Slight hiccup in our plans today. We discovered via the free internets in Tonopah that the road we would take into Yosemite National Park is closed right now due to snow and what have you. Other roads are open, but it would take us way too long to do that. So straight on to San Francisco we go. I guess April is too early for National Parks.
We'll have to plan another trip to Yosemite or Yellowstone for another time. ::sigh::
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Day 4 Alliance to Tonopah
Got in to Alliance extremely late last night, sorry for the delays in posting. We arrived in Alliance around 11:30 at night, but according to our internal Chicago clocks it was 12:30 and according to our internal home clocks 1:30. Needless to say we were pretty exhausted. Especially since NE-2 was a desolate empty road with no lights. A couple jack rabbits (possibly) tried to waylay us and there was a suicidal owl and bat (we think) but other than that a lot of farmland and a lot of cargo trains and a lot of nothing.
Alliance… was pretty incredible. A one street town with a lot of what seemed like trailer homes, a couple gas stations, a couple hotels and a few fast food joints. And a lot of open space. It was an interesting experience, totally different from what I’m used to.
Woke up sort of early, but not as early as planned due to need of sleep, and went to Carhenge. Let me stress NEBRASKA IS FRIGGING COLD. And really windy. And there was still snow on the g round. Carhenge was supremely awesome but I couldn’t feel my fingers after a minute so I really hope I got some good shots. We were out there taking photos for a while but I kept having to take breaks to try and warm my hands. Matt says that Carhenge is kind of in an area like the real Stonehenge. I’m jealous. Now I want to go to Stonehenge. And come back to Carhenge in the Summer. So so so cold. Nebraska is COLD.
The landscape got kinda wacky after that – a lot of hills that I don’t think I can express in words or photos – they were so hard to capture. I was driving also, so Matt got some photos of those, but we decided that we aren’t really landscape photographers so we’re not sure if they capture the beauty of the hills.
We’re probably going to have very few stops this leg since we have a 14 hour drive to Tonopah according to Wilma, who has been known to be wrong. A lot. But we are changing time zones again which will help. We have plenty of food in the car, so we’re thinking PB&J for lunch and Matt can have his leftover pizza for dinner and I think I have leftovers or something too, if not more PB&J is fine. Might also have shorter driving shifts so that we can nap and try to catch up on sleep a little. We have a few alternate stops that we can make that are before Tonopah if necessary, but considering that would take away from our time in Yosemite National Park or San Francisco, we’re hesitant to do that. We’ll see how far we can get before we collapse I guess.
Signing off for now, cheese and crackers are calling my name.
Lovin Harley’s Summit in Utah!!! Driving through the mountains is one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. No, the most incredible. The Rocky Mountains are so … words can not express how beautiful this is. We’re driving through a curvy valley right between two sets of mountains covered in snow and… we keep slowing down because 1. it’s pouring rain but 2 it’s so so beautiful we keep getting distracted.
Just passed The Great Salt Lake and … I’m speechless once again. Utah is incredibly beautiful. Matt probably already mentioned this but we’ve seen so many different landscapes in this day alone that I’m overwhelmed. We went from the flats of Nebraska to the hills of Nebrasky to the buttes (mesas, whatever) of Wyoming, to more hills and huge crags to the beautiful Rocky Mountains. The rain has stopped, the sun is coming out and the clouds are just amazing. Today is the best day yet. And it’s only day 4. I keep trying to think of words to express how I’m feeling right now but all I can say is today has been near perfect and I love that I’m sharing this with Matt.
Bit later
Tack on to our list of different landscapes from today the absolute complete flatness that is the stretch of Utah before the Salt Flats. It’s like crossing the Ocean. There is no going back once you hit this stretch. No turning around and no getting off. It’s beautiful, but intimidating. It looks like people have created messages with rocks in the sand or salt that we’re driving through right now. I wish we had time to stop and read them. There also appear to be a lot of beer bottles. Broken and made into weird art formations and whole and in weird art formations. We’re driving towards more mountains that look beautiful. I can see the cloud above the salt flats in the distance, pretty cool stuff all this.
