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Escape and Escapades: Spring Break in Roatan

Late last September, with the summer firmly over and our Christmas train trip arranged, I turned my eyes to planning our spring break getaway.

I knew I wanted to be somewhere warm, but also someplace not too taxing or far from home, so I zeroed in on the Caribbean. We would have only a week for the Spring Break / Easter week and early on the airfares and mile redemptions for the week were a disappointment to say the least. (Perhaps prices will never return to pre-COVID levels? It sure feels like it.) Honduras looked to be a good choice and initially, I had planned on time in both the Bay Islands and on the mainland, but quickly realized that to secure a lower airfare and a less stressful holiday, it would be best to shorten the holiday and just stay in one place.

I am glad I kept it simple. Early in 2024, my mom ended up in the hospital and I became the primary point of contact for calls with various medical staff, case managers, and more. With the daily medical discussions and issues that could take from one to six hours, I began to contemplate canceling our trip altogether. In the end, I got her treatment to a certain point where I felt I could split the difference such that I would still have some much-needed rest and relaxation and mother-daughter time, while also making daily check-ins related to my mom’s care. It was far from ideal, but I believe it was a good compromise.

Roatan from the air–demonstrating some of the reef system surrounding the island

Roatan is a fascinating place. It’s history, which includes a visit by Christopher Columbus, serving as a hangout for infamous pirates like Blackbeard, and once being a British colony, has shaped Roatan differently than the Honduran mainland. Although the British ceded the Bay Islands, including Roatan, to Honduras in 1861, it took nearly a hundred years before Spanish was taught on the islands’ schools. Today, English is still the first language of the islanders.

Roatan is a popular tourist destination for nature and adventure activities. It’s location along the world’s second largest barrier reef, the Mesoamerican, makes it an extremely popular scuba diving site. Roatan also boasts two cruise ship terminals, the first opening in 2008 and the second two years later. For an island only 40 miles long and 5 miles wide and a population somewhere between 50,000-100,000 people, two cruise ship terminals disgorging some 3,000 to 10,000 passengers a day in high season is astonishing. All these North American travelers have made the U.S. dollar the currency of choice on Roatan, vice the Honduran lempira.

The pineapple seller heads home

I knew none of this. I usually research the heck out of where I am going. I like to know the history and current situation; I like to know the language, currency, and exchange rate. But this time, with all the stuff going on with my mom, I left much up to chance. I booked our flights, reserved our hotel, and looked up, but did not schedule, a thing for us to do.

On Sunday morning, C and I celebrated Easter a week early and then that night flew to Houston. We stayed the night then flew on to Roatan early Monday morning, arriving at our hotel, the Bananarama Dive and Beach Resort in West Bay, in time for a hectic lunch rush during a steamy tropical beach day. Ahhhhh…it felt amazing to be warm.

I struggle with stepping back and doing little. I like to keep engaged. But here it was our first day on the island and I had nothing at all planned. I had not even booked transport from the airport to West Bay. It only occurred to me as we boarded our plane in Houston that it could be a problem. Luckily I quickly checked the interwebs, reserved and paid for a taxi, and hoped for the best. I really thought it was 50-50 anyone would actually come and figured I might have just thrown $25 away. I was pleasantly surprised to find a driver with a cute handwritten sign with my name waiting for us in arrivals!

C holds Charlie the Sloth

Therefore on our first day, all C and I did was make reservations for some activities on following days, walk on the beach, checked out the nearby shopping plazas, and lie about in the hammock or chairs on our bungalow porch.

On our second day, we headed to Jungle Top Adventures for an exciting few hours of ziplining and animal interactions. There seem an abnormally high ratio of zipline locations per population on Roatan, due to all those cruises. When we booked the zipline, we were not told which we were heading to, and I was a tad disappointed to find ours was located in Coxen Hole, the island’s main town, directly across from one of ports where two massive cruise ships were docked.

As I had read it is best to visit the animal park first because the sloths — the main attraction — can only be held by a limited number of persons before they are too tired, that was our first stop. While we did enjoy seeing to coati and the Yucatan white-tailed deer (Honduras’ national mammal) and meeting the monkeys and macaws, the sloths were the star of the show and one of the top reasons we chose to visit Roatan. C and I were both able to hold a sloth for about five minutes. With their arms around our necks and their legs around our waist, it was almost like holding a baby. The experience did not disappoint.

Next we headed to the zipline. We had to wait about 10 minutes before we could join the truck taking participants to the first of 16 zipline platforms. While the guides kitted us up, two more truckloads of adventurers arrived. All in all we had to wait 30 minutes before all our zipline guides arrived and zipped off to man the various platforms. However, once everyone had their gear and the guides were in place, we were zipped across the lines rapidly, like an assembly line. I had hoped to get a photo or video of my daughter, but she was hooked up and then off with such speed I hardly had time to react before it was my turn. When I arrived at the platform, C was already zipping on to the next. At the midway point though we all crowded together again. This time I was able to video C taking a running leap off the platform and then flipping upside down — of all the ziplines I have done in various places this was the first and only place I had heard of that being allowed.

C and I and our group prepare for our submersible scooter experience

On Wednesday, we did the most extraordinary activity! We glided through the water in a Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter (BOSS). I had initially booked for Friday, but the company emailed me on Tuesday afternoon to inform me that Thursday and Friday were predicted to be poor weather, but they could accommodate us earlier.

I have to admit, I was a wee bit scared to do this. I enjoy being warm and near the water; to feel sand between my toes, but I am not comfortable in the ocean. I get sea sick on boats. I am not comfortable in the ocean. I once tried to learn to scuba dive in the Philippines and kept freaking out during the basic water practice. I am just much more a landlubber and I get most of my fish experiences at aquariums (which I LOVE to visit). But C was excited to give it a try and so I thought I should be brave and give it a go.

The scooters work on the principle of an air pocket forming in a glass underwater. To get in, the scooters are held just below the water’s surface with the air pocket already formed in the large diving bell-like helmet. Then compressed air, just like the tanks used for diving, is pumped into the helmet. One has to hold one’s breath for just a few seconds to duck under and bring their head into the helmet. Well, it sounds simple. C did it in one go. I freaked out. It took me five times to get up the courage to get in. Thankfully, C went first and did not see that. Once everyone is in, the scooters are lowered to their maximum depth of ten feet. Then one can controls the scooter just like a scooter on land — with a toggle switch for speed and moving the handle bars to the sides to turn.

We visited the Roatan Chocolate Factory in West End after our underwater scooter experience

I wear glasses and unlike in snorkeling, where I have to accept blurred vision because I am not going to spring for a prescription mask, I could wear my glasses while operating the underwater scooter! I also have a lot of ear and sinus issues and that (along with a fear of sharks and running out of air and drowning) is what keeps keep from scuba diving. At the depth of the scooters, I could feel the pressure on my ears and I struggled to pop them, having to do so repeatedly, but I could manage. I have never been able to see a reef and fish underwater like I could on the scooter and I found myself laughing with delight. Also, because the giant helmets made everyone’s heads look really tiny on top of their bodies.

Thursday and the first part of Friday did turn out to have poor weather. Though it did not rain during the day, the winds picked up substantially, up to 25 mph, making the seas very choppy. Nearly all activity stopped along the beach. Though West Bay is a nice beach, it is not very wide, and on sunny days the beach chairs take up a good third to half of the sandy real estate and the crowds of beachgoers take up most of the rest. So though it was very breezy, it was still nice and warm, and I took strolls along the shore, while C chilled out in our hammock. I welcomed the respite. If the weather had been perfect, I would have felt compelled to be doing something, but as it wasn’t, I was off the hook. I did have to make several phone calls and emails related to my mom and I had time to do them, while also feeling sand between my toes and a deliciously warm wind all around.

The wind kicks up the waves around the water taxi pier in West Bay

The sun returned on Saturday, our last day, so C and I headed out to parasail. This would be C’s first time ever and my second, but my first time parasail in tandem. During my first time, in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, the boat motor stopped when the woman after me was up, and her parachute slowly sunk back down to the ocean. She had to unfasten herself and swim back to the boat. I had thanked my lucky stars it had not been me, but admit that I had been a little scared to parasail since. I am happy to report that C and I did it without a single incident.

That afternoon C wanted to stand-up paddleboard (SUP). It had been on our list for the trip in a large part because our hotel had advertised it as being readily available. And yet throughout the week we had not seen anyone paddleboarding. When I went to ask at our activity kiosk I was told they didn’t have any paddleboards, and then the guy corrected it to, um, no paddleboards that work well. I really wondered about their secret defective paddleboards. At the next kiosk they told me they could get me paddleboards, but could they have ten minutes to “find” them? Turned out they could only locate one, so I left it to C to show me how it is done.

C looks pretty cool doing SUP at sunset

Unfortunately, C had only done SUP once before – at the lake during last summer’s camp. Doing it in the ocean on a busy beach turned out to be a whole new level. Still she managed pretty well. She took a little break after 15 minutes and let me give it a try. I only made it to a crouching position before falling off and struggled to maneuver around the crowds of bobbing heads. It became clear pretty quickly why SUP seems to have fallen by the wayside in Roatan, at least during the busy season.

