One Year Later

It's been a year. We embarked on our journey on March 26, 2010. It's now March 31, 2011, and every morning I wake up and remember exactly what we were doing exactly a year ago.

For instance, yesterday morning we woke up early in Roswell, NM and drove to Carlsbad Caverns to explore a giant hole in the earth. At this moment, today, we were probably making our way through the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, OK. And a few hours from now, we were cursing having to pay $14 in tolls to drive a road that kicked up so many rocks and crap that we were sure the windshield was going to shatter into a million pieces.

I hear different songs, either on the radio or in my playlist on my phone or computer, and I am instantly brought back to various spots along the way. Like "We Weren't Born to Follow" by Bon Jovi reminds me of the tunnel at 11,000 ft in the Rockies and how we came out of it to find flurries of snow and white mountain tops as far as we could see. I also remember feeling scared to death my car would slip and slide the entire way down.

I thought it would be funny, before we left, to make a cd with just "On the Road Again" on it and to play it every time we got back in the car. I wouldn't have known then that it would become our ritual to play it every morning when we got back on the road. Hearing it always makes me think of different places, different Holiday Inns and KOA Kampgrounds. And a random place in the middle of nowhere in Utah where we thought it would be funny to make a video with that song in the background.

I feel a sense of sadness about our trip. I'm not sure exactly why or where that sadness originates. I loved our trip and I am so happy that we did it. The memories I have are some of the best in my head. Maybe I wonder if that was the best there will ever be, and if that's the case, the best time of my life has already passed. I proposed this idea to Jim last night before we went to sleep. He said "until we do it again." I smiled. I never would have thought we'd do it again. I told him we couldn't, though, because we'd be having kids soon. He said we'll go when we're older then. I guess that'll be good.

Partly, I think I feel sad because it's over. Even though it's been over for a year, I miss being on the road. I miss lugging our stuff into the hotel on a cart every night and making sandwiches in the passenger's seat for lunch. I won't say that toward the end these things didn't get old. They did. But they still spark a sensation of nostalgia whenever I replay them in my head.

That trip changed both of our lives, I think. Neither of us had done anything like that before. And we learned a lot about ourselves as a couple. Not trying to kill each other within the confines of a compact car for a month and a half speaks volumes of our ability to get along and deal with challenges. Sure, we had our little scuffs here and there, and we got on each other's nerves at times, but we were always able to get over it and move on with our day without letting it get in the way of the experience at hand.

And it's funny to think about how far from the people we were then we are now. We're engaged. We will be married in October. We've created a home together, just for the two of us. We have a fabulous new trip planned, granted it's a shorter one. We both have new career aspirations and we're working toward achieving our dreams.

It just goes to show that life does go on. We keep moving forward, growing and changing. But no matter how far we go, how much we change, that trip, the trip of our lives, will be forever ingrained in who we are those memories will make me smile until my last breathing day.

Our Last Few Days

We've been home for a week, so this is a little bit late, but here are our last few days.

We stayed the night in Missoula, MT and decided that we wanted to be home to surprise our moms on Mother's Day. But we still had about four days left of travel and only three days before we needed to be home, so the last stretch was a little rushed.

The next night we stayed in Seattle. It was a Holiday Inn at the airport, and we didn't realize until we got there that there was a $12 fee for parking. I complained a little about how stupid it was and the guy waived it for me. We slept there till about 3:15 and then got up and hit the road.

The sunrise was beautiful over Southern Washington. We stopped by a little inlet from the Pacific and watched the sky change colors for a few minutes (mostly we were falling asleep and needed to just move so we could stay awake). Jim wanted to see Astoria, where the Goonies took place, so we drove down Hwy 101 and over the Astoria Bridge, which is amazingly long and sits just on the water. It's an interesting bridge. And we saw the rock Mikey used in the movie to find the restaurant where the treasure was buried.

From there we drove along the Oregon Coast the rest of the way to California, stopping twice: once at the Tilamook Cheese Factory and once at the KOA we had booked that wouldn't let us cancel. We slept for about three hours and hit the road again.

The next time we stopped was in McKinleyville, CA for groceries (and because we had to pee) before it got too late. We didn't get into Shelter Cove until after eleven and everything between McKinleyville and there (with the exception of maybe Eureka) was closed.

