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Labor Day 2021 / Roadside Iowa

Labor Day Weekend 2021 | Road Tripping around NW Iowa | Finishing Iowa’s 99 Counties | September 2021

After a relaxing and rejuvenating 2 weeks at home following our trip to Wyoming, we were excited to go on a little road trip and finally complete our goal of visiting all 99 counties in Iowa! Over our 8 years of marriage, we’ve managed to slowly chip away at the rows of counties by taking different routes in and out of the state. By this point, we had only 8 counties (6 for me) that we had not visited in Northwest Iowa. They were just a little too far out of the way to reasonably drive through when going between Omaha and Eastern Iowa to visit family, and since my family wasn’t available over Labor Day weekend, we decided it was time to just knock them all out!

We knew this wouldn’t necessarily be the most exciting trip since we were just zigzagging around and stopping to see courthouses and random attractions along the way. However, we were still excited to go because we’ve come to love driving quiet highways, seeing cute small towns, and appreciating the simplicity of the Midwest. While it’s a monumental trip for us, I acknowledge it isn’t going to be an interesting trip to read about, so I’ll keep it brief and focus on the highlights.

The counties that we needed were (in order of how we visited them): Buena Vista, Cherokee, O’Brien, Clay, Palo Alto, Pocahontas, Humboldt, and Hancock. We managed to visit all of the courthouses associated with these counties, along with 6 others. On Day 1, we drove I-80 into Iowa until we reached US-71. We took that North and stopped to see Albert the Bull and the courthouse in Audubon, IA. We continued North on US-71, stopping for courthouses in Carroll and Sac City. In Sac City, we stopped to see the World’s Largest Popcorn Ball. It was…a little gross considering it’s been there since 2016. We finally deviated off 71 to drive West into Storm Lake, then on to Cherokee county and courthouse. We then took US-59 to Primghar for O’Brien County, then US-18 East to Spencer for Clay County.

At this point, it was mid-afternoon, and since this was sort of the halfway point in our mission we were ready to take a break from driving and find a campsite. We quickly realized this was a little harder said than done, because around here most campgrounds are just focused on RVs and seeing how many they can squeeze in one small area. Throughout our whole drive, we had seen some campgrounds that were just packed with RVs…we knew it was a holiday weekend, but we also suspect many are there long term. Our only choice was to search ‘camping’ on Google Maps and hope we would eventually find something close to our route that was better than a tight spot between RVs.

Thankfully it only took two tries to find something. We ended up staying in Emmetsburg right on Five Island Lake, in Kearny Park Campground. There were some RVs there, of course, but there was also a tent only area on an island accessible by a bridge and a short walk. There was even a boat launch nearby, so after setting up our tent we took our kayak out for a paddle around the lake. The lake is actually very long so we only saw a small portion of it, but we enjoyed seeing the islands and shore from a different perspective. The sky was overcast, but it only drizzled a little through the night, and overall was a great night for camping.

The next morning started off bright and early by visiting the Palo Alto Courthouse in Emmetsburg, then continuing our long drive. Our first stop was at the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend. This creation was the brainchild and lifework of a Catholic Priest from 1912 to 1954. This turned out to be much more elaborate than we were expecting, and we spent considerable time wandering through and marveling at how much petrified wood/coral/shells/minerals/pretty rocks went into constructing this place.

Our next roadside stop was to see the ‘World’s Largest Pocahontas’ outside of Pocahontas, IA. It was…a little less elaborate and detailed than the grotto, let’s just say. Visiting Pocahontas was a little out of our way after seeing the grotto, but we figured as long as we were here, we might as well get the courthouse. After a quick drive by, we continued our drive East.

We took IA-3 through Humboldt and Clarion (Wright County), stopping for both courthouses, then took US-69 North for our final county. There happened to be a side road near the Hancock county line, so we pulled over and celebrated the moment with a few pictures commemorating our accomplishment. Iowa is our 6th state where we’ve completed all the counties (following Arizona, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) but with 99 counties definitely took the most effort and we were very excited to be done! We’re certainly not done with visiting Iowa, but now we can focus our trips home on seeing other attractions (or courthouses…we still have lots of those to see).

We continued on to Garner to see the county courthouse for Hancock County, then since we were there we decided to drive a little further North to Forest City to see the Winnebago county courthouse. We took IA-9 East to Pilot Knob State Park where we went for a short walk to the tower and the highest point in the county. Following this, we took some back roads in order to reach another Iowa roadside attraction, the Buddy Holly Crash Site North of Clear Lake, Iowa. We opted to not walk to the actual site of the crash, but we were surprised to see how many other visitors there were at this site today.

To celebrate our accomplishments, we grabbed Culvers for lunch in Clear Lake, then drove to Des Moines where we spent the rest of the afternoon through the next morning visiting with my Grandmother. We had a lovely time catching up with her, talking about gardening, travels, memories, and more. She has a very well behaved German Shorthaired Pointer named Rocky, and we were all delighted that he and Charlotte got along very well.

After saying our goodbyes on Sunday, we drove back home via US-34 and stopped only to see the Union county courthouse on the way.

WY to NE / Rained Out

Wyoming Trip 2021 | Days 7 & 8 | Driving Home from the Bighorns via Casper, Cheyenne, and Panorama Point | August 2021

After enjoying a week of perfect weather for hiking and camping, rain was moving across the plains and we took that as a sign that it was time to make our way back home. We packed up our campsite and hit the road, taking US-14 East out of the Bighorns. The views were much hazier than they were a month ago when we drove this exact road with my parents. Back then, we had no idea that we would end up driving this exact road twice in one summer. We’ve noticed that happening several times this year — we go somewhere and think, “this would be a cool place to return to,” and then just weeks or months later we find ourselves there again. Thinking about that gave us peace of mind leaving the Bighorns today, knowing that someday we’ll find ourselves back here to explore more.

We tried to squeeze in one more hike before the rain began. We drove to the Tongue River Canyon and walked about a half mile before it started raining on us. We really enjoyed what we saw though and hope to return and hike the whole trail. The red canyon walls were high above us, the river was a lovely shade of turquoise, and the trail had a very gradual incline (at least from what we experienced).

While driving to I-90, we stopped in Ranchester at the Innominate Coffeehouse & Bakery for breakfast. When driving through in July, we had stopped here because my parents wanted coffee, and we got two scones to share: one sweet, one savory. Just driving on US-14 triggered a craving and we simply couldn’t pass through without getting two scones again. We had joked about Charlotte being a ‘creature of habit’ so much throughout this trip when she always wanted to stop in the same places and drink from the same parts of streams, but we now were realizing that we are very much creatures of habit as well. Case in point, when we left for this trip we weren’t sure if we would drive home via South Dakota or through NW Nebraska, but we knew that whichever route we took, we were either getting Culvers in Rapid City or Scottsbluff because that’s what we always do when driving through those cities.

As it turned out, we didn’t end up driving through either of those cities (but would still get our Culvers). Some of our Arizona friends were going to be high pointing in Colorado and surrounding states, and we decided to divert from our planned route to meet them at Panorama Point, Nebraska’s highest point, the next day. And so we began heading South.

