Catching up...the end...is the beginning(?)

That's all that's left of the proud banner.

I took the flag down in South Dakota after leaving Mt. Rushmore. I didn't think there would be anything left of it by the time I returned to Maryland otherwise. All told, I drove 5,240 miles (including the never ending journey to Loudoun County to drop off Sean).

Who is this "Sean"?

Well, the return leg, I was joined by my buddy and bandmate Sean. He flew out to Denver so he could ride back with me. So I left Moab Friday night at about 9:45 PM to start heading to Denver, which is about 6 hours away. Originally, I had thought to just leave at 4am. However, if for some reason I was tired or got held up, I didn't want to chance being late to the airport by 10:10am. It worked out better that I had packed up my campsite prior to the raffle. I won nothing and was extremely jealous watching others win prizes that I 'needed'. I should have purchased more raffle tickets. I only bought one. I instead watched people win multiple times. So if I return, I know the strategy. Go for broke...and hopefully don't end that way :)

So here are some pics of the final 2 or so days on the road racing back across country to beat Memorial Day traffic.

So this was not a planned stop. It wasn't even on a planned route. Sean had asked if we could go to Mt. Rushmore. It was about 6 hours North out of my intended way, but I also had about an extra half day that I didn't have on the outbound leg; so, it seemed like we could head north. Plus, the diversion was going to take us through Wyoming and South Dakota, and I had never visited either previously. Well, along the way to Wyoming is Ft. Collins, CO. And they brew Budweiser there. I passed it. And I drove about 5-7 miles contemplating taking the tour. So we busted a slightly less than legal highway U-turn and sped back to the brewery for a tour. I took off the Kentucky shirt after this photo. We always had a rule that we weren't to go drinking in our cheer paraphernalia. I thought the same courtesy should apply here. I didn't have another picture from the outside though; it would be weird to suddenly see the carriages below and not have any other leading context. So...there you have it.

Same day, different shirt. The stables smelled like Clydesdales...although the horses were actually on tour. Someone should bottle that smell. I would wear it.

I've done brewery tours before, but these cisterns are truly immense. They go like 18 feet below the floor surface. Or maybe it was 8. Something with an "8" in it. And this was just the 'new' side as of 2002. There was a whole other standalone brewery constructed in the 80s to which this is adjoined. So they doubled their capacity in 2002. Immense.

This is Sean. We can't use his last name because he is a school teacher and anytime a school teacher tries to live a normal life, it creates controversy. Like there's this lady who is a model in her spare time and the parents are all up in arms because she's like 35 with rock hard abs and a smoking hot body...according to the DJ on the radio. Well, Sean is no model, but that's him.

We weren't the only mid-day samplers.

They've got a few new lines of fruit-infused brews. I also ate some pretzels and kept repeating the line from Seinfeld, "These pretzels are making me thirsty!"

Going to class up my own bar to look something like this maybe.

We missed the Welcome to Wyoming sign. It was off to the right and I was in the center lane and couldn't get over to the shoulder in time. We were trying to find a Taco Bell because we invariably eat Taco Bell when we hang out. Not that Sean needs it. He kept ripping the raunchiest farts on the drive and I was afraid he was going to burn out the servo motor on the passenger window. So I put the child locks on him...and then we ate Taco Bell. Not very well thought out on my part. Anyway...along the way to find the Taco Bell, we saw this sign. It contained "Welcome" and "Wyoming" so I figured it would suffice.

These were a part of a series of time-delayed shots the camera was taking. It didn't previously do this, but on this trip, for some reason, I must have activated some obscure setting 'cause now it does this. And it is hard to tell when it is done taking shots. The last is funny because I yelled at Sean for something, and he's all like 'C'mon. Whattya want from me?!"

The South Dakota sign was right there near the Buffalo Gap sign. From a distance I thought the Buffalo Gap sign was the SD sign so that's why I stopped short. And it looked better than the SD sign so I thought to take it as well. We were starting to pretty much have the same poses for all the signs; so, I suggested a Hi Five. Because that's original. My truck is a really great photographer. Thanks, Veronica.

