Woke up and surfed the net for a bit. Took my time. Starting to feel a tad sick. Hope its just a quick something or nothing at all. Maybe too much soda and shitty fast food. ??? Once I got going, I headed down towards Boise State University to check out the stadium and the campus. I stopped for gas on the way, I almost stopped at Jack in the Box to get some lunch, but I decided to wait. Probably the best decision of the day. I drove closer to the campus and saw a cajun place on the side of the road. It was called Chef Roland's Cajun Cuisine and BBQ. I basically screeched around the corner to pull in. None of the open signs were on, but a voice from inside yelled to come in. It was Chef Roland. He said he had just forgot to turn them on. He was quite the character. I was the only one there for most of my meal and we talked the whole time. He was a Vietnam vet who went to culinary school and moved to Boise to take a job. Eventually he started a food cart, and now runs this place. He was eager to have me and was just a great guy, offering me extras and larger portions. I took half of it home. The first course was 4 cheese mac and cheese. It might have been the best I've had. I think it had ricotta in it, that was what made it. Then, he gave me a sample of jambalaya, which I didn't order, but he wanted me to have anyway. It was great, too. Then came the sausage gumbo with a hush puppy. The sausage was perfectly cooked and the gumbo perfectly seasoned. The hush puppy I think was cornbread, with a crunchy outside and moist center. Mmm, Mmmm. Then, my actual entree. The crawfish etoufee came out and was phenomenal! I couldn't eat barely any of it, and added key lime pie on top of that. It was probably the best meal of the trip. I can't say for sure because I've eaten pretty well. I'm surprised I made it out of there without having to take a nap.
I went down to BSU and drove through campus on my way to the stadium. There were soo many bikes and skateboards, it was really cool. It made sense there, though. The campus was flat and not too big. Their field is unique there because it is blue. There have been rumors that they have to cover it when they're not playing because birds think it is a lake. Understandable, too, because Boise is what may be considered high desert. It reminded me of Phoenix. Dry and hot and brown. The field was not covered though. There was the women's track team working out on it, and the band was there for a bit as well. I took some pictures, then had an idea to walk around, find out if there was a photography program and see if they would blow off my image sensor dust or at least tell me a good place to go. On the way there, there was a bunch of interesting stuff going on. There was a class of special needs students playing some version of handball, soccer, and/or lacrosse. I also saw a man with those new shoes with the toes built in and asked him how he liked them. He said they were great. He runs in them and he says he gets a better workout, the only drawback is the smell with no socks, but we decided he could probably get the toes-in socks as well.
On the second floor of the liberal arts building was the photography classes. I couldn't find any teachers, but one of the students directed me to Idaho Photo in the mall. I walked around the building looking at the art hung up on the walls for awhile, then headed to the mall. I got a little lost and called the place, the guy was very helpful and told me the way. I got to the store and he said I didn't want to blow compressed air on it, but took a hand pump air puffer and blew it off, then he checked the photo he took after that on the computer to see if the spot was gone. On top of that he refused any money and wished me luck on my trip. Eugene 0, Boise 1. What a great experience. By this time it was about 4 pm, and I thought I'd push through to Jackson, WY, so I had to bolt.
Pretty boring drive the whole way. Around Pocatello and Idaho Falls it finally started to get a little landscape going and then it was dark on me. And just like the night previous, that was when the drive got interesting too. Winding roads, ascending and descending the mountains, pitch black. Kinda fun. More construction. I hate construction but I love smooth roads. What to do. Pulled into Jackson, looks like an awesome little mountain town just as I have heard. Jackson is just south of both Grand Teton NP and Yellowstone NP. The forecast is 80 for the high and mid to low 30s for the low. I think I'm going to go to Yellowstone first, maybe do 2 days of hiking and camping and then maybe 1 day in GTNP. My thought process is that I wanna see Yellowstone more, so I wanna do that before the weekenders arrive and flood the trails and geysers and such. Dunno. We'll see. Tired though, and my nose is still slightly stuffed and runny, and my throat a bit scratchy. Still hoping it passes. Please. Goodnight.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 18 – Bend, OR – Boise, ID – September 28, 2010
Woke up early when the sun poured in the window, brushed my teeth in the parking lot and went into Wal-Mart to buy a few things and some breakfast. Headed back the road I came to check out Lava Lands Park. I pulled in, the visitor center was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I just went down to a trailhead and started a 1.5 mile roundtrip hike to Benham Falls. There was a french family hiking behind me and I said Bonjour to the little boy who seemed enthralled with me. He smiled. And so did the mom. Didn't understand a word they said to each other, but we had a bond. The falls weren't really impressive as far as height or anything, but there was a really cool whirlpool and they got up to a really good speed. Looked like they would be really fun to go white water rafting on or something.
Got out of that park and went north to find Black Butte. I had a beer earlier on the trip that told the story of a volcanic butte with a river coming out of it from under former lava flows. I had to find it since it was only about 40 miles away. Went through a couple towns and thought I was pretty close so I thought I'd get gas on my way out of town after the hike. It was kind of hard to find, so I drove around a little, got some advice from a small store, and decided to do a small hike to the headwaters of Metolius River, the one that comes out of the butte. It was pretty cool, the best part of the hike was when one guy told me the wrong direction, and I just went the wrong way down the river for awhile. I talked to some people along the way, saw a guy fly fishing and catch two fish while I was watching, and got some nice pictures. After the headwaters, I followed the map to find the hike to the summit of Black Butte.
The roads had names like 1120, 1430, etc. so I knew they'd be probably gravel or something, but I wasn't expecting basically like red tree bark shavings and rocks the whole way. It was fun, but I was worried about my tires a couple times, also by this point my gas tank is about on E. But I get to the hike and it says its only 2 miles, so I set off. It was pretty steep, though. I only saw two groups of people come down as I went up, and I was the only one on top when I got there. Evidently, Black Butte has been used as a fire lookout station for over 100 years. They still have all three buildings on the top of the mountain, and the view was incredible. There are a good 4-5 mountains around and there was a controlled forest burn going on in the distance as well. I sat and ate some canned Beefaroni and had a cookie at the top before I headed back down to the car.
The gas light came on almost immediately and I tried to use neutral most of the way down the mountain. I went about 4 miles without using drive at all! Was getting worried about running out of gas, but then I saw a sign for a Chevron in ½ mile. Sigh of relief. Let the gas man pump my mandatory full service gas and punched in Boise in the GPS. GPS said 8 hours. I laughed. I love challenging my GPS's estimated time of arrival. I speed a little bit, not much anymore. I once did about 100 mph for about 3 hours straight from St. Louis to Omaha. My new edited speeding technique is 7-9 miles above the speed limit. Cops usually don't pull you over unless you're going 10 over. Anyway, I stopped about 4 times for a total of about an hour, including a disgusting Taco Bell dinner, and I still beat the GPS by two hours. Crossed into mountain time, so I arrived at my Motel 6 around midnight. I am beat. Gonna have to peace out if I wanna get up at a decent hour.....
Got out of that park and went north to find Black Butte. I had a beer earlier on the trip that told the story of a volcanic butte with a river coming out of it from under former lava flows. I had to find it since it was only about 40 miles away. Went through a couple towns and thought I was pretty close so I thought I'd get gas on my way out of town after the hike. It was kind of hard to find, so I drove around a little, got some advice from a small store, and decided to do a small hike to the headwaters of Metolius River, the one that comes out of the butte. It was pretty cool, the best part of the hike was when one guy told me the wrong direction, and I just went the wrong way down the river for awhile. I talked to some people along the way, saw a guy fly fishing and catch two fish while I was watching, and got some nice pictures. After the headwaters, I followed the map to find the hike to the summit of Black Butte.
The roads had names like 1120, 1430, etc. so I knew they'd be probably gravel or something, but I wasn't expecting basically like red tree bark shavings and rocks the whole way. It was fun, but I was worried about my tires a couple times, also by this point my gas tank is about on E. But I get to the hike and it says its only 2 miles, so I set off. It was pretty steep, though. I only saw two groups of people come down as I went up, and I was the only one on top when I got there. Evidently, Black Butte has been used as a fire lookout station for over 100 years. They still have all three buildings on the top of the mountain, and the view was incredible. There are a good 4-5 mountains around and there was a controlled forest burn going on in the distance as well. I sat and ate some canned Beefaroni and had a cookie at the top before I headed back down to the car.
The gas light came on almost immediately and I tried to use neutral most of the way down the mountain. I went about 4 miles without using drive at all! Was getting worried about running out of gas, but then I saw a sign for a Chevron in ½ mile. Sigh of relief. Let the gas man pump my mandatory full service gas and punched in Boise in the GPS. GPS said 8 hours. I laughed. I love challenging my GPS's estimated time of arrival. I speed a little bit, not much anymore. I once did about 100 mph for about 3 hours straight from St. Louis to Omaha. My new edited speeding technique is 7-9 miles above the speed limit. Cops usually don't pull you over unless you're going 10 over. Anyway, I stopped about 4 times for a total of about an hour, including a disgusting Taco Bell dinner, and I still beat the GPS by two hours. Crossed into mountain time, so I arrived at my Motel 6 around midnight. I am beat. Gonna have to peace out if I wanna get up at a decent hour.....
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 17 – Portland, OR – Bend, OR – September 27, 2010
Woke up to the sound of construction equipment outside Kalie's apartment. They are redoing a sports field behind her building. No bother, though, I went back to sleep and woke up for a second more to tell Kalie goodbye as she went to work. Matt didn't have to work, so I got up around 10 and took a little more time to get ready. Got online, facebooked a bit, showered, then I reorganized the whole car and got everything off the top and inside the vehicle.
Decided to go to Eugene, OR where the University of Oregon is. The Ducks are really good this year, so I thought I'd look around the stadium and sports center. The band was warming up, I got right on the field, and it was a beautiful day. I got my oil changed in downtown Eugene, got a sandwich and soup combo at a local place called Erinn's bistro. It was small and unrefined, but it was good and cheap. I stopped at an auto parts store and got some new windshield wipers and put them on, then I called some camera shops to see if they could puff some compressed air on my image sensor to clean it off because I noticed a spot on some pictures I loaded onto my computer the night before. One place had their repair guy on vacation, and the other place said he had to put some liquid on it as well and it would be like an hour because he had other customers. I called bullshit on that. I've only had this done done like 5 times before. You don't need liquid and it takes about 4 seconds to do, I don't think I've ever even been charged for it. He just wanted money. I would've gladly given him like 5 bucks just to puff it, but not when he's trying to squeeze me. I told him to stick it where the sun don't shine and headed out of town to get toward Crater Lake.
Drove through a couple cool little towns on the way, and I started realizing that I would have to book it to make it by sundown. Of course there was construction, and the way there was very windy mountain roads. But I got in a little pack with a CR-V and a Rav-4 that were probably thinking the same way as me, and we rocked it. Doing 65-70 through windy roads for about 50 miles. I didn't make it for the perfect light, but I got there just after. There was still really good light around the west rim and the sunset was awesome. It was amazing! I think I was the only one in the park, and I stayed for over an hour until it was completely dark. I think I could see every star in the universe. I've been to other remote places at night, but I never remember having seen this many. I just looked up in awe for minutes. I tried to capture them on camera, but I haven't checked how they came out yet. I had the shutter open for 2 minutes on a couple shots, so it should have gotten something cool. If that wasn't enough, all the stars were reflected in the lake at night as well. If I spaced out just right, it looked like there was like a branch in front of me(the mountain and its reflection) and all the rest up and down were stars. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
My GPS was having a heck of a time maintaining a signal on the way down, and it still was. That led me to have a pretty inconsistent speed the whole way there, because one thing I have really been relying on it for in the mountains and at night especially, is the sharpness of upcoming curves. It lets me know if I can go into it at the same speed, or if I have to slow down. It also tried to lead me down a road that didn't exist, so I spent a little extra time in Crater Lake NP. After that, I high tailed it to Bend, OR, where I couldn't find the rest area I had been looking for, so I parked and slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot with about 10 other campers. Looked like they needed a rest area to me.
