2020 Winter Camping Trip Day6

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day6, 2020/12/1

We had a campfire in the morning. While we were chilling by fire, a dog came over out site. It was a puppy (cute!). We pet her and she looked excited. The next group person called the doggie and she went back. I heard the guy way saying to her, "Good girl" when she came back. Several groups were camping in campers. I saw another person had a morning walk with two dogs. In New Mexico, people like camping with dogs. Nice!

Zuni Mountain in the distance

rocks and snow

After we packed up we hiked 4 miles in El Malpais National Monument. The trailhead was just 10 miles from where we camped. The trailhead was very windy, but soon it got calm. The view was spectacular! Gorgeous Zuni mountains can been seen in the distance. There are many interesting rocks everywhere. 

After a half a mile of walk, we saw a car parked along the road about a mile away and from there a person and dogs were coming to the trail we were on. Dogs were running ahead of a hiker. Actually they were sprinting toward us. A brown lab and a black lab came to us and wagging and jumping to us. They were so happy and excited. I pet them. So cute! Soon the hiker caught up with doggies and asked us if the black one pooped. She said that the black one, his name is Shadow, hadn't pooped for a couple of days. We didn't see Shadow pooped. We talked a little with her with social distancing. She saw her neighbor abusing Shadow for one and half year: Shadow was on leash without any walking outside and not been taken care of well. So she bought Shadow. Shadow with her looked very happy. She is an artist and rescued an abused animal. This reminded me of Ms.H, an artist, who recently rescued Nemty the cat, due to many common traits of them. 

Talking with her on the trail was interesting. She is originally from New York City. After we said we are from Boston, she said that she had lived in Somerville. What!? We live in Somerville! We told her that we came from Boston instead of Somerville (just a couple of mile from Boston), because nobody knows Somerville. She actually lived twice in Somerville close to the place we live! WOW. What a coincidence. In the middle of nowhere, only 3 people in the vast public land in winter, talking about small city in Massachusetts which is far away from the trail. She said that NYC is indeed a center of art, and she is an artist, but NYC is too intense. So she decided to move to New Mexico, even though Mississippi was the most West she had been to at that time. She wanted to go to a beautiful place. So she just jumped on the Amtrak to the West without having a place to live or job. Wow. She lived in Albuquerque for a while and then moved to Grants, the city close to the trail eight years ago. She also kindly taught us that we could find stuff from native Americans. She showed where and how they looked like. 

a lot of broken bowl or something

decoration can be seen!

 

She picked up a piece of bowl or dish from ancient native Americans who live in the area. Pictures above are some of them. It was very exciting to see a piece with some decorations. Wow. On the way back to the trailhead, we found a lot of pieces of these kind. It was exciting. 

One thing not exciting was a Coca-cola can I saw near the trail.  It was abandoned along the trail. It was an old design with 6.5 Fl Oz (192 mL) style. According to the internet, that Coca Cola can design was sold in 1960's. Still the can is intact as it was after all the 60 years. Not good! 
Another thing I thought was...now Coca Cola can is 330 mL.....this explains how much more people are obese now! Sigh. 

Last part of the trail was a bit of scrambling, but it was great view! Love the West. 
Then we ate lunch and went off to Kanab, Utah. 

Nice View

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day5-First time in Arkansas

 2020 Winter Camping Trip Day5, 2020/11/30

We woke up in a calm pretty morning in Arkansas. Previous night was windy, but winds were completely gone in the morning. This was my first time visiting Arkansas. I didn't know anything about Arkansas. Now I know a little. People seem to like camping (at least RV). Although RV, people are still camping in December, which indicates they like camping. I also saw a lot of farming in the area near campground. Farming seems big there. Another thing I learned from Mr.N about Arkansas is Bill Clinton is from Arkansas. Due to that, when he was a candidate it got blue. Hiking-wise, Hot Spring National Park is in Arkansas, but not many hikers are talking about that, so I almost forgot mentioning it here. 