Today we made it as far as Casper where we used hotel points to book a free room (at the same hotel where we stayed when driving across Wyoming last year). On the way, we tried to visit Connor Battlefield Historic Site in Ranchester, but it turned out to just be a campground with a couple signs so not really worth our time. We saw the Sheridan County Courthouse in Sheridan and the Natrona County Courthouse in Casper (though we failed to get a picture of the second one, for the second time). Because we had to kill about an hour and a half before checking into our hotel, we went to Rotary Park South of the city in the Casper Mountains to do a short hike. The area was very busy though and right away had us wishing we were back in the Bighorns. We finally checked into our hotel and got takeout from HQ Southern BBQ for dinner.

We woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready for the last few days of our vacation — not knowing that we would actually end up in our own bed that very night! We packed up and continued heading South on I-25. Panorama Point was only 3 hours away, and in order to arrive around when our friends would get there we needed to kill some time. We first stopped at Ayres Natural Bridge Park, but they turned out to not be dog friendly, and most of the trails were closed due to some landslides, so Curtis just got out and took some pictures while I waited in the car with Charlotte. After that, we continued driving to Cheyenne. It was then that we first ran into heavy rain. The roads got pretty slick rather fast, but we made it past that without any incident.

We arrived in Cheyenne and stopped at the Wyoming state capitol building for a quick walk around. Then we found our way to a Culvers because with our new planned route home, this would be our last chance. Finally, we drove to Panorama Point and summited the top of Nebraska for a second time this year. It was definitely worth a revisit, especially now that there were sunflowers blooming all along the dirt roads! Our friends arrived shortly after us, and we had a fun time catching up with them. Charlotte was especially happy when she recognized them and loved receiving pets from everyone.

Left to right: Mitch, Bryan, Alex, Henri, Curtis, Charlotte, and I. The flag was created and designed by the amazing Kathy <3

While we were there, we couldn’t help but noticed dark clouds on the horizon — both West and East of us. This wasn’t a welcome sight as we were hoping to camp in Southwest Nebraska that night and knock out most of the counties along the Southern border. After saying our goodbyes, we drove back up to I-80 and began heading East across the panhandle. The clouds only appeared more ominous and dark as we drove nearer, and soon enough we found ourselves in a torrential downpour where it was almost impossible to see out the windshield. We pulled over at an exit and began to rethink our plans. We turned on the radio for the first time, and found out that this was only the first round of thunderstorms that was predicted to hit SW Nebraska that night — and even worse, there was a bigger round coming from NE Colorado that was producing tornadoes and supposed to hit right where we had planned on camping (or at least near enough to be concerning).

It became evident that camping or our intended route wasn’t going to work, and we didn’t want to fork over the money to stay in a hotel and wait out the rain another day. We decided that since we were only 5 hours from home, we would just push through this first storm and make it back that night, and refund a couple days of leave while we were at it.

We chose to drive on US-30 through the storm instead of the interstate, because we could drive slower and pull over if needed safer than on I-80. Driving through the storm was still scary, but the clouds were really cool — I was just too anxious to take pictures. While we weren’t able to get new counties, we did manage a single courthouse in Deuel County. Once we were ahead of the storm, we returned to I-80 and the rest of the drive went smoothly and we were home before 11. It was an abrupt ending to our trip, but since everything before these last two days went so well, we weren’t disappointed at all. We’ll just have to find a way to get those SW Nebraska counties someday!

Waterfalls in the Bighorns

Wyoming Trip 2021 | Day 6 | Porcupine Falls | Bucking Mule Falls | Medicine Wheel

Today’s focus was on short hikes off of US-14A. Curtis had a few letterboxes saved, and because the visibility still wasn’t great we thought that hiking to see waterfalls was a better idea than hiking other peaks. And so we drove West to US-14A and took forest roads heading to Porcupine campground. After driving for about an hour, we arrived at our first trailhead for the day.

We were the only ones at the trailhead when we arrived, and we happily packed up some water and snacks and hit the trail. The trail to Porcupine Falls is only 1.2 miles round trip, and the only real challenge is that it drops down 500 feet rather quickly and you have to do all that climbing on your return trip. There were stairs in place though and the trail was in pretty good condition.

I have to say, I wasn’t sure what to expect for this hike. While we were driving, the scenery had been all grassy, rolling hills with pines scattered around. I couldn’t picture how a dramatic waterfall would fit in with this setting. But when I first caught a glimpse of Porcupine Falls in the distance, I knew right away that it was going to be my favorite. Curtis went off to look for a letterbox right before our final descent, but Charlotte and I were too anxious to see the waterfall to wait for him. She and I made our way down the last stretch of steps, wound our way around a tall, jagged rock wall, and found ourselves at a gorgeous rocky oasis.

While the hills above us were what we had seen all along — rounded, grassy, simple beauty — we now found ourselves in this deep, narrow gorge with rocky walls towering above us. The falls had a considerable amount of water, especially for it being this late in a relatively dry summer. They poured over the canyon wall and into a deep pool filled with dark blue water. The best way I can describe the view is that it was just so visually satisfying, with the contrast of the rocky canyon and the smooth water, pine trees scattered around, and the cool, mysterious shades of blue, green, tan, and grey. I could have sat and stared in this spot forever. I’ve seen a lot of waterfalls this year, on both sides of the country, but this one immediately became my favorite — maybe even my favorite ever.

Curtis joined us and was able to find the letterbox. We spent plenty of time here enjoying the falls and taking lots of pictures. Neither of us came prepared to swim, but we almost wished we did. The pool even looked deep enough to dive into. I’ve never been interested in swimming while on hikes to lakes or waterfalls, but now we had done two hikes on this trip where it actually appealed to me — I never expected that to come from hikes in Wyoming, of all places!

After a long while here, we finally took one last look and began our steep climb back up to our car. Just as we arrived at the parking lot, another vehicle pulled up. I couldn’t believe we were 3 for 3 on having hikes to ourselves! We drove a little further up the forest road and to the next trail for the day.

I didn’t think anything could beat what we had just seen, but we still had plenty of daylight left and supposedly this trail would be easier albeit longer than the trail to Porcupine Falls. We set off into the woods on the trail to Bucking Mule Falls, once again being all alone.

This trail started off in a thick forest which provided lots of shade. It also had about a 500 feet elevation difference, but this time was 5.2 miles round trip so it was much more gradual, which was ideal since the day was warming up. We switchbacked a little and made our way down to a creek where Curtis and I sat on a log and let Charlotte wade and drink as much as she wanted. We enjoyed seeing some wildflowers blooming nearby, and they had many butterflies and moths fluttering around them.

After this, the trail lead us out of the woods and along a ridge where we took in the smokey views. Eventually we were back under tree cover for the last .3 miles. All we knew was that the end of the trail would be a viewpoint of the falls, that we wouldn’t be ending at the base of the falls like at Porcupine. Just knowing that made me expect there to just be a gap in the trees with a view across the valley — once again, I wasn’t prepared for the expansive and gorgeous view that we would find!