Decided to go to Eugene, OR where the University of Oregon is. The Ducks are really good this year, so I thought I'd look around the stadium and sports center. The band was warming up, I got right on the field, and it was a beautiful day. I got my oil changed in downtown Eugene, got a sandwich and soup combo at a local place called Erinn's bistro. It was small and unrefined, but it was good and cheap. I stopped at an auto parts store and got some new windshield wipers and put them on, then I called some camera shops to see if they could puff some compressed air on my image sensor to clean it off because I noticed a spot on some pictures I loaded onto my computer the night before. One place had their repair guy on vacation, and the other place said he had to put some liquid on it as well and it would be like an hour because he had other customers. I called bullshit on that. I've only had this done done like 5 times before. You don't need liquid and it takes about 4 seconds to do, I don't think I've ever even been charged for it. He just wanted money. I would've gladly given him like 5 bucks just to puff it, but not when he's trying to squeeze me. I told him to stick it where the sun don't shine and headed out of town to get toward Crater Lake.
Drove through a couple cool little towns on the way, and I started realizing that I would have to book it to make it by sundown. Of course there was construction, and the way there was very windy mountain roads. But I got in a little pack with a CR-V and a Rav-4 that were probably thinking the same way as me, and we rocked it. Doing 65-70 through windy roads for about 50 miles. I didn't make it for the perfect light, but I got there just after. There was still really good light around the west rim and the sunset was awesome. It was amazing! I think I was the only one in the park, and I stayed for over an hour until it was completely dark. I think I could see every star in the universe. I've been to other remote places at night, but I never remember having seen this many. I just looked up in awe for minutes. I tried to capture them on camera, but I haven't checked how they came out yet. I had the shutter open for 2 minutes on a couple shots, so it should have gotten something cool. If that wasn't enough, all the stars were reflected in the lake at night as well. If I spaced out just right, it looked like there was like a branch in front of me(the mountain and its reflection) and all the rest up and down were stars. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
My GPS was having a heck of a time maintaining a signal on the way down, and it still was. That led me to have a pretty inconsistent speed the whole way there, because one thing I have really been relying on it for in the mountains and at night especially, is the sharpness of upcoming curves. It lets me know if I can go into it at the same speed, or if I have to slow down. It also tried to lead me down a road that didn't exist, so I spent a little extra time in Crater Lake NP. After that, I high tailed it to Bend, OR, where I couldn't find the rest area I had been looking for, so I parked and slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot with about 10 other campers. Looked like they needed a rest area to me.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 16 – Portland, OR – September 26, 2010
I woke up with a fairly decent hangover and just laid around watching football for awhile. Got some McD breakfast, drank a bunch of water, and used the toilet about three times, and requested a later checkout before I left to find my friend Kalie's apartment, where she lives with her boyfriend, Matt, and we were gonna hang out for the day. Her place was only about a mile away. I said hellos, caught up, shot the shit for awhile, and started a load of laundry. We looked through my pictures and watched some NFL for awhile, until our laundry was done.
They suggested a wing place up the street for lunch, called Fire on the Mountain. It was good, I got some blue cheese stuffed fried mushrooms and 12 wings with 2 sauces. I believe they were Spicy Lime Cilantro, and Bourbon BBQ, or something. I got a horchata to wash it down and ate myself to a bloated belly. It was good though. After that we drove around, did a few errands and went to the internationally known rose garden. Portland is called the Rose City, and this place showed why. We didn't even go through half of it, and I have way too many rose pictures on my camera, but it was impressive. After that we went on a short nature hike near this mansion and strolled around the grounds and saw some of the more breathtaking views of the city.
Then we wanted to come back home and relax a bit. We watched the late football game, had some more good conversation, and chilled. Kalie and Matt went to Target and I bonded with Oscar, their Labradoodle mutt for awhile and watched the Jets hold on to a victory over the Dolphins. Pretty good game though. They got back from the store, and we headed out to get some Thai food. I was told a few times that Portland had great Thai food and I was not disappointed. Kalie's friends had recommended a place called Pok Pok, and we waited about 10 minutes to get sat.
Our server seemed like a stoner, but knew his stuff, and was helpful. I had a glass of red wine with dinner and this place was a family style dining place, so Matt and I picked out three dishes to split. Kalie wasn't really hungry, so she just picked a little. We got pork skewers with pork fat, a peanut sauce, and grilled bread, we got boar collar in a spicy red pepper sauce with iced mustard greens to clear the palette, and we got ribs. All were great, my favorite was the boar. It was a nice end to a nice relaxing day, and I'm glad I got to see Kalie again, and get to know Matt. Thinking about going down to Eugene and Crater Lake tomorrow, but maybe Bend, OR or just head east to Boise. Not sure yet. Night.
They suggested a wing place up the street for lunch, called Fire on the Mountain. It was good, I got some blue cheese stuffed fried mushrooms and 12 wings with 2 sauces. I believe they were Spicy Lime Cilantro, and Bourbon BBQ, or something. I got a horchata to wash it down and ate myself to a bloated belly. It was good though. After that we drove around, did a few errands and went to the internationally known rose garden. Portland is called the Rose City, and this place showed why. We didn't even go through half of it, and I have way too many rose pictures on my camera, but it was impressive. After that we went on a short nature hike near this mansion and strolled around the grounds and saw some of the more breathtaking views of the city.
Then we wanted to come back home and relax a bit. We watched the late football game, had some more good conversation, and chilled. Kalie and Matt went to Target and I bonded with Oscar, their Labradoodle mutt for awhile and watched the Jets hold on to a victory over the Dolphins. Pretty good game though. They got back from the store, and we headed out to get some Thai food. I was told a few times that Portland had great Thai food and I was not disappointed. Kalie's friends had recommended a place called Pok Pok, and we waited about 10 minutes to get sat.
Our server seemed like a stoner, but knew his stuff, and was helpful. I had a glass of red wine with dinner and this place was a family style dining place, so Matt and I picked out three dishes to split. Kalie wasn't really hungry, so she just picked a little. We got pork skewers with pork fat, a peanut sauce, and grilled bread, we got boar collar in a spicy red pepper sauce with iced mustard greens to clear the palette, and we got ribs. All were great, my favorite was the boar. It was a nice end to a nice relaxing day, and I'm glad I got to see Kalie again, and get to know Matt. Thinking about going down to Eugene and Crater Lake tomorrow, but maybe Bend, OR or just head east to Boise. Not sure yet. Night.
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 15 – Portland, OR – September 25, 2010
College football and check out some of the city day. We heard about a farmer's/art market going on downtown, so we got on MAX and went to see what was up. Just walked around for blocks and looked at all the shops, homeless people, and other weird sights to see. Don't remember if I mentioned it but Portland, probably the weirdest style place I've been. It seems as if 50% of the population wakes up and says, “what is the weirdest thing I own to wear?” and wears it. It's fun, though. The market was really cool, there was a band, the thing was like 4 city blocks long, down by the river and had all types of goods, food, art, and more. I had a burrito for lunch and drank a free Dr. Pepper from the park, and we walked a mile or so to find a sports bar to watch some football.
Went through a few more park areas and another area that looked exactly like Omaha's Old Market area, before we reached the On Deck Sports Bar and Grill. It was an upscale sports bar, with many TVs. There was a large group of FSU fans who evidently go every week to this bar and made it fun. I felt bad just ordering water and sitting there watching TV for free so I ordered a beer and choked it down. The FSU fans got us thinking of how networked the Husker nation is, and if there was a Husker bar in town. The game was pay-per-view, even in Nebraska, so we didn't even think we were going to be able to watch the game, but with a little internet search we found a bar that was going to have the game.
Tom and I both set our GPSs to the address we found and headed towards the Refectory. It was evident after a few miles that our two units had very different ideas about where we were going, so I asked him if he knew what he was doing. He said yes, so I allowed it. We ended up 15 miles away from where we needed to be in Vancouver, WA. At least we made it into one Vancouver on the trip! After that we listened to my GPS and drove up to the Refectory. Didn't really know what to expect, but we walk in, and it look likes a fairly nice steak house or something. Come around the corner, and there was, I shit you not, probably 300 Husker fans all in red, with all the TVs in the place on the game! Pretty darn cool. It was probably cooler than a lot of bars in town on game day. I noticed the special was a Runza, and there were $2 Bud Light drafts, and I got to work. The “runzas” weren't really that close. They were about half the size of a real one, and they had potatoes in them and no cabbage. It tasted more like a La Casa potato pizza than a runza, but props for trying. There are no Runza restaurants in Oregon, they just made them here b/c that's what they serve at Memorial stadium. The game was pretty bad. We should have blown SDSU out, but it was closer than anyone thought. We won, but looking forward, it doesn't bode well. This place was so Husker that the girl drawing the raffle tickets' name was Lincoln. The BL drafts went down like water. I got a pretty good buzz pretty quick, and when we went outside and it was still light, I knew I was in trouble for the night.
It was Tom's last night of vacation, so he wanted to hit the town. He forced me at gunpoint into another strip club, I had some nice conversations with some nice young women, really, the bartender was from La Vista, and was into Graphic Design, too. Got outta there, and went to a couple other bars she suggested. One looked like a biker bar, but was just a regular weirdo bar and the other was a pool hall called Rialto. Neither was very impressive, and I felt pretty intoxicated, so I went back to the room while Tom scampered off to another club. No idea what time he got in, but his flight was at like 6am and I'm assuming he made it at this point. He took the MAX, and let me sleep in a little.
Went through a few more park areas and another area that looked exactly like Omaha's Old Market area, before we reached the On Deck Sports Bar and Grill. It was an upscale sports bar, with many TVs. There was a large group of FSU fans who evidently go every week to this bar and made it fun. I felt bad just ordering water and sitting there watching TV for free so I ordered a beer and choked it down. The FSU fans got us thinking of how networked the Husker nation is, and if there was a Husker bar in town. The game was pay-per-view, even in Nebraska, so we didn't even think we were going to be able to watch the game, but with a little internet search we found a bar that was going to have the game.
Tom and I both set our GPSs to the address we found and headed towards the Refectory. It was evident after a few miles that our two units had very different ideas about where we were going, so I asked him if he knew what he was doing. He said yes, so I allowed it. We ended up 15 miles away from where we needed to be in Vancouver, WA. At least we made it into one Vancouver on the trip! After that we listened to my GPS and drove up to the Refectory. Didn't really know what to expect, but we walk in, and it look likes a fairly nice steak house or something. Come around the corner, and there was, I shit you not, probably 300 Husker fans all in red, with all the TVs in the place on the game! Pretty darn cool. It was probably cooler than a lot of bars in town on game day. I noticed the special was a Runza, and there were $2 Bud Light drafts, and I got to work. The “runzas” weren't really that close. They were about half the size of a real one, and they had potatoes in them and no cabbage. It tasted more like a La Casa potato pizza than a runza, but props for trying. There are no Runza restaurants in Oregon, they just made them here b/c that's what they serve at Memorial stadium. The game was pretty bad. We should have blown SDSU out, but it was closer than anyone thought. We won, but looking forward, it doesn't bode well. This place was so Husker that the girl drawing the raffle tickets' name was Lincoln. The BL drafts went down like water. I got a pretty good buzz pretty quick, and when we went outside and it was still light, I knew I was in trouble for the night.
It was Tom's last night of vacation, so he wanted to hit the town. He forced me at gunpoint into another strip club, I had some nice conversations with some nice young women, really, the bartender was from La Vista, and was into Graphic Design, too. Got outta there, and went to a couple other bars she suggested. One looked like a biker bar, but was just a regular weirdo bar and the other was a pool hall called Rialto. Neither was very impressive, and I felt pretty intoxicated, so I went back to the room while Tom scampered off to another club. No idea what time he got in, but his flight was at like 6am and I'm assuming he made it at this point. He took the MAX, and let me sleep in a little.
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 14 – Portland, OR – September 24, 2010
Woke up, got some McD's breakfast (is this getting repetitive or what) and called the bank to basically get nothing done. They say I have to come in and fill out fraud paperwork to get some of the charges waived. Blah blah blah, whatever. I basically told her nicely that I was angry and the fees will eventually get waived, so why play these stupid games and waste my time. Oh well, though, nothing to really be done until the money is refunded back. Hopefully before I run out of money on my Discover card. Which isn't accepted at a lot of Oregon places. Sidenote: Oregon has 16% unemployment, there are bums everywhere! I've never seen anything like it! Also, full service gas stations are mandatory. No self service gas pumps, the station can get a $500 fine I guess.
