Goin' to Kansas City... Aren't We?

Last night on my plane home, the pilot came on and made his usual announcement. Sort of. "Hi folks - we're about 22 minutes from landing in the Milwaukee. The weather there is..." Of course, I had just departed Milwaukee so was definitely hoping we weren't landing back there.

The flight attendant announced when he was finished that we were in fact headed to KC, not Milwaukee. A few minutes later, the pilot came back on and said he had been informed that this plane was headed to Kansas City. "That's the way the plane's pointing, so that's where we'll go." That's a relief!

The Frosty Malt Threshold

A frosty malt, served with a wooden spoon, has always been my treat of choice at sporting events, especially baseball games. This is despite a strong campaign for fried cheese curds that my friend has spent this summer running. I firmly believe that ballpark food is overpriced. I know this, but I am willing to splurge for such things on an occasional basis.

However, Saturday night I learned that there is a price threshold for what I will and won't pay for a frosty malt. In my recollection, the last one I got cost around $4. Obviously a markup, but I price I could stomach. Now, however, the price at the K is $5.25, and I have learned that this is a price I'm not willing to pay. This 30% price increase may cost me my ballpark frosty malts.

Maybe I'll learn to live with it. I had a similar experience when I was in college. I always preferred to buy cans of pop from machines. They are cheaper, and I never wanted 20 oz of pop anyway. When my school signed a deal with Pepsi, along with that came the replacement of all the can machines with bottle machines. I boycotted for a long time, around a year or so, but eventually accepted they were there to stay.

I still miss pop machines that sell cans.

Day 9 - Home Again: The Summary

It was completely calm when we woke up this morning around 6. No sign of what went on last night. Luckily it was just wind and no rain, so everything was dry, and there was a beautiful sunrise. After our 14 hour drive on Saturday, we had a much shorter day ahead. We were on the road by 6:30 and quickly passed into Central time. We passed huge fields of sunflowers and tried to see the world's largest prairie dog but you can't see him behind the wall anymore.

We stopped for gas and I wasn't sure I could get back in the car anymore. We drove into my driveway about 1:45 p.m. As you all know, I like data, so here's a little summary of our trip:

• Miles driven: 3766
• Hours driving (according to my GPS): 55
• Times we bought gas: 13, for $374.57
  
• License plates found: 46, plus 8 Canadian provinces
• States traveled: 7
• Nights camped: 8, at a cost of $153.69
• National Parks visited: 3, for $50
  
• Moose seen: 5
  
• Bears seen: 0
  

Day 8 - Driving, Driving, Driving

We got off to an early start this morning. We had a long drive, and besides, it was cold so there was no need to linger. I'm not sure it was as cold last night as they said it would be. This morning we were out by 7:30, which was good because it took us about five hours to drive the first 200 miles. Luckily we did not run into Obama on the way out.

We did see a lot more buffaloes and two mooses. There was a ton of construction after we got to Grand Teton we spent a lot of time stopped and waiting, staring at the back of an RV. We ate lunch in an Alco parking lot in Lander, WY because all the tables were wet and we were cold. We had some mountain views as we were driving and saw some of the red rock in Wyoming, but a lot of nothing along a two lane highway. By this point we had listened to almost all of our CDs at least once and were trying to tune in radio stations, but we couldn't keep one for very long.

We finally got to the interstate and got on I-80 in Rawlins, WY at 3:00. We stopped at the Colorado sign and took a pictures because I wasn't for sure I had one. We are trying to get all the way to Goodland so opted to eat dinner at Quizno's rather than cooking our macaroni and beanie weenies. We stopped and ate a little north of Denver.

After we got on I-70 and it got dark, we could see a big lightning storm off to the northeast. We debated stopping in Limon or Burlington to stay behind the storm but decided to go on. The radar showed the storm was off to the north. We got into Goodland about 9:30 and set our tent up in the dark. Just as we were getting ready for bed, a huge wind storm came up and nearly blew the tent away. The rain fly was clear up in the air and flapping and the tent was nearly flat to the ground. We stood there staring at it trying to figure out what to do. We debated going to the holiday inn across the street, but decided there was nothing to be done except get in, so we did. The wind kept at it for about an hour I think, with huge gusts and then eventually must have died down. Of all the things I wish I had taken a picture of, it's the tent that night, flat to the ground. But it came away with no injuries (us too!).

Editor's Note: Apparently I took no pictures this day!

