San Clemente, CA

We met our old friends, Jen and Jamie, today and we all spent the day together at the beach near my cousin Danny's house.  It was really fun to catch up with them.  We're ski buddies and haven't seen each other in several years.  They're as great as ever.  

It's been nice to see Danny and his girls, who are getting so big.  They are really great girls and he's a wonderful dad.  We've stayed with them and Danny's been so good to us.  We all had a fabulous weekend together.

 

All the kids - big and small - loved the ocean and the big waves.

Of course, we were all happy to have our family back together again, too.

I've been so fortunate to be connecting with old friends on this trip, and it's really nice when we're able to just pick up where we left off.  There's a lot of catching up to do, but it's a treat to spend time with great friends like Jennifer.

We're off to Yosemite tomorrow.  Chris has to leave us again, but we'll meet up in San Francisco on Wednesday.  Our goal for San Fran is to find the best Filipino restaurant.  We'll camp for two nights in Yosemite.  It's another spectacular place.  I think I need a thesaurus.

Daddy!

We met Chris at the airport in San Diego on Saturday night, and not a moment too soon! 

It's been three and a half weeks since we've seen him, but once he was with us, it seemed like we hadn't been apart at all.

We made it to the Pacific Ocean!!

Friday, July 17 - we made it to California and watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean!

My cousin, Danny, and his two girls, Kaitlin and Keira, welcomed us.

Saturday, July 18 - San Diego Zoo.  We saw a lot of interesting animals, including a particularly wild cheetah who said, "Cheetahs don't smile.  We roar."

Grand Canyon

We arrived at the Grand Canyon on Wednesday evening after our drive through Monument Valley and our visit to the Navajo Tribal Park.  After setting up camp and making dinner, I was thinking about the last time I was at the Grand Canyon.  It was 1995 or 1996, and Chris and I had a great vacation hiking and mountain biking around Arizona and Utah.  We were deep into our fertility treatments at the time and I was very sad that we didn't have children.  I remember that we wanted to do a rafting trip, but when we were making our plans, I was hoping that I'd be pregnant by then and rafting might not be a good idea.  When the time came, of course, I wasn't pregnant and I learned that I should not be putting my life on hold.  As I sat in our tent on Wednesday night, all those old feelings came back to me - how much we wanted children.

Now, here I am, back at the Grand Canyon with my four children and they have been driving me crazy! It's like I have Israel and Palestine in my back seat and I'm supposed to be the United Nations.  Be careful what you wish for... it just may come true!!

Things got much better after that.  We hiked 1.5 miles into the canyon.  The kids experienced the difference between mountain hiking and canyon hiking, where the hard part is coming back out of the canyon.  

On our way back to our campsite, we saw two elk grazing along the side of the road.  Can you see him in the photo behind Beti and Berhanu?

When we returned to our campsite, the kids were great.  James said, "Mom, why don't you sit and rest.  Let us make dinner."  They got into their teams: James & Beti, Hannah & Berhanu, and started their chores.  We didn't use the camp stove that night, and just cooked on the fire which Hannah and Berhanu started.  I did a little of the prep work, but they took over and did everything.  After dinner, I lied down on my bed and they did the dishes without supervision.  I was exhausted and really needed the rest.  I listened to them work things out and then play for awhile, then I called them into bed.  It was a great day.

We were back on track and ready to go to California!

Monument Valley

We left Moab on Wednesday, July 15 with our new tent from LLBean - remember this the next time you are shopping for a tent.  The LLBean guarantee is the best.

We drove through Monument Valley and the Navajo Tribal Nation on our way to the Grand Canyon.  As I've mentioned, we don't do well in the heat and we all get cranky.  The constant bickering really got to me in Moab and I had my meltdown.  At one point, I literally got on my knees and said, "I am begging you - please, please, PLEASE stop fighting over every little thing or at least stop doing it when I'm with you."  We stopped at a little place in Mexican Hat, Utah, where I had my breakdown (not the car ... me.)  We then went to the Navajo Tribal Park and I bought a peace pipe and a talking stick.  We all sat down and "smoked" the peace pipe (breathing the Utah air through the pipe) and we once again promised to try to have patience with one another.