And, just so you all know – the FIRST thing you see when you cross the border into Nevada is a casino. Go figure. Mountains and a Casino. Then a road full of small casinos and then a road straight towards the mountains surrounded by nothing.
Okay wait a minute wait a minute let’s back track for a minute.
Flat Nebraska
Nebrasky hills
Butte’s and Mesas in Wyoming,
Hills and Crags in Wyoming,
Beautiful Rocky Mountains in Utah,
Completely Flat Salt Flats in Utah,
Desert Mountains in Nevada.
All in one day. Wow. Right now we are driving on a road through the desert that is absolutely beautiful. It’s also completely empty. We see a car maybe every 10 minutes. There are no towns. Again with the whole intimidating thing. But we have almost a full tank of gas so I’m not really worried at all. Just basking in the beauty through a bug stained windshield.
Alliance… was pretty incredible. A one street town with a lot of what seemed like trailer homes, a couple gas stations, a couple hotels and a few fast food joints. And a lot of open space. It was an interesting experience, totally different from what I’m used to.
Woke up sort of early, but not as early as planned due to need of sleep, and went to Carhenge. Let me stress NEBRASKA IS FRIGGING COLD. And really windy. And there was still snow on the g round. Carhenge was supremely awesome but I couldn’t feel my fingers after a minute so I really hope I got some good shots. We were out there taking photos for a while but I kept having to take breaks to try and warm my hands. Matt says that Carhenge is kind of in an area like the real Stonehenge. I’m jealous. Now I want to go to Stonehenge. And come back to Carhenge in the Summer. So so so cold. Nebraska is COLD.
The landscape got kinda wacky after that – a lot of hills that I don’t think I can express in words or photos – they were so hard to capture. I was driving also, so Matt got some photos of those, but we decided that we aren’t really landscape photographers so we’re not sure if they capture the beauty of the hills.
We’re probably going to have very few stops this leg since we have a 14 hour drive to Tonopah according to Wilma, who has been known to be wrong. A lot. But we are changing time zones again which will help. We have plenty of food in the car, so we’re thinking PB&J for lunch and Matt can have his leftover pizza for dinner and I think I have leftovers or something too, if not more PB&J is fine. Might also have shorter driving shifts so that we can nap and try to catch up on sleep a little. We have a few alternate stops that we can make that are before Tonopah if necessary, but considering that would take away from our time in Yosemite National Park or San Francisco, we’re hesitant to do that. We’ll see how far we can get before we collapse I guess.
Signing off for now, cheese and crackers are calling my name.
Lovin Harley’s Summit in Utah!!! Driving through the mountains is one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had. No, the most incredible. The Rocky Mountains are so … words can not express how beautiful this is. We’re driving through a curvy valley right between two sets of mountains covered in snow and… we keep slowing down because 1. it’s pouring rain but 2 it’s so so beautiful we keep getting distracted.
Just passed The Great Salt Lake and … I’m speechless once again. Utah is incredibly beautiful. Matt probably already mentioned this but we’ve seen so many different landscapes in this day alone that I’m overwhelmed. We went from the flats of Nebraska to the hills of Nebrasky to the buttes (mesas, whatever) of Wyoming, to more hills and huge crags to the beautiful Rocky Mountains. The rain has stopped, the sun is coming out and the clouds are just amazing. Today is the best day yet. And it’s only day 4. I keep trying to think of words to express how I’m feeling right now but all I can say is today has been near perfect and I love that I’m sharing this with Matt.
