European Travels: Geneva and The Alps

After landing in Geneva we were back to "work" so we could use our business credit cards for meals and taxis and staying in a nice hotel.  This was a great relief because well Geneva, Switzerland is freaking expensive.

We were there for training so we didn't have a lot of time outside of the office but my understanding of the city was that we were staying and working near Old Town.  We would have pastries for breakfast at boutique hotel before going to the office for training.  We were there all day before going to dinners and drinks as a group in the evenings.

Old Town Geneva

I do remember trying a few new things while ordering our dinners.  I had for my first time steak tartare which I enjoyed but not as much as I enjoy my first taste of marrow.  Marrow looks disturbing being served with the giant leg bone on the platter but spreading that meaty goodness over a toasty piece of bread is amazing.

Lake Geneva Beneath the Shadows of the Alps

We also had some wonderful walks through the town after dinner trying to find the next establishment to visit.  I remember one of the walks it was snowing and the town felt so quiet and peaceful.

Peaceful Walk Through the Snow

The real fun started on Friday afternoon when we got done a little early.  We quickly planned on going skiing in the Alps being January and we were essentially in the Alps already.  We found a chalet/hostel in Morzine, France that had room for us and was only about 70 miles from Geneva.  There was a bus from the Geneva Airport that would take us there so we were set.  We scramble together some bags of warm clothes, I had my ski pants, clothes, hats, and goggles ready to go so I was ready for everyone else when we got on the bus to take us to the airport.  We were only about 3 minutes down the road when it hits me, I am going to be skiing in France, wow! And then the next thought hits me, 'crap, I didn't bring my passport.'

I jump off the bus tell my buddies to bring my bag with them when they got off and I'll be right behind them.  I sprint back to the hotel, skip the old slow elevator and take the stairs up the 3 flights to my room and grab my passport.  I have to wait a few minutes for the next bus to come but make it to the airport just a few minutes after my friends and they bought me a bus ticket to Morzine and it is about to leave so I grab some things from the convenience store to eat on the ride and we take off.


Little old Morzine, France


We make it to our hostel after a few wrong turns and slick roads and find that our rooms are delightfully small.  There are 3 tiny twin beds in each room with a bathroom that is no bigger with a closest in an attic.  There is nothing separating the shower from the toilet so when anyone showered everything was wet.  None of this matter because all we need to do there was wash up and sleep.  But first we were going to find ourselves some beers and join in on the aprés ski party that all the vacationers were already enjoying.

We had no clue where we were going but we followed the noise and found The Tibetan Cafe, which we dubbed Buddha Bar.  This place was the quintessential ski town bar.  It was warm, cozy, had beautiful Scandinavian barmaids, was filled with happy people with red faces from being outside all day, and loud pop music.  Oh and lots of alcohol.  There was a multitude of people from all over the world and we had an absolute blast meeting the crowd.

Buddha Bar

The night turned into morning and unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn't get a great view of the mountains that we drove through the night before.  We hit the slopes early after first filling up on some pain chocolat, water, blue Powerades, and more water.  I decided that I was going to try snowboarding because most of our group was a beginner skier and I already had skiing down.  After the morning of a thousand falls I started to have the hang of it and could make it down without falling  ...  as much.  We had lunch on the hill at the cafeteria and a couple cokes and hot chocolates.  The afternoon included more snowboarding and the race between the advanced skier, Harry, and the intermediate snowboarded Daniel.  Harry appeared to crush Dan and I believe then was ordered to pay for all of Harry's beverages that evening.

Day 1: Snowboarding

That evening a few of us found ourselves at this amazing French restaurant where we enjoyed escargot, marrow, wine, meats, cheeses, breads, and whatever else we could imagine.  It seemed to never end but when it finally did we found our way over to the Buddha Bar where we continued deep into the evening with drinking, singing, and tales of the mountain.


The Alps


The next morning we woke to the beautiful sun shining through our tiny little window.  The mountains looked incredible which gave me energy to start my day even though I was dragging because of the late night.  I started my day just like I did the previous one with pain chocolat, water, and blue Powerade.  I was feeling on top of the world, plus I was going to rent skis today and take on some of the back mountains.

Sun Shining in the Alps

With the sun shining, I skied with Harry  most of the day, who I forgot to mention used to be a ski instructor and can ski better backwards than I can forwards.  We had a plan for the morning and by lunch time we had skied from France over the border and into Switzerland.  Feeling like we had really done some amazing we had beers over lunch while sitting at the base of a mountain to celebrate.  We made it back to Morzine and found Eric and skied with him the rest of the day before we had to take the bus back to Geneva

I've Skied Across the French/Swiss Border

Lunch at the Base of a Mountain

Riding the Lift with Eric and Harry

Snow Covered Trees

Drinking Idea: My Drink

On my list of life long goals there is the create my own drink.  I have been thinking about this today and I feel that I should try to accomplish it in the next few weeks.

