Q & A with the “Traveling Pasleys” Part III

Q: OK, let’s talk about some more of your lists. State Fairs for instance. How many have you been to? What’s your favorite?

DP: Sure. Thanks. This is a lot easier than NPS sites. Here’s a ranked list of the state fairs we have attended, along with the year we attended.

State	Rank	Year
Minnesota	1	08-10-11
Texas	2	2015
Iowa	3	2013
Wisconsin	4	1996 & 2016
Indiana	5	2016
Illinois	6	2016
Kentucky	7	2014
Oregon	8	2013
Washington	9	2013
Idaho	10	2013
Wyoming	11	2013
Florida	12	2009
Colorado	13	2012
Tennessee	14	2017
Georgia	15	2013

Q: Wow, three times to the Minnesota State Fair? What’s that all about?

DP: Well, first of all the fair reflects the state. Lots of fishing exhibits. Lots of local beers, local foods and everybody is very nice. We really like Minnesota, we like Minnesotans and we like this fair because it reflects so well on the state and its people. A big attraction for us was Garrison Keillor. We went to his Prairie Home Companion show all three years. Also they have a very good, robust amateur talent show that we really enjoyed and they have lots of exhibits of arts and crafts. There are some carnival rides but they are not the central feature of the fair.

BP: And they have a mascot, Fairchild.

Dave poses with Fairchild, the official mascot of the Minnesota State Fair, in 2011.

Q: Will you get to all 50 state fairs?

DP: I’m not even sure every state has a fair; Pennsylvania for instance. And for a lot of them, like in Georgia and Tennessee, the state fair is just a low-class afterthought; maybe a few rides and some food booths. I think we’ve probably already hit the best of the state fairs so it’s not a priority. But we do think about it and consider it when it happens to work into our travel plans. For instance, we may stop in at the Oklahoma State Fair on our way home from Wisconsin in September.

Q: How about Major League baseball stadiums, you’ve been to a lot of those?

DP: Indeed. Depending on how you count, all of them. Baseball stadiums are sort of like National Park Units because they occasionally change. One day you’ve got it checked off the list, the next day you don’t. For instance, the Rangers are building a new stadium. We’ve been to games at their current stadium and the predecessor stadium but next year when the new stadium opens the checkmark in that box will be erased. Atlanta has a new stadium and neither one of us has been there although we’ve both been to the predecessor (Turner Field). And I’ve been to a game at the predecessor of the predecessor (Fulton County Stadium). Yet the Atlanta box is unchecked.

I’ll say it this way. There are 32 MLB teams and we have seen every one of them play a home game in the city where the team is now located. Betsy has been to games in 31 of the 32 stadiums now in use and I have been to games in 30 of the 32. (In addition to the new stadium in Atlanta I have not been to Petco Park in San Diego.) Lifetime, Betsy has been to games in 44 different MLB stadiums and I’ve been to games in 45.

Q: Favorites, least favorites?

DP: For reasons I don’t understand Betsy likes Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. I thought Marlins Park was pretty spectacular even though it was virtually empty and the neighborhood is sketchy. And it’s hard to beat the setting for San Francisco’s fabulous stadium. We also like the stadiums in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis. And we kind of take Minute Maid in Houston for granted but that is a great park in a great location. One of our most memorable stadium experiences was going to the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit for a July 4 doubleheader where we had seats just a few rows behind the dugout. As far as least favorites; I’m not a fan of Chase Field in Phoenix because it is so dark inside. Tropicana Field in Tampa was not as bad as I thought it might be but it’s probably the best candidate for worst venue.

Dave was attracted to Rosie Red, the only "openly female" mascot in the major leagues.

Q. Really Betsy, the Great American Ballpark?

BP: Sheesh, you sound like Dave. I admit it’s a bit cheesy and feels more like a minor league stadium, but I love the atmosphere and the proximity to the Ohio River and the Moerlein Brewpub, as well as their adorable old-timey male and female mascots.  It IS the home of the oldest franchise in baseball, so there’s that. I do agree with Dave on the others he listed. However, I have to add that I was able to finagle a free ticket a few rows behind home plate in Fenway Park in 1982 and hold that stadium and Wrigley Field in a special place in my heart.

