planning, leaving, & some hot cities

So.  This is the first blog post in a series that will encompass our road trip out to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks!  It was long in the planning & a mite bit long in the execution.  Three weeks is a tad lengthy - but necessary when you accomplish almost 6,000 miles & don't want all points between here and there to be one long blur.  As we are not a camping family (although, more about that later in the summer), I reserved top spots at both parks more than a YEAR in advance.  And I had started the countdown to that magic reservation date about six months prior to that.  So, this has been a much anticipated trip for the planner (that would be me).

I, also, rejoined triple-A, as I have made it a habit to do prior to each of our big trips.  Dollars off car rental, some degree of security for roadside assistance, maps, and other discounts along the way.  [An aside:  I love how they stamp blue arrows along your route (in case you forget which direction you are going!) & stamp blue circles around your stops (in case you forget to stop!).  I wonder who gets to do this job with the blue stamps; it seems a very satisfying and powerful job.]  One of the things triple-A will send you, if you provide your travel stops, is a spiral-bound set of maps.  Ours was quite thick &, for this trip, didn't turn out to be as needed since we also had a borrowed GPS with us.  I mainly used the road maps they sent; one was so well worn it started to tear along the crease between Montana and the Dakotas (both literally & trip-wise).

I, also, get a kick out of receiving travel packets from other states.  More maps (I am my father's daughter, after all), plus assorted other advertisements.  The Yellowstone or Bust sticker was the best freebie, for sure!

So, initially, this was a two-week trip and we were going to fly in/out of Salt Lake City.  Our route was more of a fat egg, through the Tetons, Yellowstone, up to Glacier, then down through Cody, Wyoming, around July 4th.  Somewhere along the way, we decided we'd drive.  Not sure what craziness overcame us, but we just thought that this would be the summer - Mike could be away from his office & the boys were the right ages (Samuel will be a junior in high school this coming year, so summers with him feel like they are waning)...and we'd just DO IT.  Our fat egg was eaten by a giant anaconda.

along with maps, i find calendars very rewarding.

we had to pack for anything from blistering heat & dripping humidity to possible snow (it snowed  in Glacier less than two weeks prior to our arrival in late June).  my two trusty items of clothing were my waterproof & relatively sunproof hat and my quick-drying pants (not to be confused with my quick-drying panties, which i also packed in case laundry facilities = the bathroom sink.  which they didn't.).

more calendar pleasantness.

we are the rightful owners of two old Toyota cars.  they are older than our children; which, for cars, means they are ancient (although, certainly, they will continue to putter around our town and on shorter trips without incident for many years & miles to come).  we didn't want to add 6,000 miles to either of the already impressive mileage counts - so we rented.  Surprise!  when we arrived to pick up our economical, 4-door car, the little local car rental had.no.cars.  None.  (fortunately, i had arranged to pick it up the day before we departed, so there was some wiggle room.)  we finally got a car at the very end of the day.  an 'upgrade' to a definitely-not-fuel-efficient SUV.  much grumbling later, we realized it was this or nothing - so we embraced the American road trip driving an American car & headed home to pack it to the gills.

i would come to regret packing such a large bag (mine is teal).

the morning of.  an early start.

a fairly accurate representation for the duration of the trip.

we stopped in the Biltmore area of Asheville for lunch - and realized we had never been to this part of the city before.  somewhat ironic, as we head almost the entire way across our country to see new things.

 beautiful church in Biltmore Village (link here).

one of my primary interests on this cross-country trip was to see the changing landscapes.  this densely wooded one is so familiar to us here in North Carolina, with the gently rolling Blue Ridge Mountains....& a Carolina moon still high in the cloudless blue sky.

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The first day was a loooong day of driving.  I tried to break it up so that we didn't drive more than five or six hours a day (since we would, also, be making stops to see things!), but we needed to get all the way to Nashville on day one.  We had an appointment with destiny.  Or, at least, with country music.  I will defer to my music-loving husband (or, in this case, tag along), but The Bluebird Cafe is, apparently, a hotbed of singer/songwriter people trying to make it big (or medium or just not too small).  It is also, I hear, currently featured on the television show 'Nashville,' which would explain the teen & 20-something young women in line with us, hoping for a seat.

