3.01.03 Day Six

It’s 3 a.m. Twilight Zone is on the teevee and when I peek out the window I see snow. Ugh! I went to sleep early, right after I heard the weather report. The national weather report. Rain for the entire west coast and only one trouble spot in the entire country…in Utah, in the Wasatch Mountains. How nice. That is exactly where we will be traveling tomorrow. Well when we wake up. The pool could still be open. I should go swimming. He is snoring. He is my hero. His sounds are comforting. I am terrified.

Morning comes and I am okay. In fact I feel some sense of accomplishment. I HAVE MY STATES! Yeah! Only two things left. Visit my pal in Fort Collins and head home.
I am not going to be afraid.

Even though there is snow it is nothing like yesterday’s terrifying adventure. Everything is relative, isn’t it? Before long we are climbing ever higher into the state of Wyoming. Ear popping and elevations of up to 9,000 feet. There is an interesting thing about the West. They have gates that they can raise and lower over the highways. At first I thought they were cattle crossings, but there are signs that say TURN AROUND AND GO BACK>>>ROAD CLOSED. The folks out here are not into snow removal like we are. They don’t have lots of plows and instead they tell you to go home.

Here are a few other curious observations:

*Packer fans are everywhere! I’m not sure if the people that wear the jackets are transplanted Midwesterners or if they just like the team. Brett Lafarve is magical. He makes things happen that seem damn near impossible, just the way Jordan did in his heyday.

*I especially like to get gas at those huge truck stops. They have everything. You can buy a T-shirt for $3.33, get food, pick up souvenirs, go online, and if you are a trucker you can get a bunk and a shower. Can anyone stay in those bunkers? There are woman truckers you know. Plus I have seen husband/wife teams. The man in front of me in the checkout line handed the store man a card like a lunch ticket. It was his last punch.

*I bought a fine fuzzy buffalo-shaped bank. It rocks! I emptied my Tootsie Roll bank just before I left. I had accumulated $255.84. It’s amazing how fast your change piles up. I am doing this entire trip on cash! I also picked up some fruit…bananas and WASHINGTON apples. These are tasty apples, and I am not sure what type they are, but for my money I like our apples…especially the Delicious, they are more tart and very crisp. I go with Emerson on the apple issue.
War… can we survive by debate and use pressure to avoid war? I wonder if dubya is just playing a game of RISK.

*We crossed the Contentintal Divide twice. I was driving. Yippee!

*Tonight I am sending out postcards.

We grabbed a room at the local Motel 6 and went next door to the Waffle House. I wanted to stay at the Hilton next door.

They had a great pool but smoking is only allowed up in the tower. I’ve had enough of being up in the clouds. And ooooo-wheeeee that pecan waffle was very good. I haven’t had one in years. The loud crass conversations of the waitresses were priceless.

Now we are on the search for Tom. His number has been disconnected. We finally find him listed in the new telephone book in the motel, right next to the bible. He’s not home.

Word for the Day: Sky Riding

End Destination: Fort Collins, CO

Total Miles: 644

2.28.03 Day Five

You look very pretty today he said and he was right. I had the best night's sleep in that sift soft bed after an hour of swimming and a bit of hot tubbing. This was going to be a great day.

I took a picture of the hotel owner's charming heart-shaped herb garden, then Dee and I were of to the Launderette.

A chubby black man brought in ten huge bundles of dirty clothing, a tall nervous woman who spent most of her time chatting on her cell phone had two, and we have a surprising three.

I spoke with Ruth and Rose the two attendants who did the drop-off laundry. Is it usually this green during this time of year? I asked

I had noticed the new green lawns and the tulips in bud. Even the flowering kale from last years garden was up and glowing a bright sassy purple and striking white.

No. This is early for us. The winter has been so mild. Yep, a month and a half early. It means we will have a burn summer. Not enough moisture. Very dry. There will be trouble with the crops too.

What do u grow up here?

Apples, peaches, pears…

Ruth, the older white-haired lady said. My son works at Diamond and he will lose his job this year. She looks at Rose, a 40 something black woman and repeats a refrain from some commercial running on their local teevee station. I do not understand it. She looks back at me. They buy all of the fruit from Chile now. People are losing their jobs. Won't be long before they don't grow anything up here.

They also took me about a guy who was walking around with three homemade bombs. He wanted to be ready in case in ran into al Quieda.

Rose is very interested in what Chicago is like. She said she has never been out of Oregon. I try to give her a description of a huge city on a sparkly Great Lake…. museums, art, music, food from every land, skyscrapers, and also the congestion, the homeless, the aggression. She is in her 40s and I can tell by her expression that she feels like she has missed something. I tell her that she lives in one of the prettiest places in the U.S. She is pleased. It is true.