Then just like that our six days in Roatan was over. Afterwards, once we returned home, it felt short, but during the trip it felt just right. It gave me just the right amount of time to rest, deal with issues at home, and spend mother-daughter time with C while doing amazing activities or just chilling out together.

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The Mechanics of Settling into DC

The Washington Monument from the fountain at the WWII Memorial

This post is long overdue. One could even say it has become OBE or Overcome By Events in State Department parlance. And yet I cannot quite shake the thought of putting pen to paper in an attempt to explain at least some of the processes we went through to unexpectedly curtail from an overseas tour to Washington, D.C. To explain what is largely a bureaucratic logistical exercise based on policies and procedures laid out in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual but can become exasperating and stressful.

Moving the Cats from Guinea In a Hurry. Traveling internationally with pets has never been without its challenges. {see here and here and here for example] On airplanes, my cats have traveled cargo, excess baggage, and in-cabin, but also in the car when we drove across the U.S.-Mexican border to Ciudad Juarez. Transportation though is just one piece of the puzzle. The greater challenge is the @%$&! paperwork. It has to be done quickly and correctly in a short timeframe within the 3-7 days of travel. Before going to Guinea, Europe had instituted new rules that required all pets transiting the EU to meet the same requirements as if they were entering those countries. Though we needed an extra document endorsed by the United States Department of Agriculture / Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) for the plane change in Brussels, that was all given that our travel originated in the U.S. However, coming from Guinea, designated as a high-risk rabies country, one needs to have a titer test completed at least three months before travel. This would not be possible with my shortened departure timeline. Therefore, we could not fly to the U.S. through Europe. Instead, we took Ethiopian Airlines via Addis Ababa, which required us to fly nine hours in the opposite direction first, subjecting ourselves to 34 hours of travel time door to door. And the cats to 34 hours in their carriers. This included Ramen, our new diplo-kitty. It was stressful, as usual, but we managed, again.

Temporary Lodging. When transferring from an overseas posting to the U.S., a Foreign Service employee can utilize the Home Service Transfer Allowance or HSTA. It helps employees and their families to defray costs upon their return. It can cover lodging and some per diem for up to 60 days, with some possibilities to extend should household goods not yet arrive. This gave C and I a place to stay while I worked out my next steps.

Before our arrival, I had reached out to the same company that provides temporary lodging for government workers that had housed us the year before. I wanted us to be in the same apartment building we had lived in during my French training as I figured it would provide the easiest post-curtailment landing for my daughter. I did not know where we might be after the temporary lodging, but at least I could initially ensure she would be somewhere familiar and would start at the same elementary school she had been at before we went to Guinea. We move so frequently in the Foreign Service that living in a place more than once is a rarity. Not only were we able to get the same building, but when we checked in we found we had been assigned the exact same apartment we had vacated only 7 months before! Alas, the HSTA covers for only so long and I needed to find something more permanent.

Enrolling the Kiddo in School. Once we moved to Guinea, I thought I was done doing the school enrollment for a few years. Yet here we were suddenly back in northern Virginia. Luckily, I had been through the process once before when preparing for my Guinea assignment at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, and the schools in the area are very familiar with military and foreign service families moving in and out of the area. Thus the paperwork was pretty straightforward. One thing I could not do in advance though was the tuberculosis test, which is mandatory for enrollment. Though our Health Unit at the Embassy in Guinea could perform the test before departure, a test conducted while still in a country with a high incidence rate of TB will not be accepted.

It had taken longer to arrange the curtailment than expected – with bureaucracy it is always a waiting game – and thus our flight got us back to the U.S. after school had been in session for a week after winter break. To get my daughter C enrolled as quickly as possible, the TB test was a top priority. After landing, we went through immigration, gathered our belongings, got a taxi to the hotel, and then with my father’s car waiting at the hotel, we headed straight to a clinic to get that blood draw. C was then able to start school a few days into the following school week.

[Not so fun fact: Later screenings found that my daughter has latent TB, most likely as a result of our serving in Guinea. The majority of persons with latent TB in the U.S. acquired it overseas. She had to undergo long-term monitored treatment for it. Just one more gift from Guinea and an unexpected side-effect to our lifestyle.]

The Search for Permanent Housing. As a Foreign Service Officer, there is not really any housing that is permanent until one leaves the service, thus permanent housing refers to the lodging one lives in for the majority of the tour. Overseas that is one’s assigned housing. In the U.S., it is the housing the employee finds to live in.

With my 4 years of college living in dormitories, my 7 years living overseas with various study, work, and travel, and the combined 14 years overseas with the government, I have not had a whole lot of experience looking for housing. Though I had found a remote assignment and could have lived anywhere, like my condo in Florida, I felt that 1. professionally it would be better for me to be in DC, and 2. personally it would be better for my daughter to be where she had been before. When I took her to school the first day back, a friend of hers from the year before spotted her, ran toward her, and they hugged while spinning around as if they were in a movie. I knew then that staying in the DC area would be 1000% the right decision.

However, knowing you want to be in a certain area and finding housing there are two very different things. House hunting is exhausting. There is research into what one is looking for and then checking out what is actually available on the market. Then setting up viewings. Each place has positives and negatives and I imagine C and I living in each one. In many ways, it feels similar to the bidding process we go through to get our next assignments. Then one finds a place and has to apply and hope the other side likes you too.

Thankfully, I absolutely lucked out and the fourth place we look at is a gem and the owner likes us and picks us over the other potential renters. Then, because I have lived in furnished places for decades, I had to buy furniture. I had odds and ends such as a rocking chair, a decorative bench, two wood storage cabinets, a piano, and many wall hangings, but I did not own a sofa or a bed, end tables or a TV stand, dressers or desks, bookcases or lamps. I expect that seems odd for someone my age, but it must be fairly common among those with this kind of nomadic life, right? Even though I tried to buy economical pieces, all the expenses did add up. Still, there was a bit of fun to the shopping spree.

After all that, it is little wonder that I was not very keen to pull up stakes again only six to 12 months later and decided instead to remain in DC. Every move just comes with so many challenges; it never seems to get easier. It might indeed be getting harder the older I and my daughter become. Yet there are many positives to being here and C and I look forward to spending some more time here before we head back overseas. Now that the mechanics of settling in have given way to feelings of being settled.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 6, Death Valley to Disney

On the road in Death Valley heading toward Panamint Springs

On our second morning in Death Valley, we woke early in preparation for our departure from the park. I knew I would want more time in the park, so I reserved a hotel halfway back to Los Angeles instead of making the full drive that day. We would backtrack first, heading toward Death Valley Junction to visit Dante’s View.

Dante’s View, considered one of the best views in Death Valley, sits atop Coffin Peak and 5,575 feet above Badwater Basin, and provides an amazing panoramic view of the southwest part of the park. It allows one to see both the lowest area of the park (Badwater) and the highest; the 11,049-foot Telescope Peak sits on the opposite mountain ridge. Apparently, the early visitors to the area from the borax companies found the view evoked visions of Dante’s nine circles of hell. I cannot imagine what they were thinking given the spectacular beauty of the scene laid before us. From the height we could really see the size of the temporary lake in the basin below. The view is somewhat famous as it appears briefly in the first Star Wars movie as Luke, Obi-Wan Kenobi, C3P0, and R2-D2 get their first view of Mos Eisley. There was certainly no water visible at that time.

Our view from Dante’s Peak

From Dante’s View we would drive about two hours over the majority of Route 190, past Panamint Springs, to the Father Crowley Overlook. It felt further and longer. Though the park was busy, there were times when we saw few other cars. The height of the mountains towering over the valley, the sheer expanse of the seemingly barren wilderness emphasized how very small we are. Maybe it was in part due to these feelings that when we at last arrived at the Overlook, we found it rather disappointing. The steep and narrow Rainbow Canyon, where fighter jets from the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station or Edwards Airforce Base once practiced tricky maneuvers, is impressive, but I found the windy road, with its hairpin turns, far more interesting. If you find white-knuckle driving interesting. (I sort of do and don’t)

We turned around, and retook the twisty-turvy road, passing Panamint Springs again, before taking Panamint Valley Road out of the park. Suddenly, there was a valley full of golden flowers. It had been days since we had seen many natural colors other than the piercing blue sky and the varied tans and browns and muted reds of Death Valley. Although there is wildlife in the park, we had not seen any. Not a bighorn sheep or a lizard or a hare. We could not recall seeing living insects, just some dead in the salt flats of Badwater Basin. I do not remember any other flowers.

Wildflowers gone very wild near the Panamint Springs entrance to Death Valley

Before driving on to the big city lights in the direction of Los Angeles, I wanted to visit a ghost town. We had driven through several, but I had read about one in the area I thought we could stop at Baharat (or Ballarat)

Founded in 1897, Baharat was a thriving borax mining supply town. At one point there were reportedly as many as 500 people in the town and a swinging lifestyle with a saloon and several hotels. By 1920, the town was abandoned. Stories abound online that Charles Manson and his gang visited in the 1960s, leaving behind some graffiti and an old truck.