Shelter Cove Lighthouse

We woke up at Shelter Cove to pleasant temperatures and clear skies, a rarity up there sometimes. I spent the morning cleaning the house while Jim watched TV and in the afternoon we went down to the Cove for fish burgers and some tide pool watching. We saw lots of little crabs, only a few starfish and the cutest little puppy who found himself a crab in the rocks.

It was the perfect last day, really. We had cheese and crackers and the rest of our carrots and snap peas and our last bottle of wine for dinner. The sunset was beautiful until the fog rolled in. 

Our trip is over. It's a little sad, but it's nice to be home too. I don't know that I found any place that I'd like to live. I have a dilemma: I don't love it here, but everyone I love is here. I just don't know if the tradeoff is worth it. There was one place, though, that Jim and I both really liked, where we could see living: Sonoma County...Petaluma, Cotati, somewhere on the coast maybe. The weather is nice, it's close enough to family, exepnsive as hell, but I went to school there and I loved it, and I think I could be happy living there. I guess we'll see what the future holds.

Jim  has gone back to work. He's working at his old bosses auto shop (I guess he's not really Jim's OLD boss anymore...) as the shop manager, giving quotes, performing safety inspections and anything else that needs to be done.

I'm working too...on my novel. I'm determined to get that thing finished and sent to (and picked up by) and agent this year. I got my third draft back from my editor when I got home and I have some work to do on it, but hopefully I'm close. I'll keep ya posted. :)

We're Home

Ok, so I wanted to update everyone. We're home. I'll post something else soon, when everything is unpacked and put away.

Three Beautiful Days, Then....Southern Idaho

I have nothing against Idaho. Northern Idaho is beautiful, but there’s absolutely nothing to look at in southern Idaho except fields and cows and in some cases, nothing at all.

Exhibit A.

I’m actually sitting in the car in the middle of freaking nowhere while an accident is being cleared off the road. And I’m not happy about it. Except that I have time to sit here and write this.
Anyway, on to more interesting things. The three days before this one were amazing. We stayed in Loveland, CO and the next morning drove through Colorado and over the Rocky Mountains. At our highest elevation we were over 11,000 feet and it was snowing like crazy. In front of the car we could see everything through a transparent sheet of white snowflakes. It was beautiful, although the car wasn’t terribly fond of the driving in such high elevation.

At 11,000 feet

The entire drive was something I’ve never experienced before. As we began our ascent, it was hot and completely clear. As we climbed, we began to see snow on the tops of the mountains and the higher we got, the more snow we saw until we hit the summit and it was completely white out (nothing on the roads though, thank goodness). As we descended again, the snow began to disappear. But as soon as we’d gotten to a low point, we began climbing again. And the snow came back, although we didn’t hit anything higher than 10,000 feet again.

A frozen lake somewhere in the middle of the Rockies

We did this a few more times before we hit Glenwood Canyon. We got concerned when we saw signed that told wide trucks to exit because they were prohibited through the canyon. But as we came around the corner, the sight we saw was stunning. On both sides of us were craggy canyon walls, so close I could barely take a picture. As we got to the end of the canyon, five or so big horned sheep were grazing on the steep hill right next to the highway.

The Canyon

From there we got to flatter land. But the snowy mountains remained to our right and when we came out to where we were staying the night in Grand Junction, they began to look similar to the sides of the Grand Canyon. Shades of purple and blue and orange danced up the sides of the hills. Our hotel room faced the hillside, and we enjoyed the view for the few hours of daylight we had before we went to sleep.

The view from our hotel window

The next day we crossed the state line into Utah, and the landscape changed again. Gradually the stony hillsides became rolling hills, which Jim said were actually huge rocks rounded by the high winds. It was a long drive from the main highway to Arches National Park, and again, as we got closer to our destination, the landscape changed. The gray rocks gave way to sharp, red cliffs. If you blinked an eye on the drive through the park, you missed something. The road began with a steep ascent through huge red cliffs, some completely flat and smooth, others sharp and stony. The arches themselves were amazing too, carved out on the rock from wind and rain. We weren’t able to see the whole park because the weather was getting bad, but what we did see was amazing.

Arches National Park

From there we had a long drive to Cedar City, UT where we stayed the night in a Kabin at a KOA (yes, they spell it with a K).

