A little something for everyone...

Well guys, it's midnight and I've been on the road since 7am so I am a little too tired to delve deep tonight.

Here are a few things I've learned today:

1) It is possible to cover about 700 miles in one day.  It is not possible to do this and stick strictly to '66.  Choices were made and I don't regret a single one. I spent the first 5 1/2 hours of my day finishing up the California leg of my trip - other than a few road closures totally by the book (the EZ Guide to Route '66 that is).  In fact, I stuck pretty close to '66 up through Seligman in Arizona - Sno Cap was completely worth it and may just be my favorite stop of the whole trip.  After Seligman the following factors helped me decide to stick to I-40 and cover some serious ground:
   a) It got dark.
   b) I already said I wouldn't repeat things due to time constraints so Williams, Jack Rabbit, Meteor Crater, and Painted Desert/Petrified Forest all got the ax on this trip.  Been there, done that, will come back another time.
   c) I don't do gravel or dead ends when my family is on the other end of the road.

2) There is something really pleasing about the smell of fresh black top.

3) When faced with a choice between Christian Rock and Mariachi radio stations I will gladly listen to Country.

Here are some photos:

A mural of the historic Beale Camel Train experiment.

A detail shot of a camel licking/trying to eat a soldier.  My secret hope is that the murals in Parks & Rec were inspired by such detail.

Had a cup of coffee and a chat with Shaggy and Fred.  

"Public Art Corridor" where people spell names out in rocks on the side of the road.  I opted for the brief version JLC.

Wild burros run this town.

Headicus! I didn't even make that up!

My favorite sign so far.

I really need to work on my dinosaur face.

I have always had a thing for Paul Bunyun statues.

We begin again...

It's been a few years.  Things have happened.  A flirtation has developed into a marriage and when that happens, travel can sometimes slow down.  Well, I'm back baby! (Babies if anyone has joined my mother in reading this silly thing.)

This summer's first trip is down memory lane for American travel enthusiasts.  I speak of the Mother Road - 66!  This is my first time attempting the whole thing though I have done bits and pieces of it at other times.  Since I have hit a few of the highlights before I will be skipping them this time around.  I have a deadline and life is too short to repeat stops.  Unless you really want to.

It's been awhile since I hit the road alone and it was a bumpy start.  I didn't get out the gate until LATE. I accidentally left my wallet and "work bag" (filled with my computer, guide books, chargers, etc.) at home.  I managed to lose my parking garage ticket almost as soon as I got to my first destination -  the Santa Monica Pier.  This is the official "unofficial" end to 66.  The technical end point is a little farther north because highways tend to end in other highways and not just drive off into the ocean.  However, as Ian at 66 to Cali pointed out to me today, most of the people who drove '66 back in the day had never seen the ocean before.  They weren't about to turn north to hit the official end when the beach was so close at hand.  And what a beach it is.

Today Santa Monica (the pier and the beach below) was exactly how it is in the movies.  Full of families out for an afternoon.  Kids shrieking as the waves rolled in.  Kites stock still in the air as though they were hung on invisible pegs.  A violinist playing Yesterday between a street preacher and a tamale vendor.  The ocean sparkled.  I kid you not - sparkled.  Everything was perfect - including the lime phosphate I got at the soda fountain on the pier.  It made me feel so much better about the bumpy start.

Leaving the pier there was an awful lot of '66 ground to cover before I even got out of LA.  On the edge of West Hollywood my husband was kind enough to meet up with me and bring me all of the gear I left behind.  He is kind of awesome that way.

LA doesn't really honor '66 much.  It is one of the few towns that thrived without the road.  Swallowed it up and made it mundane.  In this respect you have the one case where it's not until you get outside of LA that you get to experience the weird and wonderful.  Neon.  Oversize statues.  Mom and Pop shops with gimmicks galore and everyone knows everyone else.  People who know the road call it a linear village.  I have a feeling that by the end of all of this I will know exactly what they mean.

I am starting at the end.  Traditionally people drive '66 from Chicago to LA.  It gives you something to look forward to - the beach, the warm, the glamour.  That's not how I am doing it.  Instead I am leaving LA behind and heading to Chicago.  I've never been there so its a fun place to head toward.  I am also heading toward home.  Family.  Friends I haven't seen for far too long.  And I'm leaving LA behind for a bit.  I know it'll be okay.  My husband is keeping it warm for me.