Okay maybe I am not as rested as I thought. In fact, right after Morning Music Hour, I put on my sunglasses and went to sleep. Dee must have been off talking to himself in his head because he didn't even notice that I had stopped singing and was being very quiet. "I didn't even notice." He said. Aha! Now I can trick him. Just throw on my shades and as long as I don't curl up like a kitten, he will think I am present.

After pancakes at Mickey Ds, we are off. The Gorge ends and we are shooting inland, climbing into the Cascades…the Blue Mountain Range.

I picked up a copy of USA Today. Mr. Rogers died. Stomach cancer, age 74. Dan Rather had an interview with Saddam Heussain. I really would have liked to have seen that. And what's new on the dating scene? Love cruises where singles have 3-minute dates with 20 to 30 people. What a fast-paced screwball world we live in! I can't wait for the new marriage show where citizens pick a spouse for people. Let's do it.

When you pull up to a gas pump in Oregon, don't bother getting out. They have attendants that pump the gas for you. I think this is the only state that does that. I like it. Give me service any day! Dee thinks it's a welfare-to-work program. After seeing that guy in Washington splurt gas all over his SUV, himself, and the asphalt, I think it's for ecological reasons. I found
THIS
Online. Maybe it answers a few things.

Okay we are over 7,00 feet up. Semis are disappearing. There is snow. Chain UP signs are appearing. We are winding round and round and now we can't see. Fog, no. Make those clouds. When you look down into the valleys you see clouds. This is just like being on an airplane. Soon we can see on 10 feet or so in front of us. The roads are icy. We are on a mountain, one called Emily. My right leg is shaking like crazy. I am scared to death. One spin out and we will fly over the edge. Dee is amused by my anxiety. He is steady Eddy.

It took us many hours to cross that mountain. I am quiet for the rest of the day.

Crows pick at carrion flatten on the highway. Cattle roam the acres chewing on sagebrush. Occasionally one of the sage plants unearths and rolls across the highway…tumbleweeds. They get stuck in the fences. It is very windy here and if the wind were to change direction all of the tumbleweeds would drift back across the Interstate.

The landscape is rolling. This is ranch land. Spotted here and there are small windmills that pump water into troughs for the steers. I think cattle are allowed to roam and eat their entire lives. That is so different from dairy farming where the cows need to be brought in and milked twice a day. And cows are HUGE. Their butts are right by your face. I have heard that one kick and you are dead. So don't just wander into a barn.
The smallest type of cow is a breed called Dexter, which was bred a small size for household living. Cows were domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Cows can see color. Cows can detect odors up to 5 miles away. A 1,000-pound cow produces an average of 10 tons of manure a year. Per day, a cow spends 6 hours eating and 8 hours chewing cud. The average cow drinks about 30 gallons of water and eats about 95 pounds of feed per day. A cow stands up and lies down about 14 times a day. A cow's heart beats between 60 and 70 beats per minute. Cows can hear lower and higher frequencies better than humans.

It rained all day in the west of the Cascades from Seattle to San Diego. We made it through just in time.

Word for the Day: Mountainous

End Destination: Twin Falls, ID

Total Miles: 478

2.27.03 Day Four

Today’s tour de jour is a choice of British Columbia, Canada…Surrey or Vancouver…or the Pacific Ocean on some little beach off Oregon, near Astoria.

We both chose the ocean. We heard that there have been problems of detainment at the order, mostly from the INS when people try to reenter the states. Dee was once thoroughly questioned at the Mexican border and is still shaken from the experience these 7 years later. Any way how could a traveler come 2000 miles across the U.S. and not see the ocean, the end of our world?

We leave the Traveler’s Inn just as the cleaning crew arrives. Swiss Miss hot chocolate for me, coffee, the real stuff for Dee. A lot of morning traffic on the 405.

Somehow Dee got all balled up on the 405 and ended up headed back to Seattle. We swung around three times. Finally we stopped at a gas station and Apu didn’t have a clue, so I asked a nervous Vin Diesel- guy if he could help me. Better than he said follow me and took us to the turnoff that we needed. See how nice the Seattleites are! But there was one weird thing…Vin took a loooong time starting up his truck at the gas station. Dee said he was checking his ropes. He thought you were alone. OMG! Don’t even say that!

Dee is my fake husband. He may be the crankiest man on this planet, but he is an over-the-chart Mensa dude and he is very funny without really trying to be. So I am keeping him. He tempers my off-the-planet sunniness. He has a deeply-etched Charles Bronson kind of face and men wonder why he is with a younger girl like me. That is my gift to him. I love his goofy face. And even though, on occasion, I might call him a turd, you can’t. And don’t go trying to hit him up. He’s mine. I don’t share.