I have gone about things in an unconventional way.  I have already decided on a name for my drink; Billy the Kid.  Unfortunately, after a quick google search I found that this drink already exists.  Bourbon, Tia Maria (coffee liqueur), Licor 43 (Spanish liqueur from citrus juices), and coke.  I've also decided that since I've never heard of this drink or anyone ever ordering one that I can hijack the name.  I am going to try a few different alterations to the original Billy the Kid drink to make it more like this Billy the Kid. 

My first idea is to scrap the citrus liqueur and replace with a spicy chili liqueur or schnapps.  I'm thinking that the bourbon, coffee and chili mixture might just work.  The one downside of this drink is that it not all bars have these ingredients and therefore it will be difficult for Billy the Kid to go completely mainstream.  So if Billy the Kid doesn't knock my socks off the first time I might have to start over from scratch using more readily available ingredients.

I will update when I stop by the liquor store for the coffee and chili liqueurs.

European Travels: Amsterdam

It was late December of 2009 and I was excited and nervous as most are when traveling so I arrived at O'Hare International Airport early.  I was already out of sorts because I normally flew out of Midway when traveling from Chicago and O'Hare just feels bigger and badder.

I was on my way to Amsterdam for a few days with my work buddies Warren and Eric.  We didn't really have much of a plan which made me slightly uneasy and I knew next to nothing about The Netherlands or Holland, or really what country I was even going to.

I found my traveling mates in the terminal and we discussed that it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up a few bottles of duty-free alcohol to have some stock ready when we arrived in Amsterdam. We boarded our flight, which was scheduled for close to 8 hours.  I had never been on such a long flight but was prepared for a night of movies, airline food, and restful airplane sleeping.  After realizing that my TV screen wasn't working I talked with the flight attendant hoping that the only available seat was in first class yet found out that there weren't any empty seats and all they could do was give me a voucher.  I ate my food and after a glass of wine fell asleep.  I woke hours later feeling relatively refreshed and unfazed by the lack of movie watching, plus I found out that the voucher was a $100 gift card which made everything a little better.

We got off the plane, cleared customs, grabbed a few tulips that the attractive blonds were handing out (could The Netherlands be any more cliche?), and found ourselves standing in the middle of Schipol Airport, only one of the biggest in the world.  We had no idea what time it was, where we were staying that night, how to get anywhere, really we were clueless.  We also had ginormous suitcases because we were going to be in Europe for 3 months.  After some standing around, turning in circles, we found the train to the City Centre.  I forgot to mention that Schipol Airport also seemed to have a bustling train station attached to it.

We somehow found our hotel which was disappointingly a few miles from downtown in a business district but we were staying for free using rewards points on arguably the most expensive hotel weekend of the year, New Years Eve.  We had no plans other than to have a good time and explore a new city, country, continent. 

We hopped back on the train and found our way towards the city centre where we stopped off at bar to enjoy our first beer.  It was a small place and we got to talking with the bartender about places to go.  We found our way from bar to bar having a bite to eat along the way.  After awhile we came to realize that we should clean up and get ready to really hit the town for New Years Eve so we went back to the hotel.  Here we were glad we stocked up on duty free because the free drinks in our rooms were key to the night. 



First Stop: the bar

 On our 150% full train ride back to the city for the New Years festivities our train actually hit a car that tried to cut the train off.  No one knew what to do so the train driver took the license plate number down and just kept on going.  The night really was starting off with a bang.

Fireworks Over the Canals

After drinking and wandering around the canals with what seemed like millions of other people all having a grand time singing, dancing, drinking.  We were glad that we were all wearing our warm clothes and beer jackets because it was cold.  I can't say for certain all the things we did, but I remember watching the fireworks over the canals, buying large Heinken beers from a tiny shop near the Red Light District, making friends from Australia, Germany, England, Serbia, San Francisco and just about every place in between.  We then found our way to a bar that was still open and made some friends with a large group that loved the Champagne shower and cheers-ing in a different language.  We also lost Warren at this point but didn't know it for another hour or so. 

Our New Years Eve Friends

After this bar closed, Eric and I found a bus that was taking us towards our hotel which was all we needed to hear.  However, we decided to jump off at the sight of the swarma restaurant still serving at God knows what hour.  We sat down to a heaping plate of meat and french fries.  Thinking that we had a bottle of ketchup on the table we both skirted a large portion on our plates soon to figure out that it was in fact hot sauce.  The guys working there seemed to enjoy it as we ate right through the heat and kept ordering more cokes to wash away the pain. 