Sometimes what a girl needs is a big bag of cameras.

My mother would be very upset if I DIDN'T take this photo

Seriously beautiful day

The End...or is it The Beginning?

Hhmmmm...don't think that dirt is really that appetizing

Madonna of the Trial.  There are 12 of these across America.  You'll be seeing at least 1 more.

Yes, this neon sign does have a live flame.

There was a rooster statue inside the ladies restroom.  Clearly, that needs to be documented.

School's out for summer...

Or, more accurately, vacation is out.  Today is my last day of road trippin’.  I am heading home.  I may stop at the Hoover Dam or I may decide that what is most important to me in this world is putting on flannel pajamas, ordering Thai food and reading in my bed. A bed that does not need to be inflated. A bed with covers that do not in any way shape or form suggest caterpillar cacoons or mummy sarcophagi. 

You see, driving from the Golden Spike National Historic Site to Zion National Park yesterday, it hit me.  Road weariness.  According to the directions I printed up for this trip I had 70 hours worth of driving planned for this 10 day excursion through just a small part of America.  If you add in the amount of time driving when in the parks it pretty much averages 9-10 hours a day.  I also stop to get gas, pee, and take photos of signs along the road.  In fact I would say about a quarter of my photos have been taken from inside the car.  I am a master of the photograph while driving technique.  I consider the wrist trap to be the greatest accessory of all time.

So, I propose that on my next trip (Face the Nation, 2012) I take a little more time getting around.  Less of a mad dash through states with more livestock than people.  Visits with friends nestled in amongst all the sightseeing. 

Oh the sites I have seen.  The wildflowers of Big Horn National Forest.  The formations in the Lehmann Caves.  Bison, everywhere.  An old west shootout.  A mine.  A thousand historical markers dedicated to Mormons and their early settler fortitude.  Historical markers dedicated to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid and their outlaw fortitude.  Then there is the smell of the pine forests in Colorado, or Zion after a rain. 

So this is where I leave you I guess.  A few more photos posted from the road and this summer will come to a close.  I will be heading back to work in a couple of weeks.  By tomorrow all my gear will be packed away in my closet and it will seem as though this trip happened years ago.  Just as the Hong Kong/Bali/Hawaii trip does.  The summer itself will feel both endless and non-existent.  Luckily I have about 3000 photos to prove I was there.

Let's Catch Up, Shall We?

Well, mom, I went a whole day without updating my blog.  Were you worried?  That’s what I thought.  What about the rest of you?  Did you miss me terribly while imagining some poor tragic end to the girl with the devilish grin and anachronistic braid? 

Now that I think of it, I might be a few days behind on the good old blog.  What have I been up to?  Gadding about the American West of course.  I have covered a couple of national parks, a national monument, an historic center, and toyed with the idea of going to a rodeo.  However I got very swept up in the audio book version of The Hunger Games so the rodeo idea never really had a chance.

Did you know that Devils Tower was the very first national monument?  In addition, it is terribly controversial because it is (and has been for generations) a sacred Native American heritage site that we callous white folk like to climb for sport.  To say there is tension over the issue is an understatement.  Much of the visitors center is dedicated to a discussion of this topic.  There are full written plans regarding the climb.  There have been court cases over separation of church and state about the climb.  Kind of fascinating really.  Outside of the turmoil there is something that is easy to overlook.  The monument itself.  Not literally as it is huge and can be seen from miles away.  What I mean is a bit more intangible than that.  Between the groups of loud children, German tourists, and your own need to get the perfect photo of the phallic phenom it is hard to get a quiet moment to just look at it.  If you ever go you should try to do just that. Try to find moment of silence to listen to nothing but the sound of the blood rushing through your ears. 

Then it was off to Cody, Wyoming to the Buffalo Bill Historic Center.  It has also been called “the Cowboy Smithsonian” without much exaggeration.  I hadn’t known much about good old Mr. Bill before going.  I mostly went because it was on the way and I like shiny bits of randomness so a museum dedicated to the P.T. Barnum of Westerns sounded right up my alley.  It was far more interesting that I could have imagined and I now have another subject to add to my reading list – W.F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. 

