While driving cross country back home from a road trip vacation on July 4 I listened to a rebroadcast of On Point's Tom Ashbrook interview with David McCullough. At one point David noted that many Americans don't really understand the Revolutionary War, that it has been overshadowed by so much other history. He said that our view is often of men in funny shaped hats fighting off the Red Coats in broad sweeping frontal marches. As he told the tale of the year of 1776 I realized he was right on the money in my case. I knew of the shot heard 'round the world at Lexington and Concord; I knew there was a battle at Bunker Hill and later George Washington crossed the Delaware River to defeat the British and the Hessians.
"The war was a longer, far more arduous, and more painful struggle than later generations would understand or sufficiently appreciate. By the time it ended, it had taken the lives of an estimated 25,000 Americans, or roughly 1 percent of the population. In percentage of lives lost, it was the most costly war in American history, except for the Civil War"(Loc 4798)
The year 1775 closed with the British barricaded in Boston with the Colonists bottling them up. But King George had promised a new influx of troops and got help from Prussia. The invaders packed up from Boston and headed first north, then south to New York. The Colonists got there first but found it was indefensible given the enormous strength of the British fleet that dominated the waterways. The Americans lost battle throughout the year and eventually fled Long Island, then Manhattan and retreat through New Jersey to Delaware. It was on Christmas night 1776 that Washington took his army back across the Delaware River to win two battles and give the new country hope. But it would take another 7 or 8 years for war to end through a treaty in Paris after the victory in Yorktown.
Having read a few war histories now, I'm struck by how important it is for the leading generals to be so calm and resolute in the face of enormous pressures. The revolutionary army had to put up with low enlistments, poorly trained soldiers, lack of ammunition and other supplies; in short it was "a year of all-too-few victoreis, of sustained suffering, disease, huner, desertion, cowardice, disillusionment, defeat, terrible discouragement, and fear,... but also of phenomenal courage and bedrock devotion to country" (Location 4800). I can barely imagine how George Washington handled all this.
War in the age of sails was a world apart from that of steam and engines. The British needed wind and tides in order to bring their ships up the waterways of New York. Certainly, there were weather conditions for D-Day in WWII; but machinery and other advances in technology changed the face of war. Also, the establishment of West Point, Annapolis, and the other military universities have been essential to America's abilities to fight and win wars.
A terrific read of this pivotal year in our country's history. I'm going to read the Oxford history of this period in the not too distant future. It is essential, I think, for us to know "what a close call it was at the beginning-how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities or strengths of individual character had made the difference - the outcome seemed little short of a miracle." (Loc 4808)
We'd travelled a long way and had another stretch of over 1,300 miles before we got home. We looked at various routes and eventually decided on the most direct taking I40 and SR58 over to Bakersfield, California then up I5 home. Now Carla and I and the kids drove down big stretches of I5 taking the kids to visit the grandparents in the San Francisco Bay area and the Mojave Desert in Southern California where I grew up. It's a dead boring drive but it is fast and direct and by this time we were like the milk horse who could smell the barn. We decided on overnight stops in Kettleman City, California, at the bottom of the San Joaquin Valley and Medford, Oregon. We pushed the first day so we'd have some time to stop off in Ashland, a little town in southern Oregon that we love.
1,321 route home after visiting the Grand Canyon
So we headed west across the desert along I40 paralleling Route 66. Once we reached Barstow, California I felt like I was in my home country; we sprinted across State Route 58 toward Boron, Mojave, Tehachapi and Bakersfield. Here's a picture of Jeanette riding along. She'd take pictures and samples of stones and vegetation along the way.
Jeanette taking notes along the trip
There was a rest stop in the small town of Boron so we stopped for a bathroom break. Now this was the weather I remembered growing up; we were about 50 miles north of my home town, Palmdale, California. When we stepped out of the car we were greeted by 105˚ F and winds of at least 20 MPH. Palmdale got its name from German immigrants who named it after what they thought were the abundant palm trees throughout this part of the Mojave Desert. But they weren't palm trees; they were Joshuas.
