We have been traveling the U.S. and Canada in our 17 foot RV for 13 months, trying to follow pleasant (cool) weather. During 40,000 miles we have hit some quirky heat spells even in Nova Scotia, but rarely “wimped out” and used RV park/electric hook ups or hotels for air conditioning. Instead we altered course to beeline to the oceans, lakes, or the mountains.

We thought early Autumn in Alberta and British Columbia would be perfect for exploring the Canadian Rockies. However, snow in Wyoming in the Tetons last week, and locals telling us that Halloween in West Yellowstone, Montana is ALWAYS in the snow, made us realize we mistimed our Western Canada leg; we are just too late for a northward trip. Without snow chains, snow tires, or 4-wheel drive, we must avoid the risk of snow, even in September. Driving home this week, crossing the Sierra Nevada Range near Donner Summit in California, we were surprised to share the highway with a snowplow, and snow above the 5,000 foot level. Gorgeous!… and it confirmed our decision to await  Springtime to set off North again.

We decided that a weeks sojourn home to Albany, CA for home maintenance and to see our pals was in order.  When my mom invited us to housesit her houseboat in San Francisco beginning October 1st, we realized we could still be explorers, 30 minutes from home!  As two former San Francisco ‘city dwellers’ 30 years ago, we are so excited to get to live in the City again for three months. Thanks, Ma!  Hey Jules and Keith-o, see you soon!  We hope our East Bay and Peninsula pals will come visit!

So, we are not on the road, but not “at home”. We’ll likely take a hiatus from blogging or maybe take the time to sift through the blogs and do a “10 Best Places” travel list for the last year…or sit on our butts, eat chocolate and look at the waterfoul for 3 months, and enjoy not moving at all.  Call us if you’re coming to San Francisco between 10/1/13 and 1/15/14. We are hoping for a Puerto Rican bicycle touring trip in February, and then off to Western Canada in March.

What a plan…are we lucky, or what? It is finally clear to me that it is time to declare to the State Bar of California, that I am formally, “inactive”, at least in the practice of law. I can’t imagine what would make me climb into a business suit and a 60 hour a week job again. Fortunately, this year has led Steven to conclude that this 3rd attempt at retirement is for good: no more commuting, business travel, or long delayed vacations. It’s all vacation…what day is it?

One of the loveliest hikes anywhere in the world is of course, a hiker’s highway; Hidden Falls above Jenny Lake in the Grand Teton Range is serviced by a boat ride, including complimentary hiking sticks for the 1/2 mile hike to the Falls. How lucky to hike it twice; the first time with Steven, beyond the Falls up to Inspiration Point, and around the lake in full daylight.

A week later I hiked it and Cascade Canyon with my pals Karen and Nancy in two hail/lightning/thunder storms, and nearly in the dark; no tourists were on the trail with those conditions. The glaciers are shrinking and will be gone from this range by 2040. Visit now; the jagged Tetons are just stunning.

While Steven is called to sample the hot springs of Idaho, Sally enjoys a gals-only hiking week near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We’ve been hiking together since 1978; I am so grateful we have the motivation to meet once again for a week together. The gals had an extra 24 hours of driving (diverting through Nebraska!) due to epic flooding in Colorado where they both were trapped, and out of communication with each other; they found each other and got out (with their car) only with the aid of emergency personnel and a tractor. We are all saddened at the loss of life and homes as flooding effects 4500 sq. miles, about the size of Connecticut.

There is a lot to learn about bears here in the Tetons to be safe on the less touristed trails or after dark. On our first gals’ hike we chose Darby Canyon for a short “warm-up” hike close to our comfy condo in Teton Valley, on the Western side of the Teton Range in Driggs, Idaho. However, with a late start (extended catching up with coffee mugs in hand), and a longer than planned hike due to our need to spelunk Wind Cave below (featured image photo credit: Nancy Buell), we walked out with headlamps, in the dark…and with no bear spray.

A very kind local mountain man heard from other hikers that passed us, that 3 women were coming out in the dark, and he walked up trail to find us and ensure we got out safely. We felt monumentally foolish when we learned that bears approaching hibernation are especially hungry, desperate, and active on full moon nights, and guess what? Yep, we had been congratulating ourselves on doing a night hike, under a full Harvest moon.

The only smart thing we did was stick close together, and belt out show tunes like Ethel Merman as we exited the forest, so as to avoid the highest risk, the surprise factor. We really appreciated our good luck when our mountain man informed us that a fishing guide and his customer were mauled by a black bear the day before while hiking in the Tetons during daylight hours. The bear did not retreat until being shot with a gun 4 times. I bet they weren’t belting out “Hello, Dolly!” before the attack. Being armed just with bear spray hardly feels safe anymore, but as American Express says, “Don’t leave home without it”.

