Day 9: We left Ouray and headed to Montrose. Our first stop was at a laundromat to do laundry, very exciting but necessary. I have decided that it makes sense to do laundry about 1 time per week traveling, and that laundromats really are pretty quick and don’t take much time. We were out in an hour or so, very fast! Then to Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
We had site A27 reserved for two nights, so that was our first stop, to get our bearings and go ahead and set up the tent. Getting the tent and stuff out of the car frees up some space for other things, so it’s kind of nice when we can. After setting up the tent and checking out the pit toilets (which were, honestly, the best pit toilets I have ever used: clean, with a deodorizing spray that spritzed automatically fairly often.)
Very pretty campsite!
First we went to drive down to the East Portal. It’s a beautiful drive down to the river, fairly steep and windy.
There’s a campground at the bottom, which Louie had stayed at in a previous visit, but it doesn’t take reservations so I wasn’t sure. It turned out that we could have grabbed a site, but we were also happy with our current site. We walked along the Gunnison River (which is what carved out the canyon) and even saw a snake!
We may not have seen many other animals on this trip but there was no shortage of snakes.
We had a quick lunch along the river at a picnic ground and then went back to the top of the Canyon to do more sightseeing.
It’s hard to really show the scope of the Black Canyon in pictures: it’s called the Black Canyon because it is deep and narrow, and the other side is pretty close, so the sun doesn’t shine into it very much. We did the whole, drive along the road and pop out at all the stops and walk along the walks, marvel at everything, and take a million pictures of approximately the same view. It was great fun, and Louie even got into taking bird pictures which meant all of this took even more time.
Around 6:30 pm we hadn’t quite seen everything, (that is, all the stops) but we decided to head back and make dinner: we had two nights here which meant there was plenty of time the next day.
We enjoyed a lovely fire, as it got fairly chilly as the sun set.
The campground was lovely, except for we could hear one campsite playing music loudly and talking until late at night, past quiet hours. This annoys me, especially the music playing: I think there should be no music allowed in the National Park campgrounds because it scares away wildlife!
In the morning we heard rustling around our campsite(finally the people were quiet, ha) and I assumed it was a nearby camper, but it was actually a small group of deer poking around.
Perhaps not the best deer picture, but you can get the idea.
We headed out on a loop hike from the campground to the visitor’s center and back, on the Rim Rock Trail, the Oak Flat Loop Trail and the Uplands Trail. Some parts were a little scary, as it goes down below the edge a bit and then back up, but overall it was just a nice hike, with a bit of sun by the end. (You can basically climb into the canyon, but you can’t really hike into it, and there are very limited permits to go into the canyon, which I had no desire for anyway, but the Oak Flat Trail dips over the edge a little bit.
We were back at the campground so we had lunch, relaxed a bit, and saw some more deer walking around. Well, likely the same deer.
Anyway, then we refilled our waters and headed out to “finish” the South Rim. We had a few more stops and the last one had a little hike to Lookout Point. It was beautiful: we saw a super cool lizard and some wild turkeys in addition to amazing scenery.
I loved these craggly trees.That’s some farmland that borders the park, with an amazing set of mountains behind it.This lizard just sat there letting us take his photo. He was even more colorful than he appears in this photo. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
The second night we had another, closer, set of annoyingly loud music playing campers, who continued partying past quiet hours. The camp host was not nearby and I think they just didn’t seem to care that the campground was so loud. It was unfortunate, because the setting was absolutely gorgeous and most people were quiet and respectful, normal national park campers, with just a few rude groups which can ruin the whole vibe. I wish people would find a different place to party and that the campground hosts/rangers had made sure quiet hours were observed. It gets light around 5:30 am so it’s nice to get some sleep while it’s dark!
Anyway, the next morning we headed out towards our next stop, Crested Butte. I’ll leave things there, and I hope I can get the next installment out more quickly than this one!
One more thing to add: we visited the South Rim of the Black Canyon, You can visit the North Rim as well, but it takes several hours to drive from one to the other: there is no easy way around. So while we could have done that we decided to save it for another trip. It is less busy, supposedly, though we were surprised how busy the South Rim was: everybody said it was not crowded and that hardly anybody went there! I suppose it was Memorial Day Weekend and that probably contributed to the noise and slight busy-ness.
We left off on Day 7, where we had just finished hiking at Mesa Verde and were heading away. We stopped by downtown Durango first to get lunch. We tried the Durango Diner, and I ordered an omelet with chile relleno, which was delicious and came with really excellent hash browns. It was one of those “sit at the counter” places, and nearly everybody there seemed to know the people working, a real locals place. We wandered around Durango a little more–it was a very cute little town, but nothing that really stuck out for us to want to do.