Tent area

The campground is along the river and quite nice. There are a lot of RV sites and separate tent sites. 10-15 RVs were camping in the RV area, but nobody in the tent area. So we were the only group! I always love nobody camping around. 

Morning coffee by fire and river

There was a concrete table set by the fire pit. I put a chair and had a cup of coffee by fire and looked at river for a while. What a quality time! 

On this day5, we drove to New Mexico. First time we entered "The West".

On the way most states are following social distancing practice. Restrooms on the highway are required to wear masks. Most people at gas stations wear masks and require masks even while getting gas outside. However, one state was absolutely no social distancing nor masks: Oklahoma. When we stopped by a gas station, nobody was wearing a mask while they were getting gas. Then we went into a store to go to the restroom. There was a small food court in the store. There were around 10 people eating in the food court area. Not a single person was wearing a mask. The worst thing in the food court was that no single person preparing food was wearing a mask. What the hell!? No mask and preparing food for customers? OMG. SO. BAD. After I went to the toilet I ran to the exit. 

At 10 p.m., we arrived a campground. When we arrived at a campsite very late, usually we grabbed fast food on the way so that we didn't need to boil water in the dark and cold. We got fast food around 5 or 6 times during this trip. These are my thoughts.

1. In-N-Out Burger: Always, for sure always I will go to In-N-Out when I am in the west. I got into In-N-Out when I lived in California. In 2019, I learned that In-N-Out branches exist in Utah. So I was secretly looking forward to having that. Surprisingly we found In-N-Out not only Utah but also in Arizona. I like simple fried potato and animal style. Mr.N hadn't tried or known about animal style, so I introduced this secrete menu and he loved it. I wish In-N-Out existed in the East. 

2. Burger King: I like Whopper. I stick to the regular Whopper and Mr.N tried and loved Impossible Whopper. I tried Impossible and I concluded I like the regular. I was surprised that Burger King and Impossible got agreement, since I thought that people who are into Impossible are not fond of fast food like Burger King. 

3. Five Guys: During this trip I found the option that the meat wrapped with lettuce instead of bread! Wow this is the hit! Also we downloaded the Five Guys App to order in advance to minimize human-human contacts. I found that I can order extra tomato, extra onion (raw) and extra baked onion! I love the App. When I say what to add to a burger, usually a cashier don't understand my English, thus App helps. Furthermore, I can think what to add not being rushed in front of a cashier. 

4. Subway: Subway is not my favorite, but Mr.N' really likes it. Cost performance is not great in my opinion, because one meal at Subway is around $12. My favorite sandwich shop is definitely Ike's Place. The sandwich is very saucy and my favorite bread style is Dutch Crunch. My favorite sandwich is "The girl I was dating for" All of Ike's sandwiches are very saucy and juicy! I first encountered Ike's Place at Stanford. The branch was there. Occasionally my lab mates and I went there or took out. Their sandwich names are weird, so it is awkward to say, "Can I get SF Giants?" or "Can I get ex-boyfriend?" but anyway worth it. I miss Ike's Place. 

Alright, this day's entry is about more food than hiking or camping, buy I love food as much as I love hiking. 

To be continued...

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day4: Mammoth Cave National Park

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day4, 2020/11/29

This day we toured Mammoth Cave. Mammoth Cave National Park doesn't charge an entrance fee, but you need to buy a ticket to go into caves. Since caves is the main activity in Mammoth Cave National Park, that kind of makes sense, however, people who have National Park pass don't get any advantages. We have a pass, so we were a bit frowning faces. 

Our ticket was 9:15 a.m., which is the first group of the day. Every 15 minutes, another group comes in. Face coverings are required and most people followed social distancing. Since Mammoth Cave is indeed big, I felt safe. 

Mammoth Cave is huge as the name indicates. So far 365 miles/587 km is surveyed, but geologists think it would be total 600 miles/966 km! Inside the cave is quite spacious and big: I was surprised how big it was, because my image of "cave" is very narrow. The cave tour is only 2 miles, but there are a lot to see and it was really interesting. 