We reached the end of the trail and found that it ended on a wide rocky outcropping. Curtis found the letterbox and we went to find a place to sit with the view of the waterfall. What we found was not only a waterfall view, but also a wide vista of the red canyon and rolling hills reaching out to the plains to the West. Just like at Porcupine Falls, we were impressed by the heavy flow of water, and how we could hear it crashing down even from such a distance. We also were intrigued by how “backwards” the view seemed — normally we’d imagine the grassy meadow-like area to be in the valley, and the peaks to be rockier. But here, the rolling hills were on top and the rocks were on bottom. Once again, we stayed here for a long time simply enjoying the views, and we had it all to ourselves. I’d still say I liked Porcupine Falls better, but I really enjoyed the contrast of the two waterfalls we saw today: one up close, one from a distance.

Once we were finished here, we made our return hike back to the car — stopping again at the creek for Charlotte to take a break. The trail actually continued on past the lookout to Bucking Mule and back towards (but not to the base) of Porcupine before passing through ‘Jaws’ another rocky gorge presumably upstream from Porcupine Falls. All told that trail is over 15 miles end to end and something we weren’t prepared to tackle…this time.

By the time we reached the car, it was early afternoon, and Char was definitely ready for a break. We had one more place on our list though — Medicine Wheel Historic Site. Since dogs weren’t allowed and it would be another 2.5 miles of hiking in the sun, I decided to stay in the car with Char while Curtis went to see the Medicine Wheel.

Curtis: The Bighorn Medicine Wheel is a pre-Columbian site of social and religious importance to the Northern Plains natives (e.g. Lakota, Crow, Cheyenne, Shoshone) and evidence of its use likely predates arrival of those cultures in the region. Comprised of stones arranged in a spoked wheel pattern, some scholars think that the arrangement and alignment had astronomical significance similar to other monolithic stones like Stonehenge. While not especially unique (there are many Medicine Wheels throughout the Rocky Mountains and plains) the wheel is well preserved, old, and protected, and is therefore a pilgrimage site for many tribes to practice their rites and rituals.

After Curtis returned, we made our way back to our campsite at Sibley Lake. Charlotte took a long nap, going between being in the sun, the shade, and in the tent, and Curtis and I played games.

As dinner time approached, we decided to take Charlotte on a quick walk around since the whole campsite was much quieter than the day before. We hoped to actually be able to walk around the lake this time. We passed by the boat ramp, parking area, and out houses and started on the trail. Suddenly, Curtis heard something nearby, looked and saw a giant bull moose feeding right on the side of the trail! We very quickly and quietly backed up and returned to the parking lot where we would have the outhouses to hide behind or inside of, just in case, and continued watching him. The camp host happened to be there cleaning, and when she finished she came to watch with us. The moose slowly made his way out of the trees, across the trail, and waded into the lake. Not long after, a female moose came out and joined him. Together, they chomped down on duck weed in the water. The male would sometimes blow bubbles through his nose while eating, and anytime we or other campers nearby would make a sound, the female would stare us down. They both appeared to have trouble moving around while in the water, and we imagined their feet were getting stuck in the mud. We stayed out there watching from a safe distance for an hour until we were too hungry to wait any longer. We may not have gotten our evening hike around the lake, but we got another complimentary moose show up close and personal and that was good enough!

We returned to our site, made dinner, and played games until the sun set. We agreed that today had been such a great day, and that the moose might have been the best part. It’s certainly been a good year for us in terms of wildlife sightings on our trips — we’re now up to 4 moose, 3 bears (4 for me), and one sort of mountain lion encounter!

Park Reservoir / Hiking Black Mountain

Wyoming Trip 2021 | Days 4 & 5 | Bighorn National Forest | Park Reservoir | Hiking Black Mountain

The day after our big hike, we allowed ourselves to sleep in and take it easy. This felt like such a treat because whenever we camp, we usually have the next day planned out and we want to be up and on the road or trail as early as we can. When we felt well rested, we started to plan out the next few days of this trip. While we had absolutely loved our hike in the Cloud Peak wilderness, we saw that our options in this area were to either go for very short walks that would not yield any views like what we had seen the day before, or we would have to hike at least 12 miles (or more) to reach other lakes. Backpacking for a night or two was also a consideration, but we ultimately decided we were satisfied with our time here for now — next time we return to the Cloud Peak wilderness, we’ll definitely come ready to backpack!

We decided to move up to the North side of the Bighorn Mountains because we knew of several shorter hikes we could do, letterboxes Curtis could find, and drive-by attractions to visit along the way. We packed up our tent and said goodbye to our campsite — this one was definitely a good find, we had plenty of space and there were no other campers in sight. We didn’t see any wildlife, but we heard coyotes and possibly moose in the distance at night. We drove back to US-16 and continued heading further West.

As we drove, we noticed that the air seemed much more hazy than the previous two days. This was from the Crater Ridge fire in the Northern end of the Bighorns, near the Wyoming/Montana border. Thankfully the fire wouldn’t affect our plans, and we learned from a ranger that the fire was mostly contained and was being allowed to burn an area that needed it.

We drove to Worland, and made a stop here to see Wyoming’s Whispering Giant statue where US-16 and US-20 intersected, also conveniently in front of the county courthouse. Curtis was also able to find the letterbox (it’s always fun to look through the logbook and see that we happen to know most of the other finders) and Charlotte squeezed in a short nap in the grass. We decided to grab some Taco Johns on our way out of town, and knew it was meant to be when they had a special on our go-to order, the six pack and a pound. We were now fueled and ready to continue our adventure.

We took US-20 North to Greybull (stopping for the courthouse in Basin) and then went East on US-14, retracing our drive from just over a month prior when we drove across Wyoming with my parents. We stopped at the Shell Creek Falls scenic lookout, and enjoyed the waterfall and watching the raw power of the water rushing through the small canyon. However, this spot was busier than we expected, and we started to wonder if finding a campsite for the night could be an issue.

Since this was a “lazy day” and we weren’t wanting to make Charlotte walk too much, we decided to go find a campsite in the national forest. We saw there were several campsites down one forest road, and that there was also a reservoir a ways South where we could kayak. We began driving, passing some campgrounds that had open sites. We hoped to be closer to the reservoir than these, so we kept going.

We continued driving for about 30 miles, which took an hour on the gravel forest roads. We finally reached the reservoir, and started looking for a dispersed campsite on the North side of the lake. Right away, we found this area to be packed with RVs, most probably staying long term, and were rather disappointed. We didn’t drive all this way to be sandwiched between RVs and listen to generators all night! Instead, we started driving South along the reservoir. The road started to become more rough, but shortly after we found another dispersed camping area that was more remote and had no one else in sight. We parked and pitched our tent in a site that stood high above the reservoir with a view over the water, and also with a nearby trail that we could take to go down to the water’s edge and put in our kayak. It was quite literally the most perfect campsite. We joked about how we paid $30 to camp in Ohio last month, only to be sandwiched between RVs and have our site turn into a flowing creek because of rain in the night, and now here we had this beautiful spot all to ourselves for free.

We went for a short walk along the water with Charlotte, then went for a paddle around the reservoir. Even with the haze, the mountain views were beautiful and the setting was so serene.

