The Myth & The Majesty

Denver had been my intended stop from the very beginning. When I'd first considered vacation, I figured I'd head south -- visit Shorty and a bunch of college friends, sleep on someone's couch, hit a few of the stores I can't find in RC and hang out downtown. It wasn't until I got more time off that the third Great Western Trek was fully realized and Denver became the end game. Denver, however, seemed to be the center of things that went wrong while I was on vacation. The day I left on my grand road trip, the flooding started there . And the morning I left Moab was only hours after the demise of the Gaslight . Five miles later, the snow started. So it seemed only natural that, among other things, this day was the first time I hit weather that impeded traffic -- this time, in the form of snow. At the top of the mountains. Sophie did not enjoy the altitude. Particularly combined with the incline. All the same, we made it to Daz's downtown apartment ...

If you ever have the urge to visit Moab and/or Arches National Park, I would like to suggest two very simple rules. Do not arrive on a Saturday afternoon in the busy season unless you have a lot of patience to find a camping spot. Get to Arches as early in the day as you can. This didn't help things. I knew, as I left my cheap motel in Idaho, that finding a place to sleep in the entirely first-come-first-served region of Moab was going to be tough. I didn't expect to put an extra fifty-plus miles on my car and drive around (slowly) for two hours before I came across a campground with any vacancies. Maybe I should have predicted that one better. The Bureau of Land Management operates several campgrounds (ranging from five sites to over twenty) along most of the highways around the Arches and the Canyonlands. Given that this is a mountain biking Mecca (and a dream come true for outdoorsy types of many disciplines), these low-maintenance, frill-free sites fill up...

[And back to the trip blogs. I'm going to finish them this year, dangnabbit!] When I woke up the next morning, it was to the realization that I was halfway through my trip. There'd been the drive out, Portland, and the ocean. After that came the return drive, the desert, and Denver. I was one week in with a week to go and a lot of miles to cover. After breakfast and a long chat with the director, I packed up and hit the road. It was a little after nine when I turned east again, leaving the ocean behind me. This was my longest stretch of "not much" -- 1,200 miles ahead with two overnight stops, no real purpose except to eventually make it to Utah. On the way out, I had driven with an aim; I was going west, I was seeing things I'd never seen before. While the scenery was still new, going east felt different. It was a hint that eventually I'd be headed home again, but I'd also hit That Point in a trip. It was saturation. There is a point in every s...

This is a continuation, of sorts, of Journey To The Mountain . *  At 7:15 that night, I was standing in the Pacific Ocean. This was a first for me. I'd never seen the Pacific from this side -- and I'd never stood in it at all. For that matter, my only glimpses before had been from airplanes and through Chinese smog because my taxi driver had taken a wrong turn. But here I was. I had still felt a little shell-shocked as I left Mount Saint Helens behind me; two hours later, I found myself on highway 101, the cure of an ocean view alongside my car. This was, among other things, the furthest west I'd been on this continent. A dubious honor, since it had taken  me nearly thirty years to get there -- but I'd made it. I was 1,000 miles from home and I had another eight days before I'd be back ... I had more mountains to drive through, and desert, and as it turned out some rather interesting weather. Right then, though, I was happy. I had a gorgeous p...

"Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" I was quite young when I first heard of Mount Saint Helens.  Yes, another bridge. Just a few miles into Washington on I-5. It had erupted four years before I was born; when I first started school, it was still a relatively recent memory, much as 9/11 is still fresh for many of us. Growing up in the house I did, it was the kind of thing I heard about when Dad was watching the Discovery Channel or Mom took us to the library. And being the science geek I've always been, it was the sort of topic I went looking for in said library. I was fascinated by how the eruption had played out, from the studies of the mountain for the weeks prior to the things that had made it so different. As I got older, I found myself equally fascinated by the scientist that had announced the explosion.  Johnston at the Coldwater II site a few hours before his death. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia . David A. Johnston was 30 years old when the er...

My fascination with Portland began with a bookstore. It's true -- I'm just that big a nerd. The bottom line was that I hadn't really considered it as a vacation destination until Daz visited years ago and brought me a map. A map to a bookstore. A map to a bookstore that took up an entire city block. And so it was that on my very first morning in Oregon, I had exactly one thing to accomplish: I was going to Powell's . I'd feel a bit sheepish that the whole reason I wanted to drive 1500 miles was to go to a bookstore, but, well, that was really my motivation. That first morning, I rode along with Katie and Evie to Evie's (regularly scheduled) doctor's appointment, then made my way to the light rail (which would have been easier if the station at the hospital wasn't closed, but hey, it all worked out). And before long, I was downtown, across the street from the first of my trip's bucket list items.  It. Was. Awesome. Keeping in mind...

And now, we return you to your regularly scheduled program...  * Eastern Washington reminds me quite a bit of eastern South Dakota. And eastern Wyoming. And pretty much all of Nebraska and Iowa. What I mean is ... it's pretty flat and open. Not entirely flat, not watch-your-dog-run-away-for-three-days flat, but pretty flat. And dry. And ... well, not exactly an interesting drive, although it was nice to get out in the open after a couple solid days in the mountains. Having woken up in Spokane, though, there was really only one logical route to Portland -- and that took me right through eastern Washington. But then ... Then you cross the Columbia River. Only one member of my party died! Even though everyone got cholera from those dang berries...     Whoops. I mean...   I may have gone a tad overboard with pictures taken JUST to get Mt. Hood in the background. Easily the best part of the 350-mile trek from Spokane to Portland is ...