The Scene of the Late Night Hot Sauce Fiasco

I remember finally arriving back at the hotel at 6 a.m. and finally falling asleep around 7.  My internal clock hated me.  We all slept essentially the entire day waking up when the sun was setting.  We felt we need to do something as it was still only our second day in this new country but man we were not feeling great.

The timeline for the rest of the Amsterdam is somewhat muddled with hangovers, odd sleep patterns, and jet-lag.  This is my excuse for not continuing in story fashion and using more of a stream of consciousness to explain details.

Heineken Brouwery or Brewery

I remember wandering through the Tulip Market which included obviously a lot of flowers and also food, vegetables, trinkets, toys, and souvenirs.  We bought some t-shirts and gifts but didn't see a huge need for a bouquet of colorful tulips.  We also went on a tour of the Heineken brewery which was fun and it also let me know that I am not a huge fan of Heineken beer no matter how fresh it is.  We enjoyed our time at the brewery as we were with what seemed like an endless stream of young Europeans celebrating the holidays with their friends.  We also had a Full English breakfast for the first time at this little place near the main train station; our plates were full with eggs, sausage, black pudding, baked beans, hash browns and Lord Byron Nelson knows what else.



Near the City Centre


I remember we popped in to a pub late one night to see the end of some of the College Football bowl games.  There was also many-a stroll along the canals which were quite enjoyable and a very cool aspect of the city.  We also did a Canal Tour of the city on a boat.  This was a great way to experience the city and something I would 110% recommend to anyone visiting Amsterdam be it for 3 hours or 3 weeks.  I also remember having some fries from one of the many store fronts serving fries with mayonnaise.  I guess all the bike riding keeps the people from getting fat.

Canal Boat Tour

We also visited the Russian museum, I believe it is called the Hermitage which was enlightening as I came to find out I know very little about Russia.  Another amazing stop we had was at the Van Gogh Museum.  I was unsure about it as I felt I would quickly become board of looking at all the same artist's works but au contraire mon frere.  There were pieces from different time periods in Van Gogh's life and pieces in different stages of being completed, there was a story involved with every piece of work that let you understand the troubled artist a little bit better.  We also wandered into a market selling a bunch of antiques, clothing, and food; which felt like a flea market.

We skipped the Rijksmuseum because the line was ridiculously long and also the Anne Frank house because we heard that there wasn't a whole lot to it.  However, we didn't skip the haunted history museum or whatever it was called.  We were completely and utterly disappointed in getting swindled into attending something that was so childish and meaningless.

We can not have those 80 minutes back.

We decided to take a taxi to the airport because our flight was early on the Sunday morning and the trains weren't running yet.  We all barely slept because we were flying Easy Jet and they have very strict restrictions on luggage and carry-on items and charge an arm and a leg when you are over the limit.  We all had way too much stuff and we had some major juggling to do.  At the airport, I ended up stuffing my computer bag and winter jacket into my hanging bag and carrying that on as one bag as I was wearing my other jacket.  My checked luggage came in just under the allowed weight so I was able to make it without paying any extra.

Warren was not so lucky.  He was throwing away clothes and shoes, trying to wear more shirts through security, and still had to pay because he couldn't carry on two bags or check two bags.  On the flight to Geneva he sat very uncomfortably with his jacket on and his bag in his lap as Eric and I had a good laugh at how uncomfortable and how angry he was.

I Amsterdam

Kitchen Idea: Celery Seed Salad Dressing

This recipe is the reason I choose to eat salads.  It is especially good on spinach salads or maybe I just like spinach better than lettuce because it is better for me and if I'm going to have a salad, I might as well go for the healthy stuff. 

This is from my mom's kitchen with a few minor variations that I have added.

Celery Seed Dressing

1 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup white sugar

¼ cup white vinegar

¼ cup cider vinegar

3 tablespoons chopped onion

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon celery seed

1 ½ teaspoon garlic salt

1 ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon dry mustard

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Store in jar and refrigerate.

I believe the instructions originally called for the ingredients to be blended using a food processor, since I don't have one of those I go the old fashion route of stirring by hand (my arm still is sore from when I hand churned the muffin batter last year).  I also have come to double the recipe because I find that I eat more salads when the dressing is already made, one less excuse.  Also, the red pepper flakes are just my alteration to give it a tiny bit of spice, I've also used fresh ground black pepper but didn't like it as much.