We did not get tickets (a mad on-line rush at precisely one week ahead for just sixty chairs does not give you great odds), so we stuck ourselves into the wait-and-hope line outside the cafe two hours before showtime.  in the afternoon sun.  in hotter-than-hot Nashville, Tennessee.  in the summer.  i had sweat dripping into places i didn't know sweat could drip.  we didn't get inside on the first call, when they give away seats that are first-come, first-served.  so we waited some more, in hopes of no-shows.  we were the second group in line for those.  our sweaty selves would be joining folks at tables who had been in the air-conditioning since stepping out of their cars.  it promised to be a lovely evening for all involved.  & it was!  it was worth it!

we 4 were spread around the place, with the boys together at a large table in the back, Mike on a bar stool near the aforementioned 20-somethings, and me at a table with a friendly local.  mediocre fried food & blissfully cold drinks soon joined us at our respective tables.  but we weren't there for that.  we were there for the music and the scene, which were fantastic.

clockwise, left to right: Mason Douglas, Paul Nielsen, Bryan Edwards, unnamed drummer in cap, & Jeff Batson.

The ring-leader appeared to be the guy with white hair, but I found the best songs were from Mason Douglas and Bryan Edwards (who has had some of his work recorded by Jason Aldean).  I am no country-music fan, but I do appreciate good music, whatever the style.  One of my favorite songs was Big Bad Wolf by Mason Douglas.  Quite catchy....

around the corner from the Ryman Auditorium, downtown Nashville

 As we were in our A City A Day portion of the trip,

we were in St. Louis on day two.

crazy stop-and-go traffic coming into the city for some reason,

following a rocky night of everyone getting used to sleeping

in the same room & determining that the boys

could not share less than a king-sized bed, if that.

so, we were walking a razor's edge of sanity

in another hot&humid city.

in search of a/c, wifi, and futbol.

 The Arch!

photo by Mike

& some baseball, of course!

sea of red (the empty seats are, also, red, which i thought to the players' benefit)

brief walk from the ballpark to our car revealed the starting point for Lewis&Clark.

i would soon discover that our road trip, basically, followed their trail

(minus that last jaunt to the Pacific).

bet this is exactly how Lewis & Clark looked when they started out.

Still in our one city per day mode, Kansas City was on day three....
 on our way, we stopped in Independence, Missouri, for two important sites:
Harry S. Truman's home and Leila's Hair Museum.
you might be able to guess which of us was interested in each
& which 2 just wanted ice-cream.

Mike toured Truman's home while the boys and I had lunch

i wish i could provide you with some photographs from the Hair Museum,
but alas photography was not allowed.
it was a fascinating place (see link above), with hundreds of hair wreaths
from the era before photography could capture a memory.

so....

we were originally in Kansas City for a baseball game,

but our dates were off (so we saw a game in St. Louis) -

we were also there for the College Basketball Experience

(which, apparently, thinks that basketball started in Kansas.

just like first flight [hah, Ohio!?!  please.], we North Carolinians know that,

of course, basketball started in the Tar Heel state.)

this basketball stop is best shared in video.  all three guys in our group had a really fun time & played non-stop for at least two hours.  shooting games, dunking games, passing games.  i amused myself by seeing how large a wingspan i have & finding out which basketball player is my height.  i don't think the sensor could even find me, as it ended up telling me i was over seven feet tall.

Joseph wanted to try one more time, and he grabbed the ball in this next video ~

with resultant self-congratulations, of course.

this seems a good stopping point for now.  after KC, we zipped north along the Missouri River (remember, we were Lewis&Clark&company) & dove into the center of South Dakota.  the landscape and weather really started to change.  we found our travel rhythm & became much less exhausted (aided by our rule of the boys only sharing king-sized beds...i had stuck in a sleeping bag, guessing this would be the case).  we left the big Southern/Midwestern cities & started to get a real sense of how topography shapes psychology.