Tom and I drove east on I-84 and got onto the Old highway area. The Columbia river gorge is well known for beauty and hikes and the Hood river area is one of the best places to wind surf and kite surf anywhere. We thought we'd need a little help to figure out what hike to do, and hopefully not get bad info like the angelina jolie ranger gave us before. We pulled off at a waterfall right off the road, it started with an M, I believe, but I'm too tired to look it back up right now. This place doubled as a National Forest Service information center and waterfall tourist attraction. I lied, I looked it up. It was Multnomah Falls. Very beautiful, with a bridge in the middle. We knew our hike would take awhile so we just shot some photos from the ground and called it good there. Anyway, we talked to the ranger, which again, was a beautiful, cool, young woman, and she recommended a hike that was 14 miles rountrip with several waterfalls along the way. The trail was called Eagle Creek and the destination on the trail was about 7 miles up and it was called Tunnel Falls.
It was a pretty good hike, only about 900 feet of elevation gain over 7 miles I believe, but a steady incline. Along the way was Punchbowl Falls and Loowit Falls, both were cool and unique. Punchbowl looked like water pouring out of a pitcher shaped like the Kool-Aid man was, and Loowit was a really flat wall of water like the ones in malls and stuff. The ascent was interesting as well, with really rocky parts, moos covered stones and trees, campsites along the trail, and we saw a blue and orange snake and a tadpole looking thing as well as some spiders and insects. Tunnel Falls was probably the coolest waterfall I've seen! It was awesome! The is literally a tunnel going behind the falls that you walk through, and the fall itself is very tall and has a lot of output. So beautiful. After some pics and standing there in awe, we started our descent. One of the few hikes either of us had done where the path up and down was the exact same. Usually, i've done a loop or taken another version of the trail or something. So we just high tailed it down. We stopped and sat by a smaller waterfall and ate a can a ravioli for lunch, but then booked it down the mountain. We made the whole 14 miles in about 5 hours. Pretty darn good time. So with the rest of our day decided to take the rest of the ranger's advice and go a bit further east to Hood River, OR. She said it was a cool mountain town and there were some good breweries.
By the time we got there, the tours had stopped for the day, but the tasting area/restaurant was open, so we had dinner. It was called Full Sail brewery. I ate a good andoullie sausage soup and had a Mediterranean hummus wrap with potato salad. It was really good. I tried three of their beers, Full Sail Amber, Session Black, and Sanctuary. We sat on the balcony outside and watched the sunset on the Columbia River. If I wasn't with a guy, it probably would have been a nice date place. But I was, so I just got a good buzz going and bought some souvenirs from the bar instead. We watched a little football at the bar and talked to guy working in Alaska who was on vacation by himself, and headed out. We decided the best course of action was to go back into Portland.
We got there and Tom wanted to try The Convention Center Inn, b/c the Motel 6 said it only had a smoking room left. Evidently there was a barbershop quartet convention at the center the next day. We pulled in and immediately got on the free rail service, called MAX, to downtown to have some drinks. Found a couple ok bars and went to the famous Voodoo Doughnut shop. I got a chocolate donut with chocolate frosting and cocoa puffs on top. Great snack. The next day we were by the place again and the line was down the block, so we had good timing and luck this night. Tom drug me into a strip club for a couple minutes before we called it a night, got back on MAX and got up to our room. It was gross. We didn't even wanna lay in the beds, so we got our money back and decided to risk it at the Motel 6 again. I am a huge Motel 6 proponent. I've stayed in many in the last couple years and they have a great standard and cheap rates pretty much everywhere you go. I've not been disappointed yet. We get there and the guy says they do have a non-smoking room now and we take it and pass out.
Tom and I drove east on I-84 and got onto the Old highway area. The Columbia river gorge is well known for beauty and hikes and the Hood river area is one of the best places to wind surf and kite surf anywhere. We thought we'd need a little help to figure out what hike to do, and hopefully not get bad info like the angelina jolie ranger gave us before. We pulled off at a waterfall right off the road, it started with an M, I believe, but I'm too tired to look it back up right now. This place doubled as a National Forest Service information center and waterfall tourist attraction. I lied, I looked it up. It was Multnomah Falls. Very beautiful, with a bridge in the middle. We knew our hike would take awhile so we just shot some photos from the ground and called it good there. Anyway, we talked to the ranger, which again, was a beautiful, cool, young woman, and she recommended a hike that was 14 miles rountrip with several waterfalls along the way. The trail was called Eagle Creek and the destination on the trail was about 7 miles up and it was called Tunnel Falls.
It was a pretty good hike, only about 900 feet of elevation gain over 7 miles I believe, but a steady incline. Along the way was Punchbowl Falls and Loowit Falls, both were cool and unique. Punchbowl looked like water pouring out of a pitcher shaped like the Kool-Aid man was, and Loowit was a really flat wall of water like the ones in malls and stuff. The ascent was interesting as well, with really rocky parts, moos covered stones and trees, campsites along the trail, and we saw a blue and orange snake and a tadpole looking thing as well as some spiders and insects. Tunnel Falls was probably the coolest waterfall I've seen! It was awesome! The is literally a tunnel going behind the falls that you walk through, and the fall itself is very tall and has a lot of output. So beautiful. After some pics and standing there in awe, we started our descent. One of the few hikes either of us had done where the path up and down was the exact same. Usually, i've done a loop or taken another version of the trail or something. So we just high tailed it down. We stopped and sat by a smaller waterfall and ate a can a ravioli for lunch, but then booked it down the mountain. We made the whole 14 miles in about 5 hours. Pretty darn good time. So with the rest of our day decided to take the rest of the ranger's advice and go a bit further east to Hood River, OR. She said it was a cool mountain town and there were some good breweries.
By the time we got there, the tours had stopped for the day, but the tasting area/restaurant was open, so we had dinner. It was called Full Sail brewery. I ate a good andoullie sausage soup and had a Mediterranean hummus wrap with potato salad. It was really good. I tried three of their beers, Full Sail Amber, Session Black, and Sanctuary. We sat on the balcony outside and watched the sunset on the Columbia River. If I wasn't with a guy, it probably would have been a nice date place. But I was, so I just got a good buzz going and bought some souvenirs from the bar instead. We watched a little football at the bar and talked to guy working in Alaska who was on vacation by himself, and headed out. We decided the best course of action was to go back into Portland.
We got there and Tom wanted to try The Convention Center Inn, b/c the Motel 6 said it only had a smoking room left. Evidently there was a barbershop quartet convention at the center the next day. We pulled in and immediately got on the free rail service, called MAX, to downtown to have some drinks. Found a couple ok bars and went to the famous Voodoo Doughnut shop. I got a chocolate donut with chocolate frosting and cocoa puffs on top. Great snack. The next day we were by the place again and the line was down the block, so we had good timing and luck this night. Tom drug me into a strip club for a couple minutes before we called it a night, got back on MAX and got up to our room. It was gross. We didn't even wanna lay in the beds, so we got our money back and decided to risk it at the Motel 6 again. I am a huge Motel 6 proponent. I've stayed in many in the last couple years and they have a great standard and cheap rates pretty much everywhere you go. I've not been disappointed yet. We get there and the guy says they do have a non-smoking room now and we take it and pass out.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 13 – Olympic NP -Portland, OR – September 23, 2010
Woke up at the oceanside campsite in the tent at about 5 am to some more rain, and some winds making the tent bend into me. It didn't sound too horrible though, and I was still warm, so it wasn't like the surprise I got at Glacier NP. I went back to bed, but really didn't sleep that well until I got up at about 8. Went down to beach and took in the sight, and then cooked some bacon, eggs, and toast on the stove I borrowed. It was delicious! Much better than the gas station food I've been snacking on. Anyway, it was raining, and Tom was a bit hungover from finishing a bottle and a half of wine the night before, so we headed down the road as soon as possible. We decided to head toward Oregon and get some extra time there before he flies out Sunday morning. The first area of note we reach is Aberdeen, WA, where Kurt Cobain grew up. So I did a little internet look up real quick and we went and saw his boyhood home. We needed gas and tried to go to the station that Kurt's father worked at, but it was gone. It has been about 25 years since he lived there so not a surprise a lot of things have changed.
Next stop was planned to be Astoria, OR, but we were on the 101, which goes all down the coast pretty much the whole way, so we saw some cool little beach towns we liked and pulled in to get some pictures and nature and what have you. We stopped in a little town called Seaview, and it was quite beautiful. You could drive down the beach if you desired, we did for a little bit, but as my car is questionable and the sand was a bit wet and deep, decided it wasn't the best idea. The sky was gorgeous, though, a huge wall of clouds was stacked up with a partially blue sky and about 50 seagulls just sitting about 50 yards away. I chased the birds into flight and created a really great picture, and after about 50 other pics there, we forged ahead.
Saw a really cool church on the side of the road just as the sun peeked out and got some great pics. Random remember: There are a lot of funny towns and names of things that strike you and you remember. This trip so far through Washington has had a Kitchen-Dick Road, and a town called Humptulips. Thought I should share. Anyways... After the church we arrived in the port town of Astoria, WA. This was where they shot the movie The Goonies, and I again retrieved some addresses from the internet. What did we ever do without the internet?? The drive in was beautiful, there was a huge bridge into town, and large boats in the harbor, a mess of sailboats in the marina, and the whole town just had a cool vibe. We drove to the location of Mikey's home in the Goonies and took some pictures. Evidently, the house was up for foreclosure and scheduled to be torn down, but a fan bought the house to make it her own. She has a sign in the drive to welcome fans and the internet said that she will even give free tours. We just took some pics and moved on, but it was neat. There was another group of kids there too, so we didn't feel like huge nerds, but I embrace my nerdiness, Tom kinda slinked off to the car when other people arrived.
After that we ate at The Ship Inn. A good looking fish place. I saw an old man who apparently had a #2 accident in his pants in the parking lot and knew it would be a good meal. I had a cup of clam chowder, excellent, and ordered a combination fish and chips with halibut, fresh, scallops, shrimp, cod, and an oyster. Pretty fantastic. I also had a Black Butte Porter, which is made in the middle of Oregon, and supposedly named after a real place. Black Butte is a volcanic butte with a stream running out of it and you can't tell where the source is because it is hidden under former lava flows. We then went to a thrift shop and I bought a local t-shirt for 2 bucks. Tom's idea. I may incorporate it into my travels. Cheap and good souvenirs. Stopped at a Ross clothing store for Tom to buy a hoodie, got some maps, and hit the gas station and continued down the coast until we reached Cannon Beach.
Looked ok from the 101, so we pulled in. It became the highlight of the day. We stumbled upon an awesome beach with huge rocks jutting out of the water. I began snapping photos immediately, and didn't stop for about an hour. No kidding. This place was great. It was overcast and the sky had no color at all, but the pictures were still great. There is one huge rock monolith, and several smaller varying sizes around it. As I got closer realized there were really cool rocks too. These were covered in mussels and clam and snails and things I know not the name of. Get closer and there are literally hundreds of live orange and purple and a couple red live starfish all over the beach. Just gorgeous! Words cannot describe. Probably top 10 beautiful places, and if there was a clear sky, who knows.
