Rooftop tents

Road Trip U.S.A. – Fast Forward from S.D. To N.C. To FL – and On To Vienna!

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OK, so that title was a hook. J and I don’t actually reach Vienna in this post (unless we unknowingly went through a Vienna on the way back to Florida, always a possibility), but this episode does finally return us to Florida after five weeks on the road. But we will make it to Vienna, Austria in the next post, I promise!

The final stage of our road trip meant we had to cross that vast expanse of the United States that lies between South Dakota and North Carolina, where we planned to spend time with friends and family. All I can say is that there’s a lot of United States.

To sum up:

— The Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. The largest high school basketball arena in South Dakota, completely decorated with dried corn. Apparently George McGovern played there. Who knew? J insisted having his photo taken in the center of the court.

— High prairies in South Dakota turned into rolling hills and a lot more trees during a brief foray into Iowa.

— Omaha, Nebraska has a lot more hills than I expected and it was not at all easy to find (or enter) our AirBnb. Maybe we should have spent another night in the rooftop tent. On the other hand, J loved his 14 ounce ribeye. It turns out I didn’t take a single photo in Omaha.

— Left quad still showing the wear from the Badlands ladder incident and stairs are not going so well…found a large ace bandage that might help…

— From Nebraska into Missouri. Lots of trees and lakes and very beautiful, especially once we got into the Ozark area. Detoured into Kansas City for the precise purpose of going to the Jack Stack steak restaurant.

— Missouri doesn’t believe in leveling roads. The two lane “highways” we were on simply followed the steep rolling hills regardless of pitch up or down. I’ve never been over as many “blind hills.” And there are some great town names – “Tightwad” being one of my favorites. With a street called “Stingy.”

— At the Doolittle campground, outside of Rolla, Missouri, we saw a red fox scamper across the golden, illuminated field behind our campsite.

— Further along in Missouri (it’s a big state), and outside the “Boomland” fireworks center (a truly scary place), we visited a somewhat desolate park that holds itself out as the location of the first steps of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

— There are a lot of terrifying bridges in the U.S., especially between Missouri and Kentucky. No shoulders, rusting, and they look like they could collapse at any minute.

— Nashville is a very large city. The “hockeytonks,” as they are called, are crowded day in and day out. After enjoying a lot of music simply from the street side we found a relatively tame venue where we could listen to a very good singer playing acoustic guitar. No luck in finding an unannounced Lucinda Williams or Steve Earle or Jack White show. Oh well.

It was a relief to get to the home of our friends K and B in Banner Elk, N.C. The next week and a half was taken up with family and friends (and the recovery of my leg). Unfortunately the leg issue meant that discretion was the better part of valor, and we didn’t attempt the Grandfather Mountain climb that we’d planned.

On the way back from N.C to Florida we had one last rooftop tent night at Skidaway Island State Park, Georgia, outside of Savannah. It was hot and humid and rained a lot.

But beautiful. Just like our 6,500 miles driving through 16 states and four national parks of the United States.

Road Trip U.S.A. – Down and Dirty in Badlands

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The approach to Badlands took us along State Road 44, a two lane road that eventually cuts across the park. There’s very little traffic. But that apparently didn’t deter the same road construction that we saw across the entire country. We experienced a 15 plus minute delay when one lane closed down, and a lead vehicle ceremoniously ushered us along about a three mile strip of highway – where we met the sole car that was waiting to go the other direction.

We finally reached the Interior Motel and Campsite in Interior, South Dakota, just outside of the park, about 6:30. It was nice. Several other rooftop tents, toilets and showers, an above ground pool, and a view of the Badlands. There were a few cars speeding along the adjacent highway, but somehow that was comforting in this otherwise extremely desolate place. Plus, the road was a elevated above the campground, giving it sort of a Jetson like feel. A full moon tonight and plans to focus on hiking, not driving, the next day.

I woke up about 5:30 a.m., probably due to the sunrise. great swathes of apricot overlying the wine dark purple of night, and the morning star piercing through all of it.

Apparently they don’t worry too much about park admissions on Tuesdays, and we didn’t even have to show our park passes. We stopped first at the visitors’ center and got some advice about trails, and also looked at the extremely interesting working fossil laboratory and heard a lot about a recently discovered Saber tooth tiger.