So there was a pretty intense fog that rolled in, or that we rolled into, not far into South Dakota. It would occasionally break up as  we gained altitude, but it was inconsistent. Sean feared we might not actually be able to see Mt. Rushmore, but I encouraged us to push on. Sometimes it's about the journey, not the destination. That really had been the motivation behind the trip. I set out thinking, "Heck, I could probably wheel here just as good as in Utah (WRONG!), but I'm more interested in what one sees along the way."
So we pressed on.

So not only was I wrong about the quality of wheeling (so intense in Utah. Man o Man), but my optimism about the trek not having been a waste was also wrong. I have no regret in going. It was kind of a let down to get up there and not even see the thing. I really just wanted to get the sense of scale of how big the carvings are in real life when you stand there looking at it. But it wasn't a tremendous loss. As I said, we got to travel through some interesting parts of Wyoming and South Dakota along the way. Sure, the soda machine is as close as we got, but had we not been heading that way, we'd have never passed through Ft. Collins. And that brewery tour was really fun. I have to figure out a way to make a brewery tour road trip. The only problem is trying to figure out how not to be totally smashed if we visited more than one brewery in a given day. In Vermont, for example, that would be a problem. I know of at least two (Magic Hat and Harpoon) that are easily within a half day's drive of one another. Probably have to get a hotel in the area or have a DD travel with us. But what sort of wet wash cloth goes on a brewery tour and doesn't drink? Another challenge is that the tour hours tend to be a limited window which coincide with one another. So you'd be hard pressed to maybe hit the very first tour at one place and then high tail it over to catch the last tour of the day at another brewery if they were say 4 hours drive from one another. I'll figure it out.

So that fog turned into rain, turned into lightning, turned into foggy HAIL lightning. It was only a short burst or two with the hail. But all I kept thinking about was golf ball sized dents all over Veronica. Protecting the roof would be pretty easy with the rack I have installed. I could just fit a piece of plywood in there. It would really just be the hood and windshield that I'd have to protect if I couldn't get under an overpass or something to park to ride out a really bad storm.

We made it to Sioux Falls, SD that night to bed down in a rest stop. Actually, we were maybe 20 miles outside of Sioux Falls. I took that trajectory to set us up to head South by Sioux City, Iowa so we could make a quick diversion into Nebraska to visit Omaha. I had wanted to go to Lincoln to visit University of Nebraska. I learned, however, from my whole little trip into Boulder, CO on the outbound trip that these mid-Western campuses are absolutely dead on a Sunday morning...especially now that the semester had ended. So it just wasn't worth the trek in to pose by myself or pose with Sean in front of some closed academic building. Or to hope that the gates to the football stadium weren't shuttered and locked like they were at Boulder. Plus the bookstore was closed. So we went into Iowa, left briefly, and then dipped back in. I was talking a lot about Nebraska, but the chronology still makes sense with this photo as we touched Iowa twice in pretty quick succession.

Far left is the Nebraska sign. No stopping here on this bridge. No shoulder available.

Originally, I tried to go to the Old Market area of Omaha to find a gift shop, but most everything was closed there except for a coffee shop. I found a kindly older gentleman and asked his advice and he mentioned "Husker Hounds". It definitely sounded like pedophilia, but Sean looked it up and it was legit. So we got back on the highway for a quick route to the far side of town. This store was AMAZING. It made me wish GW had a bit more school spirit...and maybe a football team. But then again, we do have a bit more going on than Omaha. I guess we'd be entirely too spoiled if we had this great city AND great spirit. But I liked the feel of Omaha for the brief period we were there. I'd like to come back to some of these places and spend more time doing more than just shopping for keepsakes. For now though, due to time and funding constraints, these visits are more like rolling scavenger hunts.

Although I could have spent forever in that store, we had about a 4 hour drive if I recall correctly to get over to Iowa City. I had hoped to link up with the cheer team there, but I guess I was too late confirming my itinerary with the coach. It probably worked out in a way. We got there 2 hours later than I had anticipated. I thought we'd get there at 2pm and it was closer to 4pm. Really liked what I saw of their campus. Very traditional with beautiful landscaping and this body of water right behind us as you enter campus.