We thought we would leave and try and get to Tillamook before sundown, realized that was impossible, went maybe 10 miles down the road to try and get last light photos, but nothing really materialized. There was no sunset really, it was so overcast. Oh well, can't have a 100% awesome day, but we were close. We drove into Portland and got a Motel 6 in the middle of down town and got ready for the morning. Tom checked the weather, 81 and sunny with a 10% chance of precipitation in the Columbia River Gorge! We should get there in just over an hour, and I'll be able to hike in shorts! (fingers crossed) I have had a lot of rain on this trip. Should be a blessing if I see that. Got internet service and thought I would check my credit card to see how much I put on there for the trip so far to see if I needed to make a payment. Was still about 1000 away from my limit, but I thought I would check my bank account balance. I look and I am $375 overdrafted when I should have about $2000 in there! Arrgh! Looks as if someone has charged $2900 to the account in the last 5 days. The bank is closed, but I thought I'd check my other cards also in case it was some internet fraud or something and had access to multiple accounts. I check my Citi card and there has been $2500 in payments made to the card in the last 5 days. 20 minutes of being on the phone later, we decide to change my password and get ahold of the bank in the morning. I did not authorize any payments, but there was a $200 payment made and cancelled on the 14th, a $2000 payment made on the 19th, a $500 payment made on the 22nd, and a pending $400 payment made today, the 23rd. So weird, they said it was set up online, but I have never SCHEDULED a payment, I just go on and make a payment. And even if I did it by accident, they were all different amounts, weirdly spaced days of payment, one was canceled.... just strange. And if someone had access to my credit card OR bank account, why would anyone make a payment from account to another??? So strange. I changed my password, got the money refunded, and now I have to call the bank in the morning to do some more work on my savings protection and the overdraft fees. Yeah! I don't know, it's getting late and I am tired, so peace out. Until tomorrow.....
Next stop was planned to be Astoria, OR, but we were on the 101, which goes all down the coast pretty much the whole way, so we saw some cool little beach towns we liked and pulled in to get some pictures and nature and what have you. We stopped in a little town called Seaview, and it was quite beautiful. You could drive down the beach if you desired, we did for a little bit, but as my car is questionable and the sand was a bit wet and deep, decided it wasn't the best idea. The sky was gorgeous, though, a huge wall of clouds was stacked up with a partially blue sky and about 50 seagulls just sitting about 50 yards away. I chased the birds into flight and created a really great picture, and after about 50 other pics there, we forged ahead.
Saw a really cool church on the side of the road just as the sun peeked out and got some great pics. Random remember: There are a lot of funny towns and names of things that strike you and you remember. This trip so far through Washington has had a Kitchen-Dick Road, and a town called Humptulips. Thought I should share. Anyways... After the church we arrived in the port town of Astoria, WA. This was where they shot the movie The Goonies, and I again retrieved some addresses from the internet. What did we ever do without the internet?? The drive in was beautiful, there was a huge bridge into town, and large boats in the harbor, a mess of sailboats in the marina, and the whole town just had a cool vibe. We drove to the location of Mikey's home in the Goonies and took some pictures. Evidently, the house was up for foreclosure and scheduled to be torn down, but a fan bought the house to make it her own. She has a sign in the drive to welcome fans and the internet said that she will even give free tours. We just took some pics and moved on, but it was neat. There was another group of kids there too, so we didn't feel like huge nerds, but I embrace my nerdiness, Tom kinda slinked off to the car when other people arrived.
After that we ate at The Ship Inn. A good looking fish place. I saw an old man who apparently had a #2 accident in his pants in the parking lot and knew it would be a good meal. I had a cup of clam chowder, excellent, and ordered a combination fish and chips with halibut, fresh, scallops, shrimp, cod, and an oyster. Pretty fantastic. I also had a Black Butte Porter, which is made in the middle of Oregon, and supposedly named after a real place. Black Butte is a volcanic butte with a stream running out of it and you can't tell where the source is because it is hidden under former lava flows. We then went to a thrift shop and I bought a local t-shirt for 2 bucks. Tom's idea. I may incorporate it into my travels. Cheap and good souvenirs. Stopped at a Ross clothing store for Tom to buy a hoodie, got some maps, and hit the gas station and continued down the coast until we reached Cannon Beach.
Looked ok from the 101, so we pulled in. It became the highlight of the day. We stumbled upon an awesome beach with huge rocks jutting out of the water. I began snapping photos immediately, and didn't stop for about an hour. No kidding. This place was great. It was overcast and the sky had no color at all, but the pictures were still great. There is one huge rock monolith, and several smaller varying sizes around it. As I got closer realized there were really cool rocks too. These were covered in mussels and clam and snails and things I know not the name of. Get closer and there are literally hundreds of live orange and purple and a couple red live starfish all over the beach. Just gorgeous! Words cannot describe. Probably top 10 beautiful places, and if there was a clear sky, who knows.
We thought we would leave and try and get to Tillamook before sundown, realized that was impossible, went maybe 10 miles down the road to try and get last light photos, but nothing really materialized. There was no sunset really, it was so overcast. Oh well, can't have a 100% awesome day, but we were close. We drove into Portland and got a Motel 6 in the middle of down town and got ready for the morning. Tom checked the weather, 81 and sunny with a 10% chance of precipitation in the Columbia River Gorge! We should get there in just over an hour, and I'll be able to hike in shorts! (fingers crossed) I have had a lot of rain on this trip. Should be a blessing if I see that. Got internet service and thought I would check my credit card to see how much I put on there for the trip so far to see if I needed to make a payment. Was still about 1000 away from my limit, but I thought I would check my bank account balance. I look and I am $375 overdrafted when I should have about $2000 in there! Arrgh! Looks as if someone has charged $2900 to the account in the last 5 days. The bank is closed, but I thought I'd check my other cards also in case it was some internet fraud or something and had access to multiple accounts. I check my Citi card and there has been $2500 in payments made to the card in the last 5 days. 20 minutes of being on the phone later, we decide to change my password and get ahold of the bank in the morning. I did not authorize any payments, but there was a $200 payment made and cancelled on the 14th, a $2000 payment made on the 19th, a $500 payment made on the 22nd, and a pending $400 payment made today, the 23rd. So weird, they said it was set up online, but I have never SCHEDULED a payment, I just go on and make a payment. And even if I did it by accident, they were all different amounts, weirdly spaced days of payment, one was canceled.... just strange. And if someone had access to my credit card OR bank account, why would anyone make a payment from account to another??? So strange. I changed my password, got the money refunded, and now I have to call the bank in the morning to do some more work on my savings protection and the overdraft fees. Yeah! I don't know, it's getting late and I am tired, so peace out. Until tomorrow.....
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 12 – Seattle-Olympic NP – September 22, 2010
Woke up in the Motel 6 this morning and started getting everything together to pack up the car and get on our way to Olympic National Park. Went outside to start loading and I see that the back tire on the driver's side was flat. Whatever. Can't hold me down. We pumped up the tire with the handy dandy jump box we had on us, drove down the road to where Tom's iPhone told us to go. There was a little tire place like 3 miles away, the mexican guys working there barely spoke any english, but they got to work right away. Tom noticed a little coffee stand across the street and said that he thought a girl was serving coffee in a bikini top. Of course he had to check it out and I, thirsty for a smoothie, decided to tag along. It was a weird little sexy coffee shop where the girl wore lingerie and served you coffee. Pretty weird, I knew it was gonna be a good day when these things were already going on and it was only the first 30 minutes on the road. We crossed the street back to the tire shop, they were finishing up, we paid them $15 for the patch and were on our way again. After some breakfast at McD's, we hit the interstate.
After about 2 hours drive, we arrived at the ferry. It was a car ferry, $21 for two people. We lined up on the street, waited about 10 minutes and drove onto the ferry. This was my first car ferrym I was on a bicycle and person ferry in San Francisco a few years ago, but never a car one. It was really cool. There were a couple levels above the parking area to go sit, get food, play video games, etc. I went outside on the deck and took a bunch of pictures, and just really enjoyed the ride. It took about 30 minutes to get to Kingston, WA and from there we had about a two hour drive up a couple different highways and finally onto where the 101 begins. The 101 runs down the whole west coast to Mexico and is one of the most beautiful drives in the country. We turned off into the visitor center to get some advice as to a good day hike to do. The park ranger, who kinda looked like Angelina Jolie to me, suggested a route and the other ranger did also.
So we set off for a 30 minute drive to the trailhead at Hurricane Ridge. Got ourselves all geared up and set out on the hike. We were very disappointed. Evidently, they had not understood us or something, but we asked for a 3 hour, semi-challenging hike, and what we got was an asphalt covered path up a ridge for about .5 miles. There were 80 year olds and 3 year olds doing this hike, and they were currently constructing a new asphalt path, so it was loud and smelly, too. The one positive of the hike was the deer were almost tame enough to go touch, and since the hike was so short, we had a good amount of time where we didn't have to rush to get to our campsite before sundown.
Continued on the 101, stopped a few times for pictures and a gas station stop or two. We passed through the town of Forks, where they just shot the Twilight movie, and about 25 minutes later we come around the bend and the Pacific Ocean is staring us down. It was gorgeous. Expansive and rocky and just beautiful and calming. Our campsite was only another 20 miles, so we pulled into the Kalaloch campground and began driving through their lots to see if we could find a campsite next to the water. They were basically all taken, but there was one, E3, that was pretty darn close and we snagged that before anyone else could get their grubby little paws on it. We walked around the site and after setting up camp, it was about sundown, so we went down the road a bit to a lodge and took some sundown pictures and then high-tailed it back to the campsite and got some more from there.
Got back and started a fire and I cooked myself a couple brats on a skewer over the fire. Had a couple beers, sat by the fire, went down to the beach real quick and then went to bed.
After about 2 hours drive, we arrived at the ferry. It was a car ferry, $21 for two people. We lined up on the street, waited about 10 minutes and drove onto the ferry. This was my first car ferrym I was on a bicycle and person ferry in San Francisco a few years ago, but never a car one. It was really cool. There were a couple levels above the parking area to go sit, get food, play video games, etc. I went outside on the deck and took a bunch of pictures, and just really enjoyed the ride. It took about 30 minutes to get to Kingston, WA and from there we had about a two hour drive up a couple different highways and finally onto where the 101 begins. The 101 runs down the whole west coast to Mexico and is one of the most beautiful drives in the country. We turned off into the visitor center to get some advice as to a good day hike to do. The park ranger, who kinda looked like Angelina Jolie to me, suggested a route and the other ranger did also.
So we set off for a 30 minute drive to the trailhead at Hurricane Ridge. Got ourselves all geared up and set out on the hike. We were very disappointed. Evidently, they had not understood us or something, but we asked for a 3 hour, semi-challenging hike, and what we got was an asphalt covered path up a ridge for about .5 miles. There were 80 year olds and 3 year olds doing this hike, and they were currently constructing a new asphalt path, so it was loud and smelly, too. The one positive of the hike was the deer were almost tame enough to go touch, and since the hike was so short, we had a good amount of time where we didn't have to rush to get to our campsite before sundown.
Continued on the 101, stopped a few times for pictures and a gas station stop or two. We passed through the town of Forks, where they just shot the Twilight movie, and about 25 minutes later we come around the bend and the Pacific Ocean is staring us down. It was gorgeous. Expansive and rocky and just beautiful and calming. Our campsite was only another 20 miles, so we pulled into the Kalaloch campground and began driving through their lots to see if we could find a campsite next to the water. They were basically all taken, but there was one, E3, that was pretty darn close and we snagged that before anyone else could get their grubby little paws on it. We walked around the site and after setting up camp, it was about sundown, so we went down the road a bit to a lodge and took some sundown pictures and then high-tailed it back to the campsite and got some more from there.
Got back and started a fire and I cooked myself a couple brats on a skewer over the fire. Had a couple beers, sat by the fire, went down to the beach real quick and then went to bed.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 11 – NCNP-Seattle – September 21, 2010
Got up around 9ish today and had the continental breakfast, which was basically a room with a fridge and some food set out, and guests could come and take whatever they wanted to make. I had an english muffin with peanut butter and jelly, a small cinnamon roll, and a hard boiled egg. After that we hit the road to get Paddy back to the Sea-Tac airport for his flight. Said our goodbyes and felt bad he didn't get to stay longer with us, but we moved on. Tom and I headed back up I-5 towards Canada to see if we could get in and visit Vancouver for the day and night.
We were denied entry. I should say, I was. I have a small blip on my criminal history from 2000, and I need to apply for “rehabilitation” in Canada before they let me into their country. But, we were prepared for it, so we just headed back down to Seattle for the night. Not a whole lot of action during the day for us, just a lot of driving up and down the 5. Got back into Seattle, grabbed a motel 6 by the airport, and went into downtown to take some photos of the downtown skyline at night, and the football stadium. They look like they came out really cool, so I'm pretty excited for those. After that, I was pretty beat, but we stopped for a beer and a game of pool before we headed back to the hotel. I talked to Beth on the phone for about a half hour and wrapped it up and went to bed.
