road trip

Road Trip Photo Essay: Colorado Springs, CO to Points West…and South, Part II

~ Kim Olgren ~ Leave a comment

As promised, this is part two of our trip to the four corners area. So without further ado, Part II.

Mesa Verde Park covers 81.39 miles of mesas and valleys in the southwest corner of Colorado. The park includes over 5,000 archaeological sites including 600 cliff dwellings. These were the ancestral lands of the Pueblo Indians who later moved further south to join the Pueblo people of Arizona and New Mexico. No one knows for sure, but droughts were probably the main reason for the move. Knowing where they could go, and that the people further south were friendly probably helped make the decision to move a little easier. These people inhabited the Mesa Verde area for 700 years building their apartments in the caves and learning to live and farm the top of the mesas. They are called the Anasazi in the language of the modern Pueblo, meaning “ancient ones” and consisted of Navajo and Zuni people. Oh, by the way, Mesa Verde is Spanish for green table.

Outside the visitors center you will be greeted by the Pueblo Potter, a 2009 limestone sculpture by Adrian Wall.
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But the first thing you see besides the building is The Ancient Ones, a breathtaking statue by Edward J. Fraughton. My picture here doesn’t do it justice, the light was not in my favor. It depicts a scene out of everyday life for these people. A man climbing a cliff face with nothing but small hand and footholds carved out of the rock to hold on to with firewood on his back.
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Here’s a closer peek.
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The next thing we did was plan our visit with info and maps provided by the visitors center. We already knew we were not going to see the Cliff Palace and we wanted to do our own, self-guided tour which left us one clear choice that would take us to Spruce Tree House and Mesa Top Loop Road.

Spruce Tree House is one of the few cliff dwellings you can visit without a guide. To get there you must descend to the valley floor via a half mile of switchback trail (you’re going to climb back up this trail to get out so make sure you are physically ready to do it in the heat and sun) then cross the valley floor and take a short path up to the cave. There are also petroglyphs to see here if you have time to take the two mile, round-trip hike to see them.
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The dwellings reach deep into the cave making use of every nook and cranny.

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Corn grinding stones
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More of Spruce Tree House
20140912_123203 Open Kiva. Kiva’s were underground structures with wooden roofs believed to be used for spiritual and community gatherings. Normally all you would see from these angles would be a small, square hole with a ladder sticking out of it.20140912_123240

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Looking down at Spruce Tree House as we finished climbing back up out of the valley. You can see a couple of the switchbacks here.
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Once we were done gawking at Spruce Tree House, it was time to take on the next leg of our Mesa Verde Adventure, which was actually several rolled into one.

Mesa Top Loop Road is a six-mile driving tour with twelve sites along the way. Some are seen from a distance such as Cliff Palace, the largest dwelling in the park which can be seen from Sun Point and Sun Temple stops.
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Others sites, can be visited during the drive on top of the mesa including an old, man-made reservoir and surface dwellings like these.

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There’s a lot more to see on this drive. Including, a 365 degree view from South Point View (also where the fire watchtower is located).

Speaking of fires…don’t be discouraged by some of the views that you’ll see on the Mesa Top Road Drive. You’re going to see some real fire devastation, but at the same time, your going to see tremendous renewal. The fires exposed a lot of new archaeological sites and more opportunities to learn about the Anasazi people.
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Between 1934 and 2003, the Mesa Verde Park has experienced 12 major wildfires, all determined to have been started by lightning. Since 2000 alone over 24,000 acres have been scorched. But then you will also come across breathtaking views like this…
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and this…20140912_154137

and this…a short hike to South Point lookout, and 365 degrees as far as the eye can see, haze allowing…
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20140912_152128I feel so blessed to be able to travel and see the wonders and history of stuff like this and to have a smartphone with decent camera to record it! Now for some practical stuff.

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When I said to make sure you are physically ready to hike in Mesa Verde National Park I meant it. I saw at least one ranger have to go down the switchback path at the Spruce Tree House with oxygen and a portable defibrillator. Elevations range from 6,000ft to over 8,500ft. The guided tours require guides for a reason. Access to the Cliff Palace includes climbing down a long, narrow ladder in a sandstone crevice near the edge of the cliff. Don’t push it. Stop and take a break if you need to. Pace yourself. That means go at your OWN pace. The path to Spruce Tree House has benches and rocks to sit on along the way. There is poison ivy on this trail and it is marked. You are forewarned.