Moab - Arches National Park

We arrived in Moab, Utah on Monday evening, July 13.  On Tuesday, we drove through Arches National Park and did some short walks to see some of the amazing sandstone formations.  It really looks like another world.  It is so hot in Moab at this time of year that hiking is not recommended mid-day.  Keeping with my goal of finding a place for the kids to swim every day, we found the Moab town pool and spent some time there in the middle of the day.  We went back to Arches in the early evening and it was still 100 degrees.  We did a couple of hikes, one to see Delicate Arch (although we did not hike all the way to that arch because of the heat) and another in a somewhat shaded area.  We hiked at dusk, witnessed the sunset over Arches, and got back to our car as darkness fell.  I'm running out of adjectives to use to describe the things we've been seeing - beautiful, gorgeous, spectacular, breathtaking.  It's all amazing!

Dinosaur National Monument

Aside from the tent fiasco, we had a great time in Dinosaur National Monument.  It is by far the least crowded of the parks we've visited.

We had our rafting trip 

on Sunday, July 12 - Berhanu's 7th birthday. 

 We all had a 

blast rafting, and then floating, down the Green River.  (We were 

able to jump out of the boat and float down the river for awhile.)  Class II and III rapids were perfect for the kids.  This is a photo of Split Mountain Canyon where we rafted on the Green River.  The photo is not great, but it gives an idea of the beauty of this area.

We stopped to see petroglyphs created about 800 to 1,000 years ago by the Fremont culture of Native Americans.  

On Monday we were excited to hike into the quarry where there are still dinosaur fossils to be seen in the canyon walls.  If you look closely at the photo, you will see the tail vertebrae in the rock where the white arrow is pointing.  

Berhanu had a lot of questions for the ranger!  He wants to be sure to report his findings to his friend Blue.

Colorado photos

Hannah, Nyita and Sarah

Steamboat Springs farmers market.  Our favorite thing at the this farmers market was the beef jerky.

Snow in July!  Rocky Mountain National Park.

More Boulder photos

Rocky Mountain National Park

I'm just trying to post photos as I can.  It takes forever to get a photo up, and more often than not, the upload fails.

We made it to the Rockies!!

We hiked to some beautiful alpine lakes

Amazing wildlife in Rocky Mt. National Park - we saw herd after herd of elk and two moose along with a couple of cute marmot.  Didn't see any bighorn sheep until we got to the Green River.

The tent

Before ... and after

Our first mishap

Well, the good luck couldn't continue forever.  We made it to Dinosaur National Monument on Saturday afternoon (July 11) and set up camp.  The Monument (park) is in a very remote area on the Colorado/Utah border.  It was very different than the other national parks in that we did not see another soul until we reached the campground which is about 5 miles from the gate.  Even the gate was deserted with no ranger there to collect the entrance fee.  At the campground, it was self-serve registration and there were a handful of other campers.  We were in the middle of a canyon along the banks of the Green River (although we could not see the river from the campground.)  The campground had bathrooms and running water, but no showers or other amenities.  It was pretty rustic and scenic and we thought it was a very cool.

At about 11 o'clock that night, a wild storm passed through.  We had heard thunder and lightning for some time, but when the storm reached us it wasn't the lightning, but the wind, that threatened us.  The wind was whipping through the canyon and blowing the tent all around.  Hannah and I were the only ones awake and we were just lying there watching the tent and hoping that the tent would withstand the storm.  It did, primarily because all five of us were in the tent, holding it down.  The storm passed through after about 20 minutes and all was calm again.

The next day (Sunday, July 12) was Berhanu's birthday.  We left the campsite early to go on our whitewater rafting trip down the Green River.  That was a beautiful day.  The rapids were just right - wild enough to be fun, but not so wild to be dangerous for children.  More on that later, or at least I hope to post photos.  After the rafting, we had dinner in the town of Vernal to celebrate Berhanu's birthday.  We stopped at a market and as we returned to our car, another storm was coming in with the same high winds.  We rushed back to the campground to find our tent in a different location.  All the stakes had come out and the tent toppled over and blew away several feet from where it had been.  That would have been okay except that one of the supporting poles broke during the mishap.  As I tried to figure out what to do, another storm was threatening.  It was a stressful few minutes.  The clouds passed and we could calm down knowing that we weren't going to be pelted with rain, lightning or wind.

