Caught Traveling: Idaho Falls

Saturday, August 19, 2017

July 16th - Hard burn to SoCal

Finally it happened. We got the house shut down, the truck loaded and hit the road. First to Moorhead, MN to Eliza's house, then, after making sure she was all packed and ready to go, loading two kids in her car with her and Brett and two with us. It was somewhere around midnight when we got started to California. In less than two days, we traveled the 1800 plus miles to San Diego. We ahd four drivers, so we didn't do too much stopping. We tried to stop at each new state for pictures, but of course it was night a couple of times. They had never driven to California and Brett has never been to San Diego. Like I said, we made very few stops. We did stop for an afternoon in Idaho Falls. It has some cool things to see and we wanted to share it with them. The kids were impressed with the Eagle Rock statue and were wowed by the falls themselves.

We planned on going through Arizona's Virgin River Gorge in the daytime, so they could see it and so they wouldn't have to drive it in the dark. We stopped for the night in St. George, Utah so it would be morning as we made that part of the trip. Then down through Nevada past Vegas and into the California desert. Now comes a funny story.

Completely our fault, Laurie and I never thought about the presence of checkpoints coming into California. These checkpoints are primarily to ensure vegetables with potentially dangerous insects and such are kept out. So, It's late in the morning and we're passing through the desert outside Barstow when we came to the stoppage. Our poor daughter panicked as she didn't really know where we were and thought it was a border crossing into Mexico. Brett doesn't have a passport. We had no idea what they were going through, but thought we'd surprise them and hit a small 60s style diner just off the road in a very rundown town. When we got there, our daughter was very upset, and it took a while before we figured out why and finally calmed her down. We all had shakes and malts. Outside the diner was a little park(?) they had with large dinosaur statues and a pond with turtles, and fish. It was really hot, but we looked around, took a couple of pictures and got on our way.

We finally got to Nana's, and Laurie and I had to go and get registered at the RV campground, and then go all the way out to Campo to retrieve our fifth wheel from where we stored it when we left in the spring. We had a couple of setbacks, including one of the jackstands wouldn't retract right because a stupid screw had broken off. Got it hooked up and then delivered into the spot and fixed the jack. By then it was late, but we were all able to get showers and put to bed.

An insane (in my opinion) burn to California. But the next two weeks would not be much easier. Looking forward to Comic-Con, a wedding, a harbor cruise, a couple of days with the kiddies, and getting all of Laurie's preliminary things done so she can start work.

By the way, I've missed blogging and I'm glad to be back doing it.

Ready to leave. Kids running on pure excitement

Slightly ragged travelers hit their 4th state

Idaho Falls

Travel takes it's toll of both kid and kitty

Peggy Sue's at Yermo, CA

Shakes and Malts were had

The "Diner-saur" yard

Angels.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

April 12th to 14th - The Voyage Home.

One final California desert sunset, load the truck, hook up the camper and "outta there". We dropped the fifth-wheel off at a friend's ranch down in Campo. Put a few final items into the truck, tarped it down, and hit the road. Making good time considering we weren't dragging the Bighorn with us. Trying to get home without incident and quickly. We bought a small cylindrical, carpeted "house" for Gypsy. She became accustomed to it sitting on the console between us and spent most of the ride home there.

Zipped through California and stopped just over the Nevada border at Primm. Passing Las Vegas, we noticed how the town, outside of the casino areas, is starting to grow. There is a large area opening up of warehouses, and industrial parks. Amazon has a huge center there. When we got through Nevada, she was sleeping as we went through Arizona's Virgin River gorge and into Utah.

We stopped for a bite at Scipio, UT. The town is under 300 people and is located just east of the highway. They have incorporated a square couple of miles around I-15 as well as another small square that covers a truck stop, DQ, and a petting zoo full of bored lamas and turkeys. There is a geocache here which we've found before, but I got out and took a few tourist pics there.

We decided to spend some time in Salt Lake City to check out the craft beer scene. The laws are different in Utah than anywhere else. Establishments can not sell any beer out of a tap with a greater than 4% ABV. They can pour higher ABVs from bottles. We stopped at Epic Brewing first. They have a small taproom with only 8 chairs. There are a lot of restrictions on liquor licenses there. They couldn't get a bar license, and had to settle for a food license. This meant that anyone there to drink has to first buy food. We had grilled cheeses. They are pretty new, but their beers show promise. The next place we went to was Squatter's Pub. Located in an historic downtown building, The Salt Lake Brewing Company purchased the building in 1988 and opened the pub in 1989. The place is large and airy. It was very busy and had some interesting brews.

Leaving Utah, we moved on north into Idaho. We had to stop in Idaho Falls where we had been forced by the truck to spend days there. We went to Idaho Brewing as a reminder and a celebration that the truck was still running well.

Montana. When we first left California over two decades ago, we were headed to North Dakota for a better life. We had it planned that if we didn't like it, we would go on to New England. When we hit Montana, the beauty and the people made us put Montana on that list. As we left Idaho and started into Montana, we were beset with a rain storm that turned into a snowstorm as we drove through the night. The next morning, we stopped for breakfast in this little lodge up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. A quaint local diner full of down-home atmosphere. We had definitely left the big city. The locals were talking about how unexpected last night's 3 inches of snow was. We felt we would get to Bozeman close to noon. We stopped in Butte, "The Richest Hill on Earth" for fuel, and continued on. We used Bozeman for a lunch and craft break. We went to Bozone near downtown. Nice little place where a couple of locals told us all about the Montana brew scene. In a corner were some antique chair sets from an old school or theater. They serve flights on a small ski. We finished up at 406 Brewing. There are a number of old granary's, and flour and baking mills. Many are being repurposed into strip malls. 406 was located in one of these. They had some great tastes and we really enjoyed it there.

Cruised into North Dakota in the evening and stopped in Moorhead, MN at Eliza's for a couple of days. It was Easter. Spring. Family. yes, cold and had some flakes. but we were home and would be opening the house up in a couple of days.