Category: Uncategorized

Of the twenty-eight nights in hotels for this trip, I booked twenty of them through Priceline.  Checking the forums on BiddingForTravel gave me an idea of what winning bids were like for a given area, rather than blindly trying to figure out where to start the bids. 

In addition, their FAQ about bidding gave valuable advice about how to use the zones in an area to bid and rebid.  I didn’t use their advice feature on this trip – where you can post information about where you want to stay and they’ll advise you on a bidding strategy to get the best price.  On some future trips when I know exactly when I’ll be in each area I’ll give that a try.

We got some awesome deals on this trip, averaging 50% off the list price for the hotels booked through Priceline, which was over $1400 in savings.

The average cost per night was $70 for the Priceline bookings.

In addition, Priceline and BiddingForTravel saved us almost $500 in real money on the nights purchased through Priceline.

“Real” money being what was paid in comparison to what I’d budgeted (different than the list price of the hotel).  A good portion of that savings was eaten up by more expensive stays where I didn’t use Priceline – those stays were often more than I’d budgeted, so I shudder at the thought of what would have happened to the budget if I hadn’t used Priceline.

The biggest impact Priceline and BiddingForTravel had on the trip, though, I can’t stress enough – upgrading from the motels I’d originally planned on made things a lot more comfortable and enjoyable.  Staying at Courtyards and Crowne Plazas is a lot different than Motel 6 and Super 8.

There were only five stops during the trip where we didn’t use Priceline to book the hotel:

Grand Canyon	All the hotels with 2.5-stars or better were above my budget ($160+), so I had to head down to 1-stars.  At that level, I wanted to be able to pick the room, rather than wind up with one queen bed.
Seattle	Not really Seattle, since where we needed to stay was far north of the city (about an hour).  Since I didn’t know the area, I didn’t want to commit to a hotel.  It turned out to be a good decision, because the area I originally made a reservation for was too far north and we wound up about midway between Seattle and Anacortes (where the ferry was).
West Yellowstone	This was a sudden change of plans – had planned to go back to Bozeman for the night, but coming out of the park and facing a 1.5-hour drive we decided to just pay the extra to stay just outside the park. It should be noted that the savings we’d already achieved through Priceline let us make that decision, save three hours of driving, and have a much nicer second day in Yellowstone.
Rapid City, SD	This was a long driving day and we weren’t sure how far we’d make it.  I tried late in the evening to get a good deal in Rapid City when it looked like we’d make it there, but there were none available.  A major fire in South Dakota had firefighters from all over the country flying in, so rooms were at a premium.
Grand Forks, ND	With only one zone, this is an area you need to try booking earlier than the day before to find a deal.  With time and patience, I’d have been able to get a deal here, but didn’t have the time.

Overall, the time spent researching rates on BiddingForTravel and bidding on Priceline is well worth the effort.  They’ll be my first stop for all future hotel stays.

This trip was amazing.  Every day was incredibly full of things to do and see.  On the ride home it seemed like we’d only just started and that we’d been on the road forever.  The Painted Desert seemed like it was months ago.

Once we crossed back into Florida on I75 from Atlanta, we passed the interchange with I10 – our route out of Florida a month ago.  I turned to Aryn and asked, “Want to go again?”

I do.

There’s no place we went that I don’t want to return to and spend a week or two.  I’d been saying that, except for Carlsbad, for most of the trip, but thinking now, even Carlsbad would be fun for a week – exploring the other, non-touristy caverns.  The ones you need a helmet and lamp to go through.

Then there’s the places we didn’t go … Death Valley, Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Teton, Salt Lake, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi Basin … hell, we skipped all of Colorado.  Aryn thought she’d seen mountains after visiting Shenandoah years ago … now she thinks Shasta and Ranier, but she still hasn’t seen a full range of peaks that never thaw.

And that’s all just west of the Mississippi.

Budget & Schedule

So when I got home I downloaded all the transactions from the bank and totaled them up.  I’m amazed. 

When I was planning, I set the hotel budget based on the lowest price I could find in the different cities for one- and two-star hotels … Motel 6, Super 8, etc.  I added 20% for taxes, parking, “resort fees”, etc. 

Thanks to BiddingForTravel and Priceline, we stayed in 2.5- and 3-star hotels … Courtyard, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza.  The total for hotels was $200 more than I’d budgeted without taxes and other fees and hundreds of dollars less than the total budget for hotel nights.