Interesting point is not just its large size. Firstly, it is interesting geologically. Water is a key! Limestone underlies the Mammoth Cave, and s little acidic ground water keeps making limestone dissociated. This way cave is formed. Water is important for the ecosystem in the cave. Actually there are many animals living in the cave. Some animals adapted in the dark environment, such as eyeless cavefish or cave crayfish. They don't have pigments. 

Secondly, history is interesting. 4000 years ago to 2000 years ago, there is proof that Native Americans used the cave. They gathered and used minerals from cave, although it is not clear what the purpose was. It might be medicine? Also the ranger said that there are some petroglyphs. They might use the cave for certain ceremonies, but that is one hypothesis. When they collected minerals, they used mussels shells to scrape rocks. For the light they used torch with log bundles that lasted about 45 minutes. It is a big mystery that why suddenly the cave use was stopped 2000 years ago. Taboo or something? Then the cave was "re"discovered in 1798.

Upon rediscovery, the cave was a place to make gunpowder by enslaved workers for War of 1812. After war was over, the cave got famous and people started visiting. Later in 1926 Mammoth Cave was authorized as a national park. 

Entrance

Inside the Mammoth Cave 

 

Christmas tree in the cave

The entrance (left above). Unexpectedly inside the cave was quite dry and only water I saw was this dripping at the the entrance. 

Inside is quite large, wind and high ceiling as shown in the above right picture. For tour hours there are minimal lights are on. For walking, the nice path is created and easier to walk.                                                                                                 
There are large open area in the cave after about 0.5 mile from entrance, and rangers put a Christmas tree there. In front of the tree a ranger was standing and greeting people and explaining about cave and answering questions. Not only there but every 0.3 mile a ranger was standing and explained stuff and answered questions. They had masks and people made social distances with them.

gunpowder production

Interestingly a lot of stuff from past activities remained as they are.  The left picture is some equipment to make gunpowder. Oxen carried things from outside into the cave and mixed with mineral from cave rocks. Then, interestingly, that was mixed with ox blood.

 

 

log pipe

Enslaved workers hollowed logs and made a long pipe. Water at the entrance was carried via log into the cave at the gunpowder production site. You can see in the picture hollowed log is sharpened at the edge and connected to the next hollowed log to make a long pipe. How could humans hollow such long log? I asked a standing ranger, but she didn't understand my English. Then Mr.N asked the question for me. The ranger said it was hollowed by hands. I don't think so! The logs are longer than hands! I believe that she didn't know the answer. 

Another interesting purpose of cave usage was Tuberculosis patients stayed here in the cave. In the past TB cause was not known as bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and some people thought this cave environment helps healing it. Obviously no for the current knowledge. At that time patients were talking with visitors (by that time cave was an attraction to visit), and they didn't follow social distancing practice. As a result some cave visitors got TB. It was a bit funny since social distancing is a timely topic. 

Inside the cave

Cave and path

I learned a lot about Mammoth cave! Due to COVID, only the biggest cave was open, but next time I am interested in touring more caves. 

After we toured the Mammoth Cave, we hiked around a little. In the Mammoth Cave National Park, of course caves are the main attraction, but hiking trails are also offered. We hiked a couple of miles and checked out the Whites Cave. Actually really small caves are everywhere along the hiking trails. Whites Cave was very small and it is not walkable (can't even enter, entrance is too small). So we just looked inside by using phone light. 

It was fun!

To be continued...

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day3

 2020 Winter Camping Trip Day3, 2020/11/28

This day we drove to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. 

What I knew about Kentucky was, only Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). Believe or not, KFC is very popular in Japan, especially for Christmas season food. People like to buy KFC for Christmas food. Although vast majority of Japanese are not religious, KFC is successfully advertising their chicken as a Christmas food. In the TV commercial in Japan, Colonel Sanders is giving chickens to children. You Americans might be surprised, but I need to mention here is that Japanese KFC tastes really different from American KFC. First time I had American KFC I thought that chickens are super greasy.

