Author Archives: Greg

Today we officially reached the west coast by entering California.  We covered 295 miles as we made our way from Sparks, NV (just outside Reno, NV) to San Francisco, CA.  As we approach the midway point, our trip has taken us a total of 4,278 miles so far.

On our way to San Francisco we stopped in Pleasanton, CA to visit my second cousin, Bridget, her husband Rich and their two adorable children Elliot and Lillian.  They recently moved to California from northern Virginia.  This was a great opportunity for us to see and catch up with them.

Our next stop was at Stanford University.  Karen’s brother Scott attended Stanford for his graduate degrees.  Fortunately for us, his former officemate Laura offered to give us a quick tour of the campus.  We enjoyed the opportunity to see this beautiful campus.

Our last stop for the evening was a visit with Karen’s cousins Brad and Jessica and Jessica’s husband Jeff.  We had an enjoyable visit, dinner and walk around their neighborhood.

Instead of a quote for the day I have a song of the day.  As we were getting ready for the day in our hotel room the girls were watching some tv.  They saw a commercial for a show with animated potatoes singing about “potato love.”  This song was stuck in our heads all day and has been our way to make Kelsey or Lindsey laugh and for the girls to irritate their mother.  You can get a taste of the song on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw6QVTs59yY .  WARNING!! This song will stick in your head.

Today was strictly a driving day.  We traveled across Nevada for over 7 hours (519 miles) as we went from Salt Lake City, Utah to Sparks, Nevada (just outside of Reno, NV).  We stopped at our hotel/casino, The Nugget , which gave the girls a little taste of the lights and activity of Las Vegas without all of the other stuff in Las Vegas.  We checked in and spent some time at the nice pool area before having dinner at the Great Basin Brewery.  The girls really enjoyed the pool area which not only had a fountain and a hot tub, but also had several small individual bubble pools to sit in.  The bubble pools were the same water and temperate as the larger pool, but allowed you to just sit in your own private space.

During the long drive and sitting by the pool this evening allowed me to reflect on a couple of things I am very grateful for.  First, I am very grateful for Karen and all of her work in planning and making arrangements for us before and during this trip.  I may have been the one to start the ball rolling on planning this trip, but Karen has been the one who has completed a lot of the final details.  She has spent a lot of time searching the internet and making telephone calls as we traveled across the country.  She has also been a terrific tour guide, reading through the tour books as we go, leading and informing us of the sites near and around us.

Secondly I am very aware and grateful for how our daughters, Kelsey and Lindsey, are good friends and play well together.  Although they certainly have their moments of pushing each other’s buttons and having disagreements, most of the time they are good friends that get along well together.  This is especially apparent tonight as they keep each other company in the pool while Karen and I have some time to relax and read our books poolside.

Today we made the trip from Jackson Hole, WY to Salt Lake City, UT.  We spent the morning driving and the afternoon seeing a couple of things in Salt Lake City.  Our first stop was the stadium at the University of Utah, where the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2002 Winter Olympics took place.  There is a small visitors’ center with a 15 minute video showing the highlights from the Games and a number of photos.  Outside the stadium they have the caldron that was used for the flame during the Olympics and a semi-circle “eye” piece of staging used during the medal and closing ceremonies.  This was a nice stop that got us excited for the 2012 Summer Olympics that will be starting in a few days.

 Our second stop was Temple Square of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We met two very nice young women who were there for 18 months as missionaries.  They lead us through the visitor’s centers (North and South) and the Tabernacle.  In the Tabernacle they did a demonstration to show off the amazing acoustics in this venue.  Although we were seated half way back we could hear her rip a piece of newspaper and drop a pin without the assistance of a microphone.

The evening included a relaxing dinner and some time in the hotel pool.  The restaurant was within walking distance of our hotel.  We all got a laugh from a crosswalk that encouraged you to take an orange flag across with you to increase visibility.  Apparently this must be a dangerous crosswalk.  There is a container with flags on both sides of the street.  You take an orange flag (or in Kelsey’s case, two), walk across the street and then deposit the flag in the container on the opposite side.

The winning quote of the day was when Lindsey told me that “she needed some TLC.”  Thinking she wanted some tender loving care I gave her a hug.  She thanked me for the hug but informed me that she meant The Learning Channel.  She misses some of her tv shows.

Today we celebrated Lindsey’s 12^th birthday in Yellowstone National Park.  Much to her chagrin and frequent requests we did not go horseback riding today.  Instead, we got up early to drive around Yellowstone in search of wildlife.  During our day we did see some pronghorns, male deer, bison and male elk.

After our wildlife search we returned to Mammoth Hot Springs to see the springs and the results of the decades of spring activity.  From there we traveled to the Norris Geyser Basin to see the Constant Geyser and happened to be there when the Whirligig Geyser went off.  We also walked down to the Steamboat Geyser which the largest geyser in the world when it does go off (up to 300 feet), even larger than Old Faithful , but not as regular.  It is hard to believe that a large portion of Yellowstone is the old top of a volcano, hence all of the thermal features.

In an effort to take a break from our Yellowstone driving and to add an additional state to our trip we decided to head out the west gate of Yellowstone and have lunch in West Yellowstone, Montana.  We found a nice BBQ place, did some tourist shopping and found an excellent ice cream shack, The City Creamery.  This little shack makes its own ice cream right on site (they had a batch turning right next to the shack).  It was delicious, hard ice cream that tasted delicious and did not melt quickly.  I highly recommend the double chocolate orange!