Two things saved us:  The kindness of a stranger and the excellent return policy of LLBean.  A man was passing by with his daughters and saw what had happened.  He offered us a tent for the night and I accepted.  I had been trying to fix the pole with duct tape, but it wouldn't hold.  I then called LLBean customer service and they shipped a whole new tent to us at our next stop - Moab.  It arrived today.  It meant having to stay an extra day in Moab in order to await delivery of the tent, therefore missing Mesa Verde, but that's hardly something to complain about.  LL Bean rocks!!  UPS delivered the tent today.  LLB gave me a return label.  I just took the new tent, put the old tent in the same box, added the label and left it at the campground office for UPS to pick up tomorrow.  We've been in a camping cabin last night and tonight, which I had reserved because it has AC and it is 100 degrees here in Moab, so I did not need the tent.  We're off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow with our new tent.

By the way, the man who saved us is from Seattle.  He is home with his kids for the summer while his wife works.  He has been traveling with them for a month and is now on his way back home.  He's doing what I'm doing!  So now I have to pay that forward and I'll be happy to do it.  I never did get his last name, but Mark from Seattle was our angel and saved the day.

Boulder photos - 2

Josie on Erin's horse, Bella.  She was so happy to get to gallop up the road with Erin!

Talkin' 'bout the old times...

James and Akasha were shy with each other at first, but it did not take long for them to reconnect.

Erin - Boulder

The picture of Colorado!

Kansas, Grampy and Don Quixote

I forgot to mention one interesting thing about our drive on I-70 across Kansas and eastern Colorado.  As expected, the terrain is flat - farmland and prairies.  Being of the Stevens clan, the children loved the farms and fields.  They spontaneously exclaimed "This is beautiful!" a few times.  We all agreed that Grampy would have loved that scenery and we felt that he was with us on that part of the journey.

The other amazing thing in Kansas was the windmills.  There were miles upon miles upon miles of windmills.  Don Quixote would have had the battle of his life!  We saw the first crop of windmills and thought it was pretty cool, but as we went over the next knoll, there were even more.  So it went for a long, long time.  Not surprising, it was very windy on the road through that stretch.  There was no storm, just wind.  Kansas is making good use of that natural resource there along I-70.  We all thought that was pretty cool.

Colorado

We made it to Colorado!!

Photos have to come later.  I'm having trouble uploading, but I want to send this.  

As soon as we arrived in Boulder, it felt like home.  The vibe of the town felt very familiar and comfortable.  I could live in Boulder.  We walked around and along Boulder Creek - it runs right through the heart of the town.  At one point in the creek, there were several cairns (rock piles) along the rocky creek.  We got into the spirit and made some of our own.  Bigger kids (college students) were tubing down the creek.  It looked a little tricky, so we didn't join in that.  It was fun to watch though.

THEN we drove to Erin and Nyita's house.  As we pulled up, Erin was coming down the street on her horse, Joe.  She looked so beautiful - she should be on the cover of Boulder Magazine.  They have three horses - Joe, Rusty and Bella.  We all had a chance to ride and now I have four equestrian wannabes.  Erin was so generous in so many ways.  Josie, Simon and Akasha came for a visit and a cookout.  Ms. Erin was James and Akasha's kindergarten teacher and she was right back into teacher mode with all the kids - horseback riding and making ice cream.  She even slept out on the trampoline under the stars with James and Beti.

All our friends in Boulder are fabulous.  Josie and Simon are happily married.  Erin is happily unmarried.  We had so much fun catching up with them and all the exciting things happening in their lives.  They're all enjoying life in Boulder.  We sat out on Erin's deck with the mountains across the way and the moon and stars so clear overhead.  It was breathtaking.  The kids were so excited to see their old friends.  Nyita and Akasha are growing up.  Nyita is still the strong, confident young woman we know and love.  She's always been a great role model for Hannah.  Akasha is her sweet self, but about a foot taller.  She and James had fun reminiscing about first grade - "talking about the old days" as James said.  Nyita's friend, Sara, was visiting.  She's another former Tidewater student so it was a little Tidewater reunion.

On Friday, we started the day with horseback riding (for those of us who didn't have a chance on Thursday night.)  We then went to Rocky Mt. National Park, hiked to some alpine lakes and drove through the whole park on our way to Steamboat.  In the park, we saw herds of elk, a couple of marmot and a bull and cow moose.  There was snow in the alpine tundra and we walked in the snow in our flip flops.  It was one spectacular view after another all day.

