West Virginia calls itself Mountain State. Well, on the map, it made sense but now I have driven in it again, this time on the west (last time on the east 15 years ago), it leaved absolute no doubt. This whole state is built on mountains, mostly Appalachian Mountain and only a few towns popped up here and there along rivers in the valleys. It was also one of 3 states losing population in the last 10 years (Mississippi being the other we visited on this trip). It was not hard to see why: it was hard to make living in mountains.

I like mountains and driving in a mountain has always been fun. It was beautifully green here. The highest peak was Spruce Mountain which was just a little over 4800 feet. The whole state basically covered in trees. It was wild and wonderful as the state motto proclaimed but there were problems. As mentioned, it was hard to make living here; West Virginia was always on the bottom of the list of everything ranked, one of the poorest states, less educated, etc. They were being valued for having independent traits and free thinkers. The state broke off from Virginia when it objected secession from the Union. They thought differently than the flatlanders of Virginia. Now again, they were doing it again. Hardly anyone wore masks here and support for Donald Trump were visible in many places. It gave me the creeps with dark places and dark thoughts. We needed to get out.

But it was not easy to get out. West Virginia had always been one of last few states that we spotted their license plates when we travelled around US. We thought they loved their state so much, they just didn’t leave. But no, I have a couple of new theories: they cannot get out and they cannot afford to go out. The highways were a mess here. For example, in Charleston, there was the Kanawha river then there were two major highways, one on top of the river and one on the bottom, then there were bridges across the river plus local streets run along the major highway, and tried to squeezed all that in within a small valley, we started to talk about major signs overload. I remember as I approached a junction, there were like 6 or 7 signs with different highway number going north, south, east, west, just about everywhere, one mistake we would be in Siberia I think. I don’t know how the traffic designers did it. I swear that they could easily add a couple of more signs: ‘stairway to HEAVEN’ and ‘highway to HELL’ and they would be appropriate choices as well.

West Virginia was wild and wonderful but it needs a good plan. Consistently being one of the lowest ranking states will not cut it. The New River Gorge National Park was a disappointment. Recently many of the newly added National Parks seemed to be added to fulfill something political. It cannot compare to any of top 10 national parks such as Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, etc. The Sandstone Falls was s sham. Perhaps we need to take a raft trip down the New River but then Russian and American rivers can all be National Parks. Nice try, come up with better ideas next time.

As we were zoomed in on the New River Gorge National Park on the google map to get more details, Summit Bechtel National Scout Reserve popped up right next to the National Park. Hey, I heard of that place and my boys’ scout troop is thinking of going there next year. Because we were nearby, it would be fun to check it out ahead of time so to be prepared.

As mentioned before, my navigation often just relied on street signs but West Virginia was not a good place for that (I will write a story about that later) but given its prominent name, I figured it would be just as easy to find as Philmont Ranch Reserve was in New Mexico. But as I drove around Mt Hope and Glen Jean, we didn’t see any signs. I found it odd as I remember in New Mexico, there were numerous signs miles and miles away. So instead, I followed signs for the New River Gorge National Park.

Finally, we were at Thurmond, a part of the New River Gorge National Park and I asked a volunteer working there about the scout place. Right away, his cheerful tone changed. He seemed to be reluctant to share but he said there were a couple of roads in town that led into the reserve but there were security gates there. Off on the highway 19, there should be a scout information place that we can also go. Finally, I got out of what seemed to be bitter for him. It appeared that the reserve is under tax-exempt so no need to pay tax but local residents had to pay taxes to support it. I don’t know how much truth is to it but the scout reputation didn’t seem to be highly regarded at least to one person.

As we drove back into town and onto the road that led into the reserve. We did come across a nondescript security gate. It was almost going to a high security place that people didn’t want others to know they were there. Perhaps there was tension between the BSA and residents. A scout (around 19-20) came out and asked what we were doing there. I explained that I like to get more information for the troop and he said I can get it in the Ruby Center off highway 19. I asked is that going south or north. He said he didn’t know but he knows it should be going to left. He didn’t give me any other information and probably happy to see us go.

