Westbound Wandering

Well, my voyage is over...

2008-09-15T12:50:00.001-07:00

...for the time being anyhow. I may continue to use this blog when I go on trips as a way to keep track of places I've seen and things I've done.

I stopped off in Tennessee on my way home from Wyoming, spent 36 hours there and continued on to South Carolina where I spent 6 days with my parents and sister and niece.

I came back to Maryland last Wednesday and I am so, so glad to be home. I had a fabulous time on vacation but it's nice to be back home too.

Greetings from Arkansas

2008-09-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all! I drove 633 miles today, which is about 200 more than I had originally planned but I was making such good time that I just kept on going and going until the sun went down. And here I sit in Arkansas! I was in 4 different states today, saw lots of old Rt. 66 as it paralleled I-40, and saw a gorgeous, bright orange sunset in my rear view mirror as I was coming into Arkansas. Now the weather is heading downhill as the hurricane is making its' way inland.

I'm am going to try to get up at a reasonable time tomorrow morning (unlike today!) and get on the road ASAP to try and avoid the heavy rain/wind that Arkansas is expecting tomorrow. I'm heading into TN tomorrow and I am so excited!! I was initially planning on spending 2 nights in TN, one on each end of the state, but I have been making such good time the last couple of days that I'm almost a whole day ahead of schedule so instead of stopping in western TN for one night, I'm going to push on through and just spend two nights in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. That's probably my favorite place on earth!

Did I mention yesterday that I sent Hotwire.com a little email about the room I had to stay in last night? Well, I did and within 2 hours I had a reply telling me that they had forwarded my complaint to the investigation department (or something like that) and that I should hear back within 10 days.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my email tonight and there was a reply from that department saying that they were very sorry that the room was unacceptable and that they were crediting me with 50$ in Hotwire "bucks" (or whatever their own currency is called!) and that I had a year to use the credit for a room/flight/car rental. Now, that is great customer service. I hadn't planned on using Hotwire.com again because I figured they'd be like most companies and blow off my complaint. I am thrilled that they actually read my email, responded twice and the credit was a nice touch. I may have to rethink using their service again sometime!

Anyhow, it's late and I have another 600+ miler tomorrow so I should get to bed. I'll try to add some of our last pictures from Wyoming later this week!!

Greetings from Rt 66 in New Mexico

2008-08-31T19:05:00.001-07:00

I'm spending my 5th anniversary alone at a crappy hotel in New Mexico. I wish more than anything that I was back home with my husband, even though I'm having a good time seeing the country.

I made it back to Cheyenne last night and then left there early this morning for New Mexico. The drive through Colorado was nice but good grief, NM is booooring. It was so windy today too and it was hard to keep my car on the road.

If you ever come through this little town called Tucumcari, NM, I suggest you do NOT stay at the Travelodge. It is filthy and outdated and if I hadn't already driven 550 miles today I would've found another place. I suggest checking out the little mom & pop hotels in this town because they are certainly a better deal!

Here are some pictures of this NASTY hotel room, which I booked through Hotwire.com. I used that site for the first time last night and had NO idea that they'd consider this dump of a place a 2 star hotel. On their website it said that 2 stars were places like Days Inn and La Quinta. Evidently to Hotwire.com Travelodge is the same thing. UGH

Black mold growing on the shower:

Wallpaper peeling off the walls and a filthy baseboard that has never been cleaned:

Dirty light switch:

And check out this nasty toilet:

There is more, but I'll spare you. I sent Hotwire an email telling them that I was very disappointed in their services because it was deceiving to tell me that the place I was bidding on was a 2 star when I don't really think Travelodge and Motel 6 and Super 8 are the same "class" of hotels as Days Inn and La Quinta. I doubt I'll hear back from them but after seeing how dirty this place was, I felt they needed to know so that maybe they could stop listing this place on their website.

Tomorrow takes me into Texas and Oklahoma. It's going to be another long day, I'm sure.

2,537 miles...

2008-08-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

I just googled and that's how far it is from here in Wyoming back to my parents house in SC. Of course google suggested going a different way than I am but I managed to route my travel so that I'd go through my favorite place on earth--Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge, TN and then down through Cherokee and Maggie Valley, NC. And I'm avoiding Atlanta, which Google had me going through! So, I leave this coming Saturday and I should be out & about doing some last minute shopping and picking up gifts for my family but I've spent the morning trying to map out my route and figure out where I'd be staying each night. I think I have a rough guess as to the cities I'll be in and the places I'll stay, so that's good!!

