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

Day 9: Death to Garmina!!

Rita and Bud named their GPS device Garmina. It’s made by a company called Garmin. I know, it’s not very creative, but it sounds good. We’ll get back to Garmina, later, but first, let me update you on our day.

After a nice fresh fruit (from Pike Place Market in Seattle) and cereal breakfast, we checked out of Mounthaven around 11 o’clock. On the way back to Seattle to catch the ferry, we decided to stop in Enumclaw, Washington, to visit the memorial erected there to honor the victims of the airplane crash in 1946. The memorial is a nice plaque inset into a large rock, and Boyd’s brother’s name is the last one on the last, Duane White, from Ottawa, Kansas. The memorial is kept in a pretty veterans’ memorial park. After reflecting on the sacrifice of these 32 young men (28 of the men were Marine privates), we ate lunch at a nice public park in Enumclaw and then got back on the road, with our next stop coming in Puyallup at the Wal-Mart to pick up some medicine and some other travel essentials, i.e. candy for Tracy and Jeremy.

From Puyallup we headed back to the Emerald City. Traffic wasn’t as bad as we thought, and we pulled into the ferry line-up about 5:15 for the 5:30 ferry. The ferry ride was really smooth and windy, and it only took about 35 minutes. We disembarked from the boat and got on the highway for Suquamish and the resort. After a fairly short drive, we arrived at the hotel around 7. We got our hotel rooms set up (Carrie and I, Tracy and Jeremy, and Bud and Rita in the Chief Sealth (more about him in a later post) suite), and headed out to pick up dinner. Here’s where Garmina comes into the story.

Around 9 o’clock, Carrie, me, Jeremy, and Tracy programmed the local A&W into the Garmin, and set off on our way. About 10 miles and 15 minutes later, we ended up at the Treehouse Café, which Rita and checked into earlier but was already closed. We are all positive that I programmed the A&W into the GPS, but for some reason it led us in the opposite direction. After stopping at the Treehouse to regroup and find the street address for the A&W, we took off. After another 15 to 20 minutes to get to A&W, we get there to discover that it’s located inside a freakin’ gas station and it’s closed!! We then decided to just go to a Burger King and get it over with. We finally got back to our hotel rooms and started eating at about 10:30. Needless to say, a frustrating end to the day, but nothing the BDC can’t handle. This did give us a new name for the Garmin: Lucifina Garmina. But this should be a lesson to everyone: don’t rely on GPS devices to get you where you are going. Nothing beats a good map and a little brainpower. Should be a pretty quiet day for us tomorrow as we get to hang around Suquamish.

Check out Day 9 photos...

