Day 13 - Home of the Griswolds

Chicago is the hometown of America's most hardship-prone family, the Griswolds. We made it to Chi-town by 2:30 and took the Blue Line into downtown then transferred over to the Red Line to get to the Navy Pier. Last time I was there, it was below 30 degrees and you couldn't access much of it. Today, it was hustling and bustling with boats leaving with passengers, kids going on amusement rides. I simply enjoyed the view of the skyline and the lake.




I managed to escape the tourist trap only losing $2 to a vending machine where I purchased a refreshing Gatorade on a 90 degree humid day. From there we walked over to Michigan & Lake for my favorite pizza in the entire WORLD. I'm sure a few of my Chicago friends may beg to differ with a non-chain pizzeria, but Giordano's are easy to come by in the Windy City, and it is fantastic.

(Mmmm, leftovers)

Still needing to check into the hotel, we took the Blue Line back after dinner. On the Blue Line, you can visit Chicago, Austin, Harlem, and California all for $2.25.



Chicago is may favorite city to visit! I topped the evening off with a 2 mile run, my first since the thigh bruise. Awesome!

Day 12 - So that's where Madison County is...

I have never seen the movie, never mind the book The Bridges of Madison County. I didn't know that it starred Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. And for some reason, I always imagined the Bridges of Madison County to be in Wisconsin. When I drove through Madison, WI what seems like a month ago (really 10 days), I realized that I was not in Madison County, but I was uninterested to find out what state the infamous county was in.

Fast forward about 6 days when I was planning stopping points a few days in advance. The KOA Directory boasted that the West Des Moines KOA was a short drive away from the Bridges of Madison County. We ended up staying at the Newton, IA KOA on the east side of Des Moines, but still made a minor detour to see some of the bridges.

Only 6 of the original 17 bridges remain, and several of the remaining have been moved. The first bridge we saw was the Hogback Bridge. This was perhaps my favorite of the three we saw.



One of the interesting things about the bridges is that they have an incredible amount of graffiti inside of them. For some reason, I did not expect this. Of course, I looked for an example that stood the test of time. While not as old as I was hoping for, I did get a shot of one woman who carved her name back in 1977. Christine's Mom will surely appreciate it.



From there, we went to visit the Cedar Bridge, which was the only one of the three we saw that you could drive on.



On the way to I-35 to get back to I-80 in Des Moines, we stopped by perhaps the most convenient bridge to see, the Imes Bridge.




Tomorrow, it's on to one of my favorite cities, Chicago! I haven't been there during the summer before. I wondered what it would be like to go there in the summer. I shall see very soon. Too bad the Cubs are out of town, then it's the All-Star Break. What a bummer! It still shall be an awesome time, provided I don't have a St. Louis incident a la the Griswolds. More to come...

Day 11 - So many animals...

Before heading out of the Centennial State, we made a 3 1/2 hour visit to the Denver Zoo. So many animals.

The Denver Zoo isn't a bad deal. It's $13, but the parking is free and they allow you to bring in your own food. We almost got through everything - I would say 4 hours will get you through the entire property - but we got a little tired from walking around in the heat plus another nasty thunderstorm was about to hit.

Before we left though, we saw a wide variety of mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and fish. Here are a few of the best pictures...







After the zoo, we drove through a little nasty weather before getting a nice sunny drive through northeast Colorado into Nebraska. It's true, there is a lot of corn. I also saw a lot of cows. Many had horns. With the KOA office closing at 9pm, I thought we had plenty of time until I saw the "Entering Central Time Zone" sign. Oops. We got there at 8:50pm.

That is all. Next stop - Newton, Iowa with possible stops in Omaha and Des Moines.

Day 9 & 10 - Welcome to Colorful Colorado

After an overnight camping stop in Vernal, Utah the trip continued with a drive through part of the rocky mountains with a pass over 11,000 feet on I-70. We took US-40 first however for the more scenic drive swinging over to the Interstate via Colorado Route 9. The drive featured driving through Steamboat Springs.

We checked into the hotel in Lakewood (just west of Denver) where I scored a room for $32 after taxes as I mentioned last entry. There wasn't much going on and it was after hours for some of the attractions, so we just went into downtown Denver to drive around and see the sights.