We were denied entry. I should say, I was. I have a small blip on my criminal history from 2000, and I need to apply for “rehabilitation” in Canada before they let me into their country. But, we were prepared for it, so we just headed back down to Seattle for the night. Not a whole lot of action during the day for us, just a lot of driving up and down the 5. Got back into Seattle, grabbed a motel 6 by the airport, and went into downtown to take some photos of the downtown skyline at night, and the football stadium. They look like they came out really cool, so I'm pretty excited for those. After that, I was pretty beat, but we stopped for a beer and a game of pool before we headed back to the hotel. I talked to Beth on the phone for about a half hour and wrapped it up and went to bed.
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 10 – NCNP– September 20, 2010
Woke up in our room, got our stuff together and left about 9:30am, found a sweet little bakery in the town and had some great food and good conversation with some of the locals and set off to do some more hiking in the rain. We stopped and talked to the rangers and decided our best course of action. We wanted to get to the glacier on Mt. Baker. We set off on our second straight day of constant rain and hiking. We did the most amazing hike in my life possibly, hard to compare it to some of my others, but probably at least in the top 3. Winding through huge forests, rivers, glacial creeks, mountain valleys, and moraines and sooo much more. A great hike, nevermind we took a wrong turn and did a different hike than we meant to, it was still amazing. We then used the rest of our day to drive through the North Cascade National Park and shot a few photos before nightfall, and just took in the beauty around us.
Again, decided to stay in a hotel instead of camp in the rain. So we went back to town and ate in a small place where the owner also owned a motel, so we had our meals, good nachos, I had the salmon special served with vegetables and wild long grain rice, and then we retired to our hotel, which is cool. Pretty tired now, sorry my last few entries were short, but I tried to remember a few days at a time, and I have a decent buzz going.....
Again, decided to stay in a hotel instead of camp in the rain. So we went back to town and ate in a small place where the owner also owned a motel, so we had our meals, good nachos, I had the salmon special served with vegetables and wild long grain rice, and then we retired to our hotel, which is cool. Pretty tired now, sorry my last few entries were short, but I tried to remember a few days at a time, and I have a decent buzz going.....
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 9 – Seattle to NCNP– September 19, 2010
Woke up, packed up our stuff and headed to a starbuck's to get some breakfast. Pretty good. Went to a drugstore and the REI camping store. I spent over $170, and the other guys spent even more to get some reliable rain gear for hiking. We drove about 2 hours to the Forest just outside North Cascade NP, and decided to go on a day hike to the glacier. We got about an hour and a half in and found ourselves at a creek crossing that was just a bit too difficult for us to cross, so we turned back, got some food in the closest town, Glacier.
We happened upon a pizza place, that was amazing! I would go to this place repeatedly if it was in Omaha. We had spinach artichoke dip, which was the best i've had in years and then a pizza which was excellent, top 5 i've prolly ever had. They had a wood fired oven, a beautiful place, and Fabio was playing piano. It was the most surreal thing I can remember in awhile. The waiter also hooked us up with a friend that he had to stay in her guest cabin for 60 bucks and we did that. Pretty random, but that is always the most fun. Went back there and went to bed pretty close after we got there.
We happened upon a pizza place, that was amazing! I would go to this place repeatedly if it was in Omaha. We had spinach artichoke dip, which was the best i've had in years and then a pizza which was excellent, top 5 i've prolly ever had. They had a wood fired oven, a beautiful place, and Fabio was playing piano. It was the most surreal thing I can remember in awhile. The waiter also hooked us up with a friend that he had to stay in her guest cabin for 60 bucks and we did that. Pretty random, but that is always the most fun. Went back there and went to bed pretty close after we got there.
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 8 – Seattle – Husker Game Day - September 18, 2010
Woke up this morning, and headed down to the Pike St Market and saw some really cool stuff. This is where they throw the fish to each other when you order it and they also have a really good amount of other stores in the area as well. There was souvenir shops, people doing yoga, great views of the sound, and fresh fruit and vegetable shops as well. We then decided to walk toward the space needle and catch a cab to the game.
We hailed a cab and rode to the parking lot outside the stadium. After that it got pretty crazy. We walked for awhile and Tom had made some contact with a buddy from high school that was at the game and he said we could get tickets for $100. So we met up up with him and got our tickets. Walked down by the sound, and saw there were a bunch of boats tailgating there. Pretty cool. The stadium is right on the water, so a lot of people sail their boats up and party before the game. We went up by the stadium and had a beer in the “zone”. Finished up our drinks and went into the stadium. We were right by the very edge of the stadium maybe twenty rows up. So a lot of good people watching before the game as everyone passed by. The game was amazing, the final score being 56-21, and we pretty much romped em. A lot of UW fans leaving early, and a really good time with Husker fans while we were there, including some time spent at the very top of the stadium with some people I knew from Omaha.
After the game, we were hungry and decided to walk down by the stadium and look for a good place. We were told that a local brew pub was excellent and went there. It was extremely busy and we left and went to meet Paddy's friend Tara in another part by campus. We took a crazy route up through the UW campus, through the tennis courts where players asked us the score and laughed. Funny because most the fans we met were very nice. And these were no different. We made our way to McCool's, an irish bar where tara and ben we at. We had a couple drinks there and some average nachos and decided to have another beer or two in the area and we found our way to earl's on the ave... we had some beers and some fun and some beers then went home and went to bed.
We hailed a cab and rode to the parking lot outside the stadium. After that it got pretty crazy. We walked for awhile and Tom had made some contact with a buddy from high school that was at the game and he said we could get tickets for $100. So we met up up with him and got our tickets. Walked down by the sound, and saw there were a bunch of boats tailgating there. Pretty cool. The stadium is right on the water, so a lot of people sail their boats up and party before the game. We went up by the stadium and had a beer in the “zone”. Finished up our drinks and went into the stadium. We were right by the very edge of the stadium maybe twenty rows up. So a lot of good people watching before the game as everyone passed by. The game was amazing, the final score being 56-21, and we pretty much romped em. A lot of UW fans leaving early, and a really good time with Husker fans while we were there, including some time spent at the very top of the stadium with some people I knew from Omaha.
After the game, we were hungry and decided to walk down by the stadium and look for a good place. We were told that a local brew pub was excellent and went there. It was extremely busy and we left and went to meet Paddy's friend Tara in another part by campus. We took a crazy route up through the UW campus, through the tennis courts where players asked us the score and laughed. Funny because most the fans we met were very nice. And these were no different. We made our way to McCool's, an irish bar where tara and ben we at. We had a couple drinks there and some average nachos and decided to have another beer or two in the area and we found our way to earl's on the ave... we had some beers and some fun and some beers then went home and went to bed.
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 7 – Many Glacier Camp to Seattle – September 17, 2010
Luckily, my sleeping bag did live up to its description. It is rated at 20 degrees, and when I woke up in the morning to 4 inches of snow falling, I was glad for that. But I was done with the cold. I broke down camp and was on the road by 7:30 am. My GPS told me to go back down to the “GTTS Road” and that would be the fastest way. I drove down, 25 miles to talk to the ranger there just to be sure that the road was open. She checked the internet and made some calls. Both had differing opinions, but the reigning one was that it was closed for at least another hour so the rangers could evaluate it. So we looked at the map and the only other way to go was all the way around the park. BUT, the quickest way was a mountain road, and since it was snowing and bad road conditions, she suggested I double back 30 miles and go around a bit. I reluctantly agreed. It took and extra 2 hours that I didn't want to lose, but even that road was a little scary at times, and I got to see wild horses running alongside the road! Really cool, and I got video.
So, Blah blah blah and blah blah blah, I started the beginning of my crazy drive west. I went through some beautiful areas and took some small highways, including one that I was the only one on it felt like, and it went through Paradise, MT, supposedly the place Jimmy Buffet got the cheeseburger that inspired the song. I wish I could have stopped, but, I wasn't hungry and was crunched for time, I thought. I pressed on. I did some of the craziest driving I can remember. I went down 6% declines in the pouring rain with switchbacks, right next to semis. Among other things. Prolly averaged about 80. Stopped once or twice to fill up, organize my stuff, and take care of my basic needs. Learned of a whole new place I never even thought of... Coure d'Alene, ID (PR Cortaleen) which was beautiful, with a mountain lake as the main feature. I pressed on.
Finally got into Washington and it wasn't quite what I expected. It was all brown and barren most of the way from Spokane almost to Seattle. About 80 miles east of Seattle, it finally got interesting. Started having some of the features I've heard about. Pine trees, greenery in general, winding roads, and of course, MORE rain. At this point, it has only stopped raining for about 5 hours combined, and I MIGHT be getting used to it. Or sick of it. Not sure yet....
I thought for awhile that crossing the time zone would put me ahead 2 hours, but finally realized it put me back 2 hours! So, instead of making it in at 9:30 and picking up Paddy and Tom at 11:05, I arrived at 5:30! I made it to the hotel, which is super fancy, and get valet parking and am escorted to my room with a bell hop and all my bags. Turned on the tube for the first time in awhile, and relaxed a bit. I took a long needed shower, the first in 3 ½ days, and decided to do my laundry. Contact the front desk to see if there is a laundry service, and I am directed to a bag with a receipt inside. I didn't really understand the thing, so they had a man come up to pick up my laundry and answer any questions I had. After a minute, we realize what we think are prices on the receipt. $7 for one t-shirt, $4 for a pair of socks, etc....... So, I ask the foreign nice man, after spreading my dirty laundry on the floor to try and get an inventory, what he thinks. He doesn't think that can possibly be the price, but the front desk confirms our fears. Are you kidding me? Two small loads of laundry would have cost me over $150!! I chuckle and hang up on the front desk, offer the laundry man a tip, am refused, and ask the concierge for the nearest laundromat. I drive there, they are going to close in two hours, but say I should be fine. Started the loads and went across the street to a Chinese restaurant. Ordered the Kung Pao Pork and it was delicious, as was the company of my friends at the bar, Lola, and her boyfriend, and Tara, the bartender. We had some nice conversation and I excused myself to switch my load to the dryer, then came back and finished my beer and meal. Lola had lived in China and was a Psych minor, so we had a nice talk, Tara was from Alaska and was pretty hot, and funny. I told my 9-11 knock-knock joke and wrapped things up there.
Picked up my laundry and still had a couple hours to kill, so I drove around Seattle and the city has a great vibe. It reminds me a bit of San Francisco, but it has its own feel, too. Went back to the hotel for a minute, watched a little NFL Live and then set out to pick up Paddy and Tom from the airport. Lola's bf gave me a good tip and I parked in the Cell Phone Waiting Lot, about 2-3 minutes away from the pickup point and wait for the call. Grabbed those fools and we set out back to the hotel. They were both equally impressed, but we were all excited to see the city a bit more. There were a bunch of husker fans out, and we fit right in. We just walked about a mile around the sound area and had a couple beers, but we were all in agreeance that we wanted to be fresh for the morning, when we needed to get tickets and go to the husker game, so we headed back home, which actually was pretty late. I am finishing this blog now to go to bed. Can't believe I'm still up, Tom and Paddy are both asleep. I drove for about 14 hours today, and need to be up in about 5 hours. It is 3:16 am PT, but I woke up and started my ordeal at 6:45 CST, which is 4:45 PT. Aaaah! Not looking forward to tomorrow. But at least I don't feel rushed anymore. I think my trip can finally slow down.....
So, Blah blah blah and blah blah blah, I started the beginning of my crazy drive west. I went through some beautiful areas and took some small highways, including one that I was the only one on it felt like, and it went through Paradise, MT, supposedly the place Jimmy Buffet got the cheeseburger that inspired the song. I wish I could have stopped, but, I wasn't hungry and was crunched for time, I thought. I pressed on. I did some of the craziest driving I can remember. I went down 6% declines in the pouring rain with switchbacks, right next to semis. Among other things. Prolly averaged about 80. Stopped once or twice to fill up, organize my stuff, and take care of my basic needs. Learned of a whole new place I never even thought of... Coure d'Alene, ID (PR Cortaleen) which was beautiful, with a mountain lake as the main feature. I pressed on.