Day 7 - Yellowstone in One Day

Today we saw everything in Yellowstone we could see in one day, which turned out to be a lot. We woke up to a very cold but dry morning. I added socks and a hat to my winter sleeping gear and was reasonably warm. It is supposed to be colder tonight with a low of 37. Hopefully we will sleep better without a man snoring loudly in the next tent a few yards away.


We packed up and headed out first to Old Faithful and did a hike around there to see all the geysers near there. We saw Old Faithful erupt about 10:35 and then headed over to Yellowstone Lake. We stopped near West Thumb and looked at more geysers along the edge of the lake, then headed up the shore.


We had lunch at Gull Point where we had a very scenic picnic table. There was nobody there when we got there, but several people came before we left. There were some huge swarms of gnats, which ruined the atmosphere a bit. After lunch, we headed north toward Canyon Village. We had heard Hayden Valley was the place to go to see wildlife. We spotted two buffalo so walked over to see them, but they weren't very close.


Across the street was the mud volcano so we stopped there and hiked up the hill to Sour Lake. Most of the trees near there on the hillside died after and earthquake in the 1970s heated the ground to 2700 degrees. Once we got in to Hayden Valley, we saw several buffalo off by themselves, then rounded a turn and found the whole rest of the herd.


We went out to the Upper Falls lookout where we saw a rainbow, then down to the Lower Falls, which was really cool. We saw Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, then headed up to Mammoth Hot Springs and hiked around there a little. On the way there, we drove through a lot of the forests that have reseeded since the 1988 fire. Near the edge of Mammoth, there was a group of elk just hanging out so we took a few photos.


We drove the five miles to the park's north entrance, which was the original entrance, to see if there were any good souvenir shops but didn't find much. Lisa bought a stocking hat to keep warm in the tent tonight. We cam back in the park and drove to Canyon Village by way of Roosevelt Tower but didn't see any wildlife. All we hear about is bears and bear safety for five days now, but we have seen no bears. Our campsite in Canyon Village is nice and secluded, but it is cool here already. The low tomorrow night is supposed to be 29, so we'll be glad to move on.


Dinner was spaghetti again. We had a few sprinkles while we were doing the dishes but they stopped. We opted out of showers tonight and instead got organized and repacked the car. We just heard from the people next to us that Obama is coming to Yellowstone to visit Old Faithful tomorrow so we missed him by one day. Hopefully that doesn't cause any traffic delays for us getting out. We used the rest of our wood for a campfire and had s'mores again. Overall today we drove 168 miles in the park and saw just about every part. Not bad for one day.

Day 6 - Grant Village, Yellowstone

Our hope for no rain did not pan out. It wasn't cold but we did wake up to a steady drizzle and a soaked tent with puddles on the floor. Most of our stuff was dry but the edges of the sleeping bags were wet. I also discovered I had a sandwich with bag with some sandwich crusts in my pants pocket, but luckily no bears were interested.

We got everything into the car with the tent in a trash bag because it was so wet and we were on our way at 7:30, hoping to go to a drier Yellowstone. We stopped on our way out to take a picture of both of us by the Glacier sign. It rained all morning until at least past Missoula. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop somewhere before Butte. The afternoon was more driving. The big excitement was when we stopped at a grocery store to buy hamburger. The car in front of us when we pulled in was from Hawaii, so we marked that one off. Six are left - Washington DC, Delaware, Rhode Island, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Mississippi.


After shopping we made our usual mid-afternoon stop for ice cream, then headed down 191 to West Yellowstone. There was some construction but it didn't slow us down too much. We stopped in West Yellowstone to buy propane. It cost $4.79, but that was better than $9.09 at Apgar Village. It was about 4:00 when we headed into the park through the West entrance. To demonstrate what a small world it is, the car in front of us into the park was from Johnson County. Go figure. We saw two moose pretty soon after we got in the park. All the campgrounds are full so I'm glad we have reservations.


On the way to Grant Village, we stopped at Fountain Pain Pots. They are really weird! I don't remember really grasping how weird all of this is the last time I was here. We passed on Old Faithful for today so we could get our wet tent set up and drying. We are in a tent only loop so hopefully it is quiet. Lisa went for a run and I started some water boiling. We are at 7700 feet so figured it might take awhile. It is weird that we are so much higher than we every were in Glacier. There is a 40% chance of rain tomorrow so we'll hope for the best for our one day in Yellowstone. In other news, we've crossed the Continental Divide three times today. Where the fire was, there are now lots of young trees.


