From:
John Freeman [johnfree@pacbell.net]
Sent:
Sunday, October 01, 2000 7:57 PM
To:
John Freeman
Subject:
Mill Valley - Indianapolis
(Hello
all,
you are
the lucky folks that I culled out of my address book to receive my
little
travel journal for John's Big Adventure 2000.��
It is so far turning
out to
be a little more long-winded than I thought it would, so read some,
read
all, read none, or just delete the darn thing right now -- suit
yourself!� there will be no quiz later :)
---------------------------------------------------
Sat
9/23 -- Mill Valley - Sacto - South Lake Tahoe
It's
Saturday morning, well no, actually it's about 1 PM Saturday afternoon,
and I
have to be in Indianapolis on Thursday night.�
If I just blasted down
the
interstate it would be a pretty simple trip -- it's about 2200 miles (it
turned
out to be 2482 miles !), so six days, 350-400 miles a day, 6-7 hours
of
driving a day -- piece of cake!
However,
this trip ain't about blasting down the interstate, so the rest of
this
mail is about the complicated solution I found to this simple problem!
:)
Straight
out of Richmond CA, there was no blasting up I-80 for me, no
sirree!� Instead I took I-4 to Pittsburgh and then
Rte 160 along the Sacto
River
up the Delta.� I'd never done that
before, and it is a delightful,
time-wasting
drive!� Definitely like being somewhere
far away that is not
California.
Anyway,
the pleasant glow of that little jaunt was obliterated by getting
stuck
in Saturday afternoon traffic hell in the endless burbs of south
Sacto.� All I wanted to do was get to US 50!� Which I eventually did, and
which
was its usual scenic but busy self, and I eventually ended up in South
Lake
Tahoe at about dusk -- and guess what?�
SLT is pretty darn crowded on a
beautiful
fall Saturday night!� My favorite little
hideaway motel was a)
sold to
the Indians since last spring and b) had No Vacancy :(� So I got off
to a
bad start budget-wise by forking over for a pretty average little
room in
a pretty noisy little motel.
Sun
9/24� SLT - Carson City - Austin - Elko
At
least breakfast at the Timber House (east side of the golf course in SLT)
did not
disappoint.� Buy a Chronicle, pound down
a chicken fried steak and a
vast
quantity of coffee, catch a little football and testosterone at the
sports
book, then it's off to the Loneliest Highway -- which involved
nothing
more complicated than staying on Rte 50 all day again.� I have come
to
quite love the Nevada desert in the fall, and all the reasons came back
to me
again today.� Buzz through Carson City,
past the turn off to Virginia
City,
through Fallon, past the mini-playa east of Fallon where the locals
write
their names with rocks in the mud, and then that awesome series of
crests
and valleys which are the Great Basin in central Nevada (and which
were
dusted with snow the last time I passed through).
My plan
was to make it to Elko and a Forest Service campground in the Ruby
Mountains.� I got there pretty late though, so I drove
out to the Lamomille
Valley,
watched a pretty darned fine sunset and went back to Elko for more
of that
quality motel experience.
Ate in
a great little Basque restaurant.�
Basques are pretty wide people,
and now
I know why!� A tureen of chicken soup,
pasta, beans, bread, baked
potato,
1/2 chicken, pie and coffee for .
Mon
9/25 -- Elko - Wend over - Salt Lake City - Roosevelt, UT
First
half of the day was I-80, blasting across the Bonneville salt flats.
A day
to be glad it's the fall rather than the summer, it was a delightful,
sparkling
65-70 degrees :)).
Between
the flats and the edge of the Great Salt Lake I stopped to pee at a
deserted,
trashed out truck stop and got some nice pictures.� If I decide to
invest
the connect minutes to upload my pics to my geocities site I'll link
y'all
up to them!
Even
though Utah is the most scenic place I've seen in my life, the whole
Mormon
thing creeps me out every time I cross the state line.� Being stuck
in rush
hour freeway construction hell in SLC is really no different than
anywhere
else, but the thought of all those shiny, happy, baby-makin,
god-fearin,
all-white Mormons around give it a little extra edge of
alienation
for me.� Although truth be told, they
are pretty darned polite in
traffic
and have never done a mean thing to me!
Park
City -- last week's snow was still piled high, but my good weather
karma
continues to hold (knock on simulated wood product).� The funniest
thing
was a settlement of at least 200 homes that I zoomed past, and not a
single
sedan as far as the eye can see.� There
were PLENTY of SUVs and
trucks,
station wagons, and even a hatchback or two, but I guess we just
don't
do sedans in these here yuppie mountains.
I
eschewed I-80 through Wyoming in favor of checking out northern Colorado
on US
34.� I stopped for an early dinner in
Heber City, and stared the whole
time at
a big fine basketball court at the motel across the street.� I could
just
drive right over there, shoot some hoops, have myself a little cocktail
hour
and wait for sunset, but nooooo, I have to chunk off some more miles to
be in
Indy by Thursday.
