Stayed in Winnemucca

Well, if there had been any question as to whether we would stay in Winnemucca, I settled it by locking the car key in the trunk! Other than freaking me out, it was not such a big deal -- we called AAA and they took care of it.

So, after our car was rescued, we went looking for what Winnemucca has to offer. Mostly that would be two-bit casinos, motels and hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

But as avid blog readers may remember, Winnemucca does have one nice feature. a significant Basque culture and a number of Basque restaurants (they claim to have more Basque restuarants per capita than anywhere else in America).

We had dinner at Ormachea's, the reputed best one. It was great fun -- we had their sampler dinner and got to taste a wide variety of specialties. It was very homey feeling and the food was tasty if not dramatic.

Tomorrow it is on to Berkeley!

Day 20 Winnemucca, NV

Here we are in Winnemucca and "A" is saying let's keep going and be in Berkeley by tonight. We could, but we've driven 6 hours already today, and the idea of 6 more hours is less than thrilling. I think we're staying the night, but we'll see.

Here's A Museum For You

We loved seeing a sign as we passed through Idaho for the "Jefferson County TV and Pioneer Museum". It turns out that it is just what it sounds like -- apparently Jefferson County says it was where television was developed.

We were picturing the tour guide, though, if it were just about the history of TVs and pioneers:

"Well, over here we have the RCA XL100. She's a beaut, isn't she? Developed back in 1959, she was the first color TV. Oh, and here we have a depiction of a typical covered wagon as used by the pioneers. Now, the pioneers didn't actually have TVs, but if they did, they sure would have loved a good ole RCA XL100!"

Strange museum. Stranger blogger.

Day 19 - Salt Lake City

We are in Salt Lake City. Just as we did in Chicago, we chose a downtown hotel, looking for a little urban fun. What a disappointment! As I think Gertrude Stein once said about Oakland, "There's no there there."

You can say this, at least SLC was well lit and quiet -- well-lit by the blazing 101 degree sun and quiet because virtually nobody seems to exist in this downtown. I have never seen so few pedestrians in a city -- it was like a ghost-town. Perhaps that is because more than half the stores are shuttered closed!

We did find a very nice Vietnamese Restaurant and a super independent bookstore. When I complemented the manager at the bookstore on her store, she bemoaned that it was hard to stay in business under the circumstances in this downtown.

She said that when she was a kid, she used to love to go downtown and it was thriving, but that the city's leadership had decided that what was needed was to build 2 malls on either corner of downtown, maybe two miles from one another, and that had killed everything in between. She said that there was talk of now building 2 more malls downtown, right across the street from each other, but that they would connect the two with an elevated walkway, assuring that no one ever walk on a street! What a shame.

We did walk to one of the malls at the edge of town. What a disappointment. Just like a suburban mall, with a zillion chain stores and not one single independent shop. Oh, except they forgot to enclose it, so you could fully enjoy the 101 degree heat.

We are not SLC fans. On the positive side, we stayed at a very nice hotel, feel refreshed for our next drive, and we are just 2 days from reaching Berkeley!

Days 17 & 18 -- Yellowstone (pictures later, sorry)

We spent the last two days in Yellowstone National Park, at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge -- the junior partner to the grander Old Faithful Inn.

We had fun in Yellowstone and it was beautiful, but for a variety of reasons, it may have been less than the sum of its parts.

What we liked:

We had fun seeing wildlife. Bison, including one quite close-up; Elk, beautiful; Moose, only saw one lying down from a bit of a distance -- kind of a disappointment.

Old Faithful. Despite it's Disney-fication (complete with a long and winding multi-lane access road to it's huge parking lot), it was really impressive. We saw it blow 4 times (since our hotel was so close, we could walk over in the evening when the crowds had thinned and the temperature was cooler), and it caused us to ooh and aah each time. We also liked the camaraderie that developed with other tourists as we waited for it to blow (it is not perfectly regular, so you usually end up waiting 15-30 minutes). We talked to a radiologist from New York, a family from Israel, and a family from about an hour from our house in Berkeley (they had a teenage daughter who mistakenly took a picture of her foot instead of Old Faithful -- her brother made sure to tease her on that one!)

