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Road Trip 2018: Border Checks–Without a Border


On February 23, the seventh day of our expedition, we headed south, taking back roads along the Rio Grande as far as we could before being forced out onto the Interstate north of Socorro, where we stopped at a local coffee shop we know well from past trips. We departed the freeway again at Truth or Consequences (formerly Hot Springs), taking the old highway through Hatch and along the river to Las Cruces, passing out of the Land of The Free (as noted by the northbound checkpoint near Radium Springs) unchallenged, into the Southern Exclusion Zone (our term), the 160-km-deep region around the perimeter of the country from which one cannot return without proper papers, or, more likely, without being subjected to racial profiling.  The Zone—which has no official name, for the purpose of plausible deniability—exists, and has for decades.  According to Wikipedia. there are 33 permanent checkpoints within the borders of the United States.  It is notable that few, if any, of these checkpoints are evident north of the 47th parallel, as would be expected if most Canadians looked different from many of us (surprise, they do—Canada is much more ethnically diverse than is the U.S., due to more liberal immigration laws) or actually wanted to work for lower minimum wages than they could find at home and were willing to risk persecution to venture south without showing identity papers at an official border crossing.

Grandsons, son, and granddaughter, at our granddaughter’s house in El Paso.

This trip, we again stayed at an AirB&B near the city core. The next few days were busy visiting our daughters, granddaughter, grandsons, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren in Las Cruces and our son and granddaughter in El Paso, where two grandsons also joined us. Our granddaughter in El Paso always finds interesting historical places to show us; as a result, we have a better understanding of the area. This time, we visited San Elizario, the second oldest city in the U.S., after St. Augustine, Florida, and once the salt-trading center of the New Mexico region of New Spain and the first county seat of El Paso County when it became part of the U.S., which it almost didn’t, as the Rio Grande changed course in historical times from north to south of the city.

We meet our great-great granddaughter for the first time. She let Gr-gr-grandma hold her, but wasn’t sure about the hairy old coot.

To save enough money to fill the tank again, we checked out of the AirB&B and spent a night camping at our daughter’s house, for a late night of conversation and a quick getaway in the morning.  Although we had a good visit, we did miss a few of the adult and teen great-grandchildren, busy with jobs and families of their own.  Keeping track of five generations in one family is a daunting task, indeed.

Heading west, we passed through the first of many Border Patrol checkpoints, part of the network that make up the region we have dubbed the Southern Exclusion Zone. The one on I-10 was passing cars without stopping, probably because they had met their quota for the month with the northern California raid the previous day, or perhaps they weren’t aware that Washington State (where our truck is registered) has a large population claiming Mexican heritage, and they just didn’t bother to check our whiteness index.   Being the elders in a family that spans the spectrum of black, brown, and beige, and having worked and played in multi-cultural milieus, we bristle more than a bit at the obvious bias of “white privilege” and the implications unequal treatment has for our society.  Border Patrol:  please do not assume we are “not the droids you are looking for.”  We would rather you check everyone’s papers and inspect the cargoes of every vehicle if you do any.  Maybe some of those all-white folks will feel violated enough to actually think about what the *real* ‘Murica stands for.  Hint: it’s not pretty.

As we crossed the continental divide—which, in this part of the country, is noted only by a sign, the desert being relatively flat—we ran into mixed rain and snow, which followed us into Tucson. We had planned to bicycle on the downtown river path in Tucson, but it was still a bit cold and blustery, the river was dry, and the motel prospects not the best, so we cancelled our reservation and moved on.

We left the freeway at Tucson to tour through the Tohono O’Odham reservation, noting another Border Patrol checkpoint on entry (faced toward traffic leaving the Rez, indicating we had once again crossed into the Zone). North of the old mining town of Ajo, we passed through the other checkpoint, back into the Arpaio District of Trumpistan, getting a bit more scrutiny this time: our bicycle helmets, hung from the handlebars, were mistaken for extra passengers.  Unlike the indigenous peoples of the northern Great Plains, the Tohono O’Odham were not granted dual citizenship when their lands were divided between European-style governments, so the Border Patrol are much more diligent in this region where the national borders are bound to be softer than elsewhere.  Not so diligent as to check the storage compartment under our sleeping platform, however, which would easily have smuggled in two or three “bad hombres,” nor did they poke the suspiciously bulky sleeping bag (containing our inflated pads), to make certain we had not been so inclined as to moonlight as coyotes for a little extra gas money.  The space was actually full, serving as our closet, pantry, kitchen, and dining room storage.  Once again, racial profiling kicked in: we passed inspection on our White Word alone, affirmation that institutional racism is very much a part of the American culture.