From there, we started the first of our hikes. The Window – a very easy boardwalk – and the Door, a bit more of a hike, culminating in a natural door that frames a view of the wall of jagged white peaks of stone. Traversing through it was almost like walking through a hard iced cake.

The Notch hike was next. The beginning has one steep section with a ladder going up. We rejected the ladder and instead scrambled up along side it. Fairly wide ledges led out to a spectacular overlook of the valley. It was very not, near noon and 90 degrees in the shade. On the return, we chose the ladder route. Mistake. Looking through the ladder with nothing below triggered all my fear responses – I was so tense I basically slid down without ever letting go and messed up my left quad – which plagued me for the rest of the trip. My legs were shaking when we got to the bottom.

After a quick lunch in the air conditioned Explorer, we journeyed on to the Saddle Pass. It was a true scramble – steep and slippery up the rock formations themselves, culminating on the flat upper green prairie and a number of trailheads. At the ranger’s suggestion, we then went off track and climbed the highest peak to a little throne at the very top. Amazing how touching the rock – as opposed to being on a ladder = makes it so much easier!

By then we were more than hot and sweaty. Did I mention temps were well over 90 degrees? We drove a little more of the Loop Road to the Fossil Exhibit boardwalk, an area of mammals fossilized more than 30 plus million years ago.

We finally hightailed it out of the park to see the small hamlet of Interior, South Dakota. There are two churches and a bar. We stopped at the bar. At the Wagon Wheel the bartender explained to us the story behind the poster of the naked woman riding a Radar the Bull (with a ring in its nose). She looked like a bovine Lady Godiva. Apparently Radar was a frequent visitor to the bar at one point. Between fossils (Lyme Regis) and the bull (my encounter with one in the Yorkshire Dales) I had flashbacks to our UK trip.

Spent the rest of the day at the campsite, plotting our next moves while being entertained by the couple in a nearby campsite who appear to be living out of their van while practicing for the their next singing gig.

Road Trip U.S.A – Yellowstone and the Battle of the Elks

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We awakened on day two of our Yellowstone adventure to a view of two elks grazing and head butting only ten yards from our rooftop tent. You could actually hear their antlers clacking against each other. It didn’t look like serious business – they’d go at it, like very large puppies, for a bit, and then tire of that game and eat some more grass. Eventually they meandered out of the campground, as comfortable as you please.

This was our day for the “must see” Old Faithful, which required a trip to the western side of the park. There’s a great visitors’ center, with good explanations of volcanoes – especially how we were sitting right on top of one. We then took a decent hike up to an observation spot to see Old Faithful itself. Fortunately, we saw a pretty good eruption. We saw it erupt a second time later in the day, and it simply sputtered.

Next stop was the “prismatic falls.” A navigational error ensued, and we turned off the road too early, which took us along a rather odd hike on the perimeter of the area toward the Fairy Falls. We could see people in the distance on boardwalks, but had no way to get there. Nonetheless, we could still see the billowing multi-colored smoke – pink and turquoise. We were going to try to get to the actual location, but the traffic was simply too much. A lot of Yellowstone is still digging out from the floods of last year, and although the crowds weren’t bad, a weekend day was all that was needed for the traffic snarls to start.

A big rain storm had started so we headed to the Lake Village lodge again to wait it out. There, sitting on the porch, we met someone who was born in Derbyshire, of all places, then moved to the U.S. with his family, and now was a film editor on one of my favorite TV shows, Naked and Afraid! It was he who told us about Deadwood….

After a “grocery store” trip (to the extent a national park general store can be described as a grocery store) we had our last camping night in Yellowstone, and celebrated with an odd concoction of mac’n cheese, precooked bacon, and green beans. As I was cooking I noticed a fellow camper who’d left his chair too close to his campfire on that very windy evening – fortunately I was able to call out to him before it got incinerated. I felt like a veritable Smoky Bear!

