Author: sutherland

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	181	49.7	37
Trip	7732	46.4	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$36 / $192	$60 / $75	AAA – $66 PriceLine – $945 Real $$ – $136

Somewhere, one of my relatives has a picture of me with the big fish, so had to get one of Aryn too.  Trystan will be subjected to it when I bring him here.

We spent the morning visiting my grandmother, then had lunch in town and headed up to the lake cabin. 

Memories are funny things.  The GPS didn’t recognize the cabin’s address, so I had to try and figure out how to get there from memory – keeping in mind that I’d only ever driven there one time as an adult, that in the early 90s.  Other than that, I’d traveled the route as a kid curled up in the backseat of an Oldsmobile, trying to pass the time of the six-hour drive to get there – turns out it’s only about an hour, but it seemed longer as a kid waiting to get to the lake.

But from the highway in Erskine, I made not a single wrong turn on the way there. 

We spent the afternoon visiting with my cousins there and took a spin around the lake in their boat.

Then I decided to try to find the older cabin, the one I’ve never driven to and only have the child’s memories of riding in the car to go by.  We headed down the road to the general area and I used Google Maps to get a general idea of which road might lead toward the part of the lake I thought might have the cabin on it.

As soon as I made the turn, I knew it was right and put the map away.  The way it curved instead of being straight, the place to turn, and then the still gravel road that led to the cabins were eerily familiar.  Found that one with no wrong turns either.

There was a car at the cabin, but no one answered, so I snuck Aryn around to the lakeside for a quick peek and she was able to see the sheer, boulder-strewn cliff my grandfather set up a rope for us kids to swing out over. 

And the lake where my dad once yelled, “Grab that raft and follow me,” to swim across, taking the raft for the return trip so I could swim back.  Google Earth now tells me that’s about 1/2 a mile across.

Then we stopped at my aunt’s house, where my grandparents used to live when I was young, and looked around.  Apparently barns shrink over time, because I remember the barn there as being more like forty-feet tall and a hundred-feet square … but I was young and impressionable.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	654	43	60
Trip	7550	46.3	49

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$55 / $197	$60 / $75	AAA – $56 PriceLine – $945 Real $$ – $121

All Pictures

Mostly driving today, a short stop at Mount Rushmore, then on the road north through South Dakota to North Dakota and then east to Fargo before heading north again to Grand Forks.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	616	46.3	45
Trip	6896	46.7	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$10 / $157	$179 / $75	AAA – $46 PriceLine – $945 Real $$ – $106

All Pictures

Spending the night in West Yellowstone instead of driving back to Bozeman was well worth the cost.  Instead of getting up this morning and facing a 90-minute drive to the park entrance, we were there in just a few minutes.  That meant a little extra sleep and an earlier start.

Just inside the park, we came across some elk who had bedded down for the night.

After that, we moved on to the thermal features.

And found a waterfall before heading for Old Faithful.

After Old Faithful, we drove along Yellowstone Lake and found some bull elk in the woods beside the road.

Some geese.

And another elk with people getting way to close to him.

As more people arrived to look at him, some of them left the road and walked down to the lake behind him on either side.  We drove back to the previous elk to let the ranger there know that this one was getting surrounded and people were moving in on it, but the ranger had moved on.

The people just don’t think.  They pull over and block the highway, stop and stand in the middle of the road.  They just don’t use any common sense at all.

We stopped at some more thermal features, but either the droughts have dried some of them up or the ones I remember were in a different park. 

Back on the road, I mentioned that I was surprised we hadn’t seen more bison.

We didn’t stop for better pictures, because the herds were pretty far away across the large meadows.  I tried saying, “I’m surprised we haven’t seen more grizzly”, but it didn’t work.

We climbed back into the mountains and came to the northeast entrance.  The original play had been to leave via the east entrance, toward Cody.  Then in the morning I’d played with Mapquest and found that circling all the way around to Mammoth, where we’d entered and driven to the west entrance yesterday, would only add 20-minutes to the drive, because we could pick up the interstate.

After the stops we’d made already, though, I decided to try the northeast entrance instead of driving further west to Mammoth and then straight north for almost an hour, and it turned out to be a good decision.

Along the northeast entrance road, I saw some thing long and low scurry across the road and stopped near where he’d entered the grass.  I wasn’t expecting to see anything, thinking whatever it had been would be long-hidden by the time we got there.

