Road Tips

The Road to Hana

If whale watching was the number one priority for Cindy on our trip to Hawaii, traveling the Road to Hana (pronounced HAW-na) had to be priority 1A.  Located on the east side of Maui, the road to Hana is over 30 miles of twisty roads, one-lane bridges and enough spectacular scenery to fill up the memory of your digital camera in one day.  

We had read up about the Road to Hana in a number of tourism books and web sites before we embarked on our trip.  First of all, they said to budget one full day for the trip.  It's very slow going with a lot of cars sharing the roads in both directions.  Given that it's the only way to get to Hana by vehicle, you're also sharing the road with delivery trucks and other large vehicles.  Add to this, the incredible vistas along the way and you're stopping quite a bit to get some great pictures.  The top piece of advice we read and heard from some who had already taken the trek was to leave early in the day.  Even though it's 32 miles from the start of the road until you end up in Hana, it can take up to 3 hours to get there.  

We decided to start our morning at the breakfast buffet at the Grand Wailea.  We got into the breakfast area about 7:30 a.m. and proceeded to eat a hearty breakfast.  The breakfast buffet at the Grand Wailea was nice, but it wasn't what I would call outstanding.  The hotel thought differently, however, as evidenced by the bill for $36.95 per person for the breakfast.  That was the first and last time we had breakfast at the Grand Wailea.  

The Hana Highway starts just past the airport entrance and goes around the north end of the island.  Just past the small village of Pauwela, the highway goes from a nice wide road to an interesting narrow asphalt road with little to no shoulders.  Vegetation comes right up to the roadway and you begin to run into tight blind curves on uphill grades.  The Road to Hana isn't for the faint or timid drivers. 

The weather wasn't cooperating, either.  All week long while we were on Maui the wind was blowing at gale force speeds.  The weather had changed from a mild sunny morning when we left the hotel to a windy, cloudy misty day on the east side of the island.  Occasional on-shore showers would alternate with partly sunny skies along the route. 

According to one of the guide books we took with us on the trip, there was supposed to be some general store at the start of the Road to Hana where we could get sandwiches, water and guide maps.  Well, I certainly didn't see much of anything like that near the "0" mile marker.  Cindy was a little miffed that we didn't stop and get something.  But I told her that I was sure that we could get something to eat in Hana if we needed it. 

About 10 or so miles into the trip, there's a primitive road side rest area that Cindy wanted to stop at after it took us about 35 minutes to go the initial few miles.  There's a lot of stopping along the way to let cars come through the one-lane bridges (there are over 50 one-lane bridges on the road and over 600 curves - some of them are 180 degree hairpin turns), and to allow the more impatient people to pass.  The top speed we got to was about 25 miles an hour. 

At the rest area, there were a lot of tourists who had stopped, as well.  A lot of small bus tours take groups of people along the Road to Hana, as well as a number of "rent-a-locals" that will drive you and your group on the Road to Hana.  The "rent-a-locals" know the good photo opportunities and along the way and also know the road like the back of their hand.  I suppose if you drive it every day of your life, you're going to know which curves are more treacherous than others. 

While the Road to Hana starts out hugging the shoreline in places, it goes inland for a ways as it ribbons around the sides of small mountains that look out onto small valleys of rice paddies and pineapple trees.  There were a number of turnouts and scenic overlooks on the way to Hana.  This picture actually turned out pretty well considering it had just begun to pour rain on me as I was focusing for this shot.  And it was a cold rain with that blustery wind, too.

Along the Road to Hana were a number of waterfalls, water pools and small streams coming out of the mountains.  However, due to the drought they were experiencing on the Hawaiian Islands, a lot of the streams and waterfalls were either dried up or a trickle of water compared to what they normally are.  The guide books said that the pools are so pristine and the waterfalls so intense that you can wade out into the water and stand under the falls.  We brought our swimsuits and towels with us in anticipation of being able to walk into some of these pools, but for the most part it was pretty disappointing.  Coupled with the cool, blustery weather, the idea of playing under waterfalls that day pretty much escaped from our heads.

We did find some nice waterfalls along the way, however.  The problem is they were well off the roadway and you had to take a little bit of a hike to get to them.  Or, if they were close to the road, there were "No Parking" signs all about because there was no shoulder to park on.  In some cases, I'd let Cindy out of the car to get some closer pictures of some of the waterfalls, go up the road a bit, double back and pick her up. 

We stopped at one spot where we read there was a nice waterfall and pool.  There were a lot of cars there and there was a small roadside stand selling water and snacks.  But there was a big sign that warned against leaving anything in open sight in the car if you trekked back to the waterfall.  I guess local thieves pray upon the tourists along the Road to Hana.

We started to walk along this path back into some heavy vegetation, not exactly knowing where we were going or what we were going to see when we got there.  A couple hundred yards into the hike, we came across a group of 20-somethings who were coming from the waterfall.  Cindy asked them how far it was to the waterfall and one of the guys said, "It's about a half-mile." 

One of the young ladies in the group said, "Yeah, and it's not much to see.  It's a big pool, but the waterfall is hardly a waterfall.  It's more of a trickle."  We decided to follow them back to the parking lot and continue on our way.     

One of the roadside stops on the Road to Hana is Halfway to Hana - a small building where we stopped to get some water and their famous homemade banana bread.  With the stops, slow traffic and just general laziness, it took us just under two hours to get half-way to Hana.  Halfway to Hana was a popular spot for both tourists and locals to stop for a morning snack and something to drink.  We hung out there at a picnic table for a while as Cindy ate her piece of banana bread.  I'm not big on bananas, but it did smell pretty good. 

Back on the Road to Hana, we tried to make mental notes of places we wanted to stop at on our way back up the road on our return trip.  The picture below was one of those places - a beautiful vista of a valley stretching out to the ocean.  Dense green vegetation on the hillsides hid the fact that Maui was experiencing their worst drought in 30 years. 

We finally made it to Hana just before noon - almost three hours after we first got onto the Road to Hana.  We decided to go down the road even further to visit the Seven Sacred Pools in O'heo Gulch, about 10 miles past Hana.  These pools are situated in the Haleakala National Park and are said to be one of the most beautiful places on the island.  Actually, there's way more than seven pools as the gulch, itself, runs about two miles up into the mountains.  There's a hiking trail and some great lookouts, but the main pools are located close to the shore. 

As we got about four miles outside of Hana, we found this little place where an elderly Hawaiian native lady was selling some homemade jewelry and offered free restrooms to tourists along the road.  My wife is sort of like a five-year-old when we travel and it seems that she has to pee every 45 minutes.  But we've been together for so long now that it's normal for me to just ask her when I see a sign along the way that says, "Public Restroom".   

I'm kinda glad we stopped because she had a wonderful flower garden full of yellow hibiscus.  We've got a couple of hibiscus plants back home, but they certainly don't bloom like the ones did in this lady's yard. 

As Cindy was using the bathroom, I was sort of looking around the porch area of this lady's house.  On the outside wall of her house were two framed autographed pictures of Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre.  He was pictured in his New York Yankees uniform back when he was managing that team.  I said, "Huh!  Joe Torre!"

The lady said, "Oh, yes, Mr. Torre has a home not far from here.  He comes out here often and he comes to visit when he's here.  A very nice man." 

I noticed she was selling packages of macadamia nuts from Naborly Farms - a nut farm near Hana owned by entertainer/actor Jim Nabors.  The lady told us, "Oh, yes, Mr. Jim Nabors owns 100 acres near here.  He lives on Oahu, but comes here about once a month.  A very nice man."   (She thought everyone was a very nice man.) 

We didn't buy any because we had already sent three or four cases of Mauna Loa macadamia nuts in cans back to Iowa.  They were addicting. 

  

Along the side of the parking area of this lady's place were these trees with orange flowers.  Now, I'd noticed these trees when we were on the Big Island.  They were actually sort of beautiful with these big flowers, sometimes in abundance on the trees.  We asked the lady what kind of trees they were.  She said, "They're African Tulip trees."

Cindy said, "Oh, they're just beautiful!"

The lady said, "We don't like 'em here.  They're an invasive species.  And they're messy.  When they drop the petals, they get all over the place.  We try to take 'em out if we can." 

Oh! OK.  But they were still my favorite tree to see while we were in Hawaii.

We told the lady we were going to the Seven Sacred Pools and she said, "Well, a lot of the pools are dried up and have very little water in them.  It's the first time in 30 years that the pools are running dry.  You can go on over, but it's not as nice as when the pools are full."  Cindy and I decided to skip driving the remaining distance and decided to head back toward Hana. 

  

We ventured back toward Hana and decided to take a side road that went a little closer to the ocean.  We came across this beach - Koki Beach - that was situated in the midst of a rocky cove.  The wind was just howling and the waves were crashing on the large rocks located just off shore.  It was sort of beautiful and surreal at the same time.  A group of young European 20-somethings were there and I helped them out by taking their picture near a solitary Hawaiian flag with a small dormant volcano in the background.  Quite honestly, I don't know why anyone would want to surf at this spot.

Koki Beach is just down from Hamoa Beach - one of the most pristine beaches on Maui.  Author James Michener wrote about Hamoa Beach, "Paradoxically, the only beach I have ever seen that looks like the South Pacific was in the North Pacific. Hamoa Beach on Maui Island in Hawai'i; a beach so perfectly formed that I wonder at its comparative obscurity."  And, of course, we missed going there.  There is no parking at Hamoa Beach and the only access is down some steps from the road.  We honestly didn't know it was there until we got back home. 

We got back into Hana and drove around.  There's really not much to the town - a school, a couple three churches, a couple restaurants.  That's about it.  There are about 700 people who live in Hana and it is one of the last undeveloped areas in Hawaii.  And that's probably because of the long and treacherous road to the place.  There is a small commuter airport that gets people in and out of the area, but the flights are few and far between. 