I turned off the highway down a dirt track toward the mountains and Baharat. Ahead I noticed a lot of dust rising, and it took me about half a minute to realize what it was – because I could not quite believe it. A single-engine plane was taxiing straight for us! It was still maybe 200 feet ahead when it was up and away and flew over the car. What kind of ghost town has private planes stopping by? That turned out to be the most interesting bit of our short visit to the ghost town of Baharat. I had hoped for more atmospheric photos of old buildings, but instead, there was a group of young men on noisy ATVs returning from an outing, a dude in an old truck yakking on with a visitor while his old dog lay just by the tires of his idling truck, and in front of the old fashioned trading post advertising “Shooting Range, Guns N Bombs! 200 yards” the proprietress was regaling a couple with some stories. Baharat or Ballarat did not seem like our kind of place. I got back in the car and we left.

The Baharat (not Ballarat!) sign post and supposedly Manson’s old truck

From Baharat, we had only an hour’s drive to our stop for the day in Ridgecrest, California. The road rose first into the Argus mountain range and then slipped into the Searles Valley. I thought the drive from Baharat into the mountains was nice, but once into the valley, the scenery was less so. We drove through a few dusty towns like Trona, that are functioning, populated towns with a gas station, schools, and a library, but still had the air of a ghost town. The area was dominated by a large mineral lake operation. As we approached Ridgecrest, much of the area to the right of the road was fenced off as it was part of the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, the navy’s largest installation that covers an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. We stayed just the one night in Ridgecrest. We ate Little Caesar’s pizza and chilled out in the room.

The next day we drove to Disneyland in Anaheim. Although the return to increasingly larger towns and cities was gradual over several hours, the arrival back in the U.S.’ second largest city after spending days in desolate wilderness areas was a little shock to the system. C and I checked into the same hotel within walking distance of Disneyland that we stayed at in 2016. Then I left 4-year-old C in the room for just 5 minutes while I went to the first floor to get something. I told her to stay in the room and to only leave if it were an emergency. Unfortunately for us, while I was downstairs the Disneyland fireworks show occurred and C thought they were the signal of an emergency; I returned to find her running up and down the hall screaming… I made her recreate her hallway escapade for a video.

The Disney California Adventure Park opened in 2001

Disneyland was a big part of our 1984 family trip to California. What I remember is waiting in really long lines while sweating in the heat, being really scared on Space Mountain, and loving every minute of the Haunted Mansion. For my 9th birthday, I had a slumber party and as we settled down in sleeping bags in the living room we listened to my 45 RPM record of the Disney Haunted Mansion story.

The Disneyland of today is far more like the Disneyland of 1984 than Universal Studios. Many of the rides you can enjoy today are not only the same ones we waited in long lines for in 1984, but they were also part of the original 1955 park like Autopia, the Jungle Cruise, the Mad Tea Party, and Dumbo.

Creepy Christmas decor at the Haunted Mansion – one of my favorite Disney rides

C and I spent the first day at Disneyland and the second at California Adventure. It was our first time at the latter park. We loved California Adventure! The Incredicoaster was our absolute favorite ride – we got on it three times! – and it might have knocked the Loch Ness Monster in Busch Gardens Williamsburg off the top of my favorite coasters list. It was a great way to top off our amazing winter vacation.

Our trip was not all a recreation of the 1984 family trip. I remember parts of the trip, but so much is forgotten. My siblings, who are younger than I, remember even less. My sister C remembered playing cards on the train, barren landscape through which the train journeyed, and feeling like royalty eating in the train dining car. My sister A most remembered the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, visiting Sea World in California (which I completely forgot about!), and the jolting of the automatic transmission rental car when our mom slammed on what she kept thinking was the clutch. My Aunt L passed away over ten years ago. My mom is currently in the hospital and unable to tell me what she remembers.

Of course, one cannot ever truly recreate the past and that was not my intention. Yet here I am, all these years later, and that 1984 travel adventure had made such an impression on me. This trip sure did shake loose some old memories and gave my daughter and me some new ones.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 5, Mojave and Death Valley

When I planned out our trip, I had a strong desire to drive through the Mojave National Preserve. It would be quicker to drive using larger roads such as CA-247 to Barstow and then Interstate-15, but I was not necessarily looking for the fastest route. That way would not take me through the Preserve. Then again, I did not wish to be long delayed and there was a risk that driving through the Preserve we could be held up for as long as an hour by railway siding operations at the Kelso Depot. I opted to take the chance.

Road through the wilderness on Amboy Road

We left Yucca Valley early as there was a long drive ahead to Death Valley National Park. Soon after leaving Twentynine Palms, it was as if civilization disappeared (well, except we were on a nicely paved road). There was desert, scrubs, hills, and sky. There was little else until we hit the junction of Amboy Road and I-40, and the teeny, tiny town of Amboy.

Amboy historic sign with a view of the post office building and Roy’s

A historic 1850 railway station settlement and later popular stopover on the historic Route 66 highway, Amboy is now just a shadow of its former self. It still boasts the old post office building, though services appear permanently closed, and Roy’s Motel and Cafe (and service station) dating back to 1936. Online information says these businesses are run by the four people who still call Amboy home, though when I asked the guy behind the counter if he lived in town, he gave me a good long suspicious look, asked me if I were a journalist or something, then told me, no, he does not live there but he drives in from about an hour away. I liked the nostalgic symbols of the 1950s travel heyday–the diner, the roadside motel signage, and the Route 66 sign–but I did not wish to linger; the place felt trapped in time. Most of the other towns that once existed in the area have been long deserted.

We drove on taking Kelbaker Road through another wilderness area and into the Mojave National Preserve. For a long while the preserve looked little different from the other stark landscapes thus far that day. I know there was much more diversity in the terrain off the main road, but as our time was limited, I had to make do with the drive-through. Once we crossed over the railroad tracks at Kelso, then safe from the potential cargo train delays, I took the opportunity to make a quick stop.

The southern entrance to the Mojave National Preserve and a stop at the historic Kelso Depot

The Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad built the Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival Kelso Depot in 1924, replacing the earlier building from 1905. The once thriving railroad worker town had long ago fallen into disrepair although there are still some workers living on the other side of the tracks and the National Park Service is preparing the building to house a visitor center. That day I met a National Park ranger and an intern with brochures, pins, and stickers on a table in front of the building; they were happy to answer questions. Again, I could not linger because I still had a long way to drive and also C refused to get out of the car to even read one information plaque. So, I got back in the car and continued north.

C stands in the desert alongside CA-127 as we await the green light to move past the road construction

It was another 40 minutes through the desolate Mojave desert to the town of Baker and then north again on CA Road 127. About 30 minutes north of Baker we were stopped by road construction. There was already a line of several cars and motorhomes. I wandered up to the lone construction worker holding the stop sign and asked how long the wait would be. He said we needed to wait for the “escort car” and it could be about an hour. Big sigh. There was nothing to be done about it though. There was no telling how long it would be for that “escort car” to arrive as looking ahead I could see no road construction at all. I used the port-a-potty (thank goodness they had one as I had been swigging down the water) and moseyed back to the car. Other travelers were wandering off into the desert alongside the road. Some were already quite far from the road. No one expected this to be a short stop. I alternated small talk with the guy on the motorcycle behind us and hanging with C in the car or on the roadside. It was about 45 minutes in total before the escort vehicle leading the group of cars from the far side of the construction came through.

The Ranch at Death Valley seemed an almost impossible oasis surrounded by an unforgiving otherworld.

We were now quite far behind schedule. C fell asleep in the car. My eyes glazed over the scenery as we drove on, and I took little in. Despite the occasional breathtaking view, the pretty oasis town of Shoshone, and the rather bizarre Death Valley Junction, reported to have a population of “less than four people” and a boarded-up building with an “opera house” sign, the view was mostly the same bland tan sand stretching for miles. From Death Valley Junction we turned west toward Death Valley and within 30 minutes we were pulling into the oasis that surrounds the resort complex of the Ranch at Death Valley, our accommodation for the next two nights. With a park the size of Death Valley, the largest in the contiguous United States, I knew we would want to stay inside rather than outside.

The stunning sunset at Zabriskie Point

As the drive had taken longer than expected, we had only so much daylight left. We checked into the hotel quickly and then drove back to Zabriskie Point. We arrived just around 3:45 PM, luckily scored a parking spot immediately, and sped-walked up the paved walkway to the viewing area. Spread out ahead of us lay the undulating convolutions of sentiment carved after millions of years. Breathtaking.

We had an hour to wait for sunset so we walked down to a dusty plain below. Perhaps the flattened area and dust left after years of borax mining in the area? We goofed off a bit and then climbed back up to watch an absolutely stupendous sunset.

In the morning, we made our way to Badwater Basin – the driest place in the U.S. and at 282 feet below sea level, also the lowest point in North America. At the time though, Badwater Basin was actually not dry as a small lake had formed after heavy rains the previous summer and some of that water yet remained. I had looked forward to photographs of the geometric salt polygons, but instead, we found piles of salt sticking up out of a glassy, shallow lake, like lumps of sugar in a giant cup of tea.

