Day 1 - Richland Center, WI to Lincoln, NE - 491 miles - Let's See if You Can Hit my Curveball
We hit the road and headed straight for Dyersville, Iowa to see the Field of Dreams Movie Site. We'd been there once before, but we went in May when there was no corn growing, which really took away from the atmosphere. I really can't explain it, but just stepping onto that field I felt an overwhelming sense of joy. It really felt good to run around the bases with Jonah and play catch with him along the first base line. There were a few other groups of people there, and one of them had a wood bat and a few balls. We stood in the outfield and shagged balls for them for a while, and then they offered me a chance to hit. After a few mammoth pop flies to first base, I mentioned that it would be pretty neat to hit one into the corn. The guy pitching commented that he once got one in on one bounce, but that was as close as he'd ever come. I wondered how often he'd come to play there. On the next pitch, I got a good piece of it and put it about fifteen feet back in the corn in right field. It was kind of satisfying, but that was quickly erased when I realized I'd just deposited a ball that belonged to someone else into a giant cornfield. Jonah and I walked through the corn for about 10 minutes before someone else came out and found the ball. The guy that had thrown the pitch then gave me the ball and said "here's a souvenir for you." It was a nice gesture, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to put the ball in the trophy case I don't have or on a shelf in the bedroom. It's a pretty neat place where they just allow anyone to come onto the field and play around, and I'd encourage anyone road tripping through Iowa to check it out.
The rest of the trip involved cornfield after cornfield. We hit Omaha right around 5pm, and got stuck in some midwest rush hour traffic. We briefly contemplated stopping at the Omaha Zoo, but Rachel wasn't feeling that well thanks to a blocked milk duct (yet another thing that makes me glad I'm not a woman) and we just pressed on to Lincoln so Jonah could go swimming in the pool at the hotel.
Day 2 - Lincoln, NE to Casper, WY - 572 Miles - Moving the Wagon Down the (Oregon) Trail
This was perhaps the most uneventful day of our entire journey. It was straight driving through the heartland. I took us on a minor detour to see Chimney Rock, as I am a sucker for anything minutely historic. Growing up playing the Oregon Trail game, I knew that this Rock was a big landmark on the trail. Unfortunately, the rest of my family is not as into historical landmarks as I am, and I got a few eye rolls from Rachel and a couple "I just want to keep going to the hotel to go swimming!" from Jonah. Jonah, remembering his bee-sting episode from our last historical stop at Little Bighorn, wanted to know if there were any bees at Chimney Rock. I made a sarcastic comment that I hoped he got stung, which made him start crying. Lesson learned - three year olds can't process sarcasm. Rachel placated me by taking a few pictures of Jonah and me at the rock, and then we moved on. We pulled into Casper hungry for pizza. We tried ordering online from Domino's on my iPod Touch, but that quickly turned into a near disaster. I tried to order a hand tossed Canadian bacon and pineapple pizza to be delivered to our hotel, but when the confirmation came at the end, it had the delivery address as the address of the Domino's - essentially saying we were going to carry it out. I called the Domino's to correct this and found out that the pineapple had been changed to chicken. We got the pizza sorted out, and then the delivery guy showed up with a stuffed crust pizza. He apologized, but said "Our cook is new and still learning, but hey, it's a nice surprise for you, right?" I'm not sure that the newness of the cook had anything to do with him accidentally baking a ring of mozzarella into our crust - rather I think that had to do with him being a moron. And anyone who tells you that stuffed crust is a nice surprise still thinks it's 1994. It's just not that good.
Day 3 - Casper, WY to Red Lodge, MT - 525 Miles - I Will Drive No More Forever
Wednesday was the day of travel I'd looked forward to since we planned the trip - Yellowstone! We hit the road early, leaving our hotel around 6 am. We drove through Grand Teton National Park, but had a rough view of the mountains thanks to an overcast sky. We didn't see any wildlife either, although some guy with binoculars told us there was a bald eagle in a tree on the other side of the lake. We snapped the obligatory "We paid $25 to drive through this park so we're going to take a few pictures of cloud covered mountains, damnit!" shots and then moved into Yellowstone. I hadn't been to Yellowstone since I was a teenager, so I was pretty excited. The first thing I learned is that you should never go in the South Entrance. It's just basically a forest. You can get almost the same experience driving highway 20 to Newport. Until you hit Yellowstone lake, there's really not much to write home about. Rachel, riding in the back with the kids, dryly remarked "so this is Yellowstone, huh?" Her first trip to the park was not going as she envisioned. The scenery changed about the time we hit Yellowstone Lake, and we veered West to see Old Faithful.
Old Faithful is a lot like Mount Rushmore in that you need to see it based on reputation only. There's not a whole lot you can do other than take a picture and move on. Unfortunately, unless you time your visit right, you have to wait a while to snap that picture at Old Faithful, and on this day that meant sitting through intermittent rain showers. The other bummer is that another geyser a couple hundred yards away was erupting with great gusto, but you can't get nearly as close to that one...so we waited with a lady from the south who kept saying that she didn't remember Old Faithful "teasing" the crowd as much on her last trip. This was a full fifteen minutes before its scheduled eruption, mind you. Right on time, Old Faithful did its thing, and Jonah said what any three year old would say after hearing about Old Faithful from his dad for about seven straight hours prior to viewing it: "That's it?" Yep son, that's it.
