On The Road Again!
Frank was excited to see us.
This is our first blog in a while (like all summer) so we have some catching up to do. Our YOFO officially ended on 1 June when Dawn returned to her job. We spent the summer camped at Charlie and Julia’s Silver Lake Farm in Lewisberry, PA. Dean and Dawn in her time off, functioned as unskilled farmhands. We know many of you were betting that Dawn would not go back to work, and to be fair, it was a tough decision after 12 months of YOFOAdventures. But before anyone collects their pool winnings about Dawn’s future, stand by: there’s a bit more to explain.
Hiking at Bryce Canyon in the snow on a beautiful day. Beats the couch potato life!
We could not have predicted how much we would love the YOFO. Well, on second thought, maybe it was just a wee bit predictable that we would fully embrace our opportunity to eff off for an entire year. Our overall YOFO experience was incredible. We spent the year wandering some of the more remote parts of the US and Canada. We lingered at the bigger parks like Jasper and Banff in Canada, and Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in the US, but in general we stayed on the go, moving every few days (give or take) until we finally meandered back to Pennsylvania. More often than not, our biggest daily decisions included whether to hike, bike, or kayak (or some combination), and what kind of local brew or regional dish to sample. We’ll do a little summation of a few of our key stats and perhaps a few “best of” rankings, but we’re finding it a bit challenging to fully capture how amazing our YOFO was. We saw and did so much this year that as we look back, much of it is already a blur; thank goodness we wrote periodic blogs and snapped lots of photos since we now need them to remind ourselves of where we’ve been and what we’ve done! Metaphorically speaking, we enjoyed a giant buffet of experiences, trying a little bit of this and a bit of that, but we did not overindulge on any single item/place. Rather than being stuffed, the effect has been to whet our appetites for more. I suppose we did not know how hungry we were for this lifestyle.
An artists pallet of mole samples at The Red Iguana in Salt Lake City.
Beyond the metaphorical meal, we did partake of some of the best vittles, vinos and brews – well, at least that’s our modest opinions – including: Canada’s poutine; Wisconsin’s cheese curds, and wine; Vernal Utah’s lemon pizza; Santa Fe margaritas; Salt Lake City’s enchiladas mole (at The Red Iguana…yes, in Salt Lake City!); crawfish and bread pudding in Louisiana; mill ground corn fritters in Tennessee; and lots of ice cream everywhere!
One of the best pizza places of the year (Salt Lake City, UT).
We also thoroughly enjoyed connecting around the country with family, old friends, and classmates. We were grateful for the many invitations we received to come visit and tried to take everyone up on their offer. We also met some interesting people in some interesting places, and everyone has a story to tell. Many of our best adventures came from the recommendations of people we met on our journey.
Mini-reunion of USMA ‘82 classmates masquerading as a birthday party.
Perhaps a few stats will help put some of this in perspective. We drove just over 40,000 miles since leaving PA in early June 2017. We visited 35 US states, 3 Canadian provinces, and Tanzania. We visited 39 US National Parks, and at least that number again in National Monuments/Lakeshores/Seashores/Wildlife Refuges/Historical Parks/etc. Beyond US borders we explored 3 Canadian National Parks, several Canadian Provincial Parks and 3 Tanzanian National Parks.
Beat Navy! Our Kili expedition was in its own category, an experience of a lifetime.
We’ve put some miles on our boots, boats, and bikes. We explored caves, mountains, deserts, dunes, swamps and forests, logging (by way of a GPS watch) about 750 miles in our hiking boots, and trail-ran about 400 hundred more. We hit our lowest elevation at 282 feet below sea level (Death Valley) and we peaked at 19,341 feet above sea level (Uhuru Peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro). We did not figure on hiking being much of an addition to our fitness regime, but we were wrong. Turns out hiking it is a great way to stay fit, and perhaps most importantly it helped us make room in our bellies for great grub. Our longest single-day hike was a little over 18 miles, and it turned out to be one of the best. But plenty of the most memorable hikes were only a few miles. Our favorite hikes follow (sort of in order, but not rigidly so. Some of them are so different that it is difficult to rank them):
Antelope Canyon (near Page AZ). More tour than hike, but still a special place.
