Cross country road trip again! - Ottawa, IL to Point Richmond, CA (Days 5-8)

This post is a bit tardy but things have been hectic over the last several days. Michelle and I departed Ottawa en route to my friend Cyndi's place in Wahoo, NE. I was so excited that my route was taking me past her because it's been a long time since we've seen each other. The drive was pretty but fairly monotonous - lots of corn. We did give a cheer when we crossed the Mississippi River from Illinois into Iowa. Crossing into new states always made us feel like we were accomplishing something and crossing the Mississippi gave it a little something extra - we were entering the "West." I use quotes because we were still only about a third of the way across the country at that point so while we wanted to be west, it didn't feel very west.

A token corn photo from Michelle

Michelle and I had a blast in Wahoo with Cyndi and Chad. We went to the local VFW for pre-dinner beers. It was within walking distance of their place and Gus was able to come with us as well. We partook of a local brew called a red beer, a.k.a. Bud Light with tomato juice and a couple of green olives. I thought it was pretty good, certainly better than a plain Bud Light.

Cyndi, me, and Michelle with our red beers

For those of you thinking, Wahoo, NE, why have I heard of that before - here's why. It the "Home Office" of the Late Show with David Letterman. We swung by the official sign on our way back to Cyndi and Chad's.

Michelle and I

Cyndi, Gus, and Chad

Cyndi and Chad grilled us an awesome dinner that evening, complete with fresh Nebraska corn - yummy! We capped off the evening with chocolate banana milkshakes and a game of Cranium. Thanks Cyndi and Chad for such a wonderful time!

Michelle and I departed the next morning after Cyndi and Chad had left work. We said goodbye to Gus and headed out. Although something did catch our eye and made us giggle a bit on the way out the door, and we felt compelled to take a photo.

Nuff' said

Shortly after returning to I-80 (final destination for the evening - my friend and EIS classmate Jeff's in Fort Collins, CO), we encountered two of these "things." We kept running into them at various stops and each time tried to figure out what they were. I think Michelle was the one that finally figured it out - they were wind mill propellers.

In action... Although our discovery did lead to the obvious question of why were their only two of them?

Cool photo of clouds over Nebraska that Michelle took

A storm we saw from a distance. We got a bit of rain along the way but nothing as bad as this photo suggests.

Finally in WY - the sign upon entering said "Forever West" - so whatever doubts about being west we may have had when we crossed the Mississippi were surely gone at this point. The scenery was starting to change a bit from the corn fields we had grown accustomed.

Our slight detour south to my friend's in Fort Collins, CO gave us our first glimpse of the Rockies.

We arrived at Jeff's at 6PM, just in time to head to a Mexican place for dinner, where we would also be meeting up with another one of my classmates, Katherine, and her husband Marcus and daughter Natasha. Dinner was yummy, the margaritas were strong, and it was great to see everyone again (even though it really hadn't been that long since we had been together in the hotel in Atlanta). After dinner, we went for a walk around Fort Collins. It's a really cute town and bicycle friendly to boot. I liked it there.

We left Fort Collins early the next morning because we knew we had a long day ahead of us (Thanks so much Jeff for being so hospitable!). We had a good portion of the state of Wyoming still left to get through, all of Utah, and we were hoping to get at least half way across Nevada. When we set off, we figured it would be a 10-12 hour day - long but not painfully long.

Wyoming seemed to drag on forever, so when we finally entered Utah we were quite excited. On my last cross country road trip, I spent a lot of time in Southern Utah and was amazed by its beauty. Northern Utah did not disappoint either. There was a bit of the red sand stone that I had seen so much of in Southern Utah, but overall it was amazingly beautiful in a completely different way.

The Great Salt Lake just west of Salt Lake City (thanks again to Michelle for taking so many photos along the way)

Salt Flats

Morton salt factory conveniently located in the salt flats

We were both quite excited when a rest stop was situated at the Bonneville Salt Flats (also home of the "Miracle Mile" were the world land speed record was set - 622.407 mph by Gary Gabelich in 1970 in case you're wondering). This place was awesome (in the true sense of the word as opposed to the surfer dude interpretation that popularized the word).