But the badger hung around outside his den waiting for us.

After exiting the park, I had a choice of taking 212 northeast to the interstate or 296, Chief Joseph Highway, east to Cody.  296 looked more interesting.

This road wound through canyons and mountains and eventually crossed a river gorge by a bridge that has apparently been used for other activities.

I’m thinking there was some bungees involved.

As we climbed out of the valley, we stopped for a couple more pictures of what we’d just driven through.

As we neared Cody, we were both getting hungry.  I didn’t know what size Cody was, but figured they’d have a few places to eat.  We saw a billboard as we got close and I teased Aryn, “Well, they have a McDonald’s.”

We got gas and drove through Cody, but didn’t see any place to eat until we were almost out of town.  Just before the long stretch of highway with nothing on either side were the golden arches.  “Well,” I said, “they have a McDonalds.”

There was also a Subway near the McDonalds, so we ate there.  All the local restaurants must be elsewhere in town.

From Cody to Greybull was a pretty blah-drive, but I did get to see some sugar beet fields.

For miles leading into Greybull there were fields on either side of the road.  One acre on the left, sometimes two acres deep on the right … behind and between them, desert and sagebrush.

There were some things I’d have liked to stop at if we’d had time.  Greybull had an aircraft exhibit and museum of aerial firefighting.  We also passed a couple geological sites, including one with fossilized dinosaur footprints – Aryn was sleeping when we passed those and I heard some complaints about not waking her up and stopping there.

Past Greybull, the road rather dramatically entered the bottom of a canyon.

After miles of driving between the steep sides of the canyon, we climbed out and entered miles of national forest land with open range on both sides.  No fences and ranchers with grazing rights means that you have to watch for cows near the roadway.

With some nearer than others.

With a little honking, all of them moved aside except for this guy.

He just stood there, as if to say, “Whip ‘em out, boy, and if you come close we’ll talk about who moves.”  I drove around.

Just as we were exiting the national forest, we came across moose grazing near the road.

So finally we reached the interstate and headed east toward South Dakota.  The sun set while we were still in Wyoming.

Once the sun was fully down, I pulled over and we got out to look at the stars.  It was the first night we hadn’t been in a city or the moon hadn’t been full.  It was really nice to see the night sky without any light-pollution around.

It was after midnight when we got to Rapid City and a very expensive hotel room because of a forest fire nearby – firefighters were arriving from all over the country.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	150	46	36
Trip	6280	46.7	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$55 / $162	$175 / $100	AAA – $26 PriceLine – $945 Real $$ – $210

Saddle & Paddle	$180
Yellowstone admission	$0 ($25 w/o National Parks Pass)
All Pictures

The original plan was for three nights in Yellowstone – arrival and then two days exploring the park.  When we got behind schedule, I changed that to one night, then drive the southern loop and stay on the other side before continuing to South Dakota. 

So we stayed in Belgrade, MT last night, a little west of Bozeman.  I think Bozeman, because along I90 there’s Butte, Belgrade, Bozeman, and Billings … far too many Bs for me to keep straight – never mind with Big Sky and Big Timber in the mix.

In the brochure rack at the hotel yesterday, though, I came across one from Yellowstone Raft Co. offering a combo deal – two hours of horseback riding in the morning and then an 8-mile raft down the Yellowstone River in the afternoon.  $90 a person, so plans changed.

We made the 1.5 hour drive from Belgrade to Gardiner, right at the north entrance to the park.  The horses were up a winding, gravel road out of town. 

Aryn picked Frank because he looked at her at the corral – she thought that meant he wanted to go, what he really meant was “I’m tired, please don’t pick me because I don’t like to walk fast.”  The wrangler tried to warn her that he was a plodder, but she stuck with him and lagged behind a lot.

I wound up with Boomer, an ex-draft horse with hooves the size of my head.  Apparently I weigh as much as a Budweiser wagon now, and need a horse of that size.

We were the only two on the ride, which was really nice.  The trail started up into the hills, through desert – sagebrush and cacti.  I kept pointing out bones to Aryn.  First a vertebrate the size of my fist, then a large leg bone, and finally, from a recent kill, a foreleg and hoof from a small elk with the hide still on it.  This is not tame country.

We stopped at a halfway point along a creek with a grove of aspens, then made the return trip.

