Day 28 - Breakfast Bar, Dixie Quick's and Lotsa Corn

Alright, so here's where we break down the wall between writer and reader, it's time to get real. We're home now, we've been home for a few days, and we're all tired. We've decided to start sleep training now: I go back to work in a month (more soldiers for the war), Gord's sleep schedule is all messed up anyways, we have some events later this month that will require (or at least be WAY better) if we can give him to a Grandparent and have them put him down to sleep. So i'm not going to write log blog posts anymore. The trip home had two real highlights, Chicago (read up later) and the wedding of our friends. So I'll give you the Cole's notes (or the Cliff notes, if you prefer).

So we slept ok last night. A big king and a dry roof would seem like reasonable expectations of a god night sleep, but then there's a baby. Gord refused to go down last night, and that means nobody (especially Theresa) sleeps. We think we 'missed our window', but our clearly tired little man fought with everything he had. And he had a lot it seems. In the end T won the row and we all woke up around 7:45 with plenty of time to spare for continental breakfast! Now I remember staying at many hotels as a growing boy, with parents who liked to be away from home more than anything you see the insides of lot of hotels, but they never had no continental breakfast like this (vacation, remember)! The same staples were there: bagels, yogurt, pastries (donuts and cinnamon buns usually), muffins, cereal (hot and a few choices of cold) and some non-descript fruit. And of course juice, milk, coffee and tea. Not bad, but nothing to get too excited for. But now, these 21st C hotels, these Septmber 12th inns, these new world order refuges, have upped their game. The self-serve waffle bar was again present. As well as the hard-boiled eggs, and this special place had scrambled eggs as well. The coffee was good (if scant), the waffles were outstanding, the yogurt was Greek. We had a great start to our day. 

Make your own waffle station is a game changer at continental breakfasts around the world. Write to your member of parliament and write another one to Bay Street, let North America's hospitality industry hear this demand. 

After breakfast we headed East on, you guessed it, I-80. What can I say? We drove through he rest of Nebraska, past the capital (Lincoln) and into the largest city, Omaha. Across the Missouri R and into Iowa. You wouldn't know it by the landscape, but we were in our 8th state and 13th state/province.

We had a line on lunch in Council Bluffs so we got off our asphalt friend and found our way to the bar-crawl where Dixie Quick's Public House.

What a great place! Attached to the RNG gallery the atmosphere was easy and fun at Dixie Quick's. their menu is on an old school black board, so people gather to pick their food. 

A funky spot to eat the day away.

The menu changes daily because they do their shopping every day. Food blog, food bog. Food blog food blog? Anyway, it was great.

On a diet? I had the chilaquiles 

 

After lunch we stopped by the gallery to say hi to a friend, and then strapped the boy into the carrier to see if we could find something sweet and cold before getting back in the car. 

Posing with a friend.

We found a few ice cream joints on the steamy streets of Council Bluffs, but we ended up going with more familiar fare as we three split a shiver from TCBY. After that we made a shirt stop at the bank and hit the road.

T thought this was hilarious, but I didn't want to speak to a teller.

Once on the road we set our sails for Des Moines, the capital city of this state and our home for the evening. So we drove, through Iowa. Here are some pics in case you want to know what you missed.

It's pretty flat, and pretty green most places.

Everything is big in Iowa. The trucks, the windmill pieces, the sodas, the people (those last two could be related).

Another interesting peculiarity in Iowa was the sheer number of crop seeders! There were little planes everywhere, spraying the fields with something healthful I'm sure.

Ultimately we found our way to Des Moines. Once we found or hotel and got settled in our room we went for dinner at the sushi place across the street.

From this picture you can glean a lot about our states of mind, and you can see some resemblance. The good news is that Gord loves sushi and noodles (shocker).

After dinner we had a little time for some shoulder rides, a bath and then a bed. We were almost home, but we had a busy drive into Chicago tomorrow. We needed our beauty rest.

TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 10

DAILY WILDLIFE: dogs, cows, horses, pigeons

Day 27 - Making Lots of Ground, and Changing Plans

So this one will be short, because, well, we're travelling through Wyoming and Nebraska, and even this cute kid can't do much for these places. We woke up in a backyard, er, KOA and had breakfast. Oatmeal and tea for me, yogurt/granola and free KOA coffee for T (by now it should go without saying that Gord eats anything and everything he can get, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week).

Waking up in the ugly Wyoming KOA, the view wasn't as bad in the pretty morning sun.

Without the hills in the background this could be any backyard in 'name your Ontario suburb'.

We hit the road and had a serious talk. I'd been thinking about our Chicago visit for a few days (since we left San Fran, really) - as planned, it would be our 3rd longest day of the trip, driving over 750 km from Council Buffs, IA all the way to the Windy City. We love Chicago, and we weren't giving ourselves much time there. I had an idea, a change of plans that would see us driving past our planned stop tonight (Happy Jack's Petrol Bar and Campground in Brule NB, seriously, could i make that up?) and onto somewhere closer to Chicago, likely a hotel. This would give us less driving tomorrow (or more, leaving us even closer to Chi-town). T was on board in theory but we decided to see what the day gave us.

So we drove through Why-oming. The landscape got a little more interesting closer to the capital, Chyenne, with grass making an appearance and some interesting rocks popping up.

These would be rocks anywhere else, but in Wyoming they are tourist attractions. 

We passed the (a) Lincoln memorial, and even saw some trees outside of Rawlins, but we didn't stop.

 

Doesn't it look like he's peeing on the great emancipator?

A great man, but not a looker.

When you see a tree in Wyoming you take notice.

So we drove on and on. We stopped in Laramie, WY for another Sub lunch and went to the local Wal-Mart so T could get a knitting needle and we could replenish the baby wipes and hand sanitizer. Then we were back in the car. We made it to Nebraska by about 2:00 and came up to Happy Jack's at about 4:00, right about the time the severe weather alert came on the radio. That made the decision easy. Since we left home I was a bit nervous about driving through tornado alley in the summer storm season, especially with my noun family and nylon shelter. We made the decision right there to head for North Platte and find a hotel.

My impression of what awaited us at Happy Jack's.

Gord had been having a pretty rough day teeth wise (another reason it to be in a tent) and T world really hard to get him to fall asleep. She was successful, just before I realized we needed diesel. I stopped, he woke up (angry), and I got back in the back seat to give my lovely wife a break from our toothy son. 

Finally, at about 5:30 we arrived at North Platte. Remembering our experience in California getting an unplanned hotel e headed for the first place we saw, a Holiday Inn Express just off the freeway. They had an Executive Suite and a Jr. Suite left. We said we'd check around town to see what was available (there were at least 8 other chain hotels in sight) and the nice lady working the desk told us that the Ramada across the street was just renovated and had cheap rates.

They did. Half if what the Holiday Inn was asking, and they had free wifi, a free breakfast bar, and a room with a king bed (Theresa's new obsession). It was perfect. I cooked our planned camp dinner on a picnic table outside the room (my 2nd parking lot kitchen of the trip, the first was Thunder Bay), we gave the little man a bath and were off to dream land.

Our dry and secure abode for the night. No more camping for the trip. :(

As the thunder cracked and the rain poured down I knew we'd made the right decision. 

TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 9

DAILY WILDLIFE: song birds, crows, vultures, dogs - come on people, we sent most of our day in Wyoming and West Nebraska, we were lucky to see mammals in the Wal-mart!

Day 26 - A Three State Day

So we didn't freeze - in fact, we think the native Nevadans (?) were a little nervous for cool temperatures, maybe remembering their first time feeling the temp drop so dramatically, and they simply wanted to warn the foreigners, especially ones with a baby. However, these foreigners felt more relief than anything. Coffee was sipped, oatmeal shovelled (seriously, this kid eats like a horse. You think he's cute? Great, he's coming to your house tonight. We wanted to get on the road before it gt too hot and we had that road to descend, so we got serious and got everything in the car.

