Wednesday, July 25, 2007

July 25th Part II The Plight of 1000 Puppies!!!


We may have just stumbled on the greatest sign of the trip. Sure there have been many, and we have not photographed them all. (A special shout out to Washington. because your signs rock! You have a strong voice but a soft hand) This one takes the cake. Maybe its because we having been moving so much that we both have the 1000 yard Vietnam stare or because its really horrible to think of your dog throwing himself off a cliff. Or it could be the placement of the "!". I like to think that the first line "Many dogs have died here" is said in a deep warning voice. Then the next "Put your dog back in your vehicle!" is frantic because you're thinking "Yeah right." Take it as you will. The "Put your dog back in your vehicle" command is my favorite part of the sign.
-kathy If you feel strongly either way feel free to leave a comment. Because we like the people who are reading this. And we like comments.

July 25th "Riding Bodacious"


We got a little crazy with the help our new friend Andy. Andy was our most excellent white water guide. (Thank You Keanu) Oh and you had better believe he was everything a crazy guy named Andy would be. Crazy in a good way but crazy none the less. We rafted the Deschutes river in Oregon. We referred to the Imperial River Co. They where top notch all the way. Well worth the expenditure of funds (which was not nearly as much as I thought it was going to be -kathy). We did roughly 18 miles with a great bunch of people. We had a couple from Chicago and a grandmother daughter combo from Jersey. Everyone was really into it and got swamped. Kathy and I swam through one set of rapids and both got the chance to ride BULL (when you sit on the front of the boat and have a small one foot rope to hang onto). Thats what's going on in the picture of me(Josh).
The only drawback was that it was a two hour drive to get to the place. This required the getting up at the early hour of six am. Anyone that knows either one of us knows we may have been a little cranky with each other. It also sent me into a angry tirade on the general crappyness of the Bend expressway system. Luckily we realized that the best thing to do was to sit and be quiet. Few words were said before 8:30 am. As I type this we are now making the two hour drive back into Bend. We are going to a supposedly killer burrito joint called Longboard Louieis. I will update tomorrow on this rumor of killerness. (it's true! the killerness exists. I think Josh is picking up west coast slang? He picked up a North Dakota'ian accent...)

It was nice to be on the Deschutes River again, it's a trip I've done before. It was a fantastic little break for both of us, since we've been getting worn out by the camping/hiking grind. The drive wasn't really all that bad. I saw a river otter! It was cute! Then I saw a group of ducks on a log and announced there were more river otters. Quite loudly and enthusiastically. Every animal from then on was a river otter. Inanimate objects as well. It was a good trip, we are sunburned (hopefully not too badly) and tired. Longboard Louie's will hopefully be as good as I remember it. Heck, it's been there for at least ten years, it can't be bad right?
-kathy

July 24th Alpenglow and the 4-D Man



Our first day of real relaxation in a while. I (Kathy) lived in Bend about ten years ago, so much of the next few days is going to be revisiting places I remember, and a few I have forgotten about. It is bright and sunny today and all our stuff is drying out. It's great! We went into Bend to get breakfast at this great little restaurant called The Alpenglow. They use all local meats, eggs, and veggies. Nothing is canned or frozen, its all fresh. A little expensive but really good. After that there was a little bit of window shopping but we soon found ourselves back at camp reading our books. After a good long read we headed out to see a cool waterfall that were a few miles outside of town. They were great! One of the nicest things about it was there was hardly anyone around. Being alone while admiring waterfalls has been a rarity, since we've stopped at some pretty popular places. (pic) Again we went into town to get some food to make for dinner and to find a few odds and ends. We came across a cool little record shop and stopped in.
This is where I, Josh, found the coolest thing ever! There in the, I kid you not, Super Discount Bin was a copy of The 4-D Man on DVD (for 3 dollars! kathy adds). For all you folks that have been following along know what I'm talking about. For those of you that haven't read the July 22nd entry.
We then got some ice cream and headed back to camp. We have a big day tomorrow. We are getting up early to go white water rafting. Early as in six am. And we're waking up to a watch alarm. help.

July 23rd The Ocean Is Salty and Will Burn Your Eyes!