This was around 1 pm and we decided to go north first to see the largest steel arch bridge in Western Hemisphere, New River Gorge bridge then headed south to get information from Ruby Center. We got there around 2:40 pm but the place was closed. Again, the sign did not mention boy scouts but the building did have boy scout name on it. Then we realized online that it only opened from 10 to 2 so we missed the whole opportunity of finding information on it. If I didn’t know boy scouts, I would have think that it was a cult kind of operations. I believe BSA did not do a good PR here. I wish they had a better symbiotic relationship. Maybe they do behind the scene (one article I found online saying the reserve benefit the local) but if they do at least they should show it on the surface.

Given how secure the place was, I would assume all activities would happen in the reserve and there aren’t any major airports nearby unless you considered Charleston. Charlotte is probably the best bet. Because we cannot go into the reserve we didn’t know what the cell phone signal would be however in the nearby area of the national park the cell phone coverage was spotty

Ha, Ha. I know Louisville as in Louisville Slugger and Kentucky Derby. There was also, Darrell Griffith of Louisville Cardinals. It was also listed as top 10 cities to visit by Forbes (but that list also has Detroit so…) for 2018. Hey, there was nothing to lose except maybe time.

Funny how that when we are at home, we typically stayed away from the SJ downtown but when we were on the road, we always went to the downtown of any city we visited by default especially when we didn’t know much about the city. I just followed the road sign to downtown if I had no navigators with me. This worked at Louisville. My other source of locating downtowns based on majority of downtowns are on 1st, Main, Market or Broadway if ever get lost and Louisville downtown was on Main street.

The famous Louisville Slugger museum was easy to find with its big bat sticking high in the air. Crazy how it can create a whole industry just making one thing, a bat. If one can do something well, even if it was just one thing and in high demand, that’s good enough. There are many varieties and with players signatures just adding certain allure to it. The museum was entertaining, especially for baseball fans. I see people purchasing a brand new bat, perhaps with some personalized engraving. The downtown street was litter with Walk of Fame style of base/bat combo of famous players, providing some fun factors to the downtown. But somehow, the downtown still felt empty. There weren’t many people around except at the Slugger museum. Although it didn’t feel unsafe but it didn’t have any festive mood.

We decided not to go to Churchill Downs as we believe horse racing is cruel to horses. Even without reading any articles about cruelty to horses in horse racing, I can imagine what some people would do to win especially doing it to someone else like a horse. It is almost like doing it to a slave. At work, sometimes workers get abused but if workers don’t like it and have options, people can just quit but not for horses. They stay in small quarters and have no freedom. Why don’t we ban horse racing? Too much money in them for some people who have enough power to prevent it I supposed.

One thing we didn’t check before leaving was their food as Kadia was not feeling well. Later on we read that it has the best ice cream and chocolate cookie of all the Kentucky. I need to start looking those up in the next state. Adding to my bucket list of sampling the best ice cream in each state.

Country music, country music and more country music. That’s all I can say about Nashville. Okay, maybe a little more than that: Dolly Parton, Glen Campbell, Lorette Lynn, Martina McBride. Well, that’s still more country music. Let me try again, Tennessee Titans and Nashville Predators. Ha, Ha, I always have sports to fall back on.

Unfortunately country along with rap is not my favorite music thus we skipped Nashville 15 years ago on our cross-country trip. But given that it is the capital of the Tennessee, we had to make an exception for that to complete one of our bucket list, visiting all 50 state capitals.

The capitol building was at downtown which made it convenient for us to check out the country scene there. There were a lot of people on Broadway and most of them behaved as if there was no pandemic, drinking (even a mobile drink tavern) and dancing (even on a truck). Almost every bar had a live band playing. This would be a heaven for country lovers and if there was no pandemic.