Day 9

-BDC

Day 8: The Good and the Bad of Mount Rainier National Park

After a delicious breakfast cooked by Grandma and Rita, the whole gang got going to Mt. Rainier. The park entrance is literally a mile down the road. We soon saw evidence of the flood from November 2006, in which 18 inches of rain fell in 3 days, washing out many campgrounds, trails, and roads. Our first stop was Longmire. It was here that we got our first good look at Mt. Rainier in all of its glory. The mountain is around 14,500 feet tall, and just as we arrived at Longmire, the summit became visible as the final wispy clouds burned off. We all browsed around in the giftshop a bit, and then got back on the road.
Our next stop was the overlook at the Nisqually River. Here the park provided a map of the glacier that is visible from the overlook. The glacier around the turn of the 20th century extended down past the current location of the bridge over the river. The glacier now is pretty much gone, replaced by a rocky hillside. Al Gore could have used these before and after images in his global warming slideshow, the difference was that dramatic. We next stopped at Narada Falls, which is about a hundred-foot waterfall of the Paradise River. Everyone got some really good pictures of the falls.
The visitor’s center and inn at Paradise were the next stops on our list. This is the most popular spot in the park, and as a result the traffic and parking were nightmares. Betty and Boyd noted how much the park has changed in the 50-some odd years since they have been coming to Mt. Rainier. This is a good time for me to tell you, my dear reader, why Boyd and Betty have been coming to Mt. Rainier for so long. Boyd’s brother Duane was a Marine private in 1946. He was on a military airplane traveling from San Diego to Seattle in December when the plane crashed on the southwestern side of the mountain, killing all 32 Marines aboard. Boyd and Betty have been active in the community of soldiers’ survivors ever since, and have been coming to the reunion of family members for quite some time. (I’ll have more about the Marines in the next post.) They are not happy with the commercialized aspects of the park, and I completely understand where they are coming from. But in order to make something as large as a Mt. Rainier or a Yellowstone Park accessible and enjoyable to as large a number of people as possible, you have to make it easy for them to visit these beautiful places. It is certainly a paradox: maintain the pristine wilderness and have no one but the most hearty adventurers visit, or build highways through them and gift shops in them so more people can visit. It is a question that has been asked since the days of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt.
I could talk about the historical aspects of national park development all day long, but then you wouldn’t know what happened next on our trip, would you? After a picnic lunch at the Paradise visitor’s center, Jeremy suggested that the four of us (Jeremy, Tracy, Carrie, and I) go on a hike to Reflection Lakes (so named because at the right time you can see a reflection of the mountain in the lakes). The Lakes Trail was about a mile and a half long. Bud and Rita and Grandma and Grandpa took the keelboats (I mean, cars J; there’s Lewis and Clark creeping in on me again) down the road to the lakes. Our hike was really fun, and gave us a small sense of the vastness and the wilderness of the park. We also got some really neat pictures, which you can check out below. We took a lot of pictures today. After we met up at the lakes, Bud and Rita and Boyd and Betty went on back to the cabins at Mounthaven, while the youngsters went on into the park to visit Box Canyon. This is about a 150 foot gorge that has been carved out of the soft rock by the Cowlitz River. It was a truly impressive display of nature’s incredible power. After we walked around the canyon, we headed back to Ashford and had dinner at the Highlander Lounge, where we had some of the best hamburgers we have eaten in a long time. After dinner and back at the cabins, Jeremy started a fire (he’s not that good folks; he had matches and dry wood J) and the four young ‘uns made smores and dodged the mosquitoes. It was a pretty nice end to a day of the good (the beauty of the mountain, the hike to Reflection Lakes, the comradeship with friends and family) and the bad (devastating floods, crass commercialization, and young men dying in plane crashes) of Mount Rainier National Park. The mountain giveth and it definitely taketh away indeed.
See everyone tomorrow when we’ll back on our way to Seattle to catch the ferry to Suquamish and the family reunion. As usual, check out pictures below.

Day 8

--BDC

Day 7: How To Not Miss Your 7:10 Flight to Seattle? Always Remember to Set Two Alarms!

Carrie woke up at around 5 this morning and checked her phone to see the time, only to find a text message from Tracy. They missed their flight!! They would try to get on the next one, but it wasn’t likely. Later on they called to tell us that they couldn’t get on the second flight either, and they were the 5th and 6th standbys for a third flight. Amazingly, they made it on the third flight out of Dallas. We didn’t really have enough time left to do the last big thing on our list (visit the Seattle Art Museum), but we did catch up on blog writing and photo editing. We checked out of our hotel at 11, and then went back to Pike Place for a quick lunch. Our hotel was very nice, with big rooms, but parking was very expensive.

We picked up the final two members of our travelin’ party at about 2:15 at Sea-Tac Airport (that’s Seattle-Tacoma). We then drove east and south to Mount Rainier National Park, and are staying at a little group of cabins just outside the park entrance called Mounthaven. Our cabin is called Fir. We ate pizza at a little outdoor restaurant in Ashford, which is about ten miles west of the park entrance. Tomorrow we will be touring Mt. Rainier N.P. And we have some good news. The main cabin has wireless Internet, so we will be able to blog this weekend. Come back in the next day or two to see how our exploration of the park went. And don’t forget to check out the really amazing pictures that Tracy and Jeremy took from their plane of Mt. Rainier.

Day 7

--BDC

Day 6 (Day 2 in Seattle): Suddenly Aaron Doesn’t Feel So Special Anymore

Why don’t I feel as special, you may be asking? Back in Oklahoma, the Prius is a relatively unusual car, but here in Seattle it seems like every fourth or fifth car is a Prius. This is definitely a more liberal town that Oklahoma City, in more ways than one. When we got to our hotel room yesterday, I turned on the TV and the station was the Seattle IndyMedia Center station playing a documentary on how the banking industry controls the world. And the local independent weekly newspaper featured an article on the best sex toys. Only in Seattle.

We stopped for coffee and a cinnamon roll at Seattle’s Best Coffee. I know what everyone is saying: You were in Seattle and you didn’t go to Starbucks? We have seen a ton of Starbucks (and Seattle’s Best, and Tully’s, and a dozen other independent coffee shops), and actually visited the very first Starbucks, but when we were ready to have breakfast, we didn’t see a Starbucks before we saw the Seattle’s Best. The caramel mocha and the cinnamon roll were very good. Before going to Pike Place Market, we browsed Metsker’s Maps, a neat little map store.