We had a very annoying time trying to get gas–we assumed it would easy to do since it is a tourist town, but we were wrong. A few out of service gas stations and a lot of annoyingly difficult left turns and we were finally on the way to the “Million Dollar Highway”.
A view from the driveThis was on top of one of the passes, I think Molas Pass, where there was a parking lot to stop at.
It was a gorgeous drive up to Silverton, which is technically where the “Million Dollar” portion starts, but it was pretty before that! We stopped for a quick cup of coffee in Silverton and stretched our legs a bit too. I’d noticed that if I sat for too long in the car my knee hurt a lot more, so I always welcomed the opportunity to get out of the car. This could also just be a sign of aging, I suppose.
Downtown Silverton.
We left Silverton and continued the gorgeous drive. I kept trying to take pictures out the car windows, but honestly, they never look very good, nor do they capture the beauty…it was an amazing and awe-inspiring drive, and I’m so glad I had Louie to drive it!
Getting closer to Ouray for this waterfall.
Anyway, we checked into our hotel in mid to late afternoon. I’d booked two nights at the Matterhorn Inn. We cleaned up and then went out to look around and figure out dinner. We weren’t super hungry after our diner lunch, so we ended up deciding to eat at a nice restaurant called Brickhouse 737 but only order appetizers. It was phenomenal, one of the best meals of our trip. We got foods with morel mushroom and spring peas and everything was fresh and delicious. I didn’t write down what we ate and much of it was off the special’s list, but I highly recommend the restaurant if you want a nice meal in Ouray. You should consider making a reservation, since we got lucky to have a space.
We were exhausted after dinner and just went back to relax.
Day 8:
We had a jeep tour booked with San Juan Scenic Jeep Tours, but needed breakfast first. Our hotel provided vouchers for food at a nearby Mexican Restaurant, but I was concerned about the combination of mexican breakfast and jeep tour, so we went and got coffee and muffins at a coffee shop nearby, Mojo’s Coffee and Teas.
It wasn’t exactly a jeep like I imagined, but a longer jeep with seating in the back for a few rows.
The tour guide was great and personable, and had loads of experience driving (decades!). We were pretty early in the season, so some of the passes that would be available later in the summer were still snowed over. First we headed up to Yankee Boy Basin along a gravel road. We had a lot of fun in the jeep, but we are pretty sure we could have done this route in the Subaru (though Louie was happy to just be riding along)–at one point we got to what our driver decided was the safest place to turn back, and then we saw something like a Nissan Sentra headed our way!
It was fun riding the jeep and hearing old stories from Ouray about jeeping, mining, etc. And the scenery was gorgeous, of course.
It got colder as we went up the mountain and the snow got higher and higher beside us. There was a place where we drove through a little bit of a waterfall and got wet, both there and back.
You can see the wall of snow beside us here!
We didn’t quite make it to Yankee Boy Basin due to too much snow, so then our driver took us up the Amphitheater Trail. This was a true jeep trail–we bottomed out at one point and definitely had a bumpy ride! I have to say I was somewhat glad the earlier trail hadn’t been like that too as several hours of bumpy riding might have been too much.
One funny thing about the tour: the guide kept talking about seeing a bear, and at one point we pulled over and he said, there’s a bear! And we didn’t see it and who knows what that was. Later he had taken some pictures so he sent them over and he included a picture of a bear!
A bear that we definitely didn’t see.
So, Louie was going crazy, like how did he miss that bear? Well, a little bit of sleuthing showed us that the picture was actually from November of 2021, and the tour guide was just pulling our leg, or showing off, or whatever, but the picture definitely wasn’t from our tour, and unlikely a cell phone picture either (too clear for the distance). Too bad though!
After the jeep tour, we grabbed a quick lunch at a place called Kami’s Samis. It was fine, nothing super exciting. We enjoyed sitting outside and watching the town go by though.
Next on the docket was the Perimeter Trail, which is a trail that goes around Ouray, but up in the mountains. We weren’t sure how much we would do, but you can get to it from various points so we thought we’d hike a bit and then see how it went.
Unfortunately I got really freaked out after climbing up some switchbacks, and I headed back down without Louie. He continued on and did a fair bit of it, and enjoyed seeing some waterfalls.
More pictures of Ouray.Louie on the trail.
