On the Road Again.. Year 3.. Headed North

This is the third summer that we have taken to the road for an extended vacation.  We are old hands at this now, right?  Well, in some ways we feel quite experienced, but life always throws things at you….it’s part of the adventure.  We planned to leave on Monday, but a routine check of the satellite dish found that the receiver was dead.  A new one was delivered by UPS on Wednesday.  We were off the next morning, but not too early.  Oklahoma City was our destination, and it’s only a few hours away.

Thursday night we made our way to the Mule, an unusual restaurant recommended by Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  The fried Watonga cheese curds with Ranch were to die for!  We could only eat half our sandwiches after filling up on cheese curds.  Although we had never heard of it before, you can order Watonga cheese curds from the Watonga Cheese Company, now located in Perryton, TX.   WooHoo!

We lived in Oklahoma City for three years shortly after we were married.   A lot has changed in the forty years since we left there!  Friday morning we went to the Oklahoma capitol.  There is an oil derrick and several oil tanks right in front of the building. 

Oklahoma Capitol

The grounds were lovely, with a green lawn, big trees and landscaping.  Although the original plans for the capitol (1914) called for three stories and a dome, the governor at the time thought a dome was pretentious and he wanted six floors.  Since the legislature wouldn’t cooperate, he spent the $1.5M budget on six floors and had no funds for the dome.  In 2000 Governor Frank Keating proposed to build a dome on the capitol in advance of the state centennial in 2007.  The budget was $21M, and all but a few million was paid for with donations of citizens and corporations.  It was finished in 2002 and is quite beautiful.   Our tour guide was great - knowledgeable and interesting.

"End of the Trail" at National Cowboy
and Western Heritage Museum

After a great hamburger and French fries at Bricktown Burgers, we let the dogs out for a bit and headed to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  This is a fabulous site, with beautiful paintings, sculptures, castings, and other works of Western art.  Well worth the two hours we spent there.

Oklahoma City National Memorial

Oklahoma City National Memorial

  We got up early on Saturday morning to go the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.  We spend almost four hours there.  The museum was very well done, with many types of media – pictures, posters, recordings, interviews, and artifacts.  It was very thorough, laid out sequentially and covered everything from the origins of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building and to the trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.  The memorial, with empty chairs for each of the 168 victims facing the reflecting pool where NW 5^th Street once ran, was serene and peaceful.  It was a very moving experience.  I came away with both a terrible sense of sadness for the victims and great pride in the people of Oklahoma and those from around the country who worked so hard to respond to the event.

Saturday evening we went to Ted’s Café Escondido, a fabulous Mexican restaurant.  We highly recommend it!

Going-to-the-Sun

The latest leash

We purchased a new leash in Helena to replace the one Peyton chewed through.  We had barely left the city limits of Helena, on our way to Glacier National Park, when we discovered that the little beaver had chewed through the new leash!! Aghhhhh!!  He is so sneaky about it.  He’ll have a chew toy close by, so you think he is chewing on the toy, until all of a sudden he is loose and out the door of the coach.  Sure hope this chewing phase ends soon!

On the way to our RV park we drove through the Flathead Indian Reservation and on the east side of Flathead Lake, the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi.  The drive was pretty and there were cherry orchards all along the lake. 

Dinosaur Footprints?? Glacier National Park

McDonald River, Glacier National Park

On Wednesday we got up and drove the 10 miles from our RV park in Hungry Horse, MT to Glacier National Park.  At the gates we were told that there had been landslides (10 of them!) on the main road through the park (Going-to-the-Sun Road).  As a result, only 16 miles of the 50 mile drive was open.  We made this drive, mostly along the shore of McDonald Lake up to a point called Avalanche.  It was pretty, but not spectacular.  The side opposite the lake had been hit hard with wildfires in 2003.  We had great lunch at a restaurant in Hungry Horse, including a piece of delicious huckleberry/peach pie.  Then we went back to the coach, found a Laundromat, and did laundry. 

Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park

 

Buffalo on the road to Saint Mary, MT

Glacier and run-off, Glacier National Park

Small herd of mountain goats, Glacier National Park

Mountain goat, Glacier National Park

The next day we found out that the road was still closed, so we drove around to the other side of the park (about 85 miles) and saw the first real buffalo we have seen on the trip.  

We started up Going-to-the-Sun Road from the eastern end.  We took a picnic lunch this time.  We got to Logan’s Pass (about 18 miles), where the road was blocked.  While we were looking around at that site, they opened the road!  We are so glad they did.  The scenery from that pass back to Avalanche was spectacular!  You could see lots of snow, glaciers, deep valleys, and tree covered mountains.  There were waterfalls everywhere, apparently from melting snow or glaciers.  The most exciting thing we saw was a small herd of mountain goats.  One of them crossed the road right in front of us.  So cool!!  We ended the day with huge ice cream cones.  Lannas really likes huckleberry ice cream!

Off to Montana

Well, we are off again!  We left Wichita Falls on Wednesday, July 11 headed northwest.  The first day Lannas drove over 500 miles, only stopping for gas, lunch and a few potty breaks.  We stayed at a wonderful KOA south of Pueblo, Colorado.  They had good dog runs, lots of beautiful grass, trees, and a fitness center (which I did use!). 

Railroad Station in Cheyenne

The next day we drove 240 miles to Cheyenne, Wyoming.  It is an interesting town… established in 1867 to be the home of the Union Pacific Railroad, it is the largest city in the state (around 60,000 people) and the capital.  It is also home to the largest outdoor rodeo in the US – Cheyenne Frontier Days.  The rodeo is scheduled to begin on July 23, so one of the museums we wanted to go see was closed due to a Cheyenne Frontier Days committee meeting.   However, we did go to the old railroad station, the capitol (lovely), the Botanical Gardens, and took a trolley tour of the city.  Lannas grilled steaks and we had a great dinner!  

Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne

Botanical Gardens in Cheyenne

After two nights in Cheyenne, we left Saturday morning and drove to Sheridan, Wyoming.  It is right on the northern border of Wyoming.  This KOA did not have cable and trees on our narrow site prevented us from getting satellite reception…. so, we read and surfed the internet.  We left the next morning headed for Helena, Montana. 

Northern Wyoming and southern Montana is beautiful….wide, rolling hills as far as the eye can see.  Along the way we stopped at the Little Bighorn Battlefield.  You will probably remember that this is where Custer made his last stand against several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.  It is also a National Cemetery.  Interesting and moving site. 

Monument to Soldiers Who Died at Little Big Horn

Monument to Indians Who Died at Little Big Horn

National Cemetery at Little Big Horn

Along the way Peyton managed to chew through another leash!  He had lots of chew toys, but I guess the leash was handy and he needed a chew. 

Today we took a trolley tour of Helena with a delightful young woman as our guide.  They have some beautiful old homes here.  She said at one time in the distant past they had more millionaires based on population than any city in the country… I think Wichita Falls had that distinction at another time in the distant past. J  We visited the capitol and had a late lunch at a lovely little bistro recommended by our tour guide.

Statue of Early Territorial Governor of Montana

Capitol of Montana

Inside the Capitol Dome

Fish, Theater and Balloons…. and Home

We planned to spend a week in Creede, Colorado. It was rainy when we drove in, and that was the pattern for the week. Almost every day, usually around 1 pm, the storm clouds came over the mountains and it rained. That didn’t put too much of a crimp in our plans though.

Lannas fished each day and I read. We went to four performances of the Creede Repertory Theater . The productions were professional and we really enjoyed going. It is a charming little mountain town, with a number of excellent restaurants.

We found out that the Chamber of Commerce was sponsoring a small Hot Air Balloon event on the weekend, so we extended our stay one day. We got to see nine balloons inflated and floating around the valley on both Friday and Saturday mornings. We didn’t get to ride in one, but maybe another time.

Saturday morning after the hot air balloon launch, we took off for Santa Fe. We attempted to go to the capitol on Sunday, but it is only open Monday – Friday. We took a few pictures from the outside and later took a tour of the city. The tour guide was from London (?!?) and told us that the capitol, built in the late sixties, was very expensive ($8M) and it could not have a dome on it (by law there can be no building in the city that is taller than the Saint Francis Cathedral - seen at the right). The citizens hated it, so they planted lots of trees around it and now you can hardly see it!

Monday morning we took off for Amarillo. We ate at the Big Texan, but didn’t try for the free 72 oz steak with trimmings! Spent the night there and drove home on Tuesday.

We have been gone for two months and had a really good time. This trip has shown us some of the amazing beauty of our country and the unbelievable power of nature. We are also amazed and so grateful for the many people over the years that have worked so hard to make this beauty accessible to travelers.

The Land of Hoodoos

Tuesday morning we again packed up Toby Sue and this time headed toward Bryce Canyon National Park. On the way to Bryce you pass through a pair of natural tunnels into Red Canyon. The rock formations there are a deep, bright red color – just amazing. We got to Bryce Canyon about lunchtime, went to one of the viewpoints that had picnic tables, and watched the chipmunks and birds while we ate. I think all the chipmunks that Lannas saw as a child at Crater Lake have migrated southwest to Utah! They were everywhere, and despite all the warnings not to feed them, they seemed curiously unafraid of humans. Toby really wanted to chase them, but we bet she wouldn’t know what to do if she caught one.

Bryce Canyon is meant to be seen mostly by car. They have trails that you can hike down, but pets are not allowed on the trails and we experienced our first 100° day since leaving Arizona, so we couldn’t leave Toby in the car while we hiked. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it! The scenery in Bryce Canyon is spectacular. They have these rock formations called hoodoos that are everywhere. The rocks are limestone and naturally acidic rainwater rounds the edges, but most of the sculpting of the rocks occurs due to freezing and thawing action. For 200 days of the year ice and snow melt during the day and refreeze at night. On top of the canyon walls are lots of trees, part of the Dixie National Forest. It was obvious that they had had forest fires in the not too distant past. They also set some controlled fires as part of the forest management system. On the day we were there you could see smoke from fires. Lannas asked a ranger about it and he told him the fire had been set last Wednesday. Despite two rain showers it was still smoldering almost a week later. The temperature at Bryce Canyon was much cooler than the previous day – only in the low 80’s. That’s because of the altitude – the highest point we went to was 9,100 feet and the canyon floor is more than 7,000 above sea level.

Wednesday morning we “broke camp” and drove back up I-15, then east on I-70 to Green River, Utah. After setting up camp at the local KOA we drove to Arches National Park. It contains the largest concentration of natural stone arches in the world – more than 2,500. To qualify as a stone arch a hole must have an opening at least 3 feet long in any one direction. That means that some of the arches are very, very skinny. While the park is famous for the arches, it has lots of very interesting red sandstone formations, some of them just huge. While the park has named some of them (Balanced Rock, Three Sisters, Delicate Arch), they have not named them all. Looking at them is kind of like looking at ink blots. Lannas and I saw different things while looking at the same rock. We are back in a desert area, with the temperature around 104 during the day.

This morning we packed up and headed down I-70 toward Colorado. We are staying in Montrose tonight, and then going on to Creede tomorrow. We plan to stay there for a week. If the weather doesn’t cool off in Texas, we may be here longer! Lannas will fish, I will read and we will both go to the theater!

Toby enjoys watching people go by while she is waiting for us to return from dinner!