Finally got into Washington and it wasn't quite what I expected. It was all brown and barren most of the way from Spokane almost to Seattle. About 80 miles east of Seattle, it finally got interesting. Started having some of the features I've heard about. Pine trees, greenery in general, winding roads, and of course, MORE rain. At this point, it has only stopped raining for about 5 hours combined, and I MIGHT be getting used to it. Or sick of it. Not sure yet....
I thought for awhile that crossing the time zone would put me ahead 2 hours, but finally realized it put me back 2 hours! So, instead of making it in at 9:30 and picking up Paddy and Tom at 11:05, I arrived at 5:30! I made it to the hotel, which is super fancy, and get valet parking and am escorted to my room with a bell hop and all my bags. Turned on the tube for the first time in awhile, and relaxed a bit. I took a long needed shower, the first in 3 ½ days, and decided to do my laundry. Contact the front desk to see if there is a laundry service, and I am directed to a bag with a receipt inside. I didn't really understand the thing, so they had a man come up to pick up my laundry and answer any questions I had. After a minute, we realize what we think are prices on the receipt. $7 for one t-shirt, $4 for a pair of socks, etc....... So, I ask the foreign nice man, after spreading my dirty laundry on the floor to try and get an inventory, what he thinks. He doesn't think that can possibly be the price, but the front desk confirms our fears. Are you kidding me? Two small loads of laundry would have cost me over $150!! I chuckle and hang up on the front desk, offer the laundry man a tip, am refused, and ask the concierge for the nearest laundromat. I drive there, they are going to close in two hours, but say I should be fine. Started the loads and went across the street to a Chinese restaurant. Ordered the Kung Pao Pork and it was delicious, as was the company of my friends at the bar, Lola, and her boyfriend, and Tara, the bartender. We had some nice conversation and I excused myself to switch my load to the dryer, then came back and finished my beer and meal. Lola had lived in China and was a Psych minor, so we had a nice talk, Tara was from Alaska and was pretty hot, and funny. I told my 9-11 knock-knock joke and wrapped things up there.
Picked up my laundry and still had a couple hours to kill, so I drove around Seattle and the city has a great vibe. It reminds me a bit of San Francisco, but it has its own feel, too. Went back to the hotel for a minute, watched a little NFL Live and then set out to pick up Paddy and Tom from the airport. Lola's bf gave me a good tip and I parked in the Cell Phone Waiting Lot, about 2-3 minutes away from the pickup point and wait for the call. Grabbed those fools and we set out back to the hotel. They were both equally impressed, but we were all excited to see the city a bit more. There were a bunch of husker fans out, and we fit right in. We just walked about a mile around the sound area and had a couple beers, but we were all in agreeance that we wanted to be fresh for the morning, when we needed to get tickets and go to the husker game, so we headed back home, which actually was pretty late. I am finishing this blog now to go to bed. Can't believe I'm still up, Tom and Paddy are both asleep. I drove for about 14 hours today, and need to be up in about 5 hours. It is 3:16 am PT, but I woke up and started my ordeal at 6:45 CST, which is 4:45 PT. Aaaah! Not looking forward to tomorrow. But at least I don't feel rushed anymore. I think my trip can finally slow down.....
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 6 – Poston, MT to Many Glacier Camp– September 16, 2010
Woke up early and went down to the lake to shoot some photos. It was a bit after sunrise, but it didn't matter anyway, because it was pretty overcast and I couldn't see the sun regardless. This would become a trend.... I got some great photos, however, because the colors are changing for fall and anyone could take a shot with their disposable camera and make it look good in this area. I saw bald eagles, wild turkeys, and deer that just walked right up to the car and posed, basically.
Cooked myself some breakfast on the grill, eggs, bacon, and toast, and tore down camp to head up the road. First, I drove into Apgar, the first southwest entrance to Glacier National Park, and talked to the rangers as to where to camp. They told me the action was on the west side and to go there and talk to the other rangers. So I took the “Going-to-the-Sun Road” all the way from the west side of the park to the continental divide in the middle of the park, Logan Pass. It was a bit rainy the whole time, but by Logan, there was fog everywhere and construction was going on half the road. This is a alpine road, mind you, which generally has little or no shoulder, and the edge is a 1000 ft fall, if not more. Pretty scary in the pouring rain. But, it was absolutely breathtaking. This whole trip to this point has been a rollercoaster of many sorts. I talked to the rangers at Logan and they said the best place to set up camp for me and my situation would be Many Glacier. So I drove another 50 miles to get to Many Glacier camp and set up my tent. It was raining the whole time. I set out to get in a hike before sunset to try and maximize my experience, even though the weather wasn't the greatest. I drive to this amazing hotel situated on a lake near Many Glacier, and find the trailhead to Grinnell Lake. It is about a 6 mile rountrip hike, but I thought I could make it back by dusk, so I went on.
Turns out, I thought I was prepared for a rainy hike, but by the time I was about a mile in , I started to realize that my gear wasn't as rainproof as advertised. But I pressed on. By mile 2, I realized I was the only one on the trail. Bit I pressed on. By mile 3, I realized my “waterproof” boots, definitely not waterproof. I started getting pretty cold. It wasn't all bad, but, after awhile, I was doing it just to do it. The scenery was pretty amazing, but the weather was so poor I didn't bring my SLR along, just my PAS, and got the best pictures I could. I made it back to camp and realized that my clothes, even layered, were completely soaked through, it was still raining, and was about 50 degrees at this point. I got back to camp to find my tent was leaking slightly and tried to fix that issue. I did my best, and stripped off my wet clothes to trade them in for dry ones. That was an amazing feeling. Then I went and sat in my car with the heater cranked up and seriously contemplated breaking down camp and leaving for an early start to Seattle. I didn't. I don't know what is was, but I wanted to feel like it was worth it.
Cooked myself some breakfast on the grill, eggs, bacon, and toast, and tore down camp to head up the road. First, I drove into Apgar, the first southwest entrance to Glacier National Park, and talked to the rangers as to where to camp. They told me the action was on the west side and to go there and talk to the other rangers. So I took the “Going-to-the-Sun Road” all the way from the west side of the park to the continental divide in the middle of the park, Logan Pass. It was a bit rainy the whole time, but by Logan, there was fog everywhere and construction was going on half the road. This is a alpine road, mind you, which generally has little or no shoulder, and the edge is a 1000 ft fall, if not more. Pretty scary in the pouring rain. But, it was absolutely breathtaking. This whole trip to this point has been a rollercoaster of many sorts. I talked to the rangers at Logan and they said the best place to set up camp for me and my situation would be Many Glacier. So I drove another 50 miles to get to Many Glacier camp and set up my tent. It was raining the whole time. I set out to get in a hike before sunset to try and maximize my experience, even though the weather wasn't the greatest. I drive to this amazing hotel situated on a lake near Many Glacier, and find the trailhead to Grinnell Lake. It is about a 6 mile rountrip hike, but I thought I could make it back by dusk, so I went on.
Turns out, I thought I was prepared for a rainy hike, but by the time I was about a mile in , I started to realize that my gear wasn't as rainproof as advertised. But I pressed on. By mile 2, I realized I was the only one on the trail. Bit I pressed on. By mile 3, I realized my “waterproof” boots, definitely not waterproof. I started getting pretty cold. It wasn't all bad, but, after awhile, I was doing it just to do it. The scenery was pretty amazing, but the weather was so poor I didn't bring my SLR along, just my PAS, and got the best pictures I could. I made it back to camp and realized that my clothes, even layered, were completely soaked through, it was still raining, and was about 50 degrees at this point. I got back to camp to find my tent was leaking slightly and tried to fix that issue. I did my best, and stripped off my wet clothes to trade them in for dry ones. That was an amazing feeling. Then I went and sat in my car with the heater cranked up and seriously contemplated breaking down camp and leaving for an early start to Seattle. I didn't. I don't know what is was, but I wanted to feel like it was worth it.
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 5 – Billings to Poston, MT – September 15, 2010
It was getting kinda foggy in Billings when my drive was coming to an end last night, and when I woke up it was as thick as pea soup. I could barely see to the interstate from the rest stop parking lot. I got up about 9 and did my morning routine in the rest area bathroom. Then got back on the road. Within about 15 minutes of me driving, the fog lifted, and revealed absolute beauty. I was surrounded by mountains with beautiful greens and browns all around me. Winding roads and big sky. I can see why that is Montana's nickname.
I stopped at the first city, Bozeman, before McD's stopped selling breakfast at 10:30. Got handed an egg Mcmuffin meal by a good looking girl probably for the first time ever at any McD's. I drove a bit more down the interstate after filling up and using the women's restroom in the gas station because the dude was taking forever. Then I pulled over at some random exit and just ate my breakfast sitting on the hood of my car looking at the gorgeous scenery.
Got back on and stopped next at the headwaters of the Missouri River. This is where the Missouri starts and is still clear and shallow. Quite lovely, there was also a man fly fishing there. I was hoping I'd see some fly fishing while I was in Montana. Anyway, busted through Missoula, and Butte, and finally reached my destination for the day, Poston, MT. Poston is the first large town on Flathead Lake. I have been wanting to come here for quite awhile. Flathead is about 60 x 20 miles. It is surrounded by mountains, and just absolutely breathtaking. I drove around a bit, got some provisions and drove to a couple campsites before choosing Flathead Lake State Park. It was close between this one and Big Arm State Park. Big Arm had showers, and their campsites were right on the water. But Flathead had power and more views, even if you have to walk a bit to get to them. My thought was for the best sunrise shots in the morning, and I hope this one will be better.
Who knows though. I planned on driving to the other side of the lake to get some good sunset shots, and was a bit disappointed. I think I'm just spoiled, though. It was pretty good, it just showed a lot more promise than it delivered. Plus, I was about an hour early, because I forgot I'm in mountain time, and darn close to pacific time here. Oh well, I got to explore a few different locations and I bought some roadside homemade huckleberry jam.
Before I left, I broke out the camping gear, set up my tent and cooked brats, and asparagus on the grill for myself. Pretty satisfied at this point. Plus, with the stuff I borrowed from Beth and her family, I set up a desk by the outlet, which I am currently blogging, listening to my iPod boombox, charging my phone and I have a fire roaring in the background. Couldn't get much better. Well, gotta dump my photos and stare at the fire before bed.....
I stopped at the first city, Bozeman, before McD's stopped selling breakfast at 10:30. Got handed an egg Mcmuffin meal by a good looking girl probably for the first time ever at any McD's. I drove a bit more down the interstate after filling up and using the women's restroom in the gas station because the dude was taking forever. Then I pulled over at some random exit and just ate my breakfast sitting on the hood of my car looking at the gorgeous scenery.
Got back on and stopped next at the headwaters of the Missouri River. This is where the Missouri starts and is still clear and shallow. Quite lovely, there was also a man fly fishing there. I was hoping I'd see some fly fishing while I was in Montana. Anyway, busted through Missoula, and Butte, and finally reached my destination for the day, Poston, MT. Poston is the first large town on Flathead Lake. I have been wanting to come here for quite awhile. Flathead is about 60 x 20 miles. It is surrounded by mountains, and just absolutely breathtaking. I drove around a bit, got some provisions and drove to a couple campsites before choosing Flathead Lake State Park. It was close between this one and Big Arm State Park. Big Arm had showers, and their campsites were right on the water. But Flathead had power and more views, even if you have to walk a bit to get to them. My thought was for the best sunrise shots in the morning, and I hope this one will be better.
Who knows though. I planned on driving to the other side of the lake to get some good sunset shots, and was a bit disappointed. I think I'm just spoiled, though. It was pretty good, it just showed a lot more promise than it delivered. Plus, I was about an hour early, because I forgot I'm in mountain time, and darn close to pacific time here. Oh well, I got to explore a few different locations and I bought some roadside homemade huckleberry jam.
Before I left, I broke out the camping gear, set up my tent and cooked brats, and asparagus on the grill for myself. Pretty satisfied at this point. Plus, with the stuff I borrowed from Beth and her family, I set up a desk by the outlet, which I am currently blogging, listening to my iPod boombox, charging my phone and I have a fire roaring in the background. Couldn't get much better. Well, gotta dump my photos and stare at the fire before bed.....