At one point in time in the early 20th Century, Hana was a bustling little town with as many as 3500 residents.  They used to have a couple movie theaters, a number of restaurants and other places for people to go.  Population began to drop off after World War II and the sugar plantations began to close.  Many people moved to the other side of the island to work on sugar plantations there. 

One of the more obscure facts about Hana is that famed aviator Charles Lindbergh spent his final years living near there before he passed away in 1974.  Lindbergh is buried in a church cemetery near Hana along with his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. 

There is a nice little harbor around Hana Bay that we drove out to.  There was a pier along with a black sand beach that wrapped around the south side of the bay.  Just past the pier is a rocky point where people snorkel along the reefs.  Given that Hana is on the windy and rainy side of Maui, I can't see where there would be all that many opportunities to enjoy the bay. 

   One of the more famous places to visit in Hana is the Hasegawa General Store.  The store celebrates its 100th year of being run by the Hasegawa family and has survived natural disasters and a huge fire that burned down the original building a little over 10 years ago.   The Hasegawa family moved the general store into one of the towns long-closed movie theaters as a temporary location, but never ended up moving after that.  The Hasegawa General Store has just about one of everything - food, dairy, produce, snacks, shirts, dresses, movie rentals, make-up, first aid kits, hardware, CD's - you name it, they probably have it.  The aisles are narrow and some of the things on the shelf are dusty, but it's a quaint throwback to simpler times where all you have is the general store to take care of the needs of the local residents.  But I will say nothing was cheap in the place.  Milk was $8.79 a gallon, a can of soup was $2.39.  I bought a shirt for $22.00.  Cindy bought some snacks that weren't overly cheap.  But as we found out everywhere we went in Hawaii, nothing was cheap. 

We took off from Hana around 1:30 and began to make our way up the road again.  We took our time to stop at some of the scenic turnouts which were on our right on the way back up the road from Hana and easier to get to than on the way down.  This is one little cove that had a steep rocky lane down to a pristine beach that I was chicken to try.  We saw people down along the shore and knew they had to get down there somehow, but I'm guessing it was by jeep or four-wheel drive.  I didn't think our rental car would be able to make it and I didn't feel like seeing if it could. 

But there were numerous little turnouts that afforded some pretty beautiful views of the coastline and the ocean beyond.  The weather began to get a little better as we drove up the coast from Hana and by the time we got about 10 to 15 miles north of town (which is about 17 to 25 miles of driving on the road), the clouds were beginning to break and the warm sun was coming through. 

Parts of the Road to Hana tunneled through large forests of bamboo trees that hung next to and up over the roadway.  At some points of the drive because of the cloudy conditions and heavy vegetation, you almost needed to use your headlights to make sure oncoming traffic would see you.  Cindy was overly amazed at the amount of bamboo trees that were all over the place.  The bark on bamboo would be a variety of colors from deep green to yellow to red to brown.  We tried to get some pictures from the car a couple times, but they just didn't turn out.  And with a lot of cars behind us, we just couldn't stop and take a picture of the colorful bamboo stalks. 

  
As we finally got off the twisting Road to Hana and back on the Hana Highway, it was good to be able to drive more than 20 miles an hour again.  Driving 55 almost seemed to fast.  But it was certainly good to not be hitting the brakes and making blind hairpin turns at the crest of a hill along side a steep incline down a mountain to the ocean.  As we drove along for a bit, we came across Hookipa Beach Park which is internationally known as possibly the best place in the world to kite surf.  The wind is blowing in nearly everyday at gale force strength and the waves are huge.  Word has it that kite surfing originated on the north shore of Maui and kite surfers from all over the world converge on Hookipa Beach to surf the big waves.  Along with kite surfers, the surf off Hookipa Beach had a handful of windsurfers and traditional surfers.  Cindy and I are mesmerized watching surfers where ever we go.  I think we stood there for nearly an hour just decompressing from the stressful drive we had to and from Hana earlier in the day. 

Yes, the Road to Hana is stressful, but the beautiful scenery along the way outweighed the difficulty of the drive.  I've talked to people who have made the drive to Hana as we did and the consensus is, "I'm glad we went, but if we go back to Maui we won't do it again."  I have to agree with that.  It was a beautiful drive and we had been warned in guide books and by the locals that the Road to Hana was a tedious and treacherous drive.   Even Cindy was wrung out and declared she could use a drink by the time we got to the restaurant that evening.  Still, it's one of those things one should do at least once on a trip to Maui.

 

 

Day Trip to Hilo, Hi

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Ever since I was a little kid, I had some sort of a weird hankering to go to Hilo, HI.  I don't know why.  I always had some sort of a wanderlust even as a little kid.  I used to look through atlas's and encyclopedias and for some reason Hilo always fascinated me.  We were on the Big Island and up in Waimea, so we decided to head further down the road to Hilo along State Highway 19, also known as the Hawaii Belt Road.

As I said in my original post about the Big Island (click here to see that entry), you can find 11 of the 13 microclimates found on Earth on the island.  Just east of Waimea, it turned into a hilly, farmland/forest area with lush green hillsides, clouds that hugged the hills and tree-lined roadways that reminded us of Door County in Wisconsin.  The weather was cool - temperatures were in the upper 60's as we drove toward the east coast of the island.   But it was sunny and pleasant.  Much nicer than what it was back in Iowa. 

When we got to Honoka'a, we screwed up.  We should have taken a backroad up to the lookout overlooking the Waipi'o Valley.  The Waipi'o Valley, we found out later during our trip, is not only breathtaking in its beauty, it has a historical reverence among native Hawaiians.  It was in the Waipi'o Valley that Kamehameha the Great was proclaimed ruler of all the Hawaiian Islands in 1780.  In fact, the Waipi'o Valley is known as "The Valley of Kings" as many of Hawaii's rulers lived in the Valley during their reign.  We did get back up to Waipi'o Valley a few days later, hoping to find a site to take a picture of the full moon rising out of the ocean.  But it was raining tremendously that day - and evening - and we weren't able to take the pictures or take in the spectacular views of the valley.  That's probably the biggest regret I have about our visit to Hawaii. 

Heading past Honaka'a, the road turned south along the eastern coast of the Big Island.  The weather had turned warmer, but was still somewhat breezy.  As we were heading along, we'd turn off on sideroads just to see where they'd go.  More often than not they'd lead to nowhere, but sometimes there would be a little seaside village at the end of the road.  One little village we visited was Paauhau, a little place that had really nothing more than a post office and a few small houses.  This is the view of the sea on the steep hillside road going down to Paauhau. 

Hawaii State Highway 19 from that point south follows what was an old sugar train route that would transport sugar cane to facilities in Hilo to get processed and shipped out.  It was a nice road, albeit somewhat heavily traveled.   

 

Along the highway to Hilo, there were a number of little scenic turnouts that looked out over the ocean.  We just happened to stop at one such turnout just to check out the view.  What we got was a pleasant surprise - a humpback whale frolicking in the ocean.  At first, Cindy and I were the only ones there.  But our pointing and our picture taking must have garnered some attention as the parking lot quickly filled with cars.  And we got quite a show.  While the whale never fully breached the surface, its tail - known as a fluke - popped up from time to time.  It went on for about five minutes.  It provided quite a thrill for Cindy who just loves watching the whales.

There was a row of houses just below the scenic overlook.  I heard a guy down below say, "It's quite a sight, isn't it?"  I looked down and there was a guy, probably in his 60's, looking out at the same thing we were seeing with a pair of binoculars.  "That's really something else," he said as he put the binoculars back up to his face. I figured that if a resident of Hawaii thinks seeing the whales play in the ocean is a neat sight, it must REALLY be a neat sight! 

The scenic overlook along the highway looked down to what appeared to be a park area down by the coastline.  We tracked back about a mile and came across an access road that took us down to the open area bounded by black volcanic rocks that went into a small bay.  The open area was a small park that once housed a school house where a number of school children and their teachers were swept away by the April Fools Day tsunami in 1946.  There is a memorial near the shoreline with the names of those who lost their lives that day. 

 

But there was something sort of surreal about the point.  There really wasn't a beach, but there were young kids swimming in the pools shielded by lava rock.  The waves were coming in and pounding the rocks, but the pools close to shore were relatively calm.  The grass and vegetation in the park was overly green, given that we were on the windward side of the island and they received a lot of rain annually.  But that day was beautiful with temps in the mid-70's. 

 

 

We got back up on the main road to Hilo and headed south.  A few miles north of Hilo, we saw a sign that directed us to a side road that was designated as a scenic roadway.   Called the Pepe'ekeo Scenic Drive, it's a four mile stretch of roadway through a jungle of African Lilly trees and other tropical foliage.  Along the way there was the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens.  We were told this was one of the "must see" things while we were in Hawaii as the gardens feature natural waterfalls, over 2000 species of plants and flowers, and a beautiful view of the ocean.  Admission was $15 bucks, which wasn't a problem, but Cindy was sort of looking for a beach to go to.  We passed on the Botanical Gardens not knowing what we missed, or if we really missed anything.  I mean, we had seen a lot of lavish flowers and plants at our hotel.  What more could we see?

 

At the start of the Pepe'ekeo Scenic Drive on the north side was this little general store.  We stopped in so we could get some water.  They had a map of the U.S. with pins in the cities from people who had visited their store.  Davenport, IA was already pinned. 

Cindy got to talking with the two 20-something sisters working the store with their like-aged brother.  Cindy remarked to the girls, "You know it's a shame when a pack of cigarettes ($6.99) was cheaper than a gallon of milk ($8.79)."

One of the girls said, "I know, everything is horrendously high priced in Hawaii."

The other girl asked, "How much is gas where you're from?"  I told her that I paid $2.79 a gallon just before we came to Hawaii.  She exclaimed, "$2.79 a gallon?  Oh, I wish we could get gas for under $3.00 a gallon here!"   