  

I asked about grizzly, because the guide had made a comment about Boomer being just down from the mountains and taking a break from things wanting to eat him.  They do multi-day trips up into the mountains too.  Then she told me the anecdote about hunting trips and how the grizzly now come running when they hear a gunshot, because they know there’ll be a gutpile.

On the way back we passed through a meadow with indents still in the grass from where a herd of elk had laid up over night.

After riding, we had time for a quick lunch before rafting.  When I come back here, I’ll be staying in either Gardiner or West Yellowstone, despite the expense, they’re both nice little towns and right at the entrances.  Probably Gardiner, as it’s more authentic.

No pictures from rafting until I can get to a CD drive – I didn’t take any during the trip, but the outfitter has someone take them from shore.

The rafting was good though, with several stretches of Class II/III rapids and freezing water – exactly what makes a good whitewater trip.  We pulled ashore at a small stop where there’s a thermal hotspring coming out of the river bank and found hot water streaming down the bank into the river.

After rafting, we entered Yellowstone and drove the west side of the loop from the north entrance to the west entrance.  Shortly after getting into the park, we saw some bighorn sheep on the ridge beside the road.

Then stopped at the Mammoth Hot Springs, where there was a sign showing parents what to suggest their kids do warning people about the dangers of walking off the paths.

Down the road from Mammoth, we came across a herd of elk.

The elk in the meadow and those in the forest were calling to each other – sounds like someone screaming. 

We passed a lone bison right beside the road.

The last stop of the day was at the Paintpots.

We exited the park into West Yellowstone and as we passed multiple hotels on our way to a 1.5-hour drive to Bozeman, I broke down and checked into a Best Western.  It’s pricey, but saves us driving tonight and then right back here in the morning.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	398	44.1	59
Trip	6129	46.7	49

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$15 / $127	$100 / $100	AAA – $26 PriceLine – $945 Real $$ – $290

Today was driving.  From Spokane, out of Washington, across Idaho, and then down through Montana almost to Wyoming and Yellowstone.  The section of Idaho we went through was all mountains, so no potato for Aryn.

We did stop somewhere in Montana to get a huckleberry shake, which was quite good.

The plan was for three nights here, then on across South Dakota and then up to Grand Forks, but we’re behind schedule.

Much like with a software project, I had a perfectly reasonable schedule when we left Orlando.  I researched the driving time between cities and how long we’d stay in each place, put it in Excel, added three days for unexpected contingencies, and figured we were set.

Then, early in the project drive, scope-creep wormed its way in.  A night in Austin when we were supposed to push through to Carlsbad, an extra night in Albuquerque to avoid getting to Vegas on a Friday, an extra night in Vegas to see a third show – all reasonable and, hey, had that contingency time and we could probably make up a day between Vegas and San Francisco anyway. 

Well, the convention in San Francisco made making up the day and arriving early not so feasible, which put us on track to arrive home on the 24th.  On schedule, but with no contingency.

Then the tire problem, which ate three hours of the morning on the way out of San Francisco … three hours isn’t a problem, right?  But it cascaded into us coming out of Crater Lake at dusk, which doubled the time it took to get off the mountain and forced us to stop short of Seattle (cascaded in the Cascades, get it?).  There’s a day onto the right of the schedule.

The routing off of Ranier yesterday, which took us back toward Tacoma and Seattle and around the north side of the mountain was a complete cluster.  I’d originally headed east out of the park, towards Yakima, which would have put us on track.  But on the road down to Yakima we hit construction and it was one-laned and it’s a longer road – after coming down from Sequoia in the dark and coming down from Crater lake in the dark, I didn’t want to take a chance on a third time and winding up behind schedule. 

Look how well that worked out.

So the remaining schedule looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I emailed work and let them know I won’t be in until Monday, 7/30.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	452	46.4	45
Trip	5731	46.9	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$52 / $129	$70 / $75	AAA – $26 PriceLine – $915 Real $$ – $285

Mount Ranier National Park

$0 ($15 without National Parks Pass)

Slept until 8:00 after the last couple days, then headed for Mount Ranier, passing about two dozen of these little coffee shacks.  They’re all over the place and no two are the same, it seems.

Just a reminder not to make Ranier angry … you wouldn’t like it when it’s angry.

One of the glacier paths carved into the mountain.  In 1840, the glacier was past the bridge, but retreated until the 1950s.  Then it advanced again into the 2000s. 

Ranier is covered in glaciers.