Several hundred dollars under budget on food, as well, and we ate pretty well.  I’d told Aryn we’d be eating all Subway all the time, and there were a few days of that, but we were also able to have some wonderful meals – the crepes in Albuquerque, Fisherman’s Wharf … not to mention Vegas … which I can’t, because what happens at a Vegas buffet stays at the Vegas buffet.

I went over my entertainment budget by $58.91.  Well, $57.09 if Aryn would give me back the $1.82 she has left from Mall of America …

But … damn … we did a lot.  All the national parks, three shows in Vegas, Monterey Aquarium, horses in San Francisco, kayaking, more horses and rafting, all the things we did in Atlanta, not to mention a shopping spree at Mall of America. 

All of the gas charges haven’t cleared yet (they’re still at $1), but it looks like that will be under or very close to the $700 I budgeted.  It was originally $600, but I raised it when we added San Francisco and Seattle. 

The Mapquest estimate for the trip was 8,000 miles – it wound up being 9,717.  This was because of how I put things into Mapquest.  Between San Francisco and Seattle, we went to the Lava Beds and Crater Lake, but I put that into Mapquest as just San Francisco to Seattle.  Also we stayed an hour north of Seattle and our destination for kayaking was an hour north of that.  So there was a lot of driving that wasn’t part of the Mapquest route.

We went over on time too.  We were supposed to be back on 7/24, but arrived on 7/27.  Since there were three free nights built into the original schedule, that’s six nights over on the schedule.  Three were intentional … Austin, Albuquerque, and Vegas had nights added early on.  The other three were just because of things taking longer than expected.

Twenty-five states in twenty-four days was a pretty aggressive schedule to begin with, though, so stretching it to twenty-nine days isn’t too bad. 

Home at last and able to get the paddling photos off the CD from Yellowstone, Day 21.

For the paddle, we met at the outfitter’s store in downtown Gardiner, then shuttled to the put-in which was about three blocks away – then we had to portage the raft down to the water, about 100-yards over a rock-strewn path.  Since I was wearing my Florida beach shoes with soles suitable for sand and shell, the rocks were murder on my feet.

We were lucky again with our group – after the morning horse riding where we were the only ones, we now got to paddle with only three others (a mother and her two sons) in our group.

We got on the river and headed for the rapids, running Class II and some Class III.

Our guide was great and knew how to put the boat right where he wanted it.

Aryn’s been talking about whitewater for months, so this gave her a taste and didn’t seem to put her off, so I expect to see her rolling and spinning soon.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Since Day 25	1632.1	47.8	54
Trip	9717.7	46.8	49

Day	Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
26	$22 / $206	$55 / $75	AAA – $66 PriceLine – $1119 Real $$ – $186
27	$45 / $234	$45 / $75	AAA – $66 PriceLine – $1243 Real $$ – $216
28	$55 / $239	$45 / $75	AAA – $66 PriceLine – $1367 Real $$ – $246
29	$45 / 234	n/a

Mall of America	$200 ($0 without a teenage girl)
Atlanta City Pass	$138

Mall of America

I got Aryn up at 9:00 so she could get ready and we could be out of the hotel and to the mall by 10:00.  I’m hoping to be out of there by 12:00 … 1:00 if we eat lunch there, and on the way to Atlanta.  I’ve been there before – it should not take more than two hours to look at the big mall and say, “Wow, big.”

I also hadn’t intended for her to do any shopping, the budget for this trip not including that, but we’re so far under budget on virtually everything, that I decided to give her a little spree.

So I handed her $200, told her to get something pretty, and left her standing at the four-panel list of stores – hands on cheeks, muttering, “… I don’t know where to start … I don’t know where to start …”

I went and got a Cinnabon.

Then I walked around – three levels of shopping, a fourth level with a movie theatre, bowling alley and restaurants, and an aquarium in the basement.  My phone’s pedometer says I did three miles, and that’s without going into many stores or going through the amusement park in the center of the mall.

Three roller-coasters, a log flume, and myriad other rides – used to be branded Peanuts, but now it’s Nickelodeon.

The giant Lego builds.

Saw the Alpaca store (wool items, not alpacas – you can’t buy an alpaca at Mall of America … I think), the oxygen bar, and Corda-boys for all things corduroy.

Also Foot Locker, Ladies Foot Locker, Kids Foot Locker, and House of Hoops (by Foot Locker).