About that descent. Again, it was breath taking, literally. There were times when I forgot to breathe, and while I would have loved to get some good pics for ya'll, but I know you value Gord's company too much. Here's the best I could do.

You can sort of make out the road way down there, and that's the flat part you can see about 10,000 ft below.

Oh yeah, and there is wildlife up in the mountains too. We were coming around a tight bend when I screeched to a halt (in truth I was likely travelling about 10 km/h) with a 'wow'. Theresa, a lady nervous about the road thought we were going off a cliff and was protecting Gord. Finally I got her to look up and she saw these two. 

Two jet black cows on this high pass surprised us. We crept past and made sure both parties had as much room as possible in such a dramatic locale.

By 9:09 we'd filled up on ice and headed for Utah on our old friend I-80. It didn't take too long, or at least it didn't feel that long. 

Entering Gord's 5th state. Life elevated!

Of course these borders are all political and human made, but the landscape did undergo a fairly drastic change close to the border. You can see a bit of it under the sign above, but it stretched on to the horizon.

Growing up a Motorsport fan I always knew what Bonneville was. So getting this close to the 'speedway' where all of those land speed records were set and broken, I had to get a pic. It looked like there was some action at the 'track' but it was too far away and we had a long way to go.

Craig Breedlove made a career smashing land speed records at Bonnevliie in cool 'jet-cars' like this one. Rad!

Craig at speed at Bonneville in the '60s.

I thought about honouring Craig and his brothers and sisters in speed by opening it up a little and seeing what it's Turbo Diesel could do, the road was flat and straight, but I had a baby (and a strong wife) in the car so I thought better of it. Glad I did, as I passed a few members of the Utah Highway Patrol a few minutes later, I guess I'm not the only one to think like that.

We'd been in a virtual dessert since we passed Reno and drove away from Tahoe, so coming upon a large marina and the Great Salt Lake was a bit of a surprise. 

It is big, but not a drop to drink.

Here's the Mormon Temple in Sat Lake City, the idea of it freaked us out and we drove past SLC like Rick Grimes escaping Atlanta.

And then, like a Phoenix, rising from Arizona, the mountains returned.

The mountains were back after we left behind Salt Lake City and the salt flats, but these ones had colour. The beautiful red rock was set off by the green brush. 

By is time we were hungry and Gord needed a change. We got through the Salt Lake City suburbs and realized we we entering another dead zone, so we stopped at the first town with 'Food' on the Exit sign. That town was Coalville. Yup, Coalville.

What can I say? We had a sub and some veg and dip, and decided to walk through town a ways, just to kee Gord our of the car seat a little longer. Coalville has 15-16 stores, including a Bunny Club and a general store, but o where to buy a magazine! But the ladies in the post office loved Gord (shocking) and T liked the benches made of skis. It was hard to imagine skiing here, given that we were searching out shade like a vampire at a beach, but Park City is close by and in the winter the shushers take over. 

Standing by the Coal sculpture. Really I was just trying to keep Gord away from the scorching sun.

Old timey downtown Coalville. It may have been rush hour. (Oh we're such hip city mice!)

We got back in the car and again headed East on I-80. And then before we knew it we were in our 3rd state of the day. Leaving Utah and entering Wyoming was as exciting as it sounded. The first thing I noticed was the wind. I noticed it physically, in that I had to hold the wheel more firmly, but the wind was also reflected in the landscape.

It was nice to see the armies of windmills stretched across the horizon, and they were busy with the gales whipping across the plane.

There were also wind/snow fences all over the place. Again, it was hard to picture snow in this 40 C desert, but it snows here come winter and the wind blows that snow everywhere.

Maybe it's because we'd been in the desert for so long, but we found Wyoming pretty boring, in fact we wanted to call it why-oming, as in, 'why come here?' But day 3 of a desert drive may have biased us.