I think being on a 17 hand Buckskin with my cattle dog, like this horsewoman we met on the trail, would make me feel a lot safer, and also fulfill my cowgirl fantasy. We appreciated the sentiment expressed by the bumper sticker on her truck/horse trailer in the parking lot.

Fine sentiments…even better if you are lucky, and find one like Steven that does both…and more. (I am going to enjoy watching him blush as he reads this).

“Pillow Talk” is what the elk are doing now…rutting, bugling, and fighting for female attention. We can hear them bugle, but have to rely on paintings from the Wildlife Museum in Grand Teton National Park, to convey wildlife images as we only see from afar, their white butts at dusk.

To ensure that Karen gets to see a moose, we booked a ranger led, wildlife driving tour to the places in the park where elk, moose and bears have been hanging out all summer. Just our luck, this was the first night during the entire summer that NO wildlife was sighted. The rainbows however were stunning.

Our last hike, the Aspen Trail in the Western Teton Range, revealed lots of fresh bear and moose prints along our trail, and even bear claw marks. That close proximity, sharing the trail, was the most exciting thing this week…and I walked with the bear spray primed and out in front of me like some cop stalking a bad guy in a small space…hoping that the bears didn’t saunter up the trail behind us. Once again, the camp songs and rock n’ roll impersonations probably made the wildlife (and other hikers) flee the area.

Finally, we are leaving Driggs, Idaho and the home of the ‘Spud Drive-in’, still showing outdoor movies. I just miss out being ordained a, “Seasoned Tator” for a senior discount, yet too old to be a “Tator Tot”. What’s that make me…a “Spec-tator” or a “Spud-nik”?

From afar it looks like a boy with a bad “butch” haircut due to the shrubs that grow on top. However, standing at its base, it is purely monumental. For Spielberg cinema lovers, it is iconic, yet there is no paraphernalia or mention of  Spielberg’s “Strange Encounters of the Third Kind” shot here.  We probably weren’t the only ones humming that 5 note melody and secretly wishing the nice aliens would invite us on board. Steven and I agreed that if either one of us ever got such an invitation, there is no “Good-bye, Sweet Thang”, only…..”Gone!” Hoping the aliens can find us in a nearby Buffalo, WY brewery (where the town is on its third record-breaking day for high temperatures on this date), Steven samples the best beer ever:  “Fire Hole Chile Porter:  A Robust Porter with chocolate and coffee flavors accented by a subtle spicy finish from Japanese Red Chili Peppers”. Doesn’t that sound like a fabulous recipe for a dark chocolate fudge cake! Pick your poison. What do you think these real cowboys we ran into on a cattle drive would choose after a day on the long trail,”herdin’ doggies”?

Something about this small western town makes me keep belting out the cowboy ballads that I grew up singing. I know these must be on your hit list too: “Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight to Dance by the Light of the Moon”, “Hang Down Your Head Tom Doolie”, “The Red River Valley”, and “Home on the Range”. Isn’t Steven a lucky guy? Unfortunately , the Cowboy Hit Parade kept right on rolling onto the Yellowstone hiking trails as I belted out songs to warn the grizzly and black bears (the breeds in Yellowstone that actually eat people) of our presence…like that is a good thing? Perhaps, they hate Cowboy Music…or flee my singing voice, quickly leading their cubs to safety. All good. We loved this folk art image of buffalo gals dancing by the light of the moon…and now we are fleeing to higher elevations to get cool.

WOW!  The corn and soybean fields and farming communities are gone, as is the humidity and flatness of the Midwest. We are in the West, Baby!  Proof? “Mountain Time Zone”, and cracked, dry lips! This corner of South Dakota is filled with ponderosa pine, bison, prong-antlered antelope, elk, prairie dogs, and lovely Sylvan Lake, below.

The land surrounding Custer State Park is pastureland, small ranches with appaloosa, paint horses, and range cattle grazing, including some Texas Longhorns; ornery and ornamental, no respectable rancher chooses this breed when there is ample green pastureland. I grew up spending weekends and holidays on my grandmother’s cattle ranch in Beaumont, CA so it feels so welcoming to be back with horses, cattle, and ranchers. It has been unusually wet here this summer, providing sufficient range feed; the ranchers have not had to begin”haying” the cattle as they usually do in July. Of course, the cowboy theme is starting to surround us, as bars welcome “Cobs and Hogs”…horse and Harley Davidson riders. Thanks to the Harley riders, we got our broken vehicle diagnosed and a referral to their local mechanic. This guy was a F#&%ing  people person, despite his protestations to the contrary.

