On November 25, 26, and 27, 2010 I traveled from my home in Michigan City Indiana, near Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, to Cortez Colorado. The journey of about 1,500 miles took me through the states of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado. Tomorrow, Sunday November 28, I will travel the final 42 miles to the Visitor Center Complex at Hovenweep National Monument just over the state line into Utah where I begin a couple of months as a volunteer interpreter.
This journey, unlike a similar trip as a child, did not include any significant stops or side trips other than to sleep for the nights.
Much of my early experience of nature and the American landscape took place on my family’s annual summer vacations. While traveling on those trips I saw nearly every landscape imaginable through the back window of our beloved Henrietta, a 1963 Dodge station wagon. Most of what I saw was particularly unique because it was seen, in a fashion, in retrospect. Driving away from home, gazing out the back window, the familiar faded. The suburban houses unique in their similarity, the roads intersecting in blessed right angles, the shopping center, the Big Boy restaurant near home, the corn fields and farmland dotted with barns, houses, hay bales, and openings of trees gave way to a whole new realm of American experience. I found great beauty in traveling back-first into new worlds of experience. Trips in that station wagon took my family and me to the mountains, to great chasms, to sites of history and geohistory. Just like home, the unfamiliar became part of me too. In a way, all of the United States became the collective place I’m from. For me, tourism was my way into the American landscape and American stories. The trips provided my early lessons in American history: natural, cultural, geological, and perhaps personal. Vacation travel was an introduction to a way of knowing nature, a tease, and a lasting lesson.
This was not a back of the station wagon journey, rather one in which I was alone and covering a lot of territory in a short time. In a fashion I was dreaming of vacation travel all along the way. It is a dream both personal and professional. I have made a career of studying the American landscape and sharing what I have come to know with others. Perhaps I have learned a thing or two about helping others to come to know special places on their own and learning about the special features on the American landscape. I will put this assumed knowledge to the test while at Hovenweep, reflecting on my work, observing the experience of visitors, and thinking about the ways in which the National Park Service constructs and presents places of significance.
In the last couple of days there were many places I passed but had to save for another journey, perhaps for the trip home to Indiana in February. I did make a brief stop at the World's Largest Truck Stop in Walcott Iowa for coffee and some postcards but did not stop to visit the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum.
On another trip I want to visit What Cheer Iowa, Friend Nebraska, and Happy Canyon Colorado. They seem like good places. On a trip as a child my family made stops at Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch Iowa and the Harold Warp Pioneer Village in Minden Nebraska. I have no clear memory of the Hoover site. I do remember enjoying Mr. Warp's Pioneer Village and have a distinct recollection of seeing a toy cast iron cook stove and other kitchen toys on display that were identical to those my mother had as a child in the 1930s. She was fascinated to see items from her own experience on display. Perhaps that seeded my interest in the history of the recent past.
I spent last night in North Platte Nebraska and must say, I need to return. When I arrived, the Fort Cody Trading Post, "Nebraska's Largest Souvenir and Western Gift Store was already closed. I know the kind of fun I could have there and the ways in which my home, and my friends might benefit from such a visit. I was also fascinated to read in a town tourism brochure that there is a historical marker in town commemorating the friendly service provided for servicemen during World War II at the North Platte Canteen. I will have to look back at my father's story from his Army days to see if he may have stopped in North Platte.
As a real fan of national parks and the resource-related stories told as well as the places preserved, it is hard for me to pass by any such site. On this trip I passed signs for the Hoover site as well as Homestead National Monument of America, Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve, and Mesa Verde National Park. I know that I will visit some of these places while out in this part of my world.
Along the way, there were a few lovely sights that I recorded with photographs.
Shortly after passing into the northeast corner of Colorado from Nebraska I noticed that there was not only relief to the land but a wonderful display of holiday lights.
I was taken by the sign I did not photograph along Interstate 25 south of Colorado Springs that said "High Winds Likely." How can they be likely if it is uncertain as to whether they exist or not? This sign, nonetheless, may solve my existential crisis.
After cresting La Veta Pass in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (in what some call a motorized roller skate, my Suzuki Swift), I dropped down into the San Luis Valley which was ringed by mountains.
The roller skate also crested the East-West Continental Divide. Quite a different sight than the continental divide I live near in northwest Indiana. The Valparaiso Moraine, just south of the Indiana Dunes is a north-south divide. Water falling off the north side of the moraine flows into Lake Michigan and eventually into the open Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. Water falling off the south of the moraine flows into the Kankakee River, then the Illinois River, eventually into the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico.
The Mountains at the Continental Divide are stunning.
I simply liked the neon sign at the Pinewood Inn in Pagosa Springs Colorado. I may have to stay there one day.
My intent is to continue sharing my experience with photographs, reflections on practice, as well as thoughts on natural and cultural history. I don't think I will have internet access so will be posting several items at once each week. I will keep you posted.
