Tue
Oct
28
Let’s see if I can remember… We left Yellowstone bright and early on a beautiful sunny day with a long drive ahead of us. We had gorgeous views heading east through northern Wyoming. We made a brief stop at one of the many drive-through espresso shops we had seen along the way and another stop for lunch by the side of the road. Along the way we saw a coyote and a small herd of pronghorn antelope. We drove along and across the beautiful Bighorn Mountains. From there we crossed into South Dakota and just as it was getting dark and we had given up on finding a non-hokey/tourist trap campground, we found the cutest little place off in the woods. It was called Mystic Hills Campground, if you’re ever in the area. http://www.mystichillscampground.com/ We were the only tenters and had the whole place to ourselves. They had full facilities and a little lodge too. We listened to the debate while we made dinner and set up camp. In the morning our camp was ablaze with fall colors and we once again hit the road early. First stop was the Crazy Horse Memorial, which was certainly impressive, but you couldn’t get very close and there’s still a lot of work to be done on it. From there we took this fun little scenic road (Arlen probably didn’t think it was so fun, as it was very twisty) to Mt. Rushmore. We spotted views of it here and there as we were approaching and then as we came up to the gate realized our National Park Pass wasn’t good there, so Paul pulled a Uey in front of the ticket booths (using only a few slightly illegal maneuvers). We went to a viewing area, but could only see George Washington’s face, so as a last resort we pulled off the highway and snapped a couple pictures before really getting on our way. Well, sort of. We made a quick stop at a Sonic in Rapid City, as milkshakes sounded really good and we had only ever seen advertisements and never actually been to one. And Gaea insisted that we stop at Wall Drug, an amusing tourist trap that sucked us in for an hour or two. From there we put the petal to the metal and plowed on to Minneapolis, where we doctored up a couple microwave pizzas and crashed at Gaea and Jason’s apartment. Thursday evening Paul and I dropped Arlen off at the airport for a flight back to NYC. We returned to the apartment and had a lovely evening with Gaea and Jason, making dinner, drinking homemade mead, and playing Settlers of Catan (my new favorite game!). Paul and I, determined to continue the road trip, headed off to Madison Friday afternoon to visit Paul’s cousin Matt, a senior at the University of Wisconsin. I was also able to connect with my friend Allison and her husband German, whom I hadn’t seen since I was in Chile. Saturday morning Matt’s parents arrived for the weekend and we spent an enjoyable day with them touring campus and the New Glarus Brewery. Sunday we stayed long enough to watch Matt’s rugby team play, as Paul and I had never seen a match live before, and then headed back to my house in MI. We had a very relaxing week here together before he headed back to Maryland. And so concludes the Mod 1 road trip. Until next year and our next big adventure!
~ Tess
After breakfast in Missoula the four of us continued our drive East to Yellowstone National Park. On the way, Tess spotted a billboard advertizing a look at captive but uncaged Grizzly bears, so we decided to stop and check it out. It turned out to be a really interesting small, privately owned operation to save mistreated captive bears. At the moment they have five on site and usually two will be out in their play yard at a time. We happily donated our entrance fee to their cause and watched their two youngest bears romp around their play space and fling around an elk bone as one of their keepers answered our questions about the animals and the organization. After watching for a while we had a quick lunch on their property before continuing on to our way.
Once inside the park we took a short detour to see the Mammoth Hot Springs— hydrothermal features steaming up from the otherwise cold ground— before heading to our campsite in the Madison campground. We arrived just as the sun was setting, and just as it began to rain and sleet. Lucky us. We set up camp quickly, bundling ourselves as best we could while pitching the tents, and ate a hasty dinner of lentil soup. Once the dishes were washed we climbed into the car to get warm and dry and played a game of Scrabble and a game of cards before bed. It was COLD. I slept in about five layers of clothing plus my flannel sleep sack and sleeping bag. And a hat.
