Apr 21

April 21 – Buffalo Wild Bill Cody Fort Began Our Fun-Filled Day of History

DSC_2120Slept good, no mountains in sight, a couple cups of coffee and I was ready to begin the day, which turned into an enjoyable day of some “Wild West” history; after all we were following the trek west of the early history of the Oregon Trail in reverse.
We visited Fort Cody before heading out of town. I had a blast doing some shopping for my son Cody, taking some silly pictures, chatting with the two lovely ladies who run the fort, mailing a postcard which I actually got to slip into an authentic Pony Express leather mail holder and receiving some history lessons. One of the sweet ladies at the shop and museum is a retired school teacher. Buffalo Bill had a farm a little ways up the road in the later years of his life. In the early days he was an army scout and pony express rider.

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Apr 20

April 20 – Today We Hit The Highest Elevation On This Trip

Entering NebraskaToday Hit The Highest Elevation Experienced During Our entire Trip across the USA. How high? 8640 feet. 5280 Feet is ONE MILE so this is 1.64 miles up in the air! Thin air!

I swear I am not trying to dwell on negative thoughts but I think the elevation is eating my brain cells or at least the good mood ones.
Slept like crap, left the hotel fairly early, did not even bother with breakfast and headed east out of town.
Literally the second we got to the edge of town on the interstate, we saw a semi sitting on its side, perfectly straight, like it was simply tipped over. Seeing something like that does not build one’s confidence in what is coming up ahead. A wind gust must have blown the entire rig over, as there were no signs of a crash.

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Apr 19

April 19 – Thought The Largest Mountains Were Behind Us?

end of I-84Woke up refreshed, enjoyed a much better complimentary breakfast than normal in a grand acoustic lobby setting, dragged our feet getting ready, finally loaded the car and got on our way.
By the way I would highly suggest Ben Lomond Suites in Downtown to anyone visiting Ogden Utah. Ladies the bathrooms are huge.

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Apr 18

April 18 – Seeing Idaho on the Fly

Idaho mountainsLet me begin these next few blogs with an apology. If I don’t paint your home state in the best of light, people should realize I am only seeing part of that particular state, but I am sure there are plenty of beautiful areas in every state so please do not become offended. It is just my limited knowledge and opinion, however I would enjoy hearing about places to visit in each state. Some days we barely make it through a state and other days we’re just barreling through several ones. Our ‘good’ days are those that come with the pleasure of being educated or wowed by nature or human creativity or perseverance. The ‘bad’ days are the ones that have no highlights form scenery to food to human interaction. Our trip through Idaho today fell distinctly into that latter category.

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Apr 17

April 16 and 17 – The Oregon Columbia River Gorge is a Magical Journey

Columbia GorgeWe sadly said good-bye to my daughter and my three precious grand children. It’s so difficult to leave when they are small because I worry that they forget so easily. I am going to make sure to Skype a lot.
The drive from Silverdale WA to Vancouver OR was uneventful but still found too many aggressive drivers on the road.
We ate lunch in Vancouver then got back on the road. Once we hopped on I-84 the magic began. So far this has to be my favorite drive for scenery, decent considerate drivers, lush landscape and adorable little towns. Driving the gorge is something to behold and quite literally my photos or description could never do it justice.
The rivers, dams, towns, people, flowers, trees and everything in between already has me making plans for a return trip.
I really want us to take about a month just to meander and explore the entire gorge drive.

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