Yesterday Will and I went back to Yellowstone for what will probably be the last time. We went through the entire park, all the way up to the northern parts and then back down again and it took all day. We left our hotel at 7:30 and didn't get back home until almost 7:30 last night. We saw a moose and her/his(?!?) baby yesterday morning, we saw a few elk and a few buffalo but no bears!! We stopped and saw lots of pretty waterfalls and we had a nice picnic lunch up at the Mammoth Hot Springs area. I think that's my favorite area of the park. The buildings all look like they are straight out of the early 1900s and it's just such a cute little area. We were lucky enough to be there for Christmas in August, which evidently is a long-standing tradition in the parks. There was Christmas music playing, a house fully decorated with garland and ornaments, the Hotel at Mammoth Springs was all decked out too! If you'd like to read more about the origins of Christmas in August at Yellowstone here is a great link: Christmas in August.

I wish I had pictures to share from yesterday but I ended up filling my memory card and then having to download them onto Will's laptop while we were sitting in a parking lot. And he's at work today, and so are my pictures!! Instead, I'll share some pictures from last week. One day Will and I decided to head over to the Snow King Resort area and take the chairlift up to the top of the mountain. This thing was so, so tall and I am terrified of heights. This is a recent thing because I've never been that scared of heights until the last couple of years.

Anyhow, this chairlift goes all the way up the mountain and then there are some observation decks and a little nature trail. And an outhouse, because apparently there is no running water at the top of the mountain. And it would figure that I'd really need to use the potty up there, right? Yep. Disgusting!

The views from the top were fabulous and we walked the nature trail, which was also fun, except for those stupid bugs that fly around and make loud clicking noises. I'm more scared of the bugs than I am of heights and I thought I'd surely run off the side of the mountain whilst trying to dodge those things. Ugh and Eww! Here's the view from the top of the mountain, looking down over the city of Jackson. Well, one side of Jackson anyhow. The husband took the pictures because there was no way in you-know-where that I was standing out on that observation deck that's dangling out over the mountain!

And here's a picture of the Elk Refuge just outside of town. See that big, green grassy area with the water? Yeah, that's it. This is the winter home to lots of elk around here. Obviously they aren't there during the summer as you can tell from the picture.

And here, here is a view of town while we were on the chairlift going back down. Just to give you an idea of how far up this chair lift is, it took 20 minutes to go up or come down. This isn't like those sissy chairlifts in Gatlinburg!!

After we were firmly deposited back on solid ground, we decided to go play mini golf. This had to of been *the* most ghetto mini golf I've ever seen. Seriously. It looks like it was built back in the 60s and hasn't been maintained or updated since. Will and I tied but only because of a little cheating on both of our parts! Here's a picture of yours truly. Yes my eyes are closed. Hey, the sun was really bright!!

Thanks for checking out my pictures. I'll try to get back tomorrow with more pictures of Yellowstone and the Grand Teton parks.

Less than a week.

2008-08-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

I am starting to realize that my time left here is very short. This time next Sunday I'll be on my way back to South Carolina and that makes me very sad. Not that I'm not excited to see my family and my puppies, but this place is just so, so beautiful that it's going to be extremely hard to leave. The month has flown by and I don't feel as though I've done as much as I've wanted to do but I've also had a lot of time to relax and just sit in the room, which has also been nice.

Last week, Will and I went back up to Yellowstone. We went up past Old Faithful and saw up-close all of the things we'd passed the other day on the way out but didn't have time to stop & see. We saw tons of geysers and springs. We saw elk and a buffalo or two. We had lunch at the cutest little lunch counter at the Old Faithful area. All in all, it was a fabulous time. We've come to realize though that if we want to see the northern parts of the park we're going to have to leave extra early--like 6:00 in the morning. Which is what we're doing tomorrow!! I am so excited. I'm going to pack us a picnic basket full of yummies for breakfast and lunch and some snacks and we're prepared to spend the entire day there! I can't believe this will be my last time in the parks, at least for the foreseeable future. That makes me sad too.

Here are some of our pictures from last week:

Thanks for stopping by!

New Pictures!

2008-08-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

Will and I headed to Yellowstone via the Grand Tetons yesterday afternoon. He'd worked the night before and didn't get back to the room until 8:00 so we slept in for a while and then got dressed and left for the parks around noon. We spent the entire afternoon up in Yellowstone and we still didn't have enough time to do hardly anything! Hopefully we can get back up there this weekend though.

Hey look, a mud pot. I think that's what this was called!! Big ol hole full of bubbling mud. Yum!

Wanna closer look? Here ya go!