We met back later in the day and got cleaned up and headed to dinner. We decided to try the nearby Mexican restaurant called Mi Mexico as it had good reviews and wasn’t terribly expensive.
Mi Mexico
The dinner was excellent, and we had a nice time. I should add that we enjoyed and would recommend the Matterhorn Inn: it was clean and well located, gave free breakfast vouchers, and the front desk was always happy to answer questions and give advice. There was a hot tub, but it was located in the middle of the parking lot so we never did try it out.
Day 9: We thought about doing more hiking, but we were both tired (even though I hadn’t done much, I was tired!) and so we went to Mi Mexico again for our free breakfast. We were a little nervous about having so much mexican food, but the breakfast was very nice (you got to pick from a few different entrees, I got huevos rancheros. Oddly, a ham sandwich was one of the choices.) After breakfast, we got packed up and headed towards Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.
I think that’s a good place to wrap up for now, so until next time!
We left off on Day 4 in White Rock, but I have a few editorial comments before I continue with the recap.
I was reading through some old trip recaps, and I realized that Louie and I HAD spent a night in Oklahoma before: evidently we stayed a night in Tulsa on our trip home from New Mexico on a previous trip. Now, obviously it was uneventful as I have no recollection of it, but I thought it was worth mentioning for total accuracy reasons.
So that brings us to White Rock, New Mexico on Day 4 of the trip.
We slept well in the Yurt, and woke up early. We weren’t sure how crowded Bandelier National Monument would get, but it’s always a good idea to try to beat the crowds. We were among the first in the parking lot (yes!) and got loaded up to hike into Frijoles Canyon, the most popular part of the park.
It was really nice to have the place basically to ourselves for awhile. It was a beautiful day, and the views were terrific.
The Native Americans built various buildings into the side of the mountains, tucked into alcoves, down low and up high. There are lots of parts of the buildings left to see, as well as ladders to climb (that the park service added in for us to climb, but likely was a way that the ancestral pueblo people got around.)
As always on these trips, there is tons to learn and forget. We read signs about history, about plants and animals, rocks and other geology, climate, etc, and then promptly forgot most of it.
After seeing the buildings on the Pueblo Loop in Frijoles Canyon, we headed to Alcove House, which is 140 feet up up the cliff, and involved climbing several long ladders. I started up and then decided it wasn’t for me, so I waited down below while Louie went up to see Alcove House.
Look for Louie up high on the ladder!
Another reason I had wanted to go to Bandelier was because there is a trail called the Frey Trail. As it turns out, the trail goes from the campground to the park, and isn’t much to bother with unless you are staying in the campground, which we weren’t. (It didn’t take reservations and I prefer to have everything planned out so we don’t have to stress.)
But we passed by where it ended, and who doesn’t love a trail with their name on it?
We did hike up a little ways, just to say we did. We did!
Anyway, Louie enjoyed the Alcove House, and then we hiked back to the visitor’s center. There were plenty of signs along the way to learn, and then forget, though I did learned about Gambel Oaks, which helped me identify them throughout the entire trip!
We had a quick snack and bathroom break, and had to decide what to do next. We enjoyed a cup of coffee and some cake at the cafe, and then headed out on the Falls Trail, which was supposed the next most popular thing to do after Frijoles Canyon. It was a cool hike, but the weather wasn’t quite as nice and kept lightly raining on us. It was getting hot though, so it was probably for the best.
The Falls!
The trail might have continued further at other times but we got to a place where it was closed off, so we headed back.
After that hike, we decided it was time to go. We stopped by the campground on our way out to see the other end of the Frey Trail.
We even hiked in a little ways, and saw a woodpecker right up close. Louie had left his camera in the car, so he was upset that the one time he didn’t have it, we saw a woodpecker right there!
It was only about mid-afternoon at this point, so we decided to go check out nearby Los Alamos. It’s a weird place out there, lots of restricted areas owned by the Department of Energy, probably housing nuclear weapons but nobody would know (unless you visit mar-a-lago, I suppose?). There’s a National Historical Park in Los Alamos, but it was closed, but there is some stuff to see. We went to the Bradbury Science Museum and learned a lot, but what I didn’t like was that I felt the bomb was glorified and I wanted to see a more nuanced approach: hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed, and our country did it, and maybe it ended the war but maybe the war was already ending and we didn’t need to kill all those people. So I found being there very upsetting, but Louie enjoyed some of the science stuff, so it was a mixed day for us.