As we drove back from Badwater towards the Ranch, we stopped at the Devil’s Golf Course, an expansive plain of jagged salt crystals, and the Artist’s Palette. At the latter, we parked far from the site and walked over a few hills to get to the view of the swath of colored volcanic deposits on a hillside. Honestly? The palette was smaller than expected and lacking in variety; it was mostly a chalky mint color with a small spray of pale pink against the predominantly golden dirt. Still, it was fun to get there – especially after climbing up and over a few hills to then see a parking lot just below the palette…

The ruins of the Harmony Borax Works at Furnace Creek, Death Valley

Following lunch back at the Ranch, we drove only a short way to the site of the Harmony Borax Works, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 1880s to the early 1900s marked the heyday of borax mining in Death Valley. Harmony was the mining operation that opened the valley to large-scale borax mining and was famous for its use of 20-mule teams that hauled the borax across the valley to the railroad 170 miles away in Mojave, California, though it operated only five years from 1883-1888.

I then drove us 30 minutes to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. As we had for the whole trip, we were racing the early winter sunset. Arriving at 3:30 PM, we would have an hour to crawl around the dunes before we would lose the light. Though large areas of sand dunes are not plentiful in Death Valley and the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are not the only ones, they are both lovely and very accessible, sitting just off the park’s main road.

The sun sets on the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

C and I climbed up and down the dunes, our feet sinking deep into the soft sand. We were having fun running hand and hand down the dunes until C smacked me in the face with the shoes she held in her hand and swung wildly as she ran. I opted to lope down the dunes beyond arm’s reach from her after that and to video her cinematic rolls and crawls on hands and feet. We watched an foolish driver in the distance with their car hopelessly stuck in the sand (an alerted ranger had to call in a team to get them out) and another foolish guy flying his drone above the dunes, expressly against park rules. But mostly there seemed a lot of happy people sitting or strolling on the dunes. Here we all were, experiencing the stark beauty of one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

After the sun slipped below the horizon we headed back to the car and drove back to the Ranch. Though we had reservations in the fancy dining room there, we canceled them. After a day of exploring and hiking, we were up for a quiet night before we would depart the park the next day.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 4, Joshua Tree

On Christmas morning, C and I woke not to stuffed stockings or piles of presents beneath a tree (we had done that the Sunday before we started our trip), but to a travel day. Today, we would completely depart from the itinerary of my 1984 family trip to Los Angeles. We were driving to Joshua Tree National Park.

C prepares to dance atop the rocks

Among C and my favorite things to do (besides seeing Broadway musicals, visiting aquariums, enjoying amusement parks, and eating at Hard Rock Cafes) is visiting National Parks. A big part of deciding on southern California for our winter holiday was the chance to visit some of the parks I have long wanted to. I wondered why my mother and Aunt L had not made Joshua Tree, just a 2.5-hour drive from Los Angeles, part of our 1984 vacation. Though they were not particularly outdoorsy, the bigger issue was that Joshua Tree did not exist as a national park in the 80s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Joshua Tree as a National Monument in 1936, but it did not become a National Park until 1994.

Sign at the West Entrance station to the park

C and I packed up, had breakfast, and called an Uber to take us to Los Angeles International Airport, where I had a rental car waiting. As it was Christmas, I fully expected another Chinese-American Uber driver, but instead we had an Algerian American transplant from the mid-west with a love for Italian pop music. As we cruised easily through the largely empty streets, I recognized the songs but could not place them. When I asked the driver, he told me it was Eros Ramazzotti, and I was transported back to the summer of 2000 when I backpacked through Europe and first heard these songs. This trip was giving me more travel flashbacks than I had anticipated.

Getting to the airport went quickly enough, but there was a long line at the car rental office. It took an hour to get through it, so we were on the road later than I had hoped. Still, the traffic, even on Los Angeles’ notorious freeways, remained light and soon enough we were beyond the city limits and heading into the desert.

We arrived in Yucca Valley, California, population 22,000, one of the small cities that lie along the northern borders of the National Park. We checked into our motel and grabbed a bite to eat at the nearby Denny’s so that we might get at least a little time in the park. I was reminded again that travel in the winter restricted our sightseeing with the sun setting so early, around 4:45 PM. Yet, summertime visits to the desert mean scorching temperatures.

Some of the vibrant flora of Joshua Tree

The drive to the West Station entrance of Joshua Tree National Park is 25 miles from our hotel in Yucca Valley. The winding road took longer than expected and the line to enter the park was also unexpected. But the park is popular for night sky viewing and camping, and it would seem the Christmas holiday is an excellent time to do it. So, once I purchased our annual America the Beautiful park pass from the ranger, we only time for a 30-minute drive in and a few photos of the eponymous trees set against rock formations and a pinkening sky before it was time to turn around. It was a great introduction to the stark beauty of Joshua Tree. C very much wanted to get out and run around and made me promise to let her scamper over the rocks on our return.

Bright sunshine over the grasses and palms of the Oasis of Mara

On our full day in Joshua Tree, we drove down the highway to Twentynine Palms to begin with the Oasis of Mara, north of the park’s north entrance. Unlike much of Joshua Tree, where the flora are primarily succulents, like the Joshua tree, the oasis has palms and grasses that survive with the underground springs. The indigenous Serrano people named the area “Mara” meaning “the place of little springs and much grass.” C and I enjoyed a little stroll around the oasis area.

Then we entered the park at the North Entrance. We turned off from the Park Boulevard and onto Pinto Basin Road. Soon after the turn off we came to our first grouping of large rocks at the Belle campground; C insisted we stop. She needed to climb! After a good long stop for rock scampering and photography, we drove on to the next stop at White Tank. The rock formations are impressive. These are actually not mere rocks, but massive granite boulders piled atop one another. Some more scampering on rocks occurred – with me joining in! – before driving on to the next site.

A cholla cactus stands out from the crowd

The Cholla Cactus Garden is an area just off the main road blanketed with some 10 acres of the cactus known as Teddybear cholla. These cacti certainly look cute and fuzzy but are anything but with extremely sharp barbs with a reputation to painfully latch on to passersby. There is a pedestrian trail, partially boarded, through these plants but one can get as close as one dares. That surprised me. Given the silly things that some people get up to in our national parks, visitors are still given quite a bit of leeway. After about a half hour there, C and I departed unscathed. We had already been in the park several hours and it was time for lunch. I had opted to drive out of the park into Twentynine Palms for lunch rather than to pack one. We grabbed lunch at a Tex-Mex place in town and then returned to the park.

Our first stop was Jumbo Rocks. It is an apt description as the size of the rock formations and boulders were easily the biggest we had seen that day and spread out over a larger area. This campground also seemed more popular and the crowds of visitors were larger than we had run into in the boulder areas off Pinto Basin Road. We parked where we could and followed the parking lot to a trailhead into the boulders. I think we got off the Jumbo Rocks trail on to the Heart Rock and Arch Rock trails. Then C just wanted to climb over whatever she could in whatever direction took her fancy. There were points – like around Heart Rock – where we saw many other people, and others where we might see no one else for a five minutes or so. We completely lost track of time. The weather was beautiful, the temperatures warm but very comfortable, and the sky sapphire blue. It was just us climbing up and down and between rocks.

Heart Rock and Skull Rock in the Jumbo Rock boulder area

But I knew we had only such much time given the early winter sunset. We made our way back to the car and drove on a little ways to the Skull Rock area. There we did more climbing amongst the rocks, but we did not have time for the same carefree wanderings. I wanted us to get to Keys View for the sunset with a stop at Hidden Valley along the way.

Unfortunately, at Hidden Valley the parking lot was completely full. I drove through four times very slowly – and we were not alone in doing this – but a spot never opened. I gave up and drove towards Keys View but there too we ran into an issue, the road was closed off with a sign “Road opens just before sunset” and a ranger standing sentinel to make sure visitors obeyed. But it was not long til sunset. As I turned around and left the turn off, rangers were closing off more of the road, not opening it. We would not get to visit one of the park’s primary sunset locations. I turned back toward Hidden Valley hoping we might still have a chance to visit and lucked out with a parking space on my third time through the lot.

Sunset at Hidden Valley

I planned to find the Hall of Horrors, a slim chasm between two high rock walls. I had read about it before the trip and wanted photos of C standing with legs and arms spread touching both sides of the Hall. I failed though to note the coordinates of the Hall and we wandered about aimlessly for 20 minutes without finding it or even a clue as to where it might be. C was chomping at the bit to get some more boulder climbing in and begged me to give up our search. Disappointed, I did.

Yet as the sun set across the boulders, desert, scrubs, and Joshua trees at Hidden Valley, we were treated to a magnificent burst of orange as the blue deepened in twilight. Perhaps sundown at Keys View was great that day, I do not know, but it was definitely perfect at Hidden Valley.

We ate a simple dinner from the supermarket in the motel room that night as we relaxed from our day of climbing adventures. I would have liked another day at least in Joshua Tree, but the following day would be a travel day on to our next destination.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 3, La-la-land

Los Angeles’ beautiful Union Station: where I arrived in the city in 1984 and 2023

In 1984, when my family traveled to Los Angeles by cross-country train, we stayed with my mother’s cousin in Dana Point, about an hour south of the city center. This was not a part of the trip I wanted to recreate. Though C and I did visit that cousin when we went to California in 2016, she had moved to Carlsbad. That house from 1984 later slid off the cliffside. 

