familythattravels

Where to next? I'm enjoying your trip Save travels.

Friendship_Bay

FTT, we are in Portland now, then going to visit family and friends in Victotia and Vancouver via Port Townsend and Port Angeles.

Tony, our approach to hotels has been evolving over the trip. Initially, as we were making our way through empty quarters and finding our pace, we stopped when we ran out of gas (us, not the car). Now with a better sense of how much distance we want or need to cover in a day, we are booking ahead a day or two for a few reasons. First, it avoids anxiety. Second, we can usually save a few dollars with an Internet rate over the walk-in rate. Finally, we can use the GPS to guide us in directly to the hotel address, helpful in strange towns. It certainly would have been possible, in nearly every place we have been, to have just driven in and found something.

And of course, if there are special places we want to stay, or where it wouldn't be possible to stay without a reservation in advance, we have made those and are using them as "fixed points" in our itinerary. There are not many of those, In Portland, for example, we knew we wanted to stay at one of the trendy places downtown (why else be in Portland?). Leaving it for just a day or two ahead of time,and coming on a weekend, we couldn't get our first couple off choices, once we figured out what they were. We werent stuck on anything, though, having never been here before, and we have a great spot.

Dayle

Friendshipbay,

I too am continuing to enjoy your report. What a great trip!

I like Yosemite, but I've been going there for over 40 years and it just continues to get more and more crowded (as CA's population grows). I've been going there so long that I actually vividly remember the Fire Falls that they used to do. Pretty spectacular, if environmentally damaging.

The best part of Yosemite is the Tolumne Valley. Much less busy and very beautiful. Yes, Yosemite is climber and backpacker heaven. I've done some great packing and hiking here.

If you need a recommendation for a cozy B&B in Port Townsend, we just loved the Holly Hill House. Charming, great location and fabulous breakfasts!

Friendship_Bay

Day 37 - 39
Portland OR

Day 40
Port Townsend WA

Thanks for the B and B tip, Dayle. By the time I saw your recommendation, we were already ensconced at the Old Consulate Inn. We are not big B&B fans, but here in PT, with all of the great old Victorian homes, and the enthusiasm for maintaining them, it really seems the way to go.

We left Canada in the cold rain, and we are heading back that way in the same kind of weather. Five weeks of pretty much uninterrupted sunshine, lucky we have been.

We had a great day driving up the Oregon coast on our way to Portland, stopped in a few of the MANY small parks along Hwy 101 and beheld the rhododendrons. Cutting inland, we ran into traffic almost immediately that ensnared us all the way into the city. We have been away from metropolitan areas for many weeks now, and so have become unaccustomed to (sub)urban congestion, and I gather that Portland traffic is notorious. Public transit is free, though, in the downtown core. I think that is a great model that other cities should emulate.

Portland's motto should be "bring your appetite". It's hard to take full advantage of what the city has to offer with a middle-aged metabolism. Ivv never been to a place outside some small towns in Italy that is so completely organized around eating and drinking. We did our best, but our feeble efforts were not up to the challenge. We couldn't manage even one food cart, and only one artisanal cocktail. We did get to a couple of great restaurants, the Farmers Market for strawberries and hand pies, and the Japanese Gardens. Sadly, just a bit early for the roses.

We are now off to Victoria and Vancouver for a week of holiday from our holiday. I am not going to review the state of hospitality at my BIL's. See you in a week or so when we are back on the road. Thanks to you all for comments, questions and feedback.

carrom

Enjoyed reading this.
Loved the Ground Rules!
Thanks

Friendship_Bay

Day 41 - 47

Victoria/Vancouver BC
Kelowna BC

After a few days with family and friends, it was great to be on the road again, the highly recommended and dramatic Coquihalla Highway between Vancouver and Kelowna.  To my (BC) family and friends, please  don't read this as meaning we didn't enjoy our time with you!  We always do...that's why Victoria and Vancouver are so well known to us.  

Some new experiences this trip.  We finally made it to Cowichan Bay to explore this emerging foodie centre,  all manner of things organic and artisanal -- fish, bread, cheese, wine, cider, fruit...we didn't go in search of the famous BC bud, but I am sure it is around in abundance too.  

And a rare treat, seeing Vancouver from the water in a small powerboat.  We started in North Vancouver, scooted over to downtown to pick up a couple of people and check out the new convention centre, then around to Granville Island to inspect the condos in False Creek and Coal Harbour.  How decadent, and how fun.