The next morning we managed to pack up all the debris we’d been accumulating. Those bear box pantries are a real luxury. We left camp by 10 a.m. and drove to Fishing Bridge, just north of Lake Village and out of Yellowstone via the East Entrance. There was a lot of elevation gain, and evidence of many forest fires, lots of downed, white trees.

There was a full day of driving ahead of us. Our route was going to take us through Cody, into the Big Horn National Forest area, and finally into Deadwood which was as peculiar a place as its name implies.

Road Trip U.S.A. – The Northern Loop of Yellowstone, an Encounter with a Bear, and a Grand Canyon

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Leaving the Grand Tetons

Yellowstone National Park is GIGANTIC. There’s no other way to put it, except to use capital letters. And especially when you have just arrived from the much smaller Grand Teton National Park.

It’s an easy trip from Jackson up to Yellowstone. You drive through the eastern side of the Grand Teton National Park (beautiful views of the Grand Teton peak itself, which does tower above the others). We had previously explored the western side so it was interesting to see the other part of the park. The granite mountains looked like rows of jagged shark teeth biting the blue sky.

After a while, the Tetons peter out, and you leave the park for a few miles – only to enter Yellowstone, the oldest of all the national parks (although I think Hot Springs also claims that honor…). It is gorgeous. We drove along a river and through a canyon, on to West Thumb, which is part of the massive Yellowstone Lake. Nothing here is small.

We finally reached the Bay Bridge Campground, where the person checking us in was from Melbourne, Florida! In keeping with everything in Yellowstone, the campground was huge, but each site was a good size and it was a great place for people watching. For example, the European threesome of two men and a woman – one of whom jumped rope for at least 30 minutes before dinner while the woman looked on wearing a fur vest. We even saw a few other rooftop tents.

We set up camp at what was to be our home for the next three nights, taking particular advantage of the built in bear box, which made a great pantry. We then drove to the Lake Lodge, the closest of the lodges where we sat on the porch with a drink (and Wi-Fi) enjoying the views of the lake.

Sleep that night was not easy. It started off with the sound of some creature making high pitched noises and grating sounds. I was terrified that the empty water cooler (BTW, a completely useless purchase, gallon jugs work way better) was being dragged around by some unspecified creature of the night. J asked if we should look out of the tent to see what was going on, and my response was “absolutely not.”

The next morning I noticed one of the logs that delineated the parking area by our site bore fresh (and large) scratch marks, and heard one of our neighbors saying they had seen a mother bear and her cub visiting the campground right by our tents. This was not reassuring.

Our first day we decided to explore the northern loop, parts of which are among the least traveled. This took us by the Mud Volcano – a nice boardwalk passing over the steaming and roiling fumeroles and mud pots. You have the sense of earth moving under your feet.

From there, we drove through the Hayden Valley, lush green and yellow grasses – flat plains with brown mountains in the background. The yellow tones coordinated well with the sulphur from the geothermal activity. There we saw a herd of bison wading in the ponds. We stayed at the prescribed distance, mindful of the five people last year who were gored by bison.

Canyon Village was our next stop. It’s a very large “town” in that part of the park where we indulged in some souvenir shopping, followed by a drive along a very windy road and a high pass to Tower Roosevelt, on the way to Mammoth Springs.

The one thing not to go see in Yellowstone- the petrified redwood tree. After seeing numerous signs advertising it, I had visions of a preserved and immense tree….only to find something that looks like a stump of tree rock at the end of a dirt road.

Mammoth Hot Springs consists of hot springs bubbling up into layers of calcium that form terraces of white travertine. It’s a lot like Pamukkale in Turkey, which we saw in 1989. In the 19th century people would dip objects into the hot springs to coat them in travertine and apparently you can still find some of these objects in antique shops. They don’t let you do that anymore.

From the marbled Mammoth Springs we worked our way to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It is an amazing gorge, turquoise water below, a huge waterfall, and gradated orange and grey cliffs. It’s possibly the most beautiful area in the whole park.

And on the way back we encountered a female elk crossing the road right in front of us. That was a precursor to the next day.

Road Trip U.S.A. – Camping and Canyons in a Rooftop Tent

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Once we left Golden, CO the temperature had crept far enough below three digits that we had no excuses left. Rooftop tent camping had to begin. After all, we had already lumbered a couple of thousand miles from Florida with the thing stuck on top of our car roof. It was time to do something with it.