We made it into Nevada, although later than we had hoped. But with the time change to Pacific time we felt that trying to get to Carlin was still possible. It would push our day to the 14 hour mark, but since we had both had a bit of a chance to doze during the day we felt okay about that. We reached Carlin right at nightfall, and I know I was really happy to be there. My butt was sore from sitting all day long and I didn't exactly want to be driving in the middle of nowhere with few other vehicles on the road and spotty cell phone reception after dark. We made our ritual stop to refuel the truck so we would have a full tank to start with in the morning and headed to the hotel. When I say "the hotel," I don't mean the the hotel we were planning on going to, but rather the ony hotel in all of Carlin. We parked the truck, and I headed in to secure a room while Michelle got stuff out of the back of the truck. Alas, there were no available rooms and the nearest town to the west was an hour away. I managed to make it back to the truck just before Michelle put the lock back on it, so we tossed things back in and headed back out on the highway. The drive from Carlin to Battle Mountain was reassuring and creepy at the same time. Reassuring in the sense that while there wasn't a whole lot of traffic, there was enough that if something had happend to us or our truck it wouldn't have been too long before someone found us, and I think we at least had roaming cell phone service the whole way. The creepiness was due to the fact that if you looked to the left or right off of the highway, there was nothing, no lights, nothing. We made it to Battle Mountain and were lucky enough to get one of the last few rooms. It had been a long day and we were beat.

I headed out to the breakfast area at the hotel before Michelle did the next morning and was amusing myself by the news story being broadcast on the television about a farm that provides water beds for their cows. I was thinking it was some podunk local news station when I realized it was Fox News. Seriously, there's nothing better to report on? I mean they spent at least 5 minutes on this story. As that was wrapping up, I was joined at my table by a 12 year girl named Olivia, although she hated her name and was going by Fu-Li instead. She was really talkative and obviously incredibly intelligent. We were soon joined by her 9 year old sister Mia, who was clearly the more rule oriented of the two since she was quietly admonishing her sister for talking to a stranger. As she continued to make attempts at getting her sister to go back to the hotel room where their father was still sleeping, we were joined by Michelle. All in all, we really enjoyed chatting with the girls - they were also planning to go all the way to the Bay Area that day. We left them to their breakfasts and headed out to resume our driving.

We were expecting about an 8 hour day, which would put us into Point Richmond around 3:30 in the afternoon. We were staying on schedule fairly well until we hit CA. We had to stop at the agriculture inspection station, where we had an orange confiscated from us and shortly thereafter found ourselves in single lane traffic heading through the Sierras. It was slow going. Not only was there a lot of volume, but at best we could only go as fast as the slowest moving semi in front of us heading up to Donner Pass. We took a break from the traffic to grab lunch in Truckee at a coffee shop, but in the end it took us at least two hours just to get through the Sierras. While we were now severly behind schedule, at least the scenery was nice. I did a quick look for branches of my bank in Sacramento since I still needed to get a check for my security deposit before picking up my keys that evening, and we were now in jeopardy of not making it to Point Richmond before 5PM. Traffic got heavy again around Scramento, but I think detouring to the bank may have helped us out a bit. Once we were back on the road, things were moving fairly smoothly and it was pretty easy the rest of the way. We pulled up to my Realtor's office with only 10 minutes to spare to pick up the keys and then made our way over to my place with the hopes of finding a parking space for the truck near enough that we could haul the mattress in for the night. I had forgotten that my apartment is on a crazy steep hill, so needless to say there was not a good place to park the truck. We ended up parking it about a quarter of a mile away and abandoned the idea of getting the mattresses in that evening. Luckily, our friend Rebecca was able to put up for the night.

The movers came the next morning and did a great job unloading the truck, so now I sit amongst a jungle of boxes to overwhelmed to figure out where to put things. Thankfully, my parents are arriving tomorrow and my mom loves to do that kind of stuff. By the time they leave, I will essentially be settled and can truly begin my life here on the West Coast.

Cross country road trip again! - Atlanta, GA to Ottawa, IL (Days 1-4)

I wish I could say I have been looking forward to this one as much as I was the last one, but that would be a big ol' lie. I am, however, excited about having it over with (too bad that is still 5 days from now). It will mean all of my possessions are reunited in the same city, and that I will be living in an awesome place - the San Francisco Bay Area. Honestly, I really lucked out with my EIS placement. I think I am going to love it out in California. The weather, the water, the mountains, the wineries, the hiking, the biking, well, I could go on and on but I think you get the picture. The best part is that now that I have a car I will be able to access all of it (one of the unforeseen downsides of living in NYC sans vehicle, at least for me).

EIS started on July 1 in Atlanta, GA. I have already survived living in a hotel for nearly a month and all of the associated pros and cons of living such a life. My friends, both old and new, made it bearable and actually quite fun. Believe it or not, I was sad to say goodbye to the hotel. Scratch that, I was sad to say goodbye to my friends in the hotel (and in Atlanta), not so much hotel life. By the time I reach my new home, I will have been living out of a suitcase for 4 months, so I am very much looking forward to getting back into a routine, particularly one that involves exercise. I am supposedly training for a November 1 marathon. I need to get my butt in gear.

