Day 3

Day 3 (Saturday) Started with such promise. Or not.

A horrible night at the Jellystone park led to a mercifully early waking. We crawled noisily through Wisconsin Dells. Along the way I noticed 132 different Water Parks. Each one better than the last and all of them able to speak directly to Jeffrey's brain with soothing visions of days and days of gravity-based watery fun.

We finally found the car repair place (hovlandtire.com‎) and met the incredibly nice, but overly optimistic mechanic who hoisted the car up on the jack and announced that our car was not suffering from a frozen caliper, but a seized bearing that had led to a ruined rear axle. After watching him work the phones and hearing estimates of Monday, it became clear that, at best, parts would be in on Monday and the car would be on the road Tuesday, but the more likely scenario was Parts ordered on Monday, arriving at the earliest Tuesday, with the car on the car on the road no earlier than Wednesday.

Rather than wait for the car, we decided to rent something and get back on the road. It meant changing our return route, but waiting for the car meant changing the route as well. So, we called Hertz and by around 1:30 we were in a Honda and on on our way once more.

To get back toward our schedule as best we could, we drove the 600 miles to Badlands Np that day and night. But, it was still the trip, and that meant not stressing too much that we missed the bits we shouldn't miss.

The bigs finds of the day were:

Great River Bluffs (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/great_river_bluffs/index.html). About a 3 mile (round trip) hike to a beautiful overlook of the Mississippi just across the River in Minnesota.

The Spam Museum (http://www.spam.com/museum/)
As surreal as the words "Spam Museum" are, they don't prepare you for the greatness.

Jolly Green Giant statue in Blue Earth, Minnesota (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2127)
Huh?

Sadly, the demolition derby next to the statue had already begun, and looked packed to the gills.

Chief Joseph plaque larger

Day 2 - July 25

I am going to start writing a day by day recollection while I remember. This was supposed to be a daily exercise on the trip, but I ended up driving all the time instead.

Day 2 started well and ended like shit. We woke up in Indiana Dunes, had breakfast of pop-tarts and boiled eggs for snack. The campsite was nice, but a bit dirty (not with trash, the ground just had loose dirt on it).
Packing proved that packing would be fun throughout the trip, but we managed to get everyone and everything in.

We hit the road later than planned. This was the only day we had a time to be anywhere, but we e-mailed ahead and there was no problem being later. We hit Chicago around 11am and traffic was hell. I now pause while you all collectively say, "duh". I am not saying I wasn’t expecting the traffic - only that it sucked.

We went to the church in Rockford where Laurie and I met (http://www.uurockford.org/). The secretary’s were kind of enough to let us meander freely through the church for a bit and I reminisced and took a few pictures and we were on our way. We stopped at the McDonald’s where Laurie and I had walked when we first met.

Now that we were past Chicago, traffic still sucked. To spread the fun throughout the state, Illinois had 90 under construction (adding a lane) from Rockford North. Once we got into Wisconsin, traffic eased and we started making good time. Every exit through Wisconsin had some sort of cheese shop. We came over all peckish, so we curtailed our travels momentarily, sallied forth and infiltrated a place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles.

By this point, Jeffrey had burnt to a crisp. He had slept most of the way to the church and just baked in the back seat. I had reminded him to sunscreen before we got going, but did not follow-up.

So we were cruising along, past Madison. We wondered if the city acted like an early teen, slightly spoiled, rich girl. Then the car made a horrible screeching noise and started driving like it was in sand. I got out and saw some fluid on the back, right tire and thought that the caliper had frozen shut. We limped to the next exit (exit 92 - route 12, Wisconsin Dells, Baraboo). It was just after 5pm so I crawled through town looking for anywhere that might be able to fix a car. Nothing.

I stopped in the parking lot of the Crystal Grand Music Theatre and called State Farm for Roadside Assistance. I found out that it wasn’t Roadside Assistance, so much as Roadside Reimbursement, cursed a little and moved on to find somewhere to spend the night. The first place I looked, an Econolodge next to the theatre had just filled, so I headed up the road. I found a little place called the Olympia Motel and got a price of just over $100 for a night at an outside entrance, tiny room. The guy behind the desk also gave me the name & number of a repair place with Saturday hours. After balking at the price, I noticed a billboard for a Jellystone park only a mile away. I called, they had a spot I could put a tent, they charged m Rack rate for an RV spot, but I still took it, thinking $20 saved is $20.

We squeaked our way up there and found a horrible spot for a tent. Additionally the mosquitoes were horrible. After 5 minutes, I called and asked for a refund. No dice, I was told. After pushing I got the second of the 2-night mandatory stay refunded, but I was still stuck there for the night. 132 Cindy’s Circle.