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 4 – Still in Sioux Falls, SD – September 14, 2010
Woke up around noon today. Nothing much to do and planning a 14 hour drive when I get my car back, so thought I'd build up some sleep reserve. Walked to a free art gallery and saw some pretty good stuff, no photography allowed, of course, so I only got like 6 photos. After that, went to a restaurant called Chedd's. Chedd's is only the second one in the country. Evidently, the concept started in Denver and developed a following and an identity. The first franchise went to Austin, and the second here. The two Denver locations are currently closed pending the resolution of a divorce, but all-in-all the place is really neat. They specialize in gourmet grilled cheese, which kinda just means melts. But the atmosphere and vibe and employees all seem cool.
As soon as I was finished there, I headed toward the dealership to see if my car was ready. It was, and I gave them my 800 dollars and got all my shit from Jesse's and hit the road. The plan was to try and get to the badlands for some sunset pictures. I high-tailed it out of sioux falls and didn't make it to the badlands in time, but, oh well. There is a lot of cool stuff that way though. Mt. Rushmore, cosmos, wind cave, custer state park, etc. So since I missed out on those, I may come back that way on the way home, not sure yet. The rest of the day is pretty boring. I took a 5 hour energy, felt like a tweaker, but drove for 11 hours straight in the pitch black night of the winding mountain roads going about 82 the whole way. Still wasn't fast enough. I left Jesse's house about 5:30PM and arrived at the rest area where I slept around 4:30AM. The rest area is between Billings and Bozeman, MT.
As soon as I was finished there, I headed toward the dealership to see if my car was ready. It was, and I gave them my 800 dollars and got all my shit from Jesse's and hit the road. The plan was to try and get to the badlands for some sunset pictures. I high-tailed it out of sioux falls and didn't make it to the badlands in time, but, oh well. There is a lot of cool stuff that way though. Mt. Rushmore, cosmos, wind cave, custer state park, etc. So since I missed out on those, I may come back that way on the way home, not sure yet. The rest of the day is pretty boring. I took a 5 hour energy, felt like a tweaker, but drove for 11 hours straight in the pitch black night of the winding mountain roads going about 82 the whole way. Still wasn't fast enough. I left Jesse's house about 5:30PM and arrived at the rest area where I slept around 4:30AM. The rest area is between Billings and Bozeman, MT.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Road Trip – Omaha to Seattle – Day 3 – Still in Sioux Falls, SD – September 13, 2010
I woke up at 7:20 and drove Jesse's car up to the dealership. When I got there, the very sweet Rachel was going over my info and making up a report. She said she would call me with their findings and try and get it fixed as soon as possible. I went back down to Jesse's house and watched some tv for awhile. I got a call around 9:30 and she had some bad news for me. It had affected another pulley and something else and was going to be about $550. They didn't have the crank pulley in stock and had to order it. It usually takes a week. They had the option of overnight shipping for an extra 40. I did it of course, and so now I wait another day in SFSD. Watched tv and blogged until about 1 pm and headed out to see the city a bit just walking around. I walked around the downtown area, which is really cool and took lots of pictures of their sculptures on the street. They have dozens of sculptures lining the downtown streets. I hopped on the free trolley and went back to Falls Park, where the rapids cascade down into waterfalls in the middle of town. I got back on the trolley and Jesse called me up to tell me he got off work early. So I walked to his house and waited for him to get home. Then we got in the car and drove out about a half hour away to Devil's Gulch. Devil's Gulch is where, supposedly (there are disputes), Jesse James the outlaw, after being on the run for two weeks, with half his men dead, jumped his horse over a 100 foot tall gulch at a place where the span was about 15-20 feet. The posse chasing him were all too scared and amazed to attempt it, and Jesse James then escaped to Missouri. We also went to Palisade State Park and did a little nature hike and took some photos. Jesse showed me where he had jumped off huge rocks into the water below in his youth, and I found some wild cactus growing that I took a sample of, along with some quartzite for home.
We headed back into SF around sunset and went to Wiley's Bar and Grill, a former employer of Jesse's, and a pretty neat bar. We watched Monday Night Football, the Ravens beat the Jets and the Chiefs beat the Chargers. The wings were decent, the pizza edible. And the only real drawback was the loud and drunk 30 year HS reunion going on around us. We went home and went to bed around 12am.
We headed back into SF around sunset and went to Wiley's Bar and Grill, a former employer of Jesse's, and a pretty neat bar. We watched Monday Night Football, the Ravens beat the Jets and the Chiefs beat the Chargers. The wings were decent, the pizza edible. And the only real drawback was the loud and drunk 30 year HS reunion going on around us. We went home and went to bed around 12am.
Days 1 and 2 – Omaha, NE to Sioux Falls, SD – September 11, 2010
I am starting out a road trip from Omaha to Seattle. My plan is to head north and stop in Sioux Falls, SD, and stay with my old buddy Jesse James Wilson. I met Jesse while I was working at Mckenna's BBQ around 2002, and we have stayed in contact ever since, even since he moved back to his home in Sioux Falls SD 6 years ago.
These past two weeks have been crazy stressful, as unplanned expenses have reared their ugly heads in last few months, so I have scheduled a lot of extra work time this month to make up for the lost money. Ugh! Money. Anyway, I won't get into that rant yet (maybe later). I had planned to get a lot of planning done for the details of the trip in the last week, but had a lot of work come up in addition to picking up extra shifts at the restaurant. I had a few impromptu fence jobs and I had three new projects for graphic design, including finishing a website for my friend Paddy's business he runs with his dad. So I didn't get as prepared as I would have liked to. In addition, my car had some recurring issues and I ended up taking it to 3 different mechanics before we finally diagnosed the problem correctly and after spending about $550 on the issue, still I am leaving town knowing that I need a new bearing knuckle in my car when I return.
So, in short, I am stressed. It doesn't happen to me very often, but I am. I need this vacation. And I am excited to leave. I wanted to leave about 12pm today, but was running here and there, packing, planning, getting provisions, gas, etc. and didn't get on the road until about 3pm. No big deal though.
I leave Council Bluffs, IA after picking up some stuff at Wal-Mart and filling up the tank. I immediately feel a great sense of relief to finally have nothing to do and worry about. Just head north on I-29 and three hours later you're in Sioux Falls. I am close to the interstate exits for Sioux Falls and notice that my check engine light is flashing. I continue on, and arrive at Jesse's house around 6 pm. He has a cute little one bedroom box of a house, probably about 600 square feet, but he lives alone and has enough space. I unload some of my stuff from the car, which by the way is pretty full and I am not sure how I am going to get MORE stuff in there and still have room for Tom and Paddy. Anyway, I unload some stuff and Jesse and I set off to see the city's namesake, the falls.
They were absolutely beautiful! It is like being at an awesome area in a National Park in the middle of this city/town of 200K people. There are beautiful natural quartzite red rocks and cascading water screaming through it. Gorgeous. Jesse and I were shootin the shit, catching up, and next thing I know, I had to sit down because I started feeling weird. I think I have had like one anxiety attack in my life, and this was what that felt like, I think. I got sweaty, felt kinda light-headed, couldn't concentrate. So I sat down on the rocks for a minute and just breathed, and it passed. I think it was just too much emotion building up and trying to get out. All the stress, relief, reunion, and natural beauty couldn't be contained anymore.
We decided we were both hungry and decided to go to a place called Minerva's downtown. It is a semi upscale place with a large, fresh salad bar, mostly steaks and chicken dinners, etc. We sat at the bar to have a drink and wait for a patio table to open up. As I drank my Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout I notice there is an item I am unfamiliar with...it's called chislic. Intrigued, when we sat at our table outside, I ordered the chislic appetizer and a Schell Dark, from Minnesota. Jesse fills me in on the history of chislic. He said traditionally it is made from lamb but chislic can refer to several meats, as it is more about the style of preparation. The chislic we ordered is steak, and basically what it is is cubed steak dropped in the deep fryer with no breading. Interesting, I thought it would probably be dried out, but it was delicious and not dry at all. After that we hit the salad bar, and I ordered the half duckling with a dark berry sauce and Jesse got the buffalo burger. Both were good. The duck was a bit more cooked than I normally like it, but not overdone.
We then decided that a quick driving tour of the city was in order. They have some great buildings with character and a beautiful cathedral. I snapped a few shots with my PAS(point and shoot camera. I will refer to PAS and SLR throughout this blog probably. These are my two cameras. SLR is my more expensive body with detachable lenses. SLR refers to “Single Lens Reflex” which means when you look through the viewfinder, with the help of a mirror, you look directly out the lens of the camera.) and we headed to a local bar called Nutty's, where there was going to be music that night. We were about an hour and fifteen minutes early for the show, so we decide to go to the other Nutty's, Nutty's South, and visit Jesse's friend. We have a couple drinks and notice the bar is absolutely full of women. There are like 3 bachelorette parties, annoying as usual, but all in all the bar was packed and fun. South Dakota has beautiful women. A bit like the style in Omaha, but different in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Anyway, we head to a place called Rookie's where another friend of Jesse's was working as a bouncer. Big J, I believe was his name. We just stayed long enough to say hi and marvel at the new phenomenon, the punching bag. You pay a dollar for one hit on a punching bag that then rates your strength of the hit 0-1000. J is a big man who used to be a DL for European league football and he can get a 994. There was a huge crowd around this thing to pay $1 a hit! Wish I would have invented that in this age of the youth that are into MMA and such. It rakes in thousands! We then head back to Nutty's North and enjoy some live music.
One band was a folk band with about 7 members and the other was a rockier band with 4. They took turns playing a few songs each, back and forth. I got a good buzz, mingled around, bought a $10 Sewer Rats(the second band) t-shirt, and Jesse and I went back home via a ride, as neither of us was in good shape to drive. Had a little wacky tobacky and listened to music for about three more hours before we finally hit the hay about 5:30am. Woke up around 11 and went to a diner Jesse had talked about being on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. We found out that it was planned to be in the show, but didn't actually happen. NBD. I ordered chicken and waffles, and Jesse got a hot roast beef sandwich covered in mashed potatoes with dark gravy. Mine totally hit the spot. Jesse had never had chicken and waffles and thought it was weird. This from the guy who introduced me to baked beans on top of cornbread. I made him try a bite with waffle, maple syrup, bacon, and the breaded fried chicken. He was instantly smitten.
We parted ways soon thereafter and I headed to Wal-Mart to get some food, ice and drink. I went back to the tire and lube area to see if they could check out my check engine light issue. They couldn't, but referred me to Tires Plus down the street. I noticed this was the best Wal-Mart I had ever been to as far as quality of customers. There were beautiful young women all over, successful looking people, all groomed properly, it was weird. I had to look around to be sure they hadn't snuck me into a GAP or something. So, I was ambivalent about whether or not to stop at the Tires Plus, so I sat outside Wal-Mart for awhile and did some internet research on my car symptoms. I checked the oil, looked around the engine for anything blatantly obvious, and decided to try and drive it a bit and see if the light would flash again. I got on the interstate and almost immediately it did it again. So I went back and pulled into Tires Plus. Went inside, and found out that they only had one mechanic on duty, and it was about 35 minutes til close. He said he couldn't fit it in. I explained my circumstances and talked him into hooking it up to the scanner to see what it said. The scan came back saying the knock sensor had an issue, which I was aware of, but was told not to worry about it. But it also came back with ALL FOUR cylinders misfiring. They had not really seen that before, and encouraged me to get it looked at more thoroughly at the Subaru dealer, where they have a more detailed scanner. They also thought I could have gotten a bad tank of gas and we sort of decided I should top off my tank with premium gas and a fuel inhector cleaner, drive a little more and see if the light continued to flash. At this point, I am obviously confused, it's 5 pm, I'm already way later than I wanted to be, and I decide to get on the interstate and see what happens.
