The Final Countdown

The trip, by the numbers.

Number of Audiobooks: 1.5
Number of Socks Knit: 4
Number of Tires Changed: 4
Number of Yarn Stores Visited: 5
Number of Vehicles Purchased or Rented: 5
Number of Times We Rode the Bikes: 5
Bags of M&Ms We Ate: 8.5
Hours that Sarah Drove: 15

Days Spent in Texas: 10
Days Not Spent in Texas: 23

Number of Tattoos Contemplated: 19
Number of Tattoos Purchased: 0

Most Expensive Gas: $4.39/gal
Least Expensive Gas: $3.53/gal

Highest Elevation: 9,837 feet (Grand Tetons, WY)
Lowest Elevation: 500 feet (Baltimore, MD)

Highest Latitude: 44 58 34.79 N (Yellowstone National Park)
Lowest Latitude: 29.423 N (San Antonio, TX)

Number of States Visited: 23
Number of Miles Driven: ~6,165.5
Gallons of Gas Purchased: Yeah Right.

***

Thanks for reading along, everyone. I’ve gotten some really sweet and lovely comments from all of you, and it made it worth the time spent uploading all those damn pictures. Much love.

August 10 – WV, MD, and home

Well, I had us up and out of the campground by ten of eight on Sunday morning, and we drove through Kentucky without much happening.

We switched drivers a few times, and finally made it to West Virginia.

West Virginia for some reason is actually larger than Maryland (OMGWTF), so we drove in WV for a few hours (four and a half, according to the time stamps).

Then we entered Maryland! Hooray!

We hit a bit of traffic, and took a sneaky detour, and two hours after crossing the Maryland line we finally had our first hint of home.

We made jokes the whole time about finding a place to camp and what we would have for dinner tonight and har har aren’t we hilarious?!

The answer is yes.

We got home, emptied the trailer into the garage, emptied the van into the living room, and promptly went our separte ways. Thank goodness. Dinner was a casual affair, and we all went to bed in our own beds finally, after 33 days on the road.

Except mom had to go sleep on the couch downstairs to shut the cat up who couldn’t quite believe we were home.

August 9 – Wash U and Sarah’s birthday!

Today is Sarah’s birthday. Hooray Sarah! She turned 17 today, and we gave her presents over the Lucky Charms provided by the hotel for breakfast. Yum.

We visited Washington University in St. Louis after breakfast. I got all excited about college (my own, not Wash U, although it was really nice), and we all liked Wash U.

We had lunch at the van (yogurt, peanut butter sandwiches, and whatever else was in the fridge and might go bad), and then left town. I got to see the arch!

Cars kept getting in my way, and I didn’t have a sock, so you’ll have to be satisfied with just the arch. How sad.

The states started to get smaller, so we hit…


and

(I don’t know why Illinois is so dark)

We crossed a few rivers.

And spent the night outside Louisville, KY, where children apparently have no respect for strangers camping, and run by and smack tents and scream without their parents getting in a fuss about it. Apparently.

August 8 – Kansas and Missouri (more driving)

We spent the night in Oakley, KS, and had breakfast at some weird trucker stop where they served my oatmeal without any raisins or brown sugar, and when I asked for it the woman looked surprised, like I hadn’t been promised raisins or brown sugar by the menu. Outrageous. =P

Anyway.

We left Oakley and drove like mad.

We saw more wind farms.

These are so pretty! How can anyone think they are an eyesore? I love how white and weird and wonderful they look.

Basically that was it. It wasn’t an interesting day. I don’t think we stopped for lunch. We got very good at eating marshmallows and tortilla chips and M&Ms for lunch on this trip. Yum.

We got into St. Louis somewhat late and had trouble finding a place to stay. Camping was too far outside the city, and hotels were way hard to find. But we were settled, finally, after much drama and my demanding that everyone stop telling me how to drive and look for hotels instead.

We got to watch the 2008 Puppy Games (dad was disgusted, while the rest of us squee’ed at puppies), and then we had a late dinner in the Italian restaurant (fancypants) downstairs, while watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

Hooray Olympics!

Then we went to bed.

August 7 – UC in Boulder, and Kansas!

Sarah had this day booked for college visited. We visited University of Colorado in Boulder!

(I sat in a coffee shop and blogged for HOURS. I frequently look like this, too.)

Then we had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, where we’d tried to go the night before.

Then we all piled back in the van and left town. Here’s a terrible picture of Boulder:

And I finished my second pair of socks! Woo hoo!

Here’s a bad picture of Denver:

And then we entered Kansas.

Kansas was pretty nice! Not as flat as we all expected (but still flat). Rather pretty. Nice weather. Big sky.

Although, give me one good reason these clouds are so freaking low. What the heck?!

Kansas has corn.

And silos.

In the evening, we found a place to camp (sexy, I know),

and watched the shadows get longer and longer as the sun set.

Very pretty.

