Travel West USA & Canada [FULL]

The USA is a large country. If you live in the Midwest and want to explore the West coast, you have a long drive ahead of you before you even start any exploration. You have a choice between the South Dakota route and the North Dakota route. Both are hard drives with little interest along the way except for a slight peculiarity on the South Dakota route. . . . . . Wall Drug!!!

I cannot help remembering my first journey West along that South Dakota route. The one feature of the journey was the string of signs telling us how far we were from Wall Drug. For a very long time we read the distance from Wall Drug 247 miles . . .  240 miles . . . . .  With all those signs, you just HAD to stop at Wall Drug.

However, we barrel through and head for our first objective – not Yellowstone or Jackson Hole where we have been before – Glacier Park.

This is in fact the second time that we cross the ‘continental divide’ – the Rockies – and we are told that the road through the Pass will be closed tomorrow for the Winter season. This is the last day we can drive over the Logan Pass so we cut short our stay in order to take this route.

After leaving the park, our intention was to take the road South. On the spur of the moment, we change our minds and head North towards Calgary. In Canada, we say we are from Australia so we are welcomed everywhere with open arms! People are very friendly here just as they are in the USA.

Our objective is Banff but, instead of staying there, we rent a place a little down the valley and travel up each day. There are black bears by the side of the road as we travel up and we find Banff to have some of the characteristics of typical ‘bucket list’ tourist resort.

Ascending to the top of Sulphur Mountain we find that most of the employees of the restaurant come from Australia. The snow here is obviously better than in the Australian Alps.

Visiting Lake Louise is rather strange as we are looking at a vista we have seen many time on tourist posters.

We are told once again that the road to Jasper will be closed tomorrow so we hasten onwards through thick snow. Now and again we glimpse the spectacular mountains to our left but, for most of the time, it is almost a complete ‘white out’.

The town of Jasper does not seem to have the beauty of the places we have seen to the South. In fact it looks rather sad in the untidy slightly stained snow. We move on immediately and after a few stops through the mountains, we arrive at Vancouver.

Our next objective is Seattle which is not far from Vancouver. When we arrive to the North of the city, we pay our homage to Boeing by taking the tour of the factory. As we drive down the I5, we decide not to do the same for Microsoft but continue on to Tacoma. Their latest aircraft looks good/

My next objective was the Tacoma Narrows bridge. For years I have been using an old movie of the bridge collapse in my lectures. I just had to see the place where this movie of the old bridge was taken.

After enjoying the rather pleasant country around the area, we push on again South to Portland where we stay for a few mights with friends. We look around Portland but also take a trip following the route of those famous explorers Lewis and Clarke with their “magic gun”.

They eventually reached the Pacific by the Columbus River which marks the border between Washington State and Oregon.

Having seen the signs all long our routes West pointing out the Lewis and Clerk trail, it was good to see where this great journey ended. What a journey it was!!!

We now head down the beautiful Oregon coast past the Bandon golf courses into California. We marvel at the great redwoods

and are a little amazed by the historic Eureka. Then come the California vineyards and finally San Francisco.

Now we are driving through Silicon Valley with only one objective which is Cupertino. We pay homage to Apple by driving round Infinite Loop and sidle into the main concourse.

Then we are on our way again. We make a stop in Merced then head for Yosemite.

Now we all know that Yosemite is booked out months before anybody goes there. Even now, almost at the end of the season, it is guaranteed to be full. We drive there anyway.

I love Yosemite and I am glad to say that Apple also loves Yosemite. They love it so much that they have named their new operating system “YOSEMITE’. So I will very soon be running ‘Yosemite’ on my lovely MacBook Air.

Back at the ranch, we explain to the ranger that our tent will take up very little space in their valley but they are totally unsympathetic until they see that one space has not been claimed. We therefore pitch our tent and stow our food in the bear proof  containers before settling down to sleep. We have very little sleep before the usual bear sounds are heard. You would think that they would know by now that those containers really are bear proof. We all yell and the ranger chases the bears back across the stream.

Next day we do the things you do in Yosemite valley. We wander up half dome and then take the walk up the valley then decide to drive the road over the rockies. We are told once again that the road will close after today as the Winter is setting in but undaunted we set off.

There is a sprinkling of very powdery snow but nothing to prevent us enjoying the drive. This is our fourth crossing of the Rockies on this trip. But it is the view up towards the Rockies from the other side that astonishes us. We are driving along an extremely flat valley and the Rockies just seem to go straight up from the valley bottom.

Ignoring the attractions of Area 51, we turn towards Death Valley. We know that Death Valley is hot but nobody told us about the wind!!!

This wind is so strong that we, a couple of trees and the tent are carried not a little way across the camp ground and almost back on to the road. Not a very comfortable night but a plentiful buffet breakfast in a nearby hostelry enables us to enjoy a trip around the area before travelling on to Vegas.

Vegas seems OK but our car does not like the place. It continually shows warning lights seemingly because of the heat. We take it to the local dealer and he says he will fix it. We notice that there are about a hundred Hummers in front of his showroom. I say, “I presume they are the domestic version” and he says with some puzzlement, “No, they are full military spec for the locals”.

Now South to the Hoover Dam then onwards for a stop at Kingman. We then enjoy a brief reunion with Route 66 before driving through Phoenix to reach Casa Grande. Here we stop for a few days before driving North through Phoenix again.

We hope to drive through Phoenoix. Unfortunately our car does not share our optimism. We hit a traffic jam in about 40 degrees (about 104 F) temperature causing our car to stall time after time. I use my minimal car mechanical knowledge to ease the car forward  now and then. The drivers around us are VERY understanding – it’s the US of A remember! – and we survive to hit a nice slope with a clear run down. Quite clearly the Vegas dealer was fully occupied with his Hummer deals and had not fixed the fault which seems to arise in hot weather (like they get in Vegas!).