Cindy ended up getting an iced coffee instead of a water.  She said it was very good.  Hawaiian coffee did smell wonderful, I have to admit. 

The scenic drive reconnected with Highway 19 just about four miles north of Hilo.  We drove a couple miles down the road and we passed a cemetery with this huge banyan tree right in the middle of the property.  It looked perfectly proportioned and Cindy had me go back so she could get some pictures of it.  The cemetery was sectioned off in plots for Korean, Japanese and Hawaiian families.  It was sort of interesting.  With the big banyan tree and the ocean in the background, it was a beautiful final resting place.  We lingered in the cemetery for awhile before we headed into Hilo.

 

 

Hilo was not really what I expected.  Actually, I expected a somewhat modern tropical paradise.  It was far from that. A good portion of the downtown area was destroyed with the tsunami of 1960.  But it looked like they hadn't done any updating since 1960.  Store fronts and buildings had an older look to them, sort of like a land where time had been forgotten.  I remarked a couple times that downtown Hilo looked like pictures of Havana, Cuba that I've seen.  It looked stuck in the 50's and 60's.  It wasn't that it was bad, but we certainly didn't think it was worth getting out to walk around the downtown area. 

Residential areas weren't much better.  There were a number of houses that I would categorize as "shacks" with metal roofs and thin walls.  I do have to say the area around and on the University of Hawaii-Hilo campus was very nice, however.  It sort of looked like a nice place to go to school.  I'm sure any place on Hawaii would be a nice place to go to school.

We ended up on the Hilo Bay waterfront as Cindy wanted to go out and walk on the beach to look for shells.  The Hilo Bay beach is, well, it's not that nice of a beach.  It's a ruddy, black sand beach where it's more rocky pumice than sand.  It was somewhat muddy, as well.  We were the only people on the beach, so that probably should have told us something there.  It had begun to cloud over and the wind was coming in pretty strong off the sea.  Much to Cindy's dismay there were little to no sea shells to be found.  But she did find some interesting clear green and brown glass-like objects on the beach.  When she showed them to me, I said, "Cindy, that's glass from broken beer bottles."

She went, "Ee-yew," and threw them down. 

 

 

We drove around Hilo for a bit before heading out of town back toward our hotel on the other side of the island.  We decided to take Saddle Road back across the island.  One of our guide books was describing Saddle Road as a "rugged former Army road built during World War II to ferry troops across the island between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa".  But it also cautioned that much of the road was in such bad shape and dangerous that some rental car agencies wouldn't permit their cars on the road.  We never got that warning from Hertz. 

When we stopped at the general store on the Pepe'ekeo scenic drive, Cindy asked the people about driving on Saddle Road.  The young guy said, "The first few miles out of Hilo are a little rough, but then they're working on the road around the 12 mile mark.  For about seven miles, you'll be in road work and the going will be slow.  But after that the road is new and you can go pretty well on it.  But on the western end, it goes back to the way it used to be - very narrow roads, tricky curves on hills and pretty rough."  He also said to look out for the locals who drive the road on a daily basis and they know every turn, twist and pot hole.  "And they drive it fast!"  Cindy was sort of hesitant to go on it, but we decided to give it a try. 

Saddle Road was everything the young guy said it was.  We started a steady climb up Highway 200 west of Hilo and encountered a lot of road construction along the way.  They were either resurfacing existing road surfaces or where constructing a new road that wouldn't be as winding with a lot of blind curves as the old road was.  A few miles further down the road, it turned into a wonderful road with wide shoulders, plainly marked lanes and a smooth ride.  Then almost as suddenly just past Mauna Kea, the road turned into this rough, narrow patch of roadway with difficult sight distances.  It continued that way to the western terminus just south of Waimea.

The weather was fluid, as well.  The temperature dropped as we continued our climb and we encountered rain showers.  Almost as quickly as we ran into rain, it stopped, the clouds parted and the sun came out.  They always say in Iowa that if you don't like the weather just wait 15 minutes.  Well, on the Big Island you can drive 15 miles and go from cold and rainy to warm and sunny.  Or in the case on Saddle Road from cold and rainy to cool and sunny.

Saddle Road goes right in between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea.  It basically goes on the "saddle" between the two mountains.  The GPS we had with us showed that at its highest point Saddle Road was 6,831 feet above sea level.  And the temperatures were in the upper 50's at that point.  This is a picture of Mauna Loa, which in the Hawaiian language means "Long Mountain".  (Mauna Kea is Hawaiian for "White Mountain" because of the snow that caps the peak at times.)  I tried my best to get a picture of Mauna Loa.  Of course, after I took this picture, I realized that our new camera that we bought before we went to Hawaii had a program with it that allowed you to take a chain of shots and the program would fuse them together into one panoramic picture.  That's why I got more of the road instead of the mountain in this picture.  But you get the idea of how long the mountain is. 

We were damn happy to get off Saddle Road at it's western junction with the Highway 190, the main road between Waimea and Kailua-Kona.  We were still about 3,000 feet above sea level and about 12 miles from our hotel.  We had just been buzzed by natives in their trucks, taking the narrow curves at over 35 miles and hour.  We had to navigate around pot holes, drop offs on the side of the road and one-lane bridges where it was a life-or-death contest to see who would get the right of way.  I can see why some car rental agencies wouldn't let their cars on Saddle Road before the construction began.  It's sort of weird that they're now working on the east end of the road, and the middle part is as nice of a highway that you find anywhere.  But the last 10 miles of the west end of the road appears to have no maintenance or upkeep since the original gravel road was paved in 1949.  We needed a couple stiff mai-tai's back at the hotel to calm us down upon our arrival. 

I understand they're now doing environmental studies on the feasibility of reworking the last 10 miles of Saddle Road on the west side of the island.  Those studies should be complete sometime this year.  The goal is to have Saddle Road completely done by 2012 offering a safe and quick way for people to go from Kailua-Kona to Hilo rather than around the southern or northern sides of the Big Island. 

While we didn't experience the 11 of the 13 microclimates found the Big Island, we certainly were in a lot of different types of weather on our trip that day.  There was a lot of great scenery and we're certain we missed a lot of other things that we could have stopped to see if we'd just taken the time.  We didn't really plan the day out that well - we should have left much earlier in the day.  We never really decided to take off for Hilo until after we had breakfast at the Hawaiian Style Cafe in Waimea.  And it was nearly 11 o'clock when we finished there. 

But as far as the overall drive was concerned, it was beautiful going along Highway 19 on the eastern shore of the Big Island.  While I really wanted to have some time to sit by the ocean and chill out at the hotel, I'm really glad we took the day to go explore the eastern side of the island.  My advice would be to rent a car for at least a day (most of the resorts on the west side of the island have car rental agencies on site) and go explore the island.  It was certainly one of the highlights of our trip to the Big Island.

 

Hoover Dam

I had some time to kill for a full day while out in Las Vegas recently, so I wanted to drive down to Hoover Dam and see the progress on the new by-pass route they're putting in to speed traffic between Vegas and Phoenix.  U.S. Highway 93 is the prime route between the two cities - the largest cities in the U.S. with no direct interstate link between them, I was told.  Because of security concerns and safety issues, trucks must go through Laughlin, NV/Bullhead City, AZ to cross over the Colorado River to get between the two cities.  Even with a car, it takes a long time to get over the Hoover Dam hiking the drive time between Las Vegas and Phoenix. 

It was a beautiful early January day when I drove down through Boulder City (see map) and down to the dam site.  It had been 17 years since I was last at Hoover Dam, and that was when I was driving between Las Vegas and Phoenix to see my sister after CES.  But I'd been hearing and reading about this new by-pass, including a bridge that's being built just south of the dam that will tower about 850 feet above the gorge below with a main span just short of 1100 feet.  I had to go see this. 

Now, I've never done the tour at Hoover Dam, and I know Cindy is dying to go there sometime and do just that.  I told Cindy that sometime we'd go out to Vegas for a few days and go and do and see, rather than hang in town all the time.  Death Valley would be a good place to go for a day.  The Grand Canyon would be a healthy drive, but we could be there and back in the day.  And we could go up to Mount Charleston for a taste of winter in the Nevada mountains. 

Along the way to Hoover Dam, there's a number of great little turnouts and vistas to admire.  I didn't take my camera along, but there's some pretty sights to see just outside of Boulder City along Lake Mead north of the dam.

And since I didn't have my camera, I couldn't take any pictures of the work in progress on the bridge when I got to the dam.  I found some public domain pictures on the internet, however, including some at the Hoover Dam By-pass web site. 

Here is a photo from the dam looking south and west to the Nevada side of the river.  Initially, plans were to have the bridge built by 2008, but construction suffered a set back a year and a half ago when high winds toppled four cranes that were used to support a cabled crane system.

Here's a picture of the collapsed towers on the Arizona side of the river.  Winds up to 65 miles an hour hit the site and blew down the towers.  This set the project back by at least two years.  They're now targeting the bridge to open sometime in 2010. 

And here's a shot of the work looking north toward the dam.  By the time the bridge is completed, it's expected to have 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles cross it each day.  That's an increase of about five times the vehicles that cross the Hoover Dam on a daily basis. 

This is an artist's rendering of what the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge will look like when it's completed.  The bridge is named after former Nevada governor and decorated war hero O'Callaghan, and former Arizona State and Arizona Cardinals football player Tillman who gave up a multi-million dollar career in the NFL to go serve his country in Afghanistan.  Tillman was killed in action in 2004. 

Some people have said the by-pass bridge will detract from the natural beauty of Hoover Dam and it's surroundings.  But I think the shear nature of the engineering feat and the classic look of the bridge will help accent the view around the dam area.  It will be neat to see when it is completed.          

The Dakotas Trip - Part 5

Part 5 of my nearly 2400 mile trip across North Dakota and South Dakota earlier this summer.  To read Part 1, click here; to read Part 2, click here; to read Part 3, click here; and to read Part 4, click here.