In for the night in Gila Bend, a “wide spot in the road” on I-8, at Cheap Hotel #4, we soon discovered that the WiFi 1) did not work, and 2) was likely being spoofed, as neither the correct nor the misspelled ESSID connected us with the Internet. Being the end of the month, it was necessary to use the iPhone as a hotspot for our laptop to do the monthly web updates for a client. In the morning, with no breakfast bar at the motel and no food stores (the one listed on the GPS was boarded up, and the Dollar Store wasn’t open yet), we refueled ($0.69/liter, rising above the $0.57 we paid at the last station in New Mexico) and continued west without indulging in the usual fuel station fare of rancid peanuts, hard sausages, and puffed fried starches or pig skins (i.e., Slim Jims, Funyuns, and Chicharrones), stopping for coffee and breakfast 150 km down the road at the first coffee shop we came to.

In Yuma, we unloaded the bicycle and rode 22 km on the canal trails. It was cool, but sunny and a very pleasant riding. Our ride was cut a bit short by a steep cut in the levee path that our long tandem would not have negotiated without bottoming out. After lunching out of our food staple supplies, we continued on into California, passing through the “agricultural” inspection station without incident (the Republic of California has its own idea of border control, obviously). The freeway had many construction areas, so we cut off on a secondary road to Calexico, seeing several Border Patrol vehicles on the way, then north to El Centro, where we picked up some groceries and dry-camped for the night, cutting costs to compensate for the rising gasoline prices. We used the campground day room to take care of our Internet business and recharge our electronics: a site with electricity would have been $12 more for the night.

Early morning, we swung by a nearby Starbucks for breakfast and coffee, then took the southern route again, passing thousands of hectares of solar panels, installed or staged for installation, before the secondary road rejoined the freeway to climb over the mountains. At the top, we split off again on a side road that meandered down into a mountain valley and another reservation. After passing close to a pre-existing section of the Trumpian Wall that marched darkly across the steep mountainside, we curved back north, enduring yet another scrutiny by the Border Patrol, the third checkpoint to which we had been subjected, without ever leaving the borders of the United States, or at least without passing through a checkpoint operated by the Mexican government, giving credence to the theory that we have been living in a police state for some time now, subject to inspection and seizure of person and property at any time, any place.  The traffic being a bit higher here, we passed through with only a quick check of our facial features, with the feeling we had been traversing through some sort of no-man’s land, where “bad hombres” lurked, pursued by armed militia, infiltrating white-land despite the obvious physical barriers visible on the mountainsides.  Our journey through the southern regions of the U.S. had begun to feel more like a time travel trip through the Iron Curtain of Eastern Europe in the mid-20th Century.

Soon, we arrived in San Diego, where we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon exploring Balboa Park. We took in the Air and Space Museum, my first visit since the museum was rebuilt after the 1978 fire. I had visited only a few months before the fire.  Some of the exhibits were carefully crafted reproductions of the original historic aircraft, others had been donated by collectors. We enjoyed our first lunch out in many days, from a vendor in the Plaza at the park. We took an auto tour of Coronado. We might have ridden our bicycle, but parking along the bike path that passes beside the Navy base was an issue. We noted that there is a ferry from downtown San Diego for bicycles, which sounds like an interesting adventure for another time. We checked into an inexpensive motel near a shopping district on Rosecrans, in the area near Ballast Point where I used to stay when I traveled to San Diego on business, back in the 1970s. We restocked our food supplies at a nearby natural foods market, and turned in early. The internet access, like most low-budget motels, was iffy at best: many motels use the same ESSID for all of their access points, and, combined with other nearby hotspots on the same channels, cause frequent conflicts and signal drop.

Once again, rain overtook us: it had rained overnight, and we proceeded north along the coast in alternating mist, drizzle, and downpour. There were many bicyclists out along the coast highways and volleyball games on the beaches, despite the stormy weather. Gasoline prices rose to $0.89/liter when we refueled, and we saw even over $1.00/liter in some areas. Our slow sojourn along the beach was interrupted by Camp Pendleton, where all traffic runs on I-5 (except bicycles, allowed through the military base by prior permission). We got off the freeway in San Clemente and took a walking break in San Juan Capistrano, bypassing the Mission, as we had toured it more than 25 years ago, and it hasn’t changed all that much since the 1812 earthquake that destroyed the church.  We had a light lunch at a gelato shop (3:16 Bakery Shop). Back on the I-5 freeway, we finished the day driving into Anaheim in relatively light Saturday midday traffic.