We are now in sightseeing mode. We spend some time in Sedona, promising ourselves to return, buy a beautiful piece of Navajo pottery, head for Flagstaff and then the Grand Canyon.

We now head up to Utah and some of the finest National Parks in the world. In the USA, you buy a little book and stamp it in each National Park that you visit. I supposed this is organised ‘bucket listing’. So, in Utah we do this by visiting Zion, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and everybody’s favourite Bryce Canyon.

At the end of one day we stop at a little village called Circleville. This is known as Butch Cassidy’s Hideout. The café owner tells us that half the village are descendants of the Cassidy family. Having arrived by car, it seems a relatively easy palce to defend. There’s steep rock on either side of the road but we do not bother to look for the places in which he was actually hiding.

We notice the Sheriff and Marshals are arriving on quad bikes. This is a big disappointment to me as I expect them to be hitching their horses not parking a vehicle. They all order a pile of weird stuff with their meal so I order the same thing. It turns out that the Sheriff likes curly whirly chips with his steak. The waitress simply tells me, “That’s easy! I simply pull them out of the freezer.”

Next morning, we drive into the next town for breakfast. I see a lot of cowboys eating their meal wearing enormous hats. It isn’t rudeness. It’s just that they are too big to hang up anywhere. We eat a cowboy breakfast and hasten to the hat shop to buy more suitable headgear for Utah.

I ask a stupid question of the hat shop manager. “Are there many cowboys around here?” He almost falls down in disbelief saying, “There’s nothing else here!”. I buy one of his hats which is on special. This is probably because it is not big enough for a cowboy to wear at breakfast, thank goodness!

Now we drive down the Bicentennial Highway. This is a remarkable road surrounded by canyons on either side.

We spy a small motel just off the road and enjoy some pleasant meals and an overnight stay before discovering that it is a converted Uranium mine.

We travel next to Natural Bridges, a National Monument then onwards towards Monument Valley. The way seems easy to drive until we come to what appears to be a cliff face with a road criss-crossing its face. The almost sheer drop is slightly terrifying when pickup trucks driven by Indians – we are on Indian land here – in a hurry pass us in the opposite direction. Luckily there are not too many in a hurry today so we survive to carry on to Monument Valley.

I have seen Monument Valley with its 1,000 feet high buttes on the screen so many times that driving through is a multiple ‘Déjà vu’. It has not only been used for Westerns but it also appears in ‘Forest Gump’, ‘Back to the Future 3’ and other films when they need this type of backcloth.

There is a museum which deals mainly with Westerns and particularly with the personality of John Wayne. If I had made a ‘bucket list’, Monument Valley would surely have been on it.

Now we head into Colorado and make our first stop in Telluride. This is apparently a trendy resort but it does not seem very alive, now that we are between the Summer and Winter seasons. I am stupid enough to actually drink the coffee in the internet café but we are astounded to see the prices that one of the hat makers charges. It turns out that he makes hats for LA movies and I am amazed at the amounts that he is paid to produce a run of identical hats. I did not buy another hat in Telluride.

Now we make for my favourite place in Colorado, Aspen. As we approach the town, it is evident that it has changed. Suburbs are growing everywhere. The median price of a house is 4.6 million dollars. It is not the Aspen I used to know. John Denver’s old house outside the town is up for sale for almost 11 million dollars having been bought for under 4 million dollars sixteen years ago.

We are here in the depths of the low season about two months before the ski season starts to move so we traipse over to the Tourist Office to try our luck for a cheap hotel room. They ask us what we would like to pay and we say 50 dollars which evinces some amusement in the office. However, one of them says, “I think I know somewhere you may like” and dials a friend.

We are given the name of one of the most luxurious of residences in Aspen. When we arrive, we are given an enthusiastic reception and informed that, because the hotel is undergoing some renovation, we must have the apartment on the top floor. Our host is an enthusiastic skier who has been on the Adkins diet after trying all the other safer types and is happy that he and his hotel are almost ready for the new season.

The penthouse apartment is like a Hollywood set for a Roman dream. The bathroom is huge and finished everywhere in gorgeous marble with an enormous bath. The bed is Emperor size or super super King, I suppose. We are suitably amazed.

We return downstairs and everybody grins and asks, “Do you like it?” We say that it’s OK for us. They take us into the kitchen and tell us that we will have to collect our breakfast stuff as the staff are on holiday. They have a fridge full of food so that seems excellent. We are happy.

Next day we take a walk round the lake over to Maroon Bells.

Some of the old timers have done well in prosperous Aspen. Those that own restaurants will often come out and chat to visitors rather than remain in their offices. Some of the less fortunate old grays are still working in the supermarkets. Being off season, the town seems to possess a little of the old character. And of course we have benefitted from their sense of humour!

We have visited Aspen a number of times before but always during the Summer. This is when a number of festivals are held and also a number of important meetings.

The Aspen Music Festival and School, the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Centre for Physics are all based here. Scientists and Musicians have known for a long time the good place to be in the Summer.

After reliving our past for a while we reluctantly move on. We first drive up to Independence Pass and linger awhile to enjoy the view.

Now we head for Colorado Springs and end up descending a valley with a string of mountains to our right named after Ivy League universities. There’s even a Mount Oxford in the area besides the Mount Harvard, Mount Columbia, Mount Princeton, and Mount Yale.

After passing through Colorado Springs we make the rather long trek across Kansas to Kansas City then further on to St Louis before heading North to complete our journey.