Most of our morning was spent at Pike Place Market, the nation’s oldest farmer’s market. They are actually celebrating their centennial this year, as is Oklahoma. We walked around the market area for about 2 and a half hours. This place is crammed with everything from fish markets, flower stalls, Russian restaurants, cheescake stores, and arts and crafts vendors. You literally could spend a week or two just exploring this area, but we only had a couple of hours. We took the 12:30 water taxi to Alki Beach, which is roughly where the first settlers of Seattle settled until they decided that the land across Elliott Bay would be better suited for settlement. The fish and chips next to the dock were excellent.

After the water taxi ride, Carrie and I went back to the hotel room and dropped off the fruit we bought in Pike Place. Our next stop was the Bank of America tower in downtown. It has 76 stories (over 1,000 feet) and the observation deck is on the 73rd story. It only cost 5 dollars (the Space Needle cost 14 dollars), and there was no line, but my God, what a view. It was truly stunning. You literally could see Tacoma about 25 miles to the south and the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. We really wanted to stay longer, but we needed to visit the library.

The new Seattle Central Library opened in 2004. It is really an unusual building, designed by a world-renowned architect, Rem Koolhaas. It has several pieces of art inside, the escalators (yeah, it has escalators) are color coordinated to draw your eye to what conveys people, and the coolest feature is the near-completely automated book sorting system. In fact, the 4-minute video we watched about the sorting system was one of the highlights of our trip to Seattle!

After leaving the library we took the bus out to the Japanese garden on the northeast side of town. It was very peaceful and the koi were gianormous. On the recommendation of the Japanese garden ticket-taker, we walked the alleged 1.5 mile distance to Volunteer Park and the Asian Art Museum. After at least 2 or 3 miles of walking, mostly uphill, we finally arrived at the park too exhausted to visit the museum. So we just went up the water tower in the park, and learned a little about Frederick Law Olmstead, the father of landscape architecture, his son, and the history of Seattle’s park system.

We caught the bus back downtown, went out to dinner at the Icon Grill, where we had a vastly overpriced and not very good dinner. Carrie and I were exhausted and just passed out in the room.

Check out our day's photo haul below:

Day 6

--BDC

Day 5 (Day 1 in Seattle): Yeah, It Was 98 DEGREES in Seattle Today!!

Carrie and I arrived in Seattle about noon and immediately paid 28 dollars to park. Eight dollars were for parking in a gravel lot that we only later found out was only a four hour lot, and then twenty dollars for a 24 hour space. After we checked our bags at the Moore Hotel, we walked to the Virginia Inn, a neat little local bar/restaurant. I had the crab cake and Carrie had a turkey sandwich. Then we took the monorail to Seattle Center and visited the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. Highlights included the history of guitar exhibit and the Jimi Hendrix area. It was really cool to see letters that Hendrix wrote and drawings that he made. Apparently he was a decent artist as well as an amazing musician. We only briefly walked through the Science Fiction Museum.

After getting a few snapshots of the Space Needle, we walked over to Olympic Sculpture Park, but it was incredibly hot and we didn’t take much time to appreciate the sculptures. We hopped on the waterfront bus and rode it to Pioneer Square, the historic district of Seattle. We took the Underground Tour, which visits three sections of late 19th century Seattle that were rebuilt after the catastrophic fire of 1889. The city was rebuilt quickly but several years later the city decided to build up the parts of the city closest to Puget Sound, which made the previous first floors of all the buildings in this area underground today. You can still see the designs on some of the plaster walls. It was a very interesting hour and a half, and Carrie got some good pictures.

After the tour, we walked down to the Elliott Bay Book Company, which is a Seattle institution. It is such a great bookstore, comparable to Full Circle in Oklahoma City, but only much bigger. We left the bookstore and walked to the International District, but it was after 7:30 and much of the district was closed. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by the library, but it closes at 8, so we made a point to come back the next day. We ate at Belltown Pizza on the recommendation of the hotel desk clerk, and it was really tasty. We were back in our room at around 11:30, very tired but very happy to continue our visit to the Emerald City the next day. Hopefully, it would not be nearly 100 degrees the next day.

Since we're going to be in backwoods Washington the next three days, we won't be able to post anything, but that's not too bad considering it's the weekend, and you all need something to keep you busy when you're bored at work!!


Here are photos from our first day in Seattle.

