We’ve been lucky enough to have spent time in dozens of National Parks since embarking on our Trans-Americas Journey in April of 2006, so we can say with some degree of expertise that all of them are amazing in their own unique ways—Yellowstone’s geothermal marvels, Denali’s wildlife, Wrangell St. Elisas’ summits. Then there are parks that offer a little bit of everything.

A golden-colored black bear in search of a snack along the road into Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Take Lassen Volcanic National Park for example. It’s got geothermals, wildlife and summits plus volcanoes (all four types) rolled into one diverse package and over three days of utterly perfect temperatures, we manage to see and do most of it from our base in the Summit Lake North campground.

Do not be fooled by the deceptively ambling trail that leads to the base of the long, steep slog up Cinder Cone.

As a warm up before tackling 10,457 foot Lassen Peak, we decide to climb Cinder Cone. During the drive to the trailhead we spot a honey colored black bear a few hundred feet off the road busy ripping apart dead tree trunks in search of a snack. The Cinder Cone trail starts off pleasantly enough (except for the disturbing new signs warning visitors about a recent river otter attach in the area), but becomes very steep and very exposed at the base of the Cinder Cone itself. To make matters tougher, the trail runs through deep black cinders, which makes it feel like we’re walking through sand as we inch our way up the side of the dormant cone (one step forward, two steps slid back).

As usual, the harder the walk the greater the reward at the top where Cinder Cone reveals a classic deep crater with a trail into it and a lovely trail around the rim.

The summit of Cinder Cone rewards hikers with an accessible inner crater and a trail around the rim.

Lassen Peak in a precious smoke-free moment.

The next morning it’s time for Lassen Peak. The trail is busy but not packed–we see maybe 40 other hikers—and, it must be said, it’s an easier walk than we’d anticipated (perhaps because Cinder Cone was so much tougher than we’d expected). At the top we find a couple of flat rocks and break out our gourmet picnic: bbq pork sandwiches on onion rolls, grilled corn on the cob and boiled then grilled red potatoes. Not bad for leftovers (thank you Airsteram refrigerator!).

As we eat, thousands of butterflies appear all of them flying around the peak in the same direction. It’s something we’ve never seen before and it makes us remember what it feels like when you’re scuba diving in a swirling school of barracuda—lucky and bewildered. What we have seen before are the swarms of chipmunks ruined by too many human handouts. The little beggars are shameless.

The last section of the climb to 10,457 foot Lassen Peak.

On the way down a doe and two frisky fawns cross the trail just a few feet behind us before scampering off (mom in pursuit of the two energetic wanderers) into a small meadow.

The next and final morning in the park we reserved for the Bumpass Hell trail where we learn that there really was a Mr. Bumpass (we presume he pronounced it Bum Pass) who used to guide visitors among the area’s sprawling fumaroles and boiling pots until he broke through the crust one day and burned his leg so badly they had to cut it off. Hence, the “Hell” part of the trail name.

Before we even reach the geothermal area we hear the action—a kind of airport runway jet engine roar and hiss that seems to be coming from all directions at once. After a few minutes of dumbly searching the sky trying to spot the planes making all that racket we finally figure it out.

Bumpass Hell.

Within Bumpass Hell itself are an array of steam vents and patches of bright yellow sulphur and boiling pools of colorful water and putty-colored mud every bit as impressive as what can be seen at Yellowstone (minus the bison and the elk, of course).

See you out there!

Karen & Eric

Trans-Americas Journey

www.trans-americas.com

One of the things we love about having an Airstream with us as we explore North, Central and South America on our Trans-Americas Journey is the flexibility it gives us. If we see something we want to check out, all we have to do is flip on the turn signal secure in the knowledge that home is just a hitch away.

So despite the fact that Lassen Volcanic National Park is the goal we set out for at 8 am, by early afternoon we are pulling into the McArthur Burney Falls Memorial State Park to see what this little park has going for it.

Turns out, quite a bit including a lovely sprawling campground with tent sites and charming cabins that almost give our Airstream a run for the money. Then there’s the falls which are impressively tall, refreshingly cool and unique in that natural springs actually emerge along waterfall wall, creating a kind of curtain of water.

The beginning of the Rogue River Canyon.

Beautiful formations, still growing in the Oregon Caves National Monument, one of many spontaneous stops along our way.

A stalagtite meets a stalagmite to form a floor to ceiling column in Oregon Caves National Monument.

Impressive 129 foot McArthur Burney Falls which charmed us into staying for the night.

See you out there!