Dinner tonight was chili burger supper. I made way too much but it tasted okay. The best part was for the the first time ever, there were no beans! After we got all the dishes washed, we drove down to take our first shower since Monday morning. It costs $2 for six minutes of hot water. There were lots of showers and they were clean. After we showered we bought some wood and had our first campfire. We made s'mores and enjoyed the heat because it is already pretty cool. But so far it is clear and we can see an amazing number of stars. I'm hoping that means no rain!

Day 5 - Rainy Many Glacier

Last night it rained a little bit but stopped before we got up. This morning it was surprisingly not cold. We headed out for the other side of the park and Many Glacier to do the Grinnell Lake hike. We drove US 2 around the south of the park, which was a really nice drive. The speed limit was 70 but with all the curves I don't think I was ever close to that.


When we got around to East Glacier, the highway we had to take was scenic but really windy with lots of loose gravel. We did see both a cow and a horse standing right beside the road (not together). We drove through Two Medicine and stopped for groceries in St. Mary, then on to Babb, where we headed into Many Glacier. It took us about two hours to get there, and we were picking up rain as we went. By the time we got to the Many Glacier Hotel, which is the trailhead, it was pouring. We went in to take a look at the hotel and decided hiking was out. We sat in the car for awhile, trying to decide if we should wait it out. We toyed with the idea of going on to Yellowstone, but it would have been nearly 3:00 before we could get on the road. We opted to head back to our campsite and see if it was raining there. At this point we were about 10 miles from Canada, but Lisa forgot her passport so we had to skip that.




We stopped in East Glacier at the Glacier Park Lodge and ate our picnic lunch. Luckily it stopped raining for awhile and we walked around and took pictures of the really nice gardens. On the way back, we stopped at Goat Lick, where mountain goats come a lot. I think it was too late in the summer and in the day and we didn't see any. The drive all the way from Many Glacier took over two hours and most of the view was blocked by very low clouds. We did drive right through the part where the forest burned.


It was still raining when we got to Apgar so we did a lot of souvenir shopping at Apgar and West Glacier instead of our Avalanche hike. Lisa bought some huckleberry grizzly gummy bears, as huckleberries are very common here. We drove into the park further to see Lake Macdonald Lodge, which had a nice terrace out back. As I was taking a picture of the hotel, a mouse ran between my feet. I didn't see it, but Lisa did and she screamed. I jumped because I thought I was going to get hit by a car or something!

It was only drizzling so we headed back to camp to make dinner. Dinner tonight was chicken tetrazzini, which I had never made camping, but Lisa gave it a good rating.

The air is very damp and cool tonight so we can see our breath, but at least no rain. Our chairs and our tent are very wet. An RV has moved in next door that had a generator running for a long time. Just as I was plotting how to sabotage it, they shut if off. There was no ranger program tonight and since we spent the whole day driving, not hiking, we walked down to Apgar Village to finish our shopping for Glacier items. I bought a sweatshirt and Lisa bought a vase that reminds her of mountains. We walked back with our ice cream cones and even though it wasn't fully dark, the fog and moist air made it a little eerie.

The campground is not full tonight. I guess people stay away because of rain. Most of the license plates we see are Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Alberta, so people mostly come from nearby. We did pick up Maine and Vermont today, but have been stuck with the last ten or so for a couple days. Tonight the temps should be in the upper 40s but we will hope for no rain. Tomorrow, off to Yellowstone and our first showers since Monday morning! We didn't get to do much hiking in Glacier, but we saw a lot of the park.

Day 4 - Logan Pass and Hidden Lake

Our s'mores over the stove worked okay, although it wasn't quite as nice as over the campfire. We made sure to bear proof our campsite before we went to bed. If any bears came, they didn't say anything. It was a little cold sleeping but not too bad. Mostly getting up was cold.


We headed for the shuttle stop by our campground, which allegedly picks up every 15-30 minutes. We waited an hour for the Logan Pass shuttle, which didn't come. We finally got on the Avalanche Creek shuttle, which was a bad idea. Instead of going all the way to Logan Pass, the shuttle unloads at Avalanche and you have to get in line for a shuttle coming from Apgar going to Logan, which of course is already full. We had to wait another hour and weren't on our way to Logan until 11.