Finally we arrived in Rocksprings and we found our way to the local KOA. I was very surprised to find out where it was - about 50 ft. from the interstate, in a gravel parking lot, and right behind a petrol refinery. Hmmm. Thankfully T is uber positive on the trip (and in general) so we checked in and found some perks right away. For one, they had fresh and free cookies ready for us, and two, it had a pool! We set up camp and got Gord into his wet suit (more sun protection) ASAP so we could hit the water. As usual, he loved it. After that we had dinner and tried to get the man to bed - it took some laps of the park and a patient Mom, but he was down before it was dark.

Hmmm, want to pitch a tent here? Ummm, ok.

TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 8

DAILY WILDLIFE: cows, birds, an antelope - seriously, I didn't even know they were here, but I saw one drinking from a puddle on the side of the interstate.

Day 25 - The Desert can be Boring, But it Holds Beautiful Secrets

We woke up earlyish this morning and enjoyed a nice camp breakfast. I got the fire going and water boiling quickly because even though we were in Caifornia, the elevation let the night temps drop down to 15-16 C, tea and coffee are necessities to waking up in a tent. Once the fire was going I peeked in the tent to see how our man was doing. 

Did Gord get a good sleep? Does he like camping? You tell me.

Knowing we had a ways to go today (the first of three consecutive 600+ km days) we ate quickly, cleaned up quickly, broke down camp quickly, and got on the road. We jumped back on 89 and kept going North towards Tahoe City (where we hoped to get some diesel and ice) and our home for the next 4 days, I-80. Things were slow going through the various small towns along the Western shore of Lake Tahoe with construction regularly reducing the road to one lane only - but it wasn't that bad because the scenery was good. This continued until Tahoe city, where it stopped. Literally, for nearly 20 minutes, and it felt like 60. Lovely.

Finally we were able to creep up to a gas station, paid an extortion fee for our diesel, filled the cooler with fresh ice, and hit the road. We worked our way away from the Lake but still enjoyed the scenery as we paralleled the Truckee R. and manoeuvred through the tall stands of pines. We didn't know it, but it was good that we relished the shade and the tall, elegant creatures, when we finally said goodbye they'd be the last we'd see for the day.

Finally on I-80 we moved into Nevada and the desert. There are two things of note in the desert of Nevada: one, you can make up lots of ground here with 70-75 mph speed limits; and two, the scenery is dry, but beautiful. Lots of dry, barren mountains with the occasional river/crek supporting more greenery. 

So began our search for the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.

Yes there was construction, but it didn't slow us down much. We slowly made our way across the map and watched the temperature climb on the dash of the Jetta. We started the day at 24 C and by the time we got to Reno it was comfortably into the 30s.

By Reno Gord was sund asleep and the temperature had climbed to a dry but Hades-like 36C. Dry heat or not, that was warm. Needless to say, we sped past.

The road system carried us deep into the dessert and provided few things to look at. Lindsay, while comiserating about the ravages that a dry climate can have on a body, told us that "people are not meant to live in Calgary", I wonder what she'd say about this place. 

I love tunnels. Gord does too, he stops whatever he's doing and stares at the lights passing over head.

When Gord finally woke up we were just outside of the sleepy town of Lovelock NV, so we pulled off hoping to get lucky in is small town of 250 warm people. Of course there was the local Scottish burger place, and again it disappointd with no change table, but this one had no play land, and it was packed, so I had to change him in the back seat. T made a case to eat in the AC as the mercury had climbed to 40 C, but I am a stubborn so-and-so and don't want to give them any of our money. That's when I noticed the shaded picnic areas just up the road a way. She placated my curiosity, and to my delight, the shade was easily 10 degrees cooler. With the slight breeze we would have no problem eating a quick picnic lunch before heading out on the road again. The space even had public bathrooms, horseshoe pits, and bbqs. Thank you Lovelock chamber of commerce.