I've always been sort of a geography nut ever since I was a little kid.  I would just sit and look at maps for hours on end.  I don't know why.  Maybe I had a little bit of wanderlust in me at an early age.  But just to show you how big of a geek I was when I was a little kid, I could name all the state capitals when I was six years old.  Ask me what the state capital of Montana was and I'd quickly reply, "Helena".  Vermont?  "Montpelier."  South Carolina?  "Columbia."  I was that good (or bad, depending on your viewpoint of geekdom). 

(As an aside, I could name the U.S. Presidents in order when I was five.  My parents would have me come down and do it for their friends when they'd have company.  I can still name all the presidents in order and the state capitals to this day.  I've won a few bar bets in doing so over the years.)

But looking at maps, I was always fascinated by borders.  It didn't matter if it were county borders, state borders or national borders.  I was always enamored by them.  And I still am to this day. 

There's a point just east of Sioux Falls where the three states of Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota come together.  Since there's no topographical boundaries, such as a river, to delineate between the borders, the boundaries for all three states come together at a point in the middle of the road about 15 miles east of Sioux Falls.  Here's a picture of the point courtesy of Google Earth.  That's Iowa to the south, South Dakota to the north and west, and Minnesota to the north and east. 

The spot is marked by a monument that has a plaque that talks about the history of spot.  Actually, the monument used to be right smack dab in the middle of the road - a nice two lane highway at a "T" intersection with a gravel road.  Over the years, it had been hit so many times they finally decided to move it to the South Dakota corner of the three points. 

Here's the nail-head where the monument used to sit.  This is the exact point where all three states come together at this intersection.  If you wanted to - and I have - you could pee in all three states at once. 

Standing on the exact spot where all three states meet, here's the gravel road looking north.  South Dakota is on the left with Minnesota on the right.

Here's the road looking east - Iowa's on the right and Minnesota's on left.

And here's the road looking west with Iowa on the left and South Dakota on the right.  OK, OK.  You get the idea.  I told you I was geeky about these things. 

Here's a picture courtesy of Jeff Morrison which shows the three different street signs for the three different states.  South Dakota's is in the foreground, Iowa's is to the right and Minnesota's is to the left.

And here's the plaque on the side of the monument marker.  As always, click on the picture to enlarge if you'd like to read it.

Back on the road and down to Sioux City, there's a point where Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota meet, but it's out in the middle of a river channel where the Big Sioux River drains into the Missouri.  See the place courtesy of Google Maps on the right.

War Eagle Park is on a bluff in southwest Sioux City that overlooks the point where the three states come together.  The monument on the bluff denotes the final resting place for Chief War Eagle, an Indian tribal leader who worked with the first white settlers in the region to bring peace and harmony between the two groups.

Here's the shot of the confluence of the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers.  Iowa is in the foreground.  The sliver of land between the two rivers is South Dakota, and Nebraska is in the background.  OK, that's enough geeky shit for this day. 

After meeting with my dealer in Sioux City, and then a lunch at George's No. 1 Hot Dog Shoppe, I was back on the highway for a 5 1/2 hour trip home.  It had been a long week, I had seen a lot of stuff, I got a lot of things accomplished and had a pretty good time doing it.  A trip like this makes traveling long distances pretty worth while.         

The Dakotas Trip - Part 4

For part one of The Dakotas Trip, click here; for the second part, click here; and for the third segment, click here.

After getting out of Wall Drug and hitting the road again, I once again had a long trip in front of me to Sioux Falls.  It was a warm, windy day in South Dakota - the kind of day that helped make Wall Drug a favorite destination of thirsty travelers years ago.  But I was certainly happy to be out of there and back on the road.

Heading east on Interstate 90, I had nothing but miles and miles of road ahead of me as I traversed through the Badlands.  It became a rather monotonous drive.

About a hundred miles east of Wall is the turn-off to go to South Dakota's state capital city of Pierre.  Once again, I'm such a geography nut and Pierre would be the last state capital of the 11 states I cover that I haven't visited.  Pierre is about 35 miles north of the interstate, but US Highway 83 is a four lane road between the interstate and Pierre, so I thought it would be a rather quick side trip.  (See map)  Well, it was and it wasn't. 

For 30 miles, the rolling Badlands scenery offered not much in terms of scenic beauty.  It was void of trees and gold from drought with the lack of rain in the region.  Suddenly, the road began a gentle slope down into the valley.  In front of me was the Missouri River with Pierre just ahead. 

Actually, Pierre was kind of a nice little town.  After getting some gas and a snack (I hadn't had any lunch), I struck out to find the South Dakota state capitol building.  After finding the downtown area (what there is of it in Pierre), I saw a sign that directed me toward the state capitol.

Pulling up in front of the capitol building, I was very pleasantly surprised.  It was nothing like the North Dakota state capitol, and the grounds around the building were very well manicured with lush green lawns, flowers and plants.  There was a very nice little lake to the east side of the building.  Given how dry the area was, it looked like a green oasis in the middle of the Badlands. 

I drove to the east of the capitol building and took a left in a residential area to see if I could get any pictures of the capitol from across the lake.  I looked over and there was a sign that said, "Governor's Mansion".  I couldn't believe it.  There was this modern mansion with this huge lawn.  Most of the governor's mansions I've seen in other states are usually large older houses.  This one looks like it was built within the last couple three years.   The gambling and banking businesses have obviously been very good to South Dakota.

I turned around and found a place to park on the street on the south side of the governor's mansion.  I walked out onto the lawn and took this picture of the capitol building across the lake.  It was actually very pretty. 

There's not much else to Pierre, so I ended up going north of town a little bit and went up to Lake Oahe.  Formed by a massive power dam across the Missouri River, Lake Oahe is one of the largest man made lakes in the U.S.  The power plant at the dam provides power for many of the residents in the Dakotas, Western Minnesota, Northern Nebraska and into Wyoming and Montana.  It was well over a mile to get across the dam.

I was able to get out on the other side of the dam and take in the sight of the lake.  Lake Oahe is one of the biggest destinations for fishermen across the Midwest.  It stretches for over 200 miles north of Pierre, well up into North Dakota before ending just south of Bismarck.  It's also the boundary line for the Central Time Zone and the Mountain Time Zone.  The east side of the Lake Oahe dam is in the Central Time Zone, while the west side is in the Mountain Time Zone.  I'm fascinated with geographical boundaries, almost fanatically fascinated. You'll see a little later on.

Back on the road and back down Highway 83 toward the interstate, it was getting late in the day.  I knew I had one more stop to make before I made it to Sioux Falls for the evening.  And that was in Mitchell to see the Corn Palace. 

Driving east on Interstate 90, it was rather interesting how the topography changed tremendously once I crossed over the Missouri River.  West of the river was the rolling and grassy hills of the Badlands, while just over the river to the east the land became flat and green with farm fields full of soybeans.  It reminded me earlier of how the land changed from the tree filled mountainous region west of Rapid City to the Badlands just east of the city.

I pulled into Mitchell around 7 p.m. and went toward their downtown area.  I'd heard much about the Corn Palace over the years and wanted to see it for myself.

The Corn Palace dates back to the 1800's when a wooden structure was built and decorated on the outside by corn kernels and stalks.  The original intent was to have the structure serve as a community center and help lure residents to the area.  The original Corn Palace was torn down and a new structure was built in 1905.  The present day Corn Palace was built in 1921 and has been added on to over the years. 

Every year since the late 1800's, the exterior of the Corn Palace has been decorated in corn kernels.  Well, every year except for last year when a severe drought across the region in 2005 affected the corn harvest.  Local artists have annually designed and decorated the exterior.  It costs about $130,000 each year to decorate the building.

Inside, the Corn Palace is a multi-use building with a large stage, a basketball court and theater seating.  The interior is also ornately decorated with corn sculptured pictures throughout the place.  They had a church bazaar going on when I was there that evening.

There's also a long hallway stretching from the main entrance lobby down to the floor area of the auditorium that shows pictures and paintings of previously decorated Corn Palaces.  It was kind of neat to see some of the previous designs they came up with. 

Here's a picture of the first year (1921) of the present day Corn Palace.  (As always, click on the picture to enlarge.)  This shows the building before the Moorish domes were added in the late 1930's. 

Here's some more of the designs inside the Corn Palace.   Many of the sculpted pictures inside the building depicted the history of the area.  And they also show many of area's outdoor activities such as hunting and fishing.  And they even had a "corn" Mount Rushmore.  For as corny as it all was (pardon the pun), it was still pretty cool.

Across from the Corn Palace was a hot dog shop that was closed for the evening.  But they had this sculpture outside their front door.  Too bad the place wasn't open.  I would have liked to gone in and tried one of their hot dogs.

And on the corner at the hot dog place was a sculpture of The Blues Brothers hanging out on a park bench.  Being that it was right across from the Corn Palace it looked a little out of place, but it was pretty funny see. 

It had been a long day, and I still had to go on to Sioux Falls and a late evening dinner.  One of the things I realized after leaving Mitchell - for an area that celebrates corn, I didn't really see much corn along the interstate coming from the west.  However, east of Mitchell toward Sioux Falls, there were miles and miles of cornfields. 

One more day on the road including a long trip home.

(Coming up - Part 5 of the Dakotas Trip.  My fascination with state borders.)

The Dakotas Trip - Part 3 - Wall Drug

For the first two parts of The Dakotas Trip, click here for Part One, and here for Part Two.

Leaving Rapid City in bright sunshine demonstrated the micro-climates that envelope the Black Hills.  Another thing I noticed is the topography.  Almost as soon as I got east of Rapid City, the coniferous trees were gone.  Well, almost ALL the trees were gone.  Suddenly, it was the awesome rolling hills of the Badlands.