The next day was spent (in its entirety) at Yellowstone.  I had blocked out the whole day for Yellowstone and it wasn’t nearly enough.  I couldn’t even cover half the park and I am pretty well practiced at this whole national park thing now.  I finally got to see some big horn sheep, and of course there were more bison.  As is becoming a bit of a routine I drove in from the frozen alpine tundra side bundled up to my chin in multiple jackets and by midafternoon was working on a brilliant sunburn and wishing I hadn’t left my waterbottle in the car.  I toured the geysers for about three hours on foot.  I am now sufficiently geysered out but did have the great good fortune of seeing two massive ones go off (Old Faithful and Beehive) as well as ominous bubblings from a few of the smaller ones.  I also managed to get to the Grand Prismatic Pool.  I wasn’t about to leave the park without seeing it.  From aerial views you think you are looking at some scientific experiment gone horribly wrong or a photoshop project that left realism at the door.  You have never seen such vivid colors occur in nature before.  From ground level it isn’t quite as breathtaking as you are fighting a cloud of hydrothermal by-product gas to even see the pool.  But it is still really cool and the boardwalk system they have set up around all of the geysers and pools are a fun change from asphalt trails.

Grand Teton was the last (new) park of the week, and of the trip in fact.  Tomorrow I will go to Zion but I have been there once before so it doesn’t really count in my quest to see all of the national parks.  Grand Teton is gorgeous.  It is one of those rare parks that doesn’t really have a gimmick other than it’s own beauty.  It is Helen of Troy and beauty is enough.  Glacier lakes that are as clear as they are cold.  A mountain range with no foothills to dull its steep ascension.  Wildflower meadows with herds of grazing elk and bison.  No there are no caves, no eruptions, no lava flows to check out.  This park asks nothing more of you than that you sit back, relax, and just breathe.  Seven hours was not enough to see the whole thing but I did hit most of the highlights.  There was the most expensive lodge in the national parks system, the summit of Signal Mountain, and one of the most well designed exhibits I have seen in a national park – the Native American art exhibit at the Colter Bay Visitors Center. 

This post is short on sass and for that I am sorry, but I must admit I am getting a little weary.  I’ve covered a lot of ground on this trip so far (almost 2600 miles) and I am starting to tire of the road.  For this summer anyway.  Next summer there will be no international travel for me – just thousands of miles across the USA. So, until tomorrow, or next year, whatever the case may be…

A Day Without a National Park

Okay, so I went to a national monument so that counts for half a point.  Maybe ¾  of a point since it featured Teddy Roosevelt, the man who gave the NPS the blessing of the federal government.

Today I dallied.  I slept in.  I updated my blog at a leisurely pace.  I checked out of the Bullock at 1020am.  Scandalous.  I lollygagged all over town.  Then it was time to get down to business.  A bus tour of town and a trip up to Mt. Moriah Cemetery to see Wild Bill’s and Calamity Jane’s graves was the first order of business.  God bless the bus driver.  He tried so very hard to get me to interact with him/the group. So very very hard.  In appreciation for his efforts I only visibly rolled my eyes at him once. 

Here is the thing about Wild Bill and Calamity Jane.  There is no evidence that they were ever a couple.  Most historians say they barely knew each other.  They just happened to arrive in Deadwood on the same wagon train.  After his death, Calamity saw a golden opportunity for a little self-promotion and Wild West lore was born.  In fact, the two are so tied together now in the popular imagination that when she died many years later, they buried her next to him.  Which is just one of the many little pieces of trivia about Wild Bill’s final resting place.  His body has also been moved once, and they have had to replace the headstone/statue at his grave at least twice due to vandalism.  It is now fenced off.  It is also littered with cards and coins.  Gamblers leave money for good luck which is funny because if the series Deadwood is near factual on this particular account, he wasn’t much of a card player.  I left a quarter because it seemed more appropriate than flowers.

After the tour it was time to play some slots.  You see, the town of Deadwood is Vegas for the cowboys with Harley’s set.  The façade of the town is completely restored Victorian architecture and the first floor of every store front on Main St. is either a saloon, gambling hall, or souvenir shop.  The upper stories are restaurants.  There is memorabilia on the walls of every bar, to the point that the No. 10 Saloon bills itself as the “Only museum in the world with a bar”.  Even Kevin Costner has a place here.  In fact he owns a bus tour company.  Here is why the idea that the most lawless town in the west has become one big casino shouldn’t make you sad – gambling money is the only thing that saved the town.  And it always kind of was a casino, they just look fancier now.  You see back in the early days of Deadwood there were (and I could be misremembering, but this is close) 53 gambling halls and 35 saloons in town.  Town is about 3 blocks long.   At one very early point there  were about 200 men in town and 16 women.  Five of the women were married, the others were “soiled doves”.  The last house of ill repute closed in Deadwood in 1980.  It is now a souvenir shop.

