Author: Rudy

Fridge was nice and cold when we got up; the ‘reset’ worked. We went for a short walk this morning. We ended up at Gecko’s, a small café in the little strip mall near our house. Since we didn’t have internet yet, this was a place where we could check our email. After breakfast we went to the Chase bank at the corner and opened up an account. Lunch was at Subway. Then Sue went for a major grocery shop (10% discount on first Wednesday of the month) while Rudy and Ed went golfing at Mountain Brook. It was a beautiful sunny day – a great day for golf.

Sue had packed away all the groceries and cleaned up the patio furniture and barbeque by the time I got home. Today the Peters came to our place for barbecued smokies. Another great evening of visiting. We made arrangements to take the Peters to the airport tomorrow noon.

Cedar City: Breakfast at the Abbey Inn — waffles again. Then we headed down through Zion National Park. Temperature was cool but not too cool. It was CRAZY BEAUTIFUL. Some day I’ll show you the 300 photos that Sue and I took of it. Leaves were turning orange and yellow. Pine trees were still dark green. Rocks were red. Sky was blue. Camera batteries were almost dead.

We stopped in Kanab, Utah for lunch at McDonalds. Then we took the 89A down into Arizona, skirting around the Vermillioin Cliffs. We’d already realized that the striking stripes of color that we’d seen in so many brochures were actually from a place called “The Wave”, a place in the Vermillion Cliffs that is restricted to 20 visitors a day, with permits required, and that we wouldn’t actually see that. So we drove through the big valley south of the Vermillion Cliffs, and then turned south to the Grand Canyon.

We entered that national park from the east entrance, just as we’d done in the fall of 2008, After paying our second $25 national park entrance fee of the day (first one was at Zion), we drove along the southern rim of the canyon, stopping at several lookout points for photos.

Then we exited the park and headed south to Williams, a quaint little tourist town along the old Route 66. Old cars, old motorcycles, old museums, old hippies just like us, staying in the many old-style motels and eating in the old-style diners. Checked into the Lodge on Route 66, then headed down the street to a diner for burgers, beers, and Monday Night Football. Settled into our room for the second half — we hadn’t realized that we’re in a new timezone here and it’s actually an hour EARLIER than what we thought it was. Oh well, early to bed. What else is new? Tomorrow we’ll reach ‘home’ in Gold Canyon.

Woke up. Fareed on CNN. Waffles in the breakfast room. Short walk in the beautiful sunshine. NFL Countdown on ESPN. Game 1: Giants beat Dolphins. (Vikings squeak by Panthers.) McDouble and McChicken for lunch. Game 2: Steelers beat Patriots. Lions pound the Broncos. 60 Minutes: Madoffs talk suicide attempt. SNF: Eagles trounce Cowboys. Trailmix snacks (no supper). Perfect day.

We left Silverthorne after another waffle breakfast. The Levi’s outlet store across the street only opened at 10am — too late for early-birds like us — so we passed on the chance to update the wardrobe for discount prices and headed back on the road. West. Some of the most beautiful country in America, maybe even the world. Snowy mountains. Yellow leaves still clinging to the trees. Big sky. Great roads. We finally stopped for lunch in Grand Junction, Colorado. Then crossed the border into Utah.

Years ago Utah and Alaska were the only two states I hadn’t been to. And so on one of our family trips we made a point of visiting Utah — and discovered, to our amazement, that it was one of the most beautiful places we’d ever seen. Well today, years later, our return to Utah didn’t change that opinion. Utah is gorgeous.

We stopped short of the I-15 on our westward route along I-70, and followed US-89 south through Bryce National Park. It would be a long day of driving but since we are planning on NOT driving at all tomorrow (Sunday, a day to relax and enjoy NFL games on TV), we thought we’d stretch it out a bit today. So when the scenic drive through the Dixie National Forest was blocked by a mudslide and resulted in a 1 hour extension of the route over some seriously winding roads over a 2-mile-high hill, we were okay with that.