Anyways, I digress, back to the cross country road trip. CDC is paying for part of my move, a whopping $3000. When I left Atlanta for NYC I downsized from a 3 bedroom house to a studio apartment, and while I got rid of a lot of stuff, I still ended up with a storage space in Atlanta. I also ended up with a storage space in NYC when I vacated my apartment last April. With a place big enough to hold everything out in CA, I had to figure out how to get everything there from two different cities. Ideally, I would have had professional movers do everything for me, but let's face it, with a $3000 budget, that wasn't going to happen. The most economical method was for me to do it, hence another cross country road trip. And this isn't just any cross country road trip, it is an Atlanta to NYC to Richmond, CA road trip - bleh.

One might say perhaps, NYC to Atlanta to Richmond would be the more sensical route, but since I was already in Atlanta for work I picked up the moving truck (a 22' monster) there and loaded up my stuff. I got myself to Roanoke, VA before stopping for the night. It was a long day. Day 2 was spent going from Roanoke to Edgewater, NJ - just a hop, skip, and a jump across the Hudson to my storage space in the Bronx. All in all the day's driving wasn't so bad, but naturally I hit Newark at ruch hour heading toward NYC. Talk about instant stress. I quickly learned that being the "nice" driver wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I took a more agressive approach. Namely, I went where I wanted to go and let the size of my truck scare off all the little cars.

Before I go too much further, I should stop to say that I did hire "professional" movers to load my truck for me in Atlanta - Atlanta Peach Movers. The reviews online were good; however, that is about to change because I will be adding my 2 cents. When I made my reservation, I made it clear that there would be some packing that needed to be done and specifically requested that they have packing supplies with them. Two guys showed up with a little bit of tape and saran wrap left in the truck from another move. They didn't even have a hand truck, let alone boxes. Luckily, I had gotten a few boxes from a friend and had a hand truck in the storage space, so my packing needs ended up being covered (not that that makes things okay). Packing the truck was a different matter entirely. They did a horrible job. I'm not a professional mover, so when we closed up the truck after loading, things looked good to me, but when I opened it up again in NYC things were a mess. Boxes had fallen and broken open, so there were books all over the place. My big antique mirror had fallen, but luckily didn't break (the mirror part at least, the woodwork will need further inspection once it is unpacked in CA). I am quite concerned about breakage because of these guys' incompetence. On the bright side, the guys I hired in NYC, Big John's Moving, were great. They fixed everything that had fallen because of the Atlanta guys and super securely loaded all of my NYC stuff. It has not budged. Yay for Big John's Moving and boo, hiss for Atlanta Peach Movers.

I soloed the Atlanta to NYC drive but am super happy that my friend Michelle in joining me for the NYC to Richmond leg. It is making it so much better. I'm rather stressed out over this whole process, so I am really glad she is here with me. Arriving in CA 4 days from now will not come soon enough, but having her with me is making a really not fun thing at least a bit of fun.

The two of us made it to my folks' place in OH last night and are now in a divey hotel in Ottawa, IL. When staying in a hotel on this trip, I've been staying in Choice Hotels (Comfort Inns, Quality Inns, etc.), and the ones in Roanoke and Edgewater were quite nice. The one in Ottawa, IL, not so much. It'll do though - there don't appear to be any bed bugs (yes, we felt the need to check).

Thanks to Michelle for taking pictures along the way.

The long open road ahead of us.

Farms in Pennsylvania

Chillin in the passenger seat

Our new trucker life

You have to admit that we've got to be the cutest truckers out there

Farms in Illinois

My Arrival in California

Since I had completed, or should I say attempted, all of the hikes that I wanted to do on my own at Zion, I headed out early. My plan was to get to Rebecca's in Point Richmond, CA sometime on Saturday. Since it was only Friday, I had some some time to play with. I decided that I would go through Death Valley National Park on my way. I wasn't totally sure what to expect when I got there, i.e., unbearably hot temperatures, so I figured if it didn't work out that was okay. I could always push on towards Rebecca's. When I entered the park, it was only in the 80s, although when I started descending into the valley the temperature began to rise. By the time I reached the visitor's center it was in the low 90s. When I emerged from my vehicle it didn't actually feel so bad. It is a dry heat afterall. I decided to go for it, although my thoughts of possibly camping there that evening were definitely out.

