Slipping Southwards

So Friday morning we headed southwards starting out on Parker Road and going somewhat south of town before swinging over to I-25. It's a pretty drive with a lot of scenery but even that acquires a sort of sameness after a while.

We stopped at a rest area at El Moro which had a good view eastwards out towards the plains of Colorado with the mountains behind us to the west. We stopped at the next exit to fuel up where the stupid Shell station made us swipe and fill twice instead of doing it all at once.

At that same exit, trying to avoid the same old same old of chain fast foods we went to Tequila's Family Style Mexican Restaurant at Exit 11 which is technically Starkville but pretty much part of Trinidad. South of Raton, New Mexico, at the Thaxton Rest Area, we stopped for a bit of leg stretching and a good thing too! Before Geoff could even get out of the coach, a storm swept in with rough winds and pounding rain mixed with hail! A couple of cars already there decided not to leave yet and several more including a couple of campers and a pickup pulling a boat pulled in shortly to wait out the storm.

There were lots of RV's, campers of all sorts, boats and so forth in several combinations out on the highways and clogging the truck stops but then it's 4th of July weekend so not a bit surprising. We made the switch to I-40 at Albuquerque and shortly past the city we stopped overnight at a Flying J truck stop rather than try to find an RV park.

What's the difference? At an RV Park you generally can get water, sewer, and electric hookups and they mostly have rules about being quiet past a certain time of night. This means you an run your air conditioning and get a better night's sleep in the cool and quiet. At a truck stop, you're parked in a row with other RV's and sometimes trucks and they come and go ALL night. You can't put a side slide out for more room either BUT it's free.

Early in the morning we snarfed up breakfast at the Denny's that was part of the truck stop and headed on west, changing to I-17 at Flagstaff and pushing through to Camp Verde for the night. Starting way back in Ohio I had begun to have trouble with my foot and ankle swelling badly. See the next blog for detail about this digression.

After dealing with this issue we headed on further south to Cave Creek, Arizona, and my oldest son Mark's home. He and his wife Natalie have a lovely house there with all sorts of ins and outs and nooks and crannies that are part of some large airy rooms. Even outside the house has several charming sitting areas. We got to watch the fire works from their house looking out over the valley.

This whole RV thing is mostly his fault. He has been promising me to come visit in Florida for years now but since he and his wife each have their own small businesses as well as trying to bring their home to be like they want it to be, they never seem to be able to get away long enough. So this year when he had to back off from coming to Florida I decided it was time we came to see him and that started the whole thing with the RV!

Dawdling in Denver

When last heard from Timmber Wolf was headed for Denver, Colorado, and Cherry Creek State Park. Some how in seven days and six nights we were there I managed only one picture which I'll get to in a few. We arrived a couple of days early on Saturday instead of Monday so first we checked to see if we could get into our reserved space early ... no such luck.

By then we were already getting frazzled just from trying to drive poor Timmber Wolf around in city traffic. We decided, okay, no room at Cherry Creek until Monday so we would get a hotel room and a rental car and rest, relax, and catch up on laundry before meeting up with my cousin Cyndi and her husband Scott at Cherry Creek. Sounds simple, right? Nope!!!

We first tried getting to the car rental location which proved to be not only tangled up in little streets but when we finally got Wolf in the entrance it looked like we might never get it out again. We gave up trying to get close to the car rental office and called ... no cars available anywhere!We gave up that part of the plan and got ourselves untangled from the area.

Realizing we were on a sizeable street calling itself Parker Road and having a clue that Parker was off to the southeast and away from this maze we were trapped in we headed out. Starving and irritated we called for a lunch break once we were in Parker, a growing part of the Denver suburbs, NOT a little town, and turned into a Village Inn, a name familiar to us from home.

Scrunch, screech, yikes! Something there at the back of Wolf or perhaps PoGoGo's carrier dragged itself across the pavement as we made the uphill turn towards the Village Inn! Inspection found no serious damage so we decided to try a different way out when we left and retreated inside for sustenance. We shut our tummies up and discussed our options over a meal that seemed just as good as at the Village Inn back home but the service was not as good.

The final decision was to head for a hotel nearby and get some R&R and clean clothes. We ended up at the Holiday Inn there in Parker and found the laundromat just doors away from the elevator. This Holiday Inn has a restaurant, Trappers Chop House, at the top with a great view towards Denver and since we were without a car and temporarily tired of managing Wolf in that kind of traffic, that's where we ate both nights. Good food, good service, great view!

Finally on Monday we rejoined our original plans and checked in at Cherry Creek State Park, a very nice place in the middle (it seems anyway) of metropolitan Denver. When Scott and Cyndi arrived, Scott took Geoff to pick up our rental car. We had no intentions whatsoever of trying to wander around Denver in the Wolf!