Back at the campsite, we made soup for dinner, then sat on the edge of our little cliff, and Curtis read while I journaled. I took some pictures of the hazy sunset, then started to go get settled into the tent when Curtis called to me. I walked back over to him and saw a moose in the distance, wading in the water! Even from a distance, she looked so big, and we were thankful to have so much space between us and her. I commented on how fun it’d be to see her swim across the reservoir, and shortly after she started to do just that! We couldn’t believe how fast she was going either — I definitely wouldn’t want to be in our little kayak in the water in this scenario. She swam across in no time at all, and then we watched as she got out, shook herself off, climbed up the hill and disappeared into the trees. Now we were convinced this was the perfect campsite — it even gave us a private showing of a moose! We settled in to our tent and slept very soundly that night.

As ideal as the site was though, it was still an hour’s drive even from the highway, and we didn’t want to spend hours driving back and forth for the next couple days. So the next morning, we packed up and left this site for the next lucky people to enjoy. We drove an hour back up the long gravel road, then made our way to a trailhead for our hike. Today’s hike would be up Black Mountain, a 9,500 foot peak with a lookout tower at the top. Curtis had actually saved the clues for a letterbox here 4 years ago thinking that we’d drive through this area during our Moving to Hawaii road trip, but we ended up going North through Montana instead. I guess you could say that this random hike was a long time coming for us!

We started driving up the forest road to the trailhead, but found it to be narrow, rutted, and having giant puddles along the way. We made it as far as we felt comfortable, then parked in a pull out and began walking the rest of the way to the trailhead. This added just under a mile to our hike each way — but in the end, we realized that the mileage we had for this hike was about 5 miles round trip and that was starting at the base of this forest road before it became more rough, so our hike was actually shorter than we expected. The forest road had a nice gradual elevation gain and was mostly in the shade, and in no time we were at the trailhead and ready to continue hiking up to the peak.

The trail gained consistent elevation the whole way up, but the trail was in great condition making the hike enjoyable. I found myself out of breath several times but seeing Charlotte hike up like it was nothing was the motivation I needed to keep going. In the 2 miles from our car to the peak, we gained 1300 feet of elevation (most of that being in the second mile).

Once we came out of the forest near the top, we saw the bald summit standing high above us. This part was rockier, and we had to make our way up a more narrow trail over giant boulders to reach the lookout tower. Charlotte did just fine climbing up most of the way, but as soon as she was in the final stretch only a few yards away from the tower, she turned around and tried to bolt in the opposite direction. We’re not sure if she was afraid of something, but we sat down with her on the rocks just before the tower and encouraged her to relax. Unfortunately visibility wasn’t great because of the haze in the air, but thankfully it didn’t smell like smoke and air quality seemed fine.

After Curtis was finished logging in to the letterbox, we gave in to Charlotte’s wishes to get off the summit and returned to a nice patch of grass in the shade for her to lie in. We allowed her to take a short nap while we enjoyed the breeze and the feeling of accomplishment. We were the only ones at the peak for the whole time we were up there. Just as we were about to leave, another family arrived at the top and Char did her best to solicit belly rubs from other hikers as we were passing by.

The hike down went by quickly, and soon we were back at our car. It was only around noon, but since this trip was more about relaxing and enjoying ourselves than doing the most, we decided to go find a campsite for the next two nights. We drove by some dispersed camping areas along the forest road, but none of them felt right. We ended up driving to Sibley Lake Campground, and ended up finding a spot that “felt right.” While the campground took reservations, the spot we found was first come-first served only because it couldn’t support an RV. It had a longer lane to get back to it, and it was more removed from every other site in the campground. The camp host agreed with us that it was the best site in the lot, so we happily paid for two nights. This would allow us to have a home base so we could continue exploring this area the next day.

The site was right on a lake, but it was quite busy with other people in boats, on paddle boards, and fishing from the side, so we stayed at our campsite for the rest of the afternoon and played games. We attempted to take an evening walk around the lake, but the area was still busy and Charlotte didn’t seem into that idea so we just wandered around wherever she wanted until it was time for dinner. The campground quieted down as the sun set, and we settled in for a quiet night here.

Hiking to the Lost Twin Lakes

Hiking to the Lost Twin Lakes in the Cloud Peak Wilderness | Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming | August 2021

On our first full day in the Bighorn Mountains, we were excited to spend the whole day hiking in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. What initially attracted us to this area was the Lake Solitude Trail, a ~60 mile loop that sounded ideal for a backpacking trip. We first read about it right after finding out we were moving to Nebraska, and it’s been on the back of our minds ever since. We very briefly considered attempting it this week when we decided to go to Wyoming, but quickly decided it wasn’t the best idea since we would be traveling with Charlotte. Dogs are allowed in the Cloud Peak wilderness, but we knew she wasn’t ready for a 6 day hiking trip — and practically speaking, neither were we. So the goal of today’s hike would be to simply see how we liked the area and decide if this is somewhere we’d like to return to backpack someday, given the time.

Not wanting to spoil any part of the loop trail for our possible someday return, we decided to attempt to hike to the Lost Twin Lakes, which would be an almost 12 mile out-and-back hike. We drove up to the trailhead near West Tensleep Lake and parked in a day-hiker spot. The lot was about halfway full this morning, and doesn’t have a ton of spaces. It also has an interesting way of fitting in all the cars for backpacking trips, using long one-way lanes with cars all lined up and no way out unless you’re at the front of the line. I spent a considerable amount of time on the hike thinking about how that would work out logistically if you happened to finish your multi-day hike only to find your car stuck behind others that were gone longer than you… Anyway, another problem for another day. We filled out our wilderness permit and began our hike.

We had no cell service at any time while camping or hiking out here, just a map of the wilderness and what random facts I could remember from reading recent trail reviews. One thing I remembered for certain was that EVERYONE who wrote a review said they saw moose, and some mentioned bears. This made me quite nervous about hiking in the early morning hours. We did come prepared with a bear bell and bear spray, which Curtis carried, and we made a plan for how we would react to a bear sighting. Not too far down the trail, two hikers passed us going the same direction, and that made me feel better thinking that they would scare off the bears for us.

We made our first stop at about a mile and a half in at a small waterfall. Here we found a letterbox and broke out the trail mix. Over the next half mile, we continued hiking through forested area, until we climbed steeply up a hill and came to a wide open vista to the North, towards where Cloud Peak stood. I found myself out of breath as I made my way up the hill, which was likely the elevation starting to get to me (we were at 9600′ above sea level at this point). We sat down to rest here and take in the view. However, Charlotte seemed to have limitless energy and eagerly wandered around with her nose to the ground, with no interest in taking a break. We tried to convince her to sit with us and drink some water, but she would have none of that. We finally gave up, took some pictures, and then continued on our way.

At just over three miles in, we came to the first lake along the trail, Mirror Lake. We wandered out on the rocks and sat down to enjoy the stillness and perfect reflection of the trees and peak behind it. Curtis and I had decided prior that it would be smart to set our expectations low and make this the goal for our hike today. We knew that as the day grew warmer, Charlotte would start to slow down, and a 6 mile hike seemed like a more realistic goal than almost 12. Once again, Charlotte had no interest in sitting down with us to enjoy the lake. She drank a little water, but then continued wandering around sniffing and exploring. We started to discuss whether we thought she could do the whole thing. It was still before 10AM at this point, and it was only 2.5 miles to the Lost Twin Lakes from here. We decided to keep going, just to see how far we could make it. Our map showed that we’d be following a stream for the majority of the trail, so hopefully that would provide plenty of opportunities for Charlotte to drink or cool down if needed (we were carrying plenty of water and a bowl for her, but she’s stubborn and usually prefers fresh, flowing water…or stagnant dirty water… over our bottled tap water.).