A pretty old Joshua tree in Boron, California
When I was 3 we lived in Madison, New Jersey and my dad worked in Bell Labs in Baltimore, Maryland. In the days before central air conditioning, the hot humid summers were just too hideous (sorry east coasters). With the aero-space era starting to boom in the 50s he took a job at Lockheed, in Palmdale, as an instrumentation and test engineer. He supported the F104 Starfighter. Here is a video that gives a good idea of what is sounded and looked like when I was a kid as these jets flew over in pairs everyday, often breaking the sound barrier.
After his stint at Lockheed my dad went to work at Jet Propulsion Labs near Edwards Air Force Base where he worked on rocket engines. Now Edwards was about 40 miles north of Palmdale, but on nights they would test fire the rocket motors my dad would take us up on the roof of our house with a pair of binoculars where we could see the flames. He then took a job in the town of Boron (where we hit the rest stop) where he worked for Garrett AirResearch testing the liquid gas containers for the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft. His job was to blow them up to make sure they were strong enough to stand the requirements of outer space. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of my dad. Finally in the 70s and 80s after the space program slowed down he worked as an engineer at the borax mine in Boron. If you are old enough you may remember "40 mule team Borax". Enormous mule trains would haul the borax ore from the desert to where ever. Former president Ronald Regan was a spokesman for the company when he was an actor. All of that is to set some context for the picture below. Our rest stop was just the other side of a fence from the borax mine.
Borax mine in Boron, California
The tumbleweeds give you a good idea of what it was like playing out behind our house when I was young. Our backdoor opened on hundreds of miles of desert like this. A few laters two more streets were put in behind us. I hardly recognize Palmdale now; it an enormous bedroom community for Los Angeles. The desert has largely disappeared.
We passed through Tehachapi; another town from that Little Feat song "Willin'" (Tehachapi to Tonopah). We saw a UP train stopped; it looks like it was having problems overheating. I of course couldn't pass up the photo opportunity. I still had on my polarizing filter from the Grand Canyon for the first shot.
Stopped northbound UP in Tehachapi, California
Stopped northbound UP in Tehachapi, California
We took a quick detour to see the famous Tehachapi Loop where trains circle over or below themselves winding through the steep grades of the Tehachapi Mountains at the base of the Sierra-Nevada mountain range. There wasn't any train action so we piled back into the car. We pulled into Kettleman City, California around 6:00. It's not much of a town; a few gas stations, fast food joints, and a motel or two. But they DO have In-n-Out! We told Jeanette, a vegan, we were throwing her under the bus and going for burgers. We dropped her off at a nearby Subway restaurant where she could get a salad.
In-n-Out in Kettleman City
In-n-Out burgers and fries!
We wanted to stretch our legs, but it was 109˚ F with a strong wind, so we retired to our rooms to bed.
The San Joaquin Valley is a monument to irrigation. This arid area has a series of aqueducts and canals that makes it possible to grow fruits and vegetables for most of the country, There must be some sort of water war going on out there for there were lush fruit trees, tomato plants, and more side-by-side with burnt out trees and big signs in the brown fields about the state of California water policy.
In mid afternoon on July 5 we saw Mt Shasta in Northern California and knew we were getting closer to our home. Volcanos are scattered from California through Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, then follow there way across the rest of the Ring of Fire into Japan (Mt. Fuji).
Mt. Shasta California
We used to be able to see two volcanos from our home: Mt Hood and Mt St Helens. But in 1980 the top of St Helens blew off so it now hides behind a smaller mountain range north of us. But we still get gorgeous views of Mt Hood which is about 50 miles east of our house. With a little climb up a hill we can see five to seven of the volcanoes in western Oregon and Washington.
Finally we reached the 14th and final state of our journey!
Welcome home!
We stopped in Ashland, Or; not far from the California border for a walk and dinner. Ashland is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival which has grown to be a big draw for this relatively sparsely populated part of the state. In fact Carla and her sisters Linda and Starr headed back down to Ashland a week or so later to see some plays and enjoy the lovely city.
We spent the night in Medford, Oregon just a few miles north of Ashland. We would have liked to stay in Ashland but the festival is so popular we couldn't find a room. We woke up and took the "short" four hour drive to get home.
Now why didn't I get a picture of home?
My final post of the Road Trip will cover Jeanette's visit with our family and friends and some statistics of the trip.