I asked one of the park rangers at the visitor's center what he recommended I do if I only had a few hours and he said I should go to Badwater Basin (the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere), drive through Artists Drive, and then check out the vistas from Zabriskie Point and Dantes View. It seemed like a good plan to me, so I headed out.

View driving from the "Fiery Furnace" visitor's center to Badwater Basin

Badwater Basin - elevation=282 ft below sea level - the temps hit 100 down here and it was still before noon.

Badwater Pool

The salt flats

I passed a couple of other sights I thought might be interesting on my way from Badwater Basin to Artists Drive, but they required hiking at least a mile in 100 degree heat to get to them, and I just didn't have it in me. Maybe I will come back during cooler months at some point.

Views from Artists Drive

Views from Zabriskie Point

Views from Dantes View

After finishing up at Dantes View my GPS wanted me to exit the park near where I was and drive south and then back up through the Central Valley, kinda of making a J shape. I wasn't all that excited about that route so I had it configure another. The next one had me driving back through most of the park, over Panamint Range and Inyo Mountains, and then heading north on 305 which take between the Inyo and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. This sounded much nicer.

The Sand Dunes in Death Valley National Park - I would have missed them had I gone with the original route.

View from a vista in the Inyo Mountains

The Sierra Nevadas

By about 7:30 that evening I started looking for a place to saty for the night. I had already given myself permission to stay in a hotel, but by the time I decided I would start looking for one, they seemed to have disappeared. I passed several camping opportunities along 305 but it was drizzling a bit, so I passed them up in hopes of coming a cross a hotel or dryer weather at least. Before I knew it I was on the road cutting west through Yosemite National Park. I came across a campground in Lee Vinig prior to entering the park and decided I would stop there for the night. I was already at a fairly high elevation and didn't really know what I would encounter inside of the park. Plus, this campsite was only a couple of miles from a gas station, so after I set up camp and ate dinner (which included locking all of my food and toiletries ina bear box - the first one I had encountered on my trip), I went there to brush my teeth. It was pretty much pitch black by the time I got back to my campsite, so I headed straight to sleep. It did get cold that evening, but it wasn't nearly as cold as my nights in Bryce Canyon. I stuffed plastic bags and my dirty laundry into the bottom of my sleeping bag, but I didn't find it necessary to tie plastic bags around my feet.

Daylight came early but I wasn't quite ready to get out of my warm sleeping bag yet, so I let myself doze off and on for a while. I was only about 4 hours from Rebecca's, so I knew I didn't need to hurry. When I couldn't sleep any longer I got out bed and packed up camp as quickly as possible. It was quite cold outside, and for the first time since I went camping in MO there was dew on the outside of my tent. It made my finders freeze that much faster. I was so happy once everything was back in my car and I was in it with the heat cranked up.

The park entrance was still several miles away from where I camped and several thousand feet above me.

Ellery Lake - elevation 9538 ft - this lake was shortly before the entrance to Yosemite located at Tioga Pass (elevation 9945 ft - the highest elevation I would reach on my journey)

Views along my way through Yosemite National Park

Yosemite was beautiful and I definitely want to go back. I never even entered the main part of the park where Half Dome and El Capitan are located. Luckily, I will soon live only a few hours drive from the park and with my National Parks pass good through the end of June 2010, I'm sure I will be back.

I reached Rebecca's around lunch time on Saturday. The drive into the Bay Area was full of emotions, partly excitement for reaching my destination, partly sadness for my journey coming to an end. I was also excited about the new chapter of my life I was about to begin and a little bit scared of the transition I was about to go through. Luckily, I already have a few friends in teh Bay Area and it was so good to see a friendly face when I arrived at Rebecca's. I got my stuff inside, the camping stuff hung up to dry, and was soon in the shower washing away the last four days of hiking grime. It felt so nice.

I got to see so many more places than I had originally thought I would when I set out from my parents in OH, and I feel like I have mearly scratched the surface at some of them. Of all of the places I went to, I most want to return to Canyonlands. There are two other sections of the park that I want to see, and next time I want to be better prepared to go backpacking and get a bit more off the beaten path. I'd love to take my bike with me as well and soend a day down the road at Arches riding the length of that park. I'd also like to return to Zion and tackle the 14 mile hike that I didn't do this trip, and who knows, maybe I'll have the courage to get up Angel's Landing next time around. Utah is a beautiful place and there is one more National Park there that I didn't attend, so I'll definitely go back someday.

My Prius after the 5100 miles I drove between my parents in OH and Rebecca's in CA. Tens on thousands of bugs lost their lives in teh making of this journey.