We entered the different time zone, so we arrived at a campground in the park around 3:30 p.m. It was first time we arrived at campsite before dark. For the social distancing, campsites were open only every other site. I am not sure it is very meaningful, since each site is quite big, but I think that it is still a very good idea, because in that way crowd in the restroom or entrance check-in/out area can be avoided. Guys don't know, but sometimes campground ladies room has a line. We foraged and had campfire and looked at sunset. It was very nice! 

Nice campsite

While we were sitting by fire, a guy from a few campsites away walked by with a dog and talked to us from 10 feet away. "It is a beautiful site!" Mr.N replied, "Yes we saw sunset." He replied,"Oh my God, it is nice." He was talking to every camper. Very friendly guy. We really liked the site until the middle of night. 

Campsite 71, across our campsite, had RV. They were running generator in the evening. I hoped that they would stop it soon and went to bed. At 2 a.m. I woke up by the sound Mr.N was going outside of the tent. Sometimes we go to the toilet in the middle of night, so I thought that he went to the restroom. I also noticed that the generator was still running. A few minutes later I heard that Mr.N and a guy talking. I couldn't hear what they were talking, though. I asked Mr.N what he talked with the guy when he came back to the tent. Mr.N was pissed that the generator was still ON at 2 o'clock in the middle of night and talked to the guy in the RV. Mr.N basically lit his headlamp into the RV until the guy came out. MrN asked to stop generator but the guy said they had two babies saying cold, and their rental RV was crappy and had to keep generator on. Campground rule is generator is allowed ONLY 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. 

Huh? If heat is needed one should not go camping. Stop generator and go to a hotel!!! Being cold is a part of camping. Besides, car camping you can have jackets and blankets as much as you want. We should have gone to camp host at 8:01 p.m. 

They turned off the generator next morning at 7:50 a.m. So annoying. 

Next morning I saw their kids. They are not "babies". They are old enough to talk and walk. They had plenty of layers including down jackets. That made me angry, and thought, "Sigh those Americans. That's why you are not welcomed as travelers. So selfish!" The guy apologized and said they were leaving that day. Mr.N said that we were leaving too in the angry mode. The guy apologized but his wife didn't. On the way out campground, we stopped by the booth and talked to a camp host. We told her the incident and she was like, what the hell, and said, "Cold is part of camping. People need to respect other people. I will talk to campsite 71." She looked very motivated to go talking to them. I felt much better after talking to her. 

EVERYONE! Follow the time frame when generator is allowed. Be respectful at campsites! People go camping to be peaceful and enjoy nature, not to hear artificial generators!

To be continued...

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day2

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day2, 2020/11/27

We got up at 5:30 a.m. and ate breakfast. My breakfast is ochazuke and Mr.N's is oatmeal. You can tell who is American is who is Japanese by that. 

This day we drove 1.5 hour and went to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It was my first time visiting Virginia. Things I knew about Virginia are 1) One of East Coast states, 2) It has Shenandoah National Park, 3) Mr.N's co-worker Ms.D is from Virginia. That's it. So it was good to be there and see in person what it is like. 

I found that Shenandoah is East Coast style National Park. Blue Ridge Mountains are pretty and its appearance and style is similar to New England's, especially New Hampshire's. There are full of green trees, however, although I mentioned that it is similar to NH, much less trees than New Hampshire. In NH, it is impossible to see any view between trees, but here in Shenandoah, you can see scenery between trees. I liked that. At the hill tops, there are rocks usually and views are nice. Iconic rocky terrain in New England is also in Shenandoah. 

One of interesting features about Shenandoah National Park is that the park is really long from north to south, but it is short in the width, east to west. It is about 100 miles from north to south, but some area less than 10 miles in the width. This shape is because park is covering the mountain range. Interestingly, there is a paved road on the mountain ridge all the way in the park. According to the brochure, the road was constructed to give everybody an opportunity to enjoy the mountains. The road was made in the era cars got popular in the U.S. Mr.N said that in that era Americans tried to make roads literally everywhere so that people could go everywhere by cars (and not walking at all). 