Presidential Idea: Lesson about James Garfield

I recently finished reading a book on James Garfield called Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.  I have always been interested in Presidents and history and found myself not knowing much about the other assassinated president.  Everyone knows the stories of Lincoln and Kennedy, a few know of William McKinley's untimely death but very few know of James Garfield's assassination or his life leading up to his time as President.

I found his story to be quite interesting and wanted to share some of his life.

He was born in Ohio to a poor family.  His father died when James was barely a year old.  His mother and older siblings knew James was the smart one and worked in order to allow James to go to school.  He put himself through college by working as the janitor before becoming a professor and soon the President of the university at the age of 25.

While fighting for the Union Army he was elected to the House of Representatives yet continued fighting for he felt his time was better spent on the battlefield.  It wasn't until President Lincoln summoned him back to Washington as his votes were needed to pass legislation.

In 1880, the Republican party was having trouble deciding upon which candidate to nominate.  Garfield was in attendance at the Republican National Convention in Chicago as the freshly elected Senator of Ohio.  Garfield was asked to introduce to the electorate fellow Ohioan, John Sherman.  Following the exuberant introduction of James Blaine, Garfield stepped to the podeum to speak on behalf of Sherman.

Nothing touches my heart more quickly than a tribute of honor to a great and noble character; but as I sat in my seat and witnessed this demonstration, this assemblage seemed to me a human ocean in tempest.  I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured.

He was trying to speak of Sherman but the convention hall would remember his words not the man he was trying to endorse.  The ballots kept coming back split between John Sherman, James Blaine, and former President Ulysses Grant.  On the 34th ballot, after the first 33 were all split evenly, James Garfield picked up a few votes.  On the succeeding ballot, Garfield picked up a few more and spoke to the convention announcing that they should not vote for him, that he was not running.  Eventually Garfield reached the majority needed to be nominated even as he was pleading with his own state's electorate that he was not running and that John Sherman should receive his votes. 

Even though he was never actually running for the Presidency he was now running for President.  However he was not spending millions and billions of dollars campaigning like we see today.  He took the approach similarly employed by Abraham Lincoln and others of the time by staying out of the limelight.  During the month of October leading up to the election, Garfield harvested his crops and 'ignored all the bad political behavior.'

There was one story that occurred in the process that I really enjoyed.  It was only a few weeks before the election and an all black group of college men from Nashville had come to Garfield's home in Ohio to sing for him.  When the singers had completed their song Garfield said, "I would rather be with you and lose than be against you and win."

He ended up winning the election to become the 20th President of the United States.  For a brief moment in time he was a sitting Representative in the House, Senator Elect, and President Elect.  He was only President for 4 months before he was shot by a delusional man, Charles Guiteau.  The gun shot wound was bad but hardly deadly.  What eventually killed President Garfield a full 3 months after his attacker show him was the lack of sterilization used by the doctors treating him.  His body was ravaged by infections from unsterilized fingers and instruments probing his wounds.

A few interesting notes about President Garfield's assassination:

• Alexander Graham Bell worked to create the first ever metal detector to find the bullet left inside Garfield.
• Arguably the first air conditioner was built using a fan, a giant ice tub, and a dryer to lower humidity because the President was continually running a fever and it was summer in Washington D.C.
• His head physician was named Dr. Doctor Bliss.  First name being Doctor.
• Robert Todd Lincoln, President Lincoln's only son to reach adulthood, was present or nearby for 3 Presidential Assassinations.  He was one of the first on the scene when his father was shot at Ford's Theater. He was Garfield's Secretary of War and at the train station when Garfield was shot.  He was with President McKinley in Buffalo, NY when he was shot and killed.

Now What?

I've been working on the roadtrip recap so fervently that I forget altogether other ideas that I wanted to write.  I am always thinking of stories I want to have written down so I will remember them long after I would have lost the memory (which to me seems like way too much stuff already) but having just created a seemingly endless blog about one trip I don't have the heart in that right now.

My guess is that I will end up talking about differnt resturants and bars I've been to, places I've visited, books I've read, songs I've heard, movies I've seen and hobbies that I've taken fancy in and any other idea that floats across my mind.  In other words, every day stuff.

However, in order to give myself some extra motivation, I am going to put into writing and share with the world some thoughts, dreams, and basic accomplishments I wish to achieve.  This also includes books I want to read and movies/TV shows I want to see.  All of these lists are incredibly dynamic and most of the time I keep the lists on my phone and can add things as they pop in my head.