[HINT: Click on the images in this post to get bigger versions]
Arizona has more national parks and monuments than any other state in the union. We were heading out to see a couple more of them on July 3. We had originally scheduled only a few hours at the Grand Canyon; Carla and I have been there a couple of times before. But my buddy Herb urged us to stay until sunset to get some great pictures. So we changed or plans and decided to spend the whole day in the area, spend the night in Williams, Arizona before heading on the last leg home.
July 3 travel: Flagstaff, Wupatki National Monument, the Grand Canyon
As you can see from the map above, the direct route to the Grand Canyon is directly north of Flagstaff on highway 180. One of my favorite drives in the entire country is Highway 89 north of Flagstaff, Arizona up to southern Utah. After passing the San Francisco Peaks of Flagstaff, you have a gentle decline with beautiful northern Arizona before you. Years ago when the kids were young we drove through here on our way home from visiting my folks in Prescott, Arizona where they lived after retirement. The area is on the edge of the painted desert and a big thunderstorm came up; the rain flowing in the ditches on the sides of the road looked like someone dumped thousands of gallons of paint.
One of Carla's favorite places on earth (no hyperbole) is Wupatki National Monument. Here you'll find the remains of the ancient pueblo people such as the Sinagua who lived here around 500 A.D. Now that we had a full day, it was a no brainer we'd go north then head over to the east entrance of the Grand Canyon.
It was another stormy day as we approached the ancient site. There are no trees up here and as we walked up a hill to one of the ruins thunderclaps were closing in on us. I figured we'd be the highest thing for miles around so we grabbed a few quick pictures and skedaddled. When walking through the monument I didn't get a sense of how orderly the site is.
Birds' eye view of Wupatki pueblos.
Walking up to one of the sites we saw a couple of very colorful lizards scurrying down the path ahead of us.
Colorful lizard at Wupatki National Monument.
He sure didn't blend into the scenery here; maybe he is hideously poisonous and we lucked out. Or maybe he really does blend into the painted desert.
We stayed up on the accessible pueblos long enough to grab a couple of photos.
Walking up to an abandoned pueblo at the Wupatki National Monument
Jeanette making herself home in a pueblo at the Wupatki National Monument.
Jeanette and Carla at Wupatki National Monument
Jeanette and Carla with a squall coming at Wupatki National Monument
We hopped back in the car promising ourselves we'd be back for a longer visit someday soon. We were on the edge of the storm and it promised to be an "interesting" day up on the Grand Canyon Rim.
After driving a little farther north on US 89 we headed west to get to the Grand Canyon. In the map below you can see the two of the rivers, the Colorado and the Little Colorado, that flow through and formed the canyon. We rougly paralleled the Little Colorado.
Rivers forming the Grand Canyon
On the way in we stopped by a Navajo view point that also had a small trading post. The storm we had been running from caught us. The winds were so strong we were afraid to get too close to the railing over the canyon; yes the wind was that strong. Carla and Jeanette went to the trading area - an open wooden structure with canvas top - when rain and hail hit. I jumped in the car and drove over near the entrance to the trading area; Carla and Jeanette hunkered down until it tapered a bit. Carla got a picture from inside the trading area after it cleared up a bit.
View of the Little Colorado canyon from the Navajo viewpoint.
When we first got there, Jeanette asked if this was the Grand Canyon. She is the most positive person I know and she marveled at it. I told her no, this is just a taste of what is coming. I've never been to the east end of the Grand Canyon so wasn't sure what to expect. Mary Colter, the architect behind La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona designed the Indian Watchtower here. Too bad I didn't get a picture; you'll have to go yourselves I suppose. I did get a picture of me though ;)
Howard at the Indian Watchtower on the east end of the Grand Canyon
It was early afternoon and we were hungry so we had a bite to eat before heading west to the main entrance. I was surprised (shouldn't I have looked at a map?) that we were still 25 miles from the main entrance to the Canyon. But it was a beautiful drive where we saw a herd of elk and caught glimpses of the Canyon. We parked and made our way to the Canyon rim. Our jaws dropped. It was beautiful.
