Road Trip, 2019 edition, Opening

Ronin

Recall my name, on your journey to hell.
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So it's been what, nearly 2 months? But we did indeed make it back ok, and we had a pretty good time.

Day 1 - We left late, because of course we did. But, it's the first time I've ever driven through west TN north of 40. Turns out we have interstate-grade highways all over the place. Getting from here to there was pretty easy, though we ended up clipping through Missouri on our way to Blanchard Springs. We have some good pictures of the caverns, considering the dark, and some less than stellar pictures, considering my weight :) I do recommend the stop if you're in the area or even passing nearby. Lovely country. BUT, do be aware that the staff on site have a serious chip on their should regarding not being part of the NPS. Made the mistake of asking about a stamp for my passport. Sheesh. From there we descended to Fort Smith. Stayed in the Best Western Van Buren - perfectly acceptable place for overnight.

Day 2 - No pics, as this was entirely about covering some distance - about 750 miles of it to the Route 66 Hotel and Casino, just outside Albuquerque; I chose this because I wanted the boy to see what a Casino is. I do want to note that the hotel is quite nice, and very reasonably priced - on its own. However, I drove through Albuquerque to get there, and that city is a case study in low expectations. I'll stop there, because it's not nice to kick someone when they're down.

Before that, we went through Oklahoma, which I've been through before in the north and east. The most striking thing was that 40 was a speed trap, and OK City has delusions of urbanization. Seriously - the eastern city limit is nearly 40 miles form downtown and well over 30 from any actual settlement. Texas was a study in "go away", with high speed limits, clear roads, and no police. I would normally said "well engineered for travelers", but they made it remarkably difficult to get over to Amarillo; while you can see it from 40, actually reaching it is amazingly difficult.
 

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Day 3

Here's where the meat of the trip starts. We headed west fairly early and caught traffic doing mostly 80+, so we actually gained a fair amount of time, which would come in handy later. The driving itself was notable for two things: we had our first (and only, I believe) road rage incident with some chucklehead from North Carolina, and we were passed by a freight train full of Amazon containers. We were able to clock it at about 80mph, making it the fastest such train I've ever seen, at least. They were serious about delivering on Prime.

Our first stop was Petrified Forest national monument, which I seem to be missing some pictures of from my phone. I'll have to get the boy's, as we saw blue stone. Blue. Stone. Yet, I still have pictures of my being fat. Sigh. Still, it was an interesting stop and I recommend it, but it's not a destination. Pass through, see the sights, listen to the ranger's talk on the various areas, and drive through at least down to the Blue Mesa.

From there, we completely changed our schedule. The boy decided he wanted to visit Meteor Crater, so we did. We were only there maybe 90 minutes, so missed a lot of things they had indoors, as well as the guided rim tour, but we were kind of shoehorning it in at the last minute. It's big. If you have agoraphobia, you can get some anxiety pretty easy here. Because of the way the crater is situated, you get an encompassing view of something truly large-scale immediately in front of you, with some fairly decent scale, as it's not so big as to make it look abstract. It was really neat for being, at its core, a hole in the ground. :)

Then we went on and into the Flagstaff area. Ascending from the desert to a pretty good altitude, the area north of the city is remarkably green and pleasant, and it was from here that we turned north to go to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I have to insert here that the Grand Canyon isn't even something that had occurred to me when planning a trip out west. Things like that are a good way to humble yourself. Fortunately, the boy thought of it after having a tour of the casino the night before, so we made some room for it. And a note here - if you're passing by on 40, it's farther to the south rim than you'd think or your GPS would lead you to believe. We were traveling at absurd speeds and still it was just before dusk when we got there.

Wow. Remember I mentioned agoraphobia with the Meteor Crater? You won't get that here. The canyon is so big that it abstracts itself right out of your ability to scale it. I used to fly light aircraft, and it;s difficult to get in a position to have the terrain abstract like that to your brain, and we were standing on the ground. We did go down onto a promontory where people keep falling in, down past the railing and out into the canyon itself. It was breathtaking and if you have the mobility to climb down (and sense not to pose for selfies right on the edge), I highly recommend it.

After that, we headed for our destination: the Hoover Dam Lodge. That 's a 250ish mile drive, and it was getting dark. I scheduled our trips, both this year and last year, to avoid night driving. Partially because it's a road trip and the point is to be able to see, partially because I wanted us to have plenty of rest time, and partially because I come from the back country and I know how much it would suck to have any unfortunate incidents happen in the dark. So driving through the desert southwest in the dark was on my mind scheduling things. But we're on a money budget as well as a time one, so we had to go.