We finally arrived in Cedar City, just north of St George, at around 7pm. The sun had set. Since tomorrow is to be a TV-watching day, the hotel we were looking for would need to have a decent TV. And the billboards along the road in to Cedar City told us that the Abbey Inn had new 42-inch TVs. So that’s where we ended up.

After a long walk through the not-so-nice part of town, looking for a pub Sue had found on a motel map, we decided NOT to join the patrons for a Saturday-night Halloween party, walked back to our hotel, had half a sandwich at the IHOP right next to our hotel, and back in the room for the night. Journal update. Some roasted almonds and a glass of wine. Bedtime. Gotta get up early to watch Fareed on CNN tomorrow morning.

Left the La Quinta in Rapid City after enjoying their “deluxe” continental breakfast (not bad, but it’s right next to the big indoor waterpark and the ‘restaurant’ felt a bit like a Chuck E. Cheese with all the kids running around and a waiting line at the waffle machine). The road was great (once again). Not a lot of traffic, great scenery, speed limit 65 to 75 miles per hour. We had a bit of a misunderstanding with the Garmin and ended up getting to our lunch stop, and, more importantly for Sue, bathroom stop, an hour later than what we had projected. So it was 1:30 before we pulled in at an A&W in Wheatland, Wyoming. No teenburgers here, but Sue and I both had a cheeseburger and shared a big frosty rootbeer. Back on the road within 20 minutes. By now the sugar-sprinkling of snow that we had seen on the rolling hills had become quite a bit more intense and it was evident that the big snowstorm that had shut down Denver a few days ago had reached this far north. But the roads were clear. Around Cheyenne, near the border between Wyoming and Colorado, the traffic increased noticeably. By the time we were in Denver we had driven for over an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic, sometimes going 75mph, sometimes slowing down to just a crawl. Friday afternoon rush-hour.

In Denver we turned west off the I-25 onto the I-70. Traffic eased up a bit; I guess lots of people are heading INTO Denver for the big Detroit-Denver NFL game this Sunday. We were determined to be checked-in by 5pm so that we would be comfortably settled into our room in time to watch Game 7 of the World Series. Last night the St Louis Cardinals came back from a 2-run deficit 3 times to win Game 6 over the Texas Rangers in 11 innings. One of the most exciting baseball games we’ve ever watched.

We pulled into Silverthorne (in the heart of Colorado ski country, in Breckenridge) and found another La Quinta Inn. Checked in. Went to pick up some beer and wine from the liquor store across the street. Ordered in pizza from the ‘Old Chicago’ restaurant right in our building, and snuggled into our 6th floor room to watch the sun set behind the chalets and mountains outside our window. It was a bit cool in our room, but once we’d eaten we had a great evening watching the amazing Cardinals come back to win Game 7. I was exhausted from my day of driving, so it didn’t take either of us long to fall asleep.

After a way-too-big breakfast at the hotel (waffles with peanut butter, scrambled eggs and 3 sausages, yogurt, and coffee) we left Watertown, South Dakota, and headed east. We decided to zig and zag our way toward Rapid City — the ‘scenic’ route. And that’s what it was. Very nice 2-lane highway with very little traffic, through farm country. Rolling hills speckled with black angus dots and lots of combined corn stalks. Miles and miles of tiny big round bales stretching out to the horizon. At one point Vince Gill was singing so loudly on the itunes that we missed the Garmin telling us to turn at the next intersection. After several ‘recalculating’s we finally realized we were heading North and needed to get back to our suggested route. Turned at teh next corner and ended up on a few miles of unpaved dirt road — with a few ‘soft spots’ and ‘dead end’ signs that added a little or our excitement. But soon enough we were back on the right road and our ETA was only about 15 minutes later for all our troubles.

Lunch was delayed. We’d eaten such a massive breakfast. We made it all the way to Pierre (the capital city of SD, I think) before we pulled in at the trusty old golden arches for a much-needed washroom break. I had a milkshake and Sue a coffee. Then back on the road.