In the morning we got up around 8am, a bit on the late side for us on this trip, had some breakfast and then headed out to see things! We started out near Old Faithful and took a walk around Geyser Hill before returning to the observation site to see Old Faithful go off. It was pretty impressive—it’s a massive geyser! Afterward we drove to the Mystic Falls area where we could hike to the falls for a view. Once we got there we decided to continue up the mountain a bit, since the trail to the summit went in a loop, making the entired hike what the ranger at the Visitor’s Center called a “lollipop.” On the hike we saw a Buffalo across the river, which for a while we thought was just a stump and joked about it being a bear… until it got up and started munching some grass!
After our hike we got back into the car and drove on to see the Mudpots, areas of geothermal activity that, instead of greating geysers or hot springs, create pools of boiling mud. They were pretty neat. On the way to and from all these places we stopped frequently to take pictures of herds of Bison, pairs of Elk, and groups of Mule Deer and Pronghorn along the way. There certainly is a LOT of wildlife in Yellowstone!
Once we were done at the Mudpots we headed back to the Old Faithful Inn where we warmed up in “the Bear Den” and had a pre-dinner snack and game of Spades before heading back to the campsite. Lucky for us the weather had cleared up and it was not only a touch warmer but a lot dryer. Our tents had dried up and the weather was perfect for a big bonfire. Gaea and I collected some…well parts of trees really, and borrowed a hatchet from our neighbors so that Paul could hack them up into pieces. Once the fire was going we roasted some veggie dogs over it and Tess somehow transformed instant mashed potatos into something tasty. After we’d eaten, Paul went a little crazy with the fire and made it as big as possible, but it stayed under control and kept us nice and warm while we played the word game Contact! until we were sleepy. Agreeing that it was a pretty perfect day, we eventually put the fire out and went to bed (still wearing 20 layers of clothes).
~arlen
Sun
Oct
5
Leaving Bellingham we began our journey East. We drove most of the day, stopping only to see the Grand Coulee Dam, which is pretty spectacular. We ended up finding a very small and nearly deserted campground near the town of Coulee, by a little lake and covered in yellow fallen leaves. Had anyone else been there it would have been cramped, but there was only one other occupied site, so it was quiet and peaceful and really beautiful. We made soup and grilled cheese for dinner, played scrabble by the fire and looked up at the stars.
The next day we packed up and continued driving to Glacier National Park. On the way Gaea spotted a sign for the Lang Creek Brewery: “the most remote brewery in the country,” so we made a stop there. It turned out to be a tiny brewery in what used to be an airplane hanger! Everything they make is somehow aircraft or flight themed and the tour and tasting was free! Not to mention our tour guide, Jeff, was really nice and knowledgeable about pretty much everything under the sun.
Once we left Lang Creek we continued on and arrived at our campsite in West Glacier right around dark. We listened to the vice presidential debate on the car speakers while pitching our tents and eating dinner and afterward we played a new card game that Gaea taught us before bed. In the morning we checked out the visitor’s center and decided to drive up to Logan Pass for a good view. On the way we stopped at the Hidden Lake Overlook trail and hiked about ten minutes up it to check out some Big Horns that were hanging out on the mountainside. We continued on to Logan Pass, looking at all the beautiful trees that had turned shades of yellow and goldenrod. There were no red trees at all! In places the evidence of recent forest fires was apparent and those areas were a stark contrast to the rest of the colorful scenery. We did get to see a view of one of the glaciers, but not up close unfortunately. After exploring for most of the day and avoiding stray cows on the road, we drove over to Two Medicine, a campground at the south east end of the park. It was more populated than we’d expected, but I didn’t mind since Glacier is true Grizzly country and I didn’t want to see any bears in our camp site.
The next morning we made it into the car just as it began to rain and had a fairly uneventful drive to Missoula. We were greeted enthusiastically by Gaea’s friend AJ and his wife Shelley (who was running off to work when we arrived) and shown the house and cats, etc. Once we’d unpacked, cleaned the cooler and food box and dropped Baby Blue off for an oil change, we followed AJ through campus and up the mountainside to a big concrete M embedded there. It was quite a steep hike and much needed exercise for all of us. After we’d looked out over the city for a while we climbed back down, picked up the car and returned to the house to shower before going out to dinner.