We woke to the sound of the ocean today. I (Josh) really love doing that! It was still raining so we had to pack everything wet. It sucked. We beach combed a little bit in the morning, I (Kathy) was really hoping to find a whole sand dollar. No luck, only smashed ones. Fortunately we will be on the coast for awhile. We started driving down the 101 today. We thought we would head down to the southern part of Washington and find the National Kite Museum and Hall of Fame.
Bad news for the Kite Museum. The place it was suppose to be was now condos. So it either moved or was defunct. Either way we couldn't find it. This is the second time we've had this discrepancy between the Atlas and truth. We were looking for "Historyland" (!!) in Wisconsin and, sadly, we think it was replaced by a Wal-Mart. Sick of the rain we decided that we would get the heck out of Washington. We crossed into Oregon and headed for Portland. I (Josh) had heard from a friend that Portland was a really cool place to hang out and that the night life was great. Unfortunately we were still wet and it was still raining. We also don't have a lot of extra cash for bar hopping Plus we have a car in constant tow, so only one of us would be able to truly partake in an awesome bar scene. So we headed out to find the high desert of central Oregon. (Sorry Cliff) We drove another 100 miles to Bend.

July 22nd Part II Another reason that Josh is the coolest person you know. Well, cooler than your accountant anyways.


My (Josh) journey is now complete! I have finally made it to all four corners of the US. It all started seventeen years ago when I first set foot in the Atlantic ocean at the age of eight. This is how the time line broke down.
Florida 1990
Maine 2003
LA California 2006
Washington 2007
This has been a personal goal of mine for many years and today it was a dream that I finally realized. YES!
Oh yeah. It was still raining.
We also found camping next to the ocean for $14 bucks! Now thats what Im talking about!!!!
I bought a tarp earlier today. It turned out to be worth every penny.
The benefit of a camp when it's raining, no bugs.
And now more pictures of the ocean!






July 22nd Free Soy Milk For All Klingons!

Finally a redeeming quality for the KOA! A decent breakfast for $5. We packed up camp and hit the road fairly early. 160 miles to Seattle. Kathy bought the Harry Potter book, and Josh got reeled into one about the making of "El Mariachi" so there is much reading in the car. We made it into Seattle around noon and drove downtown to the Space Needle.

It was raining. They wanted $16 per person! That's crazy. Its a stinking tower (sez Josh, Kathy agrees). You don't even pay that much to go up in the Empire State Building. And let me tell you the Space Needle ain't no Empire State Building. Instead we decided to go to the Science Fiction Museum and Music Museum. A ticket for both of these was only $15 and was tons of fun better than that stupid needle would have been. So we spent a couple of hours looking at Jimi Hendrix's guitar and old phasers from the original Star Trek. It was pretty rad, and fifteen bucks well spent. I was also pretty impressed with this cool looking poster for an old movie called "The 4-D Man" It had to do with a scientist that discovers how to enter the fourth dimension! It had some sweet looking old school images. (It was released in 1959)
So we left there in search of lunch and stumbled on the taste of Seattle. I have to give these people credit. They can have a party rain or shine. In this case rain. It hasn't really stopped since last night. We ate and walked around. We found a huge line and heard that they were giving out a bunch of free organic food. On a trip like this we love free stuff! So after a short wait we landed all kinds of cool shwag like soy chocolate milk an yogurt bars. (pic). We headed out. Maybe we can make the coast for camping? We better, there isn't much in between.


July 21st The KOA just made my list!

We drove a lot today. We entered Washington to find that the East side of the state is empty. We're talking abandoned houses in fields. We drove until it got dark, which we try very often NOT to do. Washington is known for its wet weather and today we got our first taste of rain. We had had rain earlier in the trip but always at night. We also ran into our first shortage on campsites. Turns out people love to camp in the middle of nowhere in the rain. The only site we could find was at a KOA. For those of you that don't know, that's short for Kamp Ground of America. It also stands for suck. (And the spelling of "camp" with a "K" annoys Kathy endlessly) After spending the last two weeks doing some real camping, it was nearly unbearable to hear some of the guests talk about how great it is to camp. This place was the Hilton of campgrounds; Pool, spa, game room, store, WIFI, cabins, basketball courts, and a DJ. Thats right they were having a dance party as we set up camp. All of this wouldn't have been that bad except for the fact that they were charging $49.95 for tent sites. We managed to get one for $39.95 because it was basically an alley. It was such a crap site they had to show it to us before we agreed to stay there. So we setup camp in the rain and cooked dinner in the rain. Oh yeah we also ate in the rain. I hate rain! I'm buying a tarp tomorrow!

