On the Road Again: Thru-roading with Boys

I’m going on a trip and I’m going to take an Armadillo, a Banana, a Cantaloupe and Duct Tape……   Granny Hat remembers playing that time-honored car game back in the day before Ipads, earphones, audio books and air conditioning. Granny’s mom had to get creative on long road trips with five kids. She always stashed a bag of lemon drops which she doled out every 100 miles or so.  She also had quite a few boredom buster ideas up her sleeve like Auto Bingo, memory activities, rhyming games, singing and going- on- a- trip, since, well, that’s what we were doing.  Granny and Dad played it recently on a Wild West road trip with their grandsons, Dakota, Caden and Blaze.  The boys had to give their grandpa hints because his memory is not what it used to be, we laughed a lot, the game is just as fun as it ever was.

See, the epidemics of 2020 had left Granny Hat & Dad with a colossal contagion of Cabin Fever and they had it on good authority that their grandsons from the prairie had a case of it too. What better way to treat the disease and remain isolated than a thru- roading trip with them into the sunset?  The plan was Nebraska to California with some stops in the Rocky Mountains, Great Basin National Park and the Nevada outback. Due to lock downs, some of Dad’s plans never materialized but other unexpected and simple pleasures surprised us.  As John Steinbeck said, “People don’t take a trip, a trip takes people!”

If it is true that a picture is worth a 1000 words then perhaps Granny can best capture this epic road trip with photos. To the best of her knowledge and now, experience, Granny Hat would say that really all you need for successful thru-roading from the Wide Missouri to the Pacific Ocean with three grandsons can be listed using “I’m Going On a Trip” but she changed the wording just a little.

I’M GOING ON A TRIP AND THERE WILL BE:

ANTELOPE: or is it Antelopes? Granny Hat wasn’t sure, dictionary says both work.

 

The Wild West is teeming with these beautiful creatures but they are hard to spot.  The boys were better at finding them than Granny and Dad.  And we had to be quick with our cameras because they run like the wind.

BURGERS: from Nebraska to the Golden State, burgers always hit the spot.  In n Out is truly a Pacific Coast treasure!   A&W still reigns supreme in Tonopah, Nevada!

 

And when the patty goes shooting out of your burger, throw your head back and laugh!

 

COUSINS: These cousins got along swimmingly, so much laughter and silly shenanigans.

 

DRAMATIC SKY:

 

 

 

ENORMOUS APPETITES: Caden helped Granny Hat shop which was a good thing because they filled that Costco cart to the brim and she could barely push it.  It was a joy to have healthy appetites in the house again; one morning Granny served up 40 pieces of french toast!

 

 

FIRES, FROGS & FRISBEES: or is it a toad?

 

GOOFY: 

 

HISTORICAL LANDMARKS: Since National and State Parks remain closed, often- overlooked Historical Monuments (Dad’s favorites) are getting some well-deserved attention.  The Homestead National Monument on the banks of Cub Creek in central Nebraska commemorates the Homestead Act, the settling of “the west”. We explored beautiful forested trails and 100 acres of prairie grasses.

 

A local quilting club added historical patterns inspired by the homestead pioneers. This was interesting to Granny Hat, not so much to the boys.

 

ICE CREAM & CANDY: Grandpa loved having a daily excuse to indulge in ice cream – he kept insisting he was stopping for the boys. And Granny Hat found a legit, old-fashioned salt water taffy store in Estes Park, CO that lured us in with free samples.

 

JAVA:  No pictures for this one but Granny Hat was happy to learn that Dakota was with her on Team Java.  Any excuse for a coffee shop stop!

KOA KAMPGROUNDS: Private campgrounds were open for camping or cabins. We splurged on a deluxe cabin in Estes Park and tent camped in Utah and Nevada.

 

LUNAR CRATERS: Grandpa promised a lunar crater where Neil Armstrong and his cronies reportedly rehearsed for their epic moon landing.  We drove miles on dirt roads into the desert following arrows and very weather-beaten signs searching for this crater. Granny Hat hiked more than one giant leap and one small step. We never found the silly thing.  How can you hide a crater? Perhaps it’s a giant hoax just like the moon landing!?!

 

MR. BEAR: Mr. Bear has been traveling everywhere with Blaze for nine years, a gift from his Nana.  Poor Mr. Bear had a close shave, almost got left behind among the linens at the KOA in Colorado.  Granny Hat to the rescue! The relief was so profound that Mr. Bear got his own photo shoot.

 

NATURE:  Once the road brought everyone back to California, Grandpa took the boys on a Sierra Backpack in the Emigrant Wilderness, hiking to Bear Lake and Cherry Creek.

 

OPEN ROAD:

 

PLAYGROUNDS, PUMPKIN PIE & PIANO:

 

Playgrounds were a hit, piano lessons a success, pumpkin pie first try for Caden, a fail!

QUAD RIDES

 

ROCKS: Granny wishes she could adequately describe how the three boys burst out of the van at each stop, immediately commencing to running, climbing, leaping and yelling. If there was a mountain nearby, they were on their way! If there was water anywhere they were jumping over it or splashing in it. If the park had a playground swathed in neon yellow caution tape and notices about Covid 19 distancing, they were blind to all of it, swinging and sliding. It made Granny Hat feel young again….and a little nervous.

 

 

SAND:

 

TRAILS & TACOS: Granny Hat, Dad and the grandsons took trails in the grasslands of Nebraska, the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and the high deserts of Utah and Nevada.

You can’t make a visit to Granny’s house in San Juan Bautista, California without tacos.

 

UTAH:

VIEWS:

WORK:  One of the things Dad misses the most during these empty nest years is having a passle of kids follow him around the farm, chatting to him and lending a hand with chores and projects.  He put the grandsons to work setting up for orchard irrigation and bird farm chores. They were so much help.  Granny Hat had them picking (well, mostly eating) boysenberries and she had some expert help shelling peas too!

 

XTREME  FUN                                                                                                                                                                                     YOLO: It takes nerves of steel to run into the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz on a windy day. And Blaze creatively devised his own water park with a sprinkler and a swing!

ZOOM, better than….. We all learned way more than we would have in a Zoom geography class, America is a beautiful, sprawling, diverse country full of friendly people and majestic landscape. It had been many years since Granny Hat had traveled with a car full of arms and legs, backpacks and opinions. Add to that all the modern day devices, chargers and earphones.  There were plenty of adept navigators in the car to help Dad find his way, or get lost and take the scenic route, which he prefers anyway.  And there was a lot of good conversation, walks down memory lane and a few trying- to-make-sense–of- the-world sessions.

And some bonus Newsies sing-alongs with the cousins and aunties! The grandsons are growing up, Granny learned so much from them. 2020 won’t be such a bust after all, Granny Hat got to spend special time with three of her grandsons.

“On the road again, goin’ places that I’ve never been,
Seein’ things that I may never see again and I can’t wait to get on the road again.”               Willie Nelson