Home - finally!

At Moab Giants, Moab, Utah. Goofiest looking dinosaur I've seen recently.

We've actually been back on the tundra for several days now, but it took awhile to get the landline reconnected and the Internet service back. And we're still unloading the Guppy. I keep hauling stuff out of there thinking it's got to be the last item, but, nope, there's more. We were definitely bulging at the seams as we waddled down the road back from Colorado.

One thing I did figure out during the past 5+ months of living in that RV was that even before we stuffed the Guppy full of things from my mom's apartment we had stuff along that we did not need. I was way too ambitious in thinking what all I might get done in terms of sewing or other projects. I could have easily left half my project materials sitting in the Woman Cave and not lacked for handwork to keep me busy. And, despite having done some thinning after previous expeditions, we still have kitchen items  that we simply are not using. Ever. So why is it taking up space in the cabinets? Good question.

James M. Robb State Park, Fruita, Colorado

We did manage to time our return more or less perfectly. There was still snow across the end of the driveway, enough to discourage people from driving in but not enough to keep the Guppy out. The only fresh tracks on the road were from a moose. One of my fears whenever we're gone for awhile is we'll come home to discover we've been either burgled or vandalized. We've had both happen in the past, although it's probably been over 30 years since the last episode. One of the consequences of changing demographics locally has been fewer bored teenagers roaming the back roads looking for trouble to get into.

The trip home was relatively uneventful. We were a little smarter in how many miles we tried to cover each day so had more time to relax in the evenings. If I recall correctly, our original plans had involved staying at public campgrounds, but as it turned out looking for private ones (KOAs or similar facilities) was easier. In any case, we stopped early enough each day that we had some time in the evening to just relax and to dine at a normal hour. I should take the time to do some reviews on Campendium; every place we stayed was somewhere I'd be willing to revisit.

Camera shy rattlesnake at Hovenweep National Monument

We did have tire trouble in Missouri, but considering that the tires in question were probably 15 years old the fact the tread finally decided to let go wasn't a huge surprise. If a person just went by how the tread looked, you'd have thought the tires were fine, but we discovered when we went through the stack of receipts previous owners left in the RV that they hit puberty right about the time we bought the Guppy. They looked good because there weren't many miles on them, but considering how quickly rubber dry rots. . . We did replace the front tires not long after getting the Guppy because we figured that for sure we didn't want to chance one them blowing out. Didn't worry as much about the rear because the Guppy has dual wheels.We had planned to replace them this summer, but hoped to get back to the U.P. before being pushed into doing it.

The weirdest part about the tires deciding to die was they never went flat. The tread peeled itself off quite neatly, but the tires never lost air. It was bizarre.

One of the dead tires

Shout out, for what it's worth, to the Pulaski County branch library in Richland, Missouri. I wandered into it while the Guppy was at Larry's Tire Shop. It's a nice library for a small town, bright and airy and with a great selection of books on the recent arrivals shelf. Larry's was kind of cool, too, one of those small town full service gas stations and tire shops that you don't see very often any more.

I also have to say again that there are no bad state parks in Missouri. The tire episode meant we had to stop for the night before we got to St. Louis (well, we didn't have to; it just made sense to do so). We decided to try Robertsville State Park; it's located about 5 miles south of I-44. It's small -- only 27 camp sites, with a fairly even split between basic and electric -- but laid out nicely. What amazed me was it has two, count 'em, two sets of campground hosts. Two sets of hosts for 27 campsites. Holy wah. Maybe it's because it's so close to the city that the DNR wants to be sure there's always someone on site during the "on" season. In any case, it's another Missouri state park that I'd cheerfully stop at again.

And now we're home and I get to try to make the mental shift required to focus on museum stuff. The deadline for our heritage grant is May 31 -- everything we do is supposed to be done and paid for before then. I need to get the banners for the traveling exhibit scripted and ordered ASAP, we need to figure out just what we're doing for the permanent exhibit at the museum, and I need to start drafting the final report. The person who's been collecting the oral histories seems to have done a stellar job; it's just a matter of putting the final pieces together. The big challenge for me is figuring out how to condense a truly complex topic into the printed version of sound bits for the banners. Our project is supposedly explicating the history of Indian casinos in Baraga County. It turned out to be a lot messier than anticipated. Lots of "everybody knows" and everybody being wrong. Myth busting is never easy, and there are a zillion myths to be busted when it comes to Indian gaming.