Q: Do you have a minor league list?

DP: No, no, no! That’s just too crazy, even for us. But I would guess we’ve been to at least 50. We’ll get four more in Washington this summer; three Class A teams and AAA Tacoma. Betsy’s a lot more into it than me; she loves the mascots.

Betsy bonded with Wool E. Bull the Durham Bulls mascot at a game in 2017.

Q: You also track state capitols?

DP: Yes. I’ve been to 49, Betsy 40. Capitol visits are a must for RGTK. The only one I am missing is Hawaii because, naturally, I’ve never been to Hawaii. Another good reason to RGTK Hawaii.

Q: Best, worst?

DP: Hands down Texas has the best capitol (and, arguably, also the best capital). There is no close second. Texas also has the best tours; a staff of paid, trained professionals. Idaho has a beautiful capitol and the interior of the Pennsylvania capitol is spectacular, probably the most ornate. Kansas might be the worst. It’s a rinky-dink little thing. Kind of like a county courthouse. I think they may have had a group of fifth graders come in to paint the murals on the walls. It’s very lame, kind of like the state.

The Virginia highpoint, July 2004

Q: What about state highpoints?

DP: I’ve got 48, Betsy has 18. Tex has 44! If we get to Hawaii I’ll definitely go for 49 but number 50, Alaska, seems less and less likely. I have not completely discounted the idea, but my interest is waning.

Q: What about 14ers?

DP: I’ve got 70 of the 75 14,000-foot peaks in the lower 48 states and my total count, including repeats, is at an even 100. One of the five remaining is a sub-peak of Mt. Rainier that is notorious for avalanches and I’ve pretty much given up on that. I do hope to get the four remaining in California but at this writing I don’t have a specific plan. It definitely won’t be this year. In Colorado I think I will definitely keep trekking to 14er summits, especially the more accessible day hikes. I can imagine that my total 14er summits could climb (pun intended) if we spend as much of our future summers in Colorado as it seems we might.

On Halloween Day in 2012 we stopped to look around at the Leon County Courthouse in Centerville (near I-45, about halfway between Houston and Dallas) and got a personal tour from County Judge Byron Ryder.

Q: Texas counties?

DP: I long ago bagged county #254 and the challenge now is to say that I have been inside of every county courthouse. That’s no easy feat because, of course, you have to be there when the courthouse is open. Yet my count is now at 238. If we do turn our attention back on Texas in future years I can see getting there.

Q: What’s your favorite Texas county courthouse?

DP: Well I’m definitely partial to those designed by the prolific architect James Reily Gordon. He designed 18 Texas courthouses in the late 19^th Century and 12 are still standing. One of those is the Bexar County Courthouse right here in San Antonio, which is pretty spectacular. It’s a beautiful building and the county has done a wonderful job in recent years of restoring it inside and out.

Gordon’s best-known work is probably the Ellis County Courthouse in Waxahachie – which is amazing – but I think I tend to favor the Wise County Courthouse in Decatur for my number two ranking. The Hopkins County Courthouse in Sulpher Springs is another good one.

We have had some great experiences stopping at courthouses in the smaller, rural counties (i.e. most Texas courthouses). Incredibly, on four different occasions we have received personal tours of the building from the county judge (the chief administrator in a Texas county); in Freestone, Throckmorton, Leon and Schleicher Counties. In Wharton County, when Tex was about 10, the district judge noticed us walking around and invited us into his chambers where the three of us sat and talked to him about being a lawyer, a judge, going to law school, etc. A few times in an empty courtroom the three of us would conduct our own mock trial. Tex was on the witness stand, Betsy would be the judge and I’d be the lawyer questioning Tex about his “crimes”. No wonder Tex became a lawyer!

BP: Courthouses also make great bathroom stops.

Q: Uh, thanks…good to know. Any other lists? What about presidents?