Our plan was to spend a few days, up to a week in the L. A. area before winding our way back north toward home. Since we became cat-less, we decided our travel plans could be a bit more flexible, as long as we arranged to have our mail picked up every 30 days and didn’t crop up any major medical issues. Once again, staying with relatives allows us to catch up on laundry and grocery shopping as well as visiting. The L.A. basin is not our favorite place to drive, but one gets used to it after a few days.  We also planned to try out a few of the many bike trails that top the levees along the concrete-lined rivers and creeks.

To be continued…

Bicycling, Travel, Uncategorized

Road Trip 2018: Part 1 – Southwest

Hoping for some time to ride our bicycle this winter, we packed up our van “White Knight” for our annual circuit through the Southwest to visit relatives.  As usual, our schedule was full to the max: we left immediately after the Olympia Weavers Guild February meeting, arriving in Pendleton, Oregon well after dark.

Our rather unrealistic plan for this trip was to camp in parking lots and truck stops along the way to save a few dollars to offset the cost of gasoline for the truck.  However, we were somewhat disillusioned on arrival at the travel center outside Pendleton: it was cold and windy; the parking lot sloped a bit more than we would have liked, and the only seating area in the center was in the McDonalds restaurant.  Feeling a bit out of touch with the reality of 21st century truck stops and nostalgic for the 20th century when such places had full-service restaurants, we drove back into town and checked in at a renovated 60’s motel.  The building winter storm across the West changed our plans quickly to include nightly stops in a bit more comfort.  Fortunately, winter lodging prices promised to be less of a burden on our travel budget.

Snow

In the morning, we returned to the truck stop to refuel.  Oregon is one of two states (the other is New Jersey) which outlaws self-service fueling.  But, this year, the legislature exempted certain rural areas, which Pendleton is not, but the truck stop is on and operated by the Umatilla Nation, which has its own rules, so we finally got to pump fuel legally in Oregon.  A small satisfaction.

The climb over the Wallawa mountain range brought snow, lots of it, over Emigrant and Deadman passes, with occasional rain through the valley.  After lunch in Ontario and picking up a few groceries, we headed across Idaho.  The speed limit on I-84 is 130 km/hr, but we usually keep our speed under 105, to save wear and tear on the 22-year-old truck and get better fuel efficiency as well.  The trip settled into stopping every 600 km and taking on 90 liters of fuel.

Fortunately, fuel cost in the American West is kept reasonably low, averaging between $0.60US and $0.70US/liter in the Rocky Mountain region, varying between $0.55/liter (west Texas) and $0.88/liter (southern California).  Staying at older motels, and foraging in groceries keeps our out-of-pocket travel expenses under $125/day, despite the higher fuel consumption.  The only way to reduce this would be free camping in parking lots, which isn’t going to happen with the return of winter weather.  Using motel chain loyalty cards and making on-line reservations keeps our motel costs to sometimes less than camping in commercial RV parks, when you consider motels usually provide some sort of coffee-and-doughnut (or waffle) breakfast.

With the storm licking at our heels, we pressed on, crossing into Utah at sunset.  We had estimated we might reach Ogden this day, but the slow progress in snow and the prospect of driving late and tired in heavy traffic revised our estimate a bit.  Weary, we pulled off I-15 at Brigham City to Cheap Motel #2.  This one bore the name of a once-prestigious chain of motels and family restaurants that spread across America with the construction of the Interstate Highway system in the late 1950s and 1960s, along with many other lesser-known chains that also still exist.  Most of these are on near the center of cities, on the old highways that now serve as main streets of decaying cities.

Our room was small, with the usual sticky doors warped with age and abuse.  The standard motel air-conditioning system was defunct, so there was a small space heater supplied.  Like many of these refugees from the age of family car trips, the sheets were thin, the towels threadbare, but there were no funky odors or loud neighbors (the motel was nearly deserted, making one wonder what state the other rooms were in if ours had make-shift heating).  Breakfast was adequate–we ate alone in the tiny lobby: no pretense of a breakfast room here, and no TV blaring out CNN or the morning talk shows we only know of because we travel and they are on in hotel breakfast rooms.