Karen & Eric

Trans-Americas Journey

www.trans-americas.com

Entering Crater Lake National Park

Some things can be right in front of you but they don’t become obvious until you get even closer. Things like Crater Lake National Park, for example. The words “crater” and “lake” are right in the name of this park and if you think about it that’s pretty dramatic in and of itself. But when we arrive at the park’s Rim Village and look down into said lake, the full uniqueness of the place finally hits us.

The deep color of Crater Lake is caused by the depth and clarity of the water and may be the ultimate definition of blue.

First of all, it’s waaaaaay down there—inside the crater. Then there’s the color, a blue so blue that it defines the color every lake should be. It’s so blue that it seems like if you scooped up a mouthful of the water it would actually taste blue. There aren’t many opportunities to scoop up any water from Crater Lake, however, as 99% of the park happens way up on the rim of the crater. The one way to get to the lake itself entails a one mile walk down a wide dusty path, descending 700 feet to the water’s edge. Yep. It’s just as blue from down there and so clear we can see features dozens of feet down. You can go scuba diving in the lake, which is the seventh deepest in the world, but at just 50 to 60 degrees even in summer we decide to be satisfied with our shore and rim views.

Crater Lake is the nation’s sixth national park and we make the most of our three days in it with as many hikes as we can cram in. Even in July snow still has some of the trails closed and the Rim Drive itself only opened a few days before we arrive, but we are able to hike to the top of 9,000 foot Mount Scott where we should be rewarded with awesome views all around. Sadly, the state of California is blanketed in smoke from hundreds of still-raging wildfires and the stuff is so dense we don’t take a single picture. The next morning, however, we peek out of our Airstream with fingers crossed and the sky does actually look slightly clearer so we quickly hoof back up Mount Scott a second time and get some shots.

We know it’s sacrilege to many, but because ours is a working road trip we pretty much always need internet access and we really do wish the park system would just install routers in campgrounds across the board (hey, if you’re on a non-working road trip just don’t log on). After much painstaking searching nearly every nook and cranny of Crater Lake National Park, we finally find a turnout along the Rim Drive where we get a Verizon signal and a couple of times each day we park there and call it our office for an hour or so before returning to the trails or heading back to the Airstream to relax. It sure beats any corner office we’ve ever had.

After some diligent searching we find the one place on the Rim Drive where we get a decent enough signal to check emails and do some work – pretty sweet office!

Phantom Ship, a rock outcropping in Crater Lake.

Karen & Eric

Trans-Americas Journey

www.trans-americas.com

It’s an adventure just getting to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rock_Desert. First, you pass through the incongruous and charming hamlet of Gerlach (don’t blink), then there’s Guru Road just out of town on your left. Jutting off the main paved road, this dirt spur has become, over the years, a kind of impromptu sculpture and philosophy garden. The road is lined with boulders, stones and rock slabs chiseled with random bits of life advice and odes to beloved locals. Occasionally along the mile plus route there are larger pieces of more complex sculpture, like an abstract Elvis crafted from stacked rocks and adorned with a cape made by linking together hundreds of beer can bottoms—it bears an uncanny likeness.

The sign that greets you outside the lone store in Empire, a town just shy of Nevada’s remote Black Rock Desert, says it all.

One of our favorite sections of Guru Road is an area devoted to the Iron Butt Association http://www.ironbutt.com/about/about.cfm , a group of apparently insane long distance endurance motorcycle riders who do things like ride a motorcycle 11,000 miles in 11 days and ride from Canada to Mexico (or vice versa) within 36 hours. Yeah, our kind of people!

As we’re walking along the road we are tickled by a persistent playful wind that keeps making us feel like there’s someone behind us even though there’s no one in sight. The utterly dry but surprisingly refreshing wind persists as we travel on to the Black Rock Desert itself which (are you sitting down?) isn’t black at all! A close inspection reveals a sprinkling of small black pebbles on top of the powder-fine taupe dust but the overall effect is a desert that looks (and feels) like the spongy pale top of a par-baked biscuit.

The dusty, artsy turn off for Guru Road, on our way to the Black Rock Desert off in the distance.

It’s gorgeous here, but there’s not a lot to do so after exploring the desert around us we get down to work. Eric just got a new computer from Dell http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19 (Eric has an XPS and Karen uses an ATG) which needs to be set up and Karen always has something she’s supposed to be writing (including this blog post), so right in the remote Black Rock Desert we end up with both computers going, thanks to our generator, in one of the most scenic offices we’ve ever worked in.

