Last stop in USA… for a day

So we woke ourselves up in northwestern Illinois, patted ourselves on the back for having successfully avoided death by tornado and headed on towards the first city we’ve seen since Seattle.  We were only a couple hours outside of the city and had absolutely ZERO desire to drive all the way into it… the first [...]

Too many days of crops not yet grown

So we started on our way towards Mount Rushmore only not too particularly early this time.  We weren’t in any real hurry to see it, aside from getting there before sundown.  We were leaving from a motel in Cody, Wyoming and as we wound through the windy roads of the Big Horn Mountains we started [...]

Into the wild… again

The drive to Yellowstone went much along the lines of the drive to GNP, minus the trip odometer turning over. When we were about 15 miles out of the north entrance, we pulled over and grabbed some buffalo burgers. They were good, but if you hadn’t told me they were buffalo and not beef, I [...]

A lot of nothing and a lot of something

After Seattle, our next stop was Glacier National Park where we hoped to camp… weather permitting of course.  It did not.
Starting off on the drive around 5:30 AM (and it was my turn to drive… goody) we waved goodbye to our ballin hostess Katie, grabbed coffee and hit the road.  The first bits of Washington [...]

If not for the weather

One of the things I’ve been doing along this trip is thinking of places to live in the future, and Seattle has made the short list so far (Austin keeps it company).  We rolled into Seattle and took a look at the Space Needle.  Nobody wanted to part ways with 16 dollars so we just [...]

Over the border and through Redwoods

I guess I should really refer to this as the part of the trip where we drive to Seattle, despite the fact that we spent the night in Corvallis, OR (where Oregon State is).
First off, when googlemaps tells you that a trip is 6 hours based on the direct route and you want to go [...]

I left my weather report in Sacramento

Note to self: when grandma says bring a sweater, bring a sweater!
Despite the fact that Sacramento and the surrounding area were experiencing record highs in excess of 100 degrees, San Francisco was not the place to go to without a jacket.  We really underestimated the wind and temperature of the Bay City and wearing shorts [...]

A bad milestone

We got up and out for Sacramento/Granite Bay/San Francisco pretty early the next day, so really just the usual 5:30AM.  While driving through Nevada, we came across what could win the prize for funniest sign/place name.  Shady Lady Ranch Brothel.  Through this much of the trip here are the standings:
1) Shady Lady Ranch Brothel
2) BJ’s [...]

Vegas Baby!

We hit the city of sin up for two nights in this trip so we could afford to be a little irresponsible with our behavior for one night, because I feel like that’s part of being in a city where you are just a vodka martini, a woman and an Elvis impersonator away from being [...]

Get your kicks

Well, the road to Vegas took us through Kingman, Arizona, which you may recognize from Allstate commercials, but it also was a part of historic Route 66.  Which is always neat to see motels in the shape of teepees.
Really the only thing to see along this way was the Hoover Dam, which was something of [...]