After our usual stop at Starbucks for coffee (espresso is kinder to our constitutions than brewed coffee, so we almost never use the motel coffee service), we are on the road again.  Not so long ago, it was difficult to find a decent coffee shop between the Cascade Crest and the Mississippi River, or at all in the Beehive State, but Starbucks has rolled into Utah on the wave of all the other food chains and big-box outlets.  The most common place to find them is in supermarkets, and this was no exception.  But, we were surprised to find one in one of the largest purveyors of milk and honey in the heart of the Mormon empire, indeed within the shadow of the local Temple.

We got an early start to run ahead of the snowstorm forecast for later in the day. We turned off I-15 at Spanish Fork, headed up the canyon on Highway 6 toward a blue hole that promised better weather. We stopped for lunch at Moab, where the skies were clear, but the wind blowing stiffly. We ended the day at Cortez, Colorado, which we had bypassed before but not stopped.

The morning dawned cold and still windy, with snow forecast there, too. We stopped for fuel at the Ute Nation casino just north of the New Mexico border, turning east at Shiprock and southwest at Farmington, headed once again on a four-lane highway toward Albuquerque. The wind continued, pushing the morning’s rain squalls ahead of us. We caught up with the rain at Cuba, despite pulling off the road briefly for lunch from our on-board larder.

In Albuquerque, we bypassed the city on the Tramway loop, checking out the bike path that skirts the east side of the city, realizing that the path climbed more than 100 meters above where we would be staying. Our meeting with our granddaughter wasn’t for a couple of days, so we settled in to plan our stay. The next morning, there was a dusting of snow in the parking lot, so we explored Old Town, checked out the riverfront bike trail, had lunch back on the east side, visited a Nob Hill yarn shop.

The next morning, the weather looked a bit more promising, so we bicycled the north half of the Paseo del Bosque trail, meeting our granddaughter and her new daughter-in-law for lunch in nearby Old Town after, and visited the Aquarium and Biological Park next to the trail with our youngest great-grandson and his somewhat older new nephew. On the way back to our hotel, we had the oil changed in the truck, as it was due, and picked up some supplies for the continuation of our Southwest adventure.

 

All things Unix, Bicycling, Travel, Uncategorized

The Parkins Report: Events of 2017

As we move into the beginning of our ninth year of “retirement,” we are finally learning to take life as it comes, with minimal rush.  This includes being involved in activities that satisfy us, rather than from some sense of obligation or need (although there is still plenty of that to go around).

Travels

This year was again a year of travel. In January, we headed south the day before Inauguration Day.  The drought had broken in California: we drove in slushy snow in the north and rain in the central and southern parts of the state. The first week, we took Judy’s brother-in-law Ben from Anaheim to San Diego to visit her cousin Margaret, then headed east to New Mexico and west Texas: Las Cruces, El Paso, and Albuquerque, to visit Larye’s children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchild.  Then, it was back to California, via Flagstaff and Bakersfield, then through rain again to San Francisco for a week exploring the city before driving home.

While at home, we worked on our van conversion project, building a folding sleeping platform with room beside it for the bicycle. In April, we made a test run to Idaho, camping overnight to and from McCall, where we spent a week with our friends Gary and Char at a timeshare, getting in a couple of short bike rides despite the snow and wet of central Idaho. We toured the Painted Hills of central Oregon on the way back. While training for the summer bicycling season, we had a frame failure on our Bike Friday, prompting a trip to the factory in Eugene to have it repaired. That trip showed us the old van was not ready for our ambitious touring schedule, so it was back to the shop for some major repairs on that, too.

While our bike was in the shop, we dusted off our 31-year-old Santana tandem for a scheduled charity ride and ended up taking it to Victoria, Canada when we attended the Association of Northwest Weavers Guilds conference over the Canada Day weekend. After the conference, we rode parts of the local trails we missed in the spring of 2010.

At the end of July, we set off on Road Trip 2017, starting with a detour to Eugene to pick up our Bike Friday, then off to northern Idaho for another week with Gary and Char at their vacation home. We soon discovered that our old van had no working air conditioning, so we spent the next six weeks of summer heat reliving the nostalgic days of yesteryear when turning on the “factory air” meant cranking the side windows down.