We ate dinner at a Mexican place called El Rigoberto’s in White Rock, and then enjoyed hearing the rain on the yurt as we went to sleep that night. I will say this: White Rock was a nice base for Bandelier, but there aren’t very many restaurant options. There is a good sized grocery store and plenty of gas stations.
Day 5: We woke up and decided to eat breakfast at the Fig and Pig before headed out of town. It was tasty, though oddly busy with a large group of people. We had a 4 1/2 hour drive to Mesa Verde on the docket for this day, and there were a few options as to how to go. We decided to take the route that would head north into Colorado first and then west. We were eager to see some “real” mountains!
The drive was gorgeous, and went through a variety of small towns, like Abiquiu and Tierra Amarilla. We stopped for lunch in Pagosa Springs, which has hot springs and a lovely river through it: we walked around a bit and then had a picnic by the river. (Interesting fact to me: we camped in Pagosa Springs when I was a kid, according to my journal.)
You can see the build up from the hot springs over the years!
After lunch we continued along, and finally made it to Mesa Verde around 3:30, just before the visitor’s center closed, so we had a quick look at the exhibits before checking into our campground. (Also where we camped when I was a kid: even the campground map was similar, nothing really had changed in over 30 years in that sense.)
Campground check in was excruciatingly slow, but we finally made it, and then we had to go pick out our own campsite. I found this stressful, but it wasn’t too busy yet and we drove around trying to figure out what the best option was: there were just a few tent only loops and that is what we chose from. We eventually picked one with a decent view, good privacy, and relatively close but not too close to the bathrooms.
After we set up the camp first (and this picture is from during meal prep, as obviously otherwise we would have everything in the bear box, which is conveniently and scarily location immediately next to the tent, in order to attract the bear to where we are), then we had time for a short hike from the campground. We headed out for a 2 mile hike on the Knife Edge Trail.
Views abounded!
After our hike, we made a fire and our first camping dinner of the trip. (Mac and cheese with tuna and canned peas, yummy!).
One constant of the trip was that the days were warm/hot enough, but as soon as the sun went down it got cold. We thought Mesa Verde would be the coldest, but we were incorrect. However, the sky was the darkest! In the middle of the night I needed to get up to go to the bathroom and I was blown away by the night sky. There were stars upon stars, the milky way, distant universes, who even knows. So many stars that normally you can’t see because of the background lights around you.
Day 6: This morning would start with a tour of Cliff Palace. Several of the cliff dwellings could only be seen with a ranger led tour, which nowadays you have to reserve online, two weeks in advance. But it turned out that during the time we were visiting Cliff Palace was the only one that you could do! It’s too bad, because I was really wanting to try Balcony House again: we had gone when I was a kid and I remember it was scary but really fascinating. However, Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling and I was pleased to secure a time. We ended up arriving too early, of course, because they said to allow an hour from the campground but it didn’t actually take that long. There wasn’t too much to see in the area so we just wandered around and waited for our turn.
The tour has a few scary moments but mostly it’s not bad, and the structure is amazing to see, that it was built when it was built, that it is still standing as much as it is, and that we can see it. It’s all just amazing.
Cliff Palace.
The ranger led a terrific tour and we learned quite a lot about the people who built these houses. One interesting fact was that the people building at Mesa Verde weren’t doing anything particularly unique for the time: these sorts of houses were being built all over at this time, it’s simply that the ones in Mesa Verde have lasted longer over the years. It’s quite fascinating that all of sudden, everybody was building homes the same, as if they saw it on instagram, but it was likely due to trade.
In any case, we got to get up close and personal with the site, and then we climbed a couple of ladders to get out and that was a little scary but I managed.
After Cliff Palace, we had more to see. Unfortunately Wetherill Mesa was closed during this time (construction) but the rest of the part was open. We stopped at all the places, and took pictures and walked around and read stuff and promptly forgot most of it, as usual.
Interesting side bar: my old trip diary said we went to Wetherill Mesa and rode a train. Also we stayed at the campground and it was cold in the morning.
I thought this was interesting: this is a dwelling that isn’t open to the public, but there were people there in it that we could see from the lookout. We saw a trail that was marked “do not enter under penalty of law” or something like that, and I figured out that it was likely part of the route down to the house.
At the Spruce Tree House area, we decided to do a longer hike, the Petroglyph Point Trail. It used to be that you could go inside the Spruce Tree House, but it isn’t currently open to guests.
