Made it

Arrived back in Toronto on Friday night just before 8, having spent roughly 18 days, 11 hours and 44 minutes on the road. It was good to be back and not have to worry about the possibility of rain or finding another cheap motel with wi-fi. Ginny had also prepared a great welcome home dinner which beat all the meals on the road, even the ones I cooked, hands down.

The drive from Chicago to Toronto was unremarkable other than for the amount of roadwork underway. It seems a lot of that infrastructure spending we hear about is being used to refurbish the highways of America. No doubt a good thing in the long run, but frustrating for summer drivers. We crossed the border at Port Huron/Sarnia which was surprisingly free of lineups. It was then just a matter of navigating the holiday weekend traffic along Highways 403 and 401, while avoiding those OPP officers with their radar.

So there it is. Would I do it again? Absolutely. It was a good way to see many parts of Canada and the US that I wanted to see, but hadn't yet had the opportunity. Admittedly it would be preferable to travel at a more leisurely pace with time to stay longer at interesting places. However, it is surprising how much you can appreciate while driving through the country. I found this to be especially true in Oregon and Wyoming, where the landscapes were stunning and changed frequently enough to keep the drive interesting.

For those of you who asked about photos, I have been posting them to a Picassa web album that you can see here: http://picasaweb.google.com/rogmoss/GrahamAndMe#

Finally, a big thank you to the friends and family that put up with us on our journey:

Tim and Jane in Goulais Bay

Claire and Helen in Vancouver

Karen, Rachel and Nathalie in Snohomish

Trip Facts

Driven Today: 896 km

Driven in Total: 12,040 km

Run Today: 0 km

Run Total: 136 km

Number of TH Stops: 17

Number of Speeding Tickets: 1

Ipod Progress: 1104 songs Last: "Don't call me red" Ry Cooder

Song of the Day: "Don't stop me now" Queen

Lansing, Michigan

Number of TH stops: 17 :))

Pay, Pay and Pay again

Well. We are close to Chicago, having just passed the third tollbooth. Good way to use up those American coins I seem to collect. Unfortunately we've hit Chicago at peak rushour. Doesn't seem to matter which way you are going. In fact heaading out looks better. A sign tells us that it will take us an hour to get downtown!

It's not so bad

Today was one of the worst days on the road yet. It was one of those days that, no matter which way you looked, as far as the eye could see, the sky was grey. And not just any grey, but that socked in, here to stay for a few days, kind of grey. It didn't start off that badly though. After a wet night, we broke camp and headed to to see the Crazy Horse monument, which didn't look any closer to being finished than when I visited in 1992. We stopped in Custer for some sustenance and made a delightful discovery in the local bakery. The apple fritters they had there were the real thing, freshly deep fried dough with big chunks of apple. While I miss Tim Hortons dearly, this was several steps above. Graham was equally impressed with the chocolate chip cookie the size of a small frisbee. From Custer we headed north through Keystone which is like Deadwood on steroids, not so much with the gambling but with the wild west theme. From there it was back onto the I90, whcih disappeared into the grey mass to the east.

There was not much else to do but drive really, so drive we did. On through the badlands, which really didn't look that bad, more like the English countryside with green rolling hills. We drove passed the cheesy sounding Badlands Petrified Gardens, and unfortunately were too late for the prairie dog display in Fairmont.

South Dakota is the leading state for roadkill seen so far, or else they take longer to clean it up than the others. Billboards along the highway announced that "this is Graham country" and "I'm running on Biofuel", a particularly patriotic sign with a picture of the American flag and a footnote about reducing dependence on foreign oil. Perhaps they should add, "and starve them while we're at it". There is actually a lot more farmland to the east of the not-so-Badlands than I expected. It seemed we had finally found the southern equivalent to the Canadian Prairies, so perhaps it was a good day to just drive.

We made it as far as Clear Lake, Iowa, having crossed South Dakota, part of southern Minnesota (which will be the only state or province, other than Ontario, that we travel through twice) before heading south on the I35. It was still raining when we arrived so we checked into a motel for the night!

Quote of the day: "At least I'll be getting out of this place" Overheard in a gas station in Luverne a small farm town in the extreme south west corner of Minnesota.