We had DeSano Pizza, supposedly world famous, for lunch. It was one of the better food we had so far on the trip. The crust was very good. The San Gennaro was delicious except I couldn’t wait for it too cool off a little bit so the cheese can solidify more thus it was running a little bit, Maybe I should add a new bucket list, eating at the best pizza place of each state. So far, I have: visit each state (only Oklahoma, South Carolina, Kansas and Missouri left), go to each state capitol (still 30 more to go), and geocache at each state (about 25 more to go).

Bucket list is a fun thing as long as one doesn’t get obsessive over it. We also have a very common one, visiting all the National Parks (we have less than 10 to go) and will get to visit a new one (New River Gorge at West Virginia soon). There are people who want to golf at all the states or visiting all the MLB baseball parks for examples. Speaking of parks, what’s all this parks with company names: Toyota Center and Minute Maid Park at Houston, FedEx Forum at Memphis, Nissan Stadium and Bridgestone Arena at Nashville. I know why but they suck. Why does money have to rule everything. What’s wrong with old names such as Riverfront stadium, 3 River stadium, Candlestick park, for example. They conveyed so much. At least I think Superdome didn’t have a new name. Good for you, New Orleans.

Now, what’s the best pizza in Kentucky, anyone?

Mississippi? I don’t know anyone from Mississippi or anyone wanting to move to Mississippi and I cannot think of anything related to Mississippi (anything related to Mississippi River does not count) except perhaps the movie, “Mississippi Burning.” What did I miss? Is there something I should know besides unflattering events/people from the movie? Even Elvis who was born in Mississippi are known to be associated with Memphis, TN. But let’s not reach a harsh conclusion yet.

As we were driving through the state, we noticed a lot of trees and we discovered something I would not have expected: 70% of the state was covered by forest. My thought of Mississippi would be a lot of agriculture such as cotton, instead, there are trees everywhere, tall and dense that one cannot see pass a few trees. It would feel spooky to get lost here though.

As we drove from south to north in the middle part of the state, many places seemed to be dilapidated. We looked up online more about Mississippi: it has just under 3 millions people and it has declined in the last 10 years, one of only 3 states in that infamous category. As we switched to information age, it would need to change, otherwise, it would be left behind forever.

We did noticed a lot of churches along the route. In fact, it has the highest number of churches per capital in the United States. Now I see some problems here: leave it to god to save you. Also, it may also explain why it is a red state. Religion is such a loaded topic but I would argue human would be better off having people participating in sports more than in religion. We will get to that in a minute.

One thing we noticed was there were lots of billboards proclaimed to justice: LAW-TIGERS, MAMA-JUSTICE, MOTORYCYCLE INJURY, etc. What was going on? Why so many of them? Can we get out of here while we are still alive? Did a lot of people get hurt here and not getting their fair shake of life? It would be hilarious to compile a collage of those billboards but I couldn’t take pictures while driving. Just like I cannot talk on the phone as the state slogan flashing on the highway was “It is a car, not a phone booth!”

As our custom, we stopped by Jackson to visit the state capitol. We got to see the old and the new capitols. The new building was one of the nicest ones we had visited but we just missed the 4 pm closing time. Jackson was named after Andrew Jackson. Does he really deserve the credit and admiration? Probably not from what I read but I don’t know as I don’t know him but this made me wonder the people we honored and admired. Take the current Tokyo Olympics for example, the news media is again making big deals of people who won gold but should we? They could be fine citizens or they could be jerks/bitches. We wouldn’t know that, probably not now or forever. But should they deserve the attention and admiration threw at them?

Personally I would say, we shouldn’t it because it fostered this winner takes it all mentality that some will take to the extreme to cheat and to gain at all costs. There are some Olympic athletes have been great role models but some horrible. I hope the media can focus more on characters than the results. Everyone in Olympics works very hard: someone who didn’t win did not mean that person didn’t work as hard. But that’s a tall order as it often can be a judgement call on what are considered good or bad characters. Does not believe in God considered good or bad? Leaving dishes for other siblings to wash so I can focus on training would be good or bad? So what happen if one of the multi-gold-medals stars they featured this week end up with some characters flaw that in 30 years from now would be scandalous just like Jackson? Perhaps we should give them more privacy so their ego stay checked.