Petroglyph Point Trail was only 2.3 miles, but it was a lot of challenge, things to squeeze through, step over, lots of ups and downs. We ended up being able to see a cliff dwelling, not in fantastic shape, but one that was out away from the crowds so that was cool.
And then there was the petroglyph panel, which I did not seem to get a really good picture of. It was a little crazy when we got there with an odd amount of people and I must have gotten overwhelmed.
The rest of the hike wasn’t as interesting–there was a place where you had to climb over a couple of huge rocks that was pretty scary/difficulty, but obviously I managed. And we just kept hiking and finally got back to the visitor’s center/area where the hike started. At this point I was pretty tired but we forged ahead with more sightseeing.
Around 6 pm or so we headed back to the camp: we wanted to shower before dinner, so we did that and then enjoyed some Indian food packets from Trader Joe’s while sitting by the fire.
Day 7: We had to pack up in the morning, so we did that first, and then headed out for one more hike before leaving Mesa Verde. We wanted to hike the Point Lookout Trail, which left from the campground, and was 2.2 miles with 400 feet elevation change–doesn’t sound too hard, but it started climbing right away. Good morning to me! The hike was straightforward at least: up to the view, back down. The view was terrific!
We loved seeing Mesa Verde, but we were even more excited about getting closer to those snow capped mountains in the distance. To be fair, we didn’t know if we were going to those mountains or other mountains, but we knew that our next few stops were closer to similar mountains.
That’s where I will stop for this post. We were leaving the Cliff Dwellings portion of the trip and heading into the mountains. Next: the Million Dollar Highway and Ouray awaits!
After Louie’s graduation, we wanted to take a road trip. For various reasons, we haven’t had a good Rocky Mountain road trip in a few summers, so we were really looking forward to it!
I originally started planning this road trip for last summer, but when Louie got invited to attend the Oslo conference, we nixed the plans. So I said, let’s do it this summer instead, and replanned the whole thing, with a few minor changes. It was originally a two week trip, and then Louie got invited to do a conference in Vail, so we added that on, to make just about 3 weeks of travel.
But then I hurt my knee, and I was worried about hiking and such, but it didn’t seem like a reason not to go, so we went!
Day 1: We set out from St Louis in the morning. We had plans to stay in a small town in Oklahoma, Boise City, that night, so we had about 11 hours of driving to cover. We stopped for lunch in Olathe, Kansas, and just kept driving. I have to confess, I must have been putting the pedal to the metal a bit much at one point in western Kansas, and we got pulled over. It was in the middle of nowhere and the roads were straight and flat, and I had gotten carried away, I guess. The cop asked where we were going, and this was a tough question to answer as we were going everywhere! We said we were going to Boise City, Idaho first, and then I maybe said Las Vegas, New Mexico and the cop seemed to think we were complete idiots. Which at this point we really were. Lucky for me, he had had a roommate at the academy with the last name of Frey and seemed content to give me a warning, so I set the cruise control for the speed limit and we continued on our way.
We got into Boise City quite late, and grabbed Subway sandwiches for dinner at a nearby gas station.
Louie pulled over to take pictures of this barn.
Day 2: We had breakfast at the Farmhouse Cafe in Boise City, which was barely labeled as a restaurant, but google maps showed it to be one. It was busy enough, filled with cowboys carrying actual guns on their belts and a man who used the ladies’ room in front of me–I was about to go and then he went. He claimed it was because the mens’ room was out of order (which Louie was confused by as he had already used it) and the whole thing made me think about all the reasons we use one restroom or the other and WHO CARES as long as people can use the bathroom, which is a thing that everybody has to do, and yet here we were surrounded by people who thought the whole thing was a joke and yet they wanted to use bathrooms that didn’t match their gender identity. GAH. Anyway, I had thought it would be fun to say we had spent the night in Oklahoma as neither of us could recall having done so before, and perhaps that was enough for a lifetime?
New Mexico, not Oklahoma.
Our next stop was Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico. We enjoyed driving to the top of the Volcano and hiking around a bit. My knee didn’t hurt too much with some walking, but I didn’t take the second hike with Louie and rested instead.
The landscape was VERY different than St Louis!We also saw a snake on the path!
We saw there was another NPS site nearby so we went to Fort Union National Monument after that. It was interesting as well, but the best part was seeing a whole bunch of pronghorn (sometimes called American Antelope) on the drive.
The ruins of Fort Union are in the background.