The light would sometimes flash and sometimes not, and I drove with the radio off the whole time and didn't hear any weird noises or anything. I got about 35 miles outside of Sioux Falls and notice the battery light and the brake light also had come on. I was about ¼ mile from a rest area, so I pull in and as I am parking in a spot notice my power steering is out. At this point I am freaking out, frustrated, and sick of my f-ing car. I pop the hood and see if I can see anything. First thing I notice is a belt sitting in there. I look to find out where this had come from and see my crank pulley is hanging off the bolt at an angle. I decided to sit down in the grass, breathe, and make some phone calls. I talked to my friend and roommate Tom and we decide I very well could have blown a cylinder or more, and I should get a tow back to town and look for a used car in SF. I call my insurance company to line up a tow back to town, and find out I don't have roadside assistance and would pay for this out of pocket. But they lined up the tow for me. I told them to take it to a used car lot in town and sat and waited for the tow driver. About this time, an older man with the hairiest ears I had ever seen was trying to talk to me, but I was on the phone inside the car because of interstate noise and gave him the “wait a minute, I'm on the phone” finger gesture. I got off the call and went over to talk to him. He was delivering a new car to his daughter in Seattle and was also going through Portland, so we hit it off immediately. He was waiting for the sun to go down a bit more so he could see driving west. He had some car knowledge and took a look with me. He said it didn't look bad at all. He said if the pulley hadn't gotten a bit worn out in the center I could probably just tighten the bolt, re-string the belts and drive away! He said if I could go to a junk yard, I could fix it myself for about 50 bucks. This made me a bit optimistic, but having no tools, not much car knowledge, etc. I decided to take it to a mechanic just the same.
The tow driver got there, we looked at the car again, and I asked him for a good mechanic reference, since I had now decided to fix it instead of getting a new one. He said there was a Subaru dealer in town and the service manager was honest and fair. I said ok. So we hopped in the truck and headed back into town. We got to talking and Mark, the driver, is quite an interesting fellow. He enjoys photography as well, and had actually sold several pictures to the paper for like $8000 a piece! He had evidently been the first one on the scene a couple of times when some major shit happened and gotten photos. One time he found a dead police officer. I would have never thought about it, but after the tow leaves the scene of an accident, there are no more photos to take, so he is in a unique position. Anyway, he drops me off and Jesse picks me up from the dealership, I drop the key in the night dropbox and leave a note. Jesse and I get Taco Bell and go home, only about a mile away.
We overindulge on the tacos and watch a Broken Lizard movie, Puddle Cruiser, evidently their first, from 1996. It was pretty awful, but funny at times, so not a bad way to wind down my exciting day. I went to sleep and planned to get up at 7:20ish to go up and talk to someone at Subaru when they open at 7:30.
These past two weeks have been crazy stressful, as unplanned expenses have reared their ugly heads in last few months, so I have scheduled a lot of extra work time this month to make up for the lost money. Ugh! Money. Anyway, I won't get into that rant yet (maybe later). I had planned to get a lot of planning done for the details of the trip in the last week, but had a lot of work come up in addition to picking up extra shifts at the restaurant. I had a few impromptu fence jobs and I had three new projects for graphic design, including finishing a website for my friend Paddy's business he runs with his dad. So I didn't get as prepared as I would have liked to. In addition, my car had some recurring issues and I ended up taking it to 3 different mechanics before we finally diagnosed the problem correctly and after spending about $550 on the issue, still I am leaving town knowing that I need a new bearing knuckle in my car when I return.
So, in short, I am stressed. It doesn't happen to me very often, but I am. I need this vacation. And I am excited to leave. I wanted to leave about 12pm today, but was running here and there, packing, planning, getting provisions, gas, etc. and didn't get on the road until about 3pm. No big deal though.
I leave Council Bluffs, IA after picking up some stuff at Wal-Mart and filling up the tank. I immediately feel a great sense of relief to finally have nothing to do and worry about. Just head north on I-29 and three hours later you're in Sioux Falls. I am close to the interstate exits for Sioux Falls and notice that my check engine light is flashing. I continue on, and arrive at Jesse's house around 6 pm. He has a cute little one bedroom box of a house, probably about 600 square feet, but he lives alone and has enough space. I unload some of my stuff from the car, which by the way is pretty full and I am not sure how I am going to get MORE stuff in there and still have room for Tom and Paddy. Anyway, I unload some stuff and Jesse and I set off to see the city's namesake, the falls.
They were absolutely beautiful! It is like being at an awesome area in a National Park in the middle of this city/town of 200K people. There are beautiful natural quartzite red rocks and cascading water screaming through it. Gorgeous. Jesse and I were shootin the shit, catching up, and next thing I know, I had to sit down because I started feeling weird. I think I have had like one anxiety attack in my life, and this was what that felt like, I think. I got sweaty, felt kinda light-headed, couldn't concentrate. So I sat down on the rocks for a minute and just breathed, and it passed. I think it was just too much emotion building up and trying to get out. All the stress, relief, reunion, and natural beauty couldn't be contained anymore.
We decided we were both hungry and decided to go to a place called Minerva's downtown. It is a semi upscale place with a large, fresh salad bar, mostly steaks and chicken dinners, etc. We sat at the bar to have a drink and wait for a patio table to open up. As I drank my Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout I notice there is an item I am unfamiliar with...it's called chislic. Intrigued, when we sat at our table outside, I ordered the chislic appetizer and a Schell Dark, from Minnesota. Jesse fills me in on the history of chislic. He said traditionally it is made from lamb but chislic can refer to several meats, as it is more about the style of preparation. The chislic we ordered is steak, and basically what it is is cubed steak dropped in the deep fryer with no breading. Interesting, I thought it would probably be dried out, but it was delicious and not dry at all. After that we hit the salad bar, and I ordered the half duckling with a dark berry sauce and Jesse got the buffalo burger. Both were good. The duck was a bit more cooked than I normally like it, but not overdone.
We then decided that a quick driving tour of the city was in order. They have some great buildings with character and a beautiful cathedral. I snapped a few shots with my PAS(point and shoot camera. I will refer to PAS and SLR throughout this blog probably. These are my two cameras. SLR is my more expensive body with detachable lenses. SLR refers to “Single Lens Reflex” which means when you look through the viewfinder, with the help of a mirror, you look directly out the lens of the camera.) and we headed to a local bar called Nutty's, where there was going to be music that night. We were about an hour and fifteen minutes early for the show, so we decide to go to the other Nutty's, Nutty's South, and visit Jesse's friend. We have a couple drinks and notice the bar is absolutely full of women. There are like 3 bachelorette parties, annoying as usual, but all in all the bar was packed and fun. South Dakota has beautiful women. A bit like the style in Omaha, but different in a way I can't quite put my finger on. Anyway, we head to a place called Rookie's where another friend of Jesse's was working as a bouncer. Big J, I believe was his name. We just stayed long enough to say hi and marvel at the new phenomenon, the punching bag. You pay a dollar for one hit on a punching bag that then rates your strength of the hit 0-1000. J is a big man who used to be a DL for European league football and he can get a 994. There was a huge crowd around this thing to pay $1 a hit! Wish I would have invented that in this age of the youth that are into MMA and such. It rakes in thousands! We then head back to Nutty's North and enjoy some live music.
One band was a folk band with about 7 members and the other was a rockier band with 4. They took turns playing a few songs each, back and forth. I got a good buzz, mingled around, bought a $10 Sewer Rats(the second band) t-shirt, and Jesse and I went back home via a ride, as neither of us was in good shape to drive. Had a little wacky tobacky and listened to music for about three more hours before we finally hit the hay about 5:30am. Woke up around 11 and went to a diner Jesse had talked about being on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. We found out that it was planned to be in the show, but didn't actually happen. NBD. I ordered chicken and waffles, and Jesse got a hot roast beef sandwich covered in mashed potatoes with dark gravy. Mine totally hit the spot. Jesse had never had chicken and waffles and thought it was weird. This from the guy who introduced me to baked beans on top of cornbread. I made him try a bite with waffle, maple syrup, bacon, and the breaded fried chicken. He was instantly smitten.
We parted ways soon thereafter and I headed to Wal-Mart to get some food, ice and drink. I went back to the tire and lube area to see if they could check out my check engine light issue. They couldn't, but referred me to Tires Plus down the street. I noticed this was the best Wal-Mart I had ever been to as far as quality of customers. There were beautiful young women all over, successful looking people, all groomed properly, it was weird. I had to look around to be sure they hadn't snuck me into a GAP or something. So, I was ambivalent about whether or not to stop at the Tires Plus, so I sat outside Wal-Mart for awhile and did some internet research on my car symptoms. I checked the oil, looked around the engine for anything blatantly obvious, and decided to try and drive it a bit and see if the light would flash again. I got on the interstate and almost immediately it did it again. So I went back and pulled into Tires Plus. Went inside, and found out that they only had one mechanic on duty, and it was about 35 minutes til close. He said he couldn't fit it in. I explained my circumstances and talked him into hooking it up to the scanner to see what it said. The scan came back saying the knock sensor had an issue, which I was aware of, but was told not to worry about it. But it also came back with ALL FOUR cylinders misfiring. They had not really seen that before, and encouraged me to get it looked at more thoroughly at the Subaru dealer, where they have a more detailed scanner. They also thought I could have gotten a bad tank of gas and we sort of decided I should top off my tank with premium gas and a fuel inhector cleaner, drive a little more and see if the light continued to flash. At this point, I am obviously confused, it's 5 pm, I'm already way later than I wanted to be, and I decide to get on the interstate and see what happens.
The light would sometimes flash and sometimes not, and I drove with the radio off the whole time and didn't hear any weird noises or anything. I got about 35 miles outside of Sioux Falls and notice the battery light and the brake light also had come on. I was about ¼ mile from a rest area, so I pull in and as I am parking in a spot notice my power steering is out. At this point I am freaking out, frustrated, and sick of my f-ing car. I pop the hood and see if I can see anything. First thing I notice is a belt sitting in there. I look to find out where this had come from and see my crank pulley is hanging off the bolt at an angle. I decided to sit down in the grass, breathe, and make some phone calls. I talked to my friend and roommate Tom and we decide I very well could have blown a cylinder or more, and I should get a tow back to town and look for a used car in SF. I call my insurance company to line up a tow back to town, and find out I don't have roadside assistance and would pay for this out of pocket. But they lined up the tow for me. I told them to take it to a used car lot in town and sat and waited for the tow driver. About this time, an older man with the hairiest ears I had ever seen was trying to talk to me, but I was on the phone inside the car because of interstate noise and gave him the “wait a minute, I'm on the phone” finger gesture. I got off the call and went over to talk to him. He was delivering a new car to his daughter in Seattle and was also going through Portland, so we hit it off immediately. He was waiting for the sun to go down a bit more so he could see driving west. He had some car knowledge and took a look with me. He said it didn't look bad at all. He said if the pulley hadn't gotten a bit worn out in the center I could probably just tighten the bolt, re-string the belts and drive away! He said if I could go to a junk yard, I could fix it myself for about 50 bucks. This made me a bit optimistic, but having no tools, not much car knowledge, etc. I decided to take it to a mechanic just the same.
The tow driver got there, we looked at the car again, and I asked him for a good mechanic reference, since I had now decided to fix it instead of getting a new one. He said there was a Subaru dealer in town and the service manager was honest and fair. I said ok. So we hopped in the truck and headed back into town. We got to talking and Mark, the driver, is quite an interesting fellow. He enjoys photography as well, and had actually sold several pictures to the paper for like $8000 a piece! He had evidently been the first one on the scene a couple of times when some major shit happened and gotten photos. One time he found a dead police officer. I would have never thought about it, but after the tow leaves the scene of an accident, there are no more photos to take, so he is in a unique position. Anyway, he drops me off and Jesse picks me up from the dealership, I drop the key in the night dropbox and leave a note. Jesse and I get Taco Bell and go home, only about a mile away.
We overindulge on the tacos and watch a Broken Lizard movie, Puddle Cruiser, evidently their first, from 1996. It was pretty awful, but funny at times, so not a bad way to wind down my exciting day. I went to sleep and planned to get up at 7:20ish to go up and talk to someone at Subaru when they open at 7:30.
Road Trip 2010
It's Road Trip 2010 time!
Hope ya'll enjoy the blog, I'll try not to bore you to death.
Hope ya'll enjoy the blog, I'll try not to bore you to death.
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