Other things we liked were some truly beautiful scenery and swimming in a "warm" river (okay, Laura barely got in, I waded, and "A" swam).

Here's what made it less than ideal. "A' especially, but all of us to some extent, felt really cut-off from civilization -- no internet, barely any buildings (shopping, etc.), hardly any decent food even. Too much driving each day -- we had been driving so much for the last many weeks that it was hard to have to drive for hours each day in the park. Our lodge was fine, but way less pleasant than the one in Grand Teton. Too many crowds -- and I hear it gets worse as the summer progresses.

We must sound like whiners, and perhaps we are. And we did enjoy our time there, but less than we might have hoped. I will try to post some pictures in the next couple days.

Brrrrrr!

I keep forgetting to mention the temperature in the park. Each day has been a high in the 70's, which is delightful, although 2 days ago the wind was so strong that it felt much colder.

At night though the temperature plummets into the 30's! When we go to bed our room is comfortable but each night I wake up in the middle of the night freezing and have to go turn on the heat. Then, when I get up early and head to the lodge lobby to use the internet (as I am right now), I scramble to find warm clothes and a fleece and get dressed without waking Laura and "A". I go out to walk the quarter of a mile to the lodge from our room, and even dressed warmly, it is freezing.

We brought our winterish coats on the trip, but they are buried in the trunk and I haven't retrieved them. Maybe it's time to rethink that strategy!

Talk to you in a couple days.

Grand Teton Photos

View from Our Hotel Room Picture Window

Laura and "A" on yesterday's hike

A grouse (?) we saw while on our hike

View while eating lunch at Jenny Lake Lodge

Prize-winning photo of the Grand Tetons (okay, so we awarded it to ourselves!)

Day 16 -- Grand Teton National Park, 2nd Day

No photos right now, though I have an absolute beauty I want to post -- "A" is hogging up the laptop, so I'm using the lodge's guest computer and can't upload pictures.

We had a nice first half of our day -- going on a nice hike. Then we had lunch at Jenny Lake Lodge -- the nicest inn in the park. We might have wanted to get a room there, but at $900 a night (!!!), we thought better of it.

Lunch was delicious -- trout for Laura, Smoked Salmon sandwich for me, and a gourmet tuna sandwich for "A". Perhaps it sounds mundane, but they were quite the culinary artists.

Then, believe it or not, I had a PJA-related conference call that took an hour and a half and was quite intense. I have not been able to go out of town once in the last number of years without business issues dogging me. Oh well, nothing to worry about, but it led to a weary period which was finally eliminated by the fam coming and sitting in the nice lobby and listening to a nice pianist -- like something from a bygone era.

Don't expect to blog until Friday (though I may sneak in the photos early tomorrow before we leave). It's off to Old Faithful Snow Lodge in Yellowstone for next two days, then on to Salt Lake.

Things That Make No Sense

As we travel through the country, we've laughed a number of times at the things in life that make no sense. Here are a few:

In our Grand Teton Lodge, the grand lobby has a huge 100 foot by 25 foot window overlooking the Tetons, and there is a ton to do in the park. This is a picture taken from the lobby...

Yet, at any hour when you walk in to the lobby, there are dozens of people, who moved heaven and earth to get to this spot, who are busy at work on their laptop computers! (Now, I'm one of them!)

In one of our hotels, there was a nice hot tub. But be careful, as this sign says, the spa hours are strictly enforced! Uh, just what were those hours again?

We thought we were seeing things. Notice the price of regular is listed second at $3.09 and Super gasoline is listed first for only $2.99. We thought this was a trick, yet, as it turns out, many, many gas stations in South Dakota shared this practice. We are guessing that it has to do with an ethanol subsidy which allows them to charge less for the ethanol-enhanced Super vs. the non-ethanol-enhanced regular.