Bit later
Tack on to our list of different landscapes from today the absolute complete flatness that is the stretch of Utah before the Salt Flats. It’s like crossing the Ocean. There is no going back once you hit this stretch. No turning around and no getting off. It’s beautiful, but intimidating. It looks like people have created messages with rocks in the sand or salt that we’re driving through right now. I wish we had time to stop and read them. There also appear to be a lot of beer bottles. Broken and made into weird art formations and whole and in weird art formations. We’re driving towards more mountains that look beautiful. I can see the cloud above the salt flats in the distance, pretty cool stuff all this.
And, just so you all know – the FIRST thing you see when you cross the border into Nevada is a casino. Go figure. Mountains and a Casino. Then a road full of small casinos and then a road straight towards the mountains surrounded by nothing.
Okay wait a minute wait a minute let’s back track for a minute.
Flat Nebraska
Nebrasky hills
Butte’s and Mesas in Wyoming,
Hills and Crags in Wyoming,
Beautiful Rocky Mountains in Utah,
Completely Flat Salt Flats in Utah,
Desert Mountains in Nevada.
All in one day. Wow. Right now we are driving on a road through the desert that is absolutely beautiful. It’s also completely empty. We see a car maybe every 10 minutes. There are no towns. Again with the whole intimidating thing. But we have almost a full tank of gas so I’m not really worried at all. Just basking in the beauty through a bug stained windshield.
OK now, after about... I think 5 hours of driving from the end edge of Nebraska into Wyoming, we are in the midst of Wyoming and its beginning to rain a bit. We started to see some small mountains a little after we came into Wyoming. Its stayed around 50 out but its been really windy and there seems to be large areas where there is still a significant amount of snow on the ground. The rain doesn't seem to be too bad, it already seems to be slowing a bit. Its like sprinkling out. Oh now its picking up again.
The landscape has been beautiful the whole time. Each section has something going for it. The flat farmlands were pertty, but they got a little tiresome after a while. Then in Nebraska we started seeing spprawling landscapes with rolling hills. It was really beautiful. Now we are getting into areas with mountains every now and again.
So this leg... from Alliance NE to Tanopah NV, will be about 14 hours. We are trying to keep better track of our time when we stop so we aren't like 2 hour behind like last night. So far its been about 35 min. and hopefully not much more. We are also crossing another time zone before Tanopah so that will make up the difference from stopping.
We've seen alot of cows on in Nebraska and Wyoming. Before that it seemed like mostly corn fields and now we are seeing Cow Ranches and stuff, but it's really just big huge fenced in areas that cows are wandering around in. No buildings really at all. We also saw two places with Windmill feilds. They weren't huge but there were like maybe 20 or so in each, that we could see. There was also some oil feilds with several oil pumps going.
So yeah that's all I can think to write about now for some reason. Lindsey is more comfortable writing in the car than I am I think and her posts are usually more interesting. I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.
The landscape has been beautiful the whole time. Each section has something going for it. The flat farmlands were pertty, but they got a little tiresome after a while. Then in Nebraska we started seeing spprawling landscapes with rolling hills. It was really beautiful. Now we are getting into areas with mountains every now and again.
So this leg... from Alliance NE to Tanopah NV, will be about 14 hours. We are trying to keep better track of our time when we stop so we aren't like 2 hour behind like last night. So far its been about 35 min. and hopefully not much more. We are also crossing another time zone before Tanopah so that will make up the difference from stopping.
We've seen alot of cows on in Nebraska and Wyoming. Before that it seemed like mostly corn fields and now we are seeing Cow Ranches and stuff, but it's really just big huge fenced in areas that cows are wandering around in. No buildings really at all. We also saw two places with Windmill feilds. They weren't huge but there were like maybe 20 or so in each, that we could see. There was also some oil feilds with several oil pumps going.
So yeah that's all I can think to write about now for some reason. Lindsey is more comfortable writing in the car than I am I think and her posts are usually more interesting. I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.
Day 3 - Chicago to Alliance Nebraska
here's my post from Day 3, Friday April 10th -- Lindsey
Woke up a little earlier today and walked to the river to take some photos. Also saw the Chicago Theater (so jealous .. Leonard Cohen and a Doo-Wop group are on the marquee). It’s damn cold in Chicago. And Windy. My ears were sooo cold.