I made my way to the Gem (now a part of the Mineral Palace) and put my dollar in the penny slot video poker machine and played for about 15 minutes.  I took my voucher for $5.01 to the cashier, collected my winnings and quit while I was ahead.  Upstairs for a little buffalo stew and then it was time to head on out. .to see a mountain about some heads. 

It was Rushmore time.  Quick – who can tell me which four presidents are on Rushmore?  Well, two are super easy no brainers.  Washington and Lincoln.  Of course they are on a National Monument.  Not including them would be like leaving Ricky Martin of a Menudo monument.  The other two?  Come on…you guys know this.  Jefferson and Teddy R.  Jefferson was kind of the DaVinci of American presidents, so I guess it is cool he slid right on in.  Teddy?  Well, he was friends with the sculptor which put him over the edge in the popularity pool, kind of the Miss Congeniality of Rushmore.  I personally think he deserves it.  Again, he gave the greenlight to the National Parks.  Who do you think manages Mt. Rushmore?  If you said the Bureau of Land Management stop reading this blog right now.

At Mt. Rushmore you can see the mountain as you drive up.  You can walk to the “grand terrace” and see it from a middle distance, and if you take a pretty simple hike you can get a photo right up their noses.  I chose d) all of the above.

That was my last official sightseeing event in South Dakota.  Next up is Wyoming.  Now, I have previously stated that Utah is the most beautiful state.  The state that I would drive through every summer if time, space, and cash allowed.  Utah is the hot boy with the motorcycle in high school.  South Dakota is the boy next door: less flashy, but aesthetically pleasing once you take the time to look.  I suggest you all take the time to look.

Menonites, mullets and missiles! Oh, my!

Okay, so the Mennonites, referred to above were from yesterday’s national park not today’s but I needed another M.  Plus the devotee in question was a 5 year old in a modest bonnet and pigtails rocking some killer shades so I had to give her a shout out somewhere. 

Today was a glorious day.  Why?  Was it due to the closeness of last night’s campsite to my first destination of the day?  Was it due to all of the Timothy Olyphant daydreams I have had since booking a night in Deadwood?  Was it due to getting to check off two national parks from my list in one day?  Nope.  It was because I only had to drive in one state today.  ONE!  I think I even put less than 300 miles on the car today.  Inconceivable!  (And yes, all of those other things did add to the good day.)

I covered Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks today and did something I haven’t gotten to do much of on this trip – got out of the car and walked around.  Most of the other parks have been “drive around me” parks or had really long trails that just did not fit into my schedule.  Today’s parks were short and sweet visits to the land of erosion.  The Badlands look as though someone tried to imagine what was missing from the Grand Canyon and then sculpted it out of a gravel pile.  You feel like if you touch the formations they will just fall apart and blow away.  The truth is, though you can’t break them on your own, they are eroding at an alarming rate.  While nearby Mt. Rushmore erodes 1/10 inch every 1,000 years, the US Geological Survey marker sunk in the 1950’s had to be replaced because the rock it was in had eroded to the point that it had sunk a foot.  One foot in 50-ish years is pretty crazy.  The flip side of my day was cave dwelling.  Where Lehmann Caves in Great Basin was “decorated” all over with formations to the point you couldn’t really see the cave walls, the Wind Cave is virtually bare.  It is Pocahontas to Great Basin’s Marie Antoinette. 

I do feel a bit sorry for Badlands.  You see I shortchanged that park greatly and I really should visit it again someday.  You see, I found out the Minuteman Missile Silo was just next door and so I had to go see it.  Do I need to explain why?  It has missile in the title for goodness sake.  Missile!

There was also a lot of wildlife in my day today.  Between Wind Cave, a prairie dog themed souvenir shack just outside Badlands,  and Custer State Park there were an awful lot of animals in my day today.  I fed some prairie dogs, watched bison lounging in a picnic pavilion and scared the bejesus out of an antelope and her baby I have learned how to spot an animal in the wild.  It is the same concept as finding a fresh kill in the Serengeti.  Just look for the circling buzzards and go where they go.  When in a national park with no real rock formations anytime a person has pulled over  to the side of the road it is usually due to a big game sighting. 

