Quist World Tour

After driving through 11 states with 6-7 teenage girls, I have heard one thing over and over. And so have the girls. Inevitably, when people hear what we are up to (and they do, because we are hard to ignore whenever we walk into a place), they turn to me and say the same thing: “You’re brave.” My fellow travelers and I have discussed this. What does that say to them, that everyone turns to me and says I’m brave? I’m driving around in my van, seeing cool places with some cool people. There is nothing especially brave about that. I love seeing cool places with cool people. Perhaps it took a bit extra courage for me to drive down a mountainside or to enter traffic in L.A., but for the most part, I’m having a great time, aside from being a bit tired from being the sole driver. I’ve seen a lot of places for the first time—Antelope Canyon, Joshua Tree, Hollywood, Santa Monica Pier, Las Vegas, and the Great Salt Lake, to name a few. For someone as afflicted with wanderlust as I am...

The Grand Canyon is so big that when we spent a little time exploring the rim, I felt as though I’d hardly seen any of it. It’s impossible to feel that I could ever “know” it. At the same time, the immensity stills something inside me, brings a new kind of perspective to my life.  In the last week, we’ve seen reservoirs on the Gunnison River in Colorado that flow from the waters of the Colorado River. We watched trees and groundcover being swallowed up by wildfire in that same area, because the land is too dry.  We spent time in Lake Powell in Page, Arizona, where the Colorado River is held back and regulated by an impressive feat of engineering, the Glen Canyon Dam, which ensures water to Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and California, among other states. My fellow travelers splashed and swam in the lovely cool water. The water levels have dropped a lot. The demand for water in the southwest increases. We stopped for a night in Williams, Arizona, where the town has held ont...

Sometimes things aren’t what they seem. A landscape of hills and shrubby trees opens up to a deep chasm. Taking the jr ranger pledge A teen who finds it mortifying to have her mother speak to her friends willingly takes her third pledge in a week to become a junior ranger. A long-in-advance hotel reservation at a well-reviewed, inexpensive family motel isn’t in the computer. And the motel has changed ownership. And the woman who took it over has run off to Vegas and her son is “trying to make a go of it.” Thankfully, there was an available room, exactly what we needed. And while it’s obvious the motel is experiencing a sad downturn in circumstances, we got there before it really hits the inevitable rock bottom. Travel is full of unforeseen turns and mysterious sights. Sometimes it works out fine, sometimes things get complicated. So far nothing has gotten too complicated. Garden goddesses In the last four days, we’ve explored a lot. One day we saw Garde...

Yesterday I embarked on a journey with six freshly-minted high school sophomore girls. One of them is my daughter, the others are her friends. We are taking a 17-day road trip in my minivan. Why so long, you might ask? Excellent question, really. Allison’s most highly desired endpoint was California, specifically L.A. and Universal Studios. But it’s kind of a long drive, so we need to break it up over a number of days so that I, the only licensed driver, don’t fall asleep . And so we left yesterday at 6:45 am. That is 15 minutes AHEAD of schedule. Unheard of. At 8:13 the passenger next to me announced that she had done everything she had brought with her to do. By 10:28 everyone was starving, so we ate lunch at a rest area somewhere in western Illinois. We got some strange looks pulling out our picnic since it was only 9:28 Illinois time. These first two days are the longest legs on the westward trip. We needed to cover a lot of ground to get started. We stopp...