DP: Yes, presidents. Maybe my oldest list. It is kind of a weird one. The modern presidents all have prominent libraries while only a few of the 19^th Century presidents have small libraries (although I suppose you could argue that Jefferson’s and Madison’s library is the Library of Congress). Some have prominent birthplaces, others are obscure and, occasionally, disputed (e.g. Andrew Jackson). A few have boyhood homes. Some have prominent and famous adult homes (e.g. Jefferson) open to the public but many do not (e.g. Bush I and II). There is also a lot of disparity, and a good bit of weirdness, in their burial/entombment sites. So, it’s kind of a strange list. That said, my counts are 35 birthplaces, nine boyhood homes, 31 adult homes, 15 libraries and 32 graves/tombs. I don’t keep separate lists for Betsy but her numbers are pretty close to mine, maybe a few less in each category.

One thing we learned on our stop at Madison's Montpelier plantation is that James and Dolley are definitely old school; ignoring Betsy's "smart" phone.

Q: Any favorites here?

DP: Well, as I said, it’s a very quirky list. Obviously, Monticello is incredible, and they are working hard to better interpret everything related to enslavement and Jefferson’s complex and enlightening relationship with that matter. Huge strides have been made in preserving, interpreting and opening to the public Madison’s Montpelier plantation, a must stop for anyone interested in American history. Montpelier is also an easy threefer for list checkers because Madison was born, lived and is buried right there on the same property in Orange County Virginia. There are some great presidential sites off the beaten path. For instance, Woodrow Wilson lived in a relatively modest house in northwest Washington D.C. that is now next door to (I’m not making this up) Jeff Bezos’s house. And Wilson is entombed nearby at the Washington National Cathedral which, if you’ve never been to the National Cathedral, you absolutely must go and take one of the tours. Monroe and Tyler are both buried in the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia (as is Jefferson Davis). There is a lot of history (and some great views of Richmond) in this cemetery and there is a walking tour which is pretty well done. As far as the libraries go, the newer ones are big and pretty and have lots of exhibits which tend to spin things in an artificially favorable light. I think the Johnson Library in Austin is probably the fairest and best among them but externally it's plagued by the brutalist architectural style of the 1970s. The setting for the Clinton Library is nice, on the banks of the Arkansas River near downtown Little Rock; and it is a beautiful building.

Q: Any other lists you and Betsy are working on?

DP: If there are, fortunately, I can’t think of any right now. You know what, this has been a lot of fun. Maybe we should do a podcast and try to monetize this thing?

Q: Uh, yeah, sure. Let me get back to you on that….

Q & A with the “Traveling Pasleys” Part II

Q: Dave and Betsy Pasley, thanks for returning for Part II of our Q & A. Today we want to ask some questions about your many lists.

DP: Happy to do it, fire away.

BP: Ditto.

Q: How many lists do you have?

DP: I’m not sure, a bunch. And every now and then we think of a new one.

Q: OK, let’s start with the National Park Service sites. Tell us about that list.

DP: Yes, that is definitely a big one. The NPS list has been pretty important to our travels around the country because we often use it to determine our routes and the places we go and stay. We are NPS junkies for sure. Currently there are 419 NPS sites or “units” and Congress and the president periodically create new units. Confusingly to many people there are nearly two dozen different designations for NPS units and, occasionally, Congress changes the designations on a whim. Mind you, nothing else changes; same boundaries, same funding; they just change the designation. For instance, just this year Congress changed the designation for Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to Indiana Dunes National Park and the year before that they gave the Gateway Arch complex in St. Louis the NP designation. So, currently, there are, 61 national parks among the 419 NPS units and there used to be four national lakeshores but now, after the change to Indiana Dunes, there are only three national lakeshores. So, the NPS list is always in flux and it can get pretty confusing trying to stay on top of it, much less explain it. Most people don’t fully grasp the breadth, the range, the complexity and the enormity of the National Park Service. They think it’s just the 59+1+1 now 61 national parks but it is much more than that.

Q: So, how many NPS units have you visited?