It is Dee’s birthday! (Thank God that his son called. I have lost track of what day it is.)I stopped at a Wal-Mart and bought some garland and a little disco ball to decorate the truck.

Back on the 405 headed in a southerly direction I spotted a huge billboard near Challes (sp?). There is a picture of Uncle Sam and these words…THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IS A GREAT PLACE OR YOUR KIDS TO MEET… SEXUAL DIVIANTS

Wow! This might be Bible-Belt country; still I understand their point. If I had a child I would install heavy-duty parental controls on all of the computers in the house. Hell, there are things/images of things that I haven’t even ever though of on here and I’m very imaginative. I am going to be a really strict mother. My kids will hate me until they are like 30.

Dee and I won’t have children. He’s been spayed. He acts like a disgruntled virgin most of the time anyway.

This part of Washington is gorgeous, lush, green, and fertile. I always have an eye out for a cool tourist attraction. I want to go to every one and I beg and plead, but he says NO. So when I saw the signs for Mount St. Helens I played it up and begged like a dog. “Only five miles off the Interstate.” “When they say that it means about 35, at least.” But I guess he was hungry or tired of driving or something because whoooooooosh! We swung off and had a grab-and-go lunch right at the entrance to Mt St. Helen’s. How many opportunities does one have to see an actual blow-its-top-off volcano?????????????

We went to the exhibit and out to use the viewer to see the actual mountain. It lost nearly 200 feet when it erupted. Ash blackened the sky and it affected all of the U.S. That was in 1980. You can walk right up on the edge of the crater! You can view the crater, lava, the blast area and surrounding volcanic peaks. Although they do warn you that it is unstable, so be careful. Ha! I asked Ranger Jack about Mt. Rainier and he said I should have been able to see it from Seattle. I didn’t. Another Grand Canyon. Argh. How do you miss a mountain that rises over 14,000 feet? I thought it would be like when you are traveling north from Sacramento to Redding and you see Mt Shasta looming large in the distance. But no, it wasn’t like that.

I stopped at that little gift shop and bought some ash and other souvenirs for my nephew. I bought some Washington State Apple Lotion for me. It is amazing. Smells just like an apple right when you bite into it, and it is bright pink! I was talking to the shop lady; she has a brother in Traverse City, MI. (That’s upstate Michigan, much colder than Chicago). She was comparing the two and said that here they had snow, maybe an inch every five years or so, but it rains a lot and they have HUGE slugs that eat all of the ornamentals.

The rest of the Washington state drive was just delightful, especially when we turned off the Interstate at Kelso. We gassed up and headed towards the ocean. Yippee!

This was a gorgeous drive right along the Columbia River. First it was Wisconsiny, pastures and very green, then it went to sharp mountain bends with lots of falling rock that could sheer off at any moment and suffocate your vehicle. And although it was a big bright day, you enter deep dark forests that are brim-full of ferns and evergreens and a lush forest floor. All of it makes me want to go fishing. I imagine you could catch some big ones here. Make a campfire and yum!

We crossed the loooong bridge into Astoria, OR. What a town! I would love to live here. It is a port and you have the huge vessels and the houses are knit tight upon the hills. It looks turn-of-the-century, but there isn’t any nonsense about the town, no fake junk. An artist could be inspired here.

We take 101 out to the ocean and when I first see it. YOOOOOOOWWW! It is roaring, violent, scary, and alluring all at the same time. We can drive right out onto the beach! The edge of the world spread out before me. I took LOTS of pictures for the “Hills, Mountains, and One Big Ocean” album I want to make when I get home. I am mesmerized by the tide and I am picking up the sand dollars it spits out. I know not to take the ones that are alive, the ones that have hairs growing at the hole on the bottom. I am collecting when a big wave comes in and I try to outrun it. I have my good shoes on. Whap! It nailed me all of the way up to my knees. Dee is sitting in the truck laughing. I am now wet and cold and silty. We left and found a spot right on the sideroad where I could change. Dee is blocking for me and a bunch of cars, including an officer goes by. I think I ruined my shoes. But it was so worth it!

Oh and guess what? This is the exact spot where Lewis & Clark first saw the Pacific Ocean. How cool is that?

All of the way out to the ocean there are small subdivisions of houses and right at the entrance to each lane there is a line of mailboxes and a kiosk. The weathered kiosks are triangular, about 6’ tall and have three shelves. On the side is printed the word FLOWERS. The shelves are filled with soup and veggie cans filled with bright yellow daffodils! Imagine that! Daffodils are already blooming here. I stopped and stuffed some money in the honor jar and took a canful for our room tonight. How charming is that? They smell so sweet.