In a little more than an hour we were back on the 80 and heading due West towards Wells, NV. From Wells we were supposed to drive 12 km up into the mountains to a small park reserve calld Angel Lake. Online, at home, this looked perfect - but today, at 40 C, and us being as tired as we were, I was nervous. We topped up our cooler and water supply at a grocery store in Wells and headed up the mountains. I didn't realize NV had country like this. We wove our way through the desert and slowly made our way towards Angel Creek. That's where it started to get really steep. Up and up we went, it must have been a few thousand feet because it made me queasy, and I don't get like that. What is more, the road was narrow and had NO guard rail, NO shoulder, NO room for error. After what felt like an hour (probably closer to 20 min) we finally reached the summit and found our space among the 26 camp sites. There couldn't have been more than 10 occupied sites, and the view was amazing. We'd made a good decision. All in all we'd lost about 10 C by the time we reached the summit, from 40-30. Still not cool, but it was noticeable.

Our site nestled into the rock.

The temp dropped another 10 C as soon as the sun went behind the rock. 

We enjoyed a quick dinner of burgers (and watermelon) and headed for the lake.

What a sight. So far up and full of fish. There was actually a decently busy beach on the left and a large family was enjoying the water and a BBQ dinner.

The alpine desert landscape is alive with sage and emerald, and the skies are a thing of beauty unto themselves.

Wide open spaces and pretty landscape makes Theresa happy.

Gord too.

After our walk we watched the departing sun turn the Eastern sky a magnificent palette of colour, from orange and gold, to pink and purple, and finally to a deep blue-black. 

There were clouds obstructing the moon when I finally went to bed, but I needed no light to walk around. What a find! We were dressed for cool temperatures when we went to bed, told by the park 'host' that it would get "down to 50" (10 C) by morning. 

TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 8

DAILY WILDLIFE: horses, cows, fish, lots of song birds, a large-ish snake on the road up to Angel Lake, and plenty of mice and voles once the sun went down. 

Day 24 - Bye Bye Family and Hello Tahoe!

As I've said earlier in this log, it is always sad to leave the comfortable and loving confines of friends, but we have cats to feed and a garden to water, and Hamilton is a long way away, so today we woke up and packed the car, enjoyed one last breakfast with Karen and the girls, and hit the road. 

Now we were heading for 4 straight nights of camping, our longest stretch of the trip, so we needed groceries. There was a Safeway not far from Karen's place, but she suggested we go a few blocks further to Trader Joe's. we had heard of Trader Joe's from a grocery store junkie friend of ours, so we were familiar with their wares, and we happily filled a small cart to get our small but hungry family across the dry belly of America. As usual, the Berry-Davies' made the choice to eat well, but our modest camp kitchen had to be considered. The piece de resistance was a beautiful organic watermelon, a fruit Gord had recently discovered, and now treated with almost as much delight delight as his beloved ice cream.

A pretty well appointed grocery store, Trader Joe's had what we needed. Except for ice.

Trunk full we headed to a nearby 711 for ice and hit the road. Today was a short(ish) drive to the California side of Lake Tahoe, but we didn't know what traffic would be like so we made haste and put the Pacific to our backs. From Livermore we headed West on the 205, and from there took the 5 North toward Sacramento. These were high, mountainous roads, but as I've said before, the US know how to build their expressways. We snaked our way through these high, dry passes travelling at 130 km/h and barely keeping up with traffic. In the state capital we got on the 50 and headed for South Lake Tahoe. It was a fairly uneventful drive, which can be good every once in a while. 

When we arrived at the beginning of this tourist region the temperature had climbed to 36 C and tall conifer trees had replaced the desert scrub brush. More importantly our sleeping and clean baby had mutated into a stinky and unhappy one. Some of you may know of my ire of a certain Scottish burger joint, but I've never been shy about using them for their facilities, so we stopped into the first one we saw. Karma must have been paying attention because neither the men's nor the ladie's restrooms had change tables. Isn't this supposed to be a place that caters to kids and families? No problem though, the play land attached to the 'restaurant' was unoccupied, so we laid down a receiving blanket on a table and cleaned up up little man there. Sorry about your luck, clown!  (Side note: I have been appalled over the course of this trip at the lack of change tables in men's rooms. A are supposed to have a progressive society, and I am a Dad who wouldn't flinch at the thought of changing my babe's diaper, most Dad's I know are the same. So why then hasn't the hospitality industry followed suit? Maybe I'll start a petition campaign when I get home - Diaper Tables for Daddies?) 

