Back in Massachusetts.  We got lucky when we checked into the hotel; they gave us an upgrade to a suite with a connected room.  That’s super-convenient when you have one infant kicking four adult’s butts.

It’s been a joy to have our grand-daughter each morning while her parents get ready for the day.  Of course we never finished breakfast much before 11am on any given day because she (grand-daughter) stayed on Pacific time.  Her parents were overjoyed to be able to sleep in until 8am or later!

Oh Opa, that will never compile!

We were smart to not overdo the second half of the trip.  We took it slow, got a lot of time with the local family and stopped by friends on the last day on the way to the airport.

All-in-all, it was a great trip.  We got to see our grand-daughter all-day, every-day for eight days.  She changed a lot over that time, and…. she’s a troopah!

On Saturday, we got up super early, picked up the son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter and headed to the airport.  What could go wrong?  As it turns out, not much.  The flight was quite quick and the baby is a trooper.  Or as they say in Bahston, a troopah.  She did great.

Hertz, not so much.  We waited a very long time on a line that wasn’t moving.  And we are Gold Level.  In theory you see your name on the board and you go straight to the car.  But not this day.  We ended up across the street at Avis.

Here are two photos from the first night in Massachusetts.

I can walk!  Sort of…

Oh Daddy!

On Sunday, we drove to Long Island with a stop to visit family in Connecticut.  We hit massive traffic on the way into NYC and got into our hotel very late.  But the baby did great.  She’s a troppah!

Today we hit the local diner for breakfast then visited with Grand Pa.

Four generations, clockwise from lower-right

That’s father, daughter, grandson and great granddaughter.  Yes, a troopah!

Later we checked out the ocean and dipped the baby’s toes in the Atlantic.  She didn’t love it.  So here’s a before photo instead.

You’re not going to put me in that, are you?

Yup…. she’s a troopah!

Seventeen days total time away from home (Washington.)  Eleven days of driving.  Eight hotels plus our own place in Boise.

Ten states if you count duplicates:  Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington

Total miles:  3,652

The first group is home to Spokane to Columbia Valley, MT to Many Glacier, MT.  The second group is Many Glacier to Bozeman, MT to Casper, WY to Boulder, CO to Santa Fe, NM.  The third group is Albuquerque, NM to Durango, CO to Salt Lake City, UT to Boise, ID.  The last bar is the ride home.

Longest day:  Boise to home, 533 miles

Shortest day:  Columbia Valley, MT to Many Glacier, MT, 92 (but they were spectacular!)  We went up the Going to the Sun Road on the second day it was open this year.

Fuel (For 3,704 miles total distance):  180.727 gallons at a total price of $704.19.  That’s an overall MPG of 20.5 and an average of $3.90 per gallon.

Hotels / dinners:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tickets:  zero!

You see more FedEx trucks than Wal-Mart trucks.  By far.  What does this mean?  Is Amazon winning?

Best scenery:  Tie between Montana and Utah

Scenery we’ve seen enough of:  Colorado Springs to Santa Fe

Best state for driving:  Montana

Worst state for driving:  Oregon

Long day today, actually the most miles in any single day, just over 530.  We took a lot of breaks and even found a Chukar Cherry store along the way (in Prosser, WA.)

We saw more police today than any other day, mostly in Oregon where the interstate speed limit tends to be 65.  We probably saw more slow drivers in the left lane there too!

The west is amazing but it’s always nice to get back to Washington.  This state is quite amazing in its own right.

Wrap up tomorrow, but it was a good trip.  Lots of good QT (quality time) plus some nice sights and time with family too.

Oh wait, that’s not a holiday.  But in Boise it is, sort-of.  During the 1840’s many Oregon Trail pioneers passed through this valley.  They wanted to get to the west coast and found the valley here to be a good place to stop along the way as it had lots of trees (shade) and water (the Boise River.)  In 1862 Gold Fever hit and the population boomed.  This caused the government to commission Fort Boise on July 6, 1863 and to plat the city on July 7.  So this year is Boise’s sesquicentennial (look it up.)

How do we know all of this?  It’s a pretty big deal around here.  There is even a sesquicentennial store near our place.  They were running walking tours of the original Boise plat all day.  The tour was fairly interesting, was only an hour and was a decent walk during the cooler part of the day.

We saw “The Heat” in the afternoon.  It’s hysterical.  If you don’t mind the f-word.  And a bunch of other words.

We hit a few favorite places here in town and started preparing for the drive tomorrow.  The weather is hot here (95 – 103), it will be nice to get to the cooler weather back home.

We were surprised to find our favorite breakfast place closed today.  So much for eating-in…  So we went to Goldy’s, another long-time favorite.