Day 5

--BDC

Day 4: A Long Stop(light) in Missoula

Not a whole lot to report for our fourth consecutive day on the road. At the beginning of day four, Carrie and I have traveled a grand total of 1,591 miles, with another 600 or so to go. We left Butte at about 9:30 Tuesday morning on I-90 and stayed on I-90 all the way to Ellensburg, Washington. We stopped at a Wal-Mart (an old-fashioned one, not a SuperCenter) in Missoula, Montana, to restock our traveling supplies and to have a quick bite to eat. Gas is still around 3 dollars a gallon. The Montana countryside is very pretty. I can certainly see why it is called Big Sky country.

After crossing into the Pacific timezone at the Idaho border, it was only 1:30. The Coeur d’Alene area is gorgeous. We crossed over into Washington at about 3 o’clock, and stopped just west of Spokane to get some gas, use the restroom, and stretch our legs. The temperature here in Spokane is 93 degrees. Outside of Ritzville, WA, we hit a dustnado, a whirling dervish of dirt. It fell apart as it hit the road, but it was pretty awesome looking. We’re driving through wheat country, as most of eastern Washington seems to be covered by the crop. We’re one hundred miles east of Ellensburg as I type this, and the temperature is 99 degrees!!!! I hope it cools down for Carrie and I in Seattle and the rest of the gang in Ashford tomorrow. We did make one neat stop today. There’s a scenic view of the Columbia River where I-90 crosses it, and we got out and took a few pictures. You can look at those below.

You read right above. The Burnin’ Daylight Crew is splitting up for a couple of days. Carrie and I will be driving on to Seattle tomorrow morning, and Bud and Rita and Boyd and Betty are going to Ashford (near Mt. Rainier). We pick up the final two members of our traveling party on Friday morning and then the four of us are on to Mt. Rainier for a couple of days before going to Suquamish for the family reunion. Posting may be a little sparse the next couple of days due to our busy schedule, but we’ll try to keep you guys updated as often as we can. Tomorrow night at this time we’ll be living it up in Seattle.

Day 4

-BDC

Day 3: Bears and Moose and Elk, oh my!! The Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and waking up in Butte

After a brief nap at the Rock Springs La Quinta, the BDC got on the road for day three at about 9:20 Monday morning. We cruised north through Wyoming and got some good pictures of the Bridger-Teton National Forest around noon. The gang stopped in Jackson (the same Jackson of Jackson Hole, the famous ski resort) at about 1 o’clock for gas ($3.09) and a quick lunch in a shopping center plaza parking lot.

Next up, we came to the Grand Teton National Park. The Grand Tetons are a really beautiful range of mountains in western Wyoming. Grand Teton itself is 13.700 feet tall and it was truly stunning. There is a good-sized glacier on the east face that is gorgeous. We got several good pictures for you below. We also saw several buffalo (including one taking a cool dirt bath) in the park.

We arrived in Yellowstone National Park about 4. We were hoping to see some wildlife, and we were not disappointed. Before we got to Old Faithful, we saw a black bear and two cubs climbing a wooded ridge. We also saw several moose, elk, and deer. Carrie and I had just a brief time to explore the Old Faithful area, but we took in a couple of bubbling, rotten egg-smelling sulfur pits. On our way out of the park, we were lucky enough to see our second bald eagle of the trip!

The BDC crew left Yellowstone and entered Montana at around 5:30. Carrie and I snapped a few photos of some interesting landscapes driving on Montana highway 191 next to the Gallatin River (I believe named by Meriwether Lewis after the U.S. Treasury secretary serving while the Lewis and Clark expedition was surveying the Louisiana Purchase). While we were driving in Montana, we had our first car trouble. This guy was driving aggressively and passing the Prius, and as he was passing the van, the hubcap and another piece came flying off. At first, we thought it was from the guy’s truck, but when we got to the hotel in Butte, we discovered that the driver’s side back hubcap had come off the van!

We finally arrived in Butte at around 10 o’clock and got a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow it’s back on I-90 for almost 500 miles. We will go through Montana, the panhandle of Idaho, and Washington. Check out some photos below and be on the lookout for what happened to the BDC crew on Day 4.

Day 3

-BDC

Day 2: Laying Out the Spread on the Bowen/Baker Trailhead

The Burning Daylight Crew was hoping to shove off from Longmont at around 9, but Boyd and Rita needed to check the spark plugs in the van, so we didn’t leave until 10:30. We rolled into Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park at about 11:45. A lot of the trees in this area and other places have been devastated by pine beetles, which have infested much of the forest from Mexico to Canada.