1. Ice line trail in Yoho National Park, British Colombia, Canada (18 miles)
2. South Kaibab trail to the Colorado River, and Bright Angel back to the South Rim in Grand Canyon, National Park, Arizona (16 miles)
3. Angels Landing, Zion National Park, UT (5 miles)
4. Figure 8 Loop (Queens Garden-Peekaboo-Navajo) in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah (7 miles)
5. The Wave (permit only hike) in southern Utah & northern Arizona (6 miles)
6. Cascade Canyon to Lake Solitude in Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming (16 miles)
7. Jones Run to Doyles Run loop in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia (7 miles)
8. Wild Cave Tour in Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota (4 hours, guided)
9. Avalanche Peak in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (5 miles)
10. Fiery Furnace (permit only hike) in Arches National Park, UT (3-5 miles depending on how much you want to wander)
Hiking the Wave was one of the most memorable days of YOFO.
Working up an appetite for s’mores.
We paddled some 140 miles in our kayaks; although many of the hours spent in our boats were rather leisurely endeavors watching the sun’s first rays glisten off thick blankets of mist over glass-like water as we explored the nooks and crannies of the various lakes we explored. Getting up at O-dark thirty in the morning is not that tough when your “work day” ahead promises pairs of loons making their hauntingly beautiful wails to each other, busy beavers getting an early start to their work day, deer, elk and moose coming to the water’s edge to feed and drink, all while hawks, herons and the occasional bald eagle perch or soar overhead looking for a meal, or trying to avoid becoming one. It is on those mornings that you forget about nearly everything and can just focus on being in the moment. Or, if you’re kayaking in Florida, “being in the moment” means allowing the little lizard part of our brain to take over, as we were instinctively freaked by prehistoric critters lurking directly beneath our boats. If you have a non-ocean-going kayak like we do, there are almost too many lakes and streams to float. But we highly recommend some of our favorite paddling spots:
1. Lower Colorado River (we paddled an 11 mile stretch near Moab, UT)
2. Lake Louise/Banff area (Canada),
3. Lake Diablo in Cascades National Park
4. Big Cypress and Everglades
5. Any lakes in the Adirondacks (we paddled several near Lake Placid and Saranac)
6. Algonquin Provincial Park (Canada)
7. Elkhorn Slough near Moss Landing/Monterey California.
Sunrise kayak on Two Jack Lake in Banff National Park, Canada
Cycling the South Unit in Teddy Roosevelt National Park, a very memorable 34-mile loop.
We were surprised at how little we used our road bikes - about 450 miles - and mountain bikes - about 300 miles - but when we did find a good road or trail to ride, we were sure happy we brought them along. In National Parks, you’re largely limited to roads designated for vehicles. Our favorite pedaling adventures:
1. Scenic loop in Theodore Roosevelt NP South Unit (we went clockwise)
2. Death Valley NP
3. Skyline Drive in Shenandoah NP
4. Acadia National Park, Maine (to be honest, we did not go on YOFO; this is a recommendation from a previous trip)
5. 17 Mile Drive on the Monterey Peninsula, California
Enjoying the trails near Red Fleet State Park, UT.
There was road construction at Crater Lake, so we have some unfinished business (and one of us needs to get in better shape to cycle that loop). As far as mountain biking goes, we can honestly say that our general fitness vastly exceeds our technical skills, so our recommendations are probably on the tamer side, but there is a lot of fun to be had biking in the woods. We really enjoyed:
1. Forks Area Trail System (FATS) in South Carolina near Augusta, Georgia.
2. Coldwater Mountain network near Anniston, Alabama. (we stuck to the beginner-friendly loops)
3. Moab, Utah has world class mountain biking – which we greatly enjoyed until Dawn took a tumble and split her lip open on some slick rock.
4. The Magnolia Trail loop in Louisiana.
5. The Cayuna Lake area in Minnesota has a ton of trails for every experience level and there are quarry lakes to kayak in for a break from the mountain biking.
Even the wildlife thinks we’re nuts!
Our adventures included some exciting wildlife encounters such as walking under (yes, under) bears and floating over (yes, over) alligators. We learned a lot about spotting all sizes and varieties of birds, from hummingbirds to condors. We were largely successful at avoiding snakes and only had a couple of mice attempt to ride out a snowstorm in the YOFOHome with us. We did well at spotting vegetarian mammals – white tailed and mule deer, pronghorn antelope, big horn sheep, mountain goats, caribou, elk, moose, and some of their African counterparts. We didn’t do well at the cats though – thankfully, no mountain lions but sadly no bobcats either. Our safari in Africa made up for it when we watched a pride of lions harassing a herd of water buffalo, who then chased them off!
It’s a rough life camping.
Life on the road has its occasional drawbacks...