Onward. We went back through Astoria and up into the forests. We can see clear-cutting behind the row of evergreens that they leave by the roadside. I am confused since it says this is national forest land. When did we allow logging in national forests? Semis full of scalped trees are running the Interstate. This is definitely logger country. We had lunch at a place called The Logger Café. Flannels and a big ole beard is the fashion. And the women are “sturdy.”

It is nighttime when we reach Portland. I can’t wait to go to the lesbian bars, hear some music, and have a city evening. Portland is a maze of bridges. I don’t think I have even seen so many in one town. But they are very well marked and before we know it we are out of Portland and in the burbs. When we got off it was in a tough area filled with questionable characters and there were iron bars all around the newly-construction Best Western that said, WE ARE NOW OPEN. No thanks. I wouldn’t stay here even if the rooms were free.

We missed the outer ring of hotels/motels at Troutdale. Dee never turns around. We are in the Columbia Gorge. Colossal cliffs rise up on both sides of the river. They are magnificent. The road licks the side of the river. It is dark. We need a room. The city lights have all disappeared. We pulled off and looked at a place called “Motel.” No other name, just “Motel.” That seemed peculiar, like they forgot to name it. It looked like a version of a Bates motel, so we moved on. Finally we reached Hood River, 80 miles east of Portland. There is a marvelous hotel there called the Columbia Gorge Hotel. It is magnificent. I tell Dee “Let it be my treat. It’s your birthday.” But he doesn’t want it. Instead we find a charming hotel up in town. The owner has a heart-shaped perennial garden at the entrance and there is a pool and hot tub. I say yes.

I ask the motel owner for a restaurant recommendation, something with steaks and romantic. She suggests, Stonehenge, down the street a mile, on the left. We showered, dressed and left. We climbed a BIG hill full of potholes and when we got to the top their was a two-story house. A Mexican man was washing dishes, but the porch light wasn’t on and there were only two cars in the parking lot, which meant no customers. Instead we picked up dinner at one of those Wild West theme restaurants. Lucky we got there at 7:45. They closed at 8. The whole town closes at 8!

I went swimming. Great pool! Dee was watching HBO. And when I returned we switched to CNN. The world was still whole, but this was BIG surprise news from back home:

The three lakes, Huron, Superior, and Erie are part of the five Great Lakes, including Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario, which constitute the largest fresh water system in the world and represent 18 percent of global fresh water supply and 95 percent of the U.S. supply, according to the Great Lakes Information Web site INFO Lake Superior, the largest of the five, is more than 32,000 square miles — or almost the size of Austria.

Canadian Ice Service said satellite images showed that Superior and Huron froze over for the first time this year on Feb. 27, after record low temperatures, without a hint of the warming trend that is normal for this time of year.

Now that’s cold! I have never heard of any of the Great Lakes freezing over. I wonder what happens to the supplies that come in by ship?

That’s our day. Happy Birthday Dee! Our BEST day so far. Kiss.

Word for the Day: Bridges

End Destination: Hood River, OR

Total Miles: 397

(You can read a more fully developed version of this road trip HERE)

2.26.03 Day Three

It's a big sky day, all blue with big puffy white clouds. Just like yesterday.

With the noise from the muffler and Dee's rancid radio that gets basically no non-static cannels, I have designated the Morning Music Hour for myself. I was wise enough to buy a personal CD player before we left. This morning I am choosing Norah Jones. I brought some other stuff too…Wilco, American Hi-Fi, Bjork, Woodstock, Bob Dylan, and Natalie Imbrugia. I have asked Dee if he wants me to sing to him. He says, "Maybe later."

Every night we watch CNN to see if the world has blown up yet. So far, so good.

Today we are still running the Bitterroot Mountains. I think we passed over the Continental Divide this morning. Or maybe it was last night. Things kind of smear together and I am not sure what day it is. I admire Lewis, or was it Clark, who did that detailed journal of their journey. At the end of the day, and ours is an auto drive, we are tired. I have tried to journal on this crazy old laptop, but it is too slow for my thoughts. Perhaps pencil on paper would have been better.

Like I said it is a wonderfully beautiful day and I have discovered something interesting. If you look out the windshield that is like a still photo. If you look out a side window, it is like a movie. And if you flip down your visor, you have a view of what you just drove through. So if like in this case you were driving east, well that is what you would see. Three views from one seat.

