Today was the last day of the trip. It was a relatively short day; we covered most of the width of Washington State. There are two ways to do it; I-90 or US-2. We took the scenic route (US-2) because it allowed us to avoid doubling back on I-90 and so we could visit Leavenworth. Leavenworth? For reasons we don’t understand, there is a fake Bavarian town in the middle of a forest. Here’s a photo of the fake ‘musikhaus’. They are presenting “Thoroughly Modern Millie” which must surely be a traditional Bavarian play.

Let’s not even discuss the PT Cruiser in front!

From Leavenworth we drove over Stevens Pass, something we had not done before and dropped down into the Snoqualmie River valley and headed home.

It was a fun trip that flew by; we both said today that it did not feel like three full weeks. It’s great to have that much quality time together.

Filthy car at the end of the trip

Some statistics from the trip:

Total miles: 5,206 – 2,809 to Indy, 2,397 back

Total days: 21 – 14 driving, 7 staying put (2 Boise, 2 Chicago, 3 Indianapolis)

Longest day: Day 1, 536 miles from home to Boise

Shortest day: Day 12, 197 miles from Chicago to Indianapolis

Total fill-ups: 15

Gallons of gasoline: 256.46

Cost of gas: $993.25

Average cost per gallon: $3.878 (Highest: $4.099 in Easton, WA and Jamestown, ND; Lowest: $3.649 in Great Falls, MT)

Miles per gallon: 21.5 (includes 300 miles that were already on the first tank we bought on the trip)

Highest elevation: 9,200 feet (Bighorn National Forest)

Lowest elevation: 500 feet (Home)

Highest temperature: 103 in Des Moines on July 22

Lowest temperature: 62 in Havre, MT on August 3^rd

Most impressive man-made thing: Mt. Rushmore

Most impressive natural thing: The Grand Tetons in Wyoming

Best thing: Being together

A cell phone camera, as good as they are these days, cannot come close to capturing the beauty and enormity of Montana. Today we drove from Havre to Spokane, WA. Our original plan was to take a route through Glacier National Park. But the day broke cold and rainy and we decided to take a more direct route. Still, the trip was nearly five hundred miles and many, many hours on the road. But what a road! They have two-lane highways with 70 MPH speed limits that cut through some of the widest expanses you’ll ever see.

Coming down a hill between Big Sandy and Fort Benton we felt like we could see forever. And it’s not just the land; there is something about the sky that you don’t quite see anywhere else. We caught up with the Missouri River again in Great Falls. From there we took another state highway that climbed through the mountains and eventually dropped us in Missoula. We really enjoyed this drive.

From there we hit the Interstate again and eventually ended up in Spokane. This is our last night of the trip. We are in a nice hotel, but it will be nice to sleep in our own bed tomorrow.

And Americans too, even two Washingtonians is a filthy SUV. Canada is not far from Havre. Havre itself is about halfway across the state of Montana. We left Minot (North Dakota) mid-morning. The temperature was right around 70 degrees, the lowest (day or night) temperature we’ve seen since the day we left Washington.

The northwest part of North Dakota is oil country. Every few hundred yards you see another small oil well. Sometimes you see drilling derricks preparing a new well. And you see lots of oils services people and trucks all over the place. We rolled into Williston around lunch time and found bumper-to-bumper traffic. Sometimes we hit MacDonald’s for lunch. Then never seem to mind us buying coffees and eating our store-bought cold cuts and fresh fruit. Initially we could not find a parking spot at the local MacDonald’s!

From there we continued west on US-2. Heavy construction slowed us down; at one point the road was gone and we were driving on dirt and gravel. Many of the little towns along the way were boarded up or otherwise closed. We did find a few low-riders in Wolf Point.

We noticed a lot of European names in Montana including; Glasgow, Harlem, (Le) Havre and Malta.  Not sure how that happened…

Eventually we reached Havre and settled in. It was a long day, around 450 miles and most of the day light hours behind the wheel.

Tomorrow will be another long day, but again we will get an hour back when we cross time zones. We saw the geography change slowly over the course of today’s travel; from flat-as-could-be to rolling hills. The change tomorrow will be dramatic as we cross over the Rockies in Glacier National Park. Should be fun!

We wanted to see North Dakota and Montana on the way back home. We chose the more northerly route and that dropped us in Minot, North Dakota. We’re about forty miles or so from Canada. The road from Fargo was flaaaat for the first 90 or so miles. As we got more north and west we ran into rolling hills, some rain and a lot of solitude. We were the only car on the road for many miles. Minot is a small-ish city, maybe 50K people. And they have a great Barnes & Noble!

We have about 1,200 miles to go over the next three days. Tomorrow and Friday will be long days. Fortunately we get a time zone change on both days. We should come close to the Missouri River again in Williston. We’ve been off the interstate since Jamestown, ND. We won’t see another I-something until we hit Spokane.

