One last blast before Berkeley
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2005
1
24
Trip End
Aug 02, 2005
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mount rushmore view
Berkeley, California
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Berkeley, CA
After two days of apartment searching on our whirlwind stop in Berkeley we found a great apartment six blocks from UC Berkeley's campus beating out 25 other applicants and decided to get to Maine early. We changed our flight to Maine for the 4th instead of the 6th and were on our way to have some scrumptous lobster!
July 4-17
New Harbor, ME
Alex has been going to this quaint Maine village every summer of his life. Also as many of you know we got engaged at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse nearby. Each summer we visit for at least one busy week of fun with family and friends. This two weeks was no different. We had a couple of days' down time before Alex's brother, Dave and his wife, Doleen, came up for the weekend to attend a cousin's naval retirement ceremony festivities in Brunswick. Amy's mom, Tricia, her husband, Carl, and Amy's brother, Bryan also came up to spend a week in Maine, first with the Hoods in New Harbor and then with friends Susan and Ben in the Bar Harbor area further north along the coast. It was the first time Amy's family had been to Maine and they had a great time. Good friends, Aaron and Emily, from Rochester drove up for our last weekend. As always, Maine treated us right with good weather and lots of delicious lobster dinners. You can't beat it.
July 17-19
Washington, DC
A quick stop in DC to see folks one last time and pick up our car to head cross country was a treat. We got a chance to catch up with our friends and former colleagues, which was a lot of fun. Thanks to all those who were able to make it out on a "school night" for happy hour at Buffalo Billiards. Alex got together with Greg, Tony, and Darby and hit a Washington Nationals game. It was wonderful to see familiar faces after being away for 4 months. DC will always have a special place in our hearts and who knows we may be back!
July 20-21
Des Moines, IA
The first leg of our cross country trip through never-ending corn fields included an overnight stop in South Bend, IN with the obligatory driving tour of Notre Dame and a much awaited visit with friends Lisa and Brad and their 6-month old little girl, Alice, in Des Moines. Alice is a doll and has two great parents. Thanks Lisa and Brad for your kind hospitality.
July 22-24
Badlands, Mt. Rushmore and Black Hills of South Dakota
Leaving the corn fields behind we embarked on the national parks tour but not without a big letdown first in Wall, SD at Wall Drug which had been advertised as the place to visit across the whole of the state. Lots of kitsch but not up to expectations. Alex did ride the enormous jackalope on the grounds, however.
The Badlands are in fact "bad". This rocky landscape is hot and desolate. It was appropriately used as the backdrop for a scene in the movie Starship Troopers. It reminded us of the area around Uluru in the Australian Outback. We hiked several of the shorter trails and even made the steep climb to the top of the Badlands Wall that separates the valley from the plains. The rock formations had colorful striations of various layers and the effects of erosion over the years produced some very interesting sculptures.
Taking leave of the Badlands, we made our way to a more man-made phenomenon - Mount Rushmore. We made our base Keystone, SD and explored both Rushmore and the Black Hills from here. We stayed at the "Mount Rushmore View Hotel", where if you went outside your room, went to the end of the deck and strained your neck to look out under the roof, you could see the Presidents' faces from a distance. Learning about how they sculpted the mountain was interesting, but we felt that Mt. Rushmore was a "been there, done that" sight. The nightly illumination ceremony featured a stirring patriotic film. We also hiked a portion of the beautiful Deerfield Trail in the Black Hills.
July 25-28
Cody, Wyoming, Yellowstone & Grand Tetons National Parks
On the way to Yellowstone we stopped in Cody, Wyoming, named for Wild Bill Cody, for the night. After a meal of barbeque we headed to the nightly Cody Rodeo, which was quite a trip. There were a lot of dusty wranglers, horses bucking off riders, cowboy hats, jokes made by the rodeo clowns, and, of course, the pungent smell of manure -- we had a blast!
We were amazed at the quality and diversity of places to stay within Yellowstone Park. Some hotels were very historic, top-end establishments, serving succulent gourmet food. Others were simple, clean, and pet-friendly. We were very lucky when we called the central booking hotline for the park's accomodations and got "the last rooms in the park" for two nights due to cancellations. In our travel books, the places that we stayed were only available to those that book 9 months in advance. We stayed our first night at the Old Faithful Lodge and Cabins, a stone's through from the geyser. The second night we stayed at the southern portion of the park in Grant Village and had a wonderful meal at the nearby park restaurant. We found that lunches at the high-end restuarants were very reasonable, since we are still on a budget.