After we left the mud hole thing, we saw this guy walking down the middle of the road. Yeah, the buffalo can do that because really, who is going to stop them? They do not care one bit if you are in a hurry and I think they may take their sweet ol time just to see if they can make you mad. This guy did finally make his way to the side of the road, unlike some of his relatives we encountered later in the day.

Next up was the Fishing Bridge, which you can't actually fish from anymore, but evidently back in the day this was *THE* fishing spot. I guess over-fishing of the area caused the park to close the bridge for that but you can still walk across it. Which I wouldn't recommend if you are at all scared of bridges, like I am. Oh, it's not tall or very far from the water, but anytime a vehicle drives over it, the whole thing starts shaking. Yeah, I got off of there real quick like.

And here's the view of the Yellowstone River from the bridge. I took this picture and got the heck off of there ASAP!

After we left the Fishing Bridge area we drove (and drove) and finally reached the Mud Volcano area. Ever wondered what cat urine, a outhouse in Hell and rotting roadkill would smell like if it were all mixed together? Yeah, me neither, but that's exactly what this little area smelled like. I mean as soon as you get close you can smell it. When you open the door of your car, the smell will cause your eyes to tear up. Or at least that's how it happened for me. I think I even gagged once or twice, but I will admit, I am a sissy when it comes to odors. Here's the mud volcano. It's a lot like a mud pot, only bigger and much, much stinkier!

And another up close picture of muddy bubbles:

Also at this Mud Volcano area is this little gem called Dragon's Mouth Springs. The steam was pretty neat looking but it still smelled horrible.

And then this lovely little puddle of bubbling green liquid.

Next up was the Sulfur Cauldron area.

After leaving all of the smelly areas we were stuck in a traffic jam due to oh, about a billion buffalo crossing the road and heading for the river for an afternoon swim. And as I said earlier, those things do not care at all if you've needed to use the restroom for the last 2 hours. Not that that happened to me or anything, I'm just sayin'. There were probably a hundred cars in line each direction waiting for the bison to cross the road. The park rangers finally came out, like that was going to really help (it didn't) and eventually there was enough of a break in the crowd that the cars were able to get by. And I was able to find a bathroom.

After we found the restrooms and got back into traffic, we encountered MORE BUFFALO. Imagine that. Only these guys were in no particular hurry to go anywhere. They'd be in our lane, and then walk into the oncoming lane, and then back. And forth. Repeat about 1000 times. I was trying to get a good picture of the baby buffalo but as we were passing and I pointed my camera at the buffalo, its' momma made a big old grunty snort noise which promptly caused me to yell out to my husband "holy ----, don't stop. What are you doing?? DRIVE" Yeah, momma buffalo didn't look pleased when I tried to take the picture! Here's the best I could do through the windshield of the car.

So, by now it's getting late and we kind of thought we might see some more animals since it was feeding time. And we did. On the way out of Yellowstone we saw this moose. The pictures aren't great because the sun was shining right in my face. Oh, and the fact that we were driving down the road while I snapped away.

Same moose:

We also saw an elk but none of those pictures turned out. As we were driving through the Grand Tetons and the sun was setting, we stopped over at Oxbow Bend and I saw the moon coming up.

And then we saw the sun setting behind us. It was a perfect ending to a great day in the Parks.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Some pictures...finally!

2008-08-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pictures I've taken over the last week.

Grand Tetons from Gros Ventre Road

Barn on Mormon Row

A rain shower moving across the field

Some pretty flowers growing through a fence

Another barn on Mormon Row

A baby moose we saw one afternoon

A big ol buffalo

And finally, a pappa moose we saw one day

I hope you enjoy the pictures!!

Wyoming is AMAZING!!

2008-08-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

I am having a fabulous time here in Wyoming. I made it into Jackson last Saturday afternoon around 3:00 and I have been pretty busy since then. I spent Friday night in Cheyenne and really wish I had spent an extra day there since there was so much to do. I left early Saturday morning though because I was really excited to get here and see my husband.

Saturday night we went out with some of my husband's coworkers to grab dinner and then came back to the hotel so I could relax. My husband had to work Sunday so I stayed in the room and watched mindless crap on MTV all afternoon and it was so relaxing. It was exactly what I needed after 5 days of driving over 2300 miles.

Monday we drove up to Yellowstone and spent some time watching Old Faithful and then drove back through the Grand Tetons. The views are so amazing- it's really hard to describe how beautiful it is here. I could seriously pack up all of my stuff back in Maryland and move out here in a heartbeat!