Around 1:00 I met up with Aryn – she had a lot of bags, but no MoA t-shirt, so we went to the MoA store, where the t-shirt rang up $24.99 and she handed over her last $25 of paper money.  With that penny in change, she left the mall with $1.82 in coins. So we did our part for the economic recovery today.

Back on the road, I stopped about 9:00PM to use the netbook to book a hotel in St. Louis.  Priceline got us the Crowne Plaza downtown near the arch for $55 – others on BiddingForTravel had gotten the Hyatt next door for $46 this week.

I couldn’t read the GPS well as we came into town and took exit 248C instead of 249C, which put us in a bad area of town.  It resembled something used for urban combat training. 

The new version of MapQuest sucks, and couldn’t keep up with my driving to get out of there, so the directions were crappy.  We drove toward downtown, backtracking a few times because streets were closed, and worrying about the car that seemed to have been following us from the interstate.

Finally we got downtown and found the hotel, only to have to drive several blocks in a circle due to one-way streets.  Got to the room at 12:00, looked out the window, saw the arch, don’t have to look at it tomorrow, now, so we can get on the road to Atlanta early.

Atlanta

The stop in Atlanta was to see Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Tavern, if it could be fit into the time and budget.  With Priceline and BiddingForTravel, the hotel budget was no problem at all, and with a short drive Tuesday and then finishing to Atlanta on Wednesday, we wound up in town on one of the days they perform.

Atlanta has a ton of zones for Priceline bidding, and I was seeing rates of $45-$60 in the BiddingForTravel forums, so I was pretty confident of being able to stay within my $75/night budget for Atlanta.

I started with a bid for a 3-star in Downtown at $40 a night and Priceline counter-offered at $57.  I ignored that and added the three other zones around downtown that I’d prefer to stay in, and offered $45, which got us the Courtyard in Druid Hills, 5-miles from the Tavern, at $45/night.  Marriott’s web rate for these nights – $169/night.

We slept late and left the hotel a little before noon, then went to the World of Coca-Cola, where we drank an inordinate amount of carbonated beverages from around the world, and on to the Georgia Aquarium.  I really hadn’t planned anything other than World of Coca-Cola for the afternoon, but we needed to kill a couple more hours and the Atlanta Zoo has pandas – so I got the Citypass that includes the Aquarium and Zoo, since the Aquarium is right across the street from World of Coca-Cola.

Tomorrow, before we leave, we’ll briefly stop at the zoo to see the pandas.

Shakespeare Tavern was awesome, as always, with a great performance of Twelfth Night, one of my favorites.  I’d swear the actress playing Maria was in Dancing at LusomethingIdon’tremember in Orlando, but can’t be, as it was her first performance.

Home

So, after a lunar month in hotels, we’re finally home.

We started the day with breakfast at the Majestic Diner, serving “food that pleases” since 1929.  I saw it on the drive to the hotel and knew we had to eat there before leaving.  It did not disappoint and we had an awesome breakfast.

Then off to Zoo Atlanta for Aryn to see the pandas. 

It took some searching, since they were still in their sleeping areas, but we finally tracked them down.

They offer a panda encounter there for $150, so if anyone’s looking for a gift idea for Aryn’s birthday, there you go.

We had to get on the road, so weren’t able to go through the rest of the zoo, but I think I’ll be going back to see it … as well as for Shakespeare Tavern’s 2012/2013 season. 

We got back to Orlando around 5:30 and I dropped Aryn off at the house before grabbing some groceries and heading home to apologize to the Big Bad Wolf for leaving her for a month.

She was not amused.

	Miles	MPG	Avg. Speed
Today	353.5	51.6	45
Trip	8085	46.6	48

Food (today/budget)	Hotel (today/budget)	Trip Savings
$50 / $206	$45 / $75	AAA – $66 PriceLine – $1039 Real $$ – $166

Probably my last post until we get home.  Got up at 7:00 for the second oil change of the trip, then visited my grandmother again before having lunch with my aunt and uncle. 

We left Grand Forks and made a brief stop at Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi so that Aryn could see the start of that river.

Then we headed for Minneapolis and another spectacular Priceline deal using BiddingForTravel.  I got the Crowne Plaza North for $45 for the night, compared to $139 via their website. 

Tomorrow we’ll spend a couple hours at Mall of America and head for home.  We’ll stop in Atlanta, hopefully, to catch Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Tavern on Thursday night and then be home on Friday.

	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.