Let me fill you in on how the rest of the trip ended up.
I started my Friday in
Seligman AZ. This was the nearest town to where I was going to head north to see the Grand Canyon. The town has this awesome diner called
Westside Lilo's Cafe. This place is awesome. It seems that all of the locals eat there, and it has a very open and comfortable environment. I highly recommend it. I headed north to visit the grand canyon from
Seligman using some roads highlighted on my mapping software. I got about 25 miles out of town and discovered that the next step was "Turn left on local road." "Local Road" means road without a name. Roads without names generally aren't ones to be driving on. It turns out that this road was a gravel one about 20 miles long leading to the Grand Canyon. While I am generally excited about alternative experiences of national parks, I'm not so excited about them when I am driving a vehicle that is wholly unprepared for the roads leading to them. (MINI Coopers don't have the suspension, or clearance for the rough roads I was anticipating)
I decided that the right thing to do was to turn around. This meant that if I wanted to see the Grand Canyon (It would be a shame to miss it) I would be adding another 120 miles of driving to my day. I decided to go for it. I had to drive back through
Seligman, and east to Williams. While in Williams, I decided to stop for a quick bite at
McDonalds.
I drove up to see the park, it was worth the trip, even though it was overcast. I took a large 2d set of panoramic shots that I hope to assemble into a large panorama. If it works out, it should be very cool.
I made my way to
Las Vegas after that. Over the course of the trip, I wasn't feeling too well. I believe that I got food poisoning at the
McDonalds in Williams. ugh.
Like the other places I stopped, I didn't make any reservations in
Las Vegas. Bad idea.
Las Vegas on a Friday night is VERY busy. I pulled up to the
Bellagio to find out that they were full. I pulled around the block to an empty parking lot, and jumped on some hotel's free
wifi. All of the hotels on the strip were booked solid. The closest hotel I could find to the strip was the Hard Rock, and the room was $450. The room was awesome, and the hotel very cool, but unfortunately I didn't really enjoy it, being sick and all.
I left Vegas Saturday morning and headed east. I stayed the next night in
Ventura and drove the pacific coast highway north to home on Sunday morning.
All in tall the trip was great. The last couple of days could have been better, but I guess it was good to get food poisoning at the end, rather than somewhere in the middle. :^)
I was going to camp tonight until I heard that it was going to be below freezing tonight. I'm not equipped for that kind of cold, so i'm "roughing it" in a kabin at a koa. Pretty schwank - ok it's not the king size suite at the radison, but at least there's a roof over my head. :) now i'll go see about the wifi.
A city built into a rather steep hillside with a very windy road through the hills leading to it.
Went to the jewelry shop in scottsdale to buy a watch that isn't sold in the bay area. They didn't have it in stock. Then I drove across the majority of phoenix to start looking for a hotel. After driving an hour around phoenix and tempe, i hadn't found a midrange hotel with vacancy. I settled for the last room at the Raddison for the paultry sum of $220. Sigh. NOW it's time to EAT!
Yes, it DOES exist. Here.s the proof. The holiday inn in Thermopolis is a sight to see. The lobby and restaurant has a huntsman's theme replete with dozens of stuffed animals, including two bears. I have to admit that my "San Francisco values" were a little disturbed. :) I guess I've lost some of that country boy over the years...
In a cafe in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Two couples are sitting at a table behind me. I catch a snippet of the conversation between the two men. "...I need a piece of six inch pipe. Do you have any? I have some 4 inch pipe. How long? Long time" i couldn't keep from laughing. Sounds just like me and Greg.
Welcome to Laurel Montana. I am consoled that the people here would feel as out of place in Oakland, CA as I feel here. :)
75MPH speed limits in Idaho and Montana: very cool. I stuck to around 80 for a very long time today.
Cruise control: awesome, though for at least 70 miles i was going 1/4 mph faster than this explorer. I caught up to him over the course of an hour. When I hit his blind spot i slowed down a shade and let him go.