Bring plenty of water with you. We were there just two weeks ago and although the weather was mild (in the 80 degree range), the sun still gets hot in a hurry and there is not much opportunity for shade. Although some signs and websites say water is available at every stop on Mesa Top Road, it is not. Don’t take the chance. Bring your sunscreen!

Finally, if you really want to explore the wonders of Mesa Verde National Park. I would recommend making a long weekend out of it. We only saw a small fraction of what the park has to offer. There is a resort area and plenty of camp sites as well. Stay a couple of days and take some time to explore. There is also a restaurant at Far View Area. Nothing fancy. but there’s food, drink, and a gift shop. The park fee is $5 or $10 depending on what time of year it is. The guided tours are $4 unless you opt for the twilight tour and that’s $12. Make sure you get a map and a visitors guide and read them. Make sure you don’t miss and cool or important stuff!

The last leg of our journey saw us leaving our lodgings at the Ute Mountain Casino and Hotel a day early. We traveled to Pagosa Springs and stayed the night there in a really reasonable, tiny, family owned hotel by the highway called the Alpine Inn that I found on tripadvisor.com. We visited a couple of the local pubs, took a gander at the hot springs pools at The Springs hot springs and made a mental note to come back just to go there. We had dinner at the second best and more reasonably priced restaurant in town, Boss Hog’s Restaurant and Saloon. The people were very friendly and the food was decent.
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Our route home took us over Wolf Creek Pass and through the San Luis Valley, down the Cosmic Highway (Highway 17). Note to self, RV camping at the Great Sand Dunes National Park, and/or at the UFO Watchtower should be in my future. I could see how the great, wide open, and sparsely populated San Luis valley could seem like a nice place to land your space craft.

The western side of Wolf Creek Pass started out beautiful beginning with Treasure Falls, about 15 miles east of Pagosa Springs. The falls are named after Treasure Mountain, which legend says, holds the secret treasure of some Frenchmen that snuck into the area and struck it rich.

It was a cool morning so the mists hung over ponds along the way and the air around the falls was crisp and heavy with the smell of deep pine forest. You can do a side trip here and take the trail to the top of the falls for about at 300ft climb. Set aside about 45 minutes if you want to make the 1/2-mile round trip.
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As we made our way further up the pass things began to get strange, then downright eerie, then just sad. Here in Colorado we’ve been battling the pine beetle for some time now. On the front range we have seen some issues, but nothing prepared me for the absolute devastation of so many old pines over such a large area. In this case, it was the spruce beetle. Tens of thousands of acres in the San Juan forest, including Wolf Creek Pass have died leaving vast swaths of dead trees interspersed with other species not affected by this particular beetle. This is a wildfire just waiting for lightning.
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The eastern side of the pass was a little better and dropped us into the San Luis Valley. From Alomosa, we found ourselves on Highway 17, The Cosmic Highway with one more mountain range, the beautiful Sangre de Cristos, to cross to get home.
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If you look closely, that barely discernable, hazy line of demarcation at the foot of the mountains is the Great Sand Dunes. A desert of sand dunes, in the middle of the Colorado Mountains with Medano Creek flowing through them. Again, you can’t make this stuff up.
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With the Sangre de Cristo mountains behind us, we started the last 45 miles of our trip, heading into Canon City, then north back to Colorado Springs.
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Back at home after a full week on the road I was glad to be back in my own bed with my own pillow (big satisfied sigh). We also missed a cold snap in the Colorado Springs area that apparently had brought a dusting of snow to some parts of the area. Temperatures were back inthe 70s and 80s by the time we got back. Oh shucky darn.

I love trips like this where I get see so much. Sometimes it can feel a little bit like sensory overload, with so much to see, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love to travel and see new things and share them with others who may share the same passion. Happy travels everyone! Be safe!

 

Road Trip Photo Essay: Colorado Springs, CO to Points West…and South

~ Kim Olgren ~ Leave a comment

Last week the hubby and I took a road trip to the four corners. Apparently he thought this was an important place to see. Having been there, I informed him that there was absolutely nothing to see there but a concrete monument. Still, he insisted that this was a must see on his bucket list so I booked us a room and off we went. I don’t know if you’ve seen what absolute desolation looks like, dear reader, so let me show you.

