To see the gallery from the trip go here
The idea behind the trip was to see if Portland, Oregon was a nice place to live. Though the landscape was beautiful and the people were very friendly, the climate and the "City Urchins" (what the locals call them) were a bit much for us.
The only thing I'd done to check out Portland prior to the trip was rainfall from an official source. Most of it was all asking people, posting on Ask Metafilter and talking to people who'd visited, lived there, or knew someone who lived there. I've gotten used to people making things *sound* worse than they are and assuming it's not as bad as they say. So I took the reports of tons of rain and gray days as exaggerations.
Portland Factoid: 151 days of rain, 214 days of threatens to rain and the possibility of 64 days of sunshine. One person's comment was this: "If you can't see Mt. Hood (nearest mountain) it's raining, if you can see it, it's going to rain." See below picture as reference.
Though Portland wasn't what we were hoping for we had a lot of fun on the trip. I'd have to say that the Badlands in South Dakota was my favorite stop of the trip. We camped a couple nights out there and I don't remember the last time I saw that many stars. We also went to see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse is HUGE! Mt. Rushmore will fit in the ear and hair of the Crazy Horse Sculpture. But it will take another 50 years to finish it.
The start:
GEO: Birmingham, MI
BEARING: W-SW
This post was sent after leaving the state. Wanted to make sure an
early post would not jynx anything.
Expect daily location updates. At least one but maybe 2.
Until next time,
M & R
m
1~water-resistant does not mean water-resistant -er… Maybe the
individual fibers are, but the fabric definitely isn’t
2~the one thing we forgot after leaving the second time? the map
3~fazoli’s, hardees, and gloria jeans coffee… We are most DEFINITELY
in indiana
GEO: n39.59308 w106.09383 - Nice little log cabin motif hotel in Frisco, CO.
Sorry for no posts but we’re still getting onto the rhythm of things.
So, here’s the details since the last post. This is going to be kind of rough because I want to go to bed. Though I do have Internet access and my nice large laptop keyboard. My brain is just fried from memory lane and things 9,000 feet above sea level.
{okee - michelle taking over because richard is just fried}
Let’s see… I’ll try to do a quick recap before I pass out so y’all know what’s been going on. But, it is me, so it might be hard to rein in.
Day 1:
first stop: N 41.74660 W 85.32868
first gas-up: N 40.45557 W 88.10152
first sleep stop: N 39.19958 W 88.50146
Got out of Michigan and through Indiana and most of Illinois. This GPS thing really rocks. We stopped at IKEA Canton on our way out and realized that we had left the huge book of a map (atlas?) at home and used the GPS to find another REI just 10 minutes away to buy the exact same one. I passed out in back before we stopped since I hadn’t got much sleep the night before. I think we ended up in Effingham, Illinois at a surprisingly clean rest area, about 2 hours from St. Louis, MO. I took lots of pics on the way… sorry. Don’t have them any more. THAT story to follow!
Day 2:
gas + arby’s N 38.73170 W 89.90903
ted drewes N 38.58941 W 90.30773
stop for a bathroom break and switch drivers N 38.81678 W 90.94982
motel 6 first real bed and shower and mcdonald’s for breakfast the next day N 38.8956 W 99.31709
Oh boy. This day was a lot of driving. Drove to St. Louis and went to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard on Old Historic Route 66. Yum! My frozen custard brownie cement didn’t fall out of the cup even though I held it upside down for a long time. Had a Ted Drewes T-shirt with the upside down frozen custard from a thrift store years ago so we had to go. It was a good time for dessert. I took over driving from the bathroom break to past Kansas City (both of ‘em). Richard passed out in back. We stopped for gas on the Kansas Turnpike and switched drivers - that was where our camera mini-adventure began:
Things I learned in this little adventure:
~Small digital cameras do not do well when flying off of the hood of a car going 60+ miles per hour on the Kansas Turnpike.
~They make a loud crazy *bump* sound on the rearview mirror before careening away from the car onto the pavement.