Day 15 -- Grand Teton National Park

We have arrived at Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton! It is a beautiful park lodge. Most of our trip, we have been pretty moderate with our choices of hotels, with most of the hotels costing less than $100.


For a choice few locations, primarily Chicago, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone, we decided to splurge. Mind you, I really mean more of a mini-splurge than what we could have done -- you can pay more than $500/night in some of these park lodges!


Our splurge is for a "cabin" with a wide showcase window directly facing the Grand Tetons. It is beautiful. I had to put cabin in quotes, because it really is much nicer than a basic cabin -- quite nice.


Anyway, enough about the hotel for now. We drove from Cody about an hour to the entrance to Yellowstone. You have to drive through part of Yellowstone to get to Grand Teton from Cody.


The drive from Cody was breathtakingly beautiful -- incredible rocky mountains where the rocks seem to hang just above and about you, pristine streams and rivers, snow capped mountain peaks.


Once inside Yellowstone, it became a bit less pleasant for a while. First, there was the line-up of cars waiting to get in. After we waited through that, we were met just inside the park by a construction project on the access road -- the kind of project where you shut off your engine and just wait and wait.


I tried to be a happy camper, but ultimately became a grouch -- especially once we decided to open our cooler and have a snack while we waited. Our jar of roasted red pepper spread had opened up and had spread all right, all over everything in the cooler. Great, just great!


My sour mood started to drag the others down, but soon enough we got it together and were on our way.

We didn't do a huge amount of sightseeing in Yellowstone, but did stop to take the following pictures of thermal pools in a geyser basin:










We also noted a tremendous amount of the trees in Yellowstone had been lost to the forest fires of a few years ago:


Once in Grand Teton, we headed for the lodge and were treated to some magnificent views. Again, the pictures don't really do justice.



After checking in to our lodge and having a bit of a rest, we went out in search of some wildlife. We had seen a moose off in the distance from our lodge window, and were hoping for a closer spotting. We had no luck with the moose, but did see several buffalo and then saw a mother bear with her three cubs as we passed in the car. They were close, and we were going slowly, so we got a really good look -- no pictures though, sorry.

Our final destination of the day was the town of Jackson, to stroll their shopping streets and have a nice dinner at a restaurant that is more our style than what we've been having -- Thai! Upon leaving the restaurant, we had one of those travel moments that just seem so unreal -- we heard someone calling "A" by name, here in Jackson, Wyoming! It was one of her teachers from SRV, Dawn, who was here on an educational program. What are the chances, yet these things happen so much more often than you would expect. It was great to see her -- what fun!

The Drive to Cody

So, here are the pictures I promised you from the drive from South Dakota to Cody, Wyoming -- more beautiful than the photos tell. (I guess you can see that I do have internet access in our Grand Teton lodge).

Day 14 - Cody

We drove to Cody, Wyoming yesterday -- one of our longer drives of the trip at about 6 hours. And a good chunk of it was not highway driving, but rather winding through the mountains of Bighorn National Forest.

It was a beautiful drive. I have a few photos, but they are in the camera in our Cody hotel room, while I write this outside the main hotel office in the early morning hours. I don't want to go back and wake the fam, so you'll have to wait on the pictures.

Anyway, in addition to being a beautiful drive, it was also a bit taxing both for me as the driver and for "A" and Laura as the "Don't-Get-Sick-Despite-The-Winding" passengers. Accordingly, when we got to Cody, we mostly wanted to rest and didn't really take advantage of what Cody has to offer -- mostly the Buffalo Bill Museum.

Instead, Laura napped while "A" computed and I read. Then, we walked around Cody's main street looking at shops and tasting samples of buffalo sausage, etc. We had an early dinner, a soak in the hotels oversized hot tub, and went to bed early. Hopefully that will give us plenty of energy for our next four nights -- the first two in Grand Teton National Park and the second two in Yellowstone.

It is conceivable that I won't be blogging for all that time, though I'm hoping for at least brief internet access at some point.

One final word about Cody -- which sort of sums up what Cody is like. The "hotel" we are staying at is called Cody Cowboy Village. Hee-Haw!!