Movies:
Scarface
Dog Day Afternoon
Pride of the Yankees
Terminator
The Goonies
Glengarry Glen Ross
Pollock
Cloud Atlas
Lincoln
Flight
Argo
Les Miserables

TV Shows:
Downton Abbey
Homeland (currently watching)
Mad Men (currently watching)
Boardwalk Empire
Sherlock
Parks and Rec (currently watching)
Hatfields and McCoys

Books:
The Bible
Unbroken
Lies My Teacher Told Me
Killing Kennedy

Ideas for Life:
Visit all 50 States
Create a Drink and Name it after Myself
Become a History Teacher
Qualify for the Boston Marathon
Paint a Picture
Go to the Kentucky Derby
Build a Tree House
Dunk a Basketball
Learn to Play the Harmonica
Shoot a Round of Golf in the 70s
Write a Book
Complete a Half Ironman
Be at Wrigley Field when the Cubs Win the World Series

RoadTrip: Final Thoughts

These will just be some notes about the trip that I want to remember.

We listened to a bunch of songs on Spotify as in some places we just weren't going to be finding good radio stations.  The songs we heard the most and became annoying were:

• Rumor Has It by Adele
• Payphone by Maroon 5
• Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
• Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen
• Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye
• Some Nights by Fun.

We also listened to CDs on my car's hard drive:

• The Foundation by Zac Brown Band
• Live at Albert Hall by The Killers
• Mylo Xyloto by Coldplay

I decided that I could live in just about any place we stayed but would really love to live for some time in Boulder, San Francisco, Santa Fe, San Diego, and Jackson Hole.

As I start working to become a teacher, I hope I can look back on the hike in Capitol Reef National Park and reminisce on the moment I decided to actually start doing something with this thought of being a history teacher.

At the beginning of our planning for this trip, we discussed bringing Sophie with us but that would have been a huge mistake.  It would have been great having her with us but it would have been a hassle whenever we wanted to do something where dogs were not allowed, like National Parks.

When we got back, people unsurprisingly asked what our favorite thing was.  I still am not sure I can give one thing. 

• I loved Yosemite.
• I loved all the surprises in Southern Utah.
• I loved not knowing where exactly we were going to be staying the next night but planning out what we wanted to do and figuring it all out as we went.
• I loved the Date Night Burger at Mountain Sun Brewery in Boulder. 
• I will always love the Tetons, Jackson Hole, and Togwotee. 
• I loved being able to visit old friends and family in their home towns. 
• I loved doing random things like going to the Rodeo or sleeping in a Teepee. 
• I really loved driving around the country with Megan on this adventure doing and seeing as much as we could, while smiling the whole time.

Garden of the Gods - An important place for us

Yosemite

Pikes Peak

Boulder Mountain Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Grand Canyon

Boulder Falls

AT&T Park

Togwotee

Las Vegas

Arches National Park

Grand Tetons National Park

Vernal Falls, Yosemite

Grand Staircase - Escalante

Point Reyes

Muir Woods

Old Faithful Inn

Mount Rushmore

Grand Tetons

RoadTrip: The Final Stretch

As I previously stated, we were going to try to drive from Yellowstone to Naperville straight through.  According to our google maps it was 1391 miles.  This was going to be a long day.

We had planned on waking up similar to when we left Yosemite, around 3 a.m.  However, when Megan fell asleep at 10 p.m. I laid there tireless for an hour.  I kept thinking, 'ok, if I fall asleep now I'll get 4 hours of sleep. I can do that and then nap while Megan is driving and be like normal.'

Then it is Midnight. I think, 'ok, 3 hours isn't terrible, I've done that before and I lived."  But I just lay there not able to fall asleep.  Until finally, the clock on my phone changes to 1 a.m. and I say screw it.  I gently rouse Megan and tell her to bring her pillow and go sleep in the car. I am going to pack everything up and we are leaving because I can't sleep and if I'm awake we might as well be driving.

I pack everything up and we hit the road around 1:30.  Driving anywhere at 1:30 there aren't bound to be many people around but in Yellowstone there isn't a soul.  So I start the drive with Megan sleeping and I have my phone playing some music to jam out to, plus I do well driving at night; it's great thinking time.  It is slow going for the first 2 hours or so, no not because traffic, but because there were so many animals out that I didn't want to hit any of them, plus it was some mountain driving and I didn't want to careen off the road.  At one point I counted 14 animals, most likely elk or deer standing in the road during a one mile stretch.  There were also a bunch of eyes lighting up as I drove past but I couldn't make out any of the animals.