Right about now we came down into a big valley. There was a turnout, so we stopped and, well Dee looked but I couldn't walk over there. Didn't want to fly off the mountain. This is a deep gorge that is part of the Columbia River Project. I would guess it is for power plants and irrigation. It certainly is dramatic.

I am keeping my eye out for Mt. Rainier. Still don't see it. I did pick up some rocks for my Lucy-Desi Long Long Trailer Collection. Got one in Montana too.

Spokane (pronounced Spo can like in tin can) is really a BIG surprise. It looks so eastern…lots of brick and just an eastern feeling of integrity and deep roots. I am impressed.

We stopped here at a pharmacy so I could pick up hair bands and emery boards. As I was checking out I noticed a package on the counter. It was a blister pack of a tube of cream that said MY LINES ARE CONSEALED on the top in red. There is a sketch of a woman with major lines on one side of her face and a clear complexion on the other. I want some. Do me up! I asked the checkout woman about it. She said she was holding it for a woman. "Does it work?" I asked. "The woman said she has been using it for twenty years." So I am thinking this must be terrific stuff and it is dry here and I could use it. "Do you have more? And what is the cost?" The woman scans it and it is $3.69. "I'll take one if you have another." Right as I am paying a bent-over woman arrives. She is about 85 and has possibly the wrinkliest face I have EVR seen. Haha on me. Now I am thinking this product is Elmer's Glue and I am a big goof.

We are coming down into a fertile valley, an irrigated valley. So much of the land out here is arid. It makes one wonder why all of the rich, fertile farmland that doesn't need irrigation back in the Midwest is being built out by massive housing developments. All of those $400,000 mini-mansions don't sustain a planet. No one seems to talk about that. We are losing our breadbasket.

Whoever owns this land has done a nice thing for curious travelers. A sign says, FOR THE NEXT 14 MILES CROPS WILL BE NOTED IN THE FENCELINE. Dee and I are competing to read the signs. I am driving so it isn't fair. Alfalfa, wheat, alfalfa, beans, alfalfa, potatoes, beans, beans, carrots, potatoes, alfalfa, (haha! I had Dee write these down for me. He added sorghum (made that one up) He's a goof too!)

We stopped in Seattle East and bought expensive gas and I went for a new hat…one of those knitted numbers with a tassel and strips that tie under your chin that you actually don't tie. I overheard a woman telling another women that she lost her state job. No money and she won't be called back. 9.11 did a lot of damage all over this country.

I-94 spits you out right into Seattle, at the Seattle Seahawks Stadium. It is 3:30 so we went to Pike's Market. I showed Dee the fishmongers. We have that in Chicago too, but it is less public. Basically the restaurant people go there.

Seattle is nice with all of the water (it's Puget Sound though, NOT the ocean) And one thing you will notice right away, well two things actually: Seattle is very stylish…simple grates and banisters are art-designed, and it is GREEN…even the overpasses have plantings, and there are massive amounts of apartments, and even though the city is stylish, the people dress grunge, and the most polite drivers in the entire world reside here. They leave space for you to get out and they let you in to long lines of traffic. This does get a bit ridiculous though…you go, no you go.

These people would not make it in Chicagoland. It took me nearly a year to learn how to drive aggressively. My brother helped. He said just put your left tire right on the line and people will move over. It worked. Still he doesn't understand while I live where I do.

Dee and I took a room at a Traveler's Inn, watched dubya make a plea for democracy in Iraq. This world is getting more bizarre by the minute. The caught part of Barbara Walter's interview with that Baretta guy. Oh man! He is out of it. But the really funny thing is that if you live on the west coast life is different. These shows run at 7 for us, it is only 5 here. Most people are still knee-deep in their commute.

Back in the growling pick-up we tried to turn down on Mercer Street (Avenue?) to get to the Space Needle and the guilluley-designed Music Experience. That took at least 45 minutes because at the end is one of those porcelain-tile tunnels, a very curvy one. There were scary long scratches in the tiles like some car/s had MAJOR accidents in there.

We walked around and I did get a great pic!

From there we found our way up to Capitol Hill where my cousin lives. I stopped at one of those cool stores and bought new shades! She and he husband Alex took us down to Elliot's on one of the piers for dinner. WowOwow! What a nice place…casual and upscale. All windows too so you can watch the big glittery vessels come in port. Elliot's specializes in oysters. From the menu I came to understand that there are three major types of oysters, then there are many subgenera below that which are denoted by a certain bay. I had no idea how to order. The special menu offered 13 different kinds! Alex took over and ordered eight half-orders so we could sample. Dee tried the halibut and we added salmon too. We washed all of the food down with beers from Alaska.

