Shhh!
Don't tell our bosses, but we spent the night in Silver Spring last night! The McAllistour part one was 9,966.7 miles. We high tailed it out of town this morning, though, and are on our way to rescue Sharon from Ms. Pepe.
We came, we saw, we conquered. Vini vidi vici.
Don't tell our bosses, but we spent the night in Silver Spring last night! The McAllistour part one was 9,966.7 miles. We high tailed it out of town this morning, though, and are on our way to rescue Sharon from Ms. Pepe.
We took Matt and Abby kayaking on the Shem Creek in Charleston the other day. We saw a couple of dolphins right from the dock, I tracked them down when we were in the water and harnessed them for some barefoot dolphin water skiing, but we didn't get any pictures, so you will just have to take my word for it!
After a long two days of driving from Memphis through Hotlanta, we've landed in Charleston, SC. The Simpsons are our gracious Dixie hosts and we've been having a fun time with them. I've learned a valuable lesson on this trip: Call your friends, they want to hear from you. I think some of the most memorable and best experiences we've had over these last two months have come in the living rooms and dining rooms of our friends. Just sitting, eating, drinking, and laughing about the old days, the new days, and the kids has been great. I'm glad that we have so many connections around the country that we've been able to catch up on!
We're back in the Eastern Time Zone.
Driving driving driving... We slept well in the city of Kings and didn’t end up getting on the road until 10:00 a.m. It was already 95 degrees. I’m a big fan of the hot weather myself, but I don’t know how people here function in this much hot. We stopped for lunch in Tupelo at a deli called McAlister’s, because, well, what would you do? It’s our name, we’ve gotta stop. It’s a chain of delis in the south. The girl behind the counter seemed very impressed by the fact that our name is McAllister and that we’re all the way from Maryland. Tim asked me later if she might have thought that we actually drove all the way from Maryland specifically to visit their establishment. That might have explained the stunned look on her face. Service was a tad slow so we had plenty of time to chat in line. We had a nice conversation with a youngish couple in line. They had a 2 year old with them and Tim stopped her from eating gum off the floor, which she was rolling on. People there are very friendly.
Thursday driving to Memphis Tim suggested that we listen to the song Graceland, by Paul Simon to get in the mood. About halfway through the song we realized that the song isn’t really about Graceland, per se, and that we weren’t that interested in the song. Our conversation is as follows:
I drove the car through the St. Louis area on Wednesday. Tim’s streak ended at 8174.8 miles. He felt a bit like Cal Ripken, without the fame and glory and gobs of cash. We took a moment to ponder his achievement and then barreled on.
I was playing D.J. this morning with the iPod and decided that a little Barry Manilow (or Manilow!! as I like to call him) was in order. About 45 seconds into Even Now (a classic), Tim said “do I need to run this car off the road and kill us both?”
We’re driving through Mississippi this morning. I always feel the need to spell it when the word comes up in conversation. Tim informed me that he learned to spell Mississippi in the first or second grade from his teacher Mrs. Sipsey. Seriously. That’s good stuff. Then, even stranger… we saw a town on the map in Alabama called Sipsey. I’m not making that up.
As soon as we crossed the Ole' Miss, we headed straight for Graceland. Where else would you start a tour of Memphis? I told Lisa that before I met her, I wanted to marry Lisa Marie Presley because she was born the same year I was. Then Lisa told me her parents almost gave her the middle name of Marie. Oh, so close!
Tonight we had the Dinner of Champions at BB King's Blues Club: Fried dill pickles and Bud Light. I was told before we left that if we got to the South, then fried dill pickles were a must- try local cuisine. I have to say, it was a salty treat that made the Bud Light go down easy.
We spent the night last night at the Comfort Suites in Blytheville, Arkansas, about 40 miles northwest of Memphis. We got the last room in the hotel because the Hooter's Golf Tournament was in town, and the place was full of pro-golfers. We had breakfast with the #25 man on the money list - he's a student from the University of Miami who golfs all summer.
109 degrees on Monday. 115 in the sun on Tuesday. 103 today. Who's idea was it to travel through the South in the middle of summer?
We left lovely Evergreen, Colorado this morning and apparently took a turn into the depths of hell (aka Kansas), where it was a balmy 109 degrees this afternoon. How can it be this hot anywhere? ...cannot comprehend such hotness...
Thanks, Josh. That ride is one of my highlights of the trip so far!
This is my account of our zipline adventure...
