The Road Is Open Wide

Heading Out:

Well, Summer made a valiant attempt with a few sunny 80 degree days all in a row. That is just about perfect weather up here. But what fun is perfect? It has slipped back into the chilly wet spring that has long since worn out its welcome. There have been a few days where there was enough rain to make the road impassable, in my car at least. Luckily I took advantage of the open road to make a few supply runs and start getting things staged for the build season. With the turn in the weather, I am kind of on hold. And with the long days, it would be sad to crawl into bed at 6 o’clock.

In order to put off bedtime to a more reasonable 8 or 9 o’clock, I figured I might as well recap my Winter travel with highlights and low points. Hopefully you can use it to plan your travel or update your bucket list. This is the condensed version of the USA road trip. I’ll link to a Europe Overview here soon in case the USA is old news for you avid followers.

Drive to Texas:
I try to stay off of interstate highway systems because one mile is just about the same as any other anywhere across the country. (except for I-70 through the canyon just east of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Do it if you get a chance!!!). There aren’t any reasonable interstate alternatives getting out of the Pacific Northwest but as soon as I got past Boise, Idaho, I took the first exit off of I-90 and headed into the Nevada desert. Not much to see but it is a good test of your tolerance for boredom and how many times you can play your favorite roadtrip playlist before it becomes your least favorite roadtrip playlist.

I crossed the Bonneville Salt flats west of Salt Lake City and was pretty unimpressed. The hard stop of casinos and general debauchery of Nevada at the Utah border is pretty interesting though. I bypassed Salt Lake City and came off the desert in Provo. I have spent some time in Provo and find it to be a pleasant town. I roamed the mini Walmart for an hour or so before settling for a Walmart deli hot meal. I probably should have spent the night there but I didn’t get the feel that travelers of my ilk were too welcome. I decided to continue on a winding road through the Wasatch Mountains. I assume it is a pretty drive but the sun had set just as I started and soon it was pitch black. I only saw what my bug encrusted headlights were able to expose. The painfully bright LED lights of late model cars and the idiots that stubbornly keep their high beams on. I finally got to the end of the other end of the pass and found a much needed rest stop to pull over for the night. The stars were out but with the parking lot lighting, not much to see.

I continued on Pre-Sunrise, taking a break for a gas station coffee as I waited for the bright Sun to rise enough to be able to see the road again. I roamed around Grand Junction, Colorado just over the Utah border. I found the downtown area a nice place and had a nice walk around downtown. There are also a lot of outdoor activities available to keep you busy. I would definitely like to spend more time there.

It would have been quicker to stay on I-70 across Colorado but I stuck to the rule and headed south to catch route 92. I was quietly hoping to stop by Crested Butte which is kind of on the way. It is a hard town to get to but I think that is why it so nice. I hear that it had an influx of Covid remote workers move in that may have took a bit of shine off of it. It was past peak fall foliage color (Photos Here) by the time I drove through but the Aspens were still bright yellow up and down the mountains as far as the eye could see. The turnoff to Crested Butte came and went. I decided that I wasn’t up for the extra couple hours put of my way with new places ahead that I hadn’t seen yet.

Specifically, Salida Colorado. It is deep in the San Juan Mountain range and another hard place to get to. I stopped by for a quick look around. Lots of Hiking, Mountain biking, white water rafting and post activity craft beer All the things that Outside Magazine looks for when putting together their best outdoor town list. That list is pretty much the death knell for any affordable town. I just checked. Since that article was written, the median house price has risen to $650k if you can even find a place. So it is a nice place to look at but bring lots of money if you want to stick around for a while.

I continued on to Colorado Springs to climb the incline (Photos Here). It is the most fun you can have while being in total misery. Colorado Springs is definitely worth a visit especially the area around the Old Town area. Manitou Springs at the base of the Incline is also a cool quirky little town. Parking is a pain but worth it. Garden of the Gods (Photos Here) is also something that I have avoided in my visits for no real reason other than it being just a bunch of really big rocks. I visited this time and was VERY glad I did. I ended up spending 3 hours there just strolling the trails winding through the rock formations. A real treasure for the local folks and visitors alike

Not much to say about the rest of the drive to Texas. There are some Route 66 remnants in Amarillo if that is your thing. I pretty much struggled to find anything interesting after I checked out the buried Cadillac art installation. I still had more than a week before the wedding and my Europe departure so I decided to go to Oklahoma City for no reason. Which is still no reason to go to Oklahoma City.

I spent a morning at the pretty impressive Oklahoma City Bombing memorial. And a morning replacing a dead Costco car battery. I don’t want to blow the secret but I have learned that Costco replaces an under warranty battery with no questions asked. The past couple of times it has been a truly dead battery but I think I could keep the free battery going for the life of my car if I just return them every 23 months saying its dead. I roamed around their downtown and riverwalk area but mostly spent my time looking for reasons to stick around for a few days.

After a couple of days, I came to the realization that reasons were few and far between. I succumbed to the itch to move on. Next stop was Wichita Falls, Texas. A dusty little town famous its falls. The current version is man made and would be much better if they were attached to a mini golf course. There is also the world’s Shortest Skyscraper. Even with a slow stroll around town I ran out of things to do with time to spare on my 2 hour free parking meter. Even with a stop at a coin operated Car Wash, I was in Dallas by Happy Hour. Including a visit at one of the world renowned Buc-ee’s Travel Center for cheap Fuel, hot Food and another car wash. But mostly just to see what all the hubbub is about. They really are pretty impressive and well worth a visit. And there are plenty to go around if you are in the Southeast US.