Man, once you leave Flagstaff, it is a lonely drive out there. We started getting into the "no services for 20 miles" at a stretch areas. We saw the odd car or truck, but fortunately, our entire trip was during or on either side of the full moon, so the desert was really well lit. But there is nobody out there. We stopped at Seligman to gas up (I originally wanted to drive through it), and as we pulled off the interstate, power went out to the area. It really set the nice and creepy tone of the night. It wasn't out more than a couple of minutes, but we passed on the Shell as they still had their lights out and went to the Chevron. Turns out the gas prices were rofl, so i got just enough to get us down the road a bit, and then we saw some sketchy guys stalking a couple of women in a car, and did our good deed by pulling in front of them as the girls left and acting like clueless tourists.

I really can't express enough how pleasant the drive in the dark was overall, though. We passed through AZ like ghosts, and until we left Golden Valley behind, it was well lit by the moon and like driving through a dream. After Golden Valley, it was just dark. Black, no vehicles, nothing. The highway could have been lined with tapdancing skinwalkers and we'd have never known it. Hoover Dam was lovely in the night, which is more than I can say for the lodge. Turns out, it's also a casino, but one whose better years are pretty far behind it. We were there for 2 nights. If you're coming to see the dam and not staying in Vegas, it's adequate, which is good, because you really don't have alternatives in the area.
 

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Day 4

Hoover Dam, is a fantastic structure and one that I would like to place in my top 5 list of places I've been.

But I can't.

The damn and site are fantastic - I've been there twice before, in 2006 and again in 2014. This time, though, I was thoroughly disgusted by the experience. It was like being in a [censored] police state. I've nothing more to say on the matter as Debbie will [rightfully] come down on me for political posting.

That afternoon, though, I took the boy down to Vegas, at his request, so he could see the buildings. As I said, I've been there before - stayed at the Palazzo in 2014 for SAP TechEd. He found it pretty skeezy in broad daylight, and I did recommend that he see it at night at least once, especially if his company pays him to go there, as mine had. I also recommended Red Rock Canyon, as that place is awesome.

We then skated out to the California border at his request. That was as far west as we would go, and is the only picture of my fat butt you're going to have to suffer through. We've been to CA together before, but we flew. So we drove out to the border to see the solar farm and so he could experience 2 hours of sitting in a traffic jam. What better way to say "Welcome to California" ? :D

That night he asked for another deviation to our schedule. We were originally going to go out through Lake Mead, through Maopa Valley, and then to Salina, UT to see the POW camp on our way to Grand Junction. He instead asked if we could pass through Monument Valley, as Cars was his favorite movie as a kid and he wanted to see it in person, and get his picture of the Endless Road. I took some time to map out a path, as from what I could see, it was a pretty back country trip with little in the way of civilization.
 

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Day 5

Yeah, there's PLENTY of civilization between I-15 and Monument Valley. It is an absolutely gorgeous drive. I cannot recommend it enough. We went through Lake Mead, up 15 to Saint George for Chick-Fil-A (just 3 miles from Southern Utah Pole Dance!!), and then out 9 heading for Monument Valley. It's beautiful, excellent roads, and minimal traffic until you get to Page, AZ. Even then, plenty of places to pass, and the entire route makes me want to take 4 or 5 days just to be in the area. There was nowhere the entire way that wasn't worth lingering in. I'm a mountain-and-forests guy, but there wasn't a single place we were at the entire day I wouldn't go again - though I might call ahead to the Chick-Fil-A to make sure they had a different cashier.

Monument Valley will make you run out of superlatives real quick. We didn't technically have the time to spare, but we drove the loop through valley anyway (don't try this in a sedan, no matter what you see other people doing, unless you were planning on a new suspension anyway). Frankly, I think the Navajo undercharged us by a lot. Oh, there's a hotel there if you want to stay right in the valley. We didn't stay there, so I can't review it, but I'd give it a shot just based on location.

From there we headed to Grand Junction. We lost daylight pretty quickly on this one. Thankfully, dusk in the open West lasts a lot longer than it does here in TN, so we got to see Mexican Hat in the light, and made it as far as Blanding before it was actually dark. Late as it was, we'd have stopped there, except the town was closed up tight for the night. We had *just* enough light as we climbed out along So we headed on north along US 191 to appreciate that the morphology of the land looked almost identical to the Black Hills in South Dakota. I really want to go back and have a look at the area during the day.

As it was, we went from Blanding to Crescent Junction up on I-70 in the dark, absurdly fast. I've used that phrase before , but seriously, we were doing 90 on that highway, and we weren't alone for the trip. It's a busy road, and apparently everyone else had someplace to be, too. We passed by Arches way faster than I would have done normally, and given the amount of vertical travel the whole way, I bet that's a stunning piece of highway.

Turning onto 70, the next exit had a rest stop, and then it was 62 miles of absolutely nothing. I mean nothing. The air was slightly misty and the desert bathed in the light of the full moon. And we saw two other vehicles the entire way to Colorado. Every sign was "stay on the interstate or else" - despite there being multiple references to Cisco, Ut. We didn't find out till a couple of days later that it was a ghost town and we were wise not to get off looking for gas. If you're into lonely desolation, eastern Utah has you covered.

