antique cars to hot air balloons to a huge room full of massive pipe organs to circus memorabilia to nautical artifacts to more than 100 fully furnished doll houses to a replica 19th-century Main Street to the world’s largest indoor carousel.
Best I can offer is this: It’s what Willy Wonka would have built if he had been a collector instead of a confectioner. Seven-year-old Luke Herzog, who isn’t always easy to please, called it “the most amazingest place in the universe.” So there.
But the photo I’ve included below isn’t of the country rockers or the House on the Rock. It was taken in rural Iowa, along Highway 9 as we headed toward Wisconsin a couple of days ago.
You see, only a few miles from Forest City, we passed through a hamlet named Fertile. Not long after that, we arrived at a town known as Manly. Apparently, there was a famous local headline of yesteryear that read something like this: FERTILE WOMAN MARRIES MANLY MAN.
So, naturally, I couldn’t pass this up. My grandmother may be 92, and my mother may be 65, but I’m more concerned with the fact that I’m turning 40 in exactly a month. The following photo basically encapsulates my angst:
Posted: July 26, 2008 2:01 AM | Posted By:
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You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a ventriloquist sing “God Bless America” – until you’ve seen a crowd of people stand, face the flag and sing along with a wooden dummy.
Welcome to the Winnebago-Itasca Travelers (WIT) Grand National Rally, where we spent two nights in an Aaron Copland composition come to life.
They come from all over to this motorhome mecca – some 1,400 Winnebagos and Itascas and several thousand travelers have converged on Forest City, Iowa, home to all things Winnebagish. And yes, a good many of the participants are… of a certain age. But you know what? It’s simply well-run fun: a tethered hot air balloon ride, a mini roller coaster for kids, a barbershop quartet, a bowling tournament, a Dixieland jazz band on wheels, a no-frills restaurant selling delicious vanilla malts. What’s not to like?
“National Explore America Family to stop at rally,” shouted a paragraph from the program. But there aren’t many better ways to explore all things American than by roaming the grounds of an RV gathering. It’s one of those fascinating subculture immersions that becomes a people-watcher’s paradise. It’s like going to the Daytona 500 or the Westminster Dog Show. Like traveling to Sturgis on a Harley or Cheyenne on an 1,800-pound bull. The only difference is the people here don’t need hotel rooms.
“Rock’n Reunion” is the theme at this year’s rally. So several RVs are decked out in, say, fuzzy dice or cardboard cutouts of Elvis Presley. (Monday night’s entertainment was a three-person band known as New Odyssey, which consists of three guys playing 30 different instruments and covering the widest range of musical styles imaginable – everything from Louis Armstrong to Johnny Cash to the Doobie Brothers. They’re really talented, except I could have sworn I heard the wrong words to Ob-la-di Ob-la-da during a Beatles medley. I’m pretty sure Desmond doesn’t stay at home and do his pretty face.)
This week, the GNR, as they call it, is like a meeting of the tribes. Various regional WIT clubs are represented, adorned with guileless names. The Kansas Heartland Winnies (“Kansas: Harvesting peace from the seeds of justice,” declared a banner. I’m still trying to figure out that that means). The Rushmore Winnies. The Winnehahas from Minnesota. The Winnie Poo chapter from Peoria, Illinois. A Texas contingent that includes the Alamo Winnies, Red River Wrangers and Astrobagos.
With all the proud regional representations, it feels like a trip to the Summer Olympics, only instead of basketball and marathons it’s bingo and Medicare seminars. Or talks about railroad road crossing safety or awning care and maintenance. I spoke to a large group of people about my cross-country journeys and my travel memoirs, selling some books afterward. Whom did I follow? A guy talking about how to check the air in your tires. I think his crowd was bigger.
Strolling among the sea of RVs, you can get a sense of the diversity of the RV culture – I saw signs announcing the presence of everything from a singles WIT club to a military club (MILWITS) to an internet club (NETWITS). But that’s just it, isn’t it? Everybody likes to belong – whether you drive a Corvette or collect salt shakers or breed cats or participate in fantasy football.