From Idaho, we headed east, spending a week in western Montana, visiting relatives, some also visiting from Florida and New York, visiting friends in the Bitterroot, and checking out the new Experimental Aircraft Assoc. chapter hangar at the Missoula airport. Heading southeast through Wyoming, we got in some trail riding in Nebraska and a weekend in Lincoln to be there for the total solar eclipse on Monday. After a brief stop in southern Minnesota to drop off a family heirloom with cousin Cathy, we worked our way through Iowa, riding around Lake Okoboji in the northwest, then the High Bridge Trail north of Des Moines. We drove down the Des Moines River, posing for Grant Woods’ American Gothic painting before turning north up the Mississippi River at Keokuk.

At the Quad Cities, we bicycled along the Great River Trail in Moline, Illinois and up Duck Creek in Bettendorf/Davenport, Iowa. We continued up the Iowa side of the Mississippi, then along the Wisconsin/Illinois border and up to Middleton, to visit son Matt and family over the Labor Day weekend, getting in one family bike ride in the process.

Crossing over the Mississippi back in to Minnesota, we stopped in Shakopee to visit a newly found cousin on Larye’s maternal grandfather’s side of the family. We bypassed the traffic around the west side of Minneapolis and checked into a campground on the south end of the Paul Bunyan Trail to ride up the trail to Baxter. The next day, we met with more of Larye’s cousins for a weekend reunion in Baxter and nearby Motley, near where the clan’s great grandparents had homesteaded.
Following the reunion, we rode some more of the Paul Bunyan Trail, starting north of Brainerd where we had turned around two years ago. The next morning, we headed to North Dakota to spend a couple of days with Judy’s cousin Fred and his wife, Ann. Smoke from the fires in Montana made visibility poor, so we pushed on west toward home, bypassing a return stop with the Montana folks to get home after a long trip, with the rain coming in and snow starting in the mountains.

The last weekend in October, we went to Astoria, Oregon to camp at and ride the trails at Fort Stevens State Park, in perfect weather. Our riding was cut short by the first flat on the front tire, which has lasted through two back tires, nearly 6000 km (3600 miles) in six years. The casing is a bit thin in the grooves, and a tiny puncture in the thickest tread: we “retired” it to secondary spare status.

By the end of November, our wanderlust struck again, and we retreated to Long Beach for a few days on the beach, on the edge of winter, one of our favorite times, since the crowds of summer are long gone.  In their place, however, is cold rain.  We also finally got talked into upgrading our vacation club membership, despite uncertain financial future of our status as elderly poor.

A return trip to Vancouver, BC in December capped the touring season, with Char joining us this time, Gary stayed home with a sick pet.

Travel Hosts

Between our own tours, we host international bicycle tourists through the Warm Showers network. We had 14 in April and May, then restricted visitors to “by invitation only” while we were preparing for our summer tours, picking up two more, a weaver from New Zealand we met on Facebook and a 69-year-old world traveler from Australia we met at the Olympic Bakery near Spencer Lake and invited to drop by on his way through Shelton.  On our return in the fall, we took in six more tourists before the rainy season and cold weather.

Transitions

As the rainy and cooler weather arrived in mid-October, Delia, our feline companion for the past 17 years, lost her struggle with kidney disease, just short of her 21st birthday. She had come to us in Missoula in the spring of 2000, a 3-1/2-year old “pound kitty,” wary of people in general. Over the years, especially after the demise of our other pound kitty, Nicolaus, in February 2005, she warmed to us and spent many hours of lap time in front of the fire. She also came to enjoy the attention of the many bicycle tourists who passed our way. She saw us through four houses and spent a lot of time “vacationing” at Pampered Pets in Darby, Montana and Just Cats Hotel in Olympia, where she was a favorite guest over the last eight years. She had been in poor health for about a year, but rebounded in the spring and summer, her favorite times of the year.

We welcomed a new great-great-granddaughter, Bea, in August, who we have not yet met. Bea joins her brother, Hyperion, in our growing and dispersing family. Visiting family takes longer now that grandchildren and great-grandchildren are becoming adults with their own households and schedules. Judy made a trip back to her hometown, Sunnyside, Washington this fall, for a family gathering of cousins, many of whom she had not met or had not seen for many years: Larye had a weaving class scheduled, so did not attend.