DH in Kelowna for a day of business, and I was blessed to find a Kripalu-affiliated yoga studio just a couple of blocks from our hotel, the funky and occasionally exasperating Eldorado.  We won't see much of this area on this trip, but we did do the "wine drive" last fall with our friends from Vancouver, from Osoyoos to Vernon.  This is a great trip...sort of like Napa 40 years ago (I imagine).  I can provide more info to anyone interested.

Tomorrow we head to Banff National Park/Lake Louise to pick up the hiking thread again.
We've shaken off the rain, back into the sunshine and looking forward to the drive.  There is still a fair bit of snow in the hills here, so that may define our hiking choices.

sludick

Wow - I just came across this splendid thread today. Such a grand trip!

Friendship_Bay

Day 48 - 50

Lake Louise, AB

Snow!  Still covering most of the trails, and falling on us as we hiked Castle Lookout, one of the few hikes open.  I have been regularly castigating myself for packing too much, but now I am grateful for gloves and warmer gear.  We hadn't been giving much thought to what was going on here, and things further south (Tioga Pass,  Crater Lake) have been opening weeks early.  Nice to know we can count on cold in Canada, and these Rockies are still my favorite mountains.

We drove up to Moraine Lake, which is socked in and will be until mid-June, although you wouldn't know it from the tour busses already in evidence.  We did a gentler walk on the Bow River loop today, it is more protected and mostly clear.  

I spent a couple of winters in Banff several decades ago;  it's always good to come back to note what has changed (not much,  although the bear fence around the campground is new) and what is constant.  That would include staying at one of our old favorites, the Post.   It offers old-world European (expensive) value.

Tomorrow we head south again, to Waterton/Glacier.  Now that I have my woollies out, I expect it to live up to its name.

Friendship_Bay

Day 51-52

Saint Mary MT (Glacier NP)

Bozeman MT

This may be the low point of the trip.  A combination of factors, I think:  the weather, the end of the trip looming closer, lack of exercise, low blood sugar, and a booking mistake...

We had a great drive from Lake Louise through the foothills.  We stopped for a brief picnic overlooking the entrance to  Waterton.  And that was the last we saw of the sun.  The sky lowered and darkened, and turned briefly to thunder as we came into Saint Mary, where we were staying the night.  We checked in and discovered that this was the first day the lodge was open, so there were a few bugs (technical ones, not real ones as far as I could tell).  Everyone was quite cheerful, though, and everything was sorted.  We decided to brave the weather and head to the park.  Turns out the park is not quite open yet, either...the road in is open for 10, 12, or 13 miles, depending on which notice you pay attention to.  We decided it wasn't worth paying $25 to see only a piece of the park, and set ourselves up as lightening attractors to boot.  We did a little ramble on a short trail outside the park and retreated.

We decided to cut our losses and hit the road early (around 7 and without breakfast) the next am.  Weather is still very unsettled.  We are taking a secondary road, but there are several towns on the map and we have really enjoyed the community diners along our route so far.  Dear reader, if you are travelling on Hwy 89 through northern Montana, pack a lunch.  We didn't hit a cafe until around 10, and because it was the only one for hundreds of miles, apparently, it was hopping.  We passed shortly after our caffeine levels were restored a real honest-to-goodness round-up, complete with prancing horses, squealing calves and branding irons heating up in a fire pit.  So there was a pay-off, we wouldn't have seen that on the Interstate.

Weather is better by the time we arrive in Bozeman.  The compact downtown has a some interesting shops, and there seems to be a lot going on.  We have a very nice dinner with a couple we met on a hiking trip in Croatia last year, and keep our fingers crossed that we have crossed the slough of despond...

Friendship_Bay

Day 53 - 55  
Yellowstone NP

We are so excited about seeing the first bison in a field a few miles inside the north gate, we pull over and take about a hundred photos.    Then about five miles on, we see another bison picturesquely situated in front of the old cavalry station, good for another few dozen shots.  As we reach West Yellowstone,  we encounter two larger herds right along the road, so we don't even need to get out of the car for good shots.   The next day, we spend several minutes as a couple of dozen, including this spring's calves, wander around the car as we are stopped in a pull-out.  And as we are leaving through the east gate on our final day, we see about 200 spread through the  valley below us.  We had given up taking pictures by that time, and it would have hard to capture the sweep, but it gave a real sense of what the plains must have been like several hundred years ago.

Do I need to say that we loved Yellowstone?  We threw it in as a bit of an afterthought in our planning (since we are going to be close anyway, we might as well...) and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of our trip.  Again we were lucky with the weather.  It was warm, but snow was predicted for the day after we left.   We hadn't done a lot of research before arriving, and obviously only had a small taste...we could have had about 6 different kinds of holiday in the park, and will likely go back to do a couple of them.  Even the fly-fishing looked appealing!