This morning started with a tour of the Coors Brewery in nearby Golden. I've done the Budweiser tour in Merrimack, NH and I must say that the Coors tour is better. I am more of a fan of the smaller brewery tours such as Sam Adams (funny calling them a smaller brewery since they are #1 in the US, but their facility is much smaller) and Red Hook, but I must say that I liked the Coors tour. It is free, so early is better. We only waited 5 minutes for a shuttle and got a short tour of Golden, which I was not expecting. They take away the personal aspect of the tour by giving you a listening device, but at least you can tour at your own pace, and there are a few people on the tour you can ask questions. Of course, you get a few samples at the end of the tour. Since I seldom drink, I managed to get a headache by having 2 samples and not drinking enough water throughout the day.



Before my cranium-related soreness, we head over to Boulder which is basically the Burlington, Vermont of Colorado. The Pearl Street Mall is exactly like walking down Church Street, and they have a Ben & Jerry's too. Bicyclists were seemingly everywhere, and I was jealous as ever seeing runners and running stores as I am recovering from a fairly nasty thigh bruise.

(Wait, how'd I end up in Burlington?)

We were a bit pooped, so we head back to the hotel while a fairly big thunderstorm went through causing some bad road flooding throughout the Denver metro area. Since it was raining, we decided to actually see a movie (why not when you are on a vacation this long). Outnumbered 2-1 by the girl and Mom, I got dragged (OK, not really dragged) to a borderline chick flick in Larry Crowne. However, I did get to have something I haven't had since 2004: Wingstop! If they ever make it to the northeast, I am in trouble.

Tomorrow we head to the Denver Zoo and then travel across toward Chicago. We will make two camping stops along the way. The first is at the KOA in Grand Island, Nebraska. I'm not sure where the second will be, but it will be somewhere in Iowa. Are you ready for some corn???

Day 6-8 - Getting Caught Up

I know it sounds silly to complain about internet connections when you are camping, but this trip is not about roughing it. I'm looking to still be connected at the end of the day to share photos. I'm looking to go for relaxing dip in the pool. I will even admit I have gone with an electric tent site for most of the nights.

We have stayed at KOAs (Kampground of America) for the first 8 nights of this trip. At a family owned KOA, you at least know what you are getting. Most have pools, all have WiFi. Staff is usually friendly. You can book online. It's peace of mind when you don't know if another campground is going to be good. West Yellowstone's KOA is not family owned, it's resort style with outrageous prices ($39 for non-electric before my 10% discount). So for my $35 plus tax, I expect that I should be able to get online when I need to, but even right next to the camp store, it was hard to stay connected.

I did manage to post day 5's events, and I did manage to book a hotel room near Denver for - get this - $32 a night after tax through Priceline.com. Just a few dollars more than our campsite tonight. Way to go Shatner, you truly are the Priceline Negotiator. Just don't perform Rocketman again, OK?

Day 6 involved a drive around the lower loop of Yellowstone. I got to see a lot of geysers and hot spots, including the one and only Old Faithful. So, before I get into that, I would just like to say that the NPS has gotten a bit carried away in accommodating guests. There are many more places to stay right next to the geyser. In my opinion, it's way to built up. But that's just me. After a 5 minute search for a parking spot, we literally got to Old Faithful just as it was starting to erupt...



My favorite part of the day wasn't Old Faithful, but rather instead the view of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone featuring a view of the lower falls which we saw from afar as well as right at the brink:





Day 7 was our final full day in Yellowstone, and of course we took the upper loop. The big feature of this loop was definitely Mammoth Hot Springs, which is just an unbelievable display of the activity of this park...




We swung around the upper loop and found an amazing view just beyond Tower Village. This point wasn't even indicated on the map, but I was very glad that we stopped.



After a dip in the pool, we head to West Yellowstone, MT to watch the fireworks. Since they were at 10pm, we killed time by grabbing a pizza and heading over to the Yellowstone Trading Post to watch their 17 year old IMAX movie (still good though). There was a distant lightning storm occurring, making the fireworks even more cool to watch. For a town of less than 2,000 people, they certainly know how to keep the tourists happy as it was a lot better than I thought it would be.