And so we continued on the trail — and right away, I was glad we did. We were now hiking through a wide open meadow following the creek. Though there was hardly any shade on the trail, there were now great views of rocky peaks surrounding us. The trail was gradually making its way uphill, and every time we crossed over into a new glade, the peaks looked taller and a little more dramatic. The more I saw of this trail, the more I loved it. Of course, now that we were in exposed sun, Char was slowing down a little. But we found plenty of places to stop for her, either along the creek or under the occasional tree. Soon the trail started going uphill more steeply, but it also became more shaded around that point.

When we were less than a mile from the end, a couple hiking the opposite direction stopped and warned us that there was a bull moose ahead. This wasn’t the news I wanted to hear, but I was so thankful that we had some warning. Sure enough, just a tenth of a mile later, we spotted him. He was lying down in the shade about 30 feet off the trail. I had been keeping an eye out for moose (and other wildlife) all while walking near the creek, but hadn’t expected to see one in the more forested area. He seemed pretty docile, so we quickly and quietly made our way through this area. Thankfully Charlotte didn’t notice him at all, and it was an overall uneventful “first moose sighting.”

After climbing up one last rocky hill, the first of the twin lakes was finally in sight — and what a sight it was! Clear blue water surrounded by sheer granite cliffs standing over a thousand feet above it. The lakes sit at just under 10,500 feet, but the surrounding peaks and cliffs easily top out over 11,500 to 12,000. It looked like the pictures we’ve seen of Yosemite and the high Sierras. When we arrived, there was one other couple there, but after asking about the status of the moose, they left and we had it all to ourselves. (The other hikers told us that when they were hiking in, the moose had actually been on the trail and they had to wait for it to move.)

There weren’t any trees here to provide shade for Char, but she curled up under a bush and we laid our jackets out over it, and she took a nap here for almost our entire stay at the lake. We ended up staying for two hours, going between snacking, napping, and Curtis even went for a swim. In his words, it was “SO…COLD…” and he didn’t last long, so I opted not to join him. Instead, I sat on a rock and just soaked my feet. We couldn’t believe that with all those cars in the lot, we had this whole area to ourselves, especially on a beautiful Saturday in August! We almost wished we had backpacked in, or that we had our kayak with us, but for today simply enjoying the lake views from the side was good enough. In case you’re wondering, as the name implies there are two lakes, but the second is behind the first and takes some trailblazing (or swimming across the first lake) to get to.

When we were satisfied with our time here, we packed up and began our return trip. I had been hoping someone else would arrive as we were leaving so that we could ask about the moose, but we were on our own this time. We passed by where we had seen him, and he was gone — at that moment, I wasn’t sure if not seeing him was better than seeing him, but thankfully we made it out safely.

Our return trip was much slower than our hike to the lakes, as expected. We allowed Char to lie down often, and we learned how much of a creature of habit she is — she mostly just wanted to stop at the exact same shady spots or creek access points that she did on our way up. As we got closer to Mirror Lake, we started to see more people, however hardly any were hiking all the way to Twin Lakes. Most were just stopping at Mirror Lake or enjoying the meadow.

After plenty of breaks and taking our time, we finally made it to the trailhead around 5 — this entire trail taking us 10 hours (including the 2 spent at the lake). But we were so glad we were able to do the entire hike, and agreed that the lake view was one of the best we’ve seen in all of our hiking this year, if not ever. We also realized that the views and hike experience would be pretty hard to beat, and worried that nothing else we did on this trip would be able to compete with today’s hike. Oh well, for tonight we were excited to relax, eat a ton of mac and cheese, and take it easy the next day to give Charlotte a break. We returned to our campsite and did just that.

If you’re interested, you can check out our Alltrails recording here.

NE to WY / Drive to the Bighorns

Wyoming Trip 2021 | Days 1 & 2 | Driving from Omaha to the Bighorn Mountains | Fort Hartsuff State Historic Park | Chadron | West Tensleep Lake

On Thursday, August 12, we set off on our third and (probably) final vacation for this summer. I think it’s safe to say that during this summer alone, we’ve done enough road tripping to make up for the 3 years we spent trapped on an island! We actually planned this trip as a Colorado backpacking trip over a year ago, before knowing that we’d end up taking two other cross-country trips this summer. As the planned trip grew nearer, we realized that we weren’t physically ready for another 7 day backpacking trip — we hadn’t done any training like we did for South Dakota, and the extra elevation gain would make things even more difficult. We were also feeling some travel fatigue, but since this was Curtis’ only week off during the summer from grad school, we still wanted to take advantage of his extra free time. And so we decided with 2 days notice to change our plans from a week long backpacking trip in Colorado to a “flexible” vacation to the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. We knew we would have a great time and could enjoy many beautiful hikes in either state, but the main reasons behind changing the location revolved mostly around avoiding wildfires and crowds.

We left early in the morning, our main goal for the day being to make it across Nebraska and get a few new counties. We drove West to NE-92, continued to St. Paul, then NE-11 North to Burwell. Our first stop for today was in Ord to see the Valley County Courthouse, which ended up being the best courthouse for the day and only one worth getting out of the car to see.

Next, we stopped at Fort Hartsuff State Historic Park about 3 miles off the highway in Elyria. We pulled into the lot and found the park completely empty, but still open so we were free to walk around. Like Forts Kearney and Robinson, this site preserves the buildings and parade grounds from the frontier days at the end of the 19th century. Cavalry troops stationed out of here often went on patrol or conducted operations in the West and North West against Sioux and Cheyenne tribes, but mostly served as a protective force for early settlers of the region.

In Burnwell we saw the Garfield County Courthouse, then took NE-91 West to Dunning, going slightly off route to drive by the Loup and Blaine County Courthouses. Then we took NE-2 West to Ellsworth and NE-37 North to Gordon so that we could pick up US-20 and fill in a gap on that highway that we hadn’t driven — setting ourselves up to complete driving the entirety of this highway in Nebraska the next morning. Driving across the Sandhills is definitely preferable to taking I-80 in our opinion.

Finally, we arrived in Chadron after 6PM, and we returned to the Red Cloud campground where we had enjoyed camping last May. We found the campground mostly empty and claimed the same spot as last time. Curtis set up the tent, and we made some mac and cheese for dinner. The weather already felt so much better than it had in Omaha all week, and we were so glad to be out of the humidity!

As sunset was approaching, we decided to return to a lookout in Chadron State Park that we visited last May and thought would be an excellent place to view the sunset. We drove up to the Black Hills Overlook to the West of Chadron State Park and went for a short walk to find the best vista. Here we watched the sky turn red as the sun disappeared and a cool, almost cold, breeze set in. Ready for autumn only in spirit, we returned to our tent and called it a night.