Final wildlife count, in the park and just beyond the gates in Wyoming, in addition to bison:  fox, moose, eagle, trumpeter swan, elk, pronghorn antelope.  Many small birds that we are useless at identifying.  Again, others report seeing bears but we do not, and don't organize ourselves to seek them out.

Yellowstone is also the site of first casualty of the trip.  We did a loop hike through Upper Geyser and across the highway to Biscuit Basin and back to Old Faithful.  The geothermal pools are very well marked and fenced on the well-groomed Geyser walk, but not so much on the back half of Biscuit.  At one point on the muddy track, DH steps into a hidden puddle of mineral hot spring and quickly sinks to his ankles.  We prepare for a ranger challenge as the mud dries in a calcium crust on his boots, evidence that we may have left the official path.  I am just glad he was not consumed entirely, it was looking a little dodgy for a couple of seconds...  Back at the hotel, cleaning the boots, DH discovers that the uppers and soles of the boots have separated almost completely.  Now, they were over a decade old and getting thin in the tread, but the immersion chemical bath and suction treatment did nothing to prolong their life.  The boots were dearly loved.  We had a brief farewell ceremony before our departure.

emalloy

Sounds like you will need to take another trip to Yellowstone to visit the site of the boot tragedy and give a little memorial service, maybe leave flowers. Glad the feet didn't separate from the ankles in any case.

Did you stay in the park or West Yellowstone?

Friendship_Bay

Hi emalloy, glad you are still on the trip. We stayed in West Yellowstone, we were too late and inflexible in our timing to get anything in the park. It was ok for a rather quick orientation, and ed found a nice little Spanish restaurant. Next time, we will be able to plan a trip based on availability inside the park, now that we know what to expect.

DH picked up a new pair of boots at Cabelas in South Dakota, the healing has begun.

Tomsd

Fantastic report/journey. Will love to see the pics - and hey - any reason to stop at a Cabelas is a good reason.

Friendship_Bay

Day 55 - 57

Gillette, WY
Mitchell, SD
Madison, WI

After our stay in Yellowstone, we have 3 nights for our return trajectory to meet up with friends in Chicago.  We didn't plan this leg,  just stopped where it made sense, building in time for the Black Hills and Badlands NP.

Wyoming is an energy center -- coal, oil, gas, and uranium.  Gillette looks like a hard-working town, and we are surprised that the (many) highway hotels are nearly full.  Not tourists, but industry.  Silver Oak wines are favourites, but have been out of our price range for years.  I never imagined that my best opportunity to enjoy a Silver Oak from Alexander Valley would be in a small town in Wyoming, but we lucked into the Chophouse on half-price price bottle night (who knew there was such a thing?).  The restaurant has an excellent wine list, and half-price made it only very expensive, not ridiculous.  The meal (steak, of course) was great, and I only regret I didn't have room for the deep fried strawberries, that would have been another novelty.  The owner spent some time with us,  providing insight into the region's economy and business drivers (including his wine list).

We did a drive-by of Mount Rushmore.  I don't want to rile up any patriotic fervor, but the word that came to mind upon seeing the monument was "goofy".  We stopped briefly at one of the few places where you can get a clear line of sight without paying the $11 parking fee, and proceeded on with a pleasant drive through the Black Hills National Forest.  We were more interested in the Jewel Cave, but the short tours weren't running for unspecified "technical" reasons and we didn't have time for the three-hour exploration.

We missed our lunch opportunity in Rapid City, so I suggested to DH that we stop at Wall Drug before heading into Badlands.  He may forgive me one day, but in penance I was required not to press for some of the other touristic offerings on our route--the Pioneer Auto showroom in Murdo, the Spam Museum in Austin, the 60' Green Giant, and the Corn Palace in Mitchell, even though we were only a couple of miles away...   I thought the Wall Drug lunch was actually ok, although maybe because we were starving by that point.  It fortified us for both our drive through Badlands and the worst meal of our trip, dinner in Mitchell.

It's hard to believe Wyoming is the least populated state after you have driven through South Dakota.  And you have to drive through it more slowly, given the variation of speed limits from state to state.   I guess that is to allow you to take full advantage of the billboard blight.   Many of them are in an advanced state of disrepair, creating a tattered impression.  

I have no impression of Madison.  After a couple of days of hard driving, and a bittersweet sense of the chapter coming to a close, we stuck to the convenience of a highway chain to organize our packing and our thoughts for Chicago and the end of our trip.