Day 8, AKA today, was an early rise with a nasty tent from the previous night's thunderstorm. We stayed dry, but the tent was a mess. I was not in the best of moods, but that changed quickly with a drive through the south part of Yellowstone and a drive through Grand Teton National Park.



Yellowstone has some amazing views and features, but as far as mountain views are concerned, it is hard to beat the Tetons.

We continued down US-191 through Wyoming down by the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area into Utah. It was a bit rugged and uncivilized around there, but we eventually returned to civilization in Vernal, Utah where we are spending the night before doing the US-40 drive through the Rockies en route to the Denver and Boulder areas where we will spend a couple nights. Yes, we are making our way back east, but we will take our time unlike the first three days when we were doing 600 mile chunks per day to get out there.

As always, you can check out the entire photo album on Flickr. The adventure continues tomorrow morning...

Day 5 - Looks Like We Made It

After waking up in Sheridan after a horrible evening of sleep, we made our way to Yellowstone. Driving through Wyoming can be extremely boring and extremely exciting. Often, there are few trees, many steers, and more sky than a New Englander would ever know what to do with. But we took a very exciting adventure through the Big Horn Mountains and suddenly the scenery changed to trees, high climbs, and distant snow. Yes, some of the Big Horns were still snow capped, and I guess that's not unusual.



After the Big Horns, it was back to the Wyoming I had described earlier for a good 65 miles before we reached Cody for a Wally-World stop. Cody - the town founded by Buffalo Bill - is a tourist trap, and we managed to avoid it, but it was neat to see the downtown as well as the rodeo grandstand were they have rodeos everyday all summer long. Yee-haw!

After Cody, you drive through Buffalo Bill State Park and then the Shosone National Forest, so there is still a lot to look at as you anxiously await the following sign:



It's a beautiful place, and we've seen hardly any of it. I particularly enjoyed the views of and from Yellowstone Lake, and took a few shots of the surrounding area, including this one...



After visiting the Visitor Center and Museum near Fishing Bridge, we proceeded north to the sulfuric springs. It kind of smells similar to when I eat too many baked beans, but times 10 that if that is even possible. At this point, I was dragging from the poor night of sleep, and we skipped over some things after seeing the lower falls. We'll see the rest of the Falls another day, but we managed a couple good shots...



I haven't been able to upload these to Flickr due to a horrible WiFi connection, but I will update that whenever possible.

We checked into the KOA in West Yellowstone, Montana, increasing my visited states to 33 and counting.

Day 4 - One Busy Day

Today's adventure started with us departing a rain soaked KOA in Interior, SD for the western part of the Badlands Loop. Even though it seems like you are going through more of the same, the overlooks are still second to none:



After spending some time stopping at the overlooks for pictures and to just take it all in, we proceeded to the one and only Wall Drug. Now, on I-90 all throughout South Dakota, you are bombarded with signs pleading for you to visit a wide assortment of "sideshow" attractions. The most famous is Wall Drug and I promised myself that I would visit there someday. So we went...



It was big, but actually not quite as big as I thought it would be. I managed to get out of there only purchasing 3 postcards at 35 cents a piece and ice cream. Not bad for a tourist trap.

We then moved on to what has to be South Dakota's most visited site, Mt. Rushmore. I will spare you from the point of view picture that everyone is familiar with in order to show you a different perspective from the trail that brings you closer to the monument:

(Nice job Tom, no boogers!)

After Rushmore, we decided to drive by Crazy Horse to catch a glimpse of it from the highway. You couldn't see it too well, but we elected not to pay $23 for us to see the not-even-close-to-being-finished mountain carving that Crazy Horse himself is probably rolling in his grave over. Of course we did visit the shrine to the white man earlier...

We managed to also cram Devils Tower into a very busy day. This was an awesome site for sure. Of course, the movie Close Encounters of the Third Time made Devils Tower even more of a popular destination, the formation is a sight to see regardless.



On closer inspection however, I noticed someone scaling the tower.



Yes, climbers are allowed on Devils Tower. I can't even imagine what it is like. I believe Devils Tower rises about 800 feet above its base. We considered the 1.3 mile hike around it, but after the long day, we decided to head to our next KOA in Sheridan in North Central Wyoming where I am currently typing this. We plan to sleep in a bit. Personally, I'm looking forward to a dip in the pool. Then, we make our way to Yellowstone!