Twelve Feet, Six Continents, One Year

We had a school day that we had skipped in order to go to Penguin Island on Friday. We went back to the Town of Cambridge Library that we had enjoyed so much earlier in the week. Today I can’t imagine that I’ll be able to forget these details. On the other hand, this is a 400-day trip so here are two details I don’t want to forget.  Floreat Forum. Home to the Town of Cambridge Library and a sailcloth-protected play area. I taught 1st Grade math on a Dewey Decimal System Rug. Other library guests stopped by to decide where they should search for a new book. Awesome! After the library (and lunch) we went to the Botanic Garden in Kings Park. It was extremely popular on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It’s easy to imagine that this scene is exactly what the landscape architects had in mind when they designed this place. We strolled down a wide lawn, past a garden dedicated to the Banksia, which is a plant that has been traced to Pangea and still found in Western Australi...

We had done everything right. We had put in two days of hard driving, first from the Grand Canyon to Barstow and then from Barstow to a lovely remote RV Park just outside Sequoia National Park. We had facilitated a calm morning and encouraged the kids with news that we'd have lots of park time and relatively little parking. Then we found out that the park service advises against vehicles longer than 22 feet using the road ahead. Maybe it would have been fine. Maybe we could have found an RV blog that explained how risk averse the NPS advice was (after all, it was advisory, not regulatory). But the downside of failure was too great to risk and we turned around. Next came a two hour detour. This included an unwanted and unenjoyable lunch stop. Finally, though, we approached the entrance, this time of Kings Canyon National Park. Quickly, we reached our target, the Grant Grove that is home to one of the mighty sequioas. This was everything we hoped for. There's a negligable w...

On Sunday, after driving for nearly five hours and stopping at the Four Corners Monument (thus adding Utah to our state-count), we arrived at the Grand Canyon. With fading daylight, Lily and Henry were amazed and Ali lamented, "it's not a canyon, it's a mountain farm." I've never heard of such a thing but apparently it's neither good nor impressive, whatsoever. Four kids, four states Four kids, two grandparents, four states Two lovebirds, four states On Monday, we had a really good day of school. We introduced a bunch of new curriculum materials last week that had caught up with us in Austin. Today we introduced some more: Henry started a daily science program by covering a week's worth of fossils in about fifteen minutes. (I don't see how a teacher facing a classroom of 25-30 students stands a chance!) Lily started looking up the vocabulary words she has been highlighting in her reading using an online YA dictionary. She had so ...

Simply, Mesa Verde National Park is an extraordinary place and it has given us an extraordinary opportunity. Our purpose on this travel is to expand horizons and we have certainly done that here. We arrived here from Santa Fe on Friday afternoon, having driven from Santa Fe. It was really four drives in one: first, through the desert of northern New Mexico; second, descending from the plateau into Durango, CO; third, climbing out of the Animas Valley, through bright fall colors, to the entrance of the park; finally, winding up through the mountains to reach the Far View Lodge, so named because one can gaze upon Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Among other things, the landscape lends itself to remarkable sunsets. In mid-October, this begins at about 6:30 and lasts for about an hour. I've always loved sunsets. I used to decorate my apartment with a dozen or more large pictures of ones I had captured. This was the first opportunity in a long time. Saturda...

We all have ideas about our parents from before we were born. A few of my ideas come from stories their friends and siblings tell but mostly they come from the photo albums on the bookshelves of my childhood home. From the albums, I have always known my parents love driving in the western United States (they and I grew up in the East). So when my dad asked when and where they might join us, this seemed pretty obvious. So it was that on Tuesday, September 8th, after driving about 3 hours from Fort Stockton, Texas, we arrived at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and found my parents standing next to their rental car and waving. The kids screamed louder than the last time I cancelled dessert. El Capitain marks the highest point in Texas and the signature feature of Guadalupe Mountains National Park The girls and a Madrone (tree) Ali and Cate bonding with a park ranger Matching animal tracks was part of earning the junior ranger badge at GMNP Junior Ranger Success!...