We ate at a cute Mexican place, then checked out a few other spots in town before Shelley met up with us after work. By then it was about 10:30PM and we were pretty tired so we headed home. We had some good chat time with AJ and Shelley before turning in. This morning we woke up, packed up, said goodbye to Shelley as she went off to study and bought a few groceries at the store where AJ works before hitting the road again to Yellowstone.
~arlen
Wed
Oct
1
We left Eugene around 10am and headed west back to the coast; opting for the coastal route, instead of taking I-5 up to Portland. Our first stop was the Sea Lion Caves, but it was a bit expensive and the sea lions weren’t actually in the caves, so we skipped over that particular tourist trap and kept on our way. Our second stop was the small town of Yachats where we wandered through the farmer’s market/craft fair and sampled the local coffee and icecream. We continued our slow wandering route up the coast of Oregon finally arriving at the town of Cannon Beach. We had a bit of a tough time finding camping and in the end decided to explore Cannon Beach and eat dinner there and set up camp after dark. Cannon Beach was a cute resort community with a beautiful view. Giant rock “haystacks” rise out of water right at the beach and we watched the sunset behind them. It was also low tide so were able to get right out to the rocks and thoroughly explore the tidal zone. All the nooks and crannies were stuffed full of brightly colored starfish and anemones as well as thousands of muscles and barnacles. We ate at a lovely pub/brewery where Paul was able to enjoy one of his favorite treats of a veggie burger topped with local bacon.
From Cannon Beach we continued up the coast crossing over the mouth of the Columbia River into Washington early in the day. In Washington HWY-1 heads inland skirting around beautiful Quinalt Lake. We stopped for lunch on the shores of the lake surrounded by a lush forest and were very tempted to dive in, but decided to keep on our way. In the late afternoon we took a side road that wound up through the Hoh River Rainforest. There we stopped to see one of the world’s largest Sitka Spruce Trees and took a short path that wandered through the forest. It was very different from the rainforests I was familiar with in Costa Rica as the predominant trees here are conifers. Our campground that night was right in the rainforest. We had a bit of trouble getting the fire started with damp wood, but eventually got it going and cooked our meal over the open flames. We also enjoyed a game of Scrabble by lantern-light. In the morning we continued looping around the Olympic Peninsula arriving at the quaint port of Port Townsend. From there we took the ferry across a narrow section of Puget Sound to Whidbey Island. The great part about this route was that HWY 20 ends at the ferry dock on one side and picks right back up again at the other ferry dock. We ended up arriving in Bellingham earlier that expected as one of the side routes we were planning on taking up Hurrican Ridge was closed for construction. Our friend Jezra from Hampshire lives in Bellingham along with two other Hampshire friends Sarah and Sandor. We were welcomed warmly, surprising Sarah with our arrival, and settled down Hampshire-style. Some of us headed into town to get our camp stove fixed, while the others shopped for dinner. We ended up with a delicious dinner of Alaskan salmon (caught by Sandor’s family), sauteed vegetables, pasta, pesto, and falafel. Arlen and Jezra settled in the school bus - now motor home - for the night well the rest of crashed in the main house.
This morning Jezra made us some tasty eggs and we are headed back east. Our next destination is Glacier National Park where we expect to be for a couple days. We will be back in civilization on Saturday, staying with Gaea’s friends in Missoula Montana.
~ Tess
Tue
Sep
30
One of our first stops north of the bay area was Boonville, CA in Anderson Valley, home of the Anderson Valley Brewing Company (which is solar powered!). Anderson Valley actually has a very interesting regional history, including its own elaborate regional dialect. We continued north from there and found a camp site a little south of Mendocino. At this point we determined that the propane tank for our camp stove was somehow broken and we couldn’t use it. Not a fun discovery. Fortunately we had a bunch of leftovers from our ethiopian lunch in Berkeley so we had those for dinner (surprisingly good cold!) and then ventured into the town of Mendocino. It turned out everything was closed though, so we went back to the camp site to play cards for a while before bed. In the morning we had some time to explore the town though, and it’s really cute. Quite the sea side artists colony. As Tess put it, a great place to retire.