We got back in the car and kept cruising through the park. Finally, we spied our first buffalo. Now the family was starting to get excited. Rachel hopped out of the car to snap a picture of a buffalo grazing in a field, though she didn't get as close as she wanted to for the shot. "I didn't want to be the girl with the camera who got gored that everyone reads about in the papers." Jonah thought the buffalo were cool, but he was more interested in seeing a moose. There were herds of buffalo everywhere, and it seemed like every corner we went around we'd see a line of cars backed up as people tried to get the perfect shot of them. Jonah was starting to get tired of seeing buffalo, and groaned every time we saw another herd. I really don't remember there being this many buffalo the last time I visited the park, and I wonder if that had to do with the time of year I was there (early summer as opposed to mid September) or if conservation efforts were leading to a population increase. In either event, it was pretty neat to witness these giant animals roaming free. One was walking on the road right next to our car, and hearing the clapping of his hooves on the pavement was a pretty surreal experience.
Upon leaving the park, I noticed a sign that said Construction Ahead - Highway 212 closed 8pm -6 am. It was only 6:30, so I thought we were golden. We made it to the summit of the pass around 7:15, where we encountered a flagger. She informed us that the road was already closed, and we'd be lucky to get through. She suggested we drive back and take the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, which would only add about half an hour to our trip - a half hour we'd probably have spent waiting for them to let us through on the road anyways. We took her advice and almost instantly regretted it. I'm sure the highway is scenic, but I couldn't tell you. It was pitch black and foggy. I could barely see ten feet in front of the car. The website linked to above mentions "world class opportunities for wildlife viewing." If near heart attacks from deer, rabbits and foxes darting in front of your car as you drive white knuckled down a mountain road in zero visibility is your thing, then by all means take this road. It was insane - it had so many switchbacks and 15 MPH turns that it easily added an hour - if not more - to our trip. We finally pulled into our hotel in Red Lodge, MT at 10 pm....16 hours after we'd left Casper. The kids were amazing on the trip, and thankfully Jonah slept for the last few hours.
Day 4 - Red Lodge, MT to Coeur d'Alene, ID - 515 Miles - Jonah Reunites with Future Fiancee
As we planned our trip, we noticed we'd have another chance to visit our friends the Coxes in Idaho. We set up a play date for Jonah and Lizzy to go swimming at our hotel and grab some food. Our trip started out alright, but somewhere between Roscoe and Absarokee, MT Jonah starts to complain that his mouth hurts. As Rachel questions him on this, he starts to projectile vomit all over the backseat. We pulled off at a historical marker sign and spent half an hour cleaning puke out of the car. Jonah kept apologizing, saying he was so sorry. We finally figured he'd drank too much milk at breakfast (which would account for the amount of vomit) and had gotten carsick from the less than straight road that his Highway 78. Rachel and I both said a little prayer, thankful that Jonah had slept through Chief Joseph's Scenic Highway the night before. The rest of the trip was smooth sailing, and we pulled into Coeur d'Alene just before 4 pm. The Coxes came over shortly thereafter, and we went down to the pool to take a swim. Unfortunately, the Comfort Inn seemingly dumped extra ice from the ice machine in the hallway into the pool, because it was insanely cold. We swam for maybe five minutes before violating rule one of the pool area and allowing children under six to use the hot tub. Not wanting to cut the kids playtime short, we moved the party to the Carl's Jr. down the street, which had a playland. Jonah and Lizzy had a great time playing, and two hours later, they were still not ready to say goodbye. We finally were able to get them out of there by promising ice cream at the Dairy Queen two blocks down. Another minor battle ensued to get Jonah to leave DQ, but I was able to tempt him by promising he could play Angry Birds on my iPod on the way back to the hotel. Angry Birds is turning out to be a pretty quality download!
Day 5 - Couer d'Alene, ID to Albany, OR - 449 Miles - Home at Last!
Let me just say that five days straight of car travelling is one too many. We were all ready to be home, and nobody was looking forward to the last leg of our journey. Not a whole lot happened. We tried to stop at the fruit stand in Eltopia that we visited on the way out, but it didn't open until 10 am and we passed it at 9:30. Either the GPS was screwed up or I took a wrong turn, because we ended up taking highway 14 on the Washington side of the Columbia instead of the quicker I-84 in Oregon. No harm was done, and it was interesting to see the Gorge from a different viewpoint. Also, did you know Washington had a replica of Stonehenge? Oddly enough, it's apparently a WWI memorial. We didn't stop, but you can see it from the road as you drive along 14.
So we made it! It was a fantastic trip with only a bee sting, a soul crushing loss by the Beavers, a brutal road construction detour, and one bout of carsickness detracting from the experience...and really, sometimes those negative things are the things that end up being the fondest memories, so I'd have to say the trip was as close to perfect as you could ever get for a road trip with two kids under the age of 4!
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