I'm now sitting in a McDonald's in Steamboat Springs, CO.  The kids are playing on the playplace while I post on this blog.  I'm not sure when I'll have internet access again, so we pulled in here.  We swam in some hot springs this morning (that's how Steamboat got it's name,) and went to the farmer's market for lunch.  We pulled into town last night, just in time to get the last campsite at 9pm.  This is where the adventure really begins.  I love this town and I have lots of happy memories here, especially from our friends, Jenny and Jamie's, wedding.  The campground was cheesy, but we were happy to have a place to pitch the tent.

We're now on our way to Dinosaur National Monument.  Berhanu turns seven tomorrow and we're spending the day rafting down the Green River through Split Rock Canyon.  I may not have photos readily available because I won't be taking my good camera with me.  

Everything's going better than we ever anticipated.  I'm working on a list of road trip advice - what has worked and what hasn't worked - and the "best of" along the way.  It's been a fascinating journey.

Chris is joining us earlier than planned.  We'll see him one week from today in San Diego.  I'm thrilled about that.  The only down side of this trip has been to be away from him and to not have him sharing in these experiences.  Oh well.  Someone in this family has to have a job.

Love to all of you...

Kansas

Our fun and good fortune continue on and on with this trip.  We arrived in Lawrence, KS on Tuesday, July 7 to see my old friend Susan, her husband, Jeff, and their two girls, Hannah and Becca.  Susan and I practiced law together in Boston a "few" years ago.  They moved to Kansas when Jeff became a professor at the U of Kansas more than ten years ago.  We received another warm welcome and had a blast with all of them.  I don't want to put much personal information here, but Jeff was seriously ill and we prayed for him while he underwent multiple surgeries and treatments.  It was great to see him thriving and still have his great sense of humor.  Susan's as dynamic and fun as ever and the girls could not have been nicer to my kids.  They are two beautiful and kind young ladies.  We had a chance to catch up with life - theirs and mine - there have been a lot of changes over the years and it's nice to see everyone doing so well.  Lawrence is a great little town.  

We took our time leaving on Wed. morning.  Hannah and Becca took the kids to a playground so I could go for a run.  We then made our way to Boulder, but stopped in Limon, CO for the night.  We arrived in Boulder on Thursday.  Tidewater friends, look out for the next post - we saw Erin, Nyita, Josie, Simon and Akasha!!

Memphis - National Civil Rights Museum

The Lorraine Motel - the site of Martin Luter King's assassination is now home to the National Civil Rights Museum.

The wreath signifies the place where Dr. King was standing when he was assassinated.

We did the horse and carriage thing around Memphis.

The trolley cars are a piece of history.

The ducks at the Peabody Hotel

We spent the day in Memphis, TN.  The celebrities of Memphis, the ducks of the Peabody Hotel, attracted the paparazzi.  I was surprised by the crowd of people lined up with us to watch the ducks march in, and then out, of the lobby where they spend their day enjoying the small but lovely fountain.  I tried to videotape the march, but a woman stood in front of me as I was filming.  

We then went to the National Civil Rights Museum.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.  The Lorraine was one of the few accomodations in Memphis that would accept black clientele in 1968.  At that time, the black sanitation workers in Memphis were on strike.  Dr. King was in town to show his support of the workers.  He was shot while standing on the balcony of the motel talking with some friends.

As soon as we walked around the corner and saw the motel, I was overcome with emotion.  In fact, I had a similar feeling - a mix of nausea and sadness - as we drove through Montgomery and Selma, Alabama.  We did not stop in those cities, but I felt a wave of emotion just driving through and knowing what occurred there during the Civil Rights Movement.  Today, I literally felt sick to my stomach looking at the white robe and hood in the exhibit.  There were many powerful images throughout the museum.  Berhanu was full of questions, as usual, and it was hard to explain things to him as we went through the museum.  Racism has always struck a chord with me, in part because I just don't understand how anyone can justify the injustice.  I wish I could have been a civil rights activist back in the 1960s, and it makes me wonder what the comparable issue is today. There is a tribute to Ghandi at the end of the museum tour which included two of my favorite quotes:  "Be the change you want to see in the world" and "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."  Everyone should visit this museum, and I hope we can return when the children are older.

We are going to Lawrence, KS tomorrow to see my friend, Susan, and her husband, Jeff, and their girls.  We hope to be in Boulder, CO on Wed. night if I can drive that far.  If not, we'll be there on Thursday.  I've got to figure out our Colorado/Utah itinerary.  There is so much I want to see and do, but I don't want to spend all the time in the car.

I'm glad to hear that the weather has cleared in New England.  I hope it's a great summer from now on.

More random photos