So if you want to pop in from Michigan and put up some homemade versions of the old read-as-you-drive Burma Shave signs (“Soap may do… for lads with fuzz… but sir you ain’t… the kid you wuz.”), then who’s going to stop you? If you want to drive your house on wheels from Florida to Forest City, put up a WINNIE-GATORS sign and surround your Winnebago Chieftan with pink flamingoes (one of them animatronic)… well, why not?
I’ve never been much of a joiner in my life. Sometimes I think I’ve been missing out. So who’s the dummy now?
Posted: July 23, 2008 11:37 AM | Posted By:
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There are two places in which my thoughts expand to fill the scene – while rolling through vast landscape in an RV and while immersed in the pages of a book. So let’s talk about the combination for a moment:
We spent yesterday afternoon at the massive Mall of America in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Fun place, if you like that sort of thing. The kids loved the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park (mostly because they are BIG Spongebob Squarefans), and the aquarium there was nice. (They bill it as the World’s Largest Underground Aquarium – we come upon lots of manufactured superlatives like that. Once we toured the World’s Largest One-Room Log House in Paris, Kentucky. Hey, you can’t blame them for trying).
Anyhoo… while Amy, Luke and Jesse roamed the amusement park, I met with an editor (and friend) of mine – Aimee Jackson from Sleeping Bear Press. We discussed current projects (we’re working on a children’s alphabet book about how kids can help protect the environment, due out next spring, called S is for Save the Planet) and brainstormed future ones. And we stopped in for a spell (so to speak) at Barnes & Noble.
A trip to the bookstore with me can be an interesting experience, if only for the emotional roller coaster on which it tends to take me. I look for any of my books on the shelves (which means either frustration or overweening pride, depending on the find). I offer to autograph them if they have more than a few (false modesty is usually involved). I shake my head at the sheer numbers of competing books out there (depression). I take note of interesting titles and concepts (curiosity). I grimace at the bestsellers with entire tables or shelves devoted to them (jealousy). Finally, I secretly turn any of my books so that the cover is facing out (guilt). And that’s only in the first ten minutes.
But while we’re on the subject of books… One of my favorite ways to immerse myself in a place while on my Winnebago wanderings is to read the appropriate book for each locale. I have to admit, I haven’t done much of it during this trip. I’ve been reading stuff either related to another children’s book I’m writing (The Greatest Game Ever Played by Mark Frost – about turn-of-the-century golfer Francis Ouimet – really fine book) or on writing in general (i.e. Stephen King’s On Writing). However, in the past I’ve tried to make my journey through the pages match my road expedition.
When Amy and I set out in a RV for the first time nearly 13 years ago and I prepared to write States of Mind, my first travel memoir, I read classics of the genre to get me in the mood. John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, for instance (he’s the best). And William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways (extremely well-written). And Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (interesting writer, overrated book).
Then I started getting more focused in my forays. Sometimes specific books evoke a sense of place. To Kill a Mockingbird (best book ever written) in Alabama. A River Runs Through It in Montana. Sometimes it’s particular authors: William Faulkner in Mississippi, Thomas Wolfe in North Carolina, Edward Abbey in Utah, Steinbeck in California, Mark Twain anywhere along the Mississippi River.
The point is, while it’s often said that you read to lose yourself in a story, I think sometimes you can read to find out more about exactly where you are.
Of course, there’s another good way to do that: Watch the local news (we did a FOX news interview this morning). I’ll write more about that another time. Meanwhile, B&N had about eight or ten books of mine, which was nice. And we’re now parked in the driveway of our friends’ house in Hopkins (a Twin Cities ‘burb). They have a GREAT swimming pool, and we’ll stay here until the afternoon, when we head off toward Forest City, Iowa, and the Winnebago-Itasca Grand National Rally (more on that to come, too).
Posted: July 21, 2008 2:26 PM | Posted By:
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