Range calculator: the range calculator in the car is very good. On a 350mi stint i passed several exits with gas stations, each by noticing them just as it was unsafe to use the exit. When i noticed the low fuel indicator, i was about 20 miles out of butte, and the calculator said i had 22 miles of gas left. When i got to a gas station, i put 12.75 gallons of gas in the tank. It shows empty at 13. it does have a 2 gallon reserve. I now know that the 2 gallon reserve isn't counted when showing range or E. It was a harrowing experience nonetheless. :)
Welcome to southern Idaho
Now that I've been away from Burns for such a long time, it really is a foreign place for me. I drove through there today. It's amazing how much smaller everything looks. It's also amazing how little time it took to get from La Grande to Burns. It seemed to be so far from Burns to Cove, and yet it only took about 4 hours to cover the distance. I had planned on staying the night in Burns, but once I was there, i just didn't feel like it. I decided to push on to Ontario, but once I got there, Boise didn't seem much farther, so Boise it is. :) I'm off to get some dinner and aquire a couple more books on CD.
Cheers,
Duane
There are only a handful of places on this spinning ball of space dust that feel like home to me. Today I spent some time at one of them. In times of turmoil, it's good to get in touch with your roots. This place represents part of mine. A firm foundation, one would say. This is the song they have sung at the end of each day of camp for over 80 years: We will be building, for the years to come, on firm foundations, of our school at Cove. Strength to go on, until thy work is done, taking all tasks as measures of thy love. Help us to build the church at thy command. Unbroken circle, here we take our stand.
They still run camps for kids preschool age through high school. Every summer. This place has touched the hearts of thousands, and in that, it has had an incredible ministry.
About 5 minutes after taking this picture, i decided that driving theough the snow on a forest service road all by myself was a BAD IDEA. I turned around and went back. I didn't pass a single car on the way out.
Thanks emily for the great breakfast! On the road again on Easter, spending time with Mom & Arlie this afternoon.
It's a bad idea to take pictures while you're driving... But the picture is cool.
Home sweet home. Just 6000 miles to go.
This evening, while I'm doing laundry, and happily backing up my work laptop so I can turn it in tomorrow (last day, YAY!) and I hear the distinctive sound of large amounts of water hitting a hard surface like a floor. After a couple of short seconds of processing.... uh-oh. I head into the sun porch/laundry room to find watter spilling out around the edge of where the drain hose fits into the drain. Recently I made (what I thought was) a minor plumbing change in this area. I decided that the
Cat Genie didn't have enough space to push it's poopy water down the drain as it was stuffed into the same tube as the washer drain. I decided to get some plumbing parts and set up a Y setup where both of them would have adequate space to push their water down the drain. It worked great for the Cat Genie, but this is the first load of laundry I've done since then. There is a little piece of plastic inside the Y that diverts water down the drain, rather than up the other side of the Y. Apparently this little piece of plastic causes enough turbulence that when a high volume of water is coming down the drain, it backs up. So I tried sealing the rest of the opening with my hands, no good. I tried the other side. No good. Next best bet? Open the window and direct the stream of water out into the yard. The plant just outside the window is especially clean for all of the soapy water it just got doused with. Let's hope it doesn't die for being so clean. :^)
ANYWAY.. water water EVERYWHERE. I look at the stack of boxes on the other side of the room and discover that they're sitting in water. What's in the boxes on the bottom? plastic bags? Rocks? Other things that don't mind being wet? Of course not. Books. What is on top of those boxes? More books. lots and lots and lots of books. Of course the only ones at risk are the ones on the bottom, but entirely lacking wizarding or levitation skills, I'm left with moving all of those books somewhere else so I can get the boxes off of the floor and upside down so they can dry. Am I going to bother opening those boxes? nah. Damage already done. the best I can do now is let them dry out and hope.
Back to the washer side of the room. What was under this fountain? Cat food, and kitty litter. Two things that just LOVE extra moisture.
Anyway. The mess is cleaned up. The room is drying out, and I'm washing the towels that got thrown on the floor to soak up this mess.
oy. Guess I'm doing the rest of the laundry while I'm working tomorrow morning.
Cheers,
Duane