Another set point on our road trip was the start date of an AirBnb in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where we were meeting up with family members. Hence, day 1 of camping had to be somewhere between Golden and there.

We managed to reserve a Hipcamp in Buford Canyon, Wyoming, just west of Cheyenne. After a quick stop at a Colorado grocery store (with the unlikely name of “King Soopers” – but that was actually a Kroger’s), we had miles of driving north through Colorado. The burgeoning development outside of Denver reminds me in an unfortunate way of Florida, but then we shifted into high prairie and desert, multiple shades of yellow. Plus the wind picked up…no wonder Kansas had a song called Dust in the Wind. (Incidentally, the Spotify playlist for Kansas contains only two tolerable songs. It was J’s bright idea that’s what we should listen to while driving across the prairies.)

We stopped at the very modern Wyoming State Welcome Center. It’s more like a museum than a welcome center, with lots of interesting displays. The wind blew everything off our picnic table…

We decided to drive through Cheyenne, but there wasn’t much to see other than the capitol building and a very inactive downtown. Even though it was Sunday, I don’t think that was the problem.

Our campsite was about a mile off of the very heavily trafficked I-80. This part of the country is apparently home to the freight train industry with one plus mile long trains. I didn’t even know such things existed.

The campsite was absolutely stunning. A beautiful shelter for a picnic table, with a “designed by” plaque commemorating the architect. A spotless composting toilet and two sites with tiny houses. We set up camp, and walked around the interesting rock formations on the property, and over the ladder the owner had placed to allow entry into state land and the canyon itself.

After a brief scare when we couldn’t get the lighter to work we managed a pretty good first night camping dinner of steak and asparagus. The night sky was a spectacular tapestry of silver and black. The only downside was the I-80 traffic and train noise, which was constant. But it was more than made up for by the convenient and beautiful location. Elevation was about 7600-7800, and we could feel it.

The next day was a long day of driving the length of Wyoming. After we broke down camp, we drove through high desert with the Wind River mountain range on one side. Unfortunately much of the drive was on I-80, with 18 wheelers careening in the wind, and my fingers were sore afterwards from my white knuckled driving.

Some of the area looked like what I would call salt flats. Very desolate, with tiny hamlets of only 100-200 people. I especially liked the truck stop called “Stinker.” We even went through a small town called Eden, which had a few green fields.

Eventually we climbed higher and higher, suddenly saw evergreens, and the next thing we knew we were approaching the Tetons and Jackson.

We located our AirBnb in Teton Village, a major ski resort with lots of condos. What a change from what we had been driving through. J and I managed to get cleaned up – after a night of camping and days of driving we were pretty grimy – and rendezvoused with family. Time for a few days of real R&R – hiking and the like, and a nice break from the road.

Florida by Rooftop Tent – The Many Uses of a Little Black Dress

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They don’t say a little black dress can be worn anywhere for nothing. A case in point.

The other week I was invited to speak to the Florida Young Lawyers division about mental toughness (which I call resilience) and my mountain climbing adventures. Having rejected the urge to show up in full battle gear – crampons, helmet, boots and the like – I decided my REI black travel dress would convey the necessary formality (these young lawyers were much more dressed up than we older lawyers tend to be) while still demonstrating that mountain “savoir faire.”

The event was in Tampa, and our plan for afterwards was to drive southeast toward the heart of Florida to a Hipcamp named Camp Catfish. It advertises itself as one of the top Hipcamps in Florida for 2021. It was a primitive site – no water, portapotties or any amenities (if you consider a port a potty an amenity). Just four leveled off pull in sites on a piece of property bordering the Peace River.

The drive to Camp Catfish took us along two lane county roads wending their way through fields of crops and citrus groves. I know Florida’s citrus industry is on the wane, but you wouldn’t know it when you’re in the midst of acres of orange trees.

Finally our GPS – yes, we had no address, only GPS coordinates- took us to a dirt road. Nestled along side were a few small farms and dwelling places – one was a “peace bus”. Truly looked like a spot for those living off the so-called grid.