There are also real mountains, like Mt. Rushmore…

 …and tortuous roads cross this state park with apt names like the eponymous “Needle Highway”, “Wildlife Loop”, and “Tunnel Road”. The tunnels are only 12 feet high and 8 feet wide so we breeze through in our tiny RV. We were surrounded by bison at one point, driving Lety insane with joy, and allowing us to shoot photos 2 feet away from these gnarly creatures.

In Rapid City, we got a kick out of the “Presidents”, sculptures of the U.S. Presidents in casual poses, especially Harry Truman laughing as he displays the newspaper that erroneously reported his demise to Dewey in the election.

With abnormally high temperatures for the last two weeks, the locals and our friend Leah directed us to “The Plunge”, where 5,000 gallons of water an hour gush up through the rocky floor. Recently, the City of Hot Springs bought this business to keep it open, so it lacks renovations and likely always will. It will likely continue to resembles this old-time photo. The water replaces itself 16 times a day so there is no chlorine smell. If my eyes were closed and I tuned out the sound of kids enjoying the water slides, water volleyball and basketball, I could imagine I was in one of Florida’s Warm Springs, basking in 87 degree water…minus the alligators and manatees, of course.

From a Stanford University lecture in 2000, “Corn: Species Hybridization”, I learned that corn surpasses all others for diversity within the species, except for…..dogs! Both travelled far north and south along the mountainous spine of North and South America, with such a variety of conditions like the number of  daylight hours, that both had to diversify to survive.

Traveling across the upper Midwestern states, we have been mostly surrounded by fields of corn and soybeans, and heard the corn adages: “Knee high by the 4th of July” (predicts a good harvest later), and “High As An Elephant’s Eye” (time to harvest). Almost all corn, world-wide, are grown from genetically modified seed, designed to work with chemicals to reduce pest damage. To ensure that farmers keep paying for the chemicals every year, the GMO seeds do not activate the pest resistant qualities without chemical application. Pretty savvy, pretty corporate…and it works that way world-wide. Canada bars the use of GMO seeds for some of their crops, like the tasty Prince Edward Island potatoes we so love. As global warming heats up the Midwest by only 2 degrees, impairing corn production dramatically, production is destined to move north into wetter central Canada. It will be interesting  see what happens to GMO corn production when Canada calls the shots.

With the USA producing 40% of the world’s corn, it is our biggest crop, and our biggest lobby (called “King Corn” in Washington), so where does it go? 40% is government mandated for production of ethanol fuel under the “renewable” fuel act until 2022, 58% of the remaining corn produced is used as animal feed, and the rest for human consumption. Unfortunately, cattle are grass eating ruminators with 4 stomachs, and get lesions on their livers trying to process corn and soybean as feed. Then those lesions have to be treated with antibiotics to keep the cattle alive until butchering. The antibiotics (and cattle growth hormones) are in our milk and beef, and we wonder why young American women begin puberty years earlier than the norm, and we also are creating antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Michael Pollen, for his book, “Ominvore’s Dilemna”, follows a calf he purchased, as it passes through the commercial beef process, except for the slaughterhouse where he was denied access to his adult steer. He found that the steer had a very high DNA “corn footprint”, and proceeded to research American consumers’ DNA corn footprint. It was higher than Mexicans, whose diet is based predominantly on beans and corn tortillas. This was confirmed at the corn exhibit at Mitchell’s Corn Palace in South Dakota by the following quote:

Who knew! 25 corn plants a day to act like a good American. It is not just fuel, and animal feed for beef, pork, chicken/eggs and commercially raised fish that provide us with corn DNA.  58% of non-nutritive sweeteners (eg. not Splenda/Stevia) come from corn products. Many products are sweetened with corn syrup as it is cheap, and it is often added to enhance flavor, to compensate for diminished fat content, to obtain the “low-fat” moniker. Stanford University, along with  Purdue University are leading world-wide corn researchers, especially as it relates to global climate change. Corn has already proved itself extremely fragile with even 2 degrees of warming. Many are suggesting that we act NOW to slow global warming by doing the following: 1) stop the corn subsidy; and 2) convert decreasing production corn fields to prairie grasslands for cattle grazing.

