Afterthoughts about Goin’ West 2014
This is the map of my 16-day, Goin’ West 2014 trip: This surpassed my previously longest car trip from Grinnell to Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, by a whole 17 miles!! I stuck pretty closely to my original route, with some new additions–especially Little Bighorn National Park and North Cascades National Highway–and only two major deletions. After the magnificence of Yellowstone, I didn’t feel the need to deviate 250 miles from my westward trip to see Glacier National Park in Montana, although I’d heard many wonderful things about it. I also didn’t cross into Canada to visit Vancouver. The trip included visits to seven national parks: Little Bighorn (Montana), Yellowstone (Wyoming), North Cascade, Olympic, and Mount Rainier (Washington State), Redwood, and Yosemite (California). The parks were fantastic and more than worth the cost of the annual season pass. My favorites were Redwood and Yosemite, but none disappointed. There were other parks…
Day 16: Back to the Old Homestead
Final day of Goin’ West 2014, which was a 1000-mile dash for home.
Day 15: RB and the Need for Speed
Interstate 80 runs from San Francisco to Teaneck, New Jersey. This highway will be very prominent in my now two-day dash to get home. The short drive from Carson City to Reno brought me to a casino in town. I’m not a gambler–I hate to lose and can think of fewer, more ridiculous ways to lose money than sticking it into a slot machine. However, in honor of my mother, I walked into Atlantis with a $20 bill and my car keys, figuring it would take me about 30 minutes to lose it in the quarter slots. To say I didn’t know what I was doing would be an understatement. With three presses of a button, my money was gone!! The customer service person explained that the button I was pressing was the max bet, so I was wagering $6.00 on every push! No, I didn’t get more money. As…
Day 14: Yosemite Sa… Randye
While my vacation time was fast drawing to an end, I still made time to visit Yosemite National Park. I chose a route that took us through Modesto and the Napa Valley area. The prominence of vineyards I passed in this famous wine region weren’t surprising to me, but the significant presence of almond tree groves was. There was a museum in Modesto I’d hoped to visit, but just as the unplanned nature of my journey sometimes meant I arrived at a site too late to be able to do more than capture a few shots, it also occasionally caused me to arrive too early. In this case, I felt it was necessary to be at Yosemite by the museum’s scheduled noon opening time. The drive into the Sierra Nevada Mountains had both eye-catching scenery plus attention-demanding twists and turns in the road. Upon reaching Yosemite, I followed my established pattern of…
Day 13: Things Don’t Always Go As Planned
After a great night’s sleep Wednesday, I got up, packed, and bade Dan farewell. I had some time before I was scheduled to meet two of my “California cousins,” so I took RB back to Fort Point in the hope the fog would have lifted from the San Francisco Bay so I could get a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. It had lifted enough to get a few pictures of the base of the bridge and its surroundings: Unfortunately, the plan to meet my cousins fell through, so I began my trek east. The route through San Fran took me close enough to the Haight Ashbury district that I was able to briefly detour. The neighborhood is best known as a focal point for the American counterculture that arose in the late 1960s, including 1967’s “Summer of Love.” Even today, the shops there still seem to take on that…
Days 11/12: The (Foggy) Streets of San Francisco
Tuesday turned out to be a recovery day. I didn’t even make it to see the San Francisco Opera’s production of “Show Boat,” which was a disappointment because I was looking forward to meeting several people backstage after the performance. Wednesday, however, my host–a gentleman named Dan–and I did some sightseeing around town. I actually let him drive RB–something only my parents had done before this–and my teeth were gritting the entire time. We started at the Presidio and made our way to the Golden Gate Bridge. Yes, hidden amongst the fog is the infamous bridge, as well as Alcatraz. If you squint your eyes ju-u-ust right…. Dan, who loves to grill, prepped a lunch of brats, stuffed chicken, carrots, sweet potatoes and mushrooms for us. Yum!! I’d not had grilled mushrooms before, but I must do so again. Even the carrots, of which I’m not a fan, were delicious…
Day 10: Talk about Big Trees!
Got RB all squared away, then we completed the trip towards Redwood National Park. The sign leaving Oregon looked more welcoming than the one we passed on arrival. I actually stopped to get pictures of the California welcome sign. This is far from my first visit to the state, but I’d always flown in before, so… Upon reaching Redwood National and State Parks, my first order of business was to stop by the visitors center at its entrance. (I also had to do a quick clothes change–anything that can spill on white will spill on white.) The rangers there gave me a map of the park and a couple of suggestions on routes based on the amount of time I had available to visit. I was surprised there was no admission charge into the park (nor did they ask for my national park pass). I found out why.…
Day 9: Heading South(west)
Sunday morning. Before leaving the Portland area, I went to a Missouri Synod Lutheran church to worship. On one hand, it was wonderful to be able to sing very familiar hymns and to be able to sing as I have been unable to do in a while. On the other, it was a curious thing to watch the minister, who clearly was leading a more contemporary version of the standard service, give a sermon based on very conservative beliefs–ones I guess I’ll never reconcile with my fellow Missouri Synod Lutherans. Still, folks were very gracious and welcoming. One lady even tried to recruit me for the choir until I told her I was only in town for the day. Sunday is not a good day for sightseeing. Most things are closed. By this point, it was nearly noon, so I decided to head south towards my next major objective: Redwood…
Day 8: When It Rainier(s), It Pours
Saturday morning, but I got off to an early start in the hope of beating the crowd into Mt. Rainier National Park. First things, first, though. I discovered you don’t enter one of these parks low on gas. There’s usually no gas station inside, and you can potentially be miles away from one. So, I gave RB a half-tank (at $4.16 a gallon, I wasn’t going to fill her up). (A side note: when I left Des Moines, I filled RB up at a gas station that charged $3.39 a gallon. It’s going to be a long time before I complain about our prices again!!!) Mt. Rainier is HUGE. Much of it seems to be geared to the climber and the hiker, but there is plenty of roadway for the auto tourist. The red lined route I drove is below, going from the yellow highlight on the left to the…
Day 7: From Olympia towards Rainier
Got off to a later-than-usual start. What the heck, I’m on vacation, aren’t I?! Any way, I decided to try to get in two national parks that day since both were near the Seattle area (greedy state–four national parks?!?). Really, the plan was to see one and complete the drive to the other so I could have all of the next day there. I made it to the outskirts of Olympic National Park and after chatting with the ranger at the visitor center, I realized there was no way I could do more than a cursory visit of the beach area on the park’s outer edge and still make the drive to Rainier that day. So, RB and I drove to Ocean City and a couple of other beaches. We had journeyed 2451 miles to see the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t get out, though. The air that afternoon was quite…