Before long I had made it to Cody, a real town, and I was used to driving at faster speeds than 25 or 30 MPH which was the posted speed limit in town.  At 3 or 4 a.m. on a Saturday night/Sunday morning I was an easy target for the cop that pulled me over but he took pity on me because I wasn't a drunk driver and I was wearing my Guinness pajama pants and still had about 1200 miles to drive.  I drove until about 7 a.m. when the sun was starting to become blinding.  I had made it through the Bighorn Mountains and onto Interstate 90 before Megan took over while I napped.  We had decided that even though some things might add a few miles to our incredibly long journey we wanted to stop and check them out.  Our first such detour was to see Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore - 3 Great Presidents and a friend of the sculptor

We made it to the heads, which is what my sister used to call it when we were younger, around the time we were looking for lunch but it was only 9:30 a.m.  We enjoyed stretching our legs and glad we stopped off to see the Presidents but we were back on the road before we knew it.  I still needed more sleep so I gladly let Megan stay behind the wheel but my nap didn't last long because our next stop was only a few miles down the road at Wall Drug.

If anyone has driven through South Dakota, you have heard of Wall Drug Store.  There are billboards for hundreds of miles touting their coffee, ice water, souvenirs, sandwiches, pretty much everything.  We stopped in and found ourselves to be a little 'out of it' by all the commotion.  We ordered some sandwiches and ate while the whole world seemed to be moving and talking around us.  It was quite surreal.  I guess I was pretty tired; Megan might not have felt the same way about Wall Drug.

Likely the last side story of this journey and it is about Wall Drug.  My little sister collects toothpick holders.  She's unique.  Wherever we would go on trips, she would run into the gas station, visitor center, souvenir shop, hotel gift shop, etc. searching for a toothpick holder.  Amazingly, most places carried them. I swear she is the only person to ever buy them but I guess not.  Well one summer we stopped at Wall Drug because we had seen the billboards for the hours before as we drove towards Godforsaken, South Dakota.  She found a frog toothpick holder, don't ask how I remember that it was a frog one, and was very happy with her purchase.  We kept a bunch of stuff in the top carrier to save space in the car, my job was to always catch the top as my dad flipped it over to me.  Well as we were driving down the interstate after our stop at Wall Drug, the top carrier flew open sending our clothes and one bag of souvenirs down Interstate-90.  We stopped the car and my dad dodged semis to pick up the clothes with giant tire marks across the front of shirts however the frog toothpick holder sadly didn't make it. 

We decided not to spend too much time at Wall Drug and instead choose to drive a short detour loop through Badlands National Park.  We blared Bruce Springsteen's Badlands for pretty much the entire 45 minute drive, which made me endlessly happy as I sang, 'poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king and the king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything.'  Man he's good; he really is the boss.

Badlands

After our third detour in only about 4 hours, we decided we needed to get some miles behind us and started cruising again.  We switched drivers a few times as we made our way across South Dakota and into Southern Minnesota.  Megan was then tired when the sun went down, so I took over and drove through Iowa down to Interstate-80, which would take us home.  We hit Iowa City, where my older sister went to school and knew that we only had 3 hours left, however it was almost 11p.m. now.



I was still a little wired from making sure I didn't fall asleep while driving and it took me a few minutes to fall asleep.  Megan, I'm not sure if she was completely rested or what but didn't fall asleep for awhile, she said was too excited to see our puppy the next morning as we had to pick her up from the kennel.  We rolled in to my parents place at just after 1 a.m. We drove 1,440 miles in 23.5 hours.

What a trip! We spent time in 13 states over 34 days. We covered 8000+ miles and I wouldn't change a single thing about the trip, except that it had to come to an end.

RoadTrip: Yellowstone

We made it to Yellowstone via the South Entrance and stopped off to find some lunch at the West Thumb Visitor Center.  There we saw something that we had been looking for since we left Naperville 30 plus days earlier.

As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, we were playing the License Plate Game, where you keep track of all the different states and Canadian provinces that we come across.  We started the game very early in the trip when we were driving through Iowa on day 1.  We were now almost completely done with our 7 week trip and we had spotted 49 states and 6 provinces.  The entire trip we hadn't seen a North Dakota license plate.  It was excruciating that it came down to North Dakota, my least favorite state.



Finally a North Dakota License Plate



Growing up when my family would go on our summer roadtrip vacations we would take different routes out West and at least once we drove through North Dakota.  I immediately disliked the state for having a boring looking state capitol building.  Then at my previous job I was put in charge of North Dakota, which included a few trips up to the state including one lovely trip when the temperature never reached above -15.



When we hopped out of the car to find some lunch and maybe a Walking Stick Medallion or a stamp for our National Park Passport, I spotted the elusive license plate.  We jumped up and down.  We high-fived.  We hugged.  We took pictures.  It was a beautiful moment but we were hungry and people were starting to stare, so we found our way inside.