After exploring Mendocino we headed further north. We didn’t have a far drive that day so we stopped a lot to explore some of the kitchy roadside attractions in this part of the country. We drove through The Drive Through Tree, saw a mobile home made entirely from one hollowed out log, and trespassed on a closed trail called The Hobbit Trail which is littered with sculptures of hobbits and dragons and things from the book. We stayed there for lunch and ate at one of their outdoor tables by the abandoned Hobbit Cafe. We also drove through The Avenue Of Giants, a stretch of road that goes through the redwoods. We got out and hugged a tree that was about nine people around (it was a relay style hug)! That night we camped in one of the redwood parks and made soup over the fire and toasted marshmallows. It was nice, not to mention unexpectedly warm.
In the morning we had a short drive up to Eugene, OR where our friends Price and Tara live. Price has just started a grad program at the University of Oregon and the two of them live in a really cute house provided by the university. Tara is also working in the university research lab for brain and development, which is what she studied at Hampshire. We arrived at their house around 2PM and they gave us a tour of the campus and told us some interesting factoids about Eugene and about the state of Oregon. Eugene seems like a pretty cute town with tons of bikers and runners on the street. After our tour and a short laundry and shower break we fired up the grill and had a little barbecue in their yard. After dinner we went inside to play Apples to Apples and Trivial Pursuit. In the morning Price even made us pancakes! They were delicious. Sadly we couldn’t stay forever and had to bid our friends adieu and hit the road again.
~arlen
Sat
Sep
27
So the first morning in Oakland we woke up around 9am, had some breakfast and hopped on the bus with Dan. Normally he rides his bike to Berkeley campus but with us in tow the bus was the easier option. Dan had to go to class so we explored the campus by ourselves a bit and had Harry meet us at the arts library. From there we wandered into town and walked along Telegraph avenue, the main drag of Berkeley. We stopped for coffee and did some catching up with one another, telling Harry about the trip thus far, asking about his recent move, etc. Eventually we decided to get food and wandered over to a great ethiopian place between campus and Dan’s.
After our late lunch Harry went home and we got the car and met Dan at Berkeley Bowl, the awesome local grocery store. We all contributed our culinary efforts to make a really nice dinner and it felt good to eat all together at the table in Dan’s cozy one bedroom apartment. After dinner Paul wasn’t feeling well so Tess and I went to pick Gaea up from the airport. In the morning we got up and made pancakes. Dan went off to class yet again and the four of us ventured into San Francisco proper. It’s possible to take the BART in but we took the car instead since we’d be getting back late.
We picked Zoe up in the city and all piled into the car to drive up Mt Tamalpias, which has a beautiful view of the city. After some photo ops there we drove back across the Golden Gate Bridge into Little Japan, near the music show we’d be seeing later. We parked in a garage and got lunch at a cute little deli before doing some exploring. I bought a city map and we walked along Filmore to Haight Street, then followed it to Golden Gate Park. The Haight Ashbury area is a lot like the east village in nyc, but in general I felt that San Francisco has very much it’s own vibe.
After a bit of park strolling we caught a bus back to the Fillmore area and met up with Harry, Kate and my friend Robyn for dinner at a place called Sushi Boom! Once dinner was over Zoe and Robyn unfortunately had to go home. The rest of us continued on to The Boom Boom Room where Tornado Rider was playing. They are an awesome psudo punk band whose founding member, Rushad Eggleston used to play cello for Crooked Still. He actually talked to us briefly before the show and seems… well squirrely is the best adjective. Pretty crazy, but amazingly talented. Harry, Kate and I danced our asses off all night and thoroughly enjoyed the weird scene of friends of the band running around in spandex cat suits until our poor sleepy companions put in a request to leave around 1am. So we all squashed into Baby Blue and drove back to Oakland and happily fell into bed. In the morning we woke up bright and early to pack up, thanked Dan for being such a good host and then hit the road for Mendocino.