Trip Facts:
Driven Today: 1,027 km
Driven in total: 10,533 km
Run today: 0 km
Run in Total: 128.6 km
Number of TH Stops: 16 :(
Number of Speeding tickets: 1
Number of nights camping: 5
No. of nights raining while camping: 4
Ipod progress: 881 Songs: Last "Living with War" Neil Young
Song of the Day: "What a Wonderful World" Louis Armstrong

Wyoming rocks

Following our night in the Wind River Canyon, we resumed our eastward journey by climbing out of the canyon passing seemingly endless buttresses and cliffs of rock (mostly sandstone and limestone). It was impressive. We continued onto Thermopoles, where I tried to convince Graham to visit the Dinosaur centre. Being barely awake he declined and so we continued on our way again. Thermopoles claims to be home to the largest mineral hot springs in the world.

According to the Billboards along the highway, Wyoming is cattle country (although we didn't see many cattle) and a proud maker of Pepsi. There were also a few references to a crazy woman - Crazy Woman Creek, Crazy Woman Canyon and Crazy Woman campground. Don't know who she was or what she did, but we avoided all three places. One thing we were dissapointed not to see was the old style cowboy on horseback. We did see a few of the new style behind the wheels of pickups. There were lots of signs for rodeos, so I guess that tradition lives on. We also saw quite a lot of horses, and even what I think were a herd (right collective?) of wild horses with a few young colts.

I was very impressed with roadside signs that pointed out the name of the rock formations we were passing their age and era. Apart from the obvious geological interest, there are other observations to be made. For example, some people have thought that 3 weeks really isn't long enoiugh for a trip of this distance, and I would agree, but it does allow us to hit the highlights. On the other hand, according to the geological signs, driving about 20 kilometres through Wyoming yesterday we passed 375 million years worth of earth history recorded in the hills and mountains. How's that for time travel?

We rocked along I90 to the tune of Led Zeppelin - not a bad way to travel, and rolled into Deadwood along with a few hundred Harley riding motorcyclists in town for a rally. We had a quick look around the main street and hightailed it outta there. I'm sure it's going to be a happening place over the next few days. Deadwood is crazy, over the top with the gambling - casinos and slot machines are every where. Graham couldn't get over it. They should all be in a few places he said, why do you need slot machines in a cafe or a steakhouse? While we were walking along the street coffee and ice cream in hand, a couple of shots rang out. Apparently they re-enact the shooting of Wild Bill Hickock each day at 4.

We drove on from Deadwood south towards Mount Rushmore, passing lots more bandana clad harley riders looking ready to party. After pitching the tent in a Black Hills forest campsite we went to see the President's heads.

I had seen Mount Rushmore about 17 years ago, and while the sculpture has remained the same, the viewing are seems much more elaborate than I remember. For those unfamiliar with Mount Rushmore, it is a massive sculpture of the heads of four past president's (anyone remember which four?) carved into the granite cliff face of the Black Hills it really is an impressive feat, no less impressive on second viewing.

After the trip to Mount Rushmore it was back to camp, out for a quick 10km run, a late dinner and off to bed. But wait, the story wouldn't be complete without a rain shower in the middle of the night! Isn't camping fun?

Trip Facts:
Driven last two days: 1,200 km
Driven in total: 9506 km
Run last two days: 10 km
Run in Total: 128.6 km
Number of TH Stops: 16 :(
Number of Speeding tickets: 1
Number of nights camping: 5
No. of nights raining while camping: 4
Ipod progress: 785 Songs: Last Leonard Cohen "Take this longing"
Song of the Day Monday: "Forever Young" Joan Baez
Tuesday: "Over the hils and far away" Led Zeppelin

It's a zoo out here

Sorry for the delayed posting, but we have been without internet and cell coverage the last few nights - now that's really roughing it! I guess we should have expected crowds at Yellowstone, it being the middle of summer and all. It still came as a shock to see the number of cars and people on the road there. And this was a monday, it's hard to imagine being able to accomodate even more people on the weekend.