The next morning, we packed up and returned to US-20 to finish our drive across the state. The stretch between Chadron and Harrison is very scenic and enjoyable to drive through. We entered Wyoming, took US-20 to Lusk, US-85 North to Newcastle, and US-16 to I-90 all the way to Buffalo. We saw three courthouses along the way in Niobrara, Weston, and Johnson counties. I have to say, we knew it would be a long drive (especially when taking our own route and making our stops) but I don’t think I realized how far North and West the Bighorns were, or how big Wyoming was. But when we could finally see the high peaks on the horizon, our excitement grew and we couldn’t wait to see them up close and personal!

After getting gas in Buffalo, we continued driving US-16 up over the Cloud Peak Scenic Byway. With today being Friday, we knew that most campsites that could be reserved in the area were all booked for the weekend, but we knew of some first come-first served dispersed sites and hoped to get lucky with one of those. We left the highway and turned onto a forest road heading toward West Tensleep Lake. About halfway between the highway and the end of the road, we found an open spot that looked perfect for us: plenty of flat space for our tent, far enough removed from the road, and with a running stream just a short walk away. We set up our tent, filled up our water filtration kit with fresh stream water, and took some time to relax after two long days of driving.

When we were ready for a little more adventure, we drove the rest of the way up the road to Tensleep Lake. We went for a short hike to see West Tensleep Falls, and Curtis found a letterbox that was planted by friends. After that, we walked down to the lake with our kayak, set it up, and went for a little paddle around the lake. When we were finished, we made our way back to our campsite, made soup for dinner, and played games before going to bed. It was a great start to a more “laid back” vacation than we’re used to, and so far the lack of crowds and clear skies were giving us confirmation that we had come to the right place.

Wildlife Safari Park

Visiting the Lee G. Simmons Wildlife Safari Park | Platte River State Park | August 2021

The beginning of August marked one whole year of living in Nebraska! I can’t believe how fast time has passed for us here, and that we’re already halfway through our time here (depending on how things play out over the next few months). People still ask if we miss Hawaii, and every time we give the same confident answer: no! Looking back on those 3 years, those were some of the hardest years with the most trials, and though we grew through them and were able to do a lot on the islands there is no part of me that wants to go back or relive any of it. When I think back on those years, I see the emptiness and longing I felt, waiting and praying for all I have now. The past year in comparison has been so full, full of time together with Curtis and our families, full of movement and exploration, and full of life. There have been so many moments where I’ve seen and understood why God brought us here, and I’m so thankful He did!

That being said, we may have called Nebraska “home” for a year now, but we’ve ended up being away from our home base for a combined 3 months over the last year, mostly throughout the past 4 months. While our constant traveling is starting to wear me out, I do like how this year has turned out: We spent the majority of the first 8 months at home (besides holidays) and made the most of going out and exploring when the weather was more mild (February being the only exceptionally cold month). This summer, there have been so many hot and humid days, but thanks to our traveling we’ve been able to avoid those (sure, the places where we went were also hot, but as visitors we had extra motivation to do things in the short time we were there). Now fall is coming, and with that we’ll likely be home more often and will be able to continue our Nebraska bucket list in more comfortable weather.

The first weekend of August brought more heat and humidity with chances for storms, and since the next sections of the Wabash Trail are longer, we decided it wasn’t a good idea to continue our walk. Instead, the Omaha Zoo came to our rescue with a sweet deal. They emailed us a code for 2 free passes to the Wildlife Safari Park Southwest of Omaha as a thank you for becoming zoo members this summer. The park wasn’t really on our radar, but since it was free, why not?!

The drive around the safari park is about 3 miles long and offers the chance to see elk, bison, deer, a bear, wolf, and different birds up close from either your car or from short walks to enclosures. We went as soon as they opened at 9, hoping that getting there early would mean the animals would be more active before the heat really set in. The elk were all posing majestically for us as we entered, the males with full sets of antlers. We didn’t see any deer, but that’s ok, you can see deer anytime and anywhere out here. We got out and walked around the wetland exhibits to see pelicans and turtles, then to see the eagle exhibit, as well as a little bird enclosure with the cutest little pocket-sized screech owls.

At this point, a storm was brewing with lightning and thunder coming closer, but we really wanted to see the bear so we hurried to the trail that takes you to a viewing platform. We arrived, and found the bear right up close and personal. His fur looked so soft and smooth, unfortunately he was kept just out of reach from the boardwalk so we couldn’t pet him. After showing off his model walk pacing around the viewing platform, he turned and walked away. From this angle, he looked exactly like the bear I saw in Washington, and I was finally able to take a picture to replicate that experience.

Thunder was booming, but we just had to try to see the wolf enclosure, though we expected them to be in hiding at that point. We made it to the enclosure, but sure enough the wolves were nowhere to be seen. We turned and started hurrying back to our car, and just then we saw one run along the fence line — a brief but beautiful encounter…that we hope to never replicate on the trail. We made it back to our car just as it started to down pour. By this point, we only had bison left to see, so we decided to keep driving. On our way, we spotted a couple of sandhill cranes, much closer than we were able to see them last March on our pilgrimage to central Nebraska to watch the migration.

Finally, we spotted some bison to make our visit complete. We’ve seen a lot of bison this year, and honestly each time has gotten a little less exciting since seeing them in the wild on the Centennial Trail in South Dakota, but the highlight here was watching one of them shake off the rain the same way Charlotte does. Why is it that whenever we go somewhere like the zoo without Char, every animal we see reminds us of her and we spend the whole time thinking about her?

We ended by stopping near the entrance to see the prairie dogs, but this exhibit wasn’t that exciting compared to the rest of the safari experience, or of the prairie dog towns we walked through in the Black Hills. We got our official Nebraska Passport stamps and then went on our way.

Since we were already in the area and South of the Platte, we decided to pay a short visit to Platte River State Park, another location that’s on the Nebraska Passport list for this year. We got those stamps, then since the storm had passed we decided to climb the tower in the park for better views of the Platte. While walking up the steps together, we realized this is the first time in a long time that we’ve climbed up to the top of a tower together, because usually one of us stays at the bottom with Charlotte. I guess it’s good we did this today while she wasn’t with us! The views from the top were excellent, though we noticed that the tower appears to move a considerable amount when you’re standing at the top, which was just the slightest bit unsettling.

After this mini-adventure, we came home and enjoyed the rest of our weekend by woodworking (Curtis), attending a game night with friends, and planning for yet another upcoming trip. More on that, coming up next!

WV to NE / Gateway Arch

Virginia Trip 2021 | Days 8 & 9 | Driving from West Virginia to Nebraska | Gateway Arch National Park

The final two days of our Virginia trip mostly consisted of long drives and short stops. We rose early in our campground at New River Gorge to find low-hanging clouds hovering around the mountain ridges, which reminded me of the way clouds used to hover around the Ko’olau Mountains on Oahu. It’s been a while since any place has reminded me of Hawaii, and I certainly didn’t expect West Virginia to be that place. We packed up our tent and hit the road, enjoying more cloudy, mysterious mountain views during the early morning hours.

