Archive for the “2008 USA Road Trip” Category

When we left, Pearl had 64,438 miles on her:

One long road trip later, the poor thing had this many:

(That figure includes a quick drive down to Virginia and back yesterday, but still.)

That’s over 9500 miles in just 6 weeks. Pearl is a champion! Bask in her glory:

Pearl at the Badlands:

Pearl at the center of the nation:

Pearl on the Navajo Bridge:

Way to go, Pearl! You totally deserve the day of beauty I got you today at Jiffy Lube.

Here’s the entire trip. Hmm, at this size it looks like just a bunch of green pins sticking out of the country. I recommend clicking the “View Larger Map” link just below the map to view this in its own window and then zooming in a couple of times to get a better look at it. I did have to take a few editorial liberties with the exact path because Google Maps wouldn’t allow me to use more than 25 destination points. It is, however, mostly accurate. Whew! That’s a long drive. Good job, Pearl!

P.S. This is not the end of the blog. Check back soon for Isabel’s post about our final day on the road (it will fall in below the “And We’re Home” post). We’ll also continue to blog on this site. We’ve had a blast chronicling our journey and, as I mentioned before, we have more traveling to do! Check back often for updates!

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Our final day took us through a record (I think) five states and one district. Whew. When we decided it was time to get home, we went for it. Sure, there were a few other spots on the map that we considered dropping in on, but we decided to save them for one of the three(!) more trips that we’re making before the end of the year. The last three days of this trip were pretty brutal driving-wise. We drove from Georgetown, Colo., to DC with only a very few minor stops along the way. Have a look at our last day’s route below. We are dedicated!

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Today was all about the drive, obviously. The good news for you is that I have a record number of state signs for you to enjoy! But first, we had an exciting find in Indiana:

That’s right; it’s the other Hagerstown. Thanks, Indiana!

Before we knew it, we were back in Ohio:

Look what happened while we were gone!

Then, Pennsylvania!

Then, West Virginia!

Then, Maryland!

Ahem. I lived in Maryland for 18 years, and I had to go to California to see a bear. I feel totally ripped off!

We drove through Sideling Hill:

What’s Sideling Hill, you ask? Wikipedia answers!

The Sideling Hill road cut is a 340-foot deep road cut where Interstate 68 cuts through Sideling Hill, about 6 miles west of Hancock in Washington County, Maryland. It is notable as an impressive man-made mountain pass, visible from miles away and is considered one of the best rock exposures in Maryland and the entire northeastern United States. Almost 810 feet of strata in a tightly folded syncline are exposed in this road cut. Although other exposures may surpass Sideling Hill in either thickness of exposed strata or in quality of geologic structure, few can equal its combination of both.

We enjoyed more foliage:

And then, this glorious moment:

Welcome home, us.

Hi everyone,

We are home!! But I just do not have a real post in me for tonight, and I doubt Brian does either. So check back later this weekend for the scoop on what we did on our last day and what we’re doing next!

How long have I been waiting to say that? Actually, we’re not in Missouri or Illinois anymore either. Today was probably the biggest distance push we’ve made so far. We realized that if we tried, we could actually make it home tomorrow!! So, that’s the goal. Huzzah!

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After we left Junction City this morning, we got on the road and left I-70 for a quick lunch break in Kansas City. On the way, we saw this guy:

Soon, we were in Missouri!

We drove straight through and went down to visit our friend the Gateway Arch in St. Louis:

We met the Arch in 2005 when we had been dating for a few months and Brian had to go to St. Louis for a conference, so I tagged along. At that point, we actually took the tour up to the top of the Arch, which was a terrifying journey in a very small, rickety space pod–looking thing. This time, we could only stay for a quick visit.

Then we crossed the Mississippi River and were in Illinois!

And then we drove through Illinois and found ourselves in Indiana!!

As you can see, we are really focused on getting home now. We’re staying at a Super 8 in Greenfield, Ind., and we are hoping to push ourselves to make it home tomorrow evening. Woo hoo!