On the way there we drove through the San Rafael Swell where, as the informational signs posted at the “scenic points” said, only bandits and criminals braved. It was like a larger version of the Grand Canyon….

San Rafael Swell

…Well we just passed the accident. It was a semi truck carrying logs that rolled over, it looked like a couple of times. The wind is really bad today and it’s a two lane (I call two lanes one in each directions…that’s what this is) and 65 MPH. We think maybe he was going too fast and the wind hit the side going around the corner and rolled it. The guy couldn’t have survived. The cab was completely crushed and the worst of it was on the driver’s side. I’ve never seen a semi truck so crinkled like that. The passenger’s side door was crushed into a Z shape and a firefighter was standing on it. The whole front was smushed and the logs were scattered everywhere. A helicopter came to life flight the guy out, but it was waiting too long on scene for the guy to have been in it on his way to the hospital when it left. It’s too sad to think about the man’s last moments of life. But those guys drive like crazy sometimes. And awful things happen when people aren’t careful.
…so, back to Utah and the San Rafael Swell. It was like a larger, wider version of the Grand Canyon and it’s steep cliffs and deep gorges, as if they were carved out of the ground…and they were. We stopped and took pictures at every “scenic point.”

Our Kute Kabin at KOA

We drove through another mountain range, hitting snow at the summit that lasted till we were almost back to the bottom. It was windy that day too. It scares me. I hate the wind and this little car flies all over the place in the wind. It’s too light.

Our Kabin was cool, though. It was a single room with a queen sized bed, a set of bunk beds, a little shelf between them and a desk by the door. In front there was a swing on the porch and a little fire pit and picnic table on the grass. We ordered pizza for dinner. $5.99 each for two two topping pizzas at Dominos. It was a little bizarre to have the delivery driver knock on our Kabin door, but it was fun. We had the rest of our Wisconsin table wine (I didn’t like it much. It was a little on the sweet side and stung the back of my throat more than I like) and ate our pizza and gave names to the picture files on the laptop.

In the morning we had cereal for breakfast and left early. It was about 80 miles from Cedar City to Bryce Canyon. We decided at the last minute to go to Bryce instead of Zion. Either would have been amazing, but with our time constrictions, we decided to only see one and Bryce was it.

The canyon was full of what they called hoodoos, big craggy rocky formations that seem to grow up out of the canyon floor. We took the 2.8 mile hike 800 feet to the bottom and back up. It was considered a moderate hike, but it kicked our butts. The very beginning of the descent and the very end of the ascent were incredibly steep. It was neat to stand next to these things though. They looked so much bigger from the bottom than the top. And they were so red! It made the sky look incredibly blue.

Bryce Canyon

The rest of the day was sluggish and sleepy. We stopped to get gas and I made a couple of sandwiches and we downed a Starbucks Double Shot each. We’ve been pretty much living on those things where there are no Starbucks stores. They gave us enough energy to get through the rest of the trip to Pocatello, ID.
We did make one more stop in Salt Lake City. No one I’ve talked to watches it, but there’s a show on TLC called The Little Chocolatiers. It’s about a couple of “little people” who own a chocolate shop a little outside of the city. In the show, they are contracted to build these amazing things out of chocolate and candy. In one episode we saw (we only saw the show one night in a hotel room when we were cruising channels for something to watch), they made an underwater seascape for a benefit event for the local aquarium, and in another one a couple in the community was moving…I don’t remember where, but they were going to live in a log cabin, so one of their friends came and had the shop make a log cabin out of chocolate. It was incredible! They’re so talented. Anyway, we went to the shop and got chocolate covered cinnamon bears (which we saw them make on the show…they’re delicious!) and chocolate peanut butter truffles and chocolate covered raspberries. The only other thing we ate were the raspberries cause they were fresh and completely delicious. It was well worth the stop.

So now we’re in southern Idaho and completely bored with the scenery. We were going to go to Thousand Springs, which we found in our “Off the Beaten Path” book, but then we read the section again and you can only see it from a resort on the other side of the river and they recommend binoculars and a telephoto lens for the camera. We decided it wasn’t worth it, so we’re going to Craters of the Moon National Monument and not the springs. We’re staying in Missoula, Montana tonight, which I’m excited about because my dad lived there for a little while when we was a kid. I’ve been there before, but I was young then, and I think it’s going to be cool to see it again as an adult.