Day 13 -- Spearfish Continued

Well, I previously wrote my impressions of Spearfish, so I won't add much here, except to say that we did end up going to the play from which the old movie "gaslight" came. It was fun. "A" gave it 3.5/4 stars. Laura and I enjoyed it too, but the level of the production was somewhere between high school and community theater -- in fact about half the cast were local high school students playing adult roles.

We also drove into the Black Hills, which, like so much of what we've seen, were quite beautiful. Pictures of some waterfalls we saw are below:

Day 12 -- Badlands

Okay, so this is yesterday's news, but here goes.

We drove just 3 hours to get to Badlands National Park, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the park. As the following photos show, it is quite other-wordly and dramatic:

Here are two of me taken by Laura (yes I do exist):

We went on some beautiful and stark hikes and saw lots of wildlife including Bighorn Sheep, Prairie Dogs by the dozens ("A" would desperately like to have one as a pet!), a Rattlesnake (heading away, luckily), and pictured below, a bison:

We really enjoyed out time in the Badlands.

Sorry for the lack of posts/ We're in Spearfish

I am sorry we have been out of blog touch for a couple of days, but we had no internet access while in Badlands National Park. The same will probably happen again when we go to the other national parks in a couple of days, so don't worry (parents, this means you!).

I will post separately about our Badlands experience in a bit hopefully, but in the meantime, thought I would jump ahead to the town of Spearfish, which we are now in, on the western edge of South Dakota.

I wasn't expecting much, other than perhaps some pretty Black Hills scenery nearby. But the town itself was not expected to be very nice. So far, I am happy to report that I was expecting too little.

We pulled into town around lunch time and headed past the highway entrance conglomeration of the usual -- KFC, Subway, Ruby Tuesdays, etc. -- and went into the center of town, Main Street (what else?).

I had read, with a bit of a sense of foreboding as a Jew, that right around Main Street in Spearfish was the locale for one of the significant tourist attractions in Spearfish -- the Black Hills Passion Play, as in the Passion of the Christ. I guess I'm not expecting a synagogue in these small heartland towns, but I do get a bit edgy when the displays of Christianity share too much with Mel Gibson's work.

Anyway, with that as my expectation, I was more than impressed with downtown Spearfish. We had lunch at a Berkeley-cool coffeehouse called "Common Grounds" (sandwiches complete with sprouts and avocado!), visited the large and well-stocked natural foods store, noted that a "Sustainable Living Festival" is taking place in town, and found out about getting tickets to the "other" local play in town -- Angel Street (better known by it's movie title of "Gaslight").

I'm not sure I would want to live in Spearfish, but it actually is a nice place to visit!

We are in the 13th day of our 21 day journey, and about 2/3 across the United States. It really is a beautiful country, and we still have perhaps the highlights of Yellowstone and Grand Teton ahead of us.

Day 11 -- Mitchell, SD

We are in Mitchell, South Dakota -- took us maybe 5-6 hours of driving from Minneapolis. Mostly, we had planned this as just a rest stop and quick jumping off spot for tomorrow's foray into Badlands National Park, but we found that Mitchell is not completely devoid of interest.

To begin with, it is home to the Mitchell Corn Palace. Frankly, it ain't much to be interested in, but it is kind of cool the way they use corn and other such items to construct the mosaic pictures that adorn the building.

Here's one of the pictures with this year's rodeo theme.

Of more interest to us was this doll museum, with over 5000 dolls. Laura, of course, loves old dolls. But I was surprised a month or two ago, when we went to the Doll House Museum in Delaware, to find how much I liked seeing them too.

Here, Laura examines some of the collection. It was pretty impressive, really, and huge.

Our road trip here was interesting -- we drove through a considerable lightning storm, with magnificent, if scary, large bolts of lightning. And, believe it or not, "A" and I had our first meals ever at a Subway. Not bad.

Oh yeah, in case you ever wanted to know, the world's best coffeehouse is in Mitchell, South Dakota, as this picture clearly states.