We arrived well past midnight at the Columbine Motel, Grand Junction Co. I want to give this place a plug. It was **nice**. It was so nice, in fact, that we have since spent some time looking into what's around the area so we can stay there again. It's family-owned, and they make you feel like you're at home, too.
 

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Day 5 - the great plans crumble

Now, I still don't have enough things in the Grand Junction area picked out to warrant a return visit. But we didn't stop there by accident - it was to spend time visiting the Veteran's Memorial Cemetery. I personally took no pictures, but it was a beautiful, solemn place. We had planned only an hour there, but had it not been for the rain, we would have stayed longer.

The rain. Last year, we lucked out with no adverse weather that I can recall. We almost got away with it this year, but rain came rolling in. We did some checking, and it was raining all over the state, but clearing out the next day. Our schedule had originally been ambitious, calling for an ascent to the Alpine Visitor Center in RMNP, then a drive down to Canon City, Co. With the rain, neither the mountains nor the Royal Gorge were really accessible. I told the boy we'd have to drive to somewhere and wait the rain out, and that'd mean we'd only be able to hit one of those sites, as we had to be on our way to Omaha the next afternoon. He chose the mountains over the gorge, so I called to cancel our reservation in Canon City. This turned out in our favor, because apparently they hadn't actually booked us when I called to reserve back in May. I was disappointed, because I specifically chose the place for its local ownership and excellent reviews.

We instead drove east into central Colorado. Holy crap. I have never imagined an interstate could be such a steep, twisty mess. The speed limit on much of it from Grand Junction all the way to Silverthorne was just 50, and they meant only if it were a sunny, dry day, because damn!! It was beautiful, though Vail was way more touristy than I would have liked, though to be fair my only experience with the town previously was from all the PO Boxes it hosted for PBS shows when I was a kid. And snow! There was snow all over the place in the heights. Glaciers, even, around Vail and Copper Mountain. And it was [censored] COLD up there. Like, freezing cold.

Anyway, we existed at Silverthorne, got Wendy's, had to go back because it wasn't our order, and then up to Grand Lake. Now, we had picked out a cabin with outstanding reviews. It was nice enough, physically, but it, the owner, and the area really gave me bad vibes. I can't recommend the place, though I have nothing concrete to say why.

I have no pictures of the day, though I know the boy does. I was too busy trying to stay on the damn road. We were lucky enough to be between rock slides closing 70, though, so we didn't have any of those 5-hour detours.
 
Day 6 - More disappointment

We got up a bit early, packed, and got the hell out of there. It apparently wasn't just me - the place made my son uneasy, too.

Driving into Rocky Mountain National Park from the west is much, much different than from the east. The park is much more east-loaded, if you will. The drive in from the west is flat for 2/3 of the way, and looks pretty much like the non-active portions of Yellowstone. I know, I shouldn't bitch, but we'd just been to Yellowstone in back-to-back years.

The drive up to the Alpine Visitor's center is much less dramatic on the west side, with really only two different mountain views all the way up - but that first one is worth it all by itself. If I'd found the park in my 20's, I could see me spending some quality time hiking up some of those peaks, but especially that one visible to the west. Unfortunately, by the time I could pull off somewhere for a picture, a cloud had obscured it. Next time we're up there, I'll try again.

Again, SNOW. Like, 10 and 12 foot drifts of it along the road. The pass had been closed until just a few weeks before from late snow and cold, and it hadn't melted. In fact, we could even climb up the peak at the visitor center because it was still iced over. A crew in half-scuba gear was just beginning to clear the bottom of the path. We had to "settle" for the tundra above the center and a couple of stops on the way down on the east side.

Because of our early departure, the inability to climb at the center, and the cold, we also had to skip our picnic spot in Hidden Valley. We started to set up for lunch anyway, but the cold and winds just made it too uncomfortable. We took some pictures and departed with what we thought would be more time.

From here, we ran into a combination of bad luck and bad decisions. Our way down took far longer than it should due to bad drivers packed onto a detour route on 36. Then Waze decided that it would take us to Lebanon, Kansas by way of NEBRASKA. Wtf?? By the time I appreciated what it had done, we were 45 minutes north of Denver on I-76. What I *should* have done was to say "fark it" and gotten off at Brush and headed for Philipsburg, KS. At this point, though, we were too early to really justify staying the night in Kansas, but too far to realistically make it to Omaha.

What I did, though, was go ahead and let Waze take me through Nebraska, as by Fort Morgan there really isn't a good way to go southeast. Sheesh. Western and central Nebraska is flat farmland, and the interstate is a strictly no-frills way to pass through it. The highways through north Kansas are much better, and have actual terrain to drive through. Flat just isn't my thing.