It's really hard to rank our favorite campsites. As a side note, we mostly “camped” as opposed to camped. Camping gets the quotations, because, well, indoor plumbing is a grand and magnificent thing. We did tent camp in a few spots, and spent a lot of time off grid in the YOFOHome, having fun going to bed as soon as the sun (and temps) dropped while wearing hats and socks. But, we are absurdly civilized and managed to aeropress ourselves hot coffee even while off grid! We also should get a “camping” asterisk for our tent experience in Tanzania – it was definitely a level of luxury having a team carry the gear and prep the meals. We enjoyed the heck out of our national properties – the Corps of Engineers campgrounds, military facilities (even the Navy ones), developed and undeveloped BLM and USFS properties, the National Park System. Our only two “whuuut...whyyy?moments were in Yellowstone’s campground where we were packed in “nut to butt” with a bunch of other critter and scenery seekers and then just outside Petrified Forest NP where the “official” solution is to camp in the parking lot of one of the two souvenir/rock-hound shops. And yes, we fully and completely realize the “seriousness” of these first world problems!
Bear cub crossing (Shenandoah National Park).
Some of the camping highlights: camping so close to the water that we could launch kayaks only feet from our front door; discovering crazy smores variations and combinations like warm Starbursts, Canadian maple marshmallows, and roasted twinkies; legit Canadian maple syrup; seeing so many stars that you can’t even pick out the constellations you know and seeing the Milky Way stretch from horizon to horizon; following strangers’ recommendations that begin with: “if you bushwhack off trail just a little bit this way, you’ll see….”; discovering that firewood vending machines are a thing; watching an owl swoop around at dusk searching for prey; sunsets and sunrises; boondocking and realizing that you may be the only folks for miles.
Not sure if the Kori Busturd is in the Merlin Bird App, but the name is fun to say.
We ate a lot of PBnJ’s with a view. Lost count in the 60s but the number is very probably close to 100. Yup, still not tired of them!
We used a lot of tools to help us navigate the year, both literally and figuratively. Some apps and websites work better in different regions, so your mileage may vary. We started out using Roadtrippers to do some research. Waze, Apple Maps, and Google Maps were all part of the routing process, as were some RV forum searches to verify the sanity/insanity of some mountain and desert paths. The Good Sam App was helpful in identifying possible campsites to check out and included non-GoodSam related sites, which was very helpful. Freecampsites.net is a website where people post about places they’ve stayed for under $10 a night. We found a few gems that way. KOA’s app is very functional, but is limited to their properties (and we’re not really fans of KOA campgrounds). We used GasBuddy, Pilot/Flying J, and Love’s apps to try to plan out diesel stops. There are parts of the US/Canada where the distances between civilized areas (and gas stations) require you to be smart about refueling when you have the opportunity. There are almost too many trail apps out there, but some of the ones we liked include: AllTrails, Hiking/Mtn Biking/Trail Run Project (all by REI), OutBound, and TrailForks. Avenza is a map app with free downloads for federal maps. They also have topo quads and historical quads for the map geeks out there. The hiking and outdoors apps each have pluses and minuses and we would often bounce between them and compare the details to see which one had the best info/beta on a certain spot. If you like birds at all, we highly recommend the Merlin Bird ID app from Cornell – serious goodness. We listened to a lot of audiobooks (we still call them “books on tape”) – the Audible app works super well as long as you remember to download new books when you have wifi! The Day One journal app works well – we paid to get the more than one pic per day function.
Zion National Park - we did not rank parks, but if we did, this park would be at or near the top.
The other thing we would recommend is an old school map. There’s something just oddly satisfying about plotting out the details and progress. We’re trying to figure out what the next visual log will be.
Kady admiring the sun coming up on the Grand Canyon.
Yes, you read that right – the word next was in there. After a few months back at work (work-work and farm work), we’re back out on the road. We’re going to take a more leisurely path, but we’ll still be exploring and finding or causing chaos. The strategery isn’t fully in place yet. We do “know” that we plan to re-visit Canada by way of Rochester, and this time curl around to catch (hopefully) a couple of National Parks up in Minnesota (Isle Royale and Voyageurs/Boundary Waters). Depending on timing and forest fires, we might hit Glacier NP or we might save that (again). We plan to over-winter as volunteers at a Corps lake in California – it’s centrally located between Monterey, LA, Yosemite, and Sequoia/Kings Canyon, so we’re excited about big trees and big views. Next summer, make your plans to meet up with us in Alaska. We hope to roam the state looking for adventure from May to September.
In the meantime, we appreciate you sharing the journey with us, for all of your recommendations (keep ‘em coming!) and we’ll see you on the road!
This is how we feel about continuing YOFO! (That’s Horseshoe Bend in the background)