No need to worry if your site is a pull-through or not here in the Black Rock Desert where room to turn around is never an issue.

Every time we begin to think we’re totally alone out here, we hear the rumble and see the dust of another vehicle approaching in the distance—usually going around 100 mph. Once we’re even buzzed by a low-flying plane (we think the pilot just wanted a closer look at our Airstream). Still, it’s hard to imagine this place packed with the 30,000+ folks who gather here every year over Labor Day for the annual Burning Man Festival http://www.burningman.com/.

Forget cubicles! Hard at work on our hardcore Dell laptops in our impromptu desert office.

Sunset turns us into long, happy shadows after another great day of camping on the Black Rock Desert.

We go to a lot of music festivals and have always camped at them, so we knew that having an Airstream for our fourth time at the annual High Sierra Music Festival http://www.highsierramusic.com/ would be an upgrade—we just don’t quite realize how much of an upgrade until we get to our site and start setting up all of our toys.

Leaving Reno, the biggest little city in the world, in the biggest little travel trailer in the world.

First, we put up the awning (without breaking it this time) and roll out our green astro-turf lawn before planting a pair of plastic pink flamingos (thanks Doug!). Then we set up our comfy camp chairs, outdoor speakers (so we can listen to the radio simulcast of the festival right from our camp), two fully stocked coolers and our trusty Coleman grill.

The only thing missing? Guests! When we last had a home, so many months ago, we loved to have our friends over for dinner or just to hang out and we’re really looking forward to entertaining Airstream-style at the festival where some of our much-missed friends are in attendance.

They show up soon enough and that’s when the Airstream really becomes hospitality central. In between catching some fantastic bands as varied as Critters Buggin’ http://www.crittersbuggin.com/, Govt.’ Mule http://www.mule.net/ and Dumpstaphunk http://www.dumpstaphunk.com/ at one of the easiest, most enjoyable festivals around, we all naturally reconvene at the Airstream to spend time grilling up pork loin dinners , whipping up bowls of homemade guacamole and sitting in the shade catching up with people we haven’t seen in many months. It is heaven.

Even without a water hook up, careful (but not brutal) rationing gets us through four days of cooking and hosting with water to spare and everyone who pokes around inside the Airstream is amazed at what it can do. We even have our first overnight houseguest, our dear friend and awesome guitarist (he plays in RANA http://www.rana.com/, American Babies http://www.americanbabies.net , Bustle in Your Hedgerow http://www.myspace.com/bustle and Chris Harford’s Band of Changes http://www.chrisharford.com/ as well as other groups), Scott Metzger http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=203941833 who was at the festival performing in not one but two bands.

One particularly lazy afternoon we actually watch a DVD with the air conditioning on, but don’t tell anyone. Yeah, the Airstream performed like a rock star.

Welcome to our High Sierra Music Festival castle!

Don’t get us wrong. We’ve pitched a tent in plenty of places from the Himalayas to Baja. But when we arrive at the famed Bonneville Salt Flats http://www.utah.com/playgrounds/bonneville_salt.htm we practically kiss our Airstream.

You wouldn’t dare pitch a tent on this sea of salt, but our Airstream is right at home on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

A sea of white salt that hosts world-famous land speed trials (go rent The Fastest Indian), the flats are open to overnighters free of charge with only one catch: you literally have to set up camp on the salt, something that simply wouldn’t be possible in a tent. Us? We just tow our Safari out onto the flats until we feel sufficiently in the middle of nowhere, put it in park and call it home. Flexibility like that is one of our favorite thing about having the Airstream. So far.

The flexibility to call places like the Bonneville Salt Flats home is one of the best things about our Airstream. So far.

Surrounded by white, it looks like we’re on snow (though the 100 degree heat reminds us otherwise) and the damp, sticky salt even kicks up off the tires like snow leaving splatters of the stuff everywhere. The place is totally silent and totally black and white: white for the salt and black for the color of the surrounding hills. However, as darkness falls, we’re startled by a popping noise breaking the silence and when we look out the window we see fireworks shooting off above nearby Wendover—just one more surreal sight in a totally surreal place.

Exploring the vast whiteness of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

The chunk of land where New Mexico and Utah rub up against each other has to have the highest concentration of national parks, monuments and natural sites of any area of the country and the best way to get around to all of them is, obviously, with your home in tow. We begin our beautiful places buffet with a drive through El Malpais National Monument http://www.nps.gov/elma/ near Grants, NM as a fast moving summer storm throws lightning bolts around the darkening sky.

Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation, and a monument to the Navajo Code Talkers.