Boise has a July 4th parade and it runs right near our apartment.  It’s pretty informal.  One of the ‘floats’ was a plumber in his van.  They also had some nice old cars.

Old cars on Idaho Street, Boise

We saw a movie, “The Lone Ranger”.  We enjoyed it.  It’s not great, but it’s highly entertaining and funny.  We cooked in again; two nights in a row!

Finally, we went up to the roof of our building to watch the fireworks.  The building is seven stories tall so we were about eye level with the fireworks.  The show was so-so, but the vantage point was great!

Cell phone pic, not too bad…

Today we drove from Salt Lake City to Boise, where we have a home-away-from-home.  So we’re done with hotels for this trip.  All of the hotels on this trip were pretty good, even the ‘rustic’ hotel in Glacier National Park.

The drive from SLC to Boise is pretty long, about 430 miles but it went quickly.  We made good speed and took only short stops.  Like lots of other days, we made our own lunch from cold cuts we bought in the grocery store and gluten-free bread we got in Santa Fe.

When we got home we shopped and cooked-in.  Pretty nice after two weeks of eating out every meal, every day.  It will be nice to sleep in our own bed.

Best scenery of the trip so far, Durango to Salt Lake City.  Once you get into Utah and past a few small towns, you get into canyon-land.  And you see things like the above.  Or this:

And unfortunately like this:

Despite the above, it’s a great drive, highly recommended.  The best views are between Monticello (near Canyonlands National Park) and Moab and then from Moab to I-70 (near Arches National Park.)  Once you get to I-70 things are interesting but not spectacular.  Towards Provo you do go though some cool canyons, but eventually you hit I-15 and suburbia. 

It was hot all day.  When we shopped for groceries in Moab the temperature was 103.  We had planned to walk to dinner, about 1.6 miles round trip, but it was still over 100 at 7pm and we drove.

Overall the views rival those in Montana.  We definitely want to get Durango for a longer visit sometime.  We’ll almost surely add a few days to repeat this drive, but with long(er)  stops at some of the parks along the way.

Our car is fixed!  Well, more like our car is not broken anymore.  They really don’t know why it failed last week.  They can see diagnostics that say it did fail,  but there is nothing to explain why or why it works now.  They did find that the coolant for the electronics was low.  That could explain the issue. 

Anyway, we cannot say enough good things about Porsche of Albuquerque.  Last Friday they sent a truck and trailer up to Santa Fe with a (very nice and new Audi Q5) loaner car for us.  They took our car back to Albuquerque and ran diagnostics and tests on it all Friday and Saturday.  They cleaned it, which is ok; we usually let the dirt accumulate until we get home.  And in the end they didn’t charge us even a penny.  Great people!

Clean, gluten-free car

The gluten-free is a joke.  Sort-of.  We found a really nice bakery not far from the University of New Mexico.  We enjoyed lunch there and spent some time comparing New Mexico and Washington with the staff.

After that we stopped on the old Route 66 to take a photo.  In Red Robin they have walls of photos.  One of them is a street scene from the 1960’s.  A little Internet research led us to the exact intersection where the original photographer stood.  Here is our version:

From there we headed up US 550 toward Colorado.  We had not been too impressed with the scenery on the ride from Colorado to Santa Fe.  Things are much more impressive on the west side of the mountains.  There are more colors, more different shapes, more ridges, more layers, etc.  And 550 is a great road, two lanes in each direction for well over a hundred miles.  We never got stuck behind anyone.  🙂

As you get to Colorado things change dramatically.  The rivers have water in them.  There are trees!  We are in Durango, CO tonight.  It’s a great little town.  Very walk-able.  Touristy yes, but not like Jackson or Santa Fe.  We had a really nice dinner at Mutu’s Italian Kitchen.  Probably the best meal of the trip so far.   And good gluten-free pasta!

Hey that rhymes.  We got up, worked out, had breakfast, worked/read in the room, walked around downtown Santa Fe, met up with the relatives, bought some jewelry, sat on a bench, had dinner at a road house, got coffee and chilled out in the room watching a strange movie (Margaret) on HBO.

It sounds like a lot but it was slow and casual the whole day.  It’s been hot but today it was a little cooler.  Walking around wasn’t so uncomfortable.

Downtown Santa Fe looks a lot like downtown Jackson, WY.  A park-like square in the middle.  Lots, make that LOTS, of souvenir shops, theme restaurants, jewelry stores, classic cars and motorcycles that loop the square/plaza slowly, all sorts of musicians and other entertainers and about a bazillion tourists.  But we still had fun.  You can cover it all in about an hour.

We did see something unique later in the evening, an outdoor Starbucks.

That would be useless nine months of the year where we come from!