This is the most exciting part of the four corners monument. Incidentally, this is apparently no longer considered the actual location of the four corners. According to Conde Nast Traveler, the GPS location of the four corners is 1,807ft to the west. Traditionalists argue that the current location is where the original borders were set and therefore, the four corners are exactly where they are supposed to be. You decide. I’m getting out of the heat.20140911_124858-1

Here’s what it looks like outside the monument…for miles…and miles….and miles.
four corners desertThe moon landing could have easily been faked and filmed here instead.

However, the road trip from Colorado Springs, CO to Towoac was wonderful! Towoac is a small town just outside of Cortez, CO located on the Ute Indian reservation. We stayed at the Casino/Hotel on the reservation. If you’re interested in the area you can see some reviews I did on tripadviser.com here Ute Mountain Casino and Hotel.

Changing colors and really green mountains were a beautiful site after the last 10 years of drought we’ve had in Colorado.
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We got a great view of the Collegiate Peaks as we bypassed Buena Vista. That would be Mt. Yale, Mt. Harvard, and Mt. Princeton. No joke, you can’t make this stuff up. All are fourteeners, meaning they are 14,000ft or more high.
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Oh, and we ran into this guy…
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From there we traveled through lush mountain forests and over Red Mountain pass where evidence of the mining booms still stand. We went through Silverton, elevation 9,308ft, and Ouray, elevation 7,792ft.
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Ouray, CO.20140910_175605 20140910_175906

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The other objective of this trip was Mesa Verde National Park. We also spent a night in Pagosa Springs and had a somewhat sobering trip through Wolf Creek Pass, but I’m going to save that for the other half of this long photo essay. Until then, please enjoy some more photos of our great Rocky Mountains!

The Chalk Cliffs, Buena Vista, CO.
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Curecanti National Recreational Area near Gunnison, CO. The water level is a great sign of some recovery from drought.20140910_161146

Another good sign, streams and waterfalls to be seen around almost every bend in the road!20140910_180506

To be continued…

Traveling Through the Mojave Desert

~ Kim Olgren ~ Leave a comment

Legends abound about the Mojave Desert and its desert companions The Great Basin Desert to the north, and the Sonoran Desert to the south. From lost Spanish galleons ran aground and now covered by the sands, to lost gold and silver mines, to subterranean rivers with black sandy shores running with gold, to haunted ghost towns, the desert bigfoot, mutants and the ever popular gambler that owes too much to the wrong people who “disappeared” but whose buddies are sure was buried in the desert somewhere. These three deserts that comprise the Mojave Desert Preserve certainly seem to have lots of stories to tell, but they don’t seem to be giving anything away.

Driving from Nevada to L.A. and back we saw a whole lot of desert; mostly Mojave Desert, which I found fascinating as I do most any landscape outside of the one consisting of our ¼ acre lot at home that’s under constant construction. For instance, I learned that the Mojave Preserve is home to the largest and most dense Joshua Tree forest in the world.

What is a Joshua Tree, you ask? I’ll tell you, According to the Joshua Tree National Park website, the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) is a member of the agave family. Its twisted branches seem surreal in the otherwise mostly desolate landscape.

A Joshua tree does not bloom unless conditions are just right and if it doesn’t bloom, it doesn’t branch out. Instead, it looks like a lonely pillar-like sentinel with a spiky green pouf of spiky leaves on top. (if you happened to see the movie Rango, these would seem to be the “walking cactus” seen in the desert near the water pipes). The oldest Joshua tree in the forest is in the Queen Valley Forest. It is 40 feet high and is estimated to be 300 years old. The name “Joshua tree” came from Mormon settlers who thought the tree looked like it had its branches stretched out in supplication. The name stuck and that is what later settlers and prospectors called the trees as well.

As we stopped at a rest stop just off the highway (much of which was the infamous Route 66) I was struck by the interesting contradiction between the palm trees, which I’d really only seen near water of some sort, near what seemed to be an unprotected picnic area amid a vast field of nothing but sand.

I mean nothing but sand. Still, there were signs of life. Birds flitted around the rest area, probably waiting for some unsuspecting tourist to drop a crumb or two. One or two bigger birds circled in the sky, probably waiting for an absent-minded tourist to leave a small pet unattended. There were also flying insects…insects always seem to find their way to me, much to my dismay.