We've seen lots of buffalo since I've been out here. Big ol buffalo, little bitty baby buffalo...they are everywhere! On Monday afternoon as we were driving home from the parks, we were on a little gravel back road and saw a momma and baby moose in a pond on the side of the road. The baby was literally like 10 feet away from us and it was so damn cute! The momma moose saw everyone standing around taking pictures of her and the baby and didn't seem to mind. We were careful not to get too close though. Then yesterday around 2:00 we were driving on another little scenic road and saw a big ol papa moose standing in a river drinking water. He was freaking HUGE!!

My husband has to work tomorrow night so I'm going to spend the afternoon hanging out here in town and I'll probably take him dinner. I haven't really even been into the stores here in town so I'm looking forward to doing that too! I've already spotted a couple of thrift stores that I am dying to check out!

Nebraska is soooo boring!

2008-07-31T19:58:00.000-07:00

I've finally made it to Nebraska and all I gotta say is WOW. This state is very wide. And very boring! Of course I'm probably just a little grumpy because it was another long day and my back is killing me and I'm very tired.

I just didn't have any idea I'd be this tired every night- I'm basically pulling into town around 7:30, getting a room, finding something quick for dinner and then passing out before 11 each night. Not at all how I thought this trip was going to go!

More tomorrow....

Greetings from Greenfield, Indiana

2008-07-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I've stopped for the night here in Greenfield, Indiana, and I am so exhausted that I didn't even want to blog. I left Baltimore around 8:00 this morning and rolled into this little town around 5:45. That's almost 600 miles! The day was so pleasant- not much traffic, beautiful scenery, seeing parts of the country I'd never seen before.

Here are some of my observations about today:

* 600 miles is too many- 400 seemed too few since I was making such good time but I'm regretting doing 600 only because my knees are KILLING ME now! Tomorrow will not be a 600-mile day.

* I-70 is about a billion times more pleasant to drive on than I-95. I could.not.believe how easy it was to drive this interstate today. None of the constant stop-and-go crap I have dealt with so many times on I-95, very few people that tried to run everyone off the road going 90 mph.

* I-70 has tons of freaking construction!! But, there weren't any real traffic jams or anything even though every state has construction going on.

* Regardless of how red-necky it looks to have a small CB antenna on my SUV, I will never travel again without one. I absolutely do not care one bit if it looks stupid having a CB in my car- that thing has proven to be so fantastic today. So many times I'd hear about a cop up ahead, or road construction or traffic or whatever. I LOVE IT!

* Truckers are hilarious. And vulgar. Not all of them, of course, but I heard more about boobs today than I cared to!

* Taking a solo trip has advantages, but some of the disadvantages are a) not being able to take good pictures while riding down the road and b) no naps. lol I really missed the napping part!

Now, for some of my favorite things I've seen today:

* Longhorn cattle on the side of the road in Ohio

* the sweet little deer eating wildflowers on the side of the highway in Maryland

* little mountain towns in western MD and WV

* Cracker Barrel restaurants like every 2 exits all.day.long

* Seeing a sign for Tim Hortons in Ohio- I'm really wishing I would've stopped

* Passing through parts of 5 states today! Woo-hoo

So, I'm planning on sleeping in tomorrow, checking out and hitting up a Goodwill store and then taking US 40 (I think that's the name!) instead of the interstate. I really want to get off of the hwy and go through small towns.

I wish I had pictures to share but I am too tired to even worry about uploading tonight. I hope I have something to share tomorrow though!!

I leave tomorrow...

2008-07-28T06:40:00.000-07:00

... and I still haven't started packing! Tomorrow morning I am leaving for my drive to Wyoming. I am so, so excited, but I'm also really nervous! What if I have car trouble along the way? What if I drive too far one day and then can't find a hotel? What if I love Wyoming so much that I never want to come home?? I'm hoping that my journey out west will be a lot of fun with minimal complications.

I started planning this trip in April when I found out my husband would be spending the month in Jackson, WY due to his job. I've spent countless hours online trying to figure out what I wanted to see and do along the way and here it is a day before I am to leave and I still don't really have a plan. I mean my plan just consists of getting in my car tomorrow and heading west. That seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do - leaving without any concrete plans, but that's the way it's happening and I'm hoping for the best.

I have so many things I have left to do today: packing, running to Wal-mart for some last minute things, cleaning out my car, finishing up all the lists I've started. I even slept in today knowing that I was wasting valuable time but I really needed that extra sleep!! I'm still waiting on UPS to deliver my luggage so I hope that happens soon!! I have stacks of clothing piled up around the house that are just waiting for the bags to arrive.

I'm hoping that I'll have reliable internet access throughout my trip so I can use this blog to post about all of the exciting things I've done. I'm so thankful that I'm not really on any deadlines and I can take my time and enjoy my drive out there. I hope I find tons of antique stores and thrift stores and flea markets along the way too!!