Furthermore, because corn-based ethanol delivers little, if any, ecological advantage over petroleum-based gasoline, if 24.7 acres (more than a quarter of land currently devoted to corn) were converted to pastureland, it would reduce by 36%, the carbon emissions from agricultural land use, more than offsetting the effects of cow-related greenhouse gas emissions like methane. What is not to like about replacing chemical intensive agriculture, with a carbon sink, that produces high quality beef, and solid farm income for farmers as a bonus? …Not that “King Corn” (with formidable power in political circles) will ever allow Congress to pass a farm bill that doesn’t create more profits for Monsanto, Syngenta (seed and chemical suppliers), Cargill, and Archer Daniel Midland, and Tyson (who convert corn into meat, ethanol, sweeteners and a wide range of food ingredients.

Soybean production world wide is also predominantly based on genetically modified seeds and chemical treatment. 85% of world soybeans are used for animal feed and edible oil, with increasing use as biofuel. Brazil has surpassed the US in soybean production due to the huge amount of water and arable land available for production. China is the 4th largest producer, applying soybeans mostly for animal feed as Chinese meat and other animal protein consumption has increased rapidly with the increased personal wealth of its citizenry. So, your question of the day…”Who is going to be harder to convince to replant decreasingly productive corn fields with pastureland, thereby making a significant contribution to slow global warming and improve food quality…the USA? or China? I wouldn’t lay odds on this one.

To become the “Flour Milling Capital of the World”, you needed three things: grain, water/hydropower, and a way to ship the flour. Minneapolis sits aside the highest drop the Mighty Mississippi takes as it rolls to the Gulf.  St. Anthony Falls provided the power to drive the mills, and the Midwest is filled with fields of grain. Nearby is the Port of Duluth/Superior, the largest inland seaport in the world. It provides 49 miles of docking lines for lake-going freighters, and enormous train yards for delivering the goods. We saw the longest trains yet on this trip, mostly filled with grain-carrying cars. Minneapolis’ growth was staggering as the baking giants like Pillsbury lined up their factories on both sides of the river. It is a sprawling metropolis today, with many delightful neighborhoods near Downtown.

We enjoyed dinner and a walk with old friends along the Waterfront and part of Dinkytown (near the University of Minnesota) even on a very hot, humid evening. Karen and Mark has just returned from their cool summer retreat on Orcus Island in Washington’s Puget Sound. I hadn’t seen them since a visit there many years ago when I camped out on their vacant land, before they built an 800 sq. ft., g house overlooking the Sound. It was great to catch up and find our old friends happy, celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, working as tenured professors, and still pursuing adventure, often in their kayaks, and on bikes, all over the world, including several trips on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a wilderness filled with small lakes close enough to portage canoes from lake to lake. They inspire.

However, we missed other unique Minnesotan thrills like dancing to the “World’s Most Dangerous Polka Band”, shopping the 520 shops at Mall of America (the world’s largest retail and entertainment center), and canoeing Lake Calhoun the biggest of the Chain of Lakes right in Minneapolis. What?  “The Land of 10,000 Lakes”, and we didn’t even go swimming on such a hot day? Poor priorities.

Instead we headed out to the Western border with South Dakota where we witnessed an outstanding electrical storm. Sitting outside in lawn chairs watching the lightening display from the Cracker Barrel restaurant parking lot, we felt the wind suddenly pick up and fled into the Roadtrek as the heavy rain started. Happily inside as marble-sized hail pummeled the van, we welcomed the silence as the storm waned…until the wind picked up again, detritus starting to fly through the air, and the tornado sirens went off. Being Californians, we had never heard this type of siren before and initially waited for some impatient driver to let off his car horn. After a passive minute, we braved the crazy wind to question a Cracker Barrel employee. She said if the siren continued, we should go into the Cracker Barrel and join the employees in the walk-in coolers to await the tornado. Yikes! Fortunately, the wind began to slacken…and the sirens ….stopped. Welcome to the Midwest!

Hmmm, California earthquakes? Midwest tornadoes? Gulf and Atlantic coast hurricanes? Of the three, Sally prefers earthquakes (actually enjoys the thrill, feeling the earth moving), whereas Steven would prefer to be stuck in a tornado as they provide less risk. What is your favorite planet-induced destructive phenomena?

Being from the politically progressive San Francisco Bay Area, I had never attended a Labor Day Parade that wasn’t highly political, and with an international focus. The one here in Rapid City  today had the whole town out, the kids catching thrown candy, the adults enjoying the drum corps.

Only Labor organizations were represented: Sheet Metal and IronWorkers, Labor Unions, and Apprenticeship Programs for a variety of Trades. We forget how much of our nation’s infrastructure relied on the skills of workers to build them. When their aren’t enough skilled workers maintaining bridges, dams, and municipal utilities, we are the ones that suffer. Let’s salute the folks in the Trades, that keep our toilets flushing, our air conditioners pumping, and our lights on. Happy Labor Day everybody!