On the road again we caught glimpses of mountain and sand dunes and cinder cones. All of which were rumored to harbor great veins of gold or silver and a great many who went in search of such treasures never to be heard from again.

Some parts of the desert looked more like an abstract painting than a real place with only the different colors of the sand, hills, and mountains making any distinctions in the landscape (no, this photo is not doctored to look like a painting, this was taken out of the front windshield going about 75 miles per hour). Other parts were crowded with Joshua Trees, yuccas, scrub, and the occasional palm tree. Unfortunately we were too far south to see any of the iconic saguaro cacti.

This is the greatest thing about road trips. I’ve flown over this seemingly desolate area of the country a few times. From above it looks like reddish sand, dirt hills, and canyons for as far as the eye can see at some points. From the ground, up close, it is an entirely different story. Traveling down the nostalgic Route 66, through the desert and over the mountains to its end in Santa Monica California was an experience that left me wishing I could have had more time to explore the desert. I would have liked to have seen Death Valley, hiked through some of the lava tubes, communed with some of native wildlife. Perhaps another time, for now, I’m grateful for the glimpses I did get of the Mojave’s austere, and sometimes mysterious, splendor.

Have you ever visited someplace that seemed totally alien to you? What’s the strangest place you’ve ever visisted. I’d love to hear about it!

Epic Fail!

~ Kim Olgren ~ 2 Comments

Epic fail! It is with sincere humility I write today. I have found out that whirlwind vacations, keeping up with a blog, keeping up with book writing and keeping up with a job search proved too much for me. So the answer to my question in an earlier blog (before I went on vacation) would be…yes and no to writing while you’re on vacation. Although I totally overwhelmed myself, I learned so much! I ended up blowing off any writing on the last two days of vacation and just kicked back instead, which turned out to be a wise move.

I spent most of my vacation stressing about splitting my time between my family and my writing, which was exactly the situation I didn’t want to find myself in. I didn’t want the guys to think I was disengaged and not interested, but at the same time I really wanted to keep up with my writing. This resulted in me going back to our rooms at night while they stayed out at the casino. It wasn’t a huge leap for me to do this since I’m not much of a gambler anyway. Walking around the casinos and up and down the strip is fun, but I’m just not into the gambling thing. What little money I gambled, I lost. Since I was back in our rooms earlier and therefore in bed earlier, I was up earlier and used that time to my advantage to write as well. The problem was that I didn’t have much down time. I was either on the go with the guys or writing although we did have a couple of days where we spent two or three hours by the pool and then I was reading.

I wrote in the car during our driving days when I wasn’t taking pictures out of the car windows. This was somewhat productive, but there comes a time, whether writing at the condo or in the car after a full day, that one becomes just too tired and brain dead. This was what frustrated me the most. I wanted to do more, but my brain had had enough. When it comes to my blog, I don’t want to put out anything other than my best work. I’d rather not post than post something sub-par.

This week I have been recuperating from vacation (if you caught any of my road trip blogs you would know we were extremely busy), redoubling my job hunt efforts and catching up on book writing. I’ve missed my blog very much and I’m happy to get back to it. I’ve learned that if I want to write on vacation I need to pick only one or two writing projects to keep up with and that includes my personal, daily journal. I’ve learned that if I want to write on vacation I have to do a better job of balancing activities, writing, and down time. The brain and the soul need down time, time doing nothing to recharge creativity and even logical thinking. I’ve learned that it’s okay to put the writing aside and be present for the vacation rather than worrying about getting it all done. That’s what work is, not vacation. I learned that I should stop along the road any time the mood strikes me and take more pictures (although I took some 200 anyway, many with windshield bug splatters in them). I learned that I don’t have to spend every minute with everyone else. I found that I just can’t bring myself to drag my laptop to the pool. It just seems to be in violation of some law of relaxation or something…kind of like using your smartphone at the table. It’s just not right. Maybe I’ll change my mind at a later time, or maybe I would feel differently if I had regular access to a pool and it wasn’t something of a treat for me.

Recharged and refreshed. I am now ready to continue. I look forward to sharing more about my six-state adventures and other cool stuff. Wow, when you put it that way, six states in nine days; that is really busy! No wonder I was having trouble keeping up! Maybe this wasn’t such and epic fail after all.