I liked all the wildflowers growing near the Illinois sign. Probably should have stopped to photograph them more closely. Then again, its not the safest stopping along the side of 2 lane highways with trucks bearing down. Also, more than a few times, tractor trailers would start pulling in behind us. I think on some of the more desolate stretches, it must have looked like we were stranded. We generally just got back in the truck and kept driving. The drivers never got out, nor did they try to reach me on the radio or say anything derisive to another trucker about us 'idiot city guys' sending false alarms by stopping on the roadside. So I'm not sure what it was. Unless it was just coincidence that the shoulders were especially wide in these areas and made for good stopping points for them as well.

I already had pictures of the signs for Indiana and a few of the other states on the return; so, I didn't take them again. We stopped in Indianapolis for the night. We went to a KOA campground and bought showers for $5 a piece. I had thought about staying at a budget motel and splitting the costs, but after I relayed to Sean my experience at one national chain on the way out, he wanted no part of it. The room itself seemed decent. My main issue was that at some point someone had urinated and not flushed the toilet. So it just seemed like although the room looked clean, it really wasn't. Like "Did they change the sheets or just make up the same dirty ones?" It just kind of compromised the whole feel of a clean rest place away from home. So I slept on top of the covers. And even at the budget rate, it just doesn't make sense to spend 40+ just for a shower and to sleep marginally more comfortably than I would in the clean cab of my truck. So we did that again in Indianapolis after the campground shower. The pic above is what my truck looked like as soon as I pulled in home. The "Get Some" got partially washed away during the hail storm when I had the wipers going furiously. The flag literally ripped itself apart at highway speeds near 90 mph. The stated rate/limit got as high as 80 if I recall...and I generally tack on +10. The first time I encountered 55 again, I didn't even know how to do it. It felt like I was in idle at that point.  Up close you can see some of the bug carnage that is on the front of the truck. Mind you, this is after one car wash on the outbound leg, and a torrential downpour. These things were exploding all over the front of the truck. Just disgusting.

So, I'm back, and I've done a full day at work. It wasn't too bad adjusting back. I saw a lot and learned even more. 

Sean was a bit upset because I didn't let him drive. When I originally set this up, I was intrigued by the challenge of being able to make the driving in the time frame as a solo traveler. It was nice having accompaniment on the return trip, but I still wanted to test the challenge of living on the road. Also, I'm very protective of the truck. If I mess it up, then fine. That's my fault. But I couldn't conceive of how I'd respond if we got into an accident, say, and someone else was driving. Whether it was their fault or not. I would always be thinking, "how would I have responded if I was behind the wheel?" So I just wanted to do the driving. 

This definitely isn't the end of this blog; just the end of this trip. I'm already thinking of what the next Trek might be. The first challenge though will be reconciling the expenses from this one and paying down some of the debt I incurred. I had hoped to defray some of it through additional sponsorships.

I'd like to once again thank AutoAnything.com. That dual battery system I set up using the donated Yellow Top Optima was clutch in that camp ground. It was a last-minute booking and didn't have power hookup. The only way I was able to consistently log on to post updates and charge my phone to stay in contact with loved ones was because I had that strong battery in the rear of the truck. The inverter I hooked up to it has a low battery alarm if the voltage drops below a certain threshold. Well, I couldn't tell you what that alarm sounds like because I never heard it. I'd be up half the night running a laptop and charging my ipad and iPhone, sometimes while intermittently running my 'camp lights' that I have mounted on the self-fabricated rack. It never was an issue. I even bought a portable compressor for airing my tires back up at the trail head. I connected it directly to the battery for inflating all four tires; the battery always bounced back. The only thing I didn't get a chance to do was to run tools like my impact driver or drill. I'll probably run some tests on that now that I'm back. But other than that, I've got a pretty good setup overall. Just a few tweaks and enhancements I'm eyeing once I get my money right.

So stay tuned. More adventures to come hopefully in the near future.

-will