Also, I hope we don’t just blindly cheer someone because they are from the same country. Just because someone from the same country win the gold medal should not be the cause for celebration. They need to do more to earn that respect. The source of pride when one seeing someone from the same country doing well can also be the source of bigotry (we are better than you like they did in Mississippi years ago with KKK) when goes unchecked (see exhibit 1, Nazi) Also, I hope they don’t just feature famous people to make statements or ads. Do I really care who ate Subway sandwiches? And, do those athletes really eat Subways as a part of training? I doubt it. Maybe donate more of the money to charity instead?

One final thought as we were leaving Mississippi, I hope it can reverse its population downward trend, make good use of its natural and people resources. Don’t believe so much in god but believe in science, hard work and kindness. AND drop those injury/law bilboard! Hopefully someday I would hear people said “I am moving to Mississippi!”

French Quarter (drinking/partying), Mardi Gras (colorful costumes/parade), Superdome (Sports), Jazz and Hurricane Katrina (Nature) are first few things come to mind when thinking of New Orleans and Louisiana for me. So I was prepared for surprises when coming to this state for the first time.

The first surprise was how long bridges are in Louisiana as we were driving from Baton Rouge toward New Orleans that seemed to go on and on. We searched up on the internet and found that Louisiana owns top 3 longest bridges at 24, 23 and 18 miles respectively in United States. Given the area could be favorite of Ogre from Shrek, it is understandable that they would need lots of bridges to go over all those swamps. Luckily swamps are shallow thus easier, quicker and cheaper to build over them.

Baton Rouge, what a fancy name but in plain English, it is just Red Stick. It has the highest US capitol building and it is not a dome (one of nine). It was quiet and all the downtown business were closed when we got there at 5 pm. The riverwalk along the Mississippi river could have been great but it wasn’t. It was dead with few people. The neighborhood around it seemed to be rundown as well like many city’s old downtown. Why can many old cities not keep their downtown vibrant?

French Quarter has its unique architecture, a mixed of African with some European influence. I love the balcony styles where ones can sit/stand while people watching. As we walked around, getting thirsty, and got excited to see a Slush store, we encountered a problem: the slushes were all alcoholic. I thought being alcoholic is illegal in Louisiana (well at least in some Parishes). At least be a little more accommodating for us non-drinkers I would hope. Probably a better vacation spot for 21 and older.

We stopped by at Cafe Du Monde to eat its famous beignets. It is hard to live up to high expectation and it didn’t. It was a little chewy and just like a fried bread of sort. A couple hours later, I have a second bite and it fared better this time with lower expectation. I also tried a crawdads po boy. The crawdads was small, chewy but not tasty. It was okay but I would have prefer to have bocadillo de calamares in Spain. Another possible scam was that many food stand did not list prices on their items; I wonder if they did that so they can charge different prices at a whim. My Po Boy costed me $18, kinda steep and probably got scammed.

As we walked around the Jackson Square, we wondered why Jackson was still honored here with so many blacks we saw. I wonder if people would think about it things that happened near 200 years ago. Success and famous people aren’t always good people. Then I started to wonder why Louisiana was a red state in the last election. As the book, “Everybody Lies” pointing it out, although people claimed they are not racists, internet searches told another story. Everybody lies and in this regard, many people are closet racists.

Tour de Louisiana? Not likely given biking without hands are illegal here thus the winner cannot go across the finish line with his/her hands raised high in the air and I can see why as well: the road conditions were horrible here.

Galveston doesn’t rhyme with hurricane but perhaps it should. The great Galveston hurricane in the early 1900’s was the worst natural disaster in US history and made me wonder why would anyone want to live there so it was worth to go check it out.

It was a bigger stretch of island and had more residents and tourist accommodations than I expected. I thought everything would be hunkered down for hurricane but it didn’t seem to be the case. Maybe they would do that when a hurricane is approaching. There was one obvious indicator reflecting to the effect of hurricane impact: high stilted houses.