For today’s drive, we stuck with I-64 from New River Gorge all the way to the KY/IN border. Our first stop was in Charleston, WV, to see the capitol building. The sky was overcast, but it made the air cooler than it had been for the past few days. While the capitol building and monuments were all enjoyable to see, the memorable part of this stop was how somehow all of their sprinklers were watering the concrete instead of the gardens they were placed around.

We entered Kentucky, and our only stop in this state was also for the state capitol building in Frankfort. A wrong turn on our way there took us to a cool view overlooking the capitol, then we got back on the right track and were able to take a walk around it. It had been raining off and on throughout our drive, but thankfully we stayed dry for the half-hour we were here.

After making it through Louisville, we left the interstate and took US-150 West across Indiana. We were planning to take it across the entire state, but part of it turned out to be closed so we ended up taking a back roads detour through Hoosier National Forest. It felt pretty weird to go from interstate and main highway to this very rural area and drive through hills. It was also weird thinking about how the highest point in Indiana is this seemingly flat spot when there was so much elevation change here and probably some more enjoyable hiking opportunities. I guess that’s the thing with Midwest state high points — the ‘high point’ may simply be a little mound where the elevation happens to be the highest, but that doesn’t mean you should overlook what the rest of the state may hold. Some examples being two of our “home states” — we bagged Iowa’s “high point” in 2017, and only in the past year have we discovered the many hiking opportunities and the simple beauty that is the Loess Hills. Then in Nebraska, you can stand on Panorama Point and think there’s nothing special about this state, but just less than 100 miles North stands Scotts Bluff, a prominent and scenic spot that’s absolutely worth visiting. All that to say, maybe there’s some places worth exploring here, and someday maybe we’ll come back and check it out!

Our only stops in Indiana this trip were in Vincennes. We first stopped at George Rogers Clark National Historic Park. We made it within a half hour of closing, but since it’s a smaller national park site we were still able to see it all and not feel like we missed out. Curtis started with the visitor’s center, then we made our way over to the monument. We each took turns going inside to see the artwork, then walked around along the Wabash River some more before moving on. Curtis was able to find his first letterbox in Indiana, and then we stopped to see the courthouse and Whispering Giant statue.

Finally, we finished our drive on US-50 through Illinois to our campsite for the night in Eldon Hazlet State Recreation Area. We originally picked this place because we thought we’d like to kayak here, but it was cold and looked like it might rain so instead we just took it easy at our campsite. We made pasta on our soda can stove, looked at maps, and relaxed.

On Sunday morning, we awoke to a thick morning fog. We broke camp and got back on US-50, headed for St. Louis. Another reason why we chose this campsite was so that we’d be less than an hour from the city, and we hoped we could beat the traffic and have a quieter early morning downtown.

Normally we avoid cities when we travel, but this time we decided to stick it out and visit another newer National Park Site — Gateway Arch National Park, which consists of the giant metal arch next to the Mississippi River and surrounding area. If I had to compare it to another national park, I’d say its main feature is most similar to Arches National Park. 😉 We parked in a nearby lot which cost $5, then went for a walk around the park. Charlotte was of course allowed on the grounds (but not in the arch) and when we started out, the park was very quiet. We actually visited the arch back in November of 2010 with our group of friends, so we took advantage of this chance to recreate some pictures we took back then.

Left images taken November 2010; Right images taken August 2021

We realized that the visitor’s center didn’t open until 9, so we decided to wait around until then so that we could get our cancellation stamps (something we had failed to do in 2010). We walked over to the old courthouse for some pictures and to stand on the national park’s “highest point” which is just the Southwest corner of the courthouse. Then we noticed a line forming for the visitor’s center, so Curtis went to wait while Charlotte and I hung out in the shade away from other people. Thankfully the stamps were outside the main building so Curtis didn’t have to go through the metal detector and all that, but after his brief time stamping in he felt very sympathetic for the national park ranger whose job was to answer questions right at the door…questions that could easily be answered if people just took a second to read the sign right there. According to the ranger, having to stand there and answer questions was so bad, they switch off every hour. We idealize the life of being a national park ranger quite often, but I guess sometimes the job isn’t quite as exciting as we imagine!

After getting our stamps, we made our way back to the car and got back on the road. In order to maximize new counties and avoid Kansas City while still getting home in a decent amount of time, we took I-70 all the way MO-23, up to US-65, and then West on US-36. We stopped in St. Joseph for Culver’s and then finally finished our drive up I-29 to Omaha. We’re very thankful for this military-supported “anniversary trip,” and that we were able to make an East coast trip enjoyable and accomplish a lot of our goals!

Appomattox / New River Gorge

Virginia Trip 2021 | Day 8 | Appomattox Courthouse | New River Gorge National Park

After leaving Spotsylvania Courthouse, we began heading Southwest via VA-208 West, US-522 to Powhatan, and US-60 West, trying to avoid traffic around Richmond. Our next stop for today was at Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park, which wasn’t exactly on our way, but it had been somewhere we’ve wanted to visit for a long time and now was about as close as we would get for the foreseeable future. Back when we lived in Charleston, we visited Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, where the Civil War began, and today we would finally see Appomattox Courthouse, were it ended.

The temperatures had creeped up on our drive from Spotsylvania to Appomattox, but we still set out for a short walk around the historic site. We started at the courthouse, where Charlotte and I waited outside for Curtis to go in to check out the exhibits and get our stamps. We then continued our walk around, going from one shady spot to another, trying to imagine the history that played out in this spot.

History by Curtis: After Grant’s Overland Campaign forced General Lee to defend Richmond and St Petersburg for the better part of a year (June ’64 – March ’65), it became apparent to Lee that the only hope of survival for his army (and the Confederacy as a whole) was the abandonment of the Confederate Capitol and an attempt to join forces with General Johnston’s Army of the Tennessee who was then fighting General Sherman in the Carolina’s. Lee made his escape West, following the Appomattox River, but was dogged by Grant and his Army the whole way. After a series of light battles and setbacks, the Confederate Army found themselves surrounded by the Army of the Potomac near the town of Appomattox Courthouse. Lee, knowing he was beat, pursued a terms of surrender from Grant. Truly, the most remarkable part of the war, Grant’s terms of surrender allowed that all men in the Army of Northern Virginia be allowed to turn in their arms, be given a slip of parole, vow not to take up arms against the Union (until such a time that their parole had been exchanged), and return to their homes, never to be harassed or tried for treason. A leniency that was extended to every other standing army of the Confederacy.

Unlike any other contemporary (or even modern) insurgency, rebellion, or civil war, the belligerents from Cabinet Officials and Generals to the lowliest of privates were free from trial (to be legally made so by President Johnson in 1868). The only person who had any form of legal punishment was President Jefferson Davis who was imprisoned for two years before being released on bail and later pardoned by Johnson. The war ended with implications of status quo antebellum, Lincoln was shot 6 days later, Johnson enacted Reconstruction and its many shortcoming, and Reconstruction was considered ‘complete’ during a back room deal between Republicans and Democrats during the election of 1876.

Once we were finished at Appomattox, we drove to Lynchburg, took US-29 North and US-60 West to Lexington where we finally got on I-64 heading West. We entered West Virginia, and kept driving until we reached the Sandstone district of New River Gorge National Park after 4pm.