South Rim of the Grand Canyon
South Rim of the Grand Canyon
This picture is from an iPhone; maybe I ought to throw away my fancy Sony SLT A65
South Rim of the Grand Canyon
It was getting to be late afternoon/early evening when the storm caught up to us. Carla and I took matching pictures of the sun bouncing off a promontory. I had a polarized lens on which wouldn't pick up the rainbow.
South Rim of the Grand Canyon
Rainbos over the South Rim of the Grand Canyon
There is a great bus system here; four bus lines serving various parts of the canyon. We knew for sunset we wanted to go as far west as we could; somewhere close to Mohave Point. We stopped for a quick bite then scouted for a bus to get us to a sunset viewing site. It turns out that there is a special point picked for sunset watching; extra busses wait to pick people up. We climbed on and went up to Mohave Point. As we got off, a squall of wind and rain hit. We aren't made of sugar so we knew we wouldn't melt; we hunkered behind a small tree. Other people were not so intrepid; dozens of site seers jumped on the bus. After about 10 minutes the rain stopped and we saw that there were very few people who stayed to see the sunset. Our good luck! I imagine this was one of the least crowded sunset views in peak season.
Sunset at Mohave Point, Grand Canyon
Sunset at Mohave Point, Grand Canyon
Sunset at Mohave Point, Grand Canyon
After the sun went down it got dark in a hurry! And I don't mean a little bit dark. After getting back to the visitor center we had a hard time finding the parking lot we pulled into. Thank goodness for remote entry; I pushed the "unlock" button until I saw the lights blink. We piled in and headed south down highway 180 into Williams, Arizona. It was pitch black on either side of us; I used the high beams most of the way down; something that doesn't happen in the populated area we live in.
Arizona is one of our top spots for vacations; is there any wonder why? After a nice night's sleep we were headed out on the last leg of our trip home.
After a few nights on the road it was nice to pull into my uncle and aunt's home in Cottonwood, Arizona where we would spend a couple of nights to get rested for our Grand Canyon trip and the road home. As I mentioned in an earlier post we hit some stormy weather leaving Winslow. It was a little windy but no rain in Cottonwood.
Our stomping grounds for a few days
We had big plans for our 1 day off the road: Montezuma's Castle, Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, maybe Jerome. But when the morning dawned we decided we had been in the car enough and cut back our plans. High on our list was Montezuma's Castle over my Campe Verde, about 20 miles east of Cottonwood. It was going to be a hot day, topping 100˚ so we decided we'd better get to Montezuma's Castle early. After retiring from his job as assistant superintendent of schools in Cottonwood, my uncle worked as a guide at the Montezuma Castle National Monument; he left that job in the 80s and was interested in revisiting the area.
Neither part of "Montezuma's Castle" is correct. Spaniard explorers in the mid 1800's thought this abandoned site was related to Aztec sites so ascribed the famous emperor's name (Montezuma) to the abandoned site. In fact this site, and others nearby were inhabited by the Sinagua (without water) people. Neither was it a castle; rather it was a community for farmers who may have moved up to the cliffs to provide more room for their crops. Naturally, though, these were well protected from assault. Not much is known of the people or why they vanished. Both the Navajo and Hopi peoples consider this an ancestral home and trace their lineage here.
We took a short hike on a well paved road to the base of the site. We sat in the shade and listened to a docent talk about the place and the people.
Montezuma Castle National Monument; Camp Verde, AZ
We headed back to Cottonwood for a quick, delicious lunch Carla, Jeanette and I decided we did want to see the red hills of Sedona. So off we went on the 30 or so mile jaunt northeast. I drove up on the neighborhoods on the west side of town and stopped a few times for Jeanette to get a nice view of places like Coffee Pot rock. Being busy navigating the road I didn't get a picture myself. Here is one taken from east of town looking west last spring on our retirement road trip.
Red Rocks of Sedona, Arizona
Uncle Jake's birthday was coming up so Carla, Jeanette, and I went hunting for a cake to celebrate. We got a large cupcake and a bunch of smaller donut-hole like cakes. After getting back and cleaning up we wen to the Verde Valley Schoolhouse Restaurant where we had a delightful meal. We came back to the cake and took a few pictures to commemorate our visit.