After that it was time to get to Las Vegas, New Mexico, sometimes called Little Las Vegas. No, it’s nothing like the other Vegas. But Louie has a friend, Mario, who lives there and we met him for dinner and stayed in a lovely AirBNB in the downtown area. We had dinner at the Castenada Hotel Restaurant. I enjoyed seeing that the Hotel was a former Harvey Girls Hotel, right by the train station, if you are a fan of the podcast The History Chicks, you might have heard that episode.
Day 3: We got breakfast in the downtown Plaza area of Las Vegas, at a small place called El Rialto. We were both eager to try New Mexican food, and enjoyed green chile sauce on our meals.
We had to find the door from Longmire in the Plaza as well: many shows and movies have been filmed in Las Vegas, and Longmire is one of them. The show pretends it is in Wyoming, but it is filmed in Las Vegas, New Mexico!
We then drove to Santa Fe to meet Louie’s friend again for lunch at a place called Cafecito, which was very good and was located on Shoofly Street. After lunch we said goodbye to Mario, and then walked around the square at Santa Fe for awhile until the weather became too rainy/scary looking and we thought it was a good time to drive instead.
You can see the very ominous storm clouds in the background.
After an hour or two, we headed to our next destination: a yurt in White Rock, outside of Bandelier. We checked into the yurt and got situated, then we had dinner at the Pig and Fig, a local restaurant, and took a drive up to White Rock Overlook.
The view out the top of the yurt.
That seems like a good place to stop today, so I’ll pick up with Day 4 and more White Rock next. I’m sure you are thrilled I fit 3 days in one blog post, aren’t you?
I wanted to sum up our trip to Norway in one post, for easy sharing and referencing for people interested in going. I’ve had a few questions from friends, so this will make it easier!
We were there about 2 1/2 weeks. In a nutshell, here’s what we did. We loved everywhere we stayed, but I’m only going to list the restaurants we really enjoyed and recommend, and the same for the activities. Everybody loves different things, so do your own research, but this is what we loved.
“Sognefjord in a Nutshell”: Express boat from Bergen to Balestrand and then to Flam. The folks at Trip Advisor don’t like this tour, but we absolutely loved it. 4 hours on a boat, sign me up! It was terrific. I’m sure “Norway in a Nutshell” is great as well.
Oslo: We stayed at a fantastic AirBNB, great location, cute place. My only caveat would be that it is a loft bed, which we enjoyed but is not for everyone. Coffee/pastries: Apent Bakeri Frogner. Restaurants we loved: Lorry, Engebret Cafe (I loved it, Louie couldn’t go with me to this one.) Restaurants we liked a lot: Roti Shop Oslo, Mucho Mas, Jewel of India.
To do in Oslo, in a quasi favorite order: Vigeland Park, Norwegian Folk Museum, National Gallery, see a show at the Opera House, Fram Museum, Kon Tiki Museum, Holmenkollen Ski Jump and Museum, day trip to Drobak and Oscarsburg Fortress via ferry, Akershus Festning, Norwegian Resistance Museum, the Royal Palace.
It’s easy to get around: you can walk everywhere, or buy tickets on the public transportation system. In Oslo, download the Ruter app to your phone and you can buy tickets for the trip, the day, or the week (or longer!). I also always recommend downloading Google Maps for offline use as you never know when that will help.
Bring an umbrella, you’ll need it. For getting to and from the airport quickly, flytoget is super easy to use, though more expensive and not much faster than the regular train, apparently.
Fjaerland is a magical little place.
Oh, and we NEVER used any cash during our entire visit. We didn’t take any out, figuring we would if we needed, and we never did. Everybody uses credit cards. You don’t have to tip at restaurants either, even though the machine will suggest that you do. (We are suckers so we usually did a little, but really, they are already being paid well.)
The only cash we saw was in the museum! I do wish I had some coins as a souvenir, but oh well.
Trip planning resources: I used Rick Steves’ Norway Guidebook, Fodor’s Norway Guidebook, Trip Advisor (forums) and lots of internet searches. We also watched Occupied and I read the Harry Hole mysteries by Jo Nesbo (both entirely optional, just for fun). If we went back, there are more places to go (further north especially) but we loved all the places we visited and we felt like our research had paid off.
I am still thinking fondly of our trip over a month later. If you have an opportunity to go to Norway, GO!! I reserve the right to update this post along the way if I want to add anything.
After several years of everything being canceled due to COVID, Louie was speaking at two conferences in June, with just a week between. The first was in Oslo (if you are reading this and missed my posts about that trip, I recommend!) and then in Austin, Texas. Neither of us had been to Austin before, so as he was making his travel plans, I decided to come down for part of the conference. I wanted to teach a few days that week, so I went from Sunday to early Thursday, and he came back the next evening.