Seattle is Seattle. When Dee asked where the restroom was, the matre' d took his hand and ushered him to a back area. I was laughing so much. Even the waiter was flirting with him.

The dinner lasted so long I didn't have time to call Jake. He is my best friend's brother. He offered to take us out to the gay bars. I think it would have been too much for Dee. He is still limping. Sometimes I need to protect him. Damn, I would have loved it though.

On the road you get a lot of time to think of weird things, most of them revolve around truckers, at least in my head. Tonight's BIG question? How many semi loads of lumber does it take to build a modest house? My guess…3.

Yesterday my burning question was about truckers and prostitutes. Ha!

Word for the Day: Irrigation

End Destination: Seattle, WA

Total Miles: 521

2.25.03 Day Two

Out of the gate a little slow, 8:30. Part of out plan was to use a 7 a.m. wake up call and be out by 8.

A weird thing happened though. Dee woke up with severe leg cramps and he couldn’t walk properly. Still we took off, him a limp-along stuck behind the wheel. He was cranky and insistent. I WILL DRIVE. Men are like that.

Pop! There it is. A broken star etched on the windshield.

All of the beer and pop in the coolers froze last night. Some of the stuff in the box froze too. The morning was so harsh. The wind felt like ice knives stabbing your skin. I’ve felt this before, back home. So no biggie. We are on the move.

Back north to catch I-90 again, and only a few miles from Rapid City is the town of Sturgis. I’m sure you have heard of it. It’s the town where all of the bikers come during the summer, July I think, for a be-in or rally or something like that. The town is merely a bunch of buildings/businesses and a little campground on a swing-out from the highway. Not much happening this time of year. Not a bike to be seen.

I am driving now, zooming through the Badlands. The hills are growing closer together, multiplying like a petri-dish experiment gone wild, and we are climbing ever upward. I thought I spied my first mountain range but it just turned out to be some of the Badland hills, light blue with white tops and a dark smoky blue bottom. In Spearfish, SD, right near the border, the last seven days of Christ’s life is told on a huge outdoor stage, performed by the Black Hills Players. We missed that. We also missed Reptile Gardens and Rushmore Cave and an 1880 Ghost Town and Deadwood, the gold rush town. Maybe next time.

Welcome to Wyoming.

I am glad to report that the oilrigs are still pumping oil. It is the way Wyoming is etched in my mind, scruffy and oil-filled. It is also quite barren between Gilette and Sheridan. There is nothing but desolation. No power lines. No sign of life. Not even a bird. So much so that you can drive like a maniac and no one would know. The Interstate in WI is 65 MPH, MN is 70 MPH, and both the desert of SD and WY is 75…whoopee…you can fly!

I saw a sign that said Yellowstone and I so wanted to turn. It also said LuLu Pass! Ha! But Yellowstone is closed this time of year and LuLu, well she can be dangerous! GALLATIN NATIONAL FOREST AVALANCHE ADVISORY MONDAY, JANUARY 19TH, 1998 Yesterday, three snowmobilers were buried and killed in an avalanche near Lulu Pass, which is near Cooke City. It sounds as though two riders were helping another rider get his sled unstuck when the avalanche released. They had been "high marking" on fairly steep terrain. One of the riders was wearing an avalanche rescue beacon and was located about 30-40 minutes after being buried. The other folks were found by probing. Karl will be investigating this avalanche and will have more details on tomorrows advisory. I have received more reports of recent avalanche activity in the Big Sky area. Yesterday, the Ski Patrol released another large avalanche that was 4-5 feet deep and ran a long distance down the slope. They also reported collapsing and cracking of the snowpack, with some cracks propagating 200 feet across some smaller slopes. Skiers, near Buck Creek Ridge, triggered some avalanches, when the lower angled slopes they were on collapsed which caused the steeper slopes below them to fracture. Finally, some snowmobiliers in the same area, triggered an avalanche which was about 100 feet wide and 300 feet long. This avalanche was about 8 feet deep and partially buried a snowmobile. I just got word of another snowmobiler that was killed in an avalanche near Sage Peak, which is in the southern Madison Range. I don't have any details concerning this incident.

We stopped at the Battle of the Little Bighorn site in Garryowen. From here you can see all of the famous locations where Custer was last seen alive, Major Reno’s hilltop defense site, Weir Point, Last Stand Hill, Medicine Tail Coulee, the Crow’s Nest, and the Wolf Mountains. For the most part though this is flat land. Dee told me a story about one of Custer’s men warning the Colonel about his long blonde hair. “It will make you any easy target.” Custer refused to cut it or die it. When they found his corpse he had been scalped. His hair never turned up.

