Road Warriors… and a Giant Baby?

April 13, 2020. “So, Leah, we need to plan our epic dream trip back from Kennewick, WA to Indiana. Oh yeah, and don’t forget it is in the middle of a pandemic in which everything is closed including National Parks, State Parks, and all RV/camping parks in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. Oh, and we need to be very conscious of budget because our last contract was let go, and we do not have any income….. Ready, go!” So that is pretty much how planning started for the latest cross-country trip… creativity at its best, which led us to a giant baby chasing a rhino, velociraptor, and bison. This is the recount of how the road warrior Jureks made it.

Our original plan was to kick off this journey with some great time spent in Coeur D’Alene, ID and Glacier National Park, however we knew this opportunity had escaped us this time (Plans…Ha!). Our route took us through Coeur D’Alene, which served as a quality stretch break on the way to Missoula, MT. Leah set the standard early for the kids: school and mindful activities until lunch, and if deserved, tablet time afterwards for the homestretch to reach that day’s destination. As a teaser on the first day I told Faith, “Hey, you wanna bet that on the fourth day of this trip, we are going to see a giant baby chasing a rhino, velociraptor, and bison?” I then preceded to explain what a bet was. Faith’s young brain worked on this hard, and she agreed to a $5 dollar bet, and was certain I was going to make something while she was sleeping. As I continued to taunt her with this over the next few days, and she rolled it around in her head, the bet fell from $5 to $4 to $1 to “No, no we won’t, Daddy, you’re just crazy.”

As an alternative to Glacier NP, we attempted to come as close to a “glacier-esk” experience as we could. With a recommendation from a friend in Montana, who we met up with later, we found a few special options still available to us: Flathead Lake and Holland Lake. It was approximately a 1.5 hour drive from Jim and Mary’s RV park where we were staying for two nights.

I don’t know how she does it, but Leah ordered up a wonderful day for us to explore. We chose to explore Holland Lake as we desired to get on our inflatable paddle board and kayak. The morning started with a great hike up to an impressive waterfall with an even more impressive overlook of the lake with snow-capped mountains behind it. Along the hike, we enjoyed the pristine views of a calm mountain lake nearly perfectly reflecting the peaks along its banks. We heard a strange call that I swore was a large mammal, yet we would come to learn was most likely some kind of loon – a large black duck with some powerful lungs.

The hike alone was worth the trip up to Holland Lake!

The wind did pick up a bit in the afternoon after we came down from our hike to put our crafts on the water. This did not stop us from thoroughly being in the moment in a magnificent place. Yes the scenery was fantastic, but the experience of paddling on a glacier fed lake right up to the remainder of the ice from this past winter was absolutely magical. This was undoubtedly topped the highlights from this trip. Unfortunately, it occurred at our first stop.

What a beautifully special place!

The second travel day was into Billings, MT, where we were scheduled to park in front of our friend’s (a fellow PT we met in Grants Pass, OR) house. After a day of travel, parking the rig is frustrating, and what always tops it off is when gawkers are present. When parking in an RV park, most people know to leave you alone without staring. But when pulling up and parking on a street in a quiet, well-established neighborhood, occupied mostly by the original home owners, and dealing with the slope of a street… well, you are guaranteed to have that nightmare show up. And what do you know, the white-haired audience was gathered before we even had the kids unbuckled and out of the truck. Leah and I went about our business as best we could and finally got things leveled in order to spend the night. It was so nice of our friend to host us and we actually slept very well that night.

Ok, I suppose if I saw a camper parked on my residential street that was more than half the size of my house, I would have to see how these people handled it. Yep, I’d be a gawker too.

The following day we traveled to Medora, ND. This was exciting as Medora is the tourist town located on the skirts of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It was also exciting because we were going to see the giant baby chasing a velociraptor, bison and rhino. I had been searching for roadside attractions directly on our route knowing much would be closed, and this popped up. If you are ever just east of Miles City, MT look for a large display of billboard artwork just as I described. It served its purpose of for a quick stretch break and photo opportunity, as well as bragging rights for winning the bet with Faith.

Yep, it happened, just as I promised, Faith!

Theodore Roosevelt NP was the only national park still open when we planned our trip, thus we reserved a spot at an RV park nearby, Buffalo Gap Guest Ranch. It was a very friendly, open and remote location, boasting the cool topography of the North Dakota Badlands. As we settled in that evening after the kids were in bed, Leah and I began researching for our itinerary to explore the park the next day. When visiting the park’s webpage, which we had done just a week earlier we were greeted with the all too familiar red words: Park Closed due to COVID-19. Are you kidding? Matt, slow down, avoid the rant…these people don’t want to hear it, they’ve been having the same conversation with themselves for the past two months. But really, we were maybe 4 of 100 people in the surrounding thousands of acres of outside nature!?

Ok… plan D. I went into town the next morning to talk with locals as to what we could explore with a few things on the list. 1) Leah wanted to see a prairie dog town, 2) I wanted the kids to see some bison, 3) cool hike/bike ride for views. Well, I was led in the right direction as a short drive on a dirt road took us right next to a prairie dog town on an abandoned ranch. We all enjoyed watching them chirp their warnings and scurry from hole to hole. We also saw several antelope prancing out of the way of the truck as we drove and explored. For the view, we decided to take a bike ride up a hill to a short walk up another hill. We did find some cool views up there, but the wind was chilling us a little too much to stay for any significant time. And…. we saw a few bison as we drove out the next day. So, overall a cool and successful stop.