Fluff on the barbie?

That evening we actually got out our Coleman grill and fixed hot dogs for everybody. We got this grill back in 2004 when two 8-day spells of no electricity got us to prepare for that a bit. It's actually pretty nifty as it can be either on the table as we used it at Cherry Creek or it has its own stand.

One of the memorable things about Cherry Creek is the fluff that floats around from the cottonwood trees, landing everywhere even on our grill. We'd gotten PoGoGo off her carrier and I jumped on it and went with Cyndi while she walked their two dogs and got to see even more of the park and the lake. Okay, for the literal minded, no I did not jump on PoGoGo, I carefully seated myself, but that doesn't read nearly as well!

The rest of that day and Tuesday we spent settling in and visiting with out RV gurus, Scott and Cyndi. On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons I visited with my cousin Steve, another of my "new" cousins and one whose life has had some similarities to my own, definitely a kindred spirit.While I was visiting Steve on Thursday, Scott and Geoff went off to the Cussler Museum with all its nifty cars, something Geoff has long wanted to do. A pleasant dinner with Scott and Cyndi ended a great stay at Cherry Creek as we then prepared to depart for the south on Friday, July 1st.

Bits and Pieces

Traveling like this there are always these little odds and ends of things happening that don't really fit in with the regular sequential blog post. Like the nice trucker and his son (presumably anyway) who waved and gestured at us letting us know we had some kind of problem so we pulled over and the tie downs and cover on PoGoGo on the carrier were coming loose and dragging on the highway. Thank you Mr. Unknown Trucker!

Then there is the automatic hand washer Geoff discovered in western Kansas. You stick your hands in and it wets them, soaps them, rinses them and then dries them or so the instructions say. It promises more than it delivers even when you do it three times!

Driving along we suddenly see a concrete field full of helicopters both Chinooks and regular looking ones which Geoff says were UH-60's and OH-58's ... regular ones as far as I can tell. Of course this is not so surprising when we see we are passing Ft Riley. It also explains the sudden appearance of apartment complexes in the middle of no where.

Some things go by too quickly to grab the camera for ... like the sudden area of leafless twisted trees scattered across the landscape for a short bit on the north side of I70 ... looked like a sudden wind storm or small tornado had struck maybe a thousand square yards of hillside.

A little ways farther on we found miles and miles of wind turbines planted in the prairie. Here and there, as you can see if you look closely at the image, there were old fashioned windmills. The juxtaposition was fascinating. There are hundreds and hundreds of turbines in these fields that are also used for whatever else, corn, wheat, or cattle grazing.

Only a little farther west from the wind turbines we found signs along the highway stating that if the lights on them were flashing all traffic had to get off the interstate. The only rationale for this we could think of was weather, either very strong winds that were dangerous or even threatened tornadoes or, even more likely, the blizzard conditions that occur out here in the prairies in winter.

Saw a few signs for the Quilt Cottage near Hays, Kansas, which made me think of stopping and getting a little something for my cousins Cyndi but then I realized since I have no interest in quilting myself I wouldn't have a clue what to get ... sorry Cyndi, just appreciate the thought I guess.

We finally made it out of Kansas (one of those "doesn't it ever end states") and ran into a nasty little rainstorm right where exits were few and far between. We finally got off and found a little RV park at the local Conoco station ... doesn't CW McCall have a song or two that mention the Conoco Station? The rain stopped almost as abruptly as it began and through the windshield we saw this lovely rainbow. It doesn't really show but it appeared much stronger than usual, probably because the skies were still fairly dark and stormy behind it but the sun was shining from behind us. This little park is the Marshall Ash Village Campground and has only two or three dozen pull through slots but they all have power, water, and sewer. It is right off the interstate, back behind the Conoco station which is also the campground office.

Our frig is still being cranky, infrequently showing the good old mysterious check light and being a bit erratic as to temperature so we'll have to keep an eye on it. Maybe I should assign that task to our resident kitty, stuffed and not needing any feeding or litter control. Next stop Denver!

Crossing the Breadbasket

Starting this while we still are in Ohio but we are leaving in the morning. Geoff had a great time both days he spent at the National Air Force Museum and of course he brought me a souvenir so a nice little plush eaglet joins the collection.

In case anyone thinks otherwise, there is actually a good bit one has to do on a daily or near daily basis living in an RV. Timmber Wolf has to have the gray and black water tanks emptied on a regular basis and of course the freshwater tank has to be filled. If you're hooked up to the park's water you're not using up your freshwater tank but any water use when you are not hooked up runs the tank down and that tank is even smaller than the 35 gallon black or gray tanks. When you are preparing for departure you make sure all your tanks are full or empty depending on what they are and you keep track of your propane tank level as well. Remember, the frig works off the propane when you are not plugged in to a 30 amp service!