So what was all the fuss about? Those of you that have been there will know it is certainly spectacular. On Sunday we looked around the basaltic volcanoes at Craters of the moon and on Monday we drove through the Yellowstone Caldera, gotta love all this geology! The scenary is wonderful and the active fumeroles, hot springs and geysers are quite an experience. You can see the steam from quite a way off, and then, if you are lucky enough to find a parking spot, you can walk on a trail that takes you around to see the different geysers, fumeroles, hot springs, bacterial matte and boiling mud. It is a treat for the senses, or at aleast four of them. You can see the steam and the bubbling water and mud, you can feel the warmth of the steam as it wafts by, you can hear the whistle of the steam escaping through the narrower orifices and you can smell the sulphur dioxide escaping with the steam.

We did go on to Old Faithful, the main Geyser of the basin, and there the crowds were over the top. The predicted next eruption was in about an hour and a half, so we decided not to stick around for the show, spectacular as it undoubtedly was. We did see some wildlife, including two Bison, a coyote and a herd of Elk.

We hit the road south towards the Grand Tetons (pronounced Tee-tons by the ranger) delayed somewhat by more roadworks. These are fearsome looking mountains with jagged peaks and shear sides and high enough to still have snow on many faces. I'd like to return here and see what the hiking is like in the mountains.

We continued east through Wyoming and eventually ended up at a campsite in the Wind River canyon. It didn't take us long to find out how the river got its name. The wind was blowing hard while we were trying to put the tent up, and while we managed to get it up the whole windward side was blown in, effectively halving the space. It took about an hour of fiddling around to get it to stand up properly. And then it started raining. It was a rough night.

Moon rocks

Well it was another long day crossing eastern Oregon and Idaho. We hit the road around 8, but lost an hour on the way crossing into the mountain time zone. I hadn't really taken those time changes into account on the way back. Eastern Oregon was much drier than I expected. Driving through it I thought that it was the kind of place that rattlesnakes and Coyotes would be happy to call home. As if to confirm these thoughts, about half an hour later a coyote loped across the road in front of the car, stopped to give us a sidelong look and slunk off into the brush. It looked in good shape, so I gues there must be rabbits and rodents around as well.

Just before reaching the Idaho border, we went around Ontario in about two minutes - much faster than the two and a half days it took us to cross the province. Ontario, Oregon is a small farming commuinty near the border. It seems to pride itself on it's onions with several billboards proclaiming that they ship 22,000 loads of onions each season. Sure enough there are fields upon fields of onions mixed in with a sprinkling of potatoes and corn. If you think this image of abundant produce is difficult to balance with the earlier description of an arid rocky scrubland, you're right. The farming areas are heavily irregated and preumably are located close to water sources.

We crossed into Idaho and I was happy to see the highway speed limit was 75 miles per hour (that's just over 120km per hour). You can certainly cover a lot of ground driving at that speed all day.

After a quick lunch we pulled into the Craters of the Moon park. Have you noticed that whenever an area is lacking in vegetation and very rocky it is often reffered to as a moonscape, or otherwise compared to the moon? In this case, it was a large basalt volcano and it's associated products that earned the moon reference. It was quite spectacular. There are several preserved volcanic vents and cinder cones, all composed of black/brown basalt. The area for miles around was also covered in black basalt, some of it colled lava flows and some of it looking like roter tilled clods of earth. The eruption reponsible for producing this volcanic lanscape is thought to have occured just 2,000 years ago. That's like yesterday in geologic time. Consequently a lot of the features and textures produced as the lava cools can still be seen. The highlight of our visit was climbing down into a hoolowed out lava tube, These are tubes formed by cooled lava through which molten lava continues to flow until the eruption ceases. In some cases these tubes end up drained of lava and are hollow inside. It was one of these that Grham and I climbed into and walked along for about a hundred metres. It was so cool inside there was ice on the floor. This despite the 30 degree C baking heat on surface just 10 feet above.

We didn't quite make it to Wyoming today but we are close - just 60 miles from Yellowstone, which will be our first stop tomorrow.

Quote of the Day: "We don't belong in no trailer park" Graham after we took a wrong turn while looking for a camping.

Trip Facts:
Driven Today: 855 km
Driven in total: 8306 km
Run Today: 0 km
Run in Total: 118.6 km
Number of TH Stops: 16
Number of Speeding tickets: 1
Ipod progress: 628 Songs: Joan Armatrading Last "Empty Highway"
Song of the Day: "Radar Love" Golden Earing