Even after all of the travelling we have done in the last 5 months, Yellowstone was one of our favorite spots. Within one park there are beautiful mountains, the chance to get away from eveyone and hike on your own, interesting geysers, strange-colored hot springs, tons of wildlife, and neat, historic places to stay. We'll definately go back.
The key to being a tourist at Yellowstone is the wildlife sightings. Here is a synopsis of wildlife adventures:
-First day: Saw tons of bison. Bison covered the landscape and crossed the road, causing a traffic jam. We went on a hike to Cascade Lake to find a moose, but saw none. Stopped by some elk with huge antler racks hanging out by a pond.
-Second day: Decided that we were not going to leave the park until we saw a moose. Drove over 100 miles (round trip) up to the area of the park that is in Montana. No moose. We did see three black bears and some pronghorned antelope. No moose. The sun went down. We were tired. As we pulled back up the Old Faithful Lodge, very close to the tourist center of the entire park...there he was...an enormous bull moose, antlers and all, was hanging out by the turn off. We parked our car illegally, ran over and got some pictures before some jerk started honking at all of the cars that were blocking his way to Old Faithful (ours included).
Grand Teton National Park featured some Ansel Adams-type scenery of the Snake River bending in front of picturesque mountains, framed by towering pine trees. On our fabulous 3 hour hike on Cascade Canyon Trail we saw two more moose hanging out by the water's edge. We snapped some great pictures and moved on to Idaho.
July 29
Preston, Idaho
If you haven't seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, please feel free to skip this paragraph because if you read it without this context, you will think we are dorks. If you have seen the movie, and hopefully you have seen it multiple times, we made the pilgrimage to Napoleon's home town in the middle of Idaho (read the middle of nowhere). We stopped for tatertots, got inside Preston High School, snapped a shot of Uncle Rico's van, stopped by Napolean and Pedro's houses and picked up an appropriate amount of tacky souvenirs. "Sweet!"
July 30-31
Salt Lake City, Utah
From the middle of nowhere, we spent a day and a half in a very prominent city . . . that is, among Mormans the world over. We toured Temple Square with two young missionary girls from Haiti and France doing their obiligatory stint for the faith. It was an interesting place that appears to have a lot of money and volunteers. Except for the Temple (which is closed to non-Mormans), Tabernacle (under renovation unfortuately) and the Assembly Hall, all the other buildings were modern, with multi-media exhibitions inside explaining the religion's precepts and history. We attended a very nice organ recital in the Assembly Hall and on Sunday filed into the Conference Center across the street that covers 10 acres to see the Morman Tabernacle Choir's performance for their weekly broadcast of "Music and the Spoken Word". The Choir was amazing as was the Orchestra and organ that accompanied them. We then took our leave of Salt Lake. The long drive to Reno across northern Nevada was the most boring drive of the trip with flat, desert surrounding us the whole way.
August 1-2
Reno, Nevada
"The biggest little city in the world" doesn't have much to offer unless you are in to gambling. We did have a little luck though. We decided to put $5 in the slots to see what we might get. At the Elvis quarter machine, Amy quickly won 50 quarters. Being up by $7.50 we called it a night and went to cash in our ticket. On the way, a lady stopped Alex and asked if he would like 2 floor tickets to the Stevie Nicks concert that night for free. She had gotten them as comps herself but couldn't go because she had a little boy with her that night. We couldn't believe our luck and headed over to the concert. On the way we say a scalper trying to sell some tickets to a few tourists and got an idea - 5 minutes later we had sold the 2 tickets for $50. The guy got a bargain since being floor tickets the face value was probably lots more and we were $50 richer! We decided that we had had enough hiking for a while and only passed by Lake Tahoe figuring we would definitely be back for skiing this winter.
WE'VE MADE IT to Berkeley ending our 5 months of relaxation and adventures and are ready to start new in a great new city.
Thanks for following us around the globe, we will be sending along our new address and phone numbers in an email. Come see us on the left-coast!