There is road construction along Going to the Sun Road and there are three places where it is one lane, causing some long delays. When we got to the top it was windy but not too cold. We hiked up the Hidden Lake Overlook trail. The views were good, but it was hard going, straight up the steps part of the time, and we weren't used to the altitude yet.


Out by Hidden Lake we saw lots of mountain goats. There was also a lady who gave us her binoculars to use to look at some bighorn sheep. They were pretty far away, but we could tell one had really big horns. We opted not to hike down to the lake, and sat and ate our lunch near the overlook. Going down was much easier. It is hard to believe all of it will be snow covered in a month or so!


We took the shuttle down the east side to St. Mary, which has more prairie near the park entrance. From there we turned around and came back to Apgar, which took three shuttles. We saw where there had been an avalanche last January. There was a 3000 foot drop and all the trees in its path were ripped out of the ground. Some were still alive but many were dead. We learned it was two fires in 2002 that killed so many trees by Lake Macdonald and up a ways.

Dinner tonight was macaroni. Tomorrow we will have to buy groceries, but we made it four days on what we had. We ran out of time today to do the Avalanche Lake and Trail of Cedars hike, but we didn't want to miss the last shuttle to the campground. Hopefully tomorrow we will get to see more parts of the park.



After dinner we went to the ranger program at Apgar ampitheater. The ranger's name was Teagan and she is a geologist. She talked about how the mountains were formed and then shaped by glaciers. To the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat:

Silt, tilt, slide, and glide

That's how Glacier formed...

She was interesting and made it fun. She also talked about how climate change is speeding up the melting of the glaciers. By 2020, the last of the 25 remaining glaciers in the park will be gone.

Afterwards we cooked more s'mores over our stove. The campground is full again tonight (we decided not to move) but all except one group are quiet.

Day 3 - Glacier National Park

Last night ended up being a lot cooler than we expected and I was freezing. I was not prepared for the cold. We got off to an early start because we thought it was 7:30 but it was really only 6:30. We packed, took showers, and were on the road by 7:30. There were some mountains along I-90, and we saw the turnoff for when we come back down to Yellowstone.

Along the way there were lots of cows in fields, and lots of deer mixed in. We went through Bozeman, Butte, and stopped for lunch in Missoula. There are lots of cherry orchards along the way and we stopped so Lisa could buy some. She said they were very good. We also stopped at Dairy Queen and waited behind a lady who was trying to order something with no fat or sugar. Perhaps DQ is not the place for that. The view out the back was great so we sat out there and ate.


We got into the park around 3:30 and Avalanche campground said it wasn't full yet. We drove along Going to the Sun Road by Lake Macdonald about 30 minutes. It turned out there was only one camp site left, right next to the bathroom. While we made the loop trying to decide if we should take it, someone else snagged it. We drove back out to Apgar Campground near the entrance and got a good site. There was a deer right behind the tent.



We took a walk down by Lake Macdonald. There was a guy there who used our cell phone to call 911 and report a sailboat had capsized out on the lake and the guys were having trouble righting it. A ranger did come but I don't know if they needed to be rescued or not.



We also saw another deer right along the trail. They aren't too startled by people. We stopped by the Visitors Center to get information on day hikes, and we browsed the gift shop. Dinner tonight was couscous. The temperature was around 70 this afternoon, but lows in the upper 40s tonight. It has already dropped a little as the sun is getting ready to go down. We had to put our tent really close to the fire circle so can't have a fire. We are going to try S'mores over the stove. I wrote my postcards so we'll see when they actually get there.

Day 2 - Big Timber, MT

This morning we woke up around 7:30 and showered and were on the road around 8:45, after driving the first few feet with the tail gate totally wide open. We bought ice and headed to Wyoming. We crossed into Mountain time zone about 10:30 so got an hour back. All day Saturday and today we saw tons of motorcycles coming east on I-90. Then annual rally in Sturgis was this past week so they were all headed home. We passed through Sturgis just before getting into Wyoming but it was pretty quiet by then.


All along I-90 there are signs for 1880 Town, but we decided we could see it well enough from the road and it wasn't worth a stop. We did stop at Wall Drug, and I bought a tiny buffalo. We also found a treasure trove of license plates, including Alaska. Just as we were driving through the Badlands, which only gets 16 inches of rain a year, we hit a monsoon. I think they got half their 16 inches today. It did wash the bugs off the car.