DP: My count currently stands at 281 Betsy’s is 243. But she is steadily gaining on me. On our trip this summer we will visit nearly two dozen NPS sites several of which I have been to and Betsy has not. So the gap is narrowing.

BP: The thing you have to remember when you look at these ridiculous NPS counts for Dave is that he “retired” at 47 in 2002, and he and Tex were on the road at least two months each of the next five summers before Tex headed off for college in the fall of 2007. So while they were traipsing around the country I was slaving away in my corporate gig at home. But … no resentment on my part of course, except for all the cheese doodles I ingested.

On the south rim of the Grand Canyon, February 2008.

Q: What’s your favorite NPS unit, so far?

DP: Aaaarrrrghhh! People ask me that all the time. It’s a tough question. I usually say Grand Canyon National Park because it is so beautiful and so superbly managed and resourced and because, in recent years, we’ve been visiting in the winter in the middle of the week when the crowds are down. Also because I’ve had so many great trips there with both Betsy and Tex and by myself; including an epic rim-to-rim-to-rim winter crossing in deep, untracked snow and single-digit temperatures. In a similar vein Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska stands out because Tex and I had a great adventure there in 2006 kayaking (seemingly) alone in a vast wilderness after flying in (and then out) on small planes, negotiating tides, dodging whales watching for grizzly bears, etc. You don’t forget stuff like that. Big Bend National Park is also high on the list because we have been there so many times over the entire span of our adult lives; canoeing the river canyons, backpacking in the mountains, driving back roads in our Jeep, puking up the tequila shots we bought across the river in Boquillas…so many memories. But I also want to be clear that I really enjoy the small and offbeat parks too, especially the national historic sites. There are 78 of those and we’ve been to well over half. Ditto for the national monuments. There are 88 of those and I’ve been to 62, Betsy to 55.

Q: Can you pick one of each that stands out?

We visited Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona on our honeymoon in 1978. We have not been back since then, but we still talk about it. Ford’s Theater National Historic Site in Washington D.C. is pretty incredible because of its significance, the fact that it is still an operating theater, the fact that you can stand just feet from where Lincoln was shot and because of the superb job of interpretation by the NPS to contextualize the significance of the event that took place there.

Q: Will you get to all of the NPS sites?

DP: I doubt it. For one thing, as previously mentioned, it’s a moving target. Congress and the president are constantly adding units (which I’m happy about). And they’re far-flung; Guam, American Samoa, Virgin Islands, etc. Alaska will be difficult, and expensive. We’ve got our work cut out for us. There are 22 NPS units in Alaska and Betsy has only been to five of them. I’ve been to just seven. We’ll have to fly into many of them and probably hire a guide. But it’s kind of like eating an elephant; we’ll keep taking one bite at a time and see what happens. We have been to every NPS site in more than a third of the states and I’m particularly pleased that we’ve been to 21 of the 22 NPS sites in Washington D.C.

Q: What “counts” as a visit to a national park unit? Do you have to watch the film, take the tour, hike to the bottom of the (grand) canyon?

DP: That’s a good and tough question. Obviously, everybody has their own standard. It’s not a standardized test with a single answer. You take a park like Big Bend where we’ve been 30-40 times. We’ve been to every corner of that massive place. By just about any standard that “counts”. On the flip side, we really don’t like caves and when we stopped at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky we looked around the visitor center a bit and kept going. Ditto for Timpanogos Cave National Monument in Utah where we used the bathroom, ate a picnic lunch and left. At Jewel Cave National Monument in South Dakota we didn’t even eat lunch. A fair argument could be made that those “visits” don’t “count”. Yet we “counted” them. On the other hand, I’ve been to the summit of Mt. Rainier. If you have to climb to the top of Mt. Rainier to “count” your visit to Mt. Rainier National Park not very many people would get that park checked off their list.

Dave lowers the flag at "our" Sand Island Lighthouse.

Betsy leads visitors on a tour of the lighthouse in 2015.

Q: You’ve volunteered at several national parks, how many?

