Day 15: Back Home in Kansas and OKC!!

We left the hotel in Kearney at about 9:45 and drove east on I-80 until we hit State Highway 81 and took it south to Salina, where Bud and Rita and Boyd and Betty branched off from Carrie and I took I-70 east back to Topeka and Ottawa. That was an emotional moment for Carrie and I and I'm sure it was for the others as well. Before we got to Salina, we stopped for lunch in Concordia, Kansas, where we hit the local Dairy Queen. Grandma was hankering for an ice cream cone, but she and Boyd ended up getting hot fudge sundaes, while Rita and I got Blizzards and Carrie had the cone.

Our drive through Nebraska was filled with corn. The sports teams are not known as the Cornhuskers for nothing. We did see one field that was strictly being grown for ethanol, and a gas station we stopped at in Nebraska was selling ethanol-enhanced gas for cheaper than regular unleaded. Interesting. Speaking of gas, our total gas bills were pretty impressive. The van consumed around 900 dollars in fuel, while the Prius only cost around 250 dollars to make the round trip. That's not a typo. I can' encourage people enough to seriously think about buying a Prius whenever they are ready to change vehicles. Boyd drove it at one point and loved it.

Well, that pretty much does it for the blog. I'm going to put up one more post as a kind of post-trip reflection and appreciation piece, so look for that in the next week. But until then it's back to work and back to the real world.

Day 15

--BDC

Day 14: All This Luxury and No Hairdryer

Ate breakfast at the hotel diner/registration office (yeah, the registration “lobby” was in a dinner) in Rawlins. We had discount coupons so our breakfasts ranged from 31 cents to 2 dollars. We were on I-80 all the way, and stopped at a rest area outside Pine Bluffs, Nebraska for lunch. Nebraska certainly has a well-deserved reputation for growing corn, as there were fields and fields of it. We stopped just outside of Maxwell, Nebraska, for gas, but decided not to fill up when we saw the price: $3.69 cents, the highest price we’ve seen so far! We had to get gas at another city in Nebraska for $3.39 cents, only to find that the price in Kearney, where we stopped for the night, was $2.99. Before we got gas, we re-entered the Central time zone outside of Sutherland. We rolled into Kearney at around 6:30, checked into our hotel which is probably the nicest handicap-accessible room we’ve had on the whole trip and they are the cheapest as well. Cheers to the Rodeway Inn & Suites. We ate dinner at the Whiskey Creek Steakhouse, which is a local steakhouse chain akin to Texas Roadhouse. It was really delicious meal, and the best steak and baked potato we’ve had in a long time. A great way to end the last night of our vacation. Tomorrow we will all be in Topeka, Ottawa, and Oklahoma City. The BDC will stay together until we get to Salina, and then we’ll go our separate ways and back to our regular lives.

Day 14

--BDC

Day 13: A Three-State (Idaho, Utah, Wyoming) Tour

We began Day 13’s trip in Mountain Home, Idaho and drove south to Utah, passing next to the Great Salt Lake. We had lunch just north of the Utah border, and hit a lot of construction traffic in western Wyoming. There really isn’t that much to report as everyone is still having a good time, but also ready to get home. We rolled into our hotel in Rawlins, Wyoming, at about 9:30.

Day 13

--BDC

Day 12: Where in the Hells this Canyon?

We left Pendleton and went northeast on the Hells Canyon Scenic Bypass, which is a huge national recreation area on the border between Oregon and Idaho. After a happy accident (we took the wrong turn!), we stopped at Lake Wallowa State Park to have a very nice lunch next to a running stream. The drive the rest of the way was incredibly twisty and windy, but the payoff was great when we got to the canyon overlook. We couldn’t even see the Snake River at the bottom; the canyon at its deepest is over 9,000 feet deep, the deepest canyon in North America.

The crew ate dinner at a Pizza Hut in Baker City, Oregon and got to our hotel in Mountain Home, Idaho. Only a couple of more days to go!

Day 12

--BDC

Day 11: Mt. St. Helens, and Beginning the Long Road Home

We had another nice breakfast and packed up and left the hotel at around 9:30. It was only Carrie and I for today as Tracy and Jeremy were taken back to the airport. It was actually the first day of stereotypical Pacific Northwest weather as it was about 55 degrees, overcast, and damp when we left Suquamish. We began our drive to Mt. St. Helens by taking the western route and bypassing Seattle and the ferry. This route took us across the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which just opened the day before, with a huge public ceremony attended by the governor of Washington and 60,000 people.