Rocky Mountain National Park is incredibly beautiful. It is hard to describe in words. To think that people would want to despoil these places is beyond me. We got some good pictures at the Forest Canyon Overlook and at the Visitors Center. The highest point on Trail Ridge Road, through the park, is at roughly 12,200 feet and is tundra. The wind was blowing about 30-40 miles an hour, the temperature was around 55 degrees, and it was raining a little. We stopped at the Bowen/Baker Trailhead and laid out our lunch spread around 2:30. We got nice pictures of some storm clouds at the Trailhead and got rained on a little during our brief hike. We finally left the Park at about 4:15 on our way to Wyoming. We did see a moose eating some vegetation in the Arapahoe National Forest and a bald eagle during our drive from the Park to the Wyoming border.

The drive from the Park to Wyoming is starkly attractive. Most of the land is reserved for ranches and the homes are spread far, far apart. I can see why these places attract hard-working, fiercely independent people. We took several pictures between Rand and Walden, Colorado. We stopped in Saratoga, Wyoming, to fill up ($2.99 per gallon) and eat at a local restaurant called Stumpy’s Eatery (yes, it really is called Stumpy’s and is just an old house redone as an eatery). Two interesting things on the menu were stumps (tater tots) and bull fries (bull testicles), which Bud forced the waitress to explain. After we left Saratoga, we hooked up with I-80, and took it for about 150 miles to Rock Springs, WY, where we were lucky to find two rooms at the La Quinta after they “lost” our reservation. We didn’t get settled into our hotel rooms until about midnight. Ugh! Another long day tomorrow as we drive through Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park. Hopefully we will get into Butte before midnight tomorrow!!

Check out more of Carrie’s photos below:

Day 2

--BDC

A Day One Summary; Or, How a Ten Dollar Pair of Sunglasses Saved the Trip

Hi Friends!,

Carrie and I left yesterday at about ten after 6 in the morning. It was a very early start, but we were excited to get on the road. I recently bought a cheap pair of "driving" sunglasses, whatever that means. I have never really worn sunglasses before, but I thought I would give it a try. My eyes get really strained when I'm on a long trip, and I was worried that my eyes would get really tired. With the sunglasses, I literally had no problems with eyestrain. I was thrilled beyond reason. Should a cheap pair of sunglasses make me this excited?

We took a couple of photos just south of Stillwater, and we met the other component of the Burnin' Daylight Crew (BDC) at about 10:30 just west of the intersection of I-35 and I-70. The check engine light on the van came on soon after they got started, but none of the "car guys" seem to be worried about it, so I'm not either! By the way, the first "burnin' daylight" was uttered by Grandpa at approximately 10:17 AM.

We stopped in Hays, Kansas, to get gas ($3.29 per gallon!), and then stopped at a rest area about 30 miles west of Hays to have a wind-blown lunch and take a couple of pictures.

We stopped in Aurora, CO at a friend of Bud and Rita's, Jim and Anthea, where we had a really nice barbecue dinner and good conversation with them and their friends. Their house is lovely and the view from their backyard is beautiful.

We finally managed to leave their house and roll into Longmont, Colorado, at about 10:30 PM. It was a very long first day, but very exciting. We'll be hitting Rocky Mountain National Park and Trail Ridge Road tomorrow, so stay tuned. :)

Here's some photos from Day 1:

Day 1

-BDC

Trip Mileage on Inbound Leg

What follows is a probable route home. This, of course, is subject to change and will be slightly varied for G&G and R&B. (They will be going straight to Pendleton from Seattle.)

Suquamish, OR to Pendleton, OR (with detour to visit Mt. St. Helens)--403 miles
Pendleton, OR to Mountain Home, ID (with scenic detour to Hells Canyon National Recreation Area)--262+ miles
Mountain Home, ID to Rawlins, WY--544 miles
Rawlins, WY to Kearney, NE--463 miles
Kearney, NE to OKC, OK (for C & A)--479 miles


That adds up to 2,150 miles, not counting the detour to Hell's Canyon. That's right around 5,000 miles of driving, folks. Let me tell you how much driving that is: I got my oil changed and my car checked on Tuesday, and I will have to get my oil changed again the week we get back. I'm glad I have that free oil change coupon!!

Testing Photos

Hi! Just testing a new photo option.

Burin' Daylight Crew

Be sure to check out "View Map" button. You can see where each person lives (approximately). Aaron and I will try to map as many photos as we can.

Happy 4th!!

-Carrie