In The Homestretch
First of all, I know you want photographs — or maybe not. Haven’t heard from anyone, so maybe it is a moot issue.
We arrived in Iowa today. I know I haven’t posted in a while, frankly I am amazed I made it as far as I did. If you are on Facebook, look up Susan — I know she has posted stuff along the way. I am not on Facebook any more.
I realize that some of you have come here to see what is or has been happening on this 40-day extravaganza. I apologize I haven’t kept up, but the majority of the photographs (or at least a representative sampling thereof) have already been posted.
The last photos I posted were from the Grand Canyon, both rims on days two and three. From there we traveled to Panguitch, Utah for two nights. We made the mistake of going to Zion National Park on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend. We thought we arrived early in the day (for us) at 1030AM. We found out that the parking lots at the Visitor Center had filled up at 730AM. It was madness. We drove to the Visitor Center (it took a real long time) through the tunnels, which was the only reason I didn’t turn around at the gate — found a parking spot, made a donation in the gift shop, and went out the way we came in. That was about it for Panguitch, Utah area.
We spent one night in Jackpot, Nevada. We ate in the casino where we stayed. It wasn’t great. Susan was in a lot of pain from pulling out her back and then sitting in the car too much, so we went back to the room to rest and wait and see if we got food poisoning from the meal.
The next day we drove to Idaho, which was the Saturday before Labor Day. We were there for ten days. It really wasn’t a “tourism” stop for us, we started preparing for moving there next year — figuring out where things are, measuring the house, etc. We did some traveling. but I didn’t take photos. If you are on Facebook, you might have seen a picture of me on a 4-wheeler… I’m sure Susan posted that one.
We left Idaho on the Monday a week after Labor Day and drove to Montana. The plan was to drive on Beartooth Pass and visit Yellowstone. That didn’t work for three reasons. The smoke from the wildfires was so bad, it was hard to see across the neighborhood from where we were staying, never mind try and see a view up in the mountains AND I would not last very long out in the smoke as my lungs are damaged and I probably fall into the first category of people they tell to get back inside AND I got sick for two days.
After that, with me mostly recovered, we drove to Custer, SD. Went to Mount Rushmore on 9/11 at night for the evening ceremony consisting of a short Ranger talk about the four men immortalized on the mountain, a movie, and grand illumination. If you are in the area, it’s a nice place to go for a date night…
We also visited the Crazy Horse monument, which was started about 60 or 70 years ago and has about 500 more years of work before it is done (I may or may not be kidding about the “500 more years” bit). There is an interesting movie and an Indian museum to explore, plus a grand gift shop to separate us from our money.
Also while in the Custer area, we took a train ride on the 1880s train from Hill City to Keystone — and back again. Highly recommended. Hill City has a lot of bar, restaurants, and shops. The Local Artist Coop has a wonderful inventory of items from local artists.
Now we are in Iowa. The end is near. Tomorrow we drive to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sunday we will make our way leisurely to Charleston, WV, where we are staying the night in a bookstore. Then Monday morning I will load up the crate of books I will buy in the book store and we will return, on the 40th Day, to our home in Virginia.
If you are curious, tomorrow we will click over 7000 miles since we drove out of our driveway in Virginia on August 8th.
More thoughts to come in a day or two, including our two close calls with the car during our travels — one involving water, and the other involving gazelles…
Thanks for reading.
Kevin