Instead, I had booked a hotel very close to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Chinese Theater, two sights I do remember us visiting in 1984. I did not want to drive around Los Angeles if I could avoid it. In 1984, mother and aunt rented an automatic transmission car that neither could drive very well (they were used to manual cars and my mom kept hitting the brake thinking it was the clutch), which made city driving even more….challenging. C and I could get to the sights we wanted to see on foot or by Uber.

Arriving three hours late following a 43.5-hour train ride, C and I were very eager to get off the train, get to the hotel for showers, and then for a walk to really stretch our legs. The sun was shining, the palm trees were swaying, and the temperature was in the mid-60s. 

Grauman’s Chinese Theater – it looks much the same as in 1984, only with some added digital screens and some shorter and more efficient cars driving past

Our luggage arrived quickly and I called an Uber. Our driver had his GPS set to Mandarin Chinese so I thought I would speak a little and this delighted both myself and the driver. At the hotel, we were lucky to be able to check in early, something we probably would not have been able to do had we arrived on time, so we also freshened up before hitting Hollywood Boulevard. 

Most of the walk to the Chinese Theater was quiet, that is until we turned onto the Boulevard itself. It was packed full of tourists, vendors, and folks in cosplay working the crowd for paid photo-ops. We saw people dressed as Freddy Krueger, The Mask (the Jim Carrey movie), Michael Jordan, the Joker, Spiderman, Mickey Mouse, a Transformer, and many more I just do not recall. There were a lot and it was hard to get past some of them. We popped into the Chinese Theater courtyard – mostly so I could tell C it was the same place I had visited when I was 11. And that was it. That was all we did in 1984, too! 

We got lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. It has become a bit of a tradition for C and I, with us having dined in at least six Hard Rock establishments in the past three years. We were rather desperate to sit down at a table and eat in a restaurant, i.e. not fruit and granola bars from a bag at our coach seats. And there was the sensation still of rocking back and forth as if we were still on the train. The food and drink restored us and we were then able to get out and about.

I focused on seeking out the Hollywood stars that would have been on the Walk of Fame in 1984

We spent the rest of the day checking out various shops, especially Japanese and Korean fashion and goodies shops, and looking at the various celebrity names on the stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At the time of my visit in 1984, there were around 1,770 Walk of Fame stars; but in December 2023 there were 1,000 more. We walked down to Thai Town, the only such ethnic Thai neighborhood officially recognized in the U.S., as C had a specific store she wanted to visit. On our walk back, we passed lines of vintage cars along the Boulevard. It was Saturday night and the classic and lowrider vehicles were out cruising.

Hollywood Boulevard lighting up as the sun goes down

On our second day in Los Angeles, C and I went to Universal Studios Hollywood. During my 1984 visit with my family, a visit to the theme park had been one of the highlights. This would be C’s first visit to a Universal Studios amusement park and we were eager to get on as many of the rides as we could. I especially wanted to take C on the famous Tram Tour, one of the few parts of the visit I remembered. The part of the tour with the mechanical great white shark from JAWS was seared into my memory.

Once in the park, I realized almost none of the current attractions would have been part of my 1984 visit. C and I were really looking forward to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but think about it, the first Harry Potter book was published in 1997, 13 years after my trip to Los Angeles. The Revenge of the Mummy ride, the one C and I made a beeline for as soon as we got into the park, is based on the popular Mummy movie franchise; the first of those movies was released in 1999. The Kung Fu Panda Adventure? Based on a movie released in 2008. C and I were able to get on nearly all the rides at the park. Because the temperatures were in the 60s, we opted to skip the water-based ride as we did not want to get wet. I remembered teasing my younger brother about the Jurassic Park movies way back when, but then with the first one released in 1993, it did not go back quite as far as our 1984 trip. Even the Simpsons ride, though based on television’s longest-running American primetime show, would not have been around back then. The show first aired in December 1989. Oh my, I was starting to feel old.

This building facade is based on the Despicable Me movie, which came out in 2010

The Universal Studios Park of 1984 (there was no need to designate it as the park in Hollywood as it was the only one of its kind: the park in Florida opened in 1990) was largely just stage shows. Animal shows, stunt shows, shows based on specific TV shows, and the tram tour. I remember seeing an Indiana Jones show. The first movie opened in 1981 and I had seen it probably 20 times. It was my favorite movie!

At least the tram tour through the Universal Studios backlot still has a few stops from 1984 – JAWS, the flash flood, and the Bates Motel. The icy tunnel, the collapsing bridge, and the terrible Battlestar Galactica sets were no longer there. It was kind of a shock to me to pass by the courthouse square that was such a huge part of the Back to the Future movies (my second favorite after Indiana Jones) and realize it would not have been there in 1984, as the first of the movies was not released until the following year. And yet my almost 12-year-old kiddo stared blankly at the set, as she was unfamiliar with the movies.

We spent all day at the park. It was Christmas Eve, and though the weather had been lovely all day with the sun up, as the sun set, it grew chilly. It was time to head back to the hotel to get some shut-eye before the next phase of our trip.

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 2, All Aboard!

A quick peek at Mendoza, Illinois as we sped past

Boarding at Chicago’s Union Station was a straightforward affair. An announcement asked all Southwest Chief passengers to move toward our gate. Tickets were checked and Amtrak officials lined us up according to our class and destination. We shuffled forward, then onto the train. It was slow moving as passengers plodded up the narrow stairs to the second floor seating. But soon enough we were ensconced in our seats; our belongings safely nestled in the overhead storage. And then there was the whistle and the call of “All Aboard!” followed by the train pulling out of the station. 

I love train travel. I enjoy gazing out the windows and watching the passing scenery – from urban to rural, plains to mountains, through cities, towns, and villages – and the freedom to move around or read or snooze all while we glide, lightly rocking, along the rails. Over my many years of traveling, I have taken many a long train trip. When I backpacked around Europe in the early 2000s, I often took the train between cities and countries. But I have also ridden trains in places like India, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, My overnight train journey locations have included from Malaysia, China, Thailand, Australia, Europe, Egypt, and Finland. Yet, I believe the only multi-night train trip I had taken was the 1984 trip cross country trip I took with my mother, sisters, aunt, and cousin, upon which I was basing this new trip. 

C at our first fresh air stop

I booked C’s and my seats in the interest of authenticity and cost. Though I had looked at the roomettes and sleeping cars, the price tag was much more than I was willing to part with. And in 1984, we had all made the journey in coach. Whenever I thought about this upcoming trip, I felt both a shiver of excitement and trepidation. I had been 11 in 1984; my current, much older self, did not have quite the ability or agility to sleep in all manner of places and positions. A few years ago, I pulled something in my back just reaching down to pick up a paperback book! I wondered what two nights curled up in a chair might do to me.

Coach seats on trains are far more comfortable and spacious than those on planes. C and I had two seats together. There are no middle seats on the train. We had ample space between our seats and those in front of us. The seats recline – and though they are not flat, they do go further back than on a plane. There is also a leg rest, which extends parallel to the seat. And, if your legs are long enough, there is a footrest that may be raised from the seat in front of you. I had packed a fleece blanket, travel pillow (well, for C a large squishmallow), eye masks, and ear plugs for each of us. Before we left our hotel in Chicago, I moved those to our carry on and packed away our coats and colder weather gear into our one large bag, which we then checked with Amtrak in Chicago. 

I had not expected Colorado to look like this

The first few hours passed quickly. We dined on apples, granola bars, Goldfish crackers, and string cheese we had bought in Chicago. With it being the winter solstice, the sun set around 4:30 PM, only a little over an hour and a half after we left Chicago. Thus when we crossed the Mississippi River around 7:30 PM, it was long dark. I was disappointed. One of the things I remember from the 1984 train trip was the excitement us kids had in crossing the great river. Unfortunately, I realized, by taking this trip in winter we would have far less time to gaze upon the scenery. But the darkness and the gentle rocking of the train did make it easier to become drowsy. We made up our little coach chair beds and went to sleep.

I woke the next morning just after 6 AM with a jolt of the train. I was a bit surprised to find us in Garden City, Kansas because I recalled a stop in Kansas the night before. The train must slow down greatly as it makes it way through the state. 

Entering New Mexico

We were soon to cross into Colorado, but just outside of small town of La Junta, our train stopped for at least 30 minutes. It turned out it was to let a freight train pass by. The first of many (that I was aware of) that would delay our journey. La Junta was a destinated crew rest stop and thus the first of our “fresh air” breaks when passengers could get off to stretch their legs. C got off only so she could then say she had visited Colorado. I just kept walking up and down the platform for a good 45 minutes as I had no idea how many fresh air opportunities we might have. 

From the train window we saw a coyote run by. I decided to go to the observation car to better see the scenery. C did not want to join. She wanted to take selfies, play games, listen to music, and message her friends on her new phone (an early Christmas gift from her dad). I asked her many times to join me in the observation car and yet she always said no. This too was something different from my 1984 trip. I had my sisters and my cousin — and we had no electronic devices. 