Another thing worth mentionining is that Appalachian trail is all the way along the scenic road. Appalachian trail (AT) is a long distance, 2190 mile-trail from Georgia to Maine. For AT hikers in this part would be great, because frequent visitor center accesses, which includes restaurants, campground, and lodges. According to the park pamphlet, there are 4 food service areas and 2 lodging areas along AT. When I was reading the brochure, I found a picture of President Hoover and his wife. Although I knew his name due to Hoover tower at Stanford (I worked there before as a scientist), I had never seen his picture. I said, "He is fat", and Mr.N said, "Yes." I replied, "How do you know?" Mr.N said that he learned that Mr.Hoover was fat at school. He learned that several things about each President and one bullet point about Mr.Hoover was that he was fat. I laughed. It was a bit sad that one of past America's President descriptions is being fat, but I thought that it was very funny. I read the description on the brochure regarding Hoover and I thought that he was lazy. He built Rapidan Camp as a retreat and he and his wife came to Shenandoah National Park "to escape the stress of work and summer's heat and humidity in the Nation's Capital."  The quote is from the pamphlet. I was not sure that President escaping from stress is publicly accepted. I had a positive impression of Hoover, because he donated his books to Stanford and beautiful Hoover Tower, but now his points are subtracted. Anyway from this and map, I learned Virginia and Washington DC is next each other, which I didn't know before. 

Lunch time

OK, so, finally hikes. We did small 2 hikes. The first one was North Marshall Mountain. It was only 1.3 mile with 276 elevation gain. It was a lunch time, so we sat down the top and ate tuna packs and bread with hot tea. We always prepare tea (K), and coffee (Mr.N) in a insulated mug (not Thermos but they are Zojirushi, which is my forever favorite brand) for a day. There were no people hiking at that time, so it was peaceful and nice.                                     

Blue Ridge Mountains

Second hike is another small one, 2.2 mile with 495 feet elevation change to the park's highest point, Hawkbill peak at 4051 feet. Probably because it is the highest peak in the park, there were many people, especially at the summit area. I wished there had been less people. 

After the hike we drove the scenic Skyline Drive until the end. Along the road there are many turnouts for overlook. One overlook is named Pinnacles Overlook. I was expecting that something interesting rocks there due to the name pinnacles, but there was not a single one. Hummm. It might be because there is a mountain called Pinnacle Peak 10 miles away. I didn't see any signs of pinnacles, but maybe some can be seen if I climbed there. Who knows.

Probably near Riprap Overlook

Near the end of Skyline Drive, we saw a very good view. The sunlight from clouds going to the waves of mountains. We sat down a little and enjoyed the view. Then we left the Shenandoah. 

Shenandoah is too far to drive for weekend from Boston, and if we fly we go to the West. If there was no pandemic, we would never visit Shenandoah. It was a good opportunity. 

Love Fire

                                                                                                                                               Then we drove to West Virginia and camped in the National Forest.  It was a big camping area but only one group was camping far away. We made fire and enjoyed it. The picture is a morning campfire. Fog in the forest was pretty. It was above freezing temperature and it was no problem with dealing with cold. 

To be continued...

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day1

2020 was a tough year for many people due to the COVID-19 pandemic. How could anybody predict this?!

This pandemic has changed people's life styles.

COVID-19 changed our 2020 hiking trip plan, too. First, we planned to go to Montana in summer, because Mr.N's sister Ms.F1 would have a wedding there. We planned to hike there in addition to attending the party. Of course wedding during this COVID era is not a good idea. So it was cancelled. Cancel or not, anyway we were not comfortable with flying during COVID, so we didn't go anywhere in summer, and instead we hiked here and there in the local. 

We hoped that we could travel somewhere soon after. Then summer passed, and fall came, but the pandemic continued. Actually it got worse and worse. In the past few years we went to the south globe in December, since it is summer time in the south globe when the north globe is winter. This year, we can't fly and anyway no country welcomes US residents! Furthermore, even US domestic flights are not safe (actually more dangerous than international flights, in my opinion). 

So what did we do? ------We did a road trip within the United States!