It’s suitably moody weather for a place whose name literally means badlands in Spanish. That’s because much of the land here is not land at all, but twisted inhospitable hunks of lava. It often looks like we’re driving past a massive parking lot that’s had its asphalt chewed up by one of those hulking re-paving machines.

From El Malpais we head for El Moro National Monument http://www.nps.gov/elmo/ near Ramah, NM, a tiny park that’s biggest claim to fame is a series of inscriptions left by explorers who’ve stopped at the water source here since the 1500s. There are many breathtakingly elegant signatures and messages (some of the handwriting beats what we can do with a pen and paper), sadly, some park visitors think they can do better and during our visit a ranger discovers fresh graffiti reads “Alex + Bree = BFF” hacked into a stone wall that (Alex and Bree, if you’re reading this, so not cool).

Classic Utah scenery—perhaps that’s why both Lonely Planet and Rough Guide chose this exact shot (sans Airstream) for the covers of their recent Southwest guide books.

In addition to the inscriptions, the park also offers a lovely mile long walk to the top of a stony mesa and through the remains of an ancient Indian settlement. The views (and the silence) from up there are amazing.

Next? Utah’s Monument Valley http://www.utah.com/monumentvalley/, an area we’ve visited many times. We arrive near sunset and find the campground moved to make way for a nearly-completed new hotel. The new camping area is even better, however, as it sits almost directly under Monument Valley’s famous “Mittens” formations and we are able to park our Airstream in plain unobstructed view of the massive rocks.

Monument Valley’s famous “Mittens” formation looming just beyond our campsite.

The following morning we drive to Arches National Park http://www.nps.gov/arch/ near Moab, Utah where the temperature is nearing 100. After a few (very brief) hikes that were much more enjoyable in the cool fall weather the last time we visited the park, we carry on to nearby Canyonlands National Park http://www.nps.gov/cany/, which brings our park count to five in just three days. Not bad.

Balanced rock at Arches National Park.

We’ve dreamed about staying in the Willow Campground in Canyonlands since our last visit years ago. Like so many park campgrounds, the 10 sites at Willow fill on a first-come, first-served basis so we make a beeline for it with fingers crossed that there’s still a space for us. Not only do we get a space, but our site has a shady tree!

The Airstream in yet another scenic pullout in Arches National Park.

With our lovely new home secured, we unhitch and drive our truck to a few trailheads to explore the park on foot. As we move around from lot to lot, we begin to realize how many non-RVers park their tiny vehicles in spots clearly meant for oversize rigs. In many lots in Canyonlands we would not have been able to park at all with the Airstream in tow because of inconsiderate drivers like that. We’re thinking about printing up “friendly reminder” cards to leave on offending windshields but if anybody has a better solution for addressing this problem, log on to www.trans-americas.com and shoot us an email!

Landscape Arch in Arches National park is the longest natural rock span in the world, opening is 306 feet wide.

Sunset in Canyonlands National Park.

We’ve always wanted to see Chaco Culture National Historic Park http://www.nps.gov/chcu/, and we’re not about to let a bit of rough road stop us (actually, you have to drive 13 miles of dusty, bumpy washboard to get to the park, but who’s counting?).
Chaco does not disappoint, delivering some of the best preserved and most accessible ruins of ancient Indian dwellings that we’ve ever seen. Trails literally lead you through intricately constructed stone buildings (large rough rocks inside the thick walls for strength and insulation, delicate artfully stacked stones on the outside of the walls for aesthetics) and many seem almost ready to move back into.
Near the end of the day we move into the park’s Gallo Campground in a site that butts hard up against a huge mesa that has more ruins tucked under delicate natural overhangs. Some backyard! Since the days are nice and long and the scenery can’t be beat we decide that Gallo makes a great place to take some beauty shots of our new Safari and so we begin setting up our “front yard” with views of the natural backyard behind us.

In our excitement, we make a classic freshman mistake and assemble our awning incorrectly, jamming both arms into their housings. We push and pull for hours (probably just making the problem worse) until we give up and lash the awning down as best we can with bungee cords, resigned to our fate: a return trip back to Albuquerque to visit our new best friends at Holiday Travel Trailers http://www.holidaytraveltrailers.com/ to get the thing fixed.
Trying to look on the bright side of this unplanned 270 mile roundtrip backtrack, we remind ourselves that going back to Albuquerque also means that we can visit the Trader Joe’s there one more time for more of our favorite provisions (don’t miss the Veggie & Flaxseed Tortilla Chips).