New River Gorge is the USA’s newest national park, as of 2020. We visited back in 2012 with Curtis’ family when it was just a National Scenic River site. We don’t remember a whole lot besides seeing the US-19 bridge, but we have national park cancellation stamps to prove we were there. We weren’t sure what there was to do besides see the bridge, but that was over an hour’s drive North and not on our route. Earlier that week when I was chatting with our AZ friends, they told me they had visited the Southern end and learned that while the Northern part (with the bridge) receives 4,000-6,000 visitors a day, the Southern side sees only 400-600. This surprised me since it’s right off the interstate, but I guess everyone else is like us and just thinks of this park as being the one with the giant bridge.

We started off our visit by stopping at the visitor’s center for stamps, maps, and to devise a plan. There happened to be a campsite just up the road, so we decided to start there to see if there were still available spots. We arrived at Meadow Creek Campground and found it almost empty, with just a few tents spread out. It was a little hard to believe, seeing as it’s a free campsite, within a national park, not far from the interstate, and on a Friday! We happily claimed a site for the night and set up our tent.

Next, we started looking at the map, hoping to find a hike for that evening. However, we decided the best way to experience the area would be by water and not a wooded trail, so instead we drove a half hour South to Bluestone State Park to go kayaking.

We set up our kayak and put in at the boat launch off of Pits Road right off WV-20. At first we started heading West, but there were several motorboats zipping around here and causing the water to be choppy, so instead we went East to the no-wake zone, and were completely alone here. We enjoyed an hour and a half long leisurely ride, avoiding large algae patches and seeing deer along the water.

As the sun began to set, we made our way back to our campsite, where we had dinner and then settled in for the night. Noting that we were near some train tracks, I recalled our night camping in Nebraska a few months ago and joked, “We’re not going to hear 6 trains rolling through during the night, are we?” As it turned out, there were exactly 6 trains that came throughout the night. Besides that, we had a lovely night here, and we certainly can’t complain about a free camping spot in a national park!

Two Days in Dahlgren

Virginia Trip 2021 | Days 6 & 7 | Dahlgren, Fredericksburg, and Colonial Beach, VA

As soon as we arrived in Dahlgren, it became apparent that we had simply too much planned for the short 2 days that we would be here. I briefly mentioned this at the end of our last post, but as we neared Fredericksburg, we began to realize just how much history is out here and that there was no way we’d be able to see it all. We like to try to be as efficient as we can while traveling by seeing all the historic sites or national park sites on our route, but today we realized that wasn’t possible. It hurt just a little driving past the Wilderness and Chancellorsville Battlefields, but it was already after 5 so visitor centers would be closed and we were hungry and tired from our hiking and driving that day. We ended up taking it easy that night and hoped we’d have time to do a few historic sites during our 2 full days here.

However, it turned out that we had even less time than we thought. Curtis of course had to work both days, and ended up being gone from 8-4:30 each day. Even if we narrowed our focus to 2 sites that were each 30 minutes away (Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania and George Washington’s birthplace) we wouldn’t be able to reach the visitor’s center in time to simply get cancellation stamps. While it was disappointing, we couldn’t complain, because technically Curtis’ work was the reason we were here and had this mostly-comped trip in the first place… Besides that, Curtis also had a more time-consuming homework assignment for the week, and since we had a few more nights of camping planned after our time in Dahlgren, this was really the only time he could work on it before getting home on Sunday night.

One cool thing that happened though was that the first day when Charlotte and I were alone, I found out that some friends of ours from Arizona, Pat & Jack, happened to be driving through the area that day and we were able to meet for lunch. Charlotte and I had a great time visiting with them outside at our hotel’s pavilion.

That evening, Curtis and I drove up to Fredericksburg to have dinner with Curtis’ work friends. We met them at Capitol Ale House in the downtown area. Some were apologetic that we “had to travel to Dahlgren” as if there was nothing to do there, which we found ironic because we felt there was enough to at least fill a few days, and also the military was paying for this trip, so why would we be disappointed? Anyway, we enjoyed our meal and chatting with people, then when we were finished we went for a walk around the Fredericksburg historic downtown area. While there, we were reminded of some of our favorite things about living in the South: the colonial style architecture, and the different flowers that bloomed year-round. The crepe myrtles were in full bloom all around town.

We wanted to see at least a little of Fredericksburg Battlefield, but with sunset approaching we had to pick one site and waste no time. We chose to drive over to Lee’s Hill, where we made the short walk and read info signs along the way.

History by Curtis: The Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania National Military Park preserves the history of almost two years of the Civil War encompassed in four battlefields. The section centered around Fredericksburg preserves the defensive positions of the Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the December of 1862 when General Burnsides and the Army of the Potomac attempted to assault the city of Richmond but was delayed and ultimately checked by Lee in a very one-sided and bloody Confederate Victory.

The next day, we had wanted to drive down the Potomac and visit George Washington’s birthplace and Colonial Beach area, but we learned that not only would the visitor center close at 5, but the site also had gates that closed promptly at 5 so it didn’t seem worth the drive to only see the house from the outside. Instead, we just drove to Colonial Beach and got out to walk along the Potomac River. The water along the Potomac was still and peaceful, and would’ve maybe been a good place to kayak had there not been a storm coming – at least we technically crossed into Maryland to bag a new county (the Virginia-Maryland Border is such that Maryland owns the entirety of the Potomac up to the low water line on the Virginia shore…and since the beaches at Colonial Beach were added they are technically in Maryland). We got back to the car just as raindrops started to fall, and soon were caught driving in one of those famous Southern torrential downpours. There were even tornado warnings in nearby towns — do you ever feel like bad weather just follows you around the country? Because we were certainly feeling that as we drove! We had wanted to get seafood while there, but we couldn’t find anything suitable so we ended up returning to Hancho’s Hibachi Box for more drive-through hibachi.

The next morning, we had to check out of our hotel and begin our drive West. Maybe if there were a next time, we would fly and extend our stay…but for now, we had a long drive and the military wouldn’t pay for another night in the hotel. Before leaving Eastern Virginia, we made a little time to stop and drive through Spotsylvania Courthouse Battlefield. Like Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Courthouse marked a battle along the road to Richmond. But unlike in 1862, Lee faced General Grant. And while Lee was arguably a better tactician and soldier, by this point in the war Grant had realized that the Union could win the war by attrition: Grant simply had more men and equipment to use. In May of 1864, after crossing the Rapidan and making for Richmond, Grant was engaged by Lee at the Battle of the Wilderness (the third battle preserved by this NPS). After sustaining heavy losses Grant simply kept pushing towards Richmond. Lee, ever the soldier, maneuvered in front of Grant’s column and set up a defensive position North of the town of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Another bloody engagement ensued with heavy losses on both sides. And Grant pressed on to Richmond. This series of events occurred twice more at the Battle of North Anna and at Cold Harbor before finally Grant trapped Lee into defensive positions around St. Petersburg (another National Park Site) for the remainder of 1864.

There wasn’t a visitor center here, so we simply drove through the park, stopping to read roadside signs, and got out for a short walk before continuing on our way West.