~arlen
Wed
Sep
24
We left Santa Barbara early for a long, but breathtaking drive up highway 1 through Big Sur to Monterey. We started off in a thick fog, but it cleared up fairly quickly to reveal rolling hills and beautiful views of the beach. As we were driving Arlen pointed up to one of the hills and exclaimed “Holy shit, is that a zebra?” We agreed that it did indeed look like a zebra, but we were still skeptical until we came upon a small herd mixed in with a herd of cattle. We also came across a good sized castle perched atop one of the hills and stopped to check out the Elephant seals lazing on the beach. The drive through Big Sur was absolutely spectacular. Highway 1 is very narrow here, hugging the cliffside with the mountains reaching up on one side and the cliffs plunging into the sea on the other. The ocean is a very different blue out here, different from the north Atlantic and the Caribbean; it’s almost electric or neon like. We stopped at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. You can’t walk to the beach, but from an observation point you can see a small waterfall plunging right into the Pacific.
We got to Monterey around 2pm and headed straight to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was very crowded, but enjoyable none-the-less. We watched the playful otters and gazed at the giant bluefin tuna, sharks, and ocean sunfish glide around the gigantic tank. We also poked at starfish in the touch tank and were entranced by the jellyfish that seemed to glow in the dark room where the tanks were. That night we stayed at a nice campground up in the hills of Monterey, where we managed to get good dinner cooked up before the sun set completely. We even had enough energy to head back and check out downtown Monterey and have a drink at one of the local bars that has live music every night.
Monday morning we went to check out California State University at Monterey Bay, where I had a tour scheduled. I was the only one on the tour, accompanied by my sidekicks Paul and Arlen… along for “moral support.” The campus is really nice; they’re doing a lot of work on it right now as they are continuing to expand. They will be finishing a new library early next year that was absolutely beautiful. The school seems to have a very similar teaching philosophy to Hampshire, which was really exciting to both Arlen and I. Arlen was sad that they don’t have an Art History Program, because she liked it a lot. I was able to talk to a couple grad students that work under the professor that I might be interested in working with and they sounded happy with the program and the school. I’m very excited do some more research and get started on the application process.
Monday evening we headed north to Soquel to have dinner with our friend Anna who also went to Hampshire. She is working for Camphill in Soquel, CA, through Americorps. Soquel is only 40 miles north of Monterey, but there was an accident on HWY 1 so it took us over 2 hrs. to get there. Dinner was lovely and she took us on a tour of the grounds and gardens afterwards. Camphill is a community living situation for people with disabilities. You can check out www.camphill.org for more info. From there we continued on to San Francisco and got to our friend Dan’s place in Oakland around 10pm.
Tue
Sep
23
We had a quick drive to Manhattan Beach; LA traffic wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. We arrived at Kevin’s cute little apartment overlooking the beach and then headed down to check out the AVP tour. They were letting people in to the general admission seating for free so we went to the central court and guess who was playing?! The olympic gold medalists Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers. After that match we wandered around a bit to check out some other games and then headed back to the main court to watch the female gold medalists Misty May-Traenor and Kerri Walsh. We spent a few hours watching the games and then walked down the beach to lay out in the sun. We tried to go body boarding, but the waves beat us up pretty good, so we didn’t last long. We managed (bairly) to stay up past sunset, had dinner at a tasty Mexican place in Hermosa Beach and then hit up a couple bar/club type places.
Saturday morning we hit the road around 10am and headed up the coast to Santa Barbara. We had called all the campgrounds along the coast and they were all supposedly full, but we checked them out anyways and found one about 1/2 an hour north of Santa Barbara. The campground wasn’t the idyllic beach camping we were looking for; it was crowded with lots of families and dogs and an Amtrak line running past, but the beach itself was beautiful. After setting up camp we headed back south to check out UCSB. Arlen was checking out their Art History program and I was looking at a marine management program. Unfortunately it was Saturday so we didn’t really get to talk to anyone, but the campus was nice and the views were beautiful. After looking around the campus we went to check out Santa Barbara proper. It was a really fun town with a lot going on, but definitely a little schwa schwa for our tastes. We grabbed a drink at the SB brewery and headed back to the campsite. It was super windy when we got back. We were happy that someone had given us a tip to put the tents up against a little hill and tie them down well because they were definitely being buffeted severely by the wind. We ended up taking down Arlen’s tent and sticking her in the car, as we thought she and the tent might blow away in the night. Given the weather, we decided to forgo dinner yet another night and hit the sack early.