How much down time, if any, do you build into your vacations? Do you like to cram a lot of activities in or do you like to hang out by the pool all day?

Road Trip Days 5 & 6 – Sea, Studios, and Stars

~ Kim Olgren ~ Leave a comment
The Mojave Desert is home to the largest forest of Joshua trees in the world
The Mojave Desert is home to the largest forest of Joshua trees in the world.

On Wednesday, we left the comfort of our rooms at the Grandview Resort in Las Vegas for the open road once again. We were headed about 4-5 hours west to the mega-metropolis that is L.A. With high hopes and anxious with expectation we took to the road snapping pictures of the Mojave Desert (that holds the largest Joshua Tree forest in the world) as we went. We gleefully entertained thoughts of wading in the ocean waters and seeing the sights of Hollywood, the Sunset Strip, Venice Beach, the Santa Monica Pier, and maybe a celebrity or two.

Fisherman's rods set off the end of the Santa Monica pier
Fisherman's rods set off the end of the Santa Monica pier

After driving through the picturesque desert and mountains east of the city, we arrived in L.A. on Wednesday afternoon. The first place we visited was Santa Monica Beach and pier. We walked through the warm sand down to the water, which was ice cold of course. Thank goodness we expected this. A tiny crab promptly got caught on the toe of my son’s sandal sending him into a brief tizzy to get the “bug” out of his sandal. A lesson for my son on his first ocean beach visit – yes, critters live in the sand.

We went down to the Santa Monica pier with its merry-go-round, Ferris Wheel, assorted other amusement park rides, street performers, fishermen, vendors hawking everything from rocks to “I Love L.A. T-shirts, and other characters. A friend once told me that once I went to the Caribbean that the waters off the coast of California would hold no attraction for me anymore. She was right. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great things about California and I really liked the San Diego/La Jolla area, but that green, murky water is just not comparable to the crystal clear blue of the Caribbean. Still, a beach is a beach and any time spent under the warm sun on a beach is a good time as far as I’m concerned.

We then hit Hollywood Boulevard. We walked up and down a few blocks of the Walk of Fame near Grauman’s Chinese theater. The rich history of the theater and its surrounding area was palpable in the air.

I took pictures of things like the Grauman Theater, the handprints of the original Star Trek crew, Joan Crawford, and Michael Jackson at the theater, and the stars of Ray Harryhausen (not sure anyone would recognize his name these days), Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Aretha Franklin.

Griffith Observatory

The last thing we did on Wednesday was to search for a place to get a good picture of the Hollywood sign. We ended up in Griffith Park at the observatory of the same name. Given all the smog I wondered how long it had been since the observatory had been operational. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the observatory is now allowing the telescopes to be used for public viewing. Even with all this viewing power at our disposal, we were still too far away for my son to get the picture he wanted so when we came across a park ranger we asked if there was any way we could get a better picture. He obliged and we were off on our quest for the perfect picture of the Hollywood sign. It took us about 45 minutes to travel about two miles to the short trail that led to a hilltop with a great view of the sign. L.A. traffic is (very dramatic pause) interesting. Fun fact, each letter of the Hollywood sign has an adoptive “A” list caretaker. I’m told this list includes Alice Cooper and Hugh Hefner.

As darkness descended we went to our hotel room to get some shuteye before our tour of Paramount Studios and the drive back to Vegas. We awoke early on day two in L.A. to make a quick side trip to Venice Beach. We were there before the street vendors had even begun to think about setting up shop. As we made our way down to the water I saw other people already up and at ‘em, roller blading, biking, walking, running, jogging, and doing yoga on the beach. Once settled on our spot we stared out in silence at the water, each of us wrapped up in our own thoughts for a few moments and then we were off for our studio tour.