One
thing you don't hear much about is Mormon cuisine.� The entire west is a
bit of
a food downer for someone spoiled by the Bay Area, but in Mormon
Country
I always I always seem to end up getting served by a chubby little
blonde
handing me soggy potatoes and overcooked eggs with some sour, stingy
old
cuss behind the cash register counting every penny of the take.
Tues
9/26 -- Roosevelt - Steamboat Springs - Rocky Mt Nat Park - Estes Park,
CO
I made
it to Roosevelt, Utah after dark.� In
the daylight, it turns out to
be your
basic cow town in a wide dusty green valley.�
The map said most of
the
valley is a Ute Indian reservation, but I didn't see many Utes around.
Colorado
is an insanely beautiful place, but I gotta say that I do not like
the ski
towns very much.� Steamboat Springs is
in a beautiful setting -- ski
slopes
about as far from downtown as Tenderfoot Trail in MV.� Maybe I'm just
crabby
because I was in too much of a hurry to stop and check out the local
waterfall
and the spring fed public baths, but there were just too many self
satisfied
white people SUV-ing around for my taste -- gee, sounds a lot like
Mill Valley!
:)� The road follows the Yampa River for
another 30 miles or so
and the
whole way was sprinkled with fly fishermen.�
Now THAT is something I
can see
myself doing!
The up
side of having to make the miles every day is that I have managed to
see the
sun set from a couple of pretty spectacular places.� Today I ended
up on
the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park about 6-ish, and decided
to go
for Estes Park on the other side as my destination for the night.� By
appropriate
dawdling, I ended up watching the sun slip behind the adjoining
range
from the ridge road at about 12,000 feet!�
Then I coasted down the
hill
watching the pinks and purples turn to blues, ten to grays (and
eventually
fade to black...)� wahoo!
Wed
9/28 -- Estes Park, CO - Louisville, NE - Glenwood, IA
Estes
Park was just too busy for its own good.�
Rooms were really expensive,
so I
went for a cheapo, and got what I paid for.�
The mattress and pillows
were
nearly unsleepable (new word!).� It was
really hard to get comfortable
to dose
off in the first place, then I came to, stone cold awake at about
5AM.� Tried and failed to sleep again, so I turned
it into a good thing.� I
packed
my beautiful truck, got going and saw sunrise on the Rockies -- the
high
peaks slowly turning to pink -- not bad!!
Getting
on the road that time of day puts one in the middle of the Colorado
morning
rush -- all these people leaning into to traffic to get to their
j-o-bs
made me even gladder to be on vacation.�
I'd seen it before, but the
abruptness
of the end of the Rockies and the beginning of the endless plains
never
ceases to amaze.� One minute I'm
whizzing down the curvy little 2 lane
road
from Estes to Loveland, towering cliffs on both sides, and the next
minute
BOOM!� I'm in the wide open spaces,
where I can see the horizon curve
away
like the middle of the ocean.� Eastern
Colorado is cattle country.� One
stockyard
right next to the road was about two miles long; pretty depressing
even
for a committed carnivore such as myself.�
And the smell!� If it's not
the
actual cows, it's the cow shit spread on the just harvested fields for
as far
as the eye can see.� Sort of like
driving through Petaluma on a
summer
day, for 400 miles!
Then it
was Nebraska, Nebraska, and more Nebraska.
Oh
yeah, today at breakfast was when I did a casual inspection of my tires
to find
that they are guess what??� Yes indeedy
Firestone Expeditions :-|
Thurs
9/29 Glenwood - Champaign, IL - Indianapolis, IN
Nothing
much to say about this day.� I drove 560
miles yesterday, I'll do
590
today.� This is seeming suspiciously
like work rather than fun at this
moment.� I'm spending my whole f---ing life in the
cab of this f---ing
truck!
The
only vaguely cool thing that happened today (other than the fact that it
eventually
ended) was some kid in a little car outside Champaign started
waving
frantically at me going 80 down the freeway.�
After he was ahead he
slowed
down for me to pass and held up a sign the had scrawled saying "I'm
from Marin
Co!".� I figure he was a homesick
kid at the U of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
who saw my Santa Rosa Toyota license plate holder and kind
of
freaked.� I think we both felt like
pulling over and just having a big
hug!� But we both trucked on down the highway.
The
fall colors aren't much happening yet, but I sure saw a lot of heavy
duty
farming going on.� It's harvest time,,
and I saw a bunch of those big
assed
threshers or whatever they are�
harvesting the corn and the soybeans
(turns
out they rotate those two crops alternate years to replenish the
nitrogen).� It was actually pretty interesting to watch
(at 65 mph ):
more
later.....