We walked 1.5 miles to an Uno’s had some dinner and walked back and slept.

Map of the Day:


View Larger Map

Home

We pushed through the night after getting the car. Killed few hours at a few rest stops and got home a couple hours ago.

I will try to get some more pictures up today to Flickr and will post if I get that done.

Travel Log

Day 1: Home to Indiana Dunes
Day 2: Indiana Dunes To Wisconsin Dells, where the car broke. (Jellystone Park)
Day 3: Rented Honda, Wisconsin Dells to Badlands
Day 4: Badlands/Wall (Wounded Knee Museum)/Badlands
Day 5: Badlands/Rushmore/Crazy Horse/Custer SP/Devil's Tower
Day 6: Devil's Tower/Billings, MT
Day 7: Billings to Yellowstone (East Entrance) Camp at Indian Creek Campground, See Mammoth
Day 8: Yellowstone, Norris Geyser Basin
Day 9: Yellowstone, Canyon/Old Faithful
Day 10: Yellowstone: Petrified Tree, Lake onto Teton
Day 11: Grand Teton NP, Lake Jackson, Jackson, WY, Head toward Big Hole, Hunt down Jacob's book in Idaho Camp in Random NRA
Day 12: Big Hole National Battlefield, Glacier, Camp at Lake Bowman.
Day 13: Glacier: Avalanche Lake, Camp at Quartz Lake campground
Day 14: Glacier:Going-to-the-sun Highway, walk to Hidden Lake overlook, Bear Paw Battlefield ( Route 2 across Montana) Camp on the way
Day 15: Theodore Roosevelt National Park,head east
Day 16 ND to Wisconsin Dells, get car

Theodore Roosevelt NP

When you have an itch and no arms

Y'know it's good

It's got a Dinosaur statue and a plane flying into it.

Godzilla Sighting!

This guys is selling his statues.

Bear Paw Battlefield

Heartbreaking. To run for nearly 1,400 mile with the Soldiers at your heels to lose within sight of your goal. Brutal.

Feels Like Home

Rudyard, MT

Smaller Geysers

G-F-G

Old Faithful

Falls

Mountain Goat

Yellowstone Bison

They were REALLY close

Really CLOSE

That's my car window

huh. straightforward, I guess

Little Big Horn

Grizzly

FW:Bald Eagle

Car Grill

I won't bother you with a picture of the front of the car, but the assortment of bugs makes it looks like some sort of horrible Christmas decoration.

If this were not a rental, I would consider coating it all in some clear plastic and selling it as modern art entitled "What Bugs Me About Christmas".

I feel compelled to go right here.

The Nez Perce trail!

Alan, I think you have a call to make

Idaho is ridiculously green!

Why?

Why is the logo for the National Elk Refuge a goose?

Tetons!

Another Swimming Hole

Lake Jackson, Grand Teton National Park

Chilling

We are killing this afternoon sitting on the shore of, and swimming in Lake Jackson.

The water here is impossibly clear and decidedly cool. Not as cold as Yellowstone Lake and in its calmer moments I can feel a top, sun -warmed layer that feels darn near refeshing..

There are schools of one-inch-long trout swimming around. Just up the beach Kayakers are fighting the waves to get out on the lake. And across the lake the snow-covered Tetons tower overhead.

This is a good day.

A note on Cell Coverage

"More bars in more places" my ass. Jacob's Sprint coverage has kicked my AT&T coverage's backside.

Adventures in Camp food

The boys have gently asked me to avoid cooking them steak. They appreciated the steak I did cook, but, really, they prefer hamburger. Jacob's answer is far more complicated, I think it amounted to, "When I say Medium Well, I don't mean medium, dammit." But it was said much more politely.

The culinary masterpiece that everyone gets behind is breakfast. Given the time to make it, we have had a potato, vidalia onion, and egg scramble that is good normally, but the scenary adds something extra.

Mostly we've gotten by on staples; burgers, brats, lunch meat, cereal, and pop-tarts. I promised the kids we'd eat badly on this trip.

View from the campground

A Bracing Dip

Jeffrey and I took a quick dip in Yellowstone Lake. This is th largest mountain lake in North America. It really is unbelievably huge. It is also pretty cold. Not so bad that there is no beach, but cold enough that you can't get used to the cold.

Jacob thought we were idiots.

Fun With Signs!

They also have Burma Shave style signs.

Lewis Falls

We are almost out of Yellowstone. This is probably our last stop. On to the Tetons.

Geysers!

Today is Geo-Thermal day on our trip. Geysers, hot springs, etc. have filled the day.

Here is a quick snap of Grotto Geyser.

Tomorrow, we leave YNP for Grand Tetons National Park.

Latest News

Everything, we saw everything yesterday. Hot Springs, Geysers, Mud Pots. We swam in an area where icy river meets 130 degree hot spring. We walked down (and up) a path of 300-400 stairs to the base of a waterfall. We got stuck in a herd of bison that were so close we could have reached out of the car and touched them (we didn't). We saw: 2 elk with huge racks, a Grizzly bear, too many bison to count, and a bald eagle.

Pictures will come, but we must restart our adventure.

Happy Birthday to my wife and my friend ML's wife.

Fire on the Mountain

That huge cloud like thing is a plume of smoke from a large fire. This was about 20 miles outside of Yellowstone. We passed within 5-10 miles of the fire, but the prevailing wind was strong enough that we had no idea it was there at that time.

Mammoth Hot Springs

We saw Mammoth during twilight last night, these are some close-ups with long exposures.

Wolf? Coyote? I can never tell.

I learn the difference and then forget it before it becomes pertinent. Like c#.

In any case, we saw this guy just outside the campground. We also heard wolves howl at night. That was really cool, but made Jeff want to sleep in the car. I explained that after years of living near society wolves can open most car locks and he was just as safe in the tent where 2/3 of the time the wolves would choose to eat someone else. That calmed him down.

10,947 and windy as hell!

Just Beautiful

Kids are bitching that I didn't bring them out in the convertible.

There's never a gypsy when you need one.

On our way again

We stopped at Little Big Horn. It's kind of impressive the length they go to make out like Custer wasn't a glory hog-idiot. They had a great quote from one of the Indian scouts that was basically "I'd never seen more Indians in one place before, none of the scouts thought the white men could win, but they said we were going to fight"

There was also a quote that explained just how much of a paradigm shift the native Americans were facing. A Crow scout talked about how the Crow chiefs felt that fighting the other three tribes with the Whites was the only way to preserve their land and way of life.

We stopped in Billings and are now leaving for Yellowstone.

View from the tent

We hit Devil's Tower last night about 9:30. We had hoped to see Jewel Cave but it turned out that it closed at 8 and we were the just after.

The rental is really messing with the blog because I am always driving and never able to process photos from my camera.

We made it back

Here is the picture from the starting point/finishing point

We Climbed Those

Not the buttes in the back, the Boulders in the front. This is the view of the Boulder field below Devil's Tower from the Tower.

Huh. I can't believe this exists.

Cutting Out The Middle Man!

The Story So Far

Left 7:30pm 7/24
Indiana Dunes and asleep by 2, Jacob drove most of IN part!
7/25
Chicago, GFD the traffic
Rockford UU church, reminiscing!
Wisonsin. Cheese!
Car breaks in Wisconsin Dells, the water park capital of the world!
Stay at Yogi Bear park, hate it.
Car is going to take till at least Tuesday so we rent an Accord for the rest of the trip. No second driver, no convertible. Car moves, though, making it a better choice.

We drive from Wisconsin Dells to the Badlands, stopping only at the Spam museumm and a 60-Foot statue of the Jolly Green Ginat in Blue Earth.

Explored Badlands and Wall yesterday. We saw the Wounded Knee Museum and may one day have to go the Holocaust Museum to find a more depressing museum. Loved the park, hated th bugs. I have hopes that the Black-Footed Ferret reintroduction project works, because Prairie Dogs are a plague (and they carry plague, too! Or their fleas do, whatever) Prairie Dog vs Ferret would just be the most adorable animal fight ever.

Today, we see Rushmore and, perhaps Jewel Cave.

wtf?

Middle of nowhere, South Dakota private residence. giant plastic dinosaur. I assume the guy is single.

Quick, before it spoils!

Badlands Entrance

Black River Delta at Mississippi River

Black and Mississippi Delta

Fwd: They were happy once.....Before the trip

Lessons Re-learned

July 25, 3:09 AM

If you leave late, you arrive late

Second Drivers are great

The pricing scheme for fast food on the turnpike is ridiculous, if you
exit the turnpike to get food, you normally don't pay extra in toll
and you save on food.

Hi to all!,

Chicago tomorrow. When I am heard to utter, "This isn't even rush hour".

What?

Here it is, the blog I am starting for our trip. Somewhere to throw some quick pictures and offer quick commentary on our 2008 Road Trip