At the visitor center, we got some information about the trails and headed up the one that would get us a good view of the Nisqually glacier.

(view in Google Earth)

It’s July.  75-degrees and the trail is covered in snow.

Lots of snow.

We didn’t make it all the way to the best viewing spot, but given time constraints, we got pretty close and got a great view of the glaciers.

And then comes the walk back down …

… to find the right trail to the visitor center.

On the way out of the park, we took a walk down to one of the rivers.

Once out of the park, and pretty glad to be getting off a mountain in daylight this trip, we stopped for some lunch.

The Wildberry Restaurant has some great food.  Aryn had the red potato chowder – I had a cup of that, made with celery, corn, cheddar and bacon, and a grilled ham and cheddar sandwich.  Then we both had a slice of huckleberry pie.  I was tempted to try a yak burger, but wasn’t sure how my stomach would take something that different – and it was a long drive the rest of the day.

GPS took us back west toward Tacoma and Seattle, before heading north and then east around the north side of Ranier.

As we were coming out of the Cascades into western Washington, it started to rain lightly.  I saw something floating and after a closer look, sure enough, 80-degrees and snowing.  The flakes melted as soon as they hit the windshield, but while they were in the air we had snow flurries.

We stopped for gas and I used the laptop to book a hotel in Spokane.  We are now far behind schedule as a result of the tire, extra time to get off the mountain from Crater Lake, and the unexpected routing around the west side of Ranier.  We were supposed to be at a hotel near Yellowstone tonight and we’re two states away.

But I have a bag of Ranier cherries that were half the cost and have twice the flavor of what makes it to Orlando, so it’s a good day.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	176	50.6	46
Trip	5279	47	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$25 / $104	$70 / $100	AAA – $26 PriceLine – $915 Real $$ – $280

Kayaking	$204
Ferry	$24

Up at 6:00, then an hour drive to the ferry, and an hour ferry ride to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.  Next time, I think I’ll just stay in Seattle and take the seaplane to the island.

I like the island’s attitude … a taxi with racks.

We met the van from the outfitter, Outdoor Odysseys, and took a twenty minute ride across the island to the put-in on the west coast.

A popular put-in at the state park on that side of the island and some of the major outfitters have racks of boats there full time.

(view in Google Earth)

We launched into some crystal clear (and cold) water, then rafted up with the guide and two other boats in the kelp bed.  Then we left the launch cove and started south down the coast. 

The flood-tide was running from south to north, so we had to hug the shore to stay out of the current.  This was hard for me to keep in mind, because a a rocky, lee shore with which I’m not familiar is a thing to give some distance.

But staying near shore gave us the opportunity to check out some things exposed by the low tide that had just ended.

The far shore, eight miles away, is Canada and the Olympia mountain range, after crossing the 900-foot deep channel.

After a couple hours, we arrived at the beach for lunch.  Outdoor Odysseys is one of the few operators that provide lunch – most others tell you to bring a sandwich. 

Fresh fruit, peanut butter and jelly, tomatoes, cucumbers and two kinds of hummus made up the lunch, all or mostly-all organic and local – pretty good, as well.

At the lunch beach, a seal came by.  One of three we saw and the only one I was able to get a picture of.

Also no picture of the ugly naked guy swimming and sunning himself.  He was frolicking in the water near the rocky headland and when he got out of the water, I said to myself, “That’s an odd looking bathing sui … nope, that’s his ass.”

Then he proceeded to flop down on the rocks and sun himself.

Back on the water we proceeded south some more, still hugging the shore and Aryn got a great underwater shot of two seastars.

For the return trip, we headed out from shore to pick up the still-flooding current.  The trip out there was pretty fun, with the current and back-eddies generating a lot of waves in unpredictable patterns.  I’d rate it a fast Class-II.

With the current, we hit 9 mph on the way back, according to the GPS. 

Then it was back in the van for the ride to Friday Harbor and the ferry.  We had time to eat again before the ferry left at 6:30. 

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	371	50.6	49
Trip	5103	46.8	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$45 / $99	$169 / $100	AAA – $26 PriceLine – $900 Real $$ – $250

After getting to the hotel at 1:00AM, we got up at 6:00 to get back on the road.

Very tired.

We had lunch at Elmer’s, a regional chain I read an article about where they won best regional breakfast.

Aryn had triple-berry French toast and I had a triple-berry German pancake.

