We made it back to Denver and have survived the first week in civilization. The trip was a glorious one and we are both feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to take this extend time to travel the west coast. But I’m sure that you are all anxious to hear about the rest of the trip. It was all a bit of a blur, but this is how it went down…
Day 19 Continued
As you might remember, we spent the morning tooling around Seattle, taking in some of the sights. Then it was back in the car for the drive to Ash & Bridget’s in Spokane. A short 4 hour trip and we were done driving for the day (a pleasant break!) Ash and the Visla with boundless energy Hogan, greeted us at the driveway. (you really should read about their adventures at www.homesweethomme.com ) We enjoyed some wine on the patio catching up a bit. When Bridget got home, we all headed off to dinner at Bennidito’s Pizza. The food was great and the beers were good. The girls made friends with the drunk frat boy who was there “representing” some beer company and holding a raffle for Tshirts and pint glasses. We tried to sneak out while he was “busy”, but he chased the girls down and made sure that they received a “special” gift of pint glasses, just from him. With that drunk boy in the rear view, we headed to Bridget’s office downtown to check out the new space, and then over to The Elk Public House for some Red Stripes, before heading back. Now, De Ann and I were excited for sleep, as the Bennidito’s Pizza is rumored to give some crazy, hallucinogenic dreams…. But alas, we slept soundly and without craziness…
Day 20
A quick breakfast at Frank’s Diner with Ash (great homemade gravy and salsa were both awesome additions to our traditional breakfast of eggs and bacon! J), and we were on our way to Yellowstone National Park. To get there, we leave Washington, drive through Idaho and into Montana. I should mention that we’ve been geeks about crossing the state lines. We’ve been taking a picture of each one of the “Welcome to…” signs. So, we are driving out of Washington, I’m on the phone and driving and all of a sudden, the Now Entering Idaho sign shows up. We have no camera ready, we weren’t really paying attention until it was too late. So, we did what anyone would do with 8 hours of driving ahead of them… we got off at the next exit, drove back into Washington, turned around and headed back to Idaho! With the picture taken and our collection intact, we headed off into the hills of Idaho.
About an hour outside of Yellowstone, where we have reserved a campsite, it starts to rain… a lot. The closer we got to the Park, the more it rained. Being our last stop and being exhausted from this journey, the last thing that we wanted to do was set up a tent, in the rain, and deal with all of the associated headaches. So, we found a nice lodge with rooms available, changed our clothes and decided to see what West Yellowstone, MT has to offer the world. For the record, we found out that the answer is…. Nothing. Small town, lots of flea bag motels and quite the interesting collection of locals at the bar at the hotel. We grabbed a beer, watched a little basketball, got a bite to eat and crashed early.
Day 21
With the anticipation of being home and the prospects for rain for the next 48 hours, we made the decision to see a little bit of the Park this trip, but to high-tail it out of there and do the marathon 9 hour drive home today. We joked about “poor Yellowstone”, the unfortunate last stop on this trip, equating it to the 5th day, 23rd church that you see in Europe and say “this is nice… let’s go. And if I have to look at one more beautiful church, I think I’m going to hurl.” So, we drove through Yellowstone, stopped at Old Faithful and took some pictures. Did a lap around the parking lot to see if we could add to our state license plate collection (coming along nicely, thank you!) and then took off for Denver. 9 short hours later, at 8:30p on Friday, June 5th, 21 days and 5372 miles after we started, we pulled into our parking garage and let out a big sigh of relief.
It was an awesome trip! We got to see a ton of friends, family and colleagues. We had a ton of new experiences and a great blend of travel and enjoyment of a great number of cities in the West. Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Victoria, BC, Washington, Idaho, (Washington, Idaho again), Montana, Wyoming and back to Colorado. Whew! I know that De Ann has another post on the rest of “her” experiences, but I hope that you have enjoyed the journey with us! J We will be continuing our posts on the adventures in Denver in the coming weeks and months, so make sure that you stop on by when you can!
Until then…