So, to get ready for our leg of the trip crossing the midwest from Dayton to Denver, we'll empty our tanks tonight after dinner, fill up the freshwater tank and gather up all our trash. When we leave in the morning all we will have to do is unhook the water, sewer and electric lines, drop our trash off at the dumpster and turn left as we go out of the park, headed for I70. We've checked the propane which is about half full but this park doesn't have propane available so we'll make sure to fill the tank up at one of the travel plazas along our route.

Of course that doesn't even mention making sure everything on the inside is where it can't fly around as we go. The extra chair gets folded up and put between the bed and the wall and the the suitcase and laundry bag take the floor space on the other side of the bed. The big trash can gets folded up and secured in the shower with a few other things and all the small stuff gets put away in drawers and cabinets and then all the drawers and cabinets as well as the frig doors are checked to make sure they are properly shut.

The trip across the Midwest has been more or less uneventful, it is Friday morning now and we are in Columbia, Missouri. We had some issues with the tires taken care of yesterday afternoon - the stupid TireMinder we had installed at the beginning has been useless and made airing up the tires difficult for professionals and impossible for us. We went to Big O Tires here in Columbia and they removed the system, added extenders on the valve stems where needed and aired us up. If you ever have tire problems look for a Big O Tires!! They are all over the country. If they are anything like the one here you will be glad you did.

By the time we were done at Big O it was time to stop for the night so we are at Cottonwoods RV Park which was only a few miles away. Very nice here. Still having some refrigerator issues we are keeping an eye on as we head out towards Kansas and Colorado.

Moving On

Wednesday we headed back to Pennsylvania and the hopefully well rested Timmber Wolf. On the way we returned the rental car and then relaxed the rest of the afternoon. Thursday morning we headed west again, driving through the area where a number of my father's natural father's ancestry lived, mostly in Potter County, around Galeton.

We had intended to stop and find the Crippen Cemetery there but between the rain and the difficult roads decided to drop that idea.We do have pictures taken last year by my sister's husband and there is a picture and transcript online on the Painted Hills Genealogy Society website. Several generations of Crippens are buried there including my father's great grandfather Erastus Crippen who was wounded at Gettysburg on July 1st at the McPherson Farm, just yards away from where my father's great grandfather on the adopted line, Chalkley Sears, was also wounded although at that time neither family knew each other or had the slightest inkling that they would join through his adoption some sixty years later. My sister's comment to that was that both sides seemed to be big on strange sounding names!

We meant to go all the way to Ohio through the Pennsylvania hills on the regular highways, decent but one lane each way for the most part, but our Puppy Pad aka the RV GPS decided differently and sent us north to New York and I86 up there. Easier driving anyway.

Thursday afternoon found us in Thompson, Ohio, wine country, where we drove on a back road between the grape fields or whatever they should be called to our next scheduled RV stop at Heritage Hills KOA, also known as the Grand River Valley KOA. We could have driven all the way to west Cleveland to Geoff's sister's but that would have been arriving exhausted late in the day.

It also meant we had some time on Friday to take a detour to General RV in North Canton to have them take care of that little problem with the TV antenna rig that we managed to rip off the roof back in Virginia as mentioned in Time and Distance at the NRA Firearms Museum. They were super at the dealership and managed to squeeze in our repair and check the rest of the rooftop to make sure there was no other damage, climbing up there being a bit beyond our capabilities.

We had a super visit with some of Geoff's family in Bay Village, Ohio, parked in his sister's driveway where his brother-in-law had even provided us with a 30 amp electric hookup! Sunday we headed on to the Dayton area where we had dinner with Geoff's nephew. The next morning we celebrated the Cleveland Cavaliers victory over the Golden State Warriors but were sort of glad we are were out of the huge excitement in Cleveland itself!

Today Geoff is off at the National Museum of the US Air Force after waiting for and finally getting the pick up from Enterprise Car rental. Me? I get to relax here in Timmber Wolf and catch up the blog. The "here" is the Enon Beach campground which is literally just off the interstate and even features a close by train track. Actually it is a fairly nice place and we have already learned days ago to run a fan or something as a masking white noise at night. Tonight we'll take advantage of having the rental and go eat and pick up a few things at the store. Tomorrow Geoff will go back to the museum while I prep for heading west on Wednesday.

Geoff is of course under orders to bring me back a souvenir but you'll have to wait for the next post to find out what was added to our collection!