The final stop for the day was the Old Faithful area.  We checked in to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, the newest lodge in the park.  Even though it was built in 1999 I think they still wanted you to have a rustic experience, so there is no air conditioning.  The room was nice, but the small window in the room and the oscillating fan they provided did not cool the room off at night.  You can see our experience at Old Faithful at http://youtu.be/S39kfuTEKO8.

To celebrate Lindsey’s birthday we went for dinner at the Old Faithful Inn.  We had a very enjoyable and delicious meal complete with the wait staff singing their own version of the happy birthday song to Lindsey.  With my dinner I enjoyed a tasty beer: Moose Drool Brown Ale.  Amazingly, Kelsey was thrilled to finally get a glass of skim milk.

This morning we awoke in Cody, WY to a cloudy sky.  As we headed out of town we encountered our first rain of our trip.  It was just a light rain that did not last long.  One funny thing happened as we left town.  Kelsey was trying to take a picture of the rodeo area where we were last night when a sprinkler came through the window and hit her in the head.  We covered 139 miles as we traveled to and spent our first afternoon in Yellowstone National Park.

The scenery in Yellowstone is spectacular.  Many times we looked at the beauty before us and said that there is absolutely no way a picture could capture what we were seeing.  We spent the afternoon traveling through the northern part of the park.  We had lunch looking out over Yellowstone Lake (the largest lake at this elevation), viewed the Mud Volcano (very interesting thermal activity with sulfur gas included.  Lindsey wanted to know why nature could not have chosen a better scent like vanilla?!?), hiked down to see the upper and lower canyon falls (this included going down and then back up 328 steps) and a final stop at the Tower Falls.  Along the way we did see some more bison and a black bear.

We are spending the night in a cabin at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel & Cabins.  Unlike our cottage in the Badlands, this cabin was built back in 1938.  It has all of the basics: two queen beds and a private bathroom.  There is no air conditioning, but the weather here is Yellowstone is cooler.  The car thermometer stated that we had an enjoyable day in the mid to high 70’s.

This evening after dinner we walked up to the hotel lobby to play some cards before heading to bed.  We came out of the hotel at 10:00 p.m. to find a bison having an evening snack on the front yard!  It was neat to see, but nobody wanted to take a flash photo and disturb it.

And the winning quote of the day was spoken by Kelsey as we were all getting a little tired in the afternoon.  She said, “We have not even reached the West coast and I am already sick of you!”  This has not been her attitude throughout the trip and we were able to turn things around with a short nap in the car and some ice cream.  I enjoyed the Huckleberry ice cream.

Today was a long travel day from Custer State Park, SD to Cody, WY (411 miles).  We decided to look for some additional wildlife before leaving Custer State Park by driving around the wildlife loop.  During our drive we came across a mule deer, a few pronghorns (similar to antelopes), bison (one which walked right next to our minivan), prairie dogs, burros (one which visited Karen – see the video at ( http://youtu.be/UxwVGypdPRE ) and white-tailed deer.  FYI – Custer State Park has the largest herd of bison in the United States.

Since we were in the neighborhood we swung by the Crazy Horse monument that is still under construction.  Due to our time constraints we did not enter the park, but saw it from the information booth outside the gate.  It has a long way to go and is being built completely with private funds.  When completed, it will be the largest, and quite amazing, stone sculpture in the United States.

Once we arrived into Cody, WY several hours later we had a chance to check into our hotel quickly before heading out for the evening.  We went to the Cody Cattle Company for a chuck wagon dinner and a performance by the Three C Cowboys.  The food and entertainment were good.  Kelsey’s version of the chuck wagon dinner was some cornbread and a chocolate brownie.  The rest of us were able to enjoy some salad, baked potatoes, baked beans, applesauce, pulled beef, chicken thighs, cornbread and brownies for dessert with water or lemonade to drink.

After our dinner and performance we walked down the street to the Cody Rodeo, held nightly June through August.  We enjoyed watching the various events.  We figured we needed to do this since Cody, WY is the rodeo capital of the world.  During the intermission Lindsey participated in a contest for all children under 12.  They released two small cattle into the arena with bandanas tied to their tails.  All of the children were to chase after the cattle and grab the bandana.  The children who could catch the cattle and grab a bandana won a prize.  Unfortunately for Lindsey there were a large number of children, so she was not successful, but we cheered her on for her effort!

Today is the day we crossed West of the Mississippi River as we traveled from Madison, WI to Minneapolis, MN.  We covered another 316 miles, so now we are 1,515 miles from home.

As we were traveling along we were surprised to find Hammond, WI, just before the Minnesota border.  Of course we had to stop, take a look around, and take a few pictures.

This afternoon we walked for close to a mile by walking around the Mall of America.  The girls enjoyed shopping, but Karen and I were in agreement that we were not as impressed as we thought we would be.  The Mall of America is large; it is a half mile to walk around one level of the Mall and has a fairly large amusement park with a log flume and several roller coasters in the middle, however, most of the stores are all of the same ones we can find at various malls in Connecticut.  We would recommend skipping the Mall of America if you ever travel to Minneapolis.

This evening we are visiting a good family friend, Kate.  Several years ago she worked as the Youth Director at our church before moving back to Minnesota.  We have enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with her and her parents during our trip.