And almost as soon as I got out of Rapid City, the signs began.  As in the signs for Wall Drug.  Wall Drug began in tiny Wall, SD (see map) in the midst of the Great Depression by Ted Hustead, a pharmacist who moved to Wall mainly because there was a Catholic Church in the community.  When it became apparent the townspeople of Wall weren't very rich, Hustead came up with an idea to offer free ice water to people traveling on U.S. Highway 14 to the then new Mount Rushmore, the nearby Badlands National Monument (now Badlands National Park), Yellowstone National Park and points west. 

With the help of others, Hustead erected signs along the highways leading to Wall, beckoning hot and thirsty travelers to stop in for free ice water.  Soon there were signs for Wall Drug all across the state of South Dakota and later across many states in the Midwest and Mountain states. 

Almost immediately, business picked up in the tiny drug store.  Their ice cream and soda fountain business began to flourish.  They've been giving away cold water and selling 5 cent coffee almost as long as they've been open.

In the early 60's, it was estimated there were over 90,000 signs for Wall Drug in the region.  I read somewhere there are still about 280 Wall Drug signs of various size and advertisements along portions of Interstate 90 in South Dakota. 

Well, it was on the way and I had to stop.  I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere and it is one of the largest tourist attractions in the upper Midwest.  I had to go just this one time. 

The signs guided me right into Wall and onto Main Street where I found Wall Drug (see map).  I expected it to be a huge place, and I wasn't disappointed. 

I pulled into one of the many large parking lots near the drug store and walked down the street.  Actually, the whole area around and across from Wall Drug is nothing but a tourist trap with t-shirt shops, western wear and other horrible stores just screaming to separate you and your money.  I wasn't even certain I really wanted to go into Wall Drug as I walked up the street.

The inside of Wall Drug was just as I imagined - a plethora of cheap trinkets and overpriced crap that droves of tourists snatch up.  They had rooms and rooms of this stuff.  I didn't even stop long enough to look at some of the things they had to offer.  I was afraid I'd get trapped into buying something.

Since dinosaurs roamed the area millions of years ago, there were a lot of dinosaur models for sale at Wall Drug.  Kids love dinosaurs - you couldn't even get through the aisle where the models were because there were so many kids screaming for their dad to buy them one. 

Of course, the kitschy items were more than prevalent, as well.  I couldn't resist taking this picture to show some of the crap they had for sale.  Actually, I sort of wish I would have taken more time walking through the gift shop area to find the most outlandish piece of merchandise.  On second thought, no, maybe not.   

Wall Drug has been built on to and expanded many times over the years.  It now takes up one whole city block in Wall. This is the "Backyard" area of the place, which has the Train Station Water Show area.  It had kind of an old Western theme to it.  They had a little water fountain out there for kids to run through.  Just what parents want - wet kids in the car. 

Also in the courtyard were a number of props to be used to take pictures with.  There was a miniature Mount Rushmore, a number of ceramic horses, a big gorilla and this giant jackalope that people can get on to get their pictures taken on.  Believe me, a lot of people were jumping up on this thing while I was there. 

Here's the free ice water dispenser out in the courtyard.  They're smart at Wall Drug - to get to the water, you have to walk through the gift shop area.  That's sort of like how they do it in Las Vegas - in order to get to your room, a restaurant or to a show, they make you walk through the casino.  In other words, they want more of your disposable income.

Years ago, Ted Hustead and his wife, Dorothy, used to chip ice off of big blocks of ice and pour ice water from a pitcher.  Now, you can just serve yourself.  I thought they'd at least have some one just handing out water.  But it must get pretty cold out there in the winter time.

The newest building on the backside of Wall Drug had a display of articles about the history of the business, as well as letters, articles and pictures of the Hustead family over the years.  Ted Hustead's son, Bill, ran the day to day operation for a number of years and oversaw the expansion of Wall Drug to it's present size today.  Bill's sons, Rick and Ted, are the CEO and President, respectively, of Wall Drug today.

Around the corner from where the family memorabilia was displayed was an art museum of paintings and artifacts of the Old West.  They had a long hall area with prints and drawings, as well as a large museum room filled with paintings, sculptures and antique relics.  I didn't spend much time in there, although it did look pretty neat.

Back into the main building, this is the mall area Bill Hustead built onto the original Wall Drug in the mid 70's.  When financial advisers told Bill that the economy was backsliding and advised him to divest from Wall Drug altogether, he expanded.  This was the first part of the expansion of Wall Drug.

In the mall, there's a poster shop, a t-shirt shop, an art gallery where you can buy prints and sculptures, a soda fountain, and, of course, the Wall Drug drugstore.

Actually, that was about all I could handle.  I'm sure there was a lot more to see, but I had a lot of miles ahead of me.  I ended up getting out of there and heading back out to the mini-SUV I was driving.  I thought to myself, "Well, that's 30 minutes of my life that I'll never get back." 

But, still, there were some sort of neat things to see at Wall Drug.  It's pure Americana, not only in the kitsch and touristy items they have, but with the sort of wholesome feel that permeates the place.  If you ever get up that way, you really have to stop.  Once.

(Next up - Pierre and The Corn Palace.)    

The Dakotas Trip - Part Two

For the first part of "The Dakotas Trip", click here.

As I was leaving Belle Fourche, SD, on my way to Devil's Tower National Monument, if occurred to me that I should have probably stopped and got some gas before I took off.  I took a quick look on the map to see if I'd be passing through some towns on the way, and I would be, so I wasn't worried. 

I got into Wyoming a little after 4:30 p.m. - the 38th state I've visited.  (I've yet to go to Oregon, Idaho, South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii or Alaska.)  Almost as soon as I crossed over from South Dakota, the terrain became this beautiful mixture of small mountains and rolling valleys.  It was very pretty.

As I was driving along, I was wondering when I'd first see Devil's Tower.  As I began to gradually go down from one of the small mountains, I turned on a curve and right before me was this sight.  It was pretty cool to see. 

Now, I've always been a big fan of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  It's one of my all time favorite movies.  The climactic scene when the aliens come to meet the scientists takes place at Devil's Tower.  So, to me, it was sort of neat to see the thing off in the distance. 

Remember what I said about finding gas in the towns along the way?  Well, it turns out a lot of the towns are nothing more than settlements with just a few houses.  One town had a gas station, but it was closed.  I thought, "How in the hell do people get gas out here?"  With my gas gauge perilously close to "E" and my low gas light coming on, I forged on toward Devil's Tower. 

They have a visitor's center at Devil's Tower, but I didn't go in.  I stopped near the entrance to get this picture.  It was sort of a funny day.  There were clouds directly over the tower, but blue skies in the background.  It was difficult to get any type of a good picture in those lighting conditions.

The Devil's Tower monolith, some scientists speculate, was what was left over from an ancient volcano.  The igneous rock, which the tower is made out of, is harder than the shale and sedimentary rock that used to surround it.  Over the years, erosion washed away the softer rock around the tower, creating what we see today. 

I realized that I came in the back way to see Devil's Tower as there were some turnouts and overlooks miles up the road away from Devil's Tower.  Here's a shot from one of those turnouts.

Heading back toward civilization, my gas gauge was now directly on "E".  I was trying to conserve gas by going slow up the steep road, and then putting it into neutral as I went down the other side.  I was sweating bullets thinking that I was about to run out of gas in, literally, the middle of nowhere.  But as I turned a curve, I came to a long downhill stretch that took me right down to Interstate 90 and to a gas station outside of Sundance, Wyoming, where I put 17.4 gallons of gas into a tank that holds 16 gallons.  In other words, I went in on fumes. 

I passed back into South Dakota and decided to go to the gambling/tourist destination of Deadwood.  Deadwood was formed in the 1870's when thousands of people descended on the area during the Black Hills Gold Rush.  Famous for being a wide open city, Deadwood thrived on gambling and prostitution during the late 1800's.  Today, with the legalization of casino gambling in South Dakota, Deadwood has the most casinos in the state. 

But more than anything, Deadwood is a tourist trap - a small village nestled in a deep valley with casinos, t-shirt shops, as well as theme bars and restaurants.  I couldn't wait to leave the place.

Just down the road from Deadwood is Sturgis, SD.  Sturgis is famous for their annual Motorcycle Rally held in August.  I was there about two weeks before the rally this year.  This is a picture of what it looks like along Main Street when the rally is underway.

Here's what it looks like on a Wednesday evening when nothing's going on.  I'll have to say, there's not much to Sturgis.

I parked in front of the famous Original Road Kill Cafe.  I was hoping to be able to go in and have a beer in the place, but it was closed for the day.  Hmm...  Only 6:30 in the evening.  I understand they do have pretty good breakfasts there.

I went across the street to One Eyed Jack's Saloon to have a beer.  It's a pretty interesting place and, big, too.  I can see why it would be one of the favorite places for bikers to hang out at during Bike Week.  But just the main bar was open.  All the other parts of the bar were closed off.  Probably a good thing, as it was just me and a couple other people in the place. 

I headed off to Rapid City just in front of a thunderstorm that was barreling down on the city.  As I got checked and unpacked for the night, it was just pouring outside.  By the time I got back out to the SUV to go eat dinner, it had quieted down considerably, but a very neat lightning storm was going on to the east of the city.  Very cool, indeed. 

I had dinner that night at the Firehouse Brewing Company in downtown Rapid City.  It was excellent.  For my entry on the Firehouse Brewing Company, click here.

The next day, I went to see three accounts in town just to check things out.  The stores weren't much of anything, but the people were friendly.  There was some interest on their part with a couple lines I have.  And even though it's a long, long way from Davenport, I wouldn't mind putting on a dealer or two in Rapid City.

Rapid City is kind of a neat town.  The downtown area is very pretty and they have a number of statues of U.S. Presidents on the sidewalks.  Being a nut on Presidential history, I got out to walk around to see some of them.  This is a picture of Harry Truman's statue with him holding a copy of the Chicago Tribune declaring Thomas Dewey the winner in the 1948 election.