Our tour guide was Taylor. Taylor kind of looked like a bad imitation of George Michael in his Wham! days and had nearly perfect annunciation and diction. I suppose maybe that comes in handy if you’re a page at Paramount Studios. It turns out that the pages at Paramount do not have scripts. It seems they are encouraged to do their own research and come up with their own version of the tour. I have to admit, even though I’m no stranger to a staged setting it was kind of strange seeing streetlights with electrical plugs and the magnitude of some of their sets was amazing. I took two

Inside one of the New York set buildings the contrast between the old wood structure saved from the fire and the new steel construction can be seen

favorite stories from this tour. One was the story of how William Shatner single handedly saved part of the New York City outdoor set in nothing but his Star Trek uniform top and his boxers. Grabbing a fire hose, he shouted orders to others on the scene and began fighting the fire himself. The second was learning how the parting of the Red Sea was done in the Ten Commandments (I have a special affinity for the golden age of cinema). The pool area that was used for the sea is now a parking lot but is still emptied of cars from time to time for ocean and water scenes that can be filmed against the giant sky mural at one end. Although the story of how Michael Keaton climbed the water tower on a dare to prove that he wasn’t afraid of heights only to find that he truly was once he was at the top and had to be brought down by the fire department, runs a close third. We didn’t see much in the way of celebrities, but we did catch a glimpse of some of the cast of the TV show Glee. I respected studio rules and refrained from taking pictures. Hey, I’m not the paparrazi.

Once our tour was done we grabbed some lunch and then, with our whirlwind two days in L.A. over, we were on the road again on our way back to Vegas. By this point we are all getting a little homesick. I checked in with our house/pet sitter and she said she wanted to steal our pets because they are so sweet and loving. With a pang in my heart for Jasmine, our dog, and Gracie, our cat, I texted her back thanking her and politely telling her she’d have to find her own cat and dog.

Next stop Vegas, and a Cirque Du Soleil Show called “Ka”. Also, keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks for expansions on some of my vacation entries. I feel like we’ve been doing so much that I haven’t given some things enough attention and others have received no attention at all.

How do you vacation? Do you like to do lots of stuff and see everything or are you an all-inclusive type that likes to stay on a resort lounging by the pool, soaking up the sun, and maybe a little liquor?

Road Trip Day 2 – Craters, Canyons, and Casinos!

~ Kim Olgren ~ Leave a comment

After a somewhat restful night at the new Best Western in Winslow, AZ. We arose at the crack of dawn to grab some breakfast and head back toward the open road and the Grand Canyon, but first, we had to make a stop at a key location in one of the books I’ve been working on. Meteor, AZ, home of the largest confirmed meteor impact site in the world, is truly a big hole, which would lend perspective to our next destination that hubby had deem a “big hole in the ground”. We arrived at the site of the meteor impact a half hour before they opened. Once inside we took mass amounts of pictures of said hole in the ground and I gained some details that are usually left out of most reports on the place (for my book, yay!). As we were snapping picture after picture of the crater in the desert, it occurred to me how many pictures of a big hole in the ground does one really need? This begged the question Why DO tourists have to take so many pictures of stuff? I guess it has to do with trying desperately to make memories and to get that perfect shot. This is as close as I could get of the meteor crater in Meteor, AZ at 8am in the morning.

Once we saw this big hole in the ground we were on to see an even bigger one that was millions of years in the making as opposed to the ten seconds it took to make the meteor crater. This was my third trip to the Grand Canyon and I was still looking forward to seeing it. It’s never the same and always beautiful.

This time there was some snow and clouds were curling over the north rim. We went up to the top of the watchtower and stopped at many of the viewpoints along the way. We came in from the southwest this time so we got to see the canyon that the little Colorado River was carving too, plus we got to drive through part of the painted desert. The vistas at the Grand Canyon are so magnificent that pictures, I don’t care how professionally done they are, never do it justice…and there are some gorgeous pictures out there. We spent a mere three hours exploring some of the southern rim. One day I would like to go down to the bottom.

Leaving the Grand Canyon behind we headed to our time share in Vegas that would be our home base for the next week. Our drive to Vegas was nearly uneventful except for a fox that ran across the interstate in front of us looking at us like we were the ones that were in the wrong place. The terrain went from desert to mountainous and we managed to squeeze in a stop at the Hoover Dam just before sunset. Whew! It had already been quite a day!