We reached the end of the road and pulled into the campsite, marked by a Camp Catfish sign. Each site was large, with plenty of privacy. J and I immediately set to work – even though we’ve gotten a lot faster there’s still a lot of set up to do, and J insists on setting up an awning even for a one night stay. Hopefully some time we can go for two nights and enjoy the fruit of our labors.

Now what I haven’t mentioned is that I saw absolutely no point in changing clothes – hence I found my self erecting a privacy tent and making up the roofnest in a black dress! Well, I did change into tennis shoes. Like I said, those little black dresses go anywhere.

I did find something else to wear for a lovely short hike to the Peace River on the Hipcamp property the next morning. The river is home to many fossils – sharks teeth, armadillo plates, and the like – and the other campers were taking full advantage. They floated sieves in the river, dug up portions of the muddy riverbed and strained it through. They also had the biggest tent I’ve ever seen and I wondered if they were actually professional fossil hunters. After all, it was only $10 per night!

The hike itself took us through hobbit land. Covered in emerald green ferns, gentle rises and falls, and a canopy of old oaks.

I left the best for last. The night was moonless. There were no clouds or light pollution of any sort and the sky was embroidered with a thick weave of brilliant stars. Peace River. A wishful hope in these times.

Rooftop Tent or Five Star Hotel?

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Miami

I’m at my first in-person partners meeting in two years, staying at what I’m sure is a five star hotel. Who knows how far into the three digits it’s charging.

But this is life after the pandemic – or at least after we’ve gotten used to the pandemic – and much has changed in the hospitality industry. Or perhaps what I’m really demonstrating is that I’ve simply lost touch with the modern world of hotels over the last two years.

It started when I left my law firm’s dinner at a reasonable hour, returning to a really lovely room in a hotel that shall not be named. I was looking forward to enjoying a super expensive package of nuts from the minibar – which in my naïveté I just assumed was still a “thing.” But when I realized my keycard wouldn’t unlock said minibar I dialed 0 – at least that usually still works – to inquire about the issue. I was informed that Covid somehow had required the emptying of all minibars (despite the fact that minibars, whose ingredients are individually packaged and as pristine as a first snowfall, would hardly appear to be spreaders of Covid).

So giving up on that, I thought I could at least make a cup of decaf coffee in the fancy Illy coffee maker that was on top of the empty locked minibar. But Illy coffee machines should be banned as apparently no one, hotel staff included, knows how to use them.

With all the high falutin’ technology in this room – there was an imbedded TV screen in the bathroom mirror (what??) you would think you could at least turn the lights off with the help of one switch. But no, the switches were multiple and varied and at the end of the evening I found myself looking for manual off and on switches on each light fixture as the only way to power down. At least they still have switches. By the way, that omits the earlier hunt for the bathroom light switch, which turned out not to be close to the door but required a venture into a dark bathroom to find it somewhere in the center of the room over the middle of the vanity.

As I re-read this it certainly sounds like a rant of first world problems. But I’d never have thought that climbing up a ladder to my comfortable queen size mattress in my rooftop tent, illuminated by a little string of built in, battery pack operated LED lights, would be easier than staying in a swank hotel!

Winding Down 2021 – Adventures in a Rooftop Tent

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This blog post was supposed to be about our first actual out of the driveway camping experience in our rooftop tent (called a RTT by those in the know). But with 2021 rolling out in as haphazard a manner as it rolled in, this post is similarly going to have to careen across many topics. Think of the ball in a pinball machine going this way and that – perhaps a good analogy for the year.

To go back a few weeks – we did indeed get to adventure for one night at a Hipcamp site on the north shore of Lake Apopka. It was a fairly short drive from Orlando – light industrial areas morphed into light agricultural areas, anchored by what I learned is one of the largest blueberry processing facilities in the country. Who knew.

This particular campsite is notable for its whimsical decorations – LED dinosaur lights adorned our spot, and odd remnants of old vehicles and other objects (like a swan boat!) dotted the landscape.