After our sit down lunch we found our way to a boardwalk that took us by a bunch of mud pots and hot springs at the West Thumb area of Yellowstone Lake.  It was a great day to be outside and the pervasive stench of sulfur was relatively tolerable as we walked along the boardwalk avoiding the throngs of Asian tourists.  This was just the beginning of all the mud pots and geysers which we would see many more in the next day as Yellowstone is famous for its very thin crust of Earth allowing the bowels of our planet to spew out on a regular basis.


Blue and Orange Hot Spring

Orange Bacteria Draining into Yellowstone Lake

Hot Springs at West Thumb

We were heading towards our reserved campsite in Canyon Village which is on the Northeast corner of the giant loop of a road through Yellowstone.  On our drive up there we stopped at a few places along Yellowstone Lake to dip our toes in and enjoy the views.  At one stop along a river, we found some salmon just starting to run up river for spawning.  It was pretty cool to watch them hang out just beneath the rapids before trying to swim upstream.  We stopped at a few more hot springs as well where we happened to walk up right behind a giant buffalo.  He was just chilling near a mud pot and luckily didn't seem to mind that we were only a few feet away from him.  Some other tourists were brave enough to take some pictures with him so Megan and I did the same although I was scared he was going to attack at any moment.

This Buffalo Didn't Even Look Up When We Walked By



Driving Around Yellowstone Lake

We kept driving and before long there was a crowd of people parking and standing along the side of the road, we weren't going to miss whatever they were looking at so we swerved off of the road and joined in.  It didn't take long to figure out whatever everyone was looking at was very far away but the guy with the telescope let us look through and spot the Grizzly Bear trudging through a meadow about a mile away from us.

Grizzly Bear from a Distance



The Bear is on that hill. We were a safe distance away.



Megan has pretty much as long as I've known her complained that her mom has seen a bear but she hasn't.  I on the other hand have been quite content to have never crossed paths with a bear except for the stuffed one at the Field Museum in Chicago.  Bears are one of those few animals that might actually be higher than me on the food chain and I don't want to give them any ideas.  I quickly decided that from a mile away looking through my camera zoomed in at 12 times magnified I was OK seeing a bear.  Plus, Megan was immensely excited about her bear sighting and quickly claimed that this and the princess comment was a tie for top moment of the trip.



After our bear encounter, we stopped off at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone which includes the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls.  We first stopped at the Upper Falls which is a powerful sight to see.  We hiked around a little bit to get closer before moving on to the more well known Lower Falls.  The Lower Falls is huge, standing three times taller than the Upper Falls, at over 300 feet.  Also, from the Lower Falls lookout point you have incredible views of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and to be honest a great visualization of why it is called "Yellow" stone.  We noticed from where we were standing that there seemed to be a little platform directly next to the falls, which we then learned was "Brink of Lower Falls" and we knew we had to reach that point.  After some deliberation we decided to set up camp and then come back to the falls around sunset.


The Upper Falls - Powerful at 110 ft Tall



Lower Falls - Even from a distance is massive, standing 310 ft tall



Lots of Yellow stone in The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

After setting up camp which included some showers, we decided to cook some dinner before returning to watch the sunset.  We picked up some noodles and pasta sauce from the store and had spaghetti for dinner.  After cleaning up, we stopped at the store one more time to pick up a few gifts most of them having bears on them as we were still feeling the adrenline of the bear sighting.  We also ordered a pair of ice cream cones to complete the great summer day.  We made our way back to the Lower Falls spot hoping to catch the sunsetting over the canyon.  We waited for awhile and we were the only ones there, which should have been a sign.  We couldn't see the sunset from out location as the high ground on the other side of the canyon blocked all the pretty colors.

Disappointed in our sunset mistake we went back to camp and decided that we would attend the speaker talking at the outdoor theater.  It was an elderly man that talked about how Yellowstone was great because it wasn't commericialized and hopefully never would be.  He also told a great story about a bear.

There was a priest hiking through the park one day when he came across a bear.  The bear and the man both stood still for a moment and knowing that bears have been known to eat humans the priest quickly knelt to the ground and began to pray to the Lord for protection from the bear.  However, the Lord didn't answer his pray and the bear began to run at the man.  The priest jumped to his feet and took off running as well.  The man kept saying his prayers asking for help to make it out alive from this bear chase yet the bear kept gaining on the priest, until finally the bear was right on the heels of the man and the priest was shouting at the Lord for protection.  Just when it seemed that the bear was going to catching the priest and eat him, the bear stopped.  The priest overwhelmed with joy thanked the Lord but stopped because he heard someone else saying a pray.  He turned to see that the bear had knelt down and was praying as well.  The priest asked the bear why he was praying and the bear responded, "I'm not sure why you are praying but I'm saying grace."

We chuckled all the way back to camp with that one and quickly fell asleep in our tent.  The next morning was really our last day on this trip as we weren't planning on doing much other than driving all the way back to Chicago.  We woke up and decided we would shower in the afternoon, so we were washed up in the camp bathroom near our tent.  After I was done, I was doing something in the back of the car when a lady approached me.  She said, "my son just wanted to ask you something."  He shyly came up from behind her and said "Are you Thor?" Bam! Just like that I had my new favorite kid in the entire world plus maybe the single greatest moment of my life.

I don't even remember if there was anything else to say.

Oh yes, we were planning on driving over to Old Faithful in the afternoon as we had dinner reservations at the Old Faithful Inn. We had some time to kill and decided to drive up to Mammoth and check out the hot springs there.  After looking at the map, we found a few other places we wanted to stop on our drive up to Mammoth as well as when we were to be driving to Old Faithful.  Not long after we started driving we spotted a park ranger directing traffic around a spot where a bunch of people were out of their cars.  As we drove by the ranger said there was a black bear and her cub just down the hill, so we practically jumped out of our car while it was still rolling and ran over to see the bears.  The little cub was so cute and looked like a teddy bear and this time they were close enough that you could see them with a naked eye.


Black Bear and Her Cub; from much closer than the Grizzly Bear


We watched the bears play around for a few minutes before moving on to see a couple more sights before reaching Mammoth Hot Springs.  We did the basic boardwalk hike around the hot springs which included a few sections that looked like we were on a different planet.  We lunched at the cafeteria where we enjoyed a giant chili cheese bison dog, a delicious, fresh cheese burger with some chili cheese fries which were all amazing.  We drove back towards camp and stopped at Brink of the Lower Falls, which after a steep climb down put you right next to the behemoth of Lower Yellowstone Falls.  The views were great as we looked down Yellowstone Canyon with the mist of the falls creating a rainbow and the roar of the falls drowning out any other human sounds.

Mammoth Hot Springs - This could be on a different planet.



Mammoth Hot Springs



Looking Over the Brink of Lower Falls

 

Brink of Lower Falls - Wow



We made our way back up from the Brink, passing a bunch of people along the way, as our legs were strong from all the hikes we had done on our trip.  We decided to shower and bring nice dinner clothes with us but wear hiking clothes as we were still hoping to stop off at a few more places before dinner at Old Faithful.  We stopped at the Geyser Basins along the road which includes Lower, Midway, and Upper basin.  At these stops we saw many different geysers and hot springs, some shooting up, some bubbling clear water, some gurgling mud, some were bright blue or bright green, others were bright orange, and others still were so clear it seemed as if you could see down in to the Earth.



We spotted this Elk with a huge rack along the road as well.



Plus this Bambi Scene



Hot Springs Running into a river

This doesn't look natural

More Colorful Hot Springs

We finally reached Old Faithful and of course had just missed a spewing so we had about 90 minutes to spare which was fine because our dinner reservation wasn't for another 90 minutes or so.  We wandered around a few other geysers before securing a spot on a bench to watch Old Faithful blow.  As she started to go, the geyser sputtered and stopped a few times and the little boy next to us was very disappointed thinking she was done.  But then Old Faithful surprised the little boy as the water shot up 75 feet into the air added to the steam was quite a scene.

Old Faithful - There she blows!

Our dinner was a delight as we enjoyed prime rib, salad bar, tomato bisque, and a shrimp pasta.  The Old Faithful Inn is a giant lodge has exposed logs everywhere and is very impressive.  We explored the lobby a bit before realizing we had almost an hour drive back to our camp site and we didn't want to make the drive at night when all the animals come out to play.  On our drive home, there was another group of people standing by the road which could only mean one thing, another bear. However, by the time we got there the bear had just walked around a hill so all we saw was his butt as he disappeared.  Just a few minutes down the road we spotted an animal running along the pavement as we pulled even with it we realized it was a wolf.  He looked over at us with his scary eyes and kept trotting along before he turned away from the road.

Dinner at Old Faithful Inn

We were planning on attempting to drive the 1400 miles the next day to make it all the way back to Naperville, so we were hoping to get to bed at a decent time.  We made it back to camp stopping to get some red bulls in case I got tired while driving the next day.  Upon arriving, Megan quickly fell sound asleep but I was stuck laying wide awake.