Snow on New Mexican plains

The train trains climbed in elevation. La Junta is located at just above 4,000 feet above sea level. We began to see snow blanketing the ground as we climbed into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. Then we went through the Raton Tunnel and entered New Mexico. At 7,588 feet, its the highest pass of the Santa Fe Trail and a National Historic Landmark. This was a particularly exciting part for me as I remember my sisters, cousin, and I moving quickly to the end of the train so that we could watch us exit the tunnel. And we must have been a bit rowdy in doing so as we were shushed by a few passengers and then the conductor made an announcement. Something like children having to remain in their designated cars unless accompanied by an adult. That did put a damper on our fun. 

We ate lunch in the cafe. I alternated my time reading at my seat or in the observation car, sometimes striking up conversations with other passengers. This too is something special about train travel. On an airplane, one can only really talk with one’s seatmate or perhaps very briefly with someone while in line for the toilet or in the galley on longer haul flights. But on a train? One can really meet people. 

Bison in New Mexico. We saw bison, elk, pronghorn, and a coyote from the train.

There was Jimmy, the guy who single-handedly ran the cafe the whole journey. It opens at 6 AM and closes at 11 PM. He took breaks here and there. One time when C and I were down there and he needed to leave the car he pointed at me and said, “Mom, you are in charge until I get back.” He had a great personality. He has been working for Amtrak for 17 years. Though he has done many of the routes, he has spent the last decade on the Southwest Chief. 

Sandy was taking Amtrak for the first time and she decided go big or go home and booked herself a sleeper car. She wanted to arrive in L.A. rested so she could watch her beloved Michigan team play in the Rose Bowl. 

A guy from Gallup, NM was heading to L.A. just to catch his friend, Chicano rapper Mr. Criminal, in concert. Then turn around the next day and head home. 

When I told an Amish couple from Michigan that my daughter and I had recently visited Lancaster, PA, they asked where we had stayed. When I told them we stayed at the Red Caboose Motel, the husband nodded knowingly and told me his uncle owns it. 

Barstow, CA train station in the early morning fog

For our second evening dinner, we opted to eat fancy in the dining car. As it was just C and I, we were seated with young 20-something brother and sister from Kansas who both worked at their dad’s truck mechanic shop. According to them, Garden City was a bit boring, but they had plans. They were heading to L.A. with their parents to celebrate with their grandma before she moved back to Mexico, and maybe get matching tattoos with their mom, if they could convince her. 

We were supposed to arrive in Albuquerque around 3:30 PM on our second night. I was looking forward to this stop as it had been a highlight of the 1984 trip. I remember the light was bright and golden. While the station crew washed the train, I bought a pair of turquoise earrings from one of the Native American women selling on the platform. Unfortunately, this time we pulled into the Albuquerque station three hours behind schedule, long after sundown. C and I got off to stretch our legs during the 50-minute stop. And wouldn’t you know it, there on the platform was a sole vendor selling handmade jewelry! I happily bought C a bracelet. 

I did not sleep as well the second night. I kept waking to the loud whoosh and rocking reverberation of other trains speeding past ours. A nightmare caught hold of my brain and I awoke, feeling afraid of the train! But C, my world traveling buddy, slept on. 

The Southwest Chief slides through the San Gabriel Mountains on its approach to Los Angeles

Arrival in L.A. was scheduled for 8 AM, so we were up by 6:30 to finish up the last of our food for breakfast and pack up. Unfortunately, we had made up no time in the night and would arrive in L.A. several hours late. Though the changing scenery from the deserts to scrub then the San Gabriel mountains to the densely populated urban areas of California’s southwest were lovely, it did begin to feel as though I might have been on this train longer than two days. 

Finally, 43.5 hours after our departure from Chicago, the train pulled into Los Angeles’ Union Station. Though grateful to be off the train, I was very glad to revisit this journey from my youth. Though C only proclaimed the trip “okay,” I hope that she will remember this journey with her mom for years to come as I did. I might have begun plotting other long distance train trips. 

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2023 Winter Vacay: A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 1, Chicago

A view from the Southwest Chief as we traversed New Mexico

Early last summer, with our summer vacation plans settled, I turned my mind to where we might go during the winter holidays. Though I wanted to finally have our southern Africa jaunt, which had been canceled multiple times due to COVID and our curtailment from Guinea, it still did not seem the time. International airfares remained quite high and C’s school district had decided on only a week and a half winter holiday break. Given my tendency to flee cold weather if I can, I wanted very much to find a warm, or at least warmer, place to spend the holidays. I looked at international destinations closer to home, like the Caribbean, but those airfares also seemed ridiculously (at least to me) costly. So, it seemed a domestic trip would be the way to go. Yet, I did not want just any old vacation…

In the summer of 1984, my mother, my two sisters, my aunt, and my cousin set out on a cross-country train journey to California. My aunt, L, worked for Amtrak in Pittsburgh and could purchase discounted tickets. My mother drove with my sisters and I to Pittsburgh to meet L and my 12-year old cousin Dan. I was eleven; my sisters 9 and 7. We boarded the train in Pittsburgh and traveled to California via Chicago over the next two days. We then visited L’s daughter and some major sights in the area before flying home. I had fond memories of this trip, my first great adventure. 

Downtown Chicago on a cold, clear winter’s day

I was hooked on this idea, but there were a few more details to work out. First, I looked into Amtrak prices and discovered that while C is under the age of 13 her ticket would be 50% the cost of mine. This then seemed the ideal time to go; she would also be the same age I was when I made that train trip with my mom. I researched starting our trip from Washington, DC, but I did not relish the idea of an additional 20 hours of travel, so opted to fly to Chicago and start from there. Finally, though I worried about undertaking this journey in winter, I learned that trains are far less affected by weather than planes. My plans fell into place. 

We flew out on a Tuesday evening for Chicago. In 1984, we had only a five-hour stopover in the Windy City between the arrival of the train from Pittsburgh and our next departure, during which we made a speedy visit to the Museum of Science and Industry. I have zero memories of the museum, only a sense of rushing about. For C’s first visit to Chicago, I wanted more than a few hours. 

A dolphin caught mid-jump in the Shedd Aquarium with a view of the tip of Northerly Island and Lake Michigan

Chicago would be the coldest stop on our itinerary. It could have been really, really chilly, but we had a beautiful crisp winter day. In the morning, C and I went to the Shedd Aquarium. I have long loved visiting aquariums and have instilled this same feeling in my daughter. Together we have visited amazing aquariums all over the world. The Shedd is one of the best for many reasons, but it is also one of the few where one can see beluga whales. They also had, to our delight, an exhibit on Lake Malawi. 

We spent nearly four hours at the Aquarium. C wanted to go back to the hotel room and vegetate, but I wanted to force march her downtown. I won. It was too lovely of a day and, starting the next afternoon we would be largely confined to a train for 40 hours, so I wanted to stretch my legs while I could. We had a nice, long walk alongside Lake Michigan to Millennium Park. We stopped to see the 45-foot tall Christmas tree and to watch ice skaters just below the famous Cloud Gate sculpture known as “The Bean.” Unfortunately, the Bean was inaccessible during the renovation of the Plaza. From there we took a long walk back to our hotel through the downtown streets of Chicago. 

Nederlander theater marquee before our show

Besides my five-hour visit to the city in 1984, I had only visited Chicago twice before. Once around 1995, I spent a few days visiting a friend of mine doing her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and then again for a long weekend around 2006 when I ran the Chicago Half Marathon. Visiting made me first think it odd that I have spent so little time in one of my country’s greatest cities; there is so much to see and do. But also I realized how much had changed since my visits. When my sisters and I visited the Museum of Science and Industry in 1984, it was free of charge. Today it would cost $122.70 for our entourage. There was no Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago until 2009 and the city’s tallest building, the Willis Tower, was called the Sears Tower during my previous visits having only been renamed in 2009. I am now officially one of those people who waxes lyrical or gushes annoying, depending on your perspective, about “the way things used to be.” 

That evening, C and I headed to the Nederlander Theater to see a Chicago performance of the musical Hamilton. C and I have become enthusiasts of musical theater. Hamilton would be our fifth of the year after Aladdin in New York, We Will Rock You on our Norwegian fjord cruise ship, Wicked in London, and Evita in Washington, D.C., though it is the only musical C really asked to see. I am not sure when or where she first learned about it, but during the year she spent the 4th grade in the U.S. she became quite into it. She watched the play on Disney+ with our Malawian nanny, she sang the songs in the shower and with friends, and she dressed as Hamilton for Halloween in 2022. Tickets in New York were more than my wallet could spare, but they were more affordable in Chicago. It was a treat to surprise her with the show and the performance was spectacular. 

Christmas in Chicago’s Union Station

Our second day in Chicago was not even a full day as our train would depart at 14:50. I looked into us trying to squeeze some activity in during the morning but though my 1984-self certainly could cram in a quick visit to a museum (no doubt encouraged by my mother) and I am sure my 1995- and 2006-selves would surely have given it a go, my 2024-self did not want to be rushed. C was keen on a visit to the Field Museum, but the recommended visit time of four hours meant there was not enough time. I checked if we might visit the top of the Willis Tower, only a 10-minute walk from our hotel, but the morning times were all sold out. So we slept in. I thought that a good move given I did not know how well we might sleep on the train the next two nights. And I walked over to a nearby supermarket to get us lunch and some provisions for the train.