The RTT experience itself was great. There’s a sense of security in sleeping ten feet above the ground, and the views are magnificent. The campfire was great and dinner would have been also had we remembered any utensils. I found myself googling “how to eat baked beans without silverware.” After rejecting the idea of whittling a fork (we didn’t have a knife either!) we resorted to using the tops of our water bottles as scoops.

The next morning was misty and grey. There was a hiking trail just across the street. Huge elephant ear plants around our tent and gone to the wild citrus made us feel we’d entered a world far from 21st century Florida.

But despite our plans for further adventure in 2021, the world of work kicked in and the next RTT inhabitants were Daughter A and fiancé N – in the driveway! Their sojourn – one night only – was occasioned by a Covid/omicrom outbreak among yours truly, J and daughter S (who we suspect imported this strain from a brief trip to San Francisco). And yes, all of us are fully vaccinated and boosted. We did, however, ultimately manage to cordon off the house so A and N were able to sleep indoors.

Fortunately we have a large porch and the contaminated ones were able to sit at the bottom part while still socializing with the others who held court on the top part. Our kn95 masks were de rigeur. Thank God the weather in Florida was compatible with outdoor living, and thus far we’ve limited the outbreak to the original three. But I must say I have rarely spent this much time outside – even on a camping trip. We spent a lot of time watching TikTok videos of other families in similar straits.

Note the “uppers” and the “downers”

So, J and I will shortly see off the last of our holiday houseguests and plan to spend NYE in our covid imposed bubble instead of at the fancy dinner we’d planned at a local restaurant with M and S.

2021 had its moments – A and N’s engagement, Long’s Peak and Colorado, a family Thanksgiving extravaganza, and some great visits with my parents, among them. And let’s not forget the vaccines! I have a very definite feeling that without them I would be facing something very different than a head cold and fatigue.

Here’s to 2022! And to adventure, whether in a rooftop tent in the driveway or beyond.

Florida by Rooftop Tent

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I haven’t mentioned it before on this blog but as of a couple of months ago J and I became the proud parents of a RTT – also known as a rooftop tent. This little dwelling place sits snugly atop our Ford Explorer and provides a safe and comfortable place to sleep with views to boot.

Installation is a bear. Step one involved procuring the proper crossbars – an item I’d never even been aware existed before. But J persevered and after only four trips to Ace Hardware he had the necessary tools to attach said crossbars to the top of the vehicle.

Step two involved the tent itself. Day one of step 2 involved unpacking and ground assembling. The thing arrived in a gigantic box on a solidly constructed pallet (that has turned into an excellent platform for my orchids). With the help of friend S we unpacked it and attached various bits and bobs such that we could get it to pop up on the garage floor. Whew – quite a stench. The smell of new fabric.

Day two of Step 2 involved assembling a crew of four strong friends in addition to assembling the tent. J and I had tried to lift the thing and dead lifting from the ground to above a Ford Explorer was not in the cards. Turned out with the assistance of some of our stronger friends – all fueled by coffee with chicory I bribed them with – the “lift” was quite doable. It was up!!

A little detail. The tent has a hard top and folds down to a thin 4 or so inches. The car still fits in all parking garages even with the tent riding on top. It has screened entrances/windows on each side and on the front. You access whichever entrance you’ve chosen via a telescoping ladder that hooks onto the side. There are various bags you can hang on the outside for storing shoes so you don’t track anything in.

Inside it’s tall enough for me to stand up at the highest point. There’s a four plus inch built in memory foam queen size mattress, with lots of pockets on the sides and ceiling for storage. And, most cool, you can plug a battery pack in and a string of LED lights illuminates the interior.

When you want to put it up, you simply undo the latches and push. Beyond that it’s just a matter of pushing out the awning that shades the entrance on the front. Storing it is a little trickier – one person pulls down, you have to make sure all the fabric is folded in all around, and then you secure the latches. Compared to putting up a ground tent, it’s instantaneous.

Camping trip number one was in the relative safety of our driveway – to the great interest of our neighbors. Based on accounts in all the rooftop tent camping groups I immediately joined on Facebook, apparently that is a time honored tradition.

Camping in the front yard is one thing but camping in the woods another. We just finished our first one, so there’s another story on the horizon. This Thanksgiving giving thanks for the many adventures with friends and family that are yet to come.