It was raining hard for a while so we stopped by Walmart to get a pair of sandals to walk on the beach and luckily the rain stopped when we finished shopping. The beach was deserted during the rain then crowds slowly made back to the beach once the rain stopped. The walk along the beach was new experience for me, water was lukewarm, sand was probably hard rom the rain (not just today but frequent rain) and varieties of colorful sea shells as well. It was hot and humid once the rain stopped and we were hoping to get some drinks along the way but found to our disappointment, although lots of restaurants along the way, there weren’t any open street vendor types that we could just purchase drinks or snacks, an oversight for a tourist places where walking traffic would be important I think, especially with COVID-19. We ended up getting a Cherry Garcia smoothie at a Ben & Jerry store but left not impressed with this town. Maybe we should visit during a hurricane?

There were many aspects of the trip, but what I want to focus on in this post is the aspect of sleeping.

What do you expect when you go camping and sleeping in a tent, you would probably expect it to be

When my family have gone car camping, it was always nice because you can bring so much to keep you comfortable, you can bring foods you love, you can bring pillows and whatnot. SO you would think that backpacking would be the same, but you would be wrong, so wrong indeed (this is just my experience, there are many people that would have comfortable nights, but I didn’t)

First of all, the food. When we went backpacking, we were eating mountain house for breakfast and dinner, and while they are actually pretty good, but food that you can pack during car camping can be much better.

I have always enjoyed car camping because the food was really good, but so was backpacking food (mountain house)

Another reason why car camping is so much better is because of sleep, you can bring all the different components that would make sleeping in a tent comfortable, you can bring so many pillows for so much comfort, you can bring blankets for extra warmth. But when you go backpacking, you can only bring your mat and your sleeping bag, and if you bring a mat that leaks air, oh you won’t have a good time sleeping, which is what happened to me.

we went backpacking, and on the first night we stayed at a backpacker camp, I woke up to a deflated mat, so I just assumed that I didn’t blow it up enough, but I later found out the next night that it wasn’t a mater of me not blowing it up enough, it was the fact that it was leaking air. my mat leaking air led to me waking up countless times because I felt like I was laying on a rock.

The next problem is that we didn’t bring any pillows because it is extra weight and space, but this has it’s downsides, just like the leaking mat, this made it so that my head also felt like it was laying on the hardest rock in the world. because it was like sleeping on a rock, I would wake up so many times during the night.

The last problem is a lot smaller, but sleeping bags are so much harder to control than blankets, while blankets it’s so easy to toss it around if your cold or warm, but for sleeping bags, you have to open your eyes and look for the zipper, then close it or open it depending on the temperature.

So I didn’t really talk about the trip, but I was just complaining about my sleep.

On Sunday morning me and my family were getting ready to go backpacking to Yosemite. We started from Tioga road to the upper Yosemite falls and back to Tioga road and that’s 29 miles! It was tiering like last year but less fun (just a little). Why it was not as fun is because I got a rash on my but and it hurt a lot it hurt so badly that if my pants touch’s it will sting, like when you get a cut and you put the heeling thing on it, mommy thinks that it happened is because I didn’t go poop the past two days and the sleeping mats weren’t that comfortable. The good part of the trip is I can touch the cool water and it feels so cool but it’s nice, i got to climb rocks (I love climbing rocks) at lower Yosemite falls and there were beautiful sunsets too. But a good thing is that I got to see some things that I usually don’t see at home like lots of butterflies, a woodpecker, interesting flowers and beautiful waterfalls. This trip was very tiering but different from last time for a reason…

On the last day we were getting ready to leave and I had way more energy then the other days but there was a lot more up hill. Me and my family were so close from Tioga road only 1.6 more miles. When we were almost there I felt a rain drop fall from the sky then it started to sprinkling raining I started running with my mom but the others is already in front we got to the road and me and my mom saw the others and we hid under a tree, then the rain became poring then do you know what it started hailing! There was a storm going on there was rain, little snow balls and loud thunder going on, the thunder was so loud that I felt like there was a earth crake going on! We started running to a bathroom that had a roof so we didn’t get wet but we still had a problem the car is 5 miles away my dad asked some people for a ride but they said no until one person let my dad for a ride, i was so happy and couldn’t wait to get out of this storm (I was really scared I started crying).