We watched these freestyle ski jumpers practice at Park City, UT. We did not get to try this at the park. |
Remember that Seinfeld episode where Kramer invites all the smokers into his apartment for unrestricted tobacco and nicotine? And there's smoke pouring out from under the door when Jerry goes to investigate? Well, that was our hotel room last night. If it's possible to catch lung cancer overnight, we need to see a doctor.
One other thing I did in Portland while Lisa was getting her massage - I went to Powell's City of Books, the world's largest bookstore. It takes up an entire city block and is 4 floors. I bought a new book to read, "I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company: A Novel of Lewis and Clark" by Brian Hall. Since we've traveled much of the L&C Trail, I am glad to catch up on it. I have read "Undaunted Courage" before, so this is a good follow up.
Have you ever wanted to fling yourself off the side of a mountain? (or fling someone else off?) We did just that this morning. In Park City, Utah at the Olympic Park, you can strap yourself in (or rather get strapped in) to a line that shoots you down the mountain eiter 700 feet or 1500 feet. We did both. Then, we got into tiny plastic sleds and shot down the mountain on a track that looped and turned and careened until you hit a giant wall at the end. Good fun!
For years I have wanted to go to Park City, Utah, for little reason other than that it sounds like a cool place. It fits in my world of cool sounding places with Moab and Telluride, places that were on our original itinerary but were scrapped when we took a different route to head back east. So, a lot was riding on Park City. Our friend Maryann’s brother has lived out here (I think…or it might be Moab…I get confused) and I’ve heard good things. Earlier that morning in SLC Tim had seen a brochure for zipline rides and said “ooooohhhh, that’s the one thing I really wanted to do for outside stuff on this trip!!!!” What luck—it was in Park City, Utah!!
Somewhere in Oregon on one of our drives we came across the Bonneville Dam and Fish Ladder. We decided to drop by because something like that sounds interesting when you’ve been in the car for hours. We drove into this facility that looks like a nuclear power plant and doesn’t seem like a place where the general public should be admitted. It ended up being a really interesting place, with a cool visitor center and windows into the fish ladder where you can watch the fish battle their way upstream. They put in this elaborate ladder system to allow fish to get through the dam so they can get upstream and spawn. They also count all the fish as they go through so they can estimate fish populations. Here are a few pictures.
We left Hood River on Sunday morning to begin our trek to Evergreen, CO. After figuring out our route we determined that we’d be driving through Boise, Idaho. Before we started our trip my father’s friends Dick and Sandra had given us directions to their son Scott’s house in Eagle, Idaho, which is pretty close to Boise. They were insistent that we call Scott if we ended up in Idaho, even though we probably haven’t seen Scott in 10 years and we’d never met his wife Nancy. Scott, of course, knew nothing of their insistence. But the thing is, when you’re doing a 10 week roadtrip, it seems perfectly reasonable to call the only people you’ve ever heard of in Idaho to stop by and say hi. So we did. And they were more than hospitable, asking us to stay for dinner and suggesting that we stay in their guest room for the night. We had a great night, catching up with Scott and getting to know Nancy and their kids Brenna and Hunter. The kids were extremely fun and friendly, not to mention extremely cute. See for yourselves:
We drove into SLC with an actual hotel reservation, secured earlier on the phone. We checked into the hotel, did a quick search of restaurants and found a Mexican place that sounded good. The guy at the front desk confirmed our choice. The food was excellent and ridiculously inexpensive. I ordered some sort of pork dish with a fruited mole sauce and ate it for dinner and then Tim and I ate the rest of it for lunch the next day in Park City (see below). In the morning we did the tour around the Mormon’s Temple Square, which was both disturbing and informative at the same time. Here are a few pictures from the grounds. When we told some of the Mormons that we lived in Maryland they were very impressed, since we have the gorgeous Mormon Temple within a couple of miles of our house. We headed out of SLC at about noon, when it was 90 degrees and headed towards Park City…
We didn’t have a particular end point in mind when we started driving on Saturday, which, one would think we would learn by now, is not our best plan of attack. We were planning to camp and hoping that a campground along the way would have an opening on a 90 degree Saturday in the Columbia Gorge region. We started the morning with a trip into downtown Portland to check out the Saturday Market, a spring/summer tradition in Portland. There are artists, crafty-bastards, food vendors, etc. We then began the journey east through Oregon with a stop at the Multnomah Falls. Nice falls, too many people. Our friend Cas (hi Cas!) had mentioned Hood River to us and when we pulled into town it seemed like a great place to stay for the night. After 17,000 phone calls we found a Bed and Breakfast over the Hood River Bridge in Washington. We checked in, headed back into Hood River and discovered that everything closes at 6:00. We had dinner at a pubby place with decent food and horrible service and headed for the river to watch the windsurfers and kite-boarders. Good fun. There’s a nice sloped grassy area to hang out, the weather was warm and the sun was shining. A nice end to the day. Back at the B & B we sat perfectly still and quiet for 2 hours reading.