Then after lunch in the comfort of our hotel room, we packed up our belongings and made the short walk over to Chicago’s Union Station. Among throngs of harried commuters, excited families in matching pajama sets awaiting their trip on Chicago’s version of the Polar Express, and other travelers off on all sorts of travel near and far across the nation, we awaited the boarding call for our own train, the Southwest Chief, bound for Los Angeles and stops in-between. Our short stopover in Chicago had already come to an end. 

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5 Pros and Cons on Being Posted to D.C.

It has been a year since C and I returned to the US after curtailing from Guinea. Now that we have been here awhile and begun to really settle in, I think its time to talk about the positives and negatives of Washington, D.C. as a place of assignment such as I did for Ciudad Juarez, Shanghai, and Lilongwe. (Sadly, we were not in Guinea long enough for me to experience many of the “pros.”)

The Pros

1. Greater Autonomy.  Living overseas as part of a diplomatic mission comes with a few extra rules, requirements, and restrictions.  There are the mandatory radio checks – call ins to the Marines Post using the Embassy-issued radios to make sure they are in working order in the event of an emergency.  These could be weekly or monthly depending on the Post.  We also must submit an “out of town locator” every time we travel, domestically or internationally, for security and accountability. 

In some of my posts, like Ciudad Juarez, Malawi, and Guinea, mission personnel were prohibited from taking public transport.  In Malawi and Guinea, one could not drive outside the city limits between sunset and sunrise, which within 15 degrees of the equator means half the day.  When I was in Ciudad Juarez, we were unable to drive beyond the city limits further into Mexico and even some parts of the city were off-limits to us. 

At each of my posts, due to either high visa numbers (Shanghai and Ciudad Juarez) or a small staff (Malawi and Guinea), scheduling vacation has been quite the production.  Taking a big chunk of time off during the busy summer transfer season, like this past summer, was very unlikely.  Even during my previous stints in the U.S. with the State Department I could not as the Foreign Service Institute allows for little leave during training. 

But now?  No radio checks, no phone trees, no out-of-town locators, no special travel restrictions.  And vacationing is a whole lot easier!  While not all D.C. offices might be so accommodating, I am very glad for mine.  It is nice to have, at least for a little while, far fewer persons from work involved in my free time. 

2. Mail That Arrives Fast. Gone are the days of waiting weeks and weeks for our mail to arrive. In Ciudad Juarez, we had a post address in El Paso, Texas, just across the border, and mail staff would pick it up every few days, so it might take only a week to receive our mail. In Shanghai, we had the Diplomatic Post Office (DPO) but our post was routed through Hong Kong, so the delivery times were closer to 10 days to two weeks. Yet, in Malawi and Guinea, mail took quite a bit longer; on average it would take 3-4 weeks, though sometimes longer.  For Halloween, I would ask C what she wanted to be in August so we would be sure to have a costume. I would place orders in early November for Christmas and her birthday or risk them not arriving in time. But now? I can now place an order online with a retailer and have it within a few days, if not sooner. It seems quite miraculous. 

3. Public Services and Spaces. While some Foreign Service Officers may spend their careers wholly or in part in developed countries, I have leaned toward the less developed, more off-the-beaten-track locales. There have been positive aspects to every place I have lived and served, but one category of things, which are often taken for granted when one has them and greatly missed when one does not are public goods. For example, sidewalks. One of my favorite activities is a nice long walk. Shanghai had many great sidewalks. Ciudad Juarez had a limited number. But they were nearly non-existent in Malawi and Guinea. While I do enjoy walking in an urban environment, there are also many public walking and hiking trails. Or biking, if I ever get around to buying myself a bicycle again. I also rather like public transit and although the U.S., with Americans’ love of the automobile, isn’t exactly a mecca of such, in Washington, D.C. and the cities immediately surrounding it, the bus and metro system is pretty good. Then there are the public libraries (oh, be still my voracious reader heart), public parks, and playgrounds. And museums! The Smithsonian museums of Washington are amazing and free. And schools: my daughter attends a wonderful public school she loves and is thriving in. Even consider emergency services. While the somewhat regular sounds of firetrucks and ambulances (my apartment building is within a mile of two fire stations) might sometimes be annoying, I recall how limited fire, rescue, and police vehicles were in Malawi and Guinea, and I am grateful we have these services. 

4. Activities Galore. I have tended toward serving in more “make your own fun” kind of posts where there are often fewer locally organized activities and places to visit. One of the (quite a few) reasons we left Guinea were the few activities for my daughter. There were no summer camps or community centers or parks. While the school offered a limited number of after school activities, there was no late school bus for those who participated in them. I worried my daughter was missing out. Now that we are in Northern Virginia, she is spoiled for choice! The school offers many after school clubs and sports activities and that very important (especially for a working single mom) late school bus. C is participating in chorus and technical theater at school as well as math tutoring, guitar, and Scouts in the community. This past summer she attended summer camps focusing on space, tennis, and writing code. She has expressed interest in getting involved in some of the school sport teams and also maybe taking skateboarding, ice skating, or Irish dancing in the community. All of that and so much more is available!

There is also just more for C and I to do in and around town. In the year we have been back we have visited the Museum of Illusion, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of Asian Art, the National Natural History Museum, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Planet Word Museum, the National Zoo, and the U.S. Botanical Garden. We also attended two Washington Nationals baseball games, and saw Cirque du Soleil, the musical Evita, and a traditional concert of the Christmas Revels. There are just endless opportunities for recreation here.

5. Friends and Family. Living the nomadic life we do with so much time far from the U.S., we often miss out on seeing our family; and with so many friends also in the Foreign Service (FS) it is often difficult to catch up with them as they are scattered around the world. But an upside of now living in Washington, D.C. is my family is from the area and live not too far, there are friends from different parts of my life living here, and every FS family has to cycle through Washington at some point. In the past year, C and I have twice been able to see my sister perform on stage with her community theater group. We also attended my brother-in-law’s birthday party. My aunt came up to stay with us for a few days and we traveled down to her in Jacksonville for the Labor Day weekend. In March, we went roller skating with a group of people we served together with in Malawi; in June we met up with a FS friend and her kids at the Natural History Museum for a “Night at the Museum” family event. When friends from Guinea spent a few days of home leave in D.C., we got together with them and another family who had served in Guinea for a day of food and conversation. When other friends from our Malawi days visited D.C. in October, we headed out to Cox Farms for some traditional American fall festival fun. C was able to spend several days in New York with her paternal grandparents during the summer and Thanksgiving at her dad’s in Kentucky. There has been so much more, but the point is that being in the U.S., and especially in D.C., has given us the opportunity to spend more time with friends and family than we have in the past few years combined. 

The Cons

#1 Cost of Living. Moving to Washington, D.C. has meant an adjustment in the personal finance department. Depending on which index you look at, D.C. may be listed as the fifth, seventh, or tenth most expensive city in the U.S., but it all points to shelling out more bucks to live here. Rents are particularly high and as a single mom, I am feeling the pinch. When overseas, our housing is part of our benefit package and when I have been in the U.S. on training between assignments, the Department has paid for my housing as part of per diem. This might sound a bit crazy (and I know after I say this I may lose quite a bit of sympathy points from non-Foreign Service readers), but this is the first time I am paying rent and electricity in over a decade. I do get the full Washington, D.C. locality pay, a bump in pay based on the cost of living in certain locales, but I, of course, am no longer receiving the plus up in pay from post differential (added compensation for service in foreign areas that differ substantially from the U.S.) or the cost of living adjustment (COLA; a bump in pay to counteract higher costs in another location). I am also just paying more in activity costs for all those great things we can do. But, I will say, with our wonderful library, my book costs have gone way down. 

Ramen surveys the chaos of the living room after delivery of our HHE

#2 Smaller Housing and ALL Our Stuff. As previously mentioned, when foreign service officers work overseas our housing is provided as part of our benefits. With the exception of Guinea, I have been provided a lovely (sometimes quirky) three bedroom house or apartment; though our Guinea apartment was a two bedroom, it was very roomy. In D.C., I was lucky to find a nice two-bedroom just outside the city right by a metro (subway) station. It is an older build, so more roomy than many of the newer apartments, but it is still smaller than every one of my Embassy/Consulate homes. When we are in training in the U.S. between overseas positions, the majority of our things are kept in storage. This time though, every one of the 100 plus boxes of our household goods would be delivered to us. I have not had all of my things in the U.S. with me since I first went overseas to work for the government in early 2009. And I have bought quite a few more knick- knacks since then. And acquired a daughter with her own accoutrements. But with the help of a storage room in our building and giving away items in our local Buy Nothing group, we have made it work. 