Until then, I’m sitting and staring out the window at absolutely nothing.

The Last Night is Booked

Well, it's coming to an end. I just booked our last week or so's worth of reservations. We're in Loveland, CO tonight. We drove through Nebraska and the corner of Wyoming to get here. The wind was pretty awful again today and there were tornado warnings for the other side of Nebraska from where we were. Everytime it started hailing we started looking around for the swirling clouds. It started calming down after we got off I-80 and headed south toward Colorado.

The Rocky Mountains crept up in the distance as we crossed the stateline, capped in white and swathed in clouds. This picture doesn't even do it justice. It was beautiful. I couldn't stop looking out the window.

We ate dinner at On The Border and it felt like we were getting closer to home. I've racked up 28,000 points on my Priority Club card for Holiday Inn. I've got at least a free night, I think. It's nice that they're offering an extra 1,000 points for every stay during this time that we've been gone.

Crazy hail

Amazing freaking clouds

Oh, and we hit 10,000 miles yesterday..I think it was yesterday.

Mount Rushmore and More

Tonight we're staying in Keystone, SD, the nearest town to Mount Rushmore. Yes, we saw the monument. We saw it from the road where we drove by slowly (we did NOT park...as the signs told us not to do) and took pictures. There was no way in hell we were going to spend $10 to park just to take some pictures! It doesn't cost to SEE it, just to stop the car between two wite lines! And we got plenty of acceptable pictures, although I wanted to take one that looked like I was picking one of their noses, but life goes on, right?

Ta Da

As I said, we're staying in Keystone tonight. It's a tiny little town that's completely touristy. Evidently it gets really crowded in the summer time. We went to every single restaurant in town looking for something to eat. There's a place called the Ruby House that's set up like an old fashioned saloon...sort of. The tables reminded us of ones in a casino buffet and it REEKED of cigarettes. We sat down, ordered drinks and then left because we were both about to choke from the smoke smell.

After making the rounds in town, looking at menus, we ended up at the first restaurant we checked out, closest to our hotel. The food wasn't bad. Not fabulous either. The lady claimed the vegetables weren't frozen. I beg to differ. We got a bottle of wine...from California, of course. It seems people drink nothing else. It's been at every single restaurant we've been to that served it. Even when the area produces wine. I haven't seen a local wine in a restaurant yet. But I've also noticed that most other places have either fruit wines or generic table wines. No one has the variety of California.

We've been through a few other states since I posted last. Wisconsin was nice. We made one stop at a cheese shop where we got a bunch of cheese (small pieces), a magnet and a bottle of local wine and drove through the rest of it. It was a pretty state, not a lot of big cities and lots of grass. We also drove through Minnesota, which was mostly pretty too. We passed the Mall of America in Minneapolis and stayed the night in St. Cloud. The Holiday Inn (which we booked by mistake, we've been staying in Holiday Inn Expresses...there's a difference. Free breakfast for one) was HUGE! It had two indoor pools, one had a water slide, it had video games, volleyball and basketball courts, table tennis...all sorts of stuff. It was crazy! We got coffee at Barnes and Noble the next morning and Jim got a book at Petsmart about Bearded Dragons and we drove our second 8 hour day in a row.

Our first eight hour day of driving (on this stretch of the trip) was from Freeport, IL to St. Cloud. Freeport was a little sketchy. Our hotel was probably built in the 70s and PINK even though the outside looked a lot newer. There was NOWHERE to eat that wasn't creepy looking except this Italian place near the hotel. I ordered a fish dish, hoping to be a little healthy. It was awful! I ate my salad, baked potato and some of the appetizer we ordered.

From St. Cloud, we drove another almost eight hours to Mitchell, SD. It was an awful trip. It was so windy Jim was barely able to keep the car on the road and there were high wind warnings in the area until late in the evening. Nothing went wrong, thank goodness, but it was what my dad would call "Sporty" driving. I read my book (Susan Wiggs' Summer Hideaway. It's so good!) to keep my mind off the wind because it freaks me out! We ate at a place called Whiskey Creek Wood Fire Grill, and it was pretty good. We had seen Culvers all over the place, and decided to try their frozen custard since it was within walking distance of the hotel. It wasn't bad. Really creamy, but I've had my taste and I don't need any more.