This is also part of the trail of Lewis & Clark. You will go over the Lewis River many, many, at least 15 times. It is a shallow rocky river. Most likely they had to forge it. I so love Ken Burn’s Corps of Discovery film. I know it’s a romantized version. Still I liked it so much I bought the video. I will watch it when I get home. Now everything will be put into perspective.

I drove through the Bitterroot Mountains, an easy go. This is mostly National Forest land, very wooded and lush. When we stopped for gas I went into the attached Arby’s and ordered up a French dip (cut in half) and potato cakes. This is my little surprise for us. Dee was sitting in the truck a bit pissed. “Where did I go?” The staff was new and slooooooooow. I move the truck away from the pumps and somehow I ended up in the Arby drive-thru. I am stuck behind a man who is ordering food. It took so long I ate my portion of the food right there. Oh well.

By the time we reach Butte I am very tired of driving. If we can reach Missoula, Montana tonight we can reach Seattle tomorrow! So Dee takes over. I think he is feeling better. Or perhaps he is fueled by anger.

It is a big starry night, inky black with glitter dust. I can see the outline of the hills. All throughout Montana everyone has a big neon vapor farm light by his or her house. Montana loves lights and it looks good too! They write the initial of the towns up on one of the large hills. I think they use white-painted boulders. Looks charming.

It is late by the time we reach Missoula. We took a room in an old-school motel. It is a 1950s honeymoon cottage. The walls are knotty pine, the desk is made of twigs, and a sweet traveler poem is framed on the wall. Although there is a terrific looking pizzeria next door, we opt for grab-n-go at Mickey D’s.

We were asleep ten minutes later.

***********

Did I tell you that Dee wasn’t that interested in going on this trip? It’s true. He thought the war would start and gas would skyrocket to $7.00 a gallon and we would never get home to the Midwest. I am happy to report no war yet, at least that is according to our nightly in-motel viewing of CNN, and gas is actually cheaper here than around Chicagoland…$160.9 at our last stop in Butte, so we are good.

Word for the Day: Desolation

End Destination: Missoula, MT

Total Miles: 700

2.24.03 Day One

Sunday I was madly packing away when I realized I left my black fringe hat at the Kimball’s. Nice for me, they brought it over, but all of the chitchat left me undone. Dee and I ended up napping for 3 hours, finally taking off at 3 a.m. in a fresh layer of snow. It was a slow go but we occasionally slipped in behind a plow, which made driving a bit easier.

It was very quiet. All of the houses were dark. Shhhhhh. Everyone is asleep. Don’t want to wake them up. Six or so houses were still celebrating Christmas, festooned with twinkle lights sparkling and gyrating in the darkness. I thought farm folks had to be up at like 4 a.m. to milk the cows, maybe not.

We wanted food. Not one restaurant was open, save Jay-Mor’s Eat More in Fort Atkinson. Dee wouldn’t stop. No eight-stool diners for him. Instead we finally ate chicken-fried steaks and eggs at Denny’s in Madison, where 6 retired smokin’ monkeys must have been chain smoking for at least an hour. Peeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeew! Just north of Tomah we veered onto I-90 west and guess what was there? Fort McCoy! On the nightly news you hear about the reservists from Illinois being sent there. They never mentioned where in Wisconsin Fort McCoy was located. Well, here it is.

Right about now is when the muffler on the pick-up fell off. Well, I guess it didn’t fall off; it got a hole or something. Now we growl like those souped up gotta-race-ya trucks do. Arrgh!
Take a ten-minute look at this part of Minnesota, and if you are tired, just go to sleep. You won’t miss anything because the landscape just repeats itself over and over for hundreds of miles. It is one vast area of farmland and a small stand of trees, a house, a barn, a silo, and some other out buildings and that’s it. Your eye can stretch as far as it can see and the vista, long and low, remains the same.

Then right at the border…wake up! Oh the terrain changes swiftly, carrying you across the cobalt blue Black River, which is mostly frozen this time of year, so it is still and white. Frozen water is stuck to the dramatic rock out-croppings, and the highway twists and turns, and rises upward more and more until you are on top of the world looking down into amazing gorgeous valleys, all rounded and knotted together.

An even bigger change happens in the landscape once you enter South Dakota…billboards…lots of them. And they are advertising the most fantastic roadside attractions all located at the west end of the state, hundreds of miles away. What is here? Well, nothing. It looks like a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia, sand dunes carved into sculptural shapes by the wind. This time of year a light cover of snow blankets them. I would guess the cash crop to be wheat. It would look beautiful swaying in the breeze with a big blue sky filled with puffy white clouds.