Mind you, we never went there, but it's stated clearly on their sign.

Minneapolis - Day 10

Yesterday was our last day in Minnesota and we just sort of did this and that. Laura helped Joanna a bit in the garden, "A" and I went for a last visit to some of her favorite nearby shops ("A" loves to shop, even if we don't buy anything), we went in Lake Calhoun.

In the evening, we went for Mongolian Barbecue. Steve, who has been working and unable to join us for many activities, came along, which was nice.


While we were driving, and after, there were the most magnificent cloud formations in the sky, as a storm was brewing.

In the second photo, is the face of God looking down upon us?

Once the storm actually arrived sometime later, we found it most unusual that there was a huge show of lightning, but nary a single sound of thunder. Guess we aren't in Kansas anymore -- wait a second, maybe I should choose a different expression -- we are actually kind of close to Kansas now.

We are having a birthday breakfast with Joanna (Happy Birthday, Joanna!) in a little while, then it is off on our drive once again. It has been nice to light here for awhile.

Darn... We missed it!

When we were passing through Wisconsin, we noticed it was time for the good ole annual Reedsburg Butter Festival.

Have you ever wondered just what goes on at a Butter Festival? Perhaps there's the Butter-Stick Eating Contest (followed immediately thereafter by the annual CPR contest).

Well, I've looked it up, and it's almost as strange as my fantasy. There's the "Draft Horse Pull" and the "Honey-Butter Bake-Off", but my clear favorite has to be the annual "Run for the Butter".

Here's a link to all the festivities: http://www.thedailypage.com/theguide/details.php?event=183272

Day 9 -- Minneapolis

Our penultimate (don't you love the rare opportunities to use that word!) full day in Minneapolis, and we all went berry-picking with Joanna's friend Erin and family, including Erin's mother, a farmer from Indiana, who told us about growing walnut trees for lumber. It was a beautiful day with the heatwave having broken to give way to a sunny and breezy day in the 70s.

After the picking we sat at a picnic table at the berry farm and had a lunch of make-your-own baba ganoush, hummus, tomato, chickpea salad and sprout sandwiches, with delicious white nectarine for dessert. More scrumptious food in Minnesota.

Here are Joanna and Laura picking, and the result of their labor. "A" preferred taking art photos with my help. She takes wonderful photos, but I am forbidden from posting them here without the artist's permission. These ones were taken by me, so I can post away:

Day 8 -- Minneapolis

Joanna had to do some work in the morning, so Laura, "A" and I just walked around the very nice shopping district near Joanna's house -- used and new book stores, thrift shops, a wonderful spice store.

Joanna lives in a terrific neighborhood, with this wonderful, eclectic collection of stores, restaurants and cafes just a few block walk away, then Lake Calhoun a couple blocks in the other direction. In the middle, where Joanna's house is are blocks of residential houses -- beautiful, older houses with character, architectural interest, charm and lovely gardens. It's a great area to live (if you can tolerate those darn MN winters!).

Around lunchtime, we picked Joanna up from her lab and went to lunch at a new Thai restaurant in her area -- excellent!

Then we walked around Lake Calhoun:

A walkway circles the lake, and if you look up from it, away from the lake, you see beautiful houses in a verdant setting:

Here are L, A, and J by the lake:

Some Catch-Up

Here are some pictures that never made it to the blog from previous days:

Here's "A" outside the theater in Chicago, waiting to see "Wicked"

Three of the Wisconsin cheese factory: the bins where cheese would have been being made if they weren't being cleaned instead, the tanks outside with their cow motif, and "A" and Laura eating cheese curds with the greenhouse in the background where they put the waste water from the cheese making process to excellent use.

And some sheep and a llama we saw while driving in Wisconsin

Day 7 -- Minneapolis

Yesterday, we went to White Bear Lake, one of Minnesota's huge number of lakes. Although Joanna lives a short walk from Lake Calhoun, we chose White Bear because you could windsurf on it. And it was a nice warm windy day -- a good day for windsurfing.