Aunt Sally, Uncle Jake, Howard, Carla and Jeanette
Crazy pose: Aunt Sally, Uncle Jacob, Howard, Carla, and Jeanette
I really love my uncle. My mom and dad are gone and I have such wonderful memories of him when we would go visit Winslow as a child. He had a great standup radio with many different bands in his room that he'd let me tune and play with. He also drove my mom and sisters and me back home to Palmdale one summer after a visit when we travelled to Winslow by train. When I was very young, I had my heart set on a toy 30-30 rifle I saw in a Western Auto store. I worked at pulling weeds at my grandparents' house to try to earn some money; and was just simply delighted when he gave it to me. Finally, I recall going for a walk with him to a small drug store with fountain where we had cokes served in those paper cones (like snow cones are served in) stabilized in a little metal frame. He is such a warm, caring person. I try to get down to see him and Sally at least once a year. I was so happy and proud to introduce Jeanette to them.
My favorite uncle, Jacob, celebrating his birthday
We slept in a little on July 3 and dawdled before our trip up to the Grand Canyon. We caught Jeanette in a mischievous moment.
I enjoy reading in Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country about how they try dozens of iterations of a recipe to get it just right. pon further reflection, I downgraded yesterday's Coney Dog attempt to 2 stars. The biggest variable was which bottled chili sauce to try as the base. That could go on for a long time and I wasn't sure the results would ever be what I was looking for. Carla is still down in Ashland with her sisters and Judy so I thought I'd make another attempt at Coney Dogs. I only needed to buy another pound of burger to go for try two.
I'm trying to get close to Roake's (now Annie's out on TV Highway between 185th and 198th in Aloha). It's nice meaty, rich, silky sauce. Given that the purchased chili sauce route had little promise, I went back to the web to see if I might find something I could work with. It turns out the internet is home to a argument (as it is for so many things) as to whether wiener sauce should have a tomato base or not. Since yesterday's had tomato in the chili sauce, I decided to take another attempt at it. I settle on a recipe I found here on Cooks.com.
Many of the same ingredients as yesterday. I used more liquid than the recipe called for; instead of 1 cup water, I used 1 cup home made chicken stock and 3/4 cup water. I also used some corn meal (aka Masa) because I get a hint of that at Annies/Roakes As we'll see later, I needed another ingredient in the end.
Ingredient set for Coney Dogs take 2 - I also used chicken stock and Frank's Hot Sauce
Here's are the prepped ingredients. Really, I only do this for the picture. Many of the spices go in at the same time so I'd use one container. I can't see myself ever doing the normal thing of adding spices as I go; part of the joy of cooking to me is this prep work stage of the project. Maybe it's my programming background; you've got to have requirements (recipe) and design (prep) complete before you can start coding (cooking).
Simmering ingredients after being blended down to a smoother consistency
I took a taste; ugh. Oh can people like this? I think many people in the midwest just don't know what good food tastes like. I made two adjustments: more salt and 1/4 cup Frank's hot sauce. That improved it a bit.
I fried a Nathan's Famous, and put it in a bun I popped in the microwave for 8 seconds, laid a bead of CYM (classic yellow mustard to you non-BBQ folks), heaped on a spoonful of chili and topped with chopped onion and cheese.
Dinner is served.
Maybe this needs to simmer for more than 20 minutes, but it was pretty bad on my hot dog right out of the pan. Just not much depth. I'll try it again after it sits in the fridge overnight. If I get up my courage I'll try a non tomato based sauce; or I'll start from my El Cid recipe without the chorizo and sirloin steak). That recipe really helped my chili colorado project which is in the fine tuning stage.
A note on the photography; I went into manual mode and tweaked the flash setting manually. It took quite a while to get decent pictures. But again, with Carla gone, I had the whole kitchen to mess around with my tripod and try a dozen or so pictures to get the right exposure. I still needed to cool the temperatures in Lightroom. Our brown countertop really seems to cause my camera to see Orange.
Carla usually does a girls weekend a couple of times a year: once for Bunco and once with her sisters. This time it was sister time in Ashland for the Shakespeare festival. They also met up with Carla's best friend from high school, Judy.