Having a slushy with my sonWe stay at the Grandview Resort, it’s about eight miles south of the main strip so when we want to get away from all the hustle and bustle of the strip and get some peace and quiet by the pool, we can. The Grandview is located next to an up and coming hotel/casino called South Point. Time shares have their pros and cons, but this one is nice, has worked out pretty well for us, and we got it dirt cheap. After settling in, we took our newly turned twenty-one son on a quick drive up and down the strip. Then we stopped at New York, New York for some New York style pizza after which we promptly went back to our rooms after midnight and crashed. Hard. Until morning. Ryan, our son was wide-eyed and somewhat overwhelmed, I think, by all the glitz, glam, and people on the strip, but that hasn’t stopped him from going off on his own to find his dad over at the casino as I write this. Good for him!

Stay tuned…more later….

Have you been to Vegas? What’s your favorite thing?

Blizzards, Broke Vehicles, and Big Birds. Oh My!

~ Kim Olgren ~ 3 Comments

Flying vehicle parts, blizzards, and giant black birds that won’t move from their meal in the middle of the interstate. Such are the hazards of road trips. Still, we are having a good time.

Dust haze, northern NMWith a serious storm heading into the northern mountains of Colorado hubby thought that we’d avoid any adverse weather because we were swinging far south, heading over Raton Pass, through New Mexico, and into Arizona. Weather reports were predicting the storm would be well north of us. Nope. We ran into severe, high winds in southern Colorado and New Mexico. We had a headwind of 40mph, which was seriously screwing with our gas mileage, but it was about to get worse. Somewhere in the middle of the New Mexico desert we lost the plastic cover of one running board. It blew clean off the truck, but not before clipping the back end and scraping up the side of my pretty, red Trailblazer. We’re hoping it will buff out. As for the running board, it became a highway casualty (memorial service time and date to be determined).

Blizzard Central NMWe came to accept that the high winds were going to be with us for the day and cautiously passed semi after semi (the double-trailer FEDEX trucks were especially scary) as we continued from Las Vegas, NM and on to Santa Fe where we stopped for lunch. We walked around the downtown shops, my son and I snapping pictures of anything that caught our fancy. We asked one of the local shop owners for a suggestion for lunch. She suggested a Mexican restaurant a little off the beaten path that was about a block away. The air was a chilly 50-something degrees so we were kind of thankful to get inside. We were not disappointed La Cocina De Doña Clara was clean, the service was good and the food was wonderful. Great chile rellenos! Thank you!

La Cocina De Dona Clara

Back on the road outside of Santa Fe, my son now driving, we ran into more bad weather. We soon found ourselves in the middle of a blizzard that wasn’t supposed to be happening. Visibility had been bad with all the dust kicked up in the wind between Colorado and Santa Fe, but now we were driving in near white out conditions for nearly four hours. My son was ever the trooper and handled the adverse driving conditions like a pro (so proud!). The storm finally let up somewhere near Gallup, NM.

With hubby behind the wheel once again, we headed for the Arizona border. He thanked our son for driving through all the crappy weather for him. Ha! We ran into intermittent brief snow showers but the drive to the border remained mostly uneventful. Of course that changed once we crossed into Arizona.

About thirty minutes into Arizona we ran across some birds feasting on some road kill that happened to be just left of center on the two-lane road. As we sped closer and closer to the group they refused to budge. We were now playing chicken with…well…anyway the birds scattered at the last possible second. I was sure I was going to have another bird versus vehicle trauma only with a lot more, larger birds. The first episode being a small bird that was split in two right before my eyes on the antenna on the front of our vehicle as we traveled down a Kansas highway. Yuck. These huge black birds (I’m guessing crows or ravens) were apparently both much larger and smarter and managed to get the heck out of our way. Whew!

We were now in the final stretch of our trip with only about 3 hours to go until we got to our destination for the night in Winslow, Arizona. All along there have been Indian shops, billboards for local attractions like ice caves in volcanoes, petrified forests, and fossils. We have so far managed to avoid these tourist traps. I figure since our ultimate destination is arguably the largest tourist trap in the country, we probably don’t need to stop at every roadside shop.

Eagles fans! Look who's standing on a corner in Winslow AZ!Finally safely ensconced in our hotel room in Winslow after dinner at the El Falcon restaurant we all went to our respective laptops. I don’t know what the other two were doing, but I put the finishing touches on this, the beginning of a great road trip story. Can’t wait until tomorrow!

Tune in tomorrow for news and stories from the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, NV! Have you taken any road trips? What was your favorite stop? Why?

Road Trip! Is There Such Thing as a Vacation From Writing?