Okay, I could go on trying to trick you into thinking we windsurfed, but surely you know us better than that. It was Steve who was the windsurfer and he had a fun and exhausting time doing so while the rest of us strolled and swam at the lake. Then, we barbecued and picnicked.

The weather for our whole trip has been quite hot, with every day in the 90s. Today, though, the heatwave is supposed to break and the high is only supposed to be in the 70s.

In the evening, we took about a 2-mile walk down to and along the Mississippi River.

Perhaps the most interesting part of our day was in the morning when Laura and I went to the cafe across from Steve's apartment, where we are staying. We struck up a conversation with a fellow, James, who was clearly a grown-up hippie. We talked for a while, chatting about how we were moving cross-country and him reminiscing about his time spent in San Francisco during the "Summer of Love".

After a while, we asked him what he did in Minneapolis. He told us he was a "common laborer, and an inventor". We, of course, asked the next question -- what did he invent?

At first he was fairly coy. He said he held a patent on an invention that related to one of the world's most well-known icons. For a minute, we thought he was going to make us play "Guess the Icon", and it's a good thing he didn't since my guess was going to be the golden arches of McDonalds.

But, after a moment, he revealed that the icon was the yin and yang symbol. He spent the next fifteen minutes going on and on about hidden diamonds, circles within circles, God, the Big Bang, and I don't know just what else. We made a rather hasty retreat from that cafe, but I certainly will think of James whenever I see the yin/yang symbol in the future.

Day 6 -- Minneapolis

We made it to Minneapolis around 3:00 and it is great being here.

"A" is staying with Joanna, and Laura and I are staying in the soon to be vacated apartment of Joanna's boyfriend, Steve. I think both "A" and we are happy to have less than 24/7 being spent in direct contact.

The first order of business was to completely unload our trunk so we could get out the things we had brought cross-country for Joanna. It was unbelievable to look at the huge array of items we had been carrying in our car -- for both us and Joanna.

For us there is:

-- a box of "A"'s clothes
-- a box of Laura's clothes
-- a box of my clothes (the idea with these boxes is that we each select what we want each day and just bring those in a separate small duffel bag into hotels with us -- it's worked pretty well, but has been a bit hard to get at our clothes)
-- 3 small boxes of things we didn't want movers to transport
-- a carrying bag of medical/apothecary type needs
-- a box with activities "A" can choose from for entertainment while driving
-- a backpack of electronics (headphones, portable dvd player, dvds, etc.)
-- a daypack
--the equivalent of 3 bags of groceries (food that we took plus food my mother sweetly gave us for journey)
-- 2 rat cages -- one large and one small (for when we need to "sneak" into hotel rooms)
-- a cooler
-- a bucket filled with personal items (shampoo, sunscreen, etc.)
-- a sleeping bag
-- 3 pillows
-- 6 coats of various types (9 if you count fleeces)
-- a laptop computer
-- 3 purses/messenger bags
-- a travel lap-table for "A"
-- a dirty laundry bag
-- several other small items (books, hairdryer, etc.)

I think that's it, but I might be missing some stuff.

Now, what we had for Joanna:

-- six (mostly large -- averaging say 2 1/2 by 4 foot) framed pieces of artwork
-- an arcade-type amusement game
-- cross-country skis, poles, shoes

We had to remove everyting from the trunk to get at Joanna's things which were at the bottom. It looked like we were moving in!

I took some pride in how I had carefully planned each inch of car packing space for efficient use during the trip. Well, pride truly does go before a fall. We were barely into the trip when my system started to break down and our things became somewhat of a confusing jumble. I have some hope that with Joanna's things now out of the car, we can have a bit more space and order. But I won't hold my breath.

Last night we went to the Dakota Jazz club in Minneapolis. We had a wonderful dinner and heard some great live music (Nachito Herrera). It was in celebration of Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Steve's and Joanna's Birthdays. Very nice. Here's their website: http://www.dakotacooks.com/

Today, we are hoping to spend at one of MN's wonderful lakes.