There is a lot of sky out here and I just realized why my landscape paintings aren’t very successful. I paint the sky backwards. The sky is light at the horizon then grows darker and darker up into the stratosphere. Aha!

We had planned to stop in Mitchell for lunch at The Corn Palace. We did, sort of. The Corn Palace is all golden styled with minarets looking like something from Russia. The walls are done in patterns using grains, kinda like a mosaic. It is redone annually. Worth a look if you are in the area. Just don’t plan to have lunch there. It is a theater.

As we move farther west the landscape starts to grow into hills, the famous Badlands. The Interstate is snow covered and when a semi passes it pelts our truck, loudly. What is that? Too big to be salt.

The most beautiful sunset swathes the hills in pink and blue and orange. The city lights from Rapid City are just ahead, sparkling like an oasis. It is around 6:30. I beg Dee, please can we go to MT. Rushmore? He says, “Your driving, go where you want.”

We swooped down a scenic road winding and twisting and squeezing through little tunnels. When we exited the last tunnel, there it was drenched in sunlight…Mount Rushmore. It was nearly a religious experience with George Washington heading up the crowd, Thomas Jefferson next, and Teddy Roosevelt tucked behind so all three were knocking their heading together. Abraham Lincoln is off by his independent self. They are so amazing and awesome in the true sense of the words. How in the world did Borglum, the sculptor, spend 14 years passionately focused on carving the presidents out of sheer rock?

According to the official flyer, Borglum had a troubled childhood which was tempered by his art. He designed art in D.C. and he did the flickering flame on the Statue of Liberty torch. He was also active politically on the international and national levels throughout his life. The actual carving of the heads took 6 1/2 years. Borglum died in 1941. His son Lincoln completed the monument.


We zipped back to Rapid City on the big blacktop, grabbed a room at E-lodge, and went over to Minerva’s for dinner. Minerva’s is great. I would recommend it to anyone. It’s civilized, upscale, woody, and the food tastes great. I had wood-grilled shrimp; Dee went for the burger. And what a burger, excellent tasting beef and I usually don’t even like meat. I asked the waiter, J.T., about the road salt. “It’s not salt, it’s gravel. Did you crack your windshield yet?” Too funny. Like that makes sense. Instead of plowing the snow, we will leave it and throw gravel on it. They say salt is too destructive to vehicles. That’s not true. In Illinois we are genuine salt dogs and it doesn’t do anything to the cars. You just wash your car. And the cars back home are much more expensive and you rarely see a car with rust. I think that thinking is old hat, from when cars did rust. Anyway, we were glad that our windshield wasn’t damaged.

Back at the hotel Dee and I went hot tubbing. Oh yeah! And they had a pool with a 1000’ slide! After we finished I went out to the reception area to mail off three postcards. I was talking to Joe who was manning the night desk. I asked what would be grown in the eastern part of the state. He said, “Most people don’t realize it but this is really a desert. We get less than 16’s of rainfall a year. Nothing grows out there.” So there it is…what I thought looked like desert was a desert after all. Who knew?

Word for the Day: Windswept

End Destination: Rapid City, SD

Total Miles: 865

P.S. As for dating out here...well there isn't anyone here. It could be a BIG problem. I think they probably go to the Corn Palace and to square dances and stuff like that. But it would be dating peeps you went to school with and that could get boring real fast. Good Luck!

2.23.03 PrePrep

Last night Dee and I had a Bon Voyage/Happy Road Trip Good-bye Dinner at Clay and Sal's. Tasty rib eyes, double baked cheesy potatoes, julienne green beans, and cardboard box wine. It was fun. At least this time the meat was cooked. Two weeks ago I went over for chicken barbecue. Only one problem…it was so cold, about 9 degrees, that the heat from the coals evaporated before it reached the chicken! Now that's cold! Clay had to do the chicken indoors.
Now you can see why I really need to get away. Brittle cold! Too cold to even cook up some chicken parts.
Well that's ONE of the reasons.
Two: with the world on the brink of WWIII, who knows what might happen. Plus any other terrorist attack is going to trigger national ID's. Will travel for pleasure be suspended? Read the stuff put out by the government concerning condition RED. So many questions. My thinking is to go now while I still can.
Three: It has been dry and snowless in the west, in the mountains. We haven't had much snow either, maybe a few inches. All of it demolished the east, 43" of white stuff as of today. I am hoping the trend continues and that will mean no snow in the Rockies.
Clay donated a can of potted meat, corned beef to our survival larder. He hooted and howled at the presentation. Oh haha.
It looks like a relative of Spam. Maybe it will keep me from cannibalizing Dee.
The Kimball's along with neighbor CeCe will be watching my little Cape Cod.

3, 2, 1…GO!