I’m not sure how they won that award, because it wasn’t that good.  As you can see, I only ate a little of my pancake and Aryn hardly touched her French toast.

Must have been bribery involved in that article.

So back on the road to Seattle.  We stopped at Mount St. Helens on the way.

That’s it between the trees, above the foothills and behind, well, the clouds, because the mountain wasn’t out this morning.  It was supposed to clear later and probably would have if we’d driven the extra hour to the closest viewing spot, but we’re already behind schedule pretty bad, so on to Seattle.

First we went to our hotel, which was North of Seattle – far north.  When I booked the kayak tour, I asked the guy where we should stay, he said Mt. Vernon.

Luckily Priceline had no deals in that area and I just made a reservation, because the hotel wound up being in Bellingham, even more north.  After I got in touch with family to arrange meeting after we’d checked in and cleaned up a bit, we were still on the road north.  Since the family’s in Tacoma, south, I canceled the Bellingham reservation and split the difference between Seattle and Mt. Vernon, winding up with an expensive room in Marysville.

We checked in, cleaned up, then headed back past Seattle to meet family for dinner.

After dinner, we had just enough time to get Aryn to Pike’s Place Market and the first Starbucks before they closed.  She got a drink and a t-shirt at the coffee-drinker’s Mecca, thus completing the pilgrimage all Starbuckians must perform once in their lifetime.

It was crowded so I dropped her off while I looked for a parking place, and on the way to meet her I saw dude-getting-arrested.

While across the street we had people-filming-dude-getting-arrested.

Then it was back to the hotel, through the confusing Seattle streets that don’t let you turn on lights and become one-way mid-block.  Kayaking tomorrow, so up at 6:00 again.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Scotts Valley to San Francisco	155	48.4	25
Today	708	47	49
Trip	4732	46.7	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$17 / $66	$55 / $100	AAA – $26 PriceLine – $900 Real $$ – $319

Lava Beds National Monument	$0 ($10 without NPS Pass)
Crater Lake	$0 ($10 without NPS Pass)
New Tire	$187 ($0 without road debris)

We got an early start out of San Francisco, over the bridge on a very foggy morning.  Aryn napped in the car as we headed through California farms – miles and miles of farms.

The high-point of the trip past the farms was a stop at a Toyota dealer to replace a tire with a gashed sidewall.  That’s an unbudgeted $187.

Things got more interesting as we climbed up into the Cascades and passed Shasta Lake.

And passed and passed and passed it.

Those arms stretching for eighteen or more miles.

We drove through the Cascades, enjoying the mountains – tall peaks on either side covered in green trees.  Then we rounded a bend and from between the walls of green, Mount Shasta decided to change our perception of “mountain”.

We crossed into Oregon and even though we were behind schedule because of the tire, I took the turn for Lava Beds National Monument.

At the visitors center, we went a little way into one of the 700 caves they have there, but the tight schedule wouldn’t let us stay long.  Also they were having a star-gazing event that night, which I was sorry to miss.  At Carlsbad and through the desert, there was a full moon and then we were in cities, so Aryn hasn’t been able to get a clear view of the stars away from city lights. 

On the way out of the park we spotted a young coyote.  Then it was on to Crater Lake.  It was getting late in the day and the sun was setting soon, so we rushed through the drive, stopping only for a couple pictures of the river gorge.

As we got nearer the lake, I spotted something back in the forest.  Then more of it.  A little disbelievingly, I stopped the car and got out, calling for Aryn to follow me into the woods.  She followed, asking “What? What? Is that … snow?”

 

Yes, there’s still a bit of snow on the ground at Crater Lake.

The lake itself was pretty amazing.

As we left the drive around the rim at Crater Lake, it was starting to get dark.  That put us on the road down the mountain after dark.  Another long, windy, mountain road after dark that put us back on the interstate well behind schedule.

When it got to be after 10:00, I saw that Salem, OR was about 120 miles ahead and decided to target that for the night.  I pulled over and used the laptop to get on Priceline and find a, purportedly, 3-star hotel there for $55 for the night.

Purportedly, because it seemed a little dingy to me – it was a Red Lion Hotel, apparently a regional chain.  But the bed was comfortable and clean, so for $55 when the Motel 6 was at $60, I won’t complain. 

We got there at 1:00AM and I set my alarm for 6:00AM to get back on the road to Seattle.