~They don’t do too well in the middle of the highway.
~Exits are few and far between on the Kansas Turnpike.
~But you can do a u-turn at the service plaza in the middle ‘cuz you can choose which direction you’re going in *after* you get the ticket at the entry point.
~Richard is really good at running across two lanes of highway to retrieve banged up cameras.
~SD cards and batteries go flying out when camera fall, go boom.
~They’re also really little and hard to see after it’s dark.
~Working on price accuracy at Target comes in handy when you need to buy a new digital camera and you know that a bunch just went on clearance.
~SuperTargets carry ready-to-eat sushi that has wasabi in little ketchup-like packets that looks really weird when you squeeze it out and is really freekin’ spicy.
We stopped at a hotel this night. I was asleep in the back for a little while before discovering that the EconoLodge in Hays, Kansas doesn’t have vacancies without a reservation..... um...... er...... what?????
showers are good.
Day 3
gas before vast expanse of West Kansas (Kansas is HUGE!) N 38.94795 W 99.56084
Summit Inn n39.59317 w 106.09366
Kansas is big… and there’s nothing there.
Colorado is nice. really nice!
Mountains are cool. and a little scary.
I want to see a concert at Red Rocks now.
We went to a bunch of places in the Denver area - kind of a walk/drive down memory lane for Richard since he used to live here years ago.
Tried to find a camping place to sleep in the van but things seemed to be working against us in that regard so we found this cute little place, cheap-ish.
Ran into a mountain. Rather. Backed into a mountain. Bumper works great!
OkaY. i’M OFF. I’m tired and too lazy to fix the caps LOCK SNAFU that seems to kEEP HAPPENing.
Cheers!
~michelle
Additional: Details will be added eventually to the pics in the gallery. Many will make no sense to those who don’t know the stories behind them. .. richard
GEO: Las Vegas, Nevada
We drove in at night as a guy I met at REI suggested. Nothing, nothing, nothing, OCEAN OF LIGHTS upon reaching the top of a hill.
It was pretty cool and a wee bit scary. Is there really enough people in the world to fund this place? How much money can people be losing in order to even just pay the electric bill?
Michelle pointed out the Luxor and that beam of light is incredible.
It’s insane how many casinos are here..
We decided to spend a day here, realizing we’re actually ahead of schedule due to my paranoia that there’s not enough time.
Also it gives us a chance to hang out, see some things and whatnot and not worry about when we have to wake up.
I’ll do another post tonight about what we went and saw and how much money we contributed to the electric bill.
richard
Oooooooh.. fancy. I get to post under my own name now. wowsers!
Vegas is still here. Yes, it is. (but I read somewhere that they are finally feeling the brunt of the economy and sub-prime mortgage fallout… is it true????) And it seems it just keeps creeping out from the edges.
Driving up to it was very, very cool. I’ve only been here once and I didn’t have a window seat then so didn’t get to see much on the descent.
~~~~
Oh lord. I’ve just spent way too long trying to upload pics and now I’m going to get off this computer and go see something.
Cheers!
~m
GEO: Santa Barbara, CA
It was a short drive from vegas, only about 5 hours aside from some traffic. There was a really bad wreck on I 15 at about N35.83773 W115.28125. The pickup truck involved was bent down the middle from front to back like a giant pole fell on it. The reality? It flipped landing top down on the 3 foot concrete median and fell over to the other side. The other car that was still there by the time we got there was pretty much flattened completely. Can’t imagine anyone surviving what we saw.
Once we made it to California, we found a place along the ocean for campers and rv’s. Unfortunately, it was for RV’s only. Plus we were supposed to pay $25 to stay there but driving in at 11pm, we saw cars and campers but didn’t realize they were together, as in car + rv = 1 group.. So, whadid we wake up to? a $90 ticket for illegally parking there. We’ll see if we can fight it over the phone but probably not. I was pissed at first because theres no damn beacon at the posts where you flill out the ticket and pay. I’m going to write a letter..
Oh well, michelle will post more later. Time to eat breakfast.