With the diaper situation fixed we now wanted a place to eat. Remember we had just bought a whole mess of groceries, so we wanted a picnic. But it was also approaching sun-surface temperatures, so we were unsure. Then, like an angel sent from above, we saw it. A grass patch that was the median of a parking lot, just in front of the car, shaded by a handful of tale pine trees. Perfect. We threw down our picnic blanket and laid out a spread of hummus, veggie sticks, ginger snap cookies and, of course, watermelon. It was easily 8 C cooler in the shade and we enjoyed a relaxing break from the car while we munched. 

Shangrila in a parking lot. Does this family look a lot and rested or what?

After our meal me packed back up and dove into Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is big, not Great Lake big, but big enough that it can host thousands of people daily. Our camp site for the night was in Sugar Pine Point State Park, which I knew was on the West side of the lake, about halfway up. So jumped on California state highway 89 and headed North. This road was familiar - if you've driven on highway 11, you'd recognize it here. Winery, busy and full of camp grounds, restaurants, bike rentals, beaches and all manner of tourist trap. What was different about this road, however, was how steep and winding it was. People flock to Tahoe in the summer to swim and boat in the deep and beautiful fresh waters of the lake itself, but in the winter skiers flock here for the best skiing between Whistler and Colorado. The landscape is dramatic, the roads narrow, and the hills serious. I gave WIDE berths to any cyclists I saw, an unwritten/unsaid piece tip of the hat. 

We climbed up and down these mountains as we made our way north to our campsite, always within reach of the lake that gives the region its name.

Before too long we reached the park and made camp. It was pretty sweet - lots of trees, a big and new bear box, a great fire pit and fairly good privacy for a park this size. W weren't that hungry and it was still sweltering so we decided to head down the road a mile to Sugar Pine Point Beach. We wore our suits as well, unsure if it would be warm enough to swim, but we wanted to be prepared, especially with our little fish.

Lake Tahoe; what a beauty, eh?

It didn't take long to reach the beach parking lot, and with beach bag packed we headed for the shore. A few hundred feet and a decently steep hill found us on a path about 20 feet from the water's edge, but we were still about 8 feet above the waves, and we walked on a ways before we could find a path down to the beach.

Lake Tahoe in all it's sender. You can even see the ski runs on the distant slopes.

We said we were uncertain about swimming, and that's because everywhere you look here there are big signs that read "CAUTION: Extremely Cold Water". But we'd come from Lake Superior, and we cottage on Georgian Bay, so we quickly out our feet in. Babies! It wasn't the bath water of Lake Erie, but it wasn't that bad. What was bad was the beach. Jagged little gravel designed by Pol Pot to torture your feet, and it didn't give way to sand once in the water, couldn't find an end to it. Nevertheless, we were here to swim, and it was hot, so we limped and cursed our way through and finally found water deep enough to submerge. It was cold enough to take your breath away when you plunged in, but not the daggers of Superior. We had Gord Ina little wet suit, but still we were careful to not put him in too deep or too long. He still loved it and we splashed around for 20 minutes or so.

Thoroughly wet, we limped (I swam as far as I could) back to shore and got out of the water like we were stepping over hot coals. And then we realized it, the beach (except for the sharp pine needles) was gorgeous. And all the people, boats and dogs made it very agreeable to our little man. We sat, lounged and lay on shore until the clock struck 6:00 and decided to pack up and head back to our home for the night for some eats - tonight it was tacos! 

After dinner we went in a nice stroll through the woods with Gord in the carrier. Tahoe hosts the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the trails we were walking on were part of the cross country ski course. Eventually the bugs (mosques) chased us back to the fire, but it was a nice stroll after a mostly relaxing day. With fire popping and hissing we got rap easy for bed and enjoyed a peaceful respit under the California sky for the last time (for a while anyway).

The blue trail is actually the campground loop, we did it many times and felt like Olympians.

TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 7

DAILY WILDLIFE: Dogs, chipmunks, lots of birds and some cows, horses and sheep coming through California farm country.