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Sightseein' and RVin': Travel Adventures after 50

by Sue and Ed Cook

241 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0267; ISBN 1-4120-5372-2; US$22.50, C$25.83, EUR18.50, £13.00

Sightseein' and RVin': Travel Adventures After 50 chronicles six years of fulltime RV travels and discoveries across our country, as told through e-mail newsletters.

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About the Book

About the Author

Excerpts

Catalogue Information

About the Book

Sue and Ed Cook spent their first 50 years in the Midwest, only dreaming of seeing the rest of the United States. When given the option of retiring early, they jumped at the opportunity, disposed of their worldly possessions, bought an RV, and took off! They spent the next six years exploring and devouring the sights in this wonderful country, while enjoying the total freedom of RV travel. Detailing their adventures in 48 states in the United States, plus brief travels in Canada and Mexico, their exciting journeys are relayed in this compilation of email letters sent to their friends and family members.

Please come and browse Sue and Ed's full-color album of travel photos at their web site: www.sightseein.com.

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About the Authors

Sue Cook is a retired elementary-school teacher from St. Louis County, Missouri. She taught for 28 years in the school, which she attended as a child. Ed Cook worked for 34 years as a telephone company technician, spending his entire life in the St. Louis area. When they met, they realized they had similar desires to expand their horizons beyond their limited Midwest existence.

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Excerpts

January 17, 1999 WHAT WERE WE THINKING?

It started New Year's Eve and went downhill from there. There was freezing rain in St. Louis, followed by 6 inches of snow, followed by sleet and more freezing rain accompanied by temperatures in the single digits. We distributed and delivered our furniture and other worldly goods to our three sons in Missouri, made final farewell visits to friends and family, and spent many frigid hours in Dennis and Anita's driveway attempting to free our brand-new trailer from its ice-age hibernation. Shovels came after using picks to break through the layers of ice.

January 16 was our planned departure date, and the weather cooperated with clear skies and temperatures in the teens. My mother, brother, and our friend, George, all met us at Dennis' house for final Bon Voyage wishes, and for manning the picks and shovels when we got stuck climbing his steep gravel driveway! What were we thinking???? Fortunately, there had been three precipitation-free days, so the roads were fairly clear and we were finally able to breathe once we hit the interstate. We drove almost a hundred miles south before parking for the night in Perryville, Missouri. Sons Mike and Mark drove down from St. Louis, and son Eddie drove up from college in Cape Girardeau, to meet us for dinner and more Bon Voyage wishes. A strong thunderstorm hit, and a tornado touched down 20 miles south of Perryville. Was this another sign? We're leaving the comfort of our kids, grandkids, family and friends to "follow the sun". What were we thinking?????

February 5, 1999 BIG BEND, TEXAS

Our first destination was Big Bend National Park, one of many of our nation's treasures I had read about but never thought I'd actually get to see. We traversed deserts interspersed with mountains to drive through Big Bend's Pinto Canyon. What an introduction! The map didn't warn us that this "drive" was better suited to mules or mountains goats than our pretty new Ford truck! We halted our lumberous descent several times and marveled at seemingly-wild cattle, speedy roadrunners and curious javelinas (wild pigs). The Canyon finally ended at the Rio Grande River, the great border separating us from Mexico, which was barely more than a wide stream. Our second day in the Park was spent driving the more conventional gravel roads to get an overview of this 800,000 acre park. Created by a sharp bend in the Rio Grande, much of Big Bend is desert-- pretty barren except for cactus and creosote bushes. In contrast, there's the pine and juniper in the Chisos Mountains, the tall grasses and unusual birds near the river, and the amazing rock formations everywhere. Then there's the incredible silence and isolation, broken only by the shrieking "caw" of a giant crow. This is one of our least-visited National Parks, and we drove for miles in some areas without seeing another human being. It was so foreign to our world, and so awesome! We were intrigued by "The Window" in the mountains, a V-shaped opening, so decided to take the Window Trail to see what we could see! We hiked the rocky two-and-a-half miles of switchbacks, stopping to admire a pair of beautiful blue Mountain Jays, and backtracking to avoid a family of javelinas. Neither the birds nor the wild pigs appeared to even acknowledge our presence. Nearing the "window", we walked carefully across the spring-fed creek on slick rocks, finally reaching our goal--a beautiful overlook encompassing the huge expanse of Big Bend National Park through the Window. The hike down the mountain was fun and exhilarating, but the final mile up was a killer! We're city folk, not mountain climbers! Never again!

We took the next day off from exploring to do a little housecleaning and laundry and leg massaging. Wednesday, we had somewhat recuperated, so we returned to Big Bend to take two more hikes on more level ground. The first was to the Hot Springs, a desert oasis surrounded by palm trees, culminating at several rock-rimmed pools of hot water being enjoyed by a small group of semi-clad bathers. What a drastic contrast to the surrounding desert! The second hike was through beautiful Boquillas Canyon, carved by the Rio Grande River, and surrounded by, would you believe, a bamboo forest! Another surprise!