We (and luckily the rain) stopped for lunch at a rest stop in SD, where the temperature was pretty cool. After we got into Wyoming, more rain. At 3:00, we finally got our first glimpse of mountains, and at 4:45 we were into Montana, my 46th state. The Montana sign proved to be warmer than the Wyoming sign.




Today our ice cream was from Wendy's. It seemed to take forever to get to Billings. We finally stopped at KOA near Big Timber around 7:30. I cooked chicken noodle while Lisa put up the tent. The campground is nice enough, although very close to the highway. They offer ear plugs for the highway and train noise. I thought the water would take awhile to boil, but it was pretty quick. It's not too cool or warm here so should be a good night for tent sleeping. Today was a long driving day, almost 12 hours with a few stops, and I was ready to be out. Tomorrow we should (hopefully) get to Glacier around mid-afternoon.

Day 1 - Chamberlain, SD

We left my house about 8:30 this morning. The first casualty was my Esperanza water bottle, which I dropped in the kitchen as were headed out the door and the lid broke. We were faster and better at packing and we got out early. Our first stop was at Sapp Bros. which was a full service restaurant/chapel/gas station. The bathroom was weird with sinks in every toilet stall. We were hoping for a better lunch spot so kept driving.

We stopped and took our picture in front of the Iowa sign. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop in Iowa. We spent much of the day looking for license plates. We have found 25. There was an unconfirmed Hawaii sighting, but we didn't count it. Hopefully we will see another one.

We drove right along the Nebraska border but never actually crossed into it. We stopped at the South Dakota sign and got out in some itchy grass to take the picture. I got hives on my feet from the grass and that's we when discovered I hadn't packed the benadryl. We looked for and found a Hyvee and a Dairy Queen. Lisa parked in the expectant parent parking spot.


Once we were on I-90, we kept seeing signs for the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, and we figured we had to stop. It was about 10 minutes off the highway but fun to see. We just walked around the outside and took pictures. We went in only to use the bathroom. They have to replace the outside every year!

We targeted Chamberlain, SD as our destination. We are staying at American Creek Campground, which we picked from the book because it was half the price of the other two. It turned out to be really nice right on the Missouri River (go figure we drive all this way to sit by the Mighty Mo!). We were assigned to the tent area, which turned out to be a not-very-flat, not-very-big area already occupied by a few tents and a big group of mostly shirtless people. We cooked our spaghetti at a nearly table and waited until the group finished cooking in their electric skillet, with the longest extension cord ever. They cleared out and we moved in and set up our tent.

While Lisa was outside rolling down the window, Matty and Riley (11 and 5) came by to talk to her. They were quite chatty but luckily returned to their tent shortly.

It is super windy so we are hoping the tent does not blow away with us in it. Now we are sitting by the river watching the sunset. The tent area is filling up. One couple arrived and set up the biggest tent ever. I think they are fighting and she seems to be not very excited about camping. She has a giant roller suitcase that she rolled across the grass and into the tent. A bunch of people came down to the dock and we were afraid it might get a little noisy but they have all left.


It is a little later now and the wind has died down almost completely so hopefully our tent is safe. There are big rocks all along the edge of the river. It reminds us of the rocks Port Macquarie where we stopped and watched the dolphins.

As we were sitting by the river, this guy came up and started talking to us. He asked how old we were and said he was 18. His name was Michael. We said we were a lot older than him, and he guessed 34. Then he asked us how old we thought he was. We cleverly guessed 18, and he said that he was 18, but people usually thought he looked 24. We thought he'd leave but he stuck around a long time, sitting on the ground beside our chairs.

He said he made $100/hour working construction and had already saved $800 to buy a $19,000 bike with flames. He said he was single, looking for a nice girl, did we want to go for a walk? Then he asked us if we had any beer. We told him we had none. He said he had four kinds back at his camp site. Eventually he did leave, but only after filling every silence with, "So....." We went to bed about 1030 and it was pretty quite by then. A little bright from the fishing dock lights.

Trash Cans Aweigh

This morning we have had multiple inches of rain. I put my 65 gallon trash can out last night and looked out this morning to find it gone. I looked out all the windows but couldn't locate it. If it wasn't for the rain, I would have assumed it was stolen. But I decided to put on my raincoat and go in search of it. I found it at the bottom of the street, which is three houses down, trying to go into the storm drain. Of course it is a tad too large to actually go in, so I wheeled it back up the street.

They must have emptied them early, left it in the stream going by, and it washed away!