July 20th These Farmers Should Really Open a Full Time Market.

We left Glacier and headed west. We didn't see much along US 2. It was fairly empty except for bars and gas stations. Even then these were few and far between. Some real fine establishments.
We made it into a town Idaho called Sandpoint. We decided that this would be a good place to say in a hotel seeing as we had just spent a week out in the wilds of Montana. Sandpoint turned out to be a cool little town. It had a great old downtown district and we stumbled on a great farmers market. We almost stayed an extra night in Sandpoint it was that great of a place. We were eager to get to Washington, and more importantly the coast, so we continued on.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

When the Road begins to get to you.



After 3500 miles the road begins to wear you down. Luckily we were able to find a few friends to help us cope.

July 16th - 20th Glacier National Park

I am not a writer. I am a photographer. I cant even begin to describe the beauty of this place. So I will let some of my pictures do the talking. What I will say is that four days was hardly enough time to even scratch the surface of this park.















Monday, July 16, 2007

July 12th &13th From Grand Rapids MN to Fargo ND

We stayed in Grand Rapids MN last night. After almost a week of sleeping in a tent we decided to spring for a hotel. It was worth every penny. Setting up camp, cooking is a lot of work and then taking everything down is a lot of work. We were getting very little downtime at the campsites. Plus, there was a pool, wireless internet, cable and continental breakfast. The people of GR were super friendly. Everywhere we went they were helpful and interested in our trip. We found they were particularly proud of the fact Judy Garland grew up there.
I've never been much for The Wizard of OZ or anything else involving a combination of Miss Garland and munchkins. But even I (Josh) fell into a mindless daze and thought that visiting the birthplace of such an amazing American figure would be a great idea. I mean since we were in town and all. So off we went to be dazzled by the Judy Garland museum. On our way to finding the house we learned that it had been moved from its original location to be in a better tourist location near the local hotels. The house was closed. So the only thing that we were able to do was take some pics outside and around the grounds. I did however learn that I may make the ugliest Dorothy ever. After that anti-climatic visit to Garland-land, we went to the old historic school in the center of town, complete with yellow brick road. It was full of doll and quilt stores. The building was very neat though. And people in Grand Rapids, Minnesota are exceptionally nice.
Soon after we filled up with gas and made a dash for the North Dakota boarder. As we came across the state line I was thrilled to see a small (I'm being generous) county fair. Rickety rides like the Genesis and Hangglider-o-matic which at any moment felt as though you would plummet to your death. But that's half the fun, right? It also came complete with 4H exhibits. Which included more species of rabbit then we knew existed. We swung in and spent about an hour seeing the animals and riding rides. It was no Cedar point or Six Flags but "small town carnival" was on our list of things to find on this trip. Check.




We then set out in search of the small town of Hope ND (60 miles outside of Fargo). I had a friend (my sister's husband's father) that we were going to unexpectedly drop in on. Luck had it that I remendered how to get there (it been 5 years and I didn't have his address) and that Kim was happy to see us. He welcomed us in graciously; gave us more than enough food to eat and a bed to sleep in. We had decided to stay a few days and just relax in the silence that is the farmland of North Dakota. Little note on North Dakota (from Kathy). It is as flat as people say it is, which I guess I didn't believe until we were driving through it. And the silence? It took a day or so to get used to. No noise from distant cars, no constantly hum of electricity. My ear drums were roaring the first night we were there. Devoid of background noise I could hear all the ringing caused by previous damage (i.e. Gogol Bordello concerts, but I'm not going to stop going) After the initial shock at hearing nothing wore off, it was wonderful. As uneventful and empty as North Dakota seems, it was well worth spending a few days there.