#3. Doing all the chores. I know this one, too, will not make me popular among the non-expat readers, but I keenly feel the lack of household support. As a single working parent, I have chosen posts overseas where I have been able to hire staff to help with the chores. I have had a housekeeper/nanny the previous four postings. In Malawi, I also had an amazing gardener who worked wonders with our yard. C has basically outgrown the nanny and we have no yard to garden, but the chores – the dishes, laundry, vacuuming, taking the garbage out, and more – are all now for me. Well, C is certainly old enough to help, so there is that. And, shhhhh, its a bit of a secret, but sometimes I find I even like to do some of it. There is also the lack of support from the Embassy on household repairs. When something needs fixing in our housing overseas you submit a work order and the facilities staff will take care of it. It isn’t always as fast as one would hope, but they get it done. Here, even though I am renting, I do have to manage the apartment more. When we first moved in, a handle broke off the closet door, the fridge water filter needed replacing, the oven started to smoke upon first heating, and the shower curtain bar fell (on top of me). It’s fine. It is just adulting without Embassy support – what the majority of people deal with. But it is something different. 

#4. Winter. I am not a fan of the cold. For years now, I have tried my best to implement a winter avoidance strategy. Having lived in Hawaii, California, Florida, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malawi, and Guinea, I think I can say that I have done a fairly good job. Even Ciudad Juarez and Shanghai were rarely very cold and the snow that came once or twice a year was light and short lived. Returning to middle of winter Northern Virginia from always tropical Guinea had been a shock to my well-laid plans. Having culled many of our winter clothes for a multi-year tour in West Africa, we were somewhat unprepared. Though 2023 was fairly mild, the winter of 2024 is predicted to be snowy. I missed D.C.’s major snow storms of the past few years like Snowmaggedon in 2010 and Snowzilla in 2016, but it is possible with several planned years in Washington, that my luck will run out. 

#5. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). I love living overseas and have done so for nearly 19 years in the past 30 in nine different countries. Though we have been back in the States for vacation and training, the longest stint, since January 2009, was the year I joined the State Department. I am a Foreign Service Officer, with the key word being “foreign.” In the past year, we have seen friends move to new countries like Ghana, Turkmenistan, Nicaragua, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, and Nigeria and others announce their next move to locations such as China, Mongolia, Germany, and Laos. I feel a twinge of envy reading every one of these, knowing the mix of excitement and trepidation when one gets a new assignment and then starts it. I know though that staying here in Washington a bit longer was the right thing to do for myself, my daughter, and the cats. Believe you me, the cats really would like to prolong the time before I next shove them into a carrier for another 30-hour journey. 

All-in-all, although I do miss the good things we experience overseas, every place comes with the good and the bad, and the positives far outweigh the negatives here in D.C.

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Foreign Service: Domestic Bidding for a Change

How Did I Get Here?

This is not where I expected to be: neither in Washington, D.C. nor bidding for my next job. I expected to still be working in Guinea and to have another year before my next bidding cycle. But, here I am.

It was in 2020 that I last went through the U.S. Foreign Service bidding cycle, when those whose tours are coming to an end apply, or rather “bid,” for their next assignment. With nine months of training and then a planned three-year tour, I expected to work in Guinea until the summer of 2025, with bidding then landing in the fall of 2024. Unfortunately, for a host of reasons, I curtailed from my assignment in Conakry after only six months, and returned to Washington in January 2023.

I landed a great assignment in the Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa Unit reviewing application documentation from Afghans who were employed by or on behalf of the U.S.. When Kabul fell and the U.S. made its final withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, I was on my Home Leave between my assignment in Malawi and starting my training for Guinea. As many of my colleagues assisted with the final evacuation or with Afghans resettling in the U.S., I felt useless watching it unfold and not being in a position to assist. With my current posting, I am now able to help in a small way.

Conventional wisdom in the Foreign Service says that an officer should spend the first two tours overseas and the third in D.C. And plenty of people follow this playbook. The thing is everyone knows an exception to the rule, including quite a few high level officers. For me, I figured A. I spent several years working for the federal government in Washington before joining the State Department and B. The high cost of living in and around the nation’s capital is not at all single-parent friendly.

Yet at the beginning of 2023, counter to all my best-laid plans, I found us in Washington. A condition of my curtailment was to work here at least one year, and I was lucky to secure a position for a year and a half. Though a part of me would like to be abroad again, another, much stronger, part could not fathom moving again so soon. We had moved three times in nine months. To Guinea in June 2022, to temporary housing in the States in January 2023, and then into more permanent housing in March 2023. Throw in the second half of our between tours Home Leave with a trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone and then nearly two weeks in a hotel and it’s more upheaval. Add in our departure from Malawi and then Home Leave in Florida in August 2021 and then the move to Virginia in September 2021 for nine months, and the tally is five or six moves in a 20-month period. Guinea was supposed to have been for three years. My daughter, my cats, and me, well, we deserve to settle in for a spell.

And so this is where I found myself: bidding earlier than expected, bidding from a different place than expected, and bidding on different jobs than expected.

On the Auction Block

It is not easy to explain the whack-a-doodle (why yes, this is a diplomatic term) process the Foreign Service has its mid-level diplomats go through to procure their next assignment. Here we are, having already passed a multi-step rigorous entrance exam to join the ranks of the diplomatic corps, every two to four years in a stressful and time consuming competition for our next assignment.

I have bid mid-level twice before. The first time was in 2016, when I tried to compare it to how teenagers might finagle a date to the homecoming dance. My second mid-level bidding session occurred in 2020, smack in the middle of all the weirdness of the first six to eight months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I attempted to equate bidding to buying a house in a very competitive market. This year though, the whole thing felt more like an auction.

It is not a perfect analogy. Though I have not been to a live auction, I have seen them portrayed in movies and television, and they move with lightning speed. You have an item up for bid, the auctioneer gives a little introduction and then a starting price, and then away it goes. Within minutes the item is sold and the next item is up for bid. The government, however, does not do anything quite that fast. Our bidding is a slow burn that takes place over weeks. We have our catalog of open positions with written descriptions and we set up calls with the incumbent to gather more information. We can see in the system how many people are bidding our target jobs, but we are not in the room with them. We do not know how serious their bids may be, we do not know what they are bringing to the table. They might raise their paddle to express interest, but they can later decide not to make a final offer. We are hoping that our bid package–a combination of our past assignments, references, and interview responses–will make us the highest bidder on at least one of our preferred jobs.

In the early days of the bid season, I felt very much like a competitive bidder. With multiple tours under my belt at different posts (some Consulates, some Embassies, and now a DC job) and in different career tracks (some consular, some political, and now a management designated one), I felt fairly confident as I strode into the virtual auction houses. During interviews I felt like a bidder on the edge of her seat, straining to hold my bid paddle higher than any others, basically yelling “pick-me!” with every response.

However, as the day approached to lock in bids, I felt less like a bidder and more like the auctioneer trying desperately to sell myself, the “as-is” vase sitting alone on the pedestal in the glaring spotlight. “The next item up for bid is this capable mid-level officer with twelve years in the Department. She has both consular and political positions under her belt. She is about as handy as a pocket on your shirt. Let’s start the bidding at….” The power had shifted to the offices, who were now the buyers. Would any one of them bid on me?

Joining the Club of the Unassigned

The bid season lasts approximately eight weeks. For the first five weeks, bidding officers and offices with open positions prepare their respective bid cards, with bidders figuring out which positions will make their official bid list and offices ranking those they interview. At the end of the five weeks, bidders lock in their final five to ten bids in the system and hit submit. During the last three weeks, offices work out who they want. Shortlists of the top three to five candidates are made. Those who make the shortlists are informed. Top candidates will be sent a “Bureau Leading Candidate” (BLC) email about five days before the last day of the official bid season. Offers, called “handshakes,” are sent out on the last day.

I did not receive one.

While many may receive one or more offers on Handshake Day, a good many will not. This year I noticed several emails touting the statistic that 30-50% of positions remained unfilled a month after Handshake Day. Still, though we are told this and we tell one another its normal and not to put too much stock into it, when you see many friends and colleagues posting about their next assignment on the day, it does not feel all that great to be without.

And this was the first time I had not received a handshake on the day. During my first go-round my offer arrived two days late though it was dated handshake day (the bureau, it seemed, had forgotten to send it). In my second mid-level bid season, I received two BLC emails (not really a humble brag — my strategy? Bid jobs with few to no other bidders!), and once I made my preference known, the official offer came on Handshake Day. Nonetheless, this time, I had become an “unassigned bidder.” The auction had closed, and I had been swept off the display table to be stored in a back room until I found an office to proffer me the coveted handshake.

Success at Last!

Luckily, though Handshake Day might be the end of bidding for some, for others this is when things just get going. In this auction, an individual can only be the successful bidder on one item; any unfilled positions are then back in play. A week after Handshake Day, I was back searching the available jobs and found not only a few new-to-me unfilled positions, but also positions still open among my top four choices! Two weeks after the official Handshake Day, I received an offer for one of my original top desired jobs and I readily accepted. The day after I received another and had to turn that one down. All’s well that ends well, I suppose, but I am glad to be done with it, at least for (fingers crossed) two more years.

Our next assignment: Another domestic job in Washington. (I know, the whole title was a spoil alert!) I will be a Career Development Officer, like an assignment counselor, for first and second-tour officers. And for the first time in my Foreign Service career, I will not have to move when I change jobs.