Lifestyle

For the first time in more than a dozen years, we have television, the result of upgrading our Internet service, which came bundled with a TV offer. The set is installed in Judy’s upstairs craft studio, which we furnished with a thrift shop small sofa. However, only a few available programs have piqued our interest so far, so the space has become just another reading room in the evenings. Public radio, both broadcast and satellite, remain our primary source of news and entertainment, along with selected video clips on the Internet.We continue to regularly practice yoga at the local senior center (when we are in residence), and attend the Ruby Street Art Quilters group in Tumwater. Judy completed a project for an exhibit at a brew pub in Olympia, and Larye finally finished a 2012 class project quilt as a baby quilt for Bea. We also joined the Friends of the Shelton Timberland Library this year and spend one afternoon a week sorting and pricing donated books and restocking the sale shelves, from which the proceeds support youth programs at the library.

We are still active in both the Olympia and Tacoma Weavers Guilds, and Larye manages the web sites for both. We both attended classes at the conference in Victoria this summer, and Larye attended a class in Olympia this fall, but not much progress on projects during this year. Between our travel schedules and taking care of our ailing cat, there simply hasn’t been a lot of time to actual work on the hobby projects for which we belong to the many organizations.

Find our videos on YouTube: Larye’s YouTube Channel, or view a summary of our bike touring season below:


and on Vimeo: Larye’s Vimeo Channel

Bicycling, Uncategorized

Warm Showers, Fall 2017

We went on a hiatus from Warm Showers hosting in early June to have time to prepare for our own perambulations of the summer: Vancouver Island in early July and our 10800-km shuttle in the van between trails in the Midwest in August and September.  After returning home in mid-September, we put ourselves back on the “Available” list and hosted six more tourists, well into the rainy season, putting the total for the year at 22 guests.

The end of September brought us Marge, from France, on a Canada (Vancouver) to Argentina (Ushuaia) quest.  Marge was a bit wary of the general lack of respect for bicycles in America, so we gifted her with the trailer flag we used on our Atlantic Coast tour last year. The flag shows up in her blog post photos from time to time as she heads south.  I accompanied Marge out to the highway to head south, as I often do to lead guests out of our neighborhood and back on their route.  The usual preferred Adventure Cycling route, Cloquallum Road, was being resurfaced on the big hill west of town, so she elected to ride Highway 108 to Hicklin Road north of McCleary.

In mid-October, we took in two couples, Daniel and Alex from Germany and Ed and Marty from Scotland, who had met another Warm Showers host’s the day before. They had elected to take the southern route to Portland rather than directly to the coast, so we routed them around Olympia (which is 15 km shorter than the Adventure Cycling route through Elma). Again, I led them out to Hwy 3, a good plan, as they initially missed the turn, continuing across the intersection onto Arcadia road south. With all the inlets of south Puget Sound between, it is not intuitive to get south to Olympia by first proceeding west to US 101 and then southeast.

Daniel, Alex, Ed, and Marty. The two couples met in Quilcene and traveled together for a few days.

The bicycle touring season usually ends in late October as the frost line moves south a bit faster than most tourists can pedal, and the rainy season picks up with the storms of November. But, every few years, we get an intrepid soul with enough stamina and wet and cold weather experience to challenge the elements.

So, in mid-November, we met Bryan, from New York, who was misdirected to the wrong ferry in Seattle, ending up on Bainbridge Island, many kilometers farther from his intended destination of Elma. His late request resulted in even later arrival, as he chose to ride all the way despite making several offers to meet him on the road with the van before dark. We did get a chance to visit more, however: Bryan had sent himself a supply package to Elma, but, arriving on the weekend, he would have had to wait for the post office to open, so we invited him to spend another day, to pass through Elma mid-day and have more time to heal up from crashing in the dark on the way to Shelton. Bryan is a professional cook, so fixed dinner for us the second day, an excellent cap on this, our seventh season of hosting.

Bryan’s 29er is a veteran of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, and a fine steed for the rainy Pacific Northwest.
Uncategorized

Road Trip Summer 2017, part 5: The Long Road Home

Anxious to be home, we left Minnesota without indulging in any more bicycle trail explorations.  Following U.S. 10 west, we crossed into North Dakota, through Fargo on I-94, then north on secondary roads to Devils Lake (a mis-translation of the native American “Spirit Lake”), across the causeways built to keep the roads above the lake. Devils Lake varies in elevation from year to year, after a rapid rise to historic levels in the late 20th century, swallowing farms, roads, and parts of towns. We spent a couple of days visiting with Judy’s cousin Fred and his wife, Ann, including a visit to the Minnewaukan cemetery, on high ground above the partly submerged town.