My dad went on the car and zoom the were gone the storm was still very hard though, about 10 minutes later we saw my dad in the car I was sooo happy but still scared of the storm. I was the first one to get in the car before my brother and sister because they we weird and having fun, ventrally we all were in the car but we still had to wait a till the storm was gone or else it would be too dangerous. 30 minutes later the storm was smaller so my dad started driving down the mountain, then my dad said something I couldn’t believe he said it was 43 degrees (what!)! Later it got warmer and warmer that i wont be freezing.

Now that I am home I know there wont be big storms like that and i am covered by the roof at home i feel more safe, also my rash is gone and I feel more comfy at home.😃

It has been over 25+ years since I hiked up to Half Dome from Housekeeping Camp. It was a long day with nearly 20 miles of hiking and 5000 feet of elevation gain. We started early and got back near dark with little time to enjoy the scenery. I remember there were a lot of people on the half dome cable so I would be hiking on the outside of cables just to get around the crowds. The hike up to the cable was fun, lots of granite steps and I went through that quickly as it was a flat ground. Nevertheless, I thought it would be a lot more enjoyable if we didn’t have to hike up so much in one day so next time maybe we can camp at the Little Yosemite Valley then take a day hike up to the half dome.

Now 25 years later, I had a chance. We would be hiking from Tuolumne Meadows down to the Yosemite Valley thus can stay near the half dome and hike up in the morning. Morning is always the best option as there would be less people and no chance of afternoon thunderstorm. We camped at the Junction the JMT and Clouds Rest (about 0.6 miles from the junction of half dome and JMT) and tried to decide how we can go up the next morning. Susan is afraid of height and Tia is too young so they are out (not to mention, I was able to secure only 4 half dome permits.) Bryden chose not to go as some half dome cable pictures seemed to show the route was straight up and he said he didn’t want to die and would rather stay behind helping out mom. So we are left with Kadia, Logan and me.

We discussed the options of hiking up to the half dome. We didn’t want to carry our backpacks up so we can either leave with those who are not going and had to hike back to the campsite or leave the backpacks by the junction of half dome and JMT. After seeing a sign posted on the junction of JMT and clouds rest, we decided that would be a more practical choice.

We got up around 5:30 am. Susan went ahead to see the sunrise while we packed up. We started our hike around 6:15 am. Although we were closer to half dome, there was still 2 miles hike to the base of the subdome. Logan didn’t like that we still had to hike that far and complained often and eventually sat down and refused to go forward. I knew we were getting close and was able to clear the forest part but I was only able to carry him about 100 steps before having to rest even though he only weight around 65 lbs which was only 20 lbs more than my pack. Luckily, he perked up a little and was able to walk to the subdome.

There was a ranger at the subdome checking for permits; this was new since last time I was here. Logan was more energetic now we had something more fun to hike on and many other hikers commented on how young he was that he inspired them. I think that put a lot of prides in him so he hiked up the subdome quickly with us. Once we arrived at the base and looked up the cable, I was surprised to find out it was steeper than I remember. There were hardly many people there and we waited for 3 people to come down and we had a clear path with no one ahead of us to go up. Kadia went first followed by Logan and I brought up the rear just in case Logan slipped.

On the way up, I was glad that I had been doing TRX workout where I pulled myself up, exactly what I needed to do as we moved up the cable. Logan was struggling to move up in a few spots to get good foothold so I had to move close to him so he can push off against my foot. Given there weren’t any other people going up so we took our time to make it to the top. On the way down, I slipped a couple of time and lost Logan’s CLIPCO water bottle. Once I slipped, it was almost impossible to stop if it weren’t for the cable. I remember going down on the side of the cable the 1st time and now thinking back, that was not a smart choice and I understand why some people brought harness with them so they can strap in.

I was glad we all safely made it up and down and enjoyed the view of the half dome from the top. When Tia is older, maybe we will go again.