Thursday, we walked through Santa Elena Canyon, a narrow canyon surrounding the Rio Grande River with 1,500 feet high walls. Even at high noon, the sunlight never reached the river. Nearby, we took our first trip to Mexico. We parked our truck and walked to a narrow section of the Rio Grande where we met a man whose only spoken English was "Two Dollar". We paid him and boarded his rowboat for a short ride across the swift river. We debarked and followed his pointing finger up a dirt road to visit Santa Elena, Mexico. What a culture shock! We passed a few emaciated-looking horses and a three-legged dog. Fortunately, we also passed a couple of other Gringos who were heading back across the river, and they told us the restaurant in town had really good food. The "town" consisted of about twenty shacks, including the restaurant and a store. The few locals we saw didn't pay any more attention to us than the jays and the javelinas had on our Window hike. Since we had looked forward to having dinner in a foreign country, we entered the screen-walled restaurant and boldly ordered a cerveza and quatro tacos. Surprisingly, the beer was cold and the tacos were pretty tasty. We just hoped we wouldn't be subjects of Montezuma's Revenge later! We completed our tour by taking a brief stroll through town, noticing that many of the tiny homes had tar paper roofs with satellite dishes on them. We entered the only grocery store we spotted, and discovered it was the front room of someone's house, with a limited stock of canned goods and snack foods. Time to go! We started to worry about what we would do if our ship captain had decided to take a siesta, or even go home for the day. What were we thinking? We hurried back down the dusty road and breathed a sigh of relief when we spotted him and his boat, and gladly offered another two dollars for our return voyage.

We departed Big Bend with sore feet and wonderful memories of our experiences the past week

April 15, 2004 BISHOP, CALIFORNIA

Moving our trailer north a mere sixty miles brought us closer to several more scenic road trips in the Eastern Sierras. While in Bishop, we couldn't meet our goals of touring Devil's Postpile National Monument and Rainbow Falls due to snow closures, but areas we were able to tour were spectacular. The first was Mono Lake, a huge glacier-carved lake with no outlet. For thousands of years, streams have carried minerals into the lake and evaporation has removed water from it. As a result of this process, the salt content of the lake is almost 10%. No fish can live in these alkaline waters, but brine shrimp, alkali flies, and birds are abundant. In 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began diverting Mono Lake's tributary streams to the L.A. Aqueduct. This resulted in a lowering of the lake level, revealing the fascinating TUFA towers. The strange towers are formed when the fresh water springs containing calcium bubble up through the carbonate-rich lake water forming limestone deposits, somewhat similar to stalactites and stalagmites in caves. The negative is that the lowered lake levels left alkaline deposits on the perimeter of the former lake, and the wind picks up these fine deposits creating toxic air. After this revelation, we were glad we hadn't decided to camp here! The good news is that, in 1994, the LA water diversion was reversed, stream runoff is returning to Mono Lake, and the water level is returning to normal.

Three sides of Mono Lake are surrounded by volcanic formations. We spent a couple of hours climbing up and stumbling over rocks in Panum Crater, which erupted only 640 years ago. We found the pumice and obsidian rock formations totally fascinating. Nearby was the June Lake Driving Loop, visiting four blue, crystal-clear lakes surrounded by snow and mountain peaks. Incredible postcard-beautiful settings. We also drove through recently-plowed roads to reach the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area. A few weeks ago, the Weather Channel reported 165" snow base at Mammoth--guess it will take awhile for that to melt! It has been several years since the Sierras had this much snow, and the melt will replenish water levels for hundreds of miles.

One cloudy, cool day we visited Convict Lake, another clear cold lake surrounded by mountains on three sides. Convict Lake is a mile long and 163 feet deep and stocked with some nice-sized trout--a fisherman's dream! Some locals were surprised we didn't plan to fish while in this area, but the $80 CA fishing license was too rich for our blood! We enjoy exploring more anyway, so we took a four- mile hike around the lake, then partly up the John Muir Trail. We had hoped to see a waterfall feeding one of the many streams flowing into the lake, but the trail proved too steep and rugged for these old-timers. So, we returned to the car and drove a few miles east to see Hot Creek. Wow! What a surprise! We thought we were back in Yellowstone! There's obviously still a lot of volcanic activity in this area, and Hot Creek is the proof. Water boils up out of the ground, blowing steam vents into the air, and drilling holes through the rocks. Most of this water flows into an icy creek, creating a natural hot tub (or scalding pond if you don't know where to enter). Signs are posted everywhere warning against swimming, but there we saw at least three dozen bathers in the water the day we visited. The warnings about occasional geysers erupting were enough to keep us clear and dry!

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Catalogue Information

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