We were regretting our travel plans on Saturday before we left, as we had only been home for 4 days really before having to leave again, and still recovering from jet lag (and/or COVID, who really knows). With our original plan we would have had 6 full days of jet lag recover (and no COVID, that definitely wasn’t in the plan) but…anyway, we left bright and early Sunday morning and flew direct to Austin.
We decided to mask in the airport because there are a lot of people there and COVID isn’t the only thing you can catch!Our plane was getting ready.
The plane flight was uneventful, and we got to our hotel easily. We were staying at the conference hotel, the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center which was on the edge of the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. We were able to check in to our room early and got settled. It was hot outside, but very nice and cool at the hotel. I had had images of hanging out at the pool, but the pool was located on the side of the hotel by a busy street and never looked as appealing as the pictures of it (surprise!).
Louie didn’t have anything scheduled on Sunday, so we headed out on foot for some sightseeing and ultimately a late brunch reservation at Comedor.
We walked by the Texas State Capitol and realized you could also go inside, so we did that (it was good to get out of the heat).
The grounds were very pretty and had many different statues.
We had to go through a metal detector to get into the Capitol, but I think if you had a gun you just had to declare it. I was struck by how many non-English speaking people were at the Capitol, as well as many different looking English speaking people, likely a full cross section of America as it is, rather than America as…well, the people who run the Texas State Capitol wish for it to be. Keep in mind this was also still before my rights to my own body were taken away from me…it was an interesting visit and a beautiful building, but the underlying message that we have received from the Texas government is not a welcome one.
Texas is obsessed with stars. You see them everywhere!Looking down into the rotunda.It’s the little details, too.A sculpture outside on the grounds. It was hard to get in a picture, but it was the Texas African American History Memorial, and had a lot going on. It is interesting to note that we were actually there on Juneteenth! That sentence: “The conflict did not readily change the Black experience in Texas, as most African-Americans continued to be held in bondage and forced to labor.” I didn’t know until a few years ago that it took a long time after the Emancipation Proclamation for enslaved people to be freed. Austin is full of murals. The idea of “Keep Austin Weird”, they say, isn’t about the murals necessarily but just about having so many local businesses rather than chains. Brunch at Comedor. We were used to Norway prices, so it seemed reasonable.
We LOVED Comedor. We had fish tacos and a few other things.
Fish tacos!The Huarache with mushrooms, egg, and tomatoes.We finished with a pancake the size of a car tire. We did not eat the whole thing.
After lunch we walked down to the Congress River for a bit, which was beautiful but I was really hot, so we headed back to the hotel then.
The hotel room was nice enough to hang out in, and we cooled off and I chatted online with my family for the weekly meeting. Louie was able to work a bit as well as check into the conference and get the official book.
After that, we decided to go to a nearby restaurant called the Texas Chili Parlor. It was a dive bar, but it was welcoming, very near the hotel, and ended up being terrific. The prices were good, quick service, and we enjoyed chili and frozen margaritas.
The conference started Monday, so I had a few days to figure things out for myself. Some of the things I’d hoped to do Monday ended up being closed due to the Juneteenth Holiday, so my Monday ended up being fairly uneventful. I ate at the Driscoll Hotel at the1886 Cafe for breakfast, and did a little wandering around after that. I had tacos for lunch at the Velvet Taco, and spent the afternoon at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, which was one of the reasons I’d decided to go to Austin.
People had a lot of things to tell us to do in Austin, and I’m sure many of them were great fun, but I was most interested in the museums. Unfortunately visiting from Sunday to Wednesday wasn’t the best to see museums, as I only managed to fit two in during that time, but those were great. I loved the LBJ Library and learned so much!
Inside the Museum–you can see the documents, filed on shelves.I read this as “Please do not touch the Murial.”Selfie in the Oval Office replica.The view from Lady Bird Johnson’s office.
I walked back to the hotel after that, losing and finding my walk since nearly everything in the area was under construction. We met up with Louie’s boss for dinner and planned to go to a nearby Indian restaurant, but the wait was estimated to be 1 1/2-2 hours, so…we decided to go to the Chili Parlor again. And yes, it was again for all of us.
The next day I had signed up for an organized tour for BBQ and wineries in Texas through the company Austin Detours. I am finding that when traveling on my own it’s nice to have something organized and pushes me out of my comfort zone. I get so worried meeting up with things, and of course, it was easy and the tour guide was welcoming and friendly.