With the weather still overcast, we approached Mt. St. Helens. The first view of the mountain is truly incredible, as you see the intact western part of the mountain and then almost immediately you glimpse the massive hole on the north side. We snapped a few pictures at an overlook, and then stopped at the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which is only 5 miles from the mountain. We watched an introductory video on the eruption, which occurred on May 18, 1980, only 4 days before my birth. We also read some of the stories of several survivors, some of whom were camping only a few miles or less from the mountain. The plaque commemorating the deaths (there were “only” 60, but this was incredible considering the size of the landslide (the largest in recorded history) and the strength of the blast (many thousands of times powerful than an atomic bomb) was moving. We left and visited the Clearwater Ridge visitor’s center on the way out.

The rest of the day was occupied by driving south through Washington, bypassing Portland to the east, and driving I-84 along the length of the Columbia River. The river is amazing. It was damned at least three different times along our route, to provide much of the power for the region. It was fun driving down the same river that Lewis and Clark navigated on their way to the Pacific. I thought about the expedition a lot while we were driving down the Columbia, and how much it has changed since the early 1800’s.

Tracy and Jeremy got back to Denton late tonight, and the BDC is reduced to 6 for the rest of the trip. Tomorrow we go on a long scenic drive to Hell. Actually Hells Canyon. As usual, check out the photos below.

Day 11

--BDC

History Lesson #2: Chief Seattle

The family reunion is being held at an Indian casino and resort in Suquamish, Washington. I did a little looking into this area's history, and came up with a pretty interesting story.

Apparently the city of Seattle was named after Chief Sealth, a leader of the Suquamish tribe who was born in 1786. (He would have been 19 when Lewis and Clark, with Sacagawea, made it to the mouth of the Columbia River in 1805.) He earned his reputation as a warrior, and became a slave owner. After one of his sons died in battle, he was baptized in the Catholic faith, probably in 1848. He also became good friends with one of the founders of what would become Seattle, Doc Maynard. Maynard persuaded the settlers of the area to name the developing area Seattle in the chief's honor. The chief and other local chiefs signed a treaty ceding most of the tribes' land to white settlers, in exchange for reservations and promises of support. After these promises were not upheld, several of the tribes lead their people to battle the white settlers. But Sealth urged his people not to fight, and even helped his white friends. He continued to visit his namesake city until his death in 1866. Find out more about Sealth here.

He is buried in Suquamish today, about half a mile from the resort hotel and casino where we are staying. I wonder what old Sealth would have thought about that.

Day 10: Chillin’ with the Smith-Jones family

The crew woke up and had a delicious continental breakfast at the Clearwater Casino and Resort. Bud, Jeremy, Tracy and I went over to the casino where I promptly lost 10 dollars playing the slot machines. I don’t know why I gamble; all I can think of when I do any gambling is, ‘What could I have done with that money?’ This is my last experience with gambling. Bud did okay, and made his money last longer than I did. Rita and Carrie sat on the dock facing the Agate Passage, which is the body of water separating Bainbridge Island and the Kitsap Peninsula, which is where Suquamish is located. We soon met a member of the Smith-Jones family, Vince, who has lived in the Seattle area for over 30 years.

The reunion provided a discounted buffet lunch that was delicious. After lunch, we took a big family photo and heard some nice guitar and violin music from some of the grandkids in the family. Then we walked down to the shore of the Passage at low tide and saw some spitting clams, a baby crab, and a lot of seaweed. We were really surprised that it wasn’t wetter.

Jeremy, Tracy, Carrie and I then went and visited Chief Sealth’s gravesite and the site of his and his tribe’s longhouse. It was really interesting to see, and if you want more information on the man for whom Seattle is named, check out my History Lesson #2 post. After this, we headed back to the hotel to mingle with family and try some cheese, crackers, wine, and fruit. We left for dinner at around 7 and ate at this quaint little Mexican restaurant in Poulsbo called Casa Luna. At around 10 o’clock, we crossed back over to Bainbridge Island to look at the lights of Seattle. Tracy, Jeremy, and Carrie got some decent pictures in spite of the haze and clouds. Check out their work below. The BDC will be splitting up tomorrow, with Carrie and I visiting Mt. St. Helens, while Tracy and Jeremy are taken to the airport to head back to Denton.

Here are our Day 10 pictures:

Day 10

--BDC