Staff was extremely nice and helpful, but there were people waiting behind us to get out so we felt a little rushed. But it’s only 1 hour to Wilmington where we take a brief break to see the Gemini Giant which is so totally going to be on someone’s lawn. We can re set up the camera and get better situated then I guess.
Here we are on the road again, eating nutrigrain bars and goldfish and singing along with my road trip mix (yesterday was most of matt’s). I’ve only spilled and stepped on a few goldfish crackers, so so far the car is pretty clean inside. Cluttered, but not a complete disaster. Movin Right Along is such an awesome song, from the Muppet Movie. It makes me happy. “California Here We Come”….But first Nebraska and Tonopah, NV.
Realized this morning that while we’re gaining an hour with every stop on the way, it’ll be reversed on the way back, which will be a bit of a pain. We’ll just have to remember to account for that. But it’s awesome for right now since we started off a little late. We’ll probably catch up and be able to be up for 5 or 6 tomorrow. Today we left Chicago around 7:45 or 8 am.
Eww the windshield is splattered with the giant bugs that attack us at night. And during the day. Gonna have to clean that the next time we get gas.
Signing off for now!
--- Later ---
The Mississippi River is much dirtier than the Hudson. Or at least it looked like it was as we crossed it. We’re through Illinois, passing through Ohio currently and the gray/whiteness of the sky is starting to give way to blue skies with scattered clouds. Temperature is 51 degrees right now, though extremely windy when we stopped at a rest stop a moment ago. There are a lot of crazy billboards in the middle of wheat fields, except the wheat is all cut and hasn’t started growing again so it’s like a billboard and the farm and nothing growing. Very strange.
Just saw a billboard for the World’s Largest Truck Stop, may have to stop by. Okay, we have officially been to the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa and … yes it is that large. It was practically a one store mall. Anything you could possibly want from trucker stuff like hood ornaments and those crazy flashy lights they have to postcards, bags of marbles, food, books, movies, cassette tapes, video games to play, a restaurant, a few fast food joints too. HUGE. There were like 8 rooms AND an upstairs Trucker’s Lounge.
I’m hoping we see more billboards like that that we can just stop at instead of having to plan everything out. Granted, that took us a while to explore and time is short today, but whatever. We saw a World’s Largest and that makes me happy.
So far – construction in every single state, a small castle in Ohio, the Gemini Giant in Illinois and the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa. Yay.
Later –
Just finished driving for a little while, letting Matt take over for the rest of the trip to Alliance probably. We’re hopefully not too far off, maybe 3 hours or something. First I have to tell you about the Albino Smoke Monster. Those who watch Lost know what I’m talking about. We were driving on 80 in the middle of Iowa somewhere and to our right we see this road that runs parallel. From this road is a massive kick up of white dust and it’s moving at a crazy fast speed – like 70 or 80 mph – ahead of us and then it just zooms off. We could see absolutely nothing that could be kicking up the dust so we decided that it was an Albino Smoke Monster.
A little later towards the end of Iowa/ beginning of Nebraska we started to see a lot of windmills which was really beautiful and awesome. I was driving so Matt got all the photos of those, but I loved looking at them and seeing their sheer size. Such a cool thing. There’s been some really great driving today. From complete flatness to rolling hills. It’s bizarre seeing a horizon line. Right now the sun is setting and there are very very few trees to block it, which is both beautiful and strange to me.
We’re now on what Nebraskans call NE-2 which to us just looks like a two way road in the middle of nowhere. But the speed limit is 55 so… um it’s kind of a highway?
Okay, gonna cut out for now.
Longest Post So Far. Still on this NE-2 road, going to be on it for a while yet. Running late, as per usual. Tomorrow is going to be interesting.