Today we drove from Mitchell to Keystone, which was about a five, amost six hour drive. It was raining like crazy when we left, but it subsided pretty quickly and left us with cloudy, but dry weather (no wind). We made a few stops along the way. There were about a million billboards for about 300 miles before a place called Wall Drug. For the longest time we had no idea what it was until I looked it up. It ended up being a drug store turned tourst attraction. They had EVERYTHING in there. Souvenirs, a cafe, ice cream, a donut factory, books, clothes, candy, photos of about a million people, places and things. A giant T-Rex that tried to eat Jim and lots of photo opportunities. We spent probably 45 minutes just walkin through looking at stuff.

Two of the probably 20 signs just before the exit for Wall Drug

Me and my Jackelope

Jim driving the covered wagon

In the wagon

Jim and the T-Rex

Next we stopped at Reptile Gardens, which was sort of like Reptiland in Pennsylvania, only bigger and with many more animals. They had birds and turtles and a 15 foot alligator and a bunch of smaller ones. There were snakes of all kinds and all sorts f lizards. My favorite was the prairie dogs. The picture below looks stretched, but it's not. He's just that fat!!

There was also a cool chicken, but I felt sorry for her because she was in this little box and was expected to answer questions when people put in a quarter. She'd even laid an egg in there.

Ok, I think that pretty much gets you up to speed. The weather predicts snow here tonight, so hopefully it's not too much. There are tornado warnings for Nebraska. We're going there tomorrow but not where the warnings are...on the other side of the state from that.

A Cold Day in Hell

...Michigan, that is. Today we drove from Maumee, OH (yes, we HAD to stay in Ohio again!) to Hell, MI and then to Elkhart, IN.

Hell is three buildings and 200 people big. There's a post office/deli and an ice cream shop/halloween store and an inn. We went to the first two and had tasty ice cream and sent some mail. I'd like to say it was more interesting than it was. I mean it was fun for a while to use so many references to "Hell," but after a while the novelty wore off and it was just old. We took some pictures though. Enjoy.

Me and my ice cream from Hell

Jim, Bigfoot from Hell

In all seriousness, though, it was really a pretty part of Michigan. Everything was really green and there were trees and grass everywhere we looked. I guess they've been having a lot of rain in the area and there are a lot of small lakes, one of which flooded, closing one of the main bridges, so you had to go all the way around the lake. We decided to take another road we saw on the GPS. This was it...

And here's the official welcome sign.

Oh, and this amused us. Some of the states where we had no interest in visiting anything in particular, we just sort of drove through a corner. Well, Kentucky made us laugh. Here's our trip into and out of Kentucky (on our way out).

"2vi" and her directions to Kentucky

We drove in on one side of the bridge, made a left turn, and then another and drove out on the other side of the same bridge. It was interesting, though, cause one side of the bridge was blue and the other side was green....weird, huh?

Yesterday was uneventful. We drove for most of the day and landed in Maumee, OH in a Staybridge Suites right next to a mall. It wasn't a great one. There weren't a whole lot of stores, and no Macy's so I couldn't get a new compact (mine is getting low). But it did have a Red Robin and we had a gift card, so dinner was almost free.

The Staybridge had a laudry room that was free to guests. We just had to provide our own detergent. We got some of those cool sheets that have the detergent, fabric softener and anticling stuff all in one. You put it in the washer and then the dryer and you're done. It's good for our purposes, but we decided it was too expensive to use on a regular basis. We like them because they don't spill like powder or liquid soap would.

I've been having problems with my stomach the past...almost week now. Everything I eat seems to upset it. I've stopped eating fried food and made an attempt to eat more fruits and veggies. I also don't think I've been getting enough protein, so I'm working on that. Hopefully something works soon!

Tomorrow we're going to check out an Amish "downtown" area. Jim says they have some pretty cool stuff sometimes, so we're going to check it out. This is supposed to be the third largest Amish community in the country, so hopefully it'll be cool.

Anyway, time to go bully Jim into committing to a dang television show and stop surfing because he's driving me INSANE!!!