Oh yeah, us having arrived in Fargo, ND this evening, you were expecting movie references like “You betcha” or “Mr. Lundegaard? Mr. Lundegaard!” But no, we have reached far deeper into cultural irrelevancy to bring you Fargo North, Decoder. He was the goofy detective on “The Electric Company” a 1970’s PBS show for children who had graduated from Sesame Street. They had lots of puns, like, well, Fargo North, Decoder. There are lots of clips on YouTube.

So this was a very long day; our second longest distance but the most time on the road. It should have been shorter but we lost an hour in a construction zone west of Eau Claire, WI and that put us in rush hour traffic in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Otherwise it was an un-eventful day. The temperature and humidity were oppressive in Madison. Both broke about thirty miles out of town. We covered the whole width of Minnesota on a bit of a diagonal. By the west side of the state things were starting to feel a bit more like west than the mid-west including more grazing animals and speed limits greater than 65! And yes, Minnesota has a LOT of lakes.

Steve Goodman wrote it, Arlo Guthrie made it famous, you know when you hear it and can probably hum it if not sing it.

 

The City of New Orleans

by Steve Goodman

 

Riding on the City of New Orleans,

Illinois Central Monday morning rail

Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,

Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.

All along the southbound odyssey

The train pulls out at Kankakee

Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.

Passin’ trains that have no names,

Freight yards full of old black men

And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

 

CHORUS:

Good morning America how are you?

Don’t you know me I’m your native son,

I’m the train they call The City of New Orleans,

I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.*

For a long time I’ve wondered about this place, Kankakee; figured here must be some romance to the place to garner a mention in the song. Uh, no. Not unless things have gone way-downhill for Kankakee over the years since 1971. More likely, the train from Chicago to New Orleans stopped in Kankakee; and the name fit the meter of the lyric.

Today we drove from Indianapolis to Madison, WI. We decided we’d prefer not to re-trace our steps, so that meant leaving Indy to the west instead of the more direct route to Chicago. We looked at a map and decided Kankakee was not too much of a stretch. We did enjoy the ride because we got to take some rural roads through real farms, both corn and wind. The mid-west feeds America and the world of course. But it’s also becoming dotted with wind farms. We love the graceful look of the vanes on the modern windmills. Today we saw a massive wind farm under construction. Most of the windmills had their generators but no vanes. We did see some vanes and some tubes on massive trucks heading to the wind farm.

Madison is fun. We’ve been here before for the graduation of a nephew. We found a BBQ that serves gluten-free ribs. It’s hot and very humid, a 1.5 mile walk to and from dinner pretty much tired us out.

*Tomorrow we plan to drive just about… five hundred miles.

Yup, somebody said that. On TV. The Brickyard 400 was today. One of the local stations was interviewing people at the track in the morning before the race. A woman said the above when asked if there was any crowd when she and her family entered the track.

The bigger theme here is that the race has lost its mojo. When we first came here in 1994, we had to stay in Ohio because there were no rooms to be had in Indianapolis. I mean there wasn’t not any rooms there. Even just a few years ago we were reserving our rooms a year in advance and paying double the normal rate. This year we reserved a few weeks ago and got a discount.

The economy may be to blame. But it may also be the fact that the race hasn’t been great in recent years. This year was no exception; one driver, Jimmie Johnson, was in his own zip code he was so much faster than everyone else. It’s still fun to be there. The cars sound great, look awesome and you really feel them when all 43 race into turn 1. New (to us) this year; they lined the cars up right in front of the stands before the race. We heard and felt an awesome rumble when they fired up and took off for the parade lap.

The last few days have been very hot and muggy. Today was a bit cooler (high 80’s) and much drier. Once the sun swings around to the west a little bit, our seats go in to the shade and on a day like today, we are pretty comfortable.

Tomorrow starts the return trip. We’ll go about 2,300 miles, a bit more direct than the trip here. There are no more off days; we drive every day until we get home.

We kind of replayed the day before. We saw a movie, Ted, that was a little raunchy but fun overall. And we did some Farkle and people-watching in the evening. Downtown Indy becomes a bit of a freak show on a Saturday night. You see people dressed in ball gowns while others are in full cowboy or cowgirl get-ups. Some people are smashed; others are just getting the party started. There are plenty of con men working the crowd. Cool cars and bikes circle the Monument. We had fun watching it all.

Two weeks down, one to go.

Slept a little later than usual, went to our favorite breakfast place, saw a movie (Moonrise Kingdom) and had a nice dinner at Palomino. Plus just a little Words with Friends…

Moonrise Kingdom was interesting, a little reminiscent of The Royal Tenenbaums, which is not surprising as they are both Wes Anderson movies.

The weather broke a little, at least temperature-wise.  But it rained like crazy at times during the afternoon.  We missed a lot of that by being in the movie.

We’re in Indianapolis. Eight days of driving (we stayed put in Boise  and Chicago for two days each) brought us 2,809 miles. If we had driven directly from the Seattle area, we would have driven a little under 2,300 miles. Last summer we drove just over 2,800 miles in 25 days, but covered four countries.

We’ll be here for a few days and then it’s six long days to get back home.