And it's good to see the United States Postal Service has a sense of humor.  Here's one of their new R2D2 postal boxes they unveiled earlier this year.  In the background is a statue of President Kennedy with his young son, John Jr.

In a park near the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, there was a memorial display of the Berlin Wall, complete with two sections of the wall.  They also had tank traps (those two things on the ground on either side of the wall), and a number of other items from around the Berlin Wall.  There was a walking tour that included information tablets on the history of the Berlin Wall, including pictures of the wall going up and, subsequently, going down in 1989.  They also displayed this sign that was on the American side of the wall.  It was all pretty cool to see. 

Of course, since I was close, I had to go out to Mount Rushmore, just south and west of Rapid City, near the small tourist town of Keystone, SD.  The road out to Mount Rushmore from Rapid City is all four lane, and it's a good thing.  There's a lot of campers and RV's on the road and they would have really been clogging up the lanes as it was slow going up some of the Black Hills. 

I passed this place, Bear Country USA.  I really wanted to stop, but I knew I had a long trip ahead of me.  Besides, this would be a place that Cindy would like to go and visit with me.  We're going to have to come out and visit this area sometime in the future.

Going into Keystone, there's this neat little rock tunnel you have to drive through.  There were a few tunnels like this throughout the Black Hills.

Keystone is a lot like Deadwood, minus the gambling casinos.  It's a tourist trap with very slow traffic, loaded with high-priced hotels, family restaurants and little shops.  I couldn't wait to get out of there, either.

Just a short drive down the road from Keystone, I turned a curve and there was Mount Rushmore right in front of me.  I parked the SUV in one of the many parking lots (8 bucks to park) around the visitor's center. 

Actually, the monument is pretty awe-inspiring.  The visitor's center area was packed with people from all over the world taking in the sight.  I understand their nighttime program just around sunset is pretty neat to see.  They have a large amphitheater and do a program where they end up lighting up the faces of the Presidents on the mountain.  Since I wasn't going to be around for that, I just took some pictures, stared at the mountain for a few moments and took off.  Still, it was pretty cool to finally see something in person that I've seen in books, magazines and on TV over the last 40+ years.

I was kind of bummed because it was cloudy as all get out up at Mount Rushmore, but when I got back to Rapid City, the sky had cleared and the sun was shining brightly.  I was hoping I'd get some shots of the monument in brilliant sunshine.  Oh well.  Next time, hopefully.

And from there it was on to Sioux Falls.  But I still had a couple more stops along the way.

(Next up - Wall Drug!)       

The Dakotas Trip - Part One

I put 2392 miles on a Toyota RAV 4 mid-sized SUV during my annual trip to the Dakotas last month.  Now, I don't really know if the trip can be categorized as a "cool drive", but I went to some places that I'd never been to before and saw some pretty neat things.

First of all, this picture was taken at a rest stop between St. Cloud and Fargo.  The term "spunk" comes from 19th century England as a vulgar slang for seminal fluid.  I just thought it was funny they'd have a rest area named after a funny name for semen.

Now, there's really nothing to see between Fargo and Bismarck, ND.  It's a couple hundred miles of land as far as the eye can see.  It's not quite the middle of nowhere, but the middle of nowhere is not far from there.

Being the geography geek that I am, I've made it a point to visit the state capitals of each of the 11 states I travel in for my job.  North and South Dakota were the last two I have never been to.  I stopped in Bismarck to call on a couple of accounts, but before I did that I went looking for the state capitol building.  Bismarck, while not very big, is a nice, clean little city.  It wasn't long before I saw a sign that said, "State Capitol Parking".  I pulled into the lot and expected to find a typical capitol building with a stately dome and columns out front.

This is the state capitol in North Dakota.  That's it - nothing more than a non-descript squat building with a high-rise next to it.  It wasn't very impressive.  The grounds around it looked nice.  They had a garden in front of the building that had "North Dakota" spelled out in flowers.  But other than that, it was pretty boring, architecturally.

Leaving Dickinson, ND the next morning to go to Rapid City, I took off west on Interstate 94 to cut down on U.S. Highway 85.  I didn't have to be there until that evening, so I decided to take some side trips along the way.  I noticed on the map the Theodore Roosevelt National Park was just down the road and I decided to go there.

As far as national parks are concerned, the Theodore Roosevelt park is pretty new - established in 1978.  Part of the park is an area which Teddy Roosevelt owned and visited on a number of occasions in the late 1800's before he became President of the United States. 

There's a large amount of wildlife at the park including buffalo, antelopes, elk, bighorn sheep and wild horses.  Here's a shot of a herd of wild horses that a guy pointed out to me that were across the road from where I was taking pictures of the landscape.  As always, click on the picture to enlarge. 

The scenery at the park wasn't all that breathtaking as much as it was surreal. The Badlands of the Dakotas are truly that - a vast area of rock formations formed by years of geologic pressure from natural elements.  There were some very pretty formations including this one on the right.  The red color on the side of the bluff was a vivid contrast to the green that surrounded it. 

In addition to the aforementioned wildlife in the park, there's a series of Prairie Dog Villages that are smattered along the roadside.  Here's a picture of a couple of the little critters alerting others in the village that another pesky tourist is taking their picture.

Here's another shot of a valley between two rock formations.  As desolate and foreboding the topography of the area was, there was also sort of a serene nature to it.  I can't really call it awe-inspiring like, say, the Rocky Mountains or the Grand Canyon.  But there was this beautiful calming effect the Badlands seemed to have. 

Here is a view from a lookout point as I was heading out of the park.  I thought this was pretty impressive looking given all the formations with the valley in the foreground.

At the gateway of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the small town of Medora.  Supposedly, Medora is the biggest tourist destination in the state of North Dakota.  It's basically been turned into an 1880's frontier town and it is a major tourist trap.  I have a dealer in Fargo who has told me a couple times now that I need to go out there with him to see the Medora Musical show they have each night in the summertime.  It's basically a Western musical that combines dancing, music and story telling of the old West.  I guess it's quite the production.

Medora is also the home of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, a pretty impressive structure near the main gate of the national park.  I didn't go in because I didn't want to waste any more time than I had going by going through the park and then driving around the tourist trap town of Medora.  Get me out of here!

Instead of heading back to Highway 85 to go south, I took a look on the map and saw that I was just about a half-hour away from Montana.  Being that I had never been in Montana before (I've been in 36 of the 50 states), I decided to run over there and dip my foot into the state and come back out. 

On my way to Montana, just seven miles from the border I saw this exit for Home on the Range.  It wasn't a town, it was basically a private exit for some big rancher out there.  I thought it was kind of funny.

I stopped at a rest area just inside the Montana line and picked up a state map.  I saw there was a state road that paralleled the border between the towns of Wibaux and Baker, MT.  I decided to take that south, then pick up U.S. Highway 12 to take me back over to Highway 85 and then south to Rapid City. 

You gotta love driving in the wide open spaces of Montana.  Speed limit on the two lane road I was on was 70.  There used to be a time when there was no speed limit on Montana's interstates - just a self-imposed speed limit of what is safe and prudent. 

Here's a neat butte I saw out in the middle of nowhere between Wibaux and Baker.  There were hundreds of these in the area with big valleys of hayfields and ranches dotted with oil wells.

Getting back into North Dakota and then subsequently getting down into South Dakota, the trip began to get kind of boring.  Here's a shot of the lonely road that is U.S. Highway 85. 

About the time I was starting to get real bored, I was just north of Belle Fourche, SD (pronounced Bell Foosh).  I saw this sign along the side of the road that said, "Center of the Nation".  Once again, being the geography geek that I am, I took off down this gravel road to stand at what would be the geographical center of the United States including Alaska and Hawaii. 

As I was driving, I saw a fenced in area in the middle of a field that I thought may be the area where they had a monument or marker for the center of the U.S.  Turned out it was nothing.  Just a fenced in area in the middle of a big field. 

Going down the road further, I got to thinking that I may have passed the marker.  I thought I'd go a little farther before I'd turn back.  Then coming over a small hill, there on my right was this sign - a crudely painted sign, at that - that signified that spot was the center of the nation.  I said out loud to no one, "That's it?  That's the designation for the center of the U.S.?"  I was laughing, thinking this was supposed to be a big deal - like the Four Corners monument where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado meet.

I got back into the SUV and headed down the road.  Along the way, I stopped to get this picture of an impressive thunderhead that was forming to the north and east of where I was.  There were storms popping up all around western South Dakota that afternoon, some with baseball sized hail.  I've seen tennis ball sized hail before, but nothing bigger than that.  And I'm not so certain I want to. 

I pulled into Belle Fourche and saw a historical marker regarding the center of the U.S. in front of the Belle Fourche Visitor's Center.  I went inside and looked around for a bit.  They had a fund raiser going on for a monument to be built for the center of the United States.  They had a big jar there and I threw five bucks in. 

There was a guy sitting behind a desk and I went up and asked him, "Is that sign out in the middle of nowhere north of here really the designation for the center of the United States?"

He sort of sheepishly acknowledged that, yes, it certainly was.  I said, "Well, I'm glad to see that you are doing a fund-raising drive to get a monument in place out there instead of that crudely painted sign."

He said, "Oh, the monument we're raising money for isn't going out there.  It's going out back here behind the tourism building." 

I said, "You're kidding me.  That's nearly 30 miles from the true center of the nation."

He said the true center of the nation is about 100 yards to the east of where the sign is, in the middle of a guy's field.  And the guy isn't too whippy on them putting a monument in the middle of his land.  "So we're just going to put it out back here."

I felt gypped.  I almost asked for my five dollars back.

Back into the car.  It was getting later in the afternoon now and I was just 50 miles from Rapid City.  I got to looking at a map and I saw that Wyoming was just over there.  And since I'd never been to Wyoming, I thought I'd go over, run in and run out, making it 38 of the 50 states I've been to.  But then I looked closer on the map and realized that not more than 50 miles away was Devil's Tower National Monument.  Being that I was that close, I couldn't just go into Wyoming and not see Devil's Tower.