~ Kim Olgren ~ 2 Comments

From Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way to Stephen King, author of On Writing and many a creepy tome, to Alan Watt, author of The 90-day Novel and founder of the L.A. Writers Lab, the general consensus of most writers seems to be “write everyday”. Being a brand new blogger working on two novels while job hunting I became a bit concerned about how this was going to work with being on vacation for about a week and a half. I didn’t want to lose momentum on my novels and I sure as heck didn’t want to disappoint the modest following I had worked hard to build on my barely-off-the-ground blog. In short, I don’t think that writers get, nor do they really want, vacations from writing. Eek! I just figured out something new about myself…I’m one of those writers! <Panic! Danger Will Robinson. Danger! Beep! Beep! Woop! Woop!> Wait.

This is where the Online Learning System (OLS) I chose for obtaining my college degree came in ever so handy. With the exception of a vacation in Mexico, I attended school on holidays, weekends, and while on vacation. It wasn’t that hard because my virtual classroom allowed me to attend school almost any time and anywhere I wanted to. Of course there are caveats, price being one, of course. However, successfully completing a degree program online also requires a tremendous amount of dedication and discipline. Coordinating far-flung teams of people to work on papers and projects through online chat threads was both quite challenging and quite rewarding (you try coordinating the completion of a 20 slide PowerPoint presentation in four days on the pros and cons of a free economy for a team consisting of people in three different U.S. time zones, a soldier on a ship in the gulf and someone who barely types in English in Dubai, whew!) . The pressure was constant with compressed courses lasting only five weeks and an individual assignment as well as a team assignment due every week. Papers averaged 1500 words and had to original and APA formatted, with proper references and citations. Who said all online schools are diploma mills???

As I thought about the similarities between OLS and writing in general I found the task of keeping up with my writing much less daunting. Hey, looky there, the $300,000 education is finally paying off (yes, that was sarcasm). True, there are certain environments that are more conducive to creativity, but the same can be said for studying. Where I’ve found I could concentrate on studying with grandkids, kids, dogs, cats, and barely controlled chaos going on, when writing I needed a lot more quite. Many of the tactics I used for school on the road I’ll be using for writing. I have some tools that will be helpful and there are others, such as an I-pad, with its 8hr battery life that I can only wish I had.

Our road trip begins in Colorado Springs heading to the Grand Canyon. The next leg of our journey takes us to Las Vegas, NV. A two-day side trip during our week in Vegas will take us to Los Angeles, CA. Then it’s back to Vegas for a couple of days before we drive home.

Here’s my plan:

I will use certain downtime to my advantage much like Brian Johnson’s mother told him to do in The Breakfast Club. Only when I’m relaxing by the pool or in the ocean or at the black jack table; that is just what I’m going to do. Relax. Hours of riding in the car and getting up a little early, and hanging out in restaurants will give me plenty of time to write on my laptop, in a notebook, or jot down flashes of inspiration in my mini notebook I keep in my bag.

I will not allow myself to stress about writing, word counts, or anything else of the sort and hence ruin my vacation.

I will allow my vacation to keep my creative fires kindled by enjoying all the things I will get to do and see, then writing about them.

Three simple rules, that’s it. I’m not looking for balance here. As Danielle Laporte, one kick-a$$, gorgeous, accomplished woman with her head screwed on straight, tons of charisma, and a fabulous spiritual philosopher says, Life balance is a myth, and the pursuit of it is causing us more stress than the craving for balance itself. I almost got caught up in the life balance trap planning for this vacation and my writing. Instead I’ve chosen to go with the flow, write when I can (because I love it and…well…it’s fun!), and have as much other fun as I possibly can (because…well…it’s fun!). I am a reserved person most of the time which is often mistaken as disinterest by the people around me, but inside my head is a myriad of thoughts and feelings spinning all manner of stories from what’s going on around me. To me, this is great fun, whether I’m in a casino, on the road, in an airport, on a plane, at home, by the pool, working, etc. the stage in my head is always active.

I’m looking forward to vacation and sharing some of what I see, think, and eat along the way. I’m also looking forward to writing about it.

How do you stay on track with writing while away from home? Is it hard or easy to stay focused? Do you tend to procrastinate? Suggestions welcome!

What’s your favorite place to eat in L.A.? In Vegas? I’d love to hear from you!