There were just 6 of us plus the guide, and it was a wonderful day. We started downtown with a tour around from the van and then headed to the hills to the Salt Lick Barbecue. Now, you may know that I eat a mostly pescatarian diet, but my reasons for doing so allow for occasional meat eating opportunities, especially when it seems integral to the understanding and culture of a place, or for special occasions.
I got the burnt ends and the pulled pork. It was pretty good, but nothing will ever hold a candle to the barbecue of my youth, Hickory Hills in Clinton, South Carolina.
Next we went to the Fall Creek Winery, which was very nearby.
The tour guide liked taking pictures of us so I got some fun photos from the day.
We did a tasting there of about 6 wines and there were enjoyable. Not great, but certainly…as good as Missouri wines, I would say.
And then we went to the Duchman Family Winery. The tasting was different: we stood at the counter rather than sitting, but it was another 6 or so wines and though most in the group preferred the Duchman wines, I preferred the Fall Creek wines. I didn’t buy anything, as flying home with it would have been too difficult.
We stopped at this sign on our way back to Austin for pictures.
I recommend the tour if you have an afternoon free and want to do something different.
That evening Louie and I went back to Comedor for dinner. We are evidently creatures of habit, and loved the food for brunch so wanted to try it for dinner. I know there are many more places, but it seemed like most recommendations were barbecue and tacos and this was like, fancier tacos. We had an avocado tostada, an okra and corn side, a quesadilla with mushrooms, fish with mole sauce, and for dessert, chocolate tamal with ice cream. The meal was great, especially the okra side and the fish with mole sauce. The odd thing was that the restaurant, as it got darker outside, simply got darker and darker, to the point that I was struggling to see my way to the bathroom after the meal and nearly bumping into everyone. It was an interesting mood lighting choice.
The fish with sauce.
Wednesday morning Louie took the morning off from the conference, and we went to the Texas History Museum. It was a nice way to spend a few hours.
I told you they like stars. This one outside the museum is probably the largest.Standing in front of an Alamo replica. Remember!
The museum was interesting, and covered the history of Texas from the beginning of time until the present day. Some of it was a little starry eyed, and some of the stuff about slavery was especially starry eyed/propaganda, but I’m glad we went.
I met up with a friend for lunch then. A friend who used to live in St Louis now teaches at UT-Austin and we went to Kerbey Lane Cafe for lunch. It was great to catch up and chitchat, and reminded me that sometimes you can just have a nice time meeting up with a friend. (Sometimes it feels overwhelming visiting places where you know people and feeling like there’s no way to fit everything in, seeing the sights, seeing people, making people happy!) And then for dinner we met up with an old friend of Louie’s and had pizza and beer at Pinthouse Brewery.
Beer.
So that was my trip to Austin. I didn’t get to any of the Art Museums I wanted to see, I didn’t get to see my friend Heather who was also in Austin that week, we didn’t see the bats at dusk on the Congress Street bridge, we didn’t get Torchy’s Tacos or Franklin’s BBQ, we didn’t get to the swimming hole at Barton Springs, but we had a nice time, we still miss the Chili Parlor, and I was especially glad to have seen the LBJ Presidential Library.
Traveling is funny: it’s wonderful to explore and see new places, but with the internet and instagram, there seem to be these ideas that there are certain places everybody must see and do, and that there are places you must take pictures and post online, and…I think it’s important that we don’t see traveling as a series of checklists to cover. I enjoyed Austin on my terms, taking what people said and choosing from them and adding in stuff that I found.
The same with Norway: we loved what we did, and we definitely did some of the most popular things, but we also did things that particularly interested US, which isn’t necessarily the same thing that interests everybody else. In my day to day life, I do things that are very different than many people, so why would I do the same things in travel? I do think we might have enjoyed the bats, but it just didn’t work out with our dinner plans.
When I was young, my family took a long road trip “Out West”, as we called it, and one thing we did one night was sit in an amphitheater outside Carlsbad Caverns and watched the bats in their mass exodus from the cave at sunset. It was awe-inspiring, and part of me wanted to keep that in my memory as it is, and thought, maybe that’s enough bats for me right now.
My flight home was early on Thursday, and I had been hearing that the Austin airport was a nightmare, so I arrived about 2 hours early. The airport was the opposite of a nightmare and security took no time at all, haha, but it’s always better to be too early than running late. I’m glad I went to Austin, and I hope that Louie does some more conferences in the future that I can tag along on!