(Coming up in The Dakotas Trip - Part Two: Devil's Tower, Deadwood, Sturgis, Rapid City and Mount Rushmore.)     

The Pacific Coast Highway - Day Four

My computer took a dump a couple of weeks ago and it took me a while to get old files and folders extracted from the computer.  This is the final installment of our trip along the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  You can go back to Day One, Day Two and Day Three by clicking the hot links on each day. 

Day Four - Monterey to San Francisco

We woke on Monday morning to a dull gray sky with some fog and the same cool winds whipping in from the ocean.  We went and found a little coffee shop so Cindy could get a coffee fix and I had a fresh squeezed orange juice and a danish.  While we were getting gasoline in the car, it was like the sun miraculously came out and the day became beautiful.

But we found that was so typical of California.

We went down to the beach on the north side of Monterey and looked for sea shells for Cindy's kids. Then we went back into Monterey and went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Research Institute.

It had to be one of the neatest places I've ever been to in my life.  I'm entranced by the sea and seeing a lot of sea life up close is even more fascinating.  And the Monterey Aquarium didn't disappoint.  We spent about three hours looking at sea life, including about a 30 minute watching of the little sea otters that played in a pool just outside the main aquarium building.

We left Monterey about noon and took the road up and around to Santa Cruz.  Santa Cruz is a nice little seaside city with a very nice downtown area and a pier with shops and restaurants.  We had lunch on the pier, then ventured over to the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum which is housed in an old lighthouse on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 

First of all, I'm mesmerized by surfers.  It's one thing that I really wish I could have done in life.  The surfing museum was very interesting as they showed the history of surfing in Santa Cruz since the 1930's.  They had old boards on display, as well as pictures of some of the local legends who have surfed at the beaches of Santa Cruz over the years.  And there's also a memorial to those surfers who lost their lives in the Pacific Ocean off Santa Cruz. 

It didn't really cost anything to go in, but they did ask for a one dollar donation per person.  We thought it was so neat, we threw another five bucks into the can when we left.

We walked over to the edge of the point and stood and watched about 15 to 20 surfers riding 2 to 4 foot waves for about an hour.  Like I say, it's mesmerizing to me to see the surfers paddle out, get up on the boards and ride the waves. 

We took off about 3:00 trying to make the final push into San Francisco.  Just up the road from Santa Cruz is Davenport, CA.  Since we're from Davenport, IA, we had to take a quick look around this little town.  It was nice, but I wanted to show Cindy a place that I'd been before just up the road about 35 miles.

Half Moon Bay is a wonderful little (but growing) community just over the mountains from the south side of San Francisco.  I first went to Half Moon Bay four years prior to Cindy and I driving the Pacific Coast Highway.  I thought it was a great little town, full of shops, restaurants, inns, and other trendy little businesses.  But it was getting late in the day and I wanted to get to San Francisco before the sun set.

We came up the Great Highway into San Francisco around 5:30.  We got up to Land's End, a point just west of the Golden Gate Bridge and I wanted Cindy to get her first look at the Golden Gate from this point.  It should have looked something like this, but the fog was so thick, you couldn't see much more than 100 feet out into the opening of the bay. 

By the time we got around the hill and got over the Golden Gate Bridge to the north side, the fog had lifted and there was a cool tinge in the air.  Cindy snapped this shot of me at the little turn-in just off the bridge.

Here's a shot of Alcatraz Island that we took from near the same spot.

We ended up staying the night in San Rafael up in Marin County.  We ate some outrageous sushi at a little place in downtown San Rafael that evening.  It was the first time we sampled different grades of tuna for sushi. 

Our trip up the Pacific Coast Highway ended there, but we spent a day in San Francisco before going up into the wine country in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. 

Cindy's not one on taking the same trip twice, but even though I've done the Pacific Coast Highway from L.A. to San Francisco twice I could easily do it again. 

The Pacific Coast Highway - Day Four

Due to technical difficulties, the details of the fourth day of our trip up the Pacific Coast Highway will have to wait for a few days.  I'm having computer problems and all the pictures from the trip are on that hard drive. 

For those of you on the edge of your seats ready to fall off waiting for the next (and last) installment, here's the spoiler -

We made it to San Francisco...

The Pacific Coast Highway - Day Three

Day 3 - Cambria to Monterey

We got up early again, packed up, went and got some breakfast, and then looked around Cambria (pronounced CAME-bree-ah).  What a cool little town Cambria is!  There were shops, galleries, restaurants and neat little homes throughout the town.  It had a very "homey" feel to it.  Cambria is one of those places where you could go, look around for an hour and say, "Oh, yeah.  I could live here." 

We went out to the beach to watch the surfers for a while, then went back in town to a little grocery store/deli to get some stuff for a picnic lunch we figured we'd have later in the day. 

Cindy wanted to go into a little shop and so we did.  While we were in there an older lady engaged us in some conversation.  She wanted to know if we were going to stop at the Hearst Castle at San Simeon.  I said, "You know, I went one time about four years ago and it may have been something for people who grew up in that day and age to see, but I found it to be somewhat overblown and garish."

Geez, you would have thought I'd just taken a healthy dump on the shop's floor.  The lady began to chastise me, saying that if it wasn't for San Simeon the town of Cambria wouldn't be there.  "A lot of workers lived in this town when it was being built and lived here for years after.  My father worked on the castle." 

I told her the only thing I really liked was the pool and gardens and that would probably be the only thing my wife would like, too.  I said, "If we could go up there and walk around on our own instead of having to sacrifice three hours of our lives to sit through the tour program, I'd do it.  But I guess they don't let you do that." 

She said, no, it was very structured.  But she did tell us the night time tours in the spring thru fall are very nice.  But it was also something like $25 per person ($30 dollars today). 

We left Cambria thinking that we just didn't spend enough time there (but long enough to piss off one of the locals).  Just outside of Cambria, we encounted this sign.  That was nice to see on the start our trip that day. 

We did stop at the visitors center for the Hearst Castle, about 10 miles north of Cambria.  It's now run by the State of California as a state park.  They had some re-creations of a couple of the rooms from the castle, and a few of William Randolph Hearst's personal art collection and artifacts on hand.  That was enough for me.

Hearst Castle from the Visitor's Center

Cindy and I discussed going up.  I told her that we had to take a bus up, we had to sit and watch a movie, then we'd go on a guided tour.  I said, "It starts at 11 a.m. and we won't be back down here until after 2 p.m.  Like I told that lady earlier, the only neat thing that I think you'd like are the gardens and the pool." 

Cindy thought about it for about 10 seconds and said, "Naw, we don't have to go up there.  Let's go."

So we took off up the coast again.  We stopped a few miles up the road to look at the sea lions laying on the beach sunning themselves.  It was kind of neat to see.

We drove about 30 miles up the road, not going overly fast because there was a lot of traffic (it was a Sunday).  We found a little turn off that took us down to a rocky beach area right next to the ocean.  We decided we'd have lunch there. 

It was great out, the wind was no where near the speed it was 24 hours earlier.  The sun was warm and it heated the rocks we sat on to have our picnic lunch.  Cindy made friends with a seagull who sat literally a foot or two away from her just eye-balling her lunch.

After lunch, we made our way up the coast a little more before we came upon Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park.  It was literally like an oasis.  Great views, waterfalls, beautiful flowers - it had it all.   

We got out and walked around the park.  Man, it was just beautiful.  Probably the nicest spot was this view of a cove of aqua blue water with a waterfall feeding into it.  There were flourescent colored flowers all around the place.  We stayed there for about an hour. 

We decided we'd better get back on the road and headed up north.  We got to Big Sur - home of the BIG trees and got out and looked around for a while.  Here's Cindy hanging out in the woods. 

From there, we went north a few miles and found Nepenthe, a restaurant with a great view of the Big Sur Pacific coast line.  Originally the site of a vacation home for Orson Welles, Nepenthe was bought by the granddaughter of one of the founders of Carmel, CA in the early 60's.  She was just going to make it a roadside sandwich stand, but an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright designed a nice building that had some modern techniques as well as some rustic backwoods charm.  The little sandwich shop turned into a world class destination restaurant. 

We decided to have a snack on the deck and the bill for an appetizer, a couple beers and a pop came to about $30 bucks.  Wow!  Someone has to pay for that wonderful view, I'm tellin' ya. 

Up the road a few miles is the famous Bixby Creek Bridge - one of the architectural marvels of the early 20th century.  It was kind of funny to see the amount of people stopped on both sides of the bridge to take pictures of the structure.

A few mile up the road we got to Carmel.  One of the neatest - and highest priced - cities in America, Carmel is very elegant, yet kind of homey in a "Pleasantville" kind of way.  There are galleries and exclusive shops all through the town.  And there are a lot of great gourmet and exquisite restaurants, as well. 

After driving around Carmel for a bit, we found our way to one of the entrances of the 17 Mile Drive around Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove.  You pass world class golf courses such as Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, and Spanish Bay.  Of course, we had to stop and get a shot of the familiar Lone Cypress - the trademark of Pebble Beach. 

We continued around the drive and looked at the homes and golf courses, and the weather started to get cool and cloudy.  You could see the clouds coming in off the ocean.  I remarked to Cindy that I was glad I wasn't on the golf course as it got cold very quickly. 

From there, we went into Monterey and found a hotel on the north side of town.  Monterey is a nice city, but a lot of it is a tourist trap. 

We had dinner that night at Rappa's Seafood on the end of the Old Fisherman's Wharf.  Originally a snack shop, the Rappa family expanded the restaurant before finally tearing down the mishmash of additions and putting up the existing restaurant in the early 80's.  The food was good, the service was fine and we were happy. 