Buffalo Gap Guest Ranch… Don’t worry, that is just a BB-Gun handled with appropriate guidance and direction.

Well, hold on. Back to the bike ride for the view. It was a very steep road we chose to bike, so steep in fact, we ended up walking our bikes a good majority of the way up. After we took in the view, it was time to make our decent down the hill. I had Fisher’s ride along seat mounted on my bike, and we took off. It was great to howl at him as we safely, yet very quickly sped down the hillside. When we reached the bottom of the hill, I turned around to find the girls, yet was surprised to see them towards the top still. And after a quick second glance I could see Faith’s pink helmet darting around a heap on the ground and faintly heard her screams for help…. Oh, S@%T. Fisher and I began to bike back up the hill with my eyes on Leah laying on the ground. It was quicker for me to get Fisher off and lay the bike down and run as fast as I could up the hill. Not taking my eyes off the scene, I saw no movement, and began to run through scenarios of where a hospital may be, how bad is Leah? Brain injury? Spinal cord injury? Why isn’t she moving?

I quickly moved into first responder mode as Faith’s frantic wailing was not ceasing and I approached within yelling distance. “Leah! Leah! Say something to me!” This is when she did lift her head up and asked me to get the bike off her. She was laying prone with the bike pinning her down. I helped roll her on her back to figure out nothing too severe had happened, and we were able to help her to her feet. She was pretty skinned up on her legs and hands, and had deeply bruised her knees, so shaky, but OK. She was frustrated with herself, as she fell while trying to take a picture of Fisher and I while on her bike. She didn’t realize the severity of the grade, flipping her over her bike when she braked with her free hand – the front breaks. She was also somewhat surprised by my panic. And I have tried to help her see it from my perspective. If she was running up to me and I was not moving from that position for a couple minutes, what level of dead would she assume I was?

The view was not quite worth the injuries, Leah’s last picture before the spill, and evidence of the life threatening war wounds.

Well, we got through that one and were still able to enjoy another special moment together. Being in such an uninhabited place, I had promised Faith that we could stargaze at some point in that trip. Being so young, however I would have to wake her up in order to have enough dark to gain the full experience. Two mornings in a row, she asked me, “Daddy, how come you didn’t wake me up to see the stars?” Well, the morning after the bike crash was forecasted to be very clear. I asked both Faith and Fisher if they wanted me to wake them to see the stars. They both answered yes without pausing. So, at 2am, I walked into their room and rubbed Faith’s back. She groggily asked me what was going on, yet when I asked if she wanted to see the stars, she shot right up with an emphatic YES! I proceeded to do the same with Fisher. His first response was a groan with a full extension of his body almost forming a perfect U shape. Again, when I asked him, he said yes as well. We bundled up and went outside to take it all in. It was a celestial explosion with a full view of the milky way. Fisher lasted a little more than sixty seconds before he was cold and wanted to go back to bed, yet Faith with teeth chattering was happy to stay in my arms looking at the stars for as long as I wanted. Special. Very special indeed.

So far the trip was special, the next few days, were as well, just because I was with my family. We chose to stick with the interstates across the planes, and well, the scenery was much less exciting than what we had just experienced. We chose to put our heads down and enter road warrior mode, making our last 5 days all travel days – tough, but we did it. We did, however, have the opportunity to take advantage of what is called “Boondockers Welcome”. It is a program in which people with both an affinity for RVing and some land offer up their property as a place to stay. We pay a low annual fee, and get to schedule our stay at these peoples’ properties. Most hosts offer some form of electricity and water. Great deal! We did this for the last three nights of our trip.

One of our stops was just south of Minneapolis, and my good friend, Mike, lives in St. Paul. Mike is my long-time buddy that would fly out to Grants Pass for our annual spring Lower Rogue rafting trip (see my prior post “Closing Time”). He, along with his wife and four kids, whom Leah and I had never met, drove down to the farm where we were staying. It was the perfect setting to let the kids run around and share some laughs. This is one cool thing about traveling. We get to see people we would have otherwise not had the opportunity to!

Clockwise from top Left: Meeting up with Mike and family, Faith and Leah standing in line at McDonalds Drive Thru (thanks COVID-19), the ground we covered in just under 6 months, lunch stop with Gamma and Pop Pops, an example of a BoonDockers Welcome stay.

So here we are, “Back Home Again in Indiana” two months sooner than planned. We have already had some fantastic catch up time with family. Letting the kids soak up time with grandparents and enjoy shenanigans with their cousins. And we had the opportunity to be with our moms on Mother’s Day for the first in ten years! Totally cool. We are still unsure how long we will be staying here, and exactly what the next adventure will hold. We will be here at least through this summer, as I am personally preparing to branch out and begin something I feel God is leading me/us to. A new layer of our journey. I will share more regarding this in future updates. Until, then, stay strong and positive, friends!