Road Trip – The Trappes are trippin’.

Wisconsin: How many days were we in Wisconsin?  So many.  I think we were almost in Wisconsin for a week.  We stayed in our first WalMart parking lot in Madison.  We then stayed in Cambridge by a lake with friends of friends from Taylor University. We played a great new board game with them and saw beautiful farms.  The next morning we toured Madison.  The Olbrich Gardens are there and free! We enjoyed smelling the roses.  We walked down the famous State Street.  The campus is huge and I imagined what it would be like to go to school there.  Then, we drove to Janesville again.  We had gone there once trying to find some distant relatives of Todd’s on the Trappe side.  They called us back after a couple of days, and we spent the night with them.  It was fun to hear stories and go to dinner with them.   They gave us a thorough tour of Janesville.  It is a town about to experience some major changes, because the GM plant there is about to close.  It was a plant dedicated to the production of trucks and SUVs. 

Then, we went to visit my Young Life Camp Castaway Summer Staff bunkmate, Katie.  She lives in Appleton, Wisconsin (a little south of Green Bay) with her husband. We had so much fun catching up.  They showed us around, and we got Culver’s frozen custard.  Oh! I loved it!  Culver’s seems like a wholesome family chain. 

From Appleton, we drove up to beautiful Door County, Wisconsin.  It is complete with lighthouses, lake beaches, wineries, and gorgeous farms.  Door County is quite the vacation spot.  I enjoyed it.  We tasted at a winery and visited some lighthouse sights.  You could stay a while and not see everything.  The cheese. Oh the cheese.  Sharp 3-year aged cheddar from Wisconsin.  Yummy! We picnicked at a drive-in movie theater where we saw a double feature.  I am a fan of the new Batman flick.  It was a cool experience for us both.  It really felt like summertime. 

Minnesota:  We drove to Minneapolis on a Saturday so that we could arrive for church at Bethlehem Baptist, where John Piper is pastor of preaching.  We both thought the church was great, and then, we got to meet him!  We were both overwhelmed with emotion, and it was hard to communicate our gratitude.  He prayed for our trip and our future.  We picnicked on the Mississippi in Minnesota.

We visited Interstate State Park, partially in Wisconsin and partially in Minnesota.  Of course, we entered on the Minnesota side, because Wisconsin charges an arm and a leg to non-Connies who want to enter their parks. Todd did so much bouldering at a spot near the Mississippi River.  So, we watched river boats toot by most of the day.  Also, I saw my first natural potholes.  They were deep holes in the ground formed by glacial movement about 10,000 years ago.  Then, we stayed two nights with my friend Ben, from Young Life Summer Staff, and his wife Kara.  They live in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota.  We got to enjoy the Grand Ole Creamery and Jucy Lucy double patty cheeseburgers.  I thought the burgers and fries from Matt’s Bar in the twin cities were a real treat.  If I lived near them, I would be in trouble.  We have noticed that both Wisconsin and Minnesota are very biker and walker friendly.  There are miles and miles of paths for both recreational activities around numerous lakes, not a bad feature for a hometown.

South Dakota:

We arrived in South Dakota, stopped off at a state park (Palisades) for a morning, and then we drove all the way across the state that afternoon.  We ventured into the National Park called the Badlands.  It is called the “Badlands” because pioneers had such a hard time making a go of it there.  Weather conditions were very harsh, and water was not abundant.  We saw lots of wildlife, and the geology was truly amazing.  I had never seen anything like it.  To me, it looked as if there were gigantic drip sandcastle-like structures everywhere, only more vibrant in color.  The Badlands are constantly changing, and it is predicted that they will be gone in 10,000 years (I think). 

My emotions were so conflicted.   I felt admiration for the brave pioneers who literally moved to the Badlands because they saw an advertisement for “Land in the Dakotas,” leaving family and everything they knew behind in Europe.  They could not cut it though, and there was some evidence of abandoned homesteads throughout the area. The Lakota Indians occupied South Dakota, and they were able to live off of the land and the bison. Yet, the western migration of the pioneer settlers pushed the Lakota off of the land and nearly exterminated the bison population.  Thinking about the scenario I felt angry, but I appreciate what I’m learning at the National Parks.  