Because we didn't take any vacations until thanksgiving, we were able to combine our vacation days with thanksgiving and Christmas break, AND new year break to be a long vacation. We did the 39 day's trip in the West! 

A couple of days before trip, we went to grocery stores and bought food for camping, such as instant rice, cup noodles, pasta and pasta sauces, tuna packs, dried seaweeds, Japanese curry packs, ramen/soba/udon noodles, fish, cookies, chocolates, etc.  Important tip here is getting Japanese snacks, ramen, pasta sauce, Japanese fish cans, dried seaweed and dried vegetable salad kits and Japanese cookies and chocolates! Those are the essential survival items for me as a REAL Japanese to go to middle of nowhere. 

2020, November 26th is our trip day1. For this trip we decided to rent SUV instead of taking our sedan, because we had a lot of camping gear and food, we needed space for stuff and comfy atmosphere. Only "mmmmmmm" thing for the car was not a Japanese car, but it was AWD, so I couldn't complain. The number plate was Rhode Island, and we decided to pretend RI residents for six weeks.

Driving off Mass, I was thinking, "Oh is this really happening? Thanksgiving has just started and I won't work until January 4th!" I felt a little surreal. Well, it might be typical vacation style for Europeans (French)?! Definitely not for Japanese! 

On the way we saw a couple of bad accidents. One was that a car was completely climbed up to a guardrail. Since it was an opposite lane, we were not affected. Another accident we saw was insane. A car was burning in the big fire ahead. The car was at the edge and the owner was standing 50 meters ahead and texting. How could he text not looking at his car when it was in the big fire?! We saw two police cars were coming to the burning car. Wow. It was like a movie. 

During drive, we listened to radio or podcasts mostly. Our first choice radio station is local public radio. I like NPR news. Usually local public radio is FM somewhere between 85 to 95 (although Mr.N said tune is over 100 in Montana). There is a public radio station in the area of big cities but I found there is not in the rural areas. When we couldn't find a local public radio station, we listened to podcasts.

Our favorites are: 

1. Car Talk

2. Hidden Brain

3. Invisibilia

4. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

5. Embedded

With radio and shows, we drove through Connecticut, New York, then Pennsylvania. Penn. Recently I heard Penn a lot during November election. Actually I got much better sense which state I was during this trip, because I listened to and watched Youtube videos for election results. That helped me to get a sense where I was within the U.S. by imaging a US map in my head. It is a great progress considering that I didn't know how many states in the U.S. when I came to the U.S.! (Who foreigners care?) Anyway here I want to say about Penn was that all the rest areas along highway were closed!!! We went to a fast food store and it was only drivethru! No restroom....then, WHERE TO PEE?????   As a hiker, I don't care using "wilderness restroom", but I heard that it is illegal to pee in the civilized area.

Finally we found that a gas station had restroom. 

Then after 7 hours of driving, we decided to stay at the campground in Antietam Battlefield & Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park (the longest park name ever) in Maryland. It is convenient these days: through recreation.gov App, you can quickly reserve a campsite. This was a very nice campsite along Antietam creek and upper Potomac river. There are more than 18 campsites, but only 2 of them were occupied that night. Other group was far away, so we had a peaceful night. Price is cheap, only $10/night, probably because you need to walk 0.1 mile to the campsite from car parking. It seems like most people hate the walk like that. 

Campsite

A picture of campsite in the morning is in the left. 
There is a grill, a fire pit, a picnic table set for each site, but nobody is in the sight. This photo was taken after the fire was extinguished mostly, but you might be able to catch the small smoke from the pit. Fire warmed up me a lot in the winter camping and loved fire even more in the cold! (although Mr.N still said fire was not necessary).

I don't know what kind of fruit or nut this is

 

While I was doing final ground check before leaving, I noticed that yellow ball on the ground. At first I thought that it was a tennis ball.  I thought, "Okay, a doggie left a toy"

More yellow balls

Then I realized that there are a lot more yellow balls on the ground. I looked around more carefully on the ground and it seems like that birds or squirrel eat this stuff.  I had never seen these things and it was interesting to see these. 

After eaten up

To be continued....