DP: Surprisingly, only three parks. This year will be our fifth “tour of duty” as the volunteers “in charge of” Sand Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. We got our first volunteer gig at Apostle Islands in 2013 working at the Little Sand Bay Visitor Center and that led to the Sand Island job. We’ve also done two one-month stints as trail monitors in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, in 2017 and 2018. And we volunteered at Moores Creek National Battlefield in North Carolina in the summer of 2017. So nine pretty significant volunteer gigs but at just three parks.

Q: Wow, our time is up and we’ve only made it through one list. Can we Q&A with you again?

DP: Sure, any time.

BP: Why not? Dave does all of the talking anyway. I'm lucky to get in a sentence or two!

Q & A with the “Traveling Pasleys” Part I

Q: Dave and Betsy Pasley, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer a few questions about your travel plans for the summer.

DP: Happy to do it.

Q: Where are you going this year?

DP: The state in our RGTK (really get to know) sights this year is Washington, the only lower 48 state west of the Mississippi River that we have not visited with a travel trailer since we bought our first trailer in 2011.

We are leaving home June 3 with the travel trailer in tow and heading due north through the southern Great Plains into Nebraska and then angling northwest through Wyoming to Butte, Montana. Assuming we don’t get sucked into a tornado, that should take about a week. Other than some stops at a few obscure National Park Service units, this first leg of the trip is mostly dedicated to grinding out the miles and closing in on Washington.

We’ll take our first real breather from driving with a four-night layover in Butte. We’ve seen a good bit of Montana on past trips, but we’ve never been to Butte and want to explore some of the history of this wild west mining town while also using it as a base camp to visit (relatively) nearby NPS sites and the state capitol in Helena.

From Butte we’ll have to cover a little more than 300 miles to reach our first stop in Washington, Spokane. We’ll stay five nights in Spokane, using the city as a base to explore along the state’s eastern border with the Idaho panhandle.

From there we will move west for a three-night stay on the upper Columbia River, visiting Grand Coulee Dam and taking a boat trip on Lake Chelan. Then we’ll go north and west; up and over the Cascade Mountains for a four-night stay on the banks of the Skagit River near North Cascades National Park.

Normally late June would be ahead of the fire season in northern Washington, but they’ve had a dry winter. So we have our fingers crossed that it will not be too smoky during our time there.

From the mountains we will continue due west to Puget Sound. The trailer will spend six nights in the town of Anacortes but we will be there for only four of them because we are taking the ferry out to the San Juan Islands for a two-night stay.

We had planned to continue on across the bay, to Vancouver Island, British Columbia - until we realized (too late) that our passports had expired. Not to worry though there are tons of cool things to do and see in the Anacortes area.

After Anacortes we will make a one-night visit to Everette, primarily to take in an AquaSox minor league baseball game. From there we’ll skirt around Seattle to cross the Tacoma Narrows Bridge onto the Kitsap Peninsula where we will settle in for an 18-night stay in the town of Gig Harbor.

Gig Harbor will be our base camp for exploring both Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula. It’s about a 30-minute drive from Gig Harbor to the ferry terminal in Bremerton and then a one-hour boat ride to the heart of downtown Seattle. We will probably make that trip at least a half-dozen times, using transit, Uber and our bicycles to move around Seattle. One of our Seattle stops will be, of course, a Mariners game. We’ll also spend a few days exploring Olympic National Park, take in some of the sites and sights along the Pacific coast, the state capitol in Olympia, a AAA minor league game in Tacoma and other items of interest on the peninsula.

From Gig Harbor we will head southeast back into the Cascade Mountains for a four-night stay near the small town of Randle, which is about halfway between Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens. Obviously, in addition to hoping there are not a lot of forest fires during this time, we will also be hoping there is no volcanic activity!

From Randle we will proceed southeast to spend our final three nights in Washington in the Tri-Cities area where we will tour the historic Hanford nuclear reactor, visit another NPS site in the area and take in another minor league baseball game.

And that’s it, our 44-night, RGTK-a-state visit to Washington will be over.