We got to see Mt. Rushmore and the nightly lighting ceremony and talk on patriotism.  I was bawling, because I felt so thankful for the freedoms I have gotten to enjoy so effortlessly.  There were boy scouts, veterans, and current Army National Guard mixed in with families touring the monument.  I kept thinking of my granddaddy and of the Gantts.  I knew how much the evening would have meant to them.

Todd did some climbing at Rushmore on really sharp quartzite granite.  Poor fingertips.  We visited Spearfish Canyon and the National Forest near it.  Todd climbed some great routes there.  I’ll always remember it as a place with frightening ascent trails. We got to experience the “pre-week” to the Sturgis, South Dakota Bike Week.  We attended a tiny Presbyterian Church and went to the post-service coffee hour.  The hymns were so high, but I surely tried to belt them out (not without giggles). 

We visited the famous Wall Drug, a tourist destination on I-90 with signs all over the world advertising their free ice water.  Originally, the family who opened the drug store advertised with one sign on the highway to attract tourists into the pharmacy.  Ice water was the draw to come into Wall, SD from the hot dusty prairie interstate.  It saved the town during the Depression!

 Wyoming:

Oh Wild Wyoming!  We really like it here!  We entered the state at sunset and many more deer than cars.  We got to visit Devil’s Tower National Monument.  What a place! We hiked around the base and observed the huge natural columns of rock composing the larger structure.  Some of the columns had fallen over time and we were able to walk right past them.  We picnicked in the dark after our hike and saw satellites, shooting stars, and the dippers.  It was amazing!  Apparently, I have been missing out on the stars.

We went to a town called Gillette.  This was a rest place full of errands.  We bought a cooler!! I cried when ate the tuna salad and drank the chocolate milk that we made in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

We went climbing at a place called Tensleep.  It was called “Ten Sleep” because it took the Native Americans 10 sleeps to reach the canyon from Cheyenne.  The trails were very well maintained.  The landscape was beautiful, and the camping was free.  We enjoyed the sunny but cool weather.  We met some people from Cody who helped us figure things out quickly.

Then, we moved onto one of our favorite little locations of the entire trip: LANDER.  Lander is a small town of about 7,000 people, but it is an outdoorsman’s Mecca.  There is a cute downtown with shops, history abounds, the public library has free wireless and is open late, there are two huge climbing areas within 30 minutes, and the city park allows free tent and RV camping for up to three days!  Wow! It was so visitor friendly!  The city park was so cool too.  It was complete with running and walking trails, tennis courts, playgrounds, etc.  We climbed and camped for free at Wild Iris.  We got to hike through an alpine field overlooking mountains that seemed to go on and on.  Cows woke us up at the campground.  The campsite had a fire pit and a great view.   We also drove into the Sinks Canyon area.

From Lander, we drove to Jackson Hole.  A hole is a valley with mountains on all sides.  We visited Grand Teton National Park and did a loooong, hard day hike past beautiful wildflowers and waterfalls.  We saw the sunrise.  We had a face-off with one bison that didn’t get the clue that we were coming through to get a good view of the sunrise.  We had another face-off with a moose on a trail.   After Grand Teton, we drove into the massive Yellowstone National Park.  Some highlights were: seeing the Beehive geyser, Old Faithful, and the Grand geyser erupt.  The Grand is the world’s largest predictable geyser, and I thought it was worth the wait.  To me, Yellowstone was full of surprises.  I think all of the National Parks are surprises though, because I only know the names when we arrive.  I have not had a clue as to the contents.  Therefore, I am even more thrilled at the wonders inside.

Montana: We had been in the woods so long that when we got to Missoula, Montana all I could think was “laundry” and “shower.”  Missoula is home to the University of Montana.  Their mascot is a grizzly bear, and he is the most charitable in the NCAA. 