In the afternoon we got onto the I-90 and listened to classical music while we followed the twin ribbons of divided four-lane west into the hills of the Badlands. Lots of dinosaurs and petrified forests and Wall Drug signs and no more small towns to slow down for. We took a turn south at Wall Drug, opting to take the road atlas “Best of the Road” route through the Badlands. We had to pay a $15 park entrance fee even though we weren’t actually going through the park. That was okay. The scenery really was great — we finally hauled out our camera and missed our first photo of the trip because of dead batteries. No problem. Spare batteries in the backpack. Nope, the replacements are dead too. Third set worked. Let the picture-taking begin. We parked our car and took a short walk on a very nice boardwalk that led up to the terraced cliffs of the badlands. Along the way we met 2 women. Said hello. Kept walking, thinking how good this was for us to get a bit of exercise and stretch our legs. When we got to the top we startled a man who was already up there. We had seen him from below. We greeted each other and marveled at the scenery. Sue asked him how old the tiered cliffs might be. He motions the layers and says 10 million, 20 million, 30 million… We asked if the sidewalk would take us around a loop and back to the parking lot. He says he thinks so, but he had come up the same way we had. We left him up there and continued along the path, hoping it would lead us back to the base. About halfway down I heard what sounded like a gunshot up on the hill. Hmmm… hunting here in the badlands? Should we be wearing orange? We met one of the women at the bottom (the man had explained that his wife and sister-in-law were down there waiting for him). She asked if we’d seen a man up there. Yes, he should be coming down not far behind us. Well, I thought I heard a gunshot up there. Yeah, we heard it too. Hope those aren’t hunters. She looked worried. We headed back to our (unlocked) van and continued on our way. But now I began wondering if maybe that guy up there had committed suicide! Or what if the woman finds him shot and thinks it was those two hikers who hurried up and down the trail and then took off! Maybe I’ll have to check the local paper tomorrow morning to see if anything terrible happened in the National Park yesterday.

We arrived in Rapid City shortly after that. We’re now in Mountain Time Zone so that means it’s an hour earlier than what it feels like to us. We checked into a La Quinta with a huge attached waterpark (oh no, lots of screaming kids) and got a 3rd floor room (pet-free). Went to the attached bar and grill for beer and salad. Then hurried back to our room to catch the beginning of Game 6 of the Rangers-Cardinals World Series. Sat in bed and watched the game and wrote this journal entry.

Sue is scouting out tomorrow’s route and hotel options — probably we’ll end up near Denver. Hopefully the snow and ice from yesterday’s first winter storm has melted.

Today is day one of the 2011 winter escape. We had great hopes of leaving by 9 am. We had said all our goodbyes the night before. The water was turned off, the thermostat was turned down. But there was no way we were leaving on time! Even after we finally drove our loaded van off the driveway at 10:30, we still had to make one more stop at PrintStudio so that Sue could drop off her Sobeys coupons for Lois. After more goodbyes, we were off. But wait! A few miles down the 52 hwy Sue remembered that we had forgotten our road atlas. Turn around. Back home.

We had to pull into the garage at U.S. customs — and Sue had to surrender her illegal basmati rice. That took a bit of unpacking and repacking.

Sandwiches from home enroute. Nice drive. First gas stop was at Watertown, SD. Well, why don’t we call it a day here? Okay. Checked into a Hampton Inn. It’s cold here! Thats when we discovered that Rudy had forgotten his jacket at home. And his sandals. A bit of verbal abuse from Sue.

Walked through the big Walmart next to our hotel and bought a new fleece for Rudy. Then out for some very delicious burgers at the neighbourhood bar and grill. Everything around here is all decked out for hunters. “Welcome Hunters” signs in all the windows and doors. In fact, we decided to alter our route because Sue struck out getting a hotel reservation in Dickinson, ND this morning because all the rooms were booked by hunters. That’s why we are here in Watertown. We’ll head west to Rapid City after breakfast this morning. Hoping to avoid the big SNOWSTORM that has hit Denver. And we thought we would escape all that bad weather this year. We’ll see.

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