Other little things that mean alot

There we were in Rockdale, our last day, trying to get the heck out of Dodge, (or the Kozy Kountry Inn, or something awful, and it was an awful Inn) and someone, by mistake, locked the doors to the rental car.  Fortunately, my father taught me to leave the window slightly down in very hot weather, so I had actually left a large “crack,” since we were parked in front of our room, and we were about to start packing the car.  Since Sarah’s arms are the longest, she tried to reach the button to unlock the door, but not long enough, and she is just getting over the bruise that caused.  But Elinor rigged up some yarn with a slip knot and “lassooed” the button, tightened up the slip, and pulled the button up!  Amazing.  See, all that yarn was a good thing.  Ann

August 6 – Wyoming

We left Yellowstone early this morning, in an attempt to get to Boulder, Colorado, before night.

We were delayed temporarily by this herd of elk.

So anyway, there we were, driving through Wyoming.

Which, actually, is surprisingly pretty in the northwest region (and through most of it, really).

We are still in the place of the huge vast sky.

Dad loves Wyoming.

I took a lot of pictures from the front seat.

We hit traffic and major construction in the Grand Tetons National Park, which was surprising, so for three or four hours we were only going about 35mph (or none at all).

There really isn’t much to say. We drove and drove. We bought gas and coffee. We drove some more.

Then, suddenly, visible even on the map, the landscape changed.

Mountainous on one side, dry and desert on the other.

There was a wind farm.

In Dubois, I visited a yarn store!

As we reached the Wyoming/Colorado border south of Chyenne, we hit rain.

This was the first rain we experienced since Asheville, North Carolina, twenty eight [28] days ago. Exactly. We saw plenty of rain off in the distance, moving past us over the desert, but this was the first we’d actually been in. Crazy.

We got to Boulder late, around 8:30 PM, checked into a hotel, scraped the uhaul on the underside of a thing, had dinner at a seriously amazingly good Thai restaurant near the hotel, and went to bed.

NEWS!

Holy crap, y’all.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080810/ap_on_re_us/arch_collapses_2

Wall Arch in Arches National Park collapsed.

Sometime late Monday or early Tuesday.

WE WERE THERE ON SUNDAY.

(some of you have already emailed me about this omg)

We are so lucky.

And home now! Be prepared for the rest of the posts (August 6-10) forthcoming. They are all about driving.

August 5 – Yellowstone! (absurdly picture heavy)

Our campground was on Yellowstone Lake, and it was mighty cold that night, but the morning was fabulously beautiful and clean and clear, and it was worth it.

The day was about a driving adventure around the main figure-eight loop of Yellowstone Park. We went first to Natural Bridge! It was a short hike, but it was mosquito-ridden, so I particularly covered myself in Deet and we all were on the look-out for mosquito landings.

(bear claw marks!)

Then we went on to another set of thermal features.

This one was a roiling sulfur pool. Although it was scalding hot, it was not boiling, and the huge bubbles coming up were bubbles of gas escaping from deep in the earth.

Then, as we headed towards Canyon Village (where we would have lunch), we were waylaid by a multitude of bison, both on the sides of the road, and standing in the road.

Then there was another herd.

And another.

And one incoming!

After lunch we drove on to Mammoth Hot Springs and the Terraces.

Here you can see the smoke from the wildfire by the Northeast(?) Entrance.

We arrived at the Terraces to discover that, in fact, they were dry.

They were beautiful dry, a perfect pristine snow white, with hundreds of little pools and dike walls, the deposits of limestone from underground.

There was water running in a few places.

We hiked around to the top of the hill, and behind it, to where the water was running a little more enthusiastically.

We tried to drive then south from Mammoth Springs to Norris and thenceforth on to Grant Village, but the road was closed, so we turned back and went down the east leg of the loop again. At Canyon Village, we turned West, and went around the south west side of the 8, to go past Old Faithful.

We stopped (rather abruptly) for the Artist’s Paint Pot mud pool, which I was very pleased about. It was really cool.

The last sight of the day, right as we came up to the turn off for Grant Village, was a male elk.

And then back to camp for sausages and green beans!

August 4 – Idaho, Montana, and Yellowstone, Wyoming

Today we left Ogden, UT, somewhat early and drove almost all day, trying to get to Yellowstone by evening.

We spent a lot of time driving in Idaho.

And a tiny bit of time driving in Montana.

We saw a bison, just walking on the side of the road.

And we stopped for the Mountain Man Rendezvous (Public Welcome!) to ogle and shop.

Then we made it to Yellowstone! This was a crowning achievement, because we had all agreed back at Arches that although we were tired and a little out of motivation to last two more weeks, we did indeed want very much to see Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon was one thing, but it felt like the two together would be a pair of epic summer coolness.

We paused a few times on our way from the West Entrance to our campground at Grant Village.

First we stopped at Fountain Paint Pot.

(holy crap geyser!)

Then we stopped at Biscuit Basin!

And the last stop before we headed for the campground (around 4:30, predicted eruption 5:23), was Old Faithful.

We were suitably impressed.