Then stir in tomato paste, chili powder, allspice, and brown sugar and combine until tomato paste darkens. Then add the chili sauce and water, bring to a boil and simmer until it thickens - 7 - 10 minutes
Simmering coney sauce
Take about 1/2 the mixture out and put in a food processor and mix until coarsely ground. Return to the skillet and add the mustard, worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. I blended the 3 brighteners in the food processor - oops. No harm done.
Coney sauce thickened
You have to have hot dogs, or weiners, for coney dogs, so fry a couple up. I found some Nathan's Famous dogs; that seems pretty authentic.
This was just okay. I gave it a provisional 3 stars. I used a chili sauce I remember from my childhood but I think it was way, way to sweet. If I make again, I'll definitely look for a better sauce. If you make this be forewarned. I don't think Cook's Country thought much of this either; the recipe is on their web site but without a lot of the supporting information one normally sees.
Today we had a 470 mile trip through New Mexico and Northern Arizona. Our end-of-day destination was my uncle and aunt's house in Cottonwood, Arizona, about 60 miles south of Flagstaff. We planned two intermediate stops: The Petrified Forest National Park east of Holbrok, Arizona and then Winslow for a late lunch. As we headed west on I40 we saw some smoke from a wild fire up in the mountains south of us near Show Low.
The Petrified Forest in north eastern Arizona
I tried looking at Google Maps earth view to get you a better idea of what this area looks like from the ground, but it just doesn't do it justice. The main entrance to the national park is just north of I40; from there we took the drive on the north side which borders the Painted Forest, which is part of the bad lands of Arizona.
Panorama of the Painted Desert in Arizona
Here is a picture I took of the Painted Desert back in 207 that really shows how it got the name.
Painted Desert. Picture from 2007
The temperature was hovering around 100˚ F so we didn't hike around much; we'd jump out of the car to take a picture then go to the next spot. After viewing the Painted Desert we took the park road south toward its meet up with US Highway 180 which we took into Holbrook. The desert here is very alkaline; the hills all look like they had a powdered sugar dusted on them by a giant sifter.
Petrified wood is not spread everywhere around the park, it is concentrated on the southern end where there is a visitors' center. The petrified wood are tree fossils that originated with trees that lived in the Late Triassic period, about 225 million years ago (from the Wikiepedia article)
Petrified tree trunk at the Petrified National Park in Arizona.
Jeanette, Carla and Howard braving the heat for a photo op with a petrified (fossilized) tree.
Close up of a piece of petrified wood.
Looking out to the south we could clearly see the fire burning up in (or near) the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest.
Wildfire in the mountains south of the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
It was early afternoon and we were hungry for lunch. Of course if I'm within a hundred miles of Winslow, Arizona we are going to go to La Posada hotel. It has two things I love: food and trains. Winslow is where my uncle and maternal grandparents lived when I was a child. We'd drive the 500 miles from our home in Palmdale, California and my Grandpa would take me down to the train station to watch the Santa Fe passenger trains come in and get serviced on their cross-country trip to Chicago. It is, without a doubt, my fondest memory of my wonderful childhood.
Winslow's main street was Route 66, but fell on hard times when it suffered the one-two punch of the Mother Road being bypassed by I-40 and the Santa Fe railroad moving its division headquarters west to Barstow, California. The city has rebounded (much better than Tucumcari, New Mexico) and now has a state prison and some other light industry. Carla and I have stayed at the La Posada hotel on a few occasions. The Turquoise Room is a magnificent restaurant. I had the signature black bean and corn chowder soup. they fill the bowl with the two soups and they commingle side by side until you stir them together. If you are driving across the southwest, you owe it to yourself to stop for the night or at least for a meal.
Westbound BNSF slowing down for a crew change and maybe a fuel fill up in Winslow, Arizona
Eastbound BNSF slowly gains speed as it passes a stopped westbound container train in Winslow, Arizona.
Jeanette and Carla viewed the extensive and beautiful artwork in the hotel while I sat train-side. We finally pulled ourselves away and headed to Cottonwood, Arizona to visit my Uncle Jake and Aunt Sally. As we headed west toward Flagstaff a big storm front moved in. I had to grip the wheel tightly as the storm wanted to blow me off the road. We had a few sprinkles but no rain - until a few days later.
1776 by David McCullough