Crazy Horse Memorial was my last non-Deadwood stop of the day and it was very much worth the time.  The four dollars for the bus ride from the visitors center to the base of the statue was money well spent even if the bus driver did tell the most God awful jokes.  There was even a mountain goat sighting .  The bus driver pulled over and told us where to look.  You would think that the 8 military men in BDUs would have been able to figure that out themselves but noooo. 

Now I am currently typing this as I lie in bed, ready for a good night’s sleep that won’t end at 5am.  It’s been a long day.  I am sleeping in a room that is quite possibly haunted.  I am halfway through my trip.  I have caught up on my journaling.  There is no reason in the world that I shouldn’t be sleeping right now.

And so I will leave you with this one final image:  Driving through Custer State Park…on a Harley…portly man…silver mullet waving in the wind…sunlight glinting off his un-helmeted head…the American Dream.

Rocky Mountan High

After an all too brief nap at the oh so luxurious Days Inn of Silverthorne (4 hours is too few to call an actual night’s sleep) I was off to Rocky Mountain National Park.  I was in a bit of a mood already for the day thinking that I was about 15 minutes behind schedule and after arriving at the hotel a good three hours late I was getting tired of being behind.  This is how I inadvertently watched the sunrise.  You see, I wasn’t three hours late to my hotel.  I was two hours late.  It was just that some jokester had decided to set the clock in my room ahead an extra hour.  It is unfair to mess with the clocks in hotels.  Either a guest is tired when checking in and will wearily just accept it and dock themselves the time to sleep OR a guest is there for a little illicit behavior and will rush.  Either way it is definitely unsportsmanlike behavior.

How did I find out what time it actually was?  Not from the radio – I was listening to a little historical chick lit book on tape with some bodice ripping undertones.  From my phone?  Nope – set to manual reset, no instant updates for me.  Luddite.  I found out the good old fashioned way.  While standing outside the Visitor Center shooting dagger looks at the staff inside who had failed to open the center on time (by my watch) a volunteer finally came over and set me on the right path.  At this point I decided to accept the loss of an hour of sleep time and look at it as an added half hour of cushion time to eat breakfast and read the guidebook entry on the park.  “Wait, that math doesn’t quite…oh, you were waiting outside the visitor center for an half hour before someone filled you in…”  Yup.

The park is gorgeous and has a few special points of interest to National Park trivia dorks.  Or American road trip dorks.  1) It has the highest continuous paved highway in the US (or possibly the world) running through its alpine tundra section. Over 12,000 feet up.  2) One of its visitor centers (there are 5 or so in the park) is the highest one in the National Park system.  It is called The Island in the Clouds and it bests the House of the Sun (at Haleakala) by over a 1,000 feet.  3) The water pipes at Island in the Clouds freeze over during winter.  Which lasts apparently until July as the pipes were still frozen yesterday necessitating use of drafty backwoods outhouse style toilet across the parking lot. 

The park is really beautiful and it was fun to trek across the top of a snowbank and look at the barely exposed signs at your feet.  Standing on top of 3 feet of snow near the top of a mountain is not a bad way to spend the morning in the middle of June.  Much more delightful than the same feat in February when it would just be depressing. 

After I had my fill of snow, mountains, and sheep warnings (but no sightings) it was time to head out.  I managed to squeeze in a little visit to the hotel where Stephen King wrote The Shining.  It is not that I am a fan of that book per se but when you are faced with the opportunity to touch a piece of pop culture history like that I find it almost impossible to resist.  And really, I had 8 more hours of driving ahead of me, let me have a little creepy thrill.

Once I left Colorado behind it was nothing but miles of miles of nothing but miles and miles of Wyoming and South Dakota.  Like Texas but with more greenery.  I had about 500 miles of driving to do between Rocky Mountain and Interior, South Dakota and I did 75 the whole way.  What surprised me is that during the drive I barely saw a town or another car.  How can states so big have so few people?

I made it to my campsite with 12 minutes to spare.  Right on time.

[ed. note - I am behind schedule for the morning (of course) so I am not re-reading this.  If I find it terrible tonight I will actually take the time to edit it properly.  Or I will erase it and we will all pretend there was no post.]