Observant readers may have noticed that we are not venturing into the southwest corner of the state (Vancouver, etc.). The reason is that we visited this part of the state during our RGTK tour of Oregon in 2013 and we did not feel a compelling need to go back. In fact, on that same 2013 trip, we attended the Washington State Fair in Puyallup.

RGTK started right here!

Q: How many states have you RGTKed?

DP: Washington will be our seventh RGTK state. We started with Delaware in 2011 before we bought the first trailer. We did that as sort of a lark, in conjunction with Tex’s graduation from college in nearby Maryland. But it kind of set the tone for retirement and we liked the concept. So, in 2013, we took a month to circle the Florida coastline – from Pensacola to Key West to Jacksonville – AND volunteered at Apostle Islands AND followed the Oregon Trail west to spend six weeks RGTKing Oregon. All of that was in the travel trailer. Coast to coast, Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes; 2013 was a big year!

In 2014 we RGTKed Ohio, in 2016 it was Wisconsin and, in 2017, we RGTKed North Carolina.

Q: What are your future RGTK plans?

DP: Hawaii is a candidate, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Washington is the last state on our “A list” for the RGTK treatment so it could be the last. Maine-New Hampshire-Vermont is a possibility as is New Mexico where we have several “unvisited” NPS sites to see. But those are not burning desires. There are a lot of states where we have spent a significant amount of time and have a strong desire to return and spend significantly more time; like, for instance, California. But states like California don’t really fit the RGTK format because they are so big and complex and there are so many things to do. New York is in that same category, plus it’s not well-suited to a travel-trailer-based visit. There are several states that do fit the format where we have already spent a considerable amount of time; essentially RGTKing but doing it in multiple trips over multiple years instead of in one fell swoop. Minnesota would be at the top of that list, which would also include states like Michigan and Wyoming. There are also several states, mostly in the southeast, where we have no interest in spending six weeks RGTK. Alabama and Georgia are at the top of that list. But that does not mean that we don’t have an interest in going (back) to Alabama to visit specific places like, for instance, some of the new NPS civil-rights-related historic sites. I’ll also mention that Texas has not fallen off our radar screen. I’ve been to all 254 Texas counties and we have traveled extensively throughout Texas but there are still tons of places in Texas that we have not been to and/or want to re-visit. But, in terms of a state getting the full-fledged RGTK treatment; Washington might be the last (or, maybe, second to last).

Q: Where will you go this summer after you’ve RGTKed Washington?

DP: From Washington we will head southeast toward Colorado with stops in Boise, Idaho; City of Rocks National Preserve in southern Idaho, and; Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area in northeastern Utah.

If all goes as planned, we will pull into Buena Vista, Colorado in early August and stay a few days before putting the trailer into storage and taking off for the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, arriving there in time to get prepared to go out to our duty station on Sand Island on August 13. We will remain on the island until September 3.

As many readers know from previous postings; as volunteers on Sand Island we are, basically, “in charge of" the five-square-mile island; conducting tours of the historic lighthouse, monitoring campsites and docks, cleaning outdoor toilets (privys), monitoring water quality, mowing and maintaining grounds and buildings, etc. We’ll stay in a comfortable, small NPS house that runs on solar power and propane. The daily commute from the house to the lighthouse is an easy four-mile-roundtrip hike through the woods.

We’ll probably stay in the APIS area for a few days after our volunteer duties are completed and then “drift” southward toward home, arriving by mid-to-late September.

Q: Will you be keeping readers posted about the things you see and do on this trip?

DP: Depending on internet connections and my interest level, I may post some updates and photos during the trip. If not, it could be a massive summary download after we get home.

Q. Betsy, you are quiet over there? Anything to add?

BP: Well, I’m just a pawn in the game of life, and happy that Dave drags me out of the house every now and then. Otherwise I’d be lounging around all day watching baseball, reading books, and gorging on cheese doodles.

Q: We look forward to getting back together with you two for Part II of this Q & A; to ask you about your various lists; highpoints, parks, state fairs, etc.

DP & BP: Sounds great! We can hardly wait!!