After moseying about the country for the past few weeks, Isabel and I realized the other day that we need to make it home, and fast. As is often the case, we find ourselves running late and scurrying at the last minute to arrive on time. Because of this, we need to make a beeline home. We did a pretty good job of putting some miles behind us today, but were foiled slightly by the switch from the Mountain to Central time zone. Not to worry though, we’re still doing okay. For some reason, the time zones have surprised and confused us during the entire trip. When flying, it’s easy to understand that your destination has a different time than your departure location. When driving, it’s much more disorienting to comprehend that it’s now 5pm, even though a mile ago it was 4pm… at least for us it is.

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Today was all about driving and trying to get as far east as possible, so I thought I wouldn’t have anything to report… but I do!

First of all, when we came into Georgetown, Colo., last night, we noticed a sign for a bighorn sheep “viewing area” in town. Before we left this morning, we went into the Georgetown Welcome Center to get the scoop. We really wanted to see a bighorn sheep to add to our collection of large wild mammals we’ve gotten to see on our trip. The lady at the welcome center told us they have this huge herd of bighorn sheep that live near the town, and she directed us to the viewing area (where there is information as well as pay telescopes) and also told us the next town over often enjoyed the pleasure of bighorn sheep standing in residents’ yards. Soooo, we were very determined, and after trying the viewing area and making two trips across a small stretch of I-70 and back, we were successful!!!

They’re kind of hard to see because they are the same color as the rocks, but these were relatively easy to spot because some dude had decided to double park his car on the shoulder of I-70 and walk straight into the herd with his point-&-shoot camera. Um… wild animals are dangerous?! But go for it, I guess. Anyway, because this guy had disrupted the sheep, they were walking around a bit, possibly in order to get the best angle from which to charge the guy and ram him in the chest. We didn’t stick around to find out. Instead, we drove to Kansas!

(I have to tell you that before we left Colorado, we visited the Colorado Welcome Center at Red Rock Amphitheater, which is a really interesting place where there is a natural amphitheater formed by rocks. We were hoping to find something quick and iconic we could do when we passed through Denver, but the guy we spoke with at the Welcome Center [who was very nice and quite enjoyable to talk to, but reminded Brian of Abe Simpson] had no suggestions whatsoever for Denver and instead told us all about a restaurant in Abilene, Kansas. He also had a lot of difficulty remembering the names of things; for example, he referenced “a big hole in the ground.” He meant the Grand Canyon. We loved him!!)

We made a stop in Goodland, Kan., to see this giant easel:

That easel is 80 feet tall. See Brian (who is 6′2″ tall) in the bottom right corner of the photo? The Van Gogh sunflower reproduction is 24 by 32 feet. Pretty awesome, Goodland, Kansas!

As if that weren’t enough, on the back of the painting, we discovered a bird condo.

See them??

The next highlight of the day was finding a place that had gas for $2.85 a gallon:

I haven’t seen numbers like that in a while. Other than that, the rest of day was mostly like this:

We’re now at the very, very lovely Econo Lodge in Junction City, Kansas, and I mean it when I say it is lovely here. Its loveliness is especially poignant tonight because we had to leave our first hotel, the “Red Carpet Inn,” because it was infested. I sure wish I were joking, but I’m not. That’s what we get, I guess, for trying to save, like, five dollars. Really, almost every place we’ve stayed in has been completely fine and at least clean; I’ve stayed in a lot of cheap motels in my life, and this is the first time I’ve actually had to get my money back and go elsewhere! But anyway, the Econo Lodge suffers no such problem, and we are clean, happy, and unafraid to use the shower. Plus, I think my heart rate is coming down from my near-panic attack in our former room. Hooray!

We’ll have another day of driving tomorrow. I can’t promise more bighorn sheep and giant easels, but you never know!

I believe we reached a new high today… 11,158 ft. high, to be exact. Between Vail and Georgetown, we passed through the Eisenhower Tunnel—the highest vehicular tunnel in the world and also the highest point of the interstate system. That was just a few miles ago, so I’m assuming we’re still pretty close to the same elevation. I can’t wait to drop down to a normal elevation. After the Rockies, it must flatten out, right?

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