Montana is Montana.  Beautiful.  We visited an Atlanta family who has a home up in Missoula.  They let us shower and do laundry.  We also got to make the brownies I had bought to make 5 weeks ago.  All exciting. 

We rode large black intertubes down the Blackfoot River.  This is the river where A River Runs Through It was filmed.  I had so much fun!  I had the “Super Tube” as we called it.  It was huge.  Todd’s was not huge.  He was not even being held out of the water while sitting on it.  If we did not hold onto him, he would fall out at the sight of a rapid.

We left Missoula and drove up to Glacier National Park.  We picnicked at some spots right by the alpine lakes.  We took another long hike and got to walk on snow in shorts in the middle of August.  We saw squirrels everywhere, but they were such special squirrels, much different than the rodents I have seen.  They were bold and not quick to move over.  We even got to watch two of them play for a long time together in the middle of our trail.

Washington and Oregon (part 1):  We arrived in Washington via Spokane, which is a city with a river, lakes nearby, parks everywhere, and rock climbing.  We drove into town and went straight to their way cool REI, which was in a restored building downtown.  It was like a homecoming.  If you don’t know Todd and my weekend habits, we are usually there at least one evening or afternoon of every weekend in Atlanta.    

       We had a date night in Spokane.  We made dinner in a park and then went to Starbucks and Barnes and Noble.  It was so fun!  We stayed until the bookstore closed and read magazines.  I have been keeping a daily journal.  It is a lot to keep up with, but I know it is helping me to stay mentally sharp.  I also know how much I will treasure it when making photo albums and well, in a few months, when everything is gray and fuzzy in regards to this trip’s details.  

       We went to a great church in Spokane called Grace Community Church.  I felt like we could be friends with the people after one service.  They were so friendly and interested.  They introduced us to a great couple about our age.  The cute girl was literally having contractions in the service and about to have her baby.  She liked baking and tried to rock climb with her hubby.  But like me, she used her knees and elbows to get up the mountain.  It was just encouraging to meet them.

        From Spokane, we traveled to central Washington.  A climbing magazine named the town where we went “one of the top 10 cities to live in if you are a climber.”  We spent 4 nights in Leavenworth.  It is like Helen, Georgia.  It is a mountain town with lots of natural beauty, lots of tourists, and a BAVARIAN-themed village.  I liked it there.  Todd liked it there too.  He got to do a lot of bouldering, while I wrote thank you notes.  We frequently ate meals in the city park, because it had potable water and was right next to the Library/City Hall combo building, which had free wireless internet.  We played some pool and got to watch the Olympics in town.  I also discovered the Safeway grocery store.              In Washington, at least, these are very pleasant grocery shopping experiences, and the discount card rocks!

       We left Leavenworth and drove to Oregon.  We stayed in Troutdale and watched a DVD in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart while reclining in the back of the truck.  I turned 26 in Oregon!  We spent the day in Portland trying not to be stressed out by their downtown.  The day was strange, but Todd and I had so much fun eating Mexican food for dinner and watching sports in the restaurant’s bar area.  The next afternoon we were expected in Cascade Locks, Oregon for my friend Lauren’s wedding.  I spent the morning getting groomed in Troutdale.  I hadn’t had my nails done in at least three months.  It was fabulous!  The nail ladies were so polite, but it was obvious they were wondering how I had let myself get into my current state.   I just told them, “I have been in the woods for 6 weeks with my husband.  I am sorry that I am unkempt.”  

      Lauren and Blair got married on a Sunday in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge area that spans Washington and Oregon.  The lodge where the ceremony was held was in Stevenson, Washington, and the rehearsal dinner and our hotel were in Cascade Locks, Oregon.  They were less than five minutes apart via an old steel toll bridge called the Bridge of the Gods.  We loved staying in a hotel, but more importantly, we loved being witnesses to their marriage.  Lauren was a gorgeous bride, and I was so thankful to be able to stand up front with her.  We danced and danced.  So obviously, I woke up with my usual, the wedding hip.  Todd and I know to expect it after wedding parties.  It always comes as a reminder that one or two of my dance moves are not good for the old hip.