After a week since my shower in Colorado Springs, I was in no condition to be mingling with the Dallas social set so I did a quick look around the John F Kennedy assassination site and was found myself driving into the sunset. Metaphorically speaking because I was actually heading south to Waco. I wanted to see the Magnolia Home complex built by the popularity of the HGTV House Flipper shows. It started pouring down rain when I woke up and turned into a deluge by the time I found a place to park. Even with the rain on a weekday afternoon, it was packed so they must be doing something right. Not much different than a pottery barn with a food court but it is still worth a visit.

One more stop before I headed north again. I drove out to the Branch Davidian property. It was the site of the 2 month standoff between the several Federal agencies and the group’s leader and his flock back in the 90’s. Ending with a firestorm, 86 dead and a lot of conspiracy theories. Its is still there and active but most everything from 30 years ago is flattened.

I rolled back to Ft Worth because I wanted to check out the Stock Yards. I roamed around downtown Ft Worth for a couple of hours on a quiet Sunday morning. It was soon to be not so quiet because there was a football game later in the afternoon and I wanted to far away before the Hubbub started. But try as I might and walk as far as I could, I didn’t find the Stockyards. I was too stubborn to ask directions. But at the risk of adding additional fodder to my Google personality algorithm. I checked my phone. I wasn’t even close. The stockyards are a few miles North of town. If you have ever driven through cattle country, you’ll understand why.

Not that these Stockyards have any odor issues to worry about. It is a few old timey streets full of Bar, restaurants and shops for the wannabe cowboy crowd. It is anchored by the Rodeo Arena. It was quiet on a late Sunday Morning and but I could tell it was a place to be for some weekend fun. Even more so on one of its big Rodeo Weekends.

I still had a week to go before the wedding and I was done driving. I just puttered around the Dallas/Fort Worth area for the week. Drinking coffee and roaming around local shops and Big Box Stores. It was very uneventful.

The wedding came and went in the blink of an eye and the next thing I knew, I was walking from the car storage place to the metro train that would take me to the airport and off I went.

I’ll write up a whole separate post about Europe overview here.

Heading Home:

I decided to get a room after I spent a good deal of time getting to my car, getting it running and out of storage. I was really tired from the all day travel plus 5 extra time zones under my belt for the day. The challenge was finding a place that fit my budget and wasn’t a “No Tell Motel” level of accommodation. I drove around for a couple of hours before I got free of the seedy side of Dallas. With my inner time clock wound tight on Europe Time, I knew that I would be up in a couple of hours anyway. It killed me to pay for a room. But there was free breakfast and in Texas that means Texas shaped waffles. Plus a shower would be nice before I headed back out on the road.

I met up with the groom for some Texas BBQ before I left. He is a recent Seattle transplant and happily so. I would have liked to stay longer but I needed to get out before the balmy breezes and friendly women and running water got their hooks in me. I was up before dawn and headed up to see Tex Randall for no other reason other than its there. Roadside attraction are to me what mountains are to Climbers. Details in a previous post.

From there I could have stayed South and been a low budget snowbird for a few weeks. But I am still to young to be a snowbird so I did the next best thing and headed to Omaha. Usually the Dallas to Omaha trip is a long day’s drive. Because I decide to traipse all over Texas first it turned out to be 3 days. 3 days of nothing but gas station coffee and Walmart Deli food. Not that I am opposed to either culinary option. Walmarts have mostly pulled the welcome mat out from under us parking lot campers. The no parking signs are up and it’s just not worth the 2am window knock to see if they are serious. Covid has taken away most of the 24 hour stores so it can be hard to be inconspicuous. I have learned to roll in around 11pm at a bigger stores and watch where the overnight stockers park. That has been a tried and true solution so far but they aren’t all night workers and I tend to wake up all alone in the parking lot. I think there is a general apathy and nobody really cares.

Omaha has grown considerably since I left in 1998. I was a bit early to meet up with an old friend so I roamed around a bit. It has grown but it really hasn’t changed. Mostly it is just a sprawling suburb of a very tiny city center.

The next day was another early departure. I had a whole lot of nothing ahead and I was eager to get at it. For a state that no one knows anything about, Nebraska is huge. I stayed of the interstates in the hopes of a surprise. Not much surprise in Nebraska. Crossing the border into South Dakota was a surprise only because I was half way to Wyoming before I knew figured it out. It was interesting that I crossed the border at the Ogdala Indian Reservation where alcohol has been banned for a nearly a century. Not that I was looking for a road pop after a long day of driving, but because even banned, alcohol has wreaked havoc on the reservation. Instead of alcohol, there are now numerous marijuana stores. An interesting social experiment. I on the other hand still had a couple of hours of daylight and a 24 oz. coffee keeping moving onward.

I ended up pulling into a Sheridan, Wyoming Home Depot Way after dark and slept like I was back on local time again. It felt good and much need. I had 500 miles of Montana to get through. Then Idaho. I like to stop in the lakeside Town of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho whenever I drive through but not this time. I was too close to being able to get out of the car and away from gas station coffee for a while. It is a pretty little city that has sadly been priced out of the real world economy by the California refugees. Still a nice place to stroll around though.

After Spokane it is just a gentle uphill 200 mile climb back home. Again, a whole lot of nothing unless you are really into wheat fields. It was good to be back when I finally got there. I hiked into camp and I could tell it was a lower snow year than the past 2 or 3. Still I would be staying in town for a few weeks until my sleeping bags could handle the nighttime temperatures. Pretty easy and glad to be back.