Glass & Memories

The other major highlight I looked forward on this part of our trip was the visit to the Corning Glass Museum in Corning, New York. As a young child, seven years old or so, my family went several times to the Corning Glass Works which had tours and some demonstrations. It all seemed almost magical to me at that age and I looked forward to seeing what the Corning Glass Museum had to offer all these many years later.

Although they no longer manufacturer any of their glassware at that location, the museum is extensive with displays of glassware over the centuries and of art in glass. There are also multiple demonstrations of different types of glass making including glass blowing and flame work as well as an excellent demonstration of glass breaking.

We spent much of Monday there and on Tuesday went first to the nearby Rockwell museum which mostly features southwestern art and some history of the southwest and then drove over to the Heritage Village which includes an early one room school and an early blacksmith shop. There we found that the tours were full up with school groups until mid afternoon so we retreated back to the Corning Glass Museum and happily spent several more hours there.

The glass making demonstrations are fascinating and we went to five different shows all together. There is a steady narration explaining all about how and why they are doing various things and you see the glass change from a blob on the end of a pole to acquiring some shape and then to a final finished object, in these pictures it is a fluted bowl.Throughout the process the glass has to be reheated frequently so it does not cool too much and shatter.

The shape of the bowl is beginning to show.

The finished bowl, it's color appearing as it cools.

One of the most interesting exhibits is the current one showing models of sea creatures and plants done in the late 1800's by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka.

These models range from familiar creatures such as the octopus (shown at left) and the sea anemone to tiny delicate things I have never heard of.The exhibit includes some damaged pieces that show how they were constructed. 

Both Monday and Tuesday we had lunch in the cafe at the museum which is quite good. The museum clearly gets a lot of international visitors and the demonstrations had an interpreter speaking Mandarin for the many Chinese who were there on tours.

I liked the marine creature models so much that my souvenir from here is a small paperweight with a jellyfish sort of creature inside it which you can see  if you look carefully at the image. I do assure you it is more apparent in reality! It also glows in the dark, a feature I have yet to test as it is safely put away in one of the little nooks in Timmber Wolf.

Yes, I am getting a souvenir from most places and forgot to tell you about the one from the Marine Corps museum which is of course the Marine mascot of a bulldog, complete with camouflage cap and jacket.

From our trip to the Rockwell museum, short as it was, perhaps only an hour and a half or so, I found wooden animal carvings and of course the one of the howling wolf was absolutely irresistable, now to find some where to display it in Timmber Wolf.

Family Matters

And now we come to Sunday, one of the focal points of the trip. I'd call it a family reunion except it wasn't or maybe it was, family reuniting that had never met before. Guess I should explain that a little. My sisters and I grew up knowing my father was adopted but we knew nothing more, I don't think he did either. In spite of doing genealogical research on our family since 1973, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I broke that knowledge barrier and found out the names of his parents from his original birth certificate: Claude Dewey Crippen and Willa Margaret Haggarty.

Although my original focus was on the ancestry, I made contact with family members as well, several of whom had done DNA tests and were matches eliminating any doubt as to the parentage. This is where this post will get a bit tricky as I really do not want to use the names of  current living relatives on a post that at least technically is wide open to the internet.

Edith Crow Haggarty Crippen

It turns out that Willa Haggarty, daughter of Edward Haggarty and Edith Crow, had three children all together, two daughters: Lee Walker, older than my father; and Kristy Jensen, younger than my father. Whether or not the girls knew about my father's existence is unknown but certainly none of the current generations were aware that Willa had had a son in 1923 whom she gave up pretty much immediately for adoption.

Now, just to complicate things, Willa's mother Edith had divorced Ed Haggarty and remarried to Sam Crippen. Edith and Sam had a number of children including the mother of a bunch of second cousins all living in south central New York, back to them in a minute. Sam's youngest brother was Claude Dewey Crippen, my father's father, although it seems likely that Dewey never knew he had a son. So, I was in touch with Willa's half sister's children (and their spouses etc) and this is the family I was meeting for the first time face to face this past Sunday. These relatives were also related through Dewey's side as he was their mother's uncle. Confused yet?

We drove a half hour or so from our hotel and up into the New York hills (mountains?) for an afternoon get together. Frankly I was a nervous wreck. These people all knew each other well and I was the outsider in a sense although that feeling did not last long as I was warmly welcomed as family! When we eventually left I felt like I really had all this additional family, my own immediate relatives being a bit on the scanty side. I also had pictures and a genealogy pedigree chart!

I will be seeing more family members later on during our trip, first cousins both, one in Denver who is a child of Kristy's and one in Oregon who is a child of Lee's. I will never forget the get together this past Sunday and I can hardly wait to meet the others.