Devils Lake, North Dakota. The lake level has varied widely over the last century, greatly increasing in size in the last decade of the 20th century, swallowing roads, farms, and parts of towns. The level has fallen slightly in recent years.

Turning west once more, we crossed the Bakken oil fields on U.S. 2, now 4-lane across the state, stopping for coffee in Williston, where a great-grandson worked last year. He is now back in his native New Mexico, and many of the temporary barracks that once held oil workers were empty, the drilling boom largely over, except for pipeline construction. Each of the wellheads that lined the highway and beyond had a gas flare, covering the northwest corner of North Dakota with a patch of light clearly visible from space when on the night side of the planet. A pall of smoke from the Montana forest fires hung over the entire state.

Gas flare in the Bakken oil fields. Photo by Judy.

The highway shrank to two-lane crossing into Montana. By the end of the day, we pulled into an RV park in Glasgow, where we not only were allowed to camp in our imitation RV, but got a discount because we obviously didn’t need a full hookup. We got a prized spot next to the shower building: a pair of motorcyclists who came in after us, eyeing the same spot, were assigned a spot across from the office, which turned out to be infested with ground wasps. They didn’t stay, though the campground staff sprayed the nests. As with most RV parks today, there was WiFi, but very poor Internet connections, so we had to do our client updates in the middle of the night.

Uploading files to client web site from camp–in the middle of the night, when the Internet connection actually worked. Computer on top of our 12-volt refrigerator, between the front seats.

Glasgow had a nice coffee shop downtown, which we visited early morning and continued west in intermittent drizzle that cleared out the smoke. Highway 2, the “High-Line,” follows the Burlington Northern – Santa Fé rail line: mid-day, we spotted the eastbound Empire Builder passenger train, reminding us how much more we enjoyed traveling this route by train. By late afternoon, we crossed the Continental Divide. Last year, we drove through Glacier National Park on our trip back from the Midwest: this year, the Going-to-the-Sun highway was closed due to forest fires in the park that had destroyed the iconic Sperry Chalet.

Still in our camping frame of mind, we pulled into the Whitefish KOA. Tired from the long drive, I decided the $50 camp fee was the going price, over Judy’s objections. Fortunately, the power plug at the site we were assigned was incompatible with the extension cord we use to power our refrigerator and computers, so we got a refund and headed into Kalispell, where we used our loyalty points to get a motel room with breakfast for the same price. Camping turns out to be not so economical after all. We had thought we would park at a Walmart in a pinch, but had come to rely on electricity and WiFi, not to mention showers and close proximity to rest room facilities. Fortunately, we had accumulated enough points on our motel card to match the RV park prices.  Unfortunately, WiFi at the motel was not as reliable as at the Kampground.

Flathead Lake and the Mission Range – first snowfall. Photo by Judy.

The rain continued through most of the night. As it was a Friday, we decided camping and motels were both likely to be less available and more expensive closer to home, so we left well before dawn, intending to get home before dark. This day would be 1000 km, but a trip we had made many times over the past 30 years. Driving below the speed limit and avoiding freeways on this six-week-long trip had served us well in the fuel economy department, along with cheap fuel in the Midwest, so we could afford to trade fuel economy for one less night on the road.

We headed south from Kalispell, getting on Interstate 90 at St. Regis, rather than driving across US 2 or Montana 200, as we had planned. All went well until encountering road work and traffic delays west of Ellensburg and again over the pass into the Puget Sound Friday rush hour. Our pre-dawn GPS estimate of 3:30pm arrival stretched to past 7:30pm when we finally arrived at home, exhausted after hours of creeping in traffic both on the freeway and on detours through the back streets of Federal Way and Tacoma.

Crossing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Photo by Judy.

Stats:

  • Auto miles:  6730 (10828 km)
  • Bicycle miles:  193 (311 km)
  • Nights in truck:  21
  • Nights in motels: 10
  • Nights in AirBnBs: 5
  • Nights with family and friends: 11

Estimated Cost (excluding food: we ate no differently than at home):

  • Lodging:  ~$1000
  • Fuel: ~$1000
  • Cat Boarding: ~$1000