Friendship_Bay

Day 58 - 60

Chicago

There are about five festivals on this weekend in Chicago -- blues, books, art, gardens and barbecue.  And that is on top of the usual way too many other things there are to do in this great city.  It's been 10 years since our last visit, and we cannot let it go that long again.  The weather has been too good for the galleries and museums.  We did the Chicago Architecture Foundation river tour (again, always worth it and a lot has changed in a decade), and went to the book fair on Publishers Row, which is fantastic.  The book is not dead, if the participation at this event is any indication.  Today heading out to the Arlington Racetrack.  Not our usual thing, but a friend here has a box, and some parts of some horses, so why not?

Two more sleeps until we are home.  Squeezing it down to the bottom of the tube.

yestravel

Great report! What a fabulous experience u must be having.

sludick

I've really enjoyed hitching a ride with you on the trip, it was fabulous! Thank you SO much for sharing with us.

You have such a wonderful perspective and writing style. If I might ask - are you a writer by vocation?

Friendship_Bay

Day 61 - 62

London, ON
HOME!

We got our picture taken in the winners circle at Arlington, we lost about $10 in our flutter on the ponies. It was a great afternoon, I was impressed with all the families out for picnics. The setting is much more elegant than I had expected, and I can see how going through the racing forms to inform your betting could be a good puzzle to master (not like us, we went by name and colour). Thanks to our friend Laurie for expert guidance and coaching.

We had our last dinner with some friends at Publican. It was noisy and a bit chaotic, but the food was rewarding and we were happy with the overall experience (see, we are not too old for this!)

Next day was a surprisingly easy exit from Chicago. Given our experience on the I94 coming in from Madison, and going out to the racetrack on Sunday afternoon we werent expecting to make such good time. We zipped through Customs and were at my cousins in London a little ahead of the time we had predicted, even though we had forgotten about the time change. It was nice to be able to ease back with family and familiar routines (its been some time since we watched the CBC evening news, but it doesnt feel like we missed much. Squalling about the budget when we left, and when we returned. Like the rain, it seems a constant background...)

The trip blew up some old routines. Now we are home and starting to build the new ones. Laundry, grocery shopping, early morning yoga. Vegetables and sparkling water for the next few weeks.

Sludick, thanks for commentary and question. I am not a writer, but I have spent parts of the the last couple of decades trying to decomplexify and polish up abtruse legal and policy documents so that the messages are clear and compelling. So maybe that shows up.

And it has been an interesting process to write about the trip for external perspectives, not just my own record-keeping (where did we stay and who ate what). I will think about that a little more, and do a wrap-up with lessons learned along the way(and pictures!) over the next few days before closing the thread.

Kwoo

I enjoyed reading your report. May I ask what you spent approximately on hotel costs? My husband & I would like to drive across the U.S. & Canada when we retire for possibly 2 months. We are not campers, either. My husband might research buying a small camper for this purpose, but I'm not sure if that's the way I want to go. We don't need luxury, usually stay in Days Inns, Hampton Inns, etc. I'm just not sure what would be more cost effective. I know I don't want to do a lot of cooking when on vacation but realize that dining out can add up, too. But places like Hampton Inns include breakfast.

Friendship_Bay

Hi Kwoo. We had some splurge stays, so hard to approximate those. They were more about total experience than a place to spend the night. For the latter, we spent in the range of $110 to $130. It was a little more than we had thought at the outset, but we ended up opting for either Holiday Inn Express or Best Western because we were using or banking points, and found them easiest to book a day or so ahead from the road. And they do include breakfast (usually...we got surprised at the BW once or twice). I know you could do better with some of the other off-brands, or hotel booking sites.

Camper, I am honestly not sure how much you would have to save to offset the initial outlay. On top of the vehicle itself, there is the equipment, furnishings, etc. Some of the rigs on the road looked to be sucking up a lot of gas, not sure how this would apply to a camper. If you are planning on spending time in the national parks and forests, some roads are closed to campers and rvs, and parking always looked to be an extra hassle. At the end of the calculation, I would say it depends equally on personal preference. Some people would like the freedom and privacy of their own accommodation; we preferred room to spread out, wifi and hot showers.

Food...we had a cooler and a picnic kit, stocked up at markets along the way, and ice supply replenished at motel stops. That helped offset both cost and calories. You would also want to consider what you would spend by just staying home...when both of us are working, we eat out a lot. So at the end of the day, our bill might not have been that much higher, because we found food and restaurant costs lower in many places than they are at home.

Good luck with your planning, let me know if I can provide any other perspectives. Looking forward to learning of your decision!