Sorry for the lack of pictures again. I have the laptop and "A" has the camera at Joanna's. We'll get it together at some point and I'll play catch up.

Day 6 -- On To Joanna in MN

Well, I barely have any internet access, so no pictures of yesterday in WI. We made it to 2 of 3 venues -- Cheese Factory and the Dells.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the cheese factory at 1 PM, they had shut down production for the day and were just cleaning. Still a bit of fun and we loved our lunch of cheese, crackers, carrots, etc. I'll try to post pictures when I can.

Then we went to the Wisconsin Dells -- a ridiculously honytonk town of t-shirt shops, waterslides, amusement parks, etc. I had gone to the Dells while in college and enjoyed none of that stuff, but instead loved the geology and natural beauty behind all the glitz. I really loved going on a boat ride on the Wisconsin river and seeing the beautiful rock formations that were cut through when the river formed. At one point, you get off the boat and walk through narrow, craggy, path of Witch's Gulch, with rock formations on either side of you, and the temperature dropping 15 degrees. It's really beautiful.

So, we did that. Laura and I thought it was really beautiful -- "A" thought it was nice too, but disliked the tour guide and his silly comments ("This is Indian's Headdress" -- assigning names to the various formations). The pilot of the boat, a perky college girl had the most squeeky minnie-mouse voice you ever heard -- we tried not to laugh.

After that, we went on the scariest rollercoaster I have ever been on -- "A" enjoyed it far more than me! Laura sat out -- good choice!

By this time it was heading toward bedtime and we hadn't eaten, so it was more crackers and cheese, and a can of soup. It was better than it sounds!

This morning, we are eager to head off to Joanna's where we'll stay for 5 nights. It will be great to see Joanna, and great to have a break from driving!

Day 5 -- Wisconsin

I noticed that I'm already losing track of time -- Chicago was day 4 not 3 as I posted. Anyway, if A" ever wakes up this morning, we plan to head off for Wisconsin. We have three things on the WI agenda (2 at the suggestion of the Litwacks -- thanks).

Here are the websites of where we hope to be, though I wonder if we'll get to all of them:

http://thehouseontherock.com/HOTR_AttractionMain.htm

http://www.cedargrovecheese.com/

http://www.dells.com/display.php?id=359

We may not have internet access for the next day or two, so don't worry if there are no new posts.

Chicago Update

Very unlike us -- we went to see "Wicked" tonight on the spur of the moment, getting crane-your-neck-to-see seats at the very front. It was a blast, and "A" loved it. She lucked out with a T-shirt too!

Now it's darn near the wee hours for us wimps. Goodnight.

Day 3 -- Chicago is our kind of town...

We made it to Chicago by 11 AM (counting the extra hour back due to time change), and our lovely hotel (Hotel Monaco in downtown) was nice enough to give us our room early.

We were hungry and ate at a nice little mexican restaurant near the hotel then walked around (and walked and walked and walked around) the city.

First we went to Millenium park which every one has said is so nice. It was a fine city park with lots of open spaces and sculptures, performing venues, etc., but it didn't knock our socks off (perhaps because it was quite hot and little shade is available). The signature feature of the park is the Bean:

It was fun to see. So were the people we saw riding segues around town, including this cop:

Then we went walking all over the loop and the "Magnificent Mile" -- upscale department and chain stores.

We had lots of fun, and Chicago is clearly a bustling city, but perhaps we just didn't know where the cool, individually owned, funky stores, cafes, etc are.

We figured if we headed to Greektown we might succeed and indeed we might have, but we aborted our walk there when we saw too few pedestrians and too many checkcashing stores for our comfort level.

Again, I have to stress that despite the less than perfect experience I'm describing, we had fun and are enjoying the city.

Tomorrow we will go back on the road to face more of what "A" has termed the "Weapons of Mass Construction" (The Ohio Turnpike, for instance, seemed to be more under construction than not!).

Day 3 -- Fremont, IN

Today was low key. Got to our hotel in Fremont, IN by midday and just hung out -- pool, computer, "A" taking photos, Laura with the first nap in days(!), etc. We're about to watch Little Miss Sunshine on the laptop.