On Thursday night at the “First Thursday” celebration in Portland, we both had 10 minute massages in one of the shops. The massage therapist was so good I asked if she had any openings for Friday so I could get my birthday massage (which was in early June, but we’ve been busy!). She was able to fit me in on Friday morning. It was a fantastic massage and Danielle was great. At the end of the massage she gave me a chocolate truffle from a local Portland candy maker and just for good measure, gave me an extra one for Tim. If you’re even in Portland and need a massage, I highly recommend Danielle Machon. She’s at 917 SW Oak Street in Suite 900 and can be reached at 503-539-2025. The only downside to the massage was that I was completely spaced out for most of the day. Not in a bad way, just in an “unable to read the maps or make decisions about anything” kind of way.
Because we decided not to continue down the Pacific coast, we were able to take a spectacular drive along the Columbia River Gorge. I know I've said it before, but the scenery and landscape and natural beauty of this country is amazing! The Columbia River is wide and winding, creating the border between Washington and Oregon.
Lisa takes some mean pictures at 70 mph, and some nice ones standing in Portland's famed Rose Garden. Portland is nicknamed "The Rose City" and they have quite the garden and variety of roses. Check out the pictures in our Flickr account for more of them, and a lot of our pictures (although not all of them, were saving some to bore you all to death when we get back!)
On Friday while wandering through
A good day hiking around Portland, Oregon (the other Portland, Jim.) Last night we stumbled upon the "First Thursday" fest, a monthly gathering of artists, gallery owners, shopkeepers, street musicians, and beautiful people in the urban Pearl District. We walked into one shop and this was our conversation:
We spent the last couple of nights at the ultra hipster doofus Jupiter Hotel. We feel a little bit out of our element here, probably because by 10pm we are ready for bed and the place is just getting started. Our Ikea-centric shabby-chic room faces the Doug Fir bar and club. Maybe we are getting too old!
These were the fish in a pond at a winery we visited. They all came over to the edge when we walked up to it. Freaky.
Here’s where we’ve slept so far…
Whenever we go on vacation we joke about “Vacation Lisa”. Vacation Lisa is always easy going, doesn’t care if she showers or not, isn’t fussy about where we have dinner, chats easily with strangers, etc. There’s something about being on vacation that makes all the little irritations of daily life seem less irritating. Plus, we always say that everyone always seems more friendly when we’re on vacation, but I suspect that’s because we’re open to talking to random strangers while waiting in line for the bus or asking advice from strangers about restaurants, etc. People really are friendly if you give them a chance, especially if you’re asking them about their city. One night while we were having dinner in Seattle I started chatting up a couple next to us. They ended up having tons of useful info. It turns out that he drives a bus in Seattle, so he knows all the routes. They pulled out a piece of paper and jotted down a bunch of notes for us. One of the things we’d both like to do when we get back to our regularly scheduled lives is try to be more like our vacation selves.
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
We may have made a slight tactical error heading to the coast for the 4th of July Weekend without hotel reservations. There seems to be a lack of vacancies at every hotel, motel, campground, inn, b&b, and Bates Motel from California to British Columbia. Who'd a thunk it?
After leaving Seattle, we stopped and learned and gawked at Mt. Saint Helens, the only active volcano in the lower 48 states. Once again, the scenery, landscape, history and nature of this country amaze me! I think the impact and devastation of May 18, 1980 has been forgotten by those of us from the East Coast. The entire side of a mountain - a mountain - was blown off and sent hurtling through the forest. Winds in the blast site reached 700 miles an hour. Trees were sheared off of the ground, leaving only twisted, shredded stumps. Glacial ice blocks were thrown thousands of feet in the air. An entire lake, Spirit Lake, disappeared and a new one, Cold Water Lake, was formed. Ash - which we could still see 26 years later - covered the landscape. Our good friend Cas, who lived near Portland Oregon in 1980, remembers shoveling the ash like snow.
In the last 7 days, I have eaten all of the following but one: