BOX 184: Out West and At the Races.

I took another photo at this spot -- it's in the Garden of the Gods, near Colorado Springs --

without people in it (see to your right), but for this post's opener I thought I should choose a picture more representative of my travel photos after I got married: one with my family in the shot, in this case Aron.

A week or so after our wedding, Anne and I took a honeymoon driving trip with the kids to California. All our friends told us we were crazy, but it worked out fine -- or as fine as you reasonably could hope a monthlong trip would turn out with three kids aged 6 to 11 in the back seat. Unfortunately, I have only a few slides to show--it's another (probable) case of a missing box or two.

We had bought a new Pontiac 6000 to replace the '85 model you've seen in a lot of photos if you've been following these posts. We camped as often as was convenient on this trip, and our first night was spent somewhere in southwestern Wisconsin. My photo

shows our new tent as well as the car. From there we passed through Dubuque and made a stop in Anamosa, Iowa, home of Grant Wood, to see the sort of landscapes he painted. The next shot below shows Iowa hills, with Becky at the bottom of the frame, followed by one of the old Anamosa State Penitentiary with its interesting stonework:

We had dinner in Des Moines that evening, if I recall correctly, and stayed somewhere along I-80 at a motel, where we celebrated Michelle's 7th birthday:

It looks like we brought along the wedding-present picnic dishes shown in my previous post. I seem to remember that the candles on the birthday cake set off the smoke alarm in the motel room.

The next night was memorable too, but that's because a sudden storm deluged our campsite at Ogallala State Park in Nebraska. If you ask, I'll tell you the story in detail, including how we ended up that night at a seedy motel in Sterling, CO. Our next scenic stop was at Garden of the Gods, where--as when I drove out West with Max in 1978 (see BOXES 114-115)--I took a goodly number of photos, though this time mostly with people in the frame:

There was some kind of event for young kids presented by a Native American group, and Michelle took part in it:

The next day, on the highway approaching Taos, New Mexico we stopped at the same café (I think) that Max and I had stopped at 12 years before. I tried to catch a photo of a hummingbird at its feeder, but it was easier to catch the dog sitting under our picnic bench:

Just south of Taos we visited the San Francisco de Asis Church that has been such a famous subject of photographers and painters:

We camped in the same place near Santa Fe that Max and I had before, and Dave and I had in 1985:

I remember dining at good restaurants in Santa Fe and at the same Mexican restaurant on the main square of Albuquerque as Max and I had, and visiting Acoma Pueblo. I'm pretty sure the next photos were taken on the way to Acoma:

But I was shocked to discover that these are my only slides from this trip, which continued on to Red Rock and Slide Rock State Parks near Sedona, AZ; to Long Beach (where I presented at a conference of the Science Fiction Research Association while Anne and the kids spent an extra day at Disneyland), Santa Monica (where we visited the Garvin family), and Sacramento (where we stayed a while with Anne's parents). Possibly I switched to snapshots at this point, or relied on snapshots Anne took with her own camera--I need to look through envelopes of old photos to find out.

My next slide box takes us ahead to September, when Anne and I spent a day at Road America, the race track near Elkhart Lake, a 25-minute drive from Sheboygan. Our friend Rich (who makes an appearance in my previous post) had come up from Chicago with a group of friends or contacts, and invited Anne and me to join them at their reserved site. In the 14 years I'd lived in Sheboygan I'd never attended a race there, though the track attracted world-class drivers and such celebrity aficionados as Paul Newman. Here is a glimpse of the scene when we first arrived:

It appears that we rode in carts to get to our site:

And here are Anne and Rich posing:

It was clearly a fine September day:

Part of the crowd gathered around a gigantic Miller's bottle--a good observation point, I suppose, though it almost looks like an idol they're worshipping:

One special feature of Road America is that you can wander around the grounds and see the races from different perspectives where the track curves through the hills:

It was also interesting to wander around the parking lots to see various vehicles:

One shot of reflections came out as an abstraction:

We did spot Paul Newman at the races--here he is with his team, as seen through my telephoto lens:

We met back with Rich's group for a picnic supper:

I include the above three photos to give you a sense of the space and geometry--but I'll also offer cropped versions to center on Anne and Rich:

These, combined with my previous post, are all I have for 1990. Next time I'll report on our summer-0f-'91 car trip to Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Niagara Falls.