"A" slept for a good part of the drive (just 4 hours today) and Laura did too. Luckily, I did not.

Tomorrow is Chicago and we have just a short drive of 3 hours, so we can spend lots of time there.

Day 2

We set off for Fallingwater at about 9 a.m. (would have left sooner, but "A" seemed like she could just sleep and sleep!).

"A" is basically a good road traveler, and this was no exception. But though she had reluctantly agreed to it in advance, the impending reality of a tour at Fallingwater caught up to her and there was little peace for the last hour of our drive to Fallingwater.

Once there, she tolerated the tour, which Laura and I really liked, but the equilibrium of our day was never quite right again. Well, "tomorrow is another day".

As for Fallingwater, Laura and I both were really impressed, despite the fact that neither of us have been Frank Lloyd Wright fans (so, of course, we went and bought a house in Berkeley that uses many of his elements of design!).

Canfield, OH is not much to write home about -- sprawl and more sprawl. To give you a sense of how delightful it is, our dinner was eaten at a chain restaurant (we did have our pick of chain restaurants, mind you) and the evening's entertainment was walking around a Michael's Crafts store.

It is 7:20 a.m. on Wednesday and we are going to take a dip in the hotel's pool, then it's off to beautiful Fremont, IN. It is only a four hour drive and that is a relief. When I wrote at the beginning of the blog that we are wimps about long driving days, I wasn't kidding -- yesterday's 7 hours was more than we were comfortable with.

And Here We Go....

Well, I wouldn't say it was exactly a smooth start to our journey. I know that there will be bumps along the way, but they could have at least waited until we were actually on the way!

Getaway day started perfectly. The movers arrived at about 8 a.m. We had been told that they would probably take 6-8 hours to load the van, so we figured we would be on our way by about 2-4 p.m., which was good because we had reservations at 7:00 p.m. to have dinner with my mother and stepfather in Lancaster -- a farewell meal.

And then the movers moved throughout the day at the following pace: crawl, steady, crawl, crawl slower. By this time it was 4:00 and they still had a good bit to go. We were still hopeful that we would get out in time to make dinner when the main mover-guy sprung this one on us -- he couldn't disassemble our Thomas Moser bed -- it required a special tool! He asked, "You wouldn't consider leaving it behind?"

Well, if you know about Thomas Moser furniture, then you know it is heirloom quality very expensive furniture -- not the type of thing to leave behind. So we called Thomas Moser to ask their advice. They confirmed that, indeed, there was a special wrench socket that would fit the bed -- They would be glad to send one out and we should have it in 2 days!

All this is taking place now late in the day, actually later than the latest time we had expected to leave. Well, to make a long story short, we did eventually get the bed disassembled. Laura tracked down a suitable socket at a local hardware store. But by then it was 5:00, the latest time we could comfortably leave to make our reservation.

Around this time, it started to thunder and lightning, and rain and wind started to kick up. I guess that was a good thing, because it kicked the movers into high gear! After being snails all day, they rabbited their way through the rest of our items and by 5:30 we were on our way. Surprisingly, traffic wasn't bad, and we pulled in to the restaurant at exactly 7:00!

We did have a lovely meal with my Mom and Barney, who have been so gracious even though I know they can not be happy about us leaving. It was good to see them and we are so happy that they will be visiting us next month in Berkeley, and we will, of course, be back to visit them. Anyway, I so appreciate their grace.

So here we are, in the first hotel, in Denver, PA. Laura and "A" are sleeping in the room while I work on this in the early hours in the lobby. We were in such a rush at the very end, that all my good efforts at organizing our car/trunk sort of went to hell in a hand-basket. So we'll straighten that out, take a little time to reframe ourselves and then it's off to Fallingwater where we have a 1:00 tour time (guess we better not take too much time before we set off this morning!).

On a Sweeter Note...

Here are pictures from "A's" graduation:

Alas Poor Tenby...