We drove fast from Kearny, NE to Althol, KS. I mean fast. Fast enough that past Althol, one of Smith County's finest asked us to please slow down a bit on our way to Lebanon. We got our pictures at Althol, then had dinner at the center of the lower 48 states. They'd added a new item just before we started our trip - a cedar from Lebanon - the country. I love that spot. I can't think of anyplace I've ever been as peaceful and homey as that park feels to me.

From here we had a decision. It was dusk by the time we finished eating and enjoying the place. Originally, I'd planned on us staying in Philipsburg and not visiting here until the next morning, but Philipsburg is an hour west, and our destination was Omaha, to the NE. There really isn't anyplace to stay along the way except Hastings or Lincoln. I thought I'd split the difference to Omaha and stop at Lincoln.

Wow. Finding a hotel in Lincoln turned out to be nearly impossible, and I started looking after stopping for gas in Red Cloud. As an aside, that area of Nebraska was way more interesting than the western half of the state. Lot of small towns - which I'm a fan of, having grown up in one myself - with nifty town squares and shops. Staying in Hastings and visiting the area would be a nice long weekend at some point. But anyway, hotels. I had specifically checked the Omaha area in May and had a list of places, in order, to stay at. None of them were available. At all. Even a little. I eventually had to settle for the Super 8 out by the airport, and at a nightly price I neither expected nor appreciated.

Again, it was midnight before we made it. The room was nice enough, don't get me wrong. And no airport noise. But, it's on a peninsula in the Missouri river with only one way in our out, and it's not convenient to anywhere we wanted to be.
 

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And a couple more pics from Day 5
 

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Day 6 - Omaha

So, it turns out there was a reason we couldn't get a room. It was Thursday June 20th. You know what else happens then in Omaha? Ok, I would have said "nothing", too, but we'd have both been wrong: the College World Series. And we were less than a mile from one of the stadiums. Traffic was...less than ideal.

Nevertheless, we headed over to Council Bluffs in the early morning. First stop was the Union Pacific Railroad Museum. If you like history, it's a heck of a good visit. It's right next to Bayliss park, which is very lovely. In fact, that whole area of Council Bluffs is like a little oasis in an otherwise aged town that's a lower-end suburb to Omaha. That's not to knock the area, it's just a commentary on how either side of the river has developed. Union Pacific's tracks and yards are in Council Bluffs, but their shiny HQ is across the river in Omaha.

We then popped over to the Squirrel Cage Jail, which was really neat. But then we started running into a problem that's just the opposite of what you might expect. We tried the Rails West museum, to see the actual equipment that goes with the history, but it's closed Mon-Thur. So we decided to go back into Omaha for lunch. Specifically, we went to the Crossroads Mall, because all of our malls in Nashville are dead or dying, and I wanted him to see what they were when I was his age.

Yeah, not so much. It's dead as well. Really dead. Like, walled off storefronts and corridors dead. One Barnes & Noble, and a Target that no only walled itself off from the mall, but put in fences and cameras. So we went across the way to Chick-Fil-A to have lunch and check our other destinations. Due to flooding, Freedom Park was closed for the forseeable future. In fact, between the flooding and baseball, most things were closed or booked. We went over to Memorial Park, which was beautiful , and considered our options. none of them were good. With some more research on Omaha, I would have kept us out west longer instead. But we were too far east to really use what time we had, and too low on our budget in any case.

So we decided to head home early. 11 hours of driving, and the first 2 hours were awful. The flooding there got about as much press coverage as the record flooding in Nashville some years ago, which is to say, nothing outside the region. The exits were closed for 50 miles along I-29, because there was 6-8 feet of water over everything, even 6 weeks after the rains had stopped. For nearly half that stretch, parts of I-29 were just gone, washed down the Missouri river. It was bad, and criminal that the national media ignored it.

Still, we eventually got past it, and we beat feet for Nashville. Took us 11 hours, even with the slow traffic out of Omaha and having to detour around St Louis die to accidents. We pulled in at 2am and had a long weekend. The wife had gone camping for the weekend that afternoon, so I had time to help him study for his driver's test the following Monday (he passed) and to look at where we'd gone over budget versus last year. Fuel costs seemed to be most of the answer. Still, there were other lessons ins distance and time management, which we definitely took a step back from this year versus last year.

Overall a good trip, even if cut short. Next year I'm taking him to Canada via Detroit, to Niagra Falls, then down to DC to spend a week at the museums and such.
 

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Ronin, I asked you for a trip report, and by George you gave a great one! Pics are great, and your take on some of the areas out west match my own...Monument Valley, for one, and the total inability to truly grasp the grand in Grand Canyon for another. I was right there and I swear it was impossible to believe that before me was real and not some picture that had been painted. No describing it.

You made me laugh, you made me smile. A great virtual trip for me!
 
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