Woke up a little earlier today and walked to the river to take some photos. Also saw the Chicago Theater (so jealous .. Leonard Cohen and a Doo-Wop group are on the marquee). It’s damn cold in Chicago. And Windy. My ears were sooo cold.
Staff was extremely nice and helpful, but there were people waiting behind us to get out so we felt a little rushed. But it’s only 1 hour to Wilmington where we take a brief break to see the Gemini Giant which is so totally going to be on someone’s lawn. We can re set up the camera and get better situated then I guess.
Here we are on the road again, eating nutrigrain bars and goldfish and singing along with my road trip mix (yesterday was most of matt’s). I’ve only spilled and stepped on a few goldfish crackers, so so far the car is pretty clean inside. Cluttered, but not a complete disaster. Movin Right Along is such an awesome song, from the Muppet Movie. It makes me happy. “California Here We Come”….But first Nebraska and Tonopah, NV.
Realized this morning that while we’re gaining an hour with every stop on the way, it’ll be reversed on the way back, which will be a bit of a pain. We’ll just have to remember to account for that. But it’s awesome for right now since we started off a little late. We’ll probably catch up and be able to be up for 5 or 6 tomorrow. Today we left Chicago around 7:45 or 8 am.
Eww the windshield is splattered with the giant bugs that attack us at night. And during the day. Gonna have to clean that the next time we get gas.
Signing off for now!
--- Later ---
The Mississippi River is much dirtier than the Hudson. Or at least it looked like it was as we crossed it. We’re through Illinois, passing through Ohio currently and the gray/whiteness of the sky is starting to give way to blue skies with scattered clouds. Temperature is 51 degrees right now, though extremely windy when we stopped at a rest stop a moment ago. There are a lot of crazy billboards in the middle of wheat fields, except the wheat is all cut and hasn’t started growing again so it’s like a billboard and the farm and nothing growing. Very strange.
Just saw a billboard for the World’s Largest Truck Stop, may have to stop by. Okay, we have officially been to the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa and … yes it is that large. It was practically a one store mall. Anything you could possibly want from trucker stuff like hood ornaments and those crazy flashy lights they have to postcards, bags of marbles, food, books, movies, cassette tapes, video games to play, a restaurant, a few fast food joints too. HUGE. There were like 8 rooms AND an upstairs Trucker’s Lounge.
I’m hoping we see more billboards like that that we can just stop at instead of having to plan everything out. Granted, that took us a while to explore and time is short today, but whatever. We saw a World’s Largest and that makes me happy.
So far – construction in every single state, a small castle in Ohio, the Gemini Giant in Illinois and the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa. Yay.
Later –
Just finished driving for a little while, letting Matt take over for the rest of the trip to Alliance probably. We’re hopefully not too far off, maybe 3 hours or something. First I have to tell you about the Albino Smoke Monster. Those who watch Lost know what I’m talking about. We were driving on 80 in the middle of Iowa somewhere and to our right we see this road that runs parallel. From this road is a massive kick up of white dust and it’s moving at a crazy fast speed – like 70 or 80 mph – ahead of us and then it just zooms off. We could see absolutely nothing that could be kicking up the dust so we decided that it was an Albino Smoke Monster.
A little later towards the end of Iowa/ beginning of Nebraska we started to see a lot of windmills which was really beautiful and awesome. I was driving so Matt got all the photos of those, but I loved looking at them and seeing their sheer size. Such a cool thing. There’s been some really great driving today. From complete flatness to rolling hills. It’s bizarre seeing a horizon line. Right now the sun is setting and there are very very few trees to block it, which is both beautiful and strange to me.
We’re now on what Nebraskans call NE-2 which to us just looks like a two way road in the middle of nowhere. But the speed limit is 55 so… um it’s kind of a highway?
Okay, gonna cut out for now.
Longest Post So Far. Still on this NE-2 road, going to be on it for a while yet. Running late, as per usual. Tomorrow is going to be interesting.
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