By this time, it had started to spit rain and the wind coming off the ocean was cold.  It was a dreary and very quiet Sunday night in Monterey.  We walked around a bit, then drove around some more to stay out of the weather.  After a while, we decided we'd had enough for the day and we went back to the hotel.  Tomorrow is the drive up to San Francisco.

Next - Day Four - Monterey to San Francisco

The Pacific Coast Highway - Day Two

Day Two - Santa Barbara to Cambria

We got up pretty early on Saturday morning to go explore Santa Barbara.  It's a pretty town on the ocean, but there are some pretty downtrodden areas in town, as well.  Still, the views of the oceans from some of the parks up and around the city were pretty neat.  It would be tough to wake up to those views every day.

We ended up downtown, had breakfast at a nice little place, then ventured over to the Santa Barbara Farmer's Market.  It was one of the nicer farmer's markets we'd ever been to.  There was produce, flowers,  knick-knacks, and a little bit of everything there.  We could have spent a lot of time there, but we needed to hit the road.  Cindy bought a bouquet of flowers and we took off up the road. 

We ventured off of Highway 1 and stayed on U.S. Highway 101 to go up to Santa Maria to visit a friend of mine, Brad Paulsen. Along the way we passed the town of Solvang, which we found out later is a beautiful little town that dubs itself as the "Danish Capital of the US".  It's also the gateway to one of the most beautiful wine growing areas in the world, the Santa Ynez Valley.  Oh well, next time. 

Brad was  the national sales manager for B&K Components at that time.  I was representing B&K in the Midwest and Brad and I had traveled a few times together.  He's a Wisconsin boy and he used to love to come back to the Midwest for dealer visits.  When he heard that we were going to travel the Pacific Coast Highway, he asked us to stop in for lunch.

Brad lived not too far off of Highway 101 and we got there a little before noon.  He had the grill going and he said he was going to make for us a local delicacy called the Santa Maria Tri-Tip.  Brad had this big hunk of beef on a plate covered with some seasonings and he threw it onto the grill. 

He cooked it at right about an hour and when he pulled it off the grill, it was this huge charred mess.  He said, "Mr. Veber, I'm going to allow you to do the honors of carving the meat.  Cut it crossways making the slices no larger than about a quarter of an inch."

I'm looking at this thing laying there, literally smoking on the plate.  I thought, "Jesus, Paulsen.  You cooked the life out of it."

So, I cut into it and it was the most perfect medium rare to medium that you'd want to find on any steak.  The meat was succulent and juicy.  And the burnt crust with the herbs and spices on the outside of it was rather tasty. 

During lunch, Brad told us the history of the tri-tip, which is the tough underside of a sirloin steak when it's cut. 

Years ago, the Santa Maria area was a huge ranching area.  The ranch hands were usually Mexicans, known as "vaqueros", who were given the less desirable pieces of meat by the ranchers to eat.  The ranch hands found that if you seasoned the tri-tip with garlic, salt, pepper and parsley, then cooked the living shit out of it over an open fire, it became moist and tender.

Santa Maria bills itself as the "Barbecue Capital of the World".  Brad said the smell of oak wood (the "only" way to barbecue in Santa Maria) permeates the air many nights. 

Before we left, Brad told us we had to go west a few miles past Guadalupe to a place called Guadalupe Dunes along the coast.  A portion of Cecil B. DeMille's epic "The Ten Commandments" was filmed there.  It was the setting for "The City of Pharoah" set.  When DeMille finished filming at Guadalupe Dunes, he had the set dismantled.  But instead of hauling it away, he let Mother Nature - in the form of the howling winds off the ocean that pushed the sand around at the dunes - take over. 

We went out there and came to the entrance (left).  The wind was coming off the ocean at over 30 mph, kind of weird for such a nice day.  We gingerly made our way along the black top road as it snaked its way through the dunes toward the ocean.  Many times the road just disappeared under the sand.  It was kind of unnerving. 

We made it to the ocean and the combination of wind, sand and water spray made it so we couldn't get out of the car.  In fact, the sand was hitting the windshield so hard it made thousands of little pock marks in the glass. 

The ocean was unlike anything I'd seen before.  I can't really say there were waves coming in.  It was like the water was coming up from the bottom.  It was very surreal and sort of scary to see the ocean literally boiling in front of you.  And the sound it was making - even with us sitting in the car - was ungodly loud.   

We got out of there without seeing the ruins of the movie set.  It turned out that we couldn't have seen it any way.  Years and years of shifting sands buried the set.  Only recently there have been film historians working at the site to try and excavate some of the set. 

We made our way back to Guadalupe, gassed up and then took off back on Highway 1 to Pismo Beach.  But before we got there, Cindy saw a road side stand selling strawberries next to a strawberry field.  She made me stop so she could get some.  I like the smell and taste of strawberries, but I'm allergic to 'em.  Cindy said they were some of the best strawberries she'd ever had. 

We went out to Pismo Beach and, once again, the wind was just blowing.  There were a few people camped on the beach and they had "lean-to's" they'd erected to shield themselves from the wind.  We drove down the beach a ways and got out to look at and hear the ocean.  It was unbelievable.

Here's Cindy at Pismo Beach nearly getting blown away.

We got back on the highway for the short drive up to San Luis Obispo.  Just outside of San Luis Obispo is the somewhat famous Madonna Inn.  Someone told Cindy that we needed to stop just to check the place out.

The Madonna Inn is a boutique hotel that offers a number of "theme" rooms.  The rooms were a little pricey for us or we probably would have stayed there, just to stay there. 

But the highlight of the visit was the trip to the men's bathroom. The urinal is a waterfall.  It's the perfect urinal because you can pee onto the rocks and into the water stream without having to worry about splashing on the floor or walls or yourself.  Whoever thought of that was a goddamn genius.  It's too bad the staff at the Madonna Inn get pissy when women try to go in to have a look. 

We had dinner that evening at Benvenuti (now Colago) on Marsh St. in San Luis Obispo.  Housed in a quaint Victorian home on a one way street near San Luis Obispo's downtown area, Benvenuti was recommended to us by a friend, Richard Colburn, who had eaten there many times before.  Italian food was their specialty and we weren't disappointed in the least.  It was romantic, cozy, the service was great and the food was equally superb.  I'm glad we stopped. 

We drove around the downtown area of San Luis Obispo after dinner and then worked our way back onto the highway heading north and west. We made it up to Morro Bay just as the sun was setting and got some pictures of Morro Rock and a nice sunset into the Pacific.

We drove the remaining 15 miles or so up to Cambria, a quaint little art community on the central coast.  We stayed at a little mom and pop hotel that night - the Cambria Palms Motel.  The manager, it turned out, grew up just east of the Quad Cities.  It had been a long day and we knew we had another long day on Sunday. 

Next - Day Three - Cambria to Monterey

The Pacific Coast Highway - Day One

In 1999, Cindy and I decided to go to California and drive the Pacific Coast Highway, California State Route 1.  Actually, about four years prior, I'd taken the Pacific Coast Highway from just north and west of Los Angeles to San Francisco - IN A DAY - one time with two other guys I was working with at the time.  There was just too much to see in one day - and we even stopped at the famous Hearst Castle along the way.  It was tiring to say the least.

Cindy and I thought that if we took it easy and took our time going up the coast it would be much more fun to do it that way.  And it turned out that it was.

Day One - L.A. to Santa Barbara

We flew to L.A. on a Friday in mid-May of 1999 getting into LAX about 11:30 a.m.  After some minor hassles and haggling at the car rental place, we first set off down the coast to Rancho Palos Verde, a nice community south of L.A. 

We went to the lighthouse (we're suckers for lighthouses) and gazed out over the blue Pacific.  The cool thing about air travel is that you can wake up in Iowa and be looking at the Pacific at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Our next stop was the Redondo Beach pier for a quick lunch of fish tacos, then we made our way up to Santa Monica to go to the pier up there. 

Most of these piers are tourist traps, but the Santa Monica Pier is probably the most famous pier in the U.S.  We had to go out and take some pictures and soak in some sun before traveling up the coast to Malibu.

We had to stop at the Malibu Bluffs and take in the views of the Malibu coast in the late afternoon. 

After some stops in Oxnard and Ventura looking for Atomic Horseradish, we made our way up the coast as the sun was setting to Santa Barbara.  We got to the hotel and checked in and went to have dinner at La Super Rica.  There wasn't much to see in Santa Barbara at night, plus we were so zapped from the travel of the day.  We decided to get to bed and get up the next morning to look around town for a while before we ventured on north.

Next - Day Two - Santa Barbara to Cambria

Huntington, WV to Cincinnati, OH - Along the Ohio River

Cindy and I went on a road trip out to Ohio a couple years ago and we took a nice little day trip along the Ohio River between Huntington, WV and Cincinnati.

I've always been intrigued by state borders, especially ones that are separated by rivers.  We've found a number of great drives along the Mississippi, and we knew there would be some great drives along the Ohio. 

We started off from Huntington on a rainy morning and went over the Ohio River and back into the state of Ohio along U.S. Highway 52.  There was fog in the valleys of the rolling hills going down the river, and even though 52 was a four lane highway for most of the journey to Portsmouth, OH, it was still a neat journey with lots of great views.

We were going by a little town in Ohio called Ironton (the region was huge years ago for iron and fire clay brick production - there's little towns such as Franklin Furnace, Scioto Furnace and Ohio Furnace that were named from the furnace companies that produced the smelt for iron production and that made fire clay bricks for building) and Cindy looked up and saw what appeared to be an observation tower on a bluff just west of town.  We're suckers for places like that, so we go back and try to find a road back up to this tower.  We drove around the place for about a half hour trying to figure out if there was a marked road, but we didn't see one.

We ended up stopping at this little place that turned out to be a bakery. We asked a teenaged boy working there if there was a way to get up to that tower.  He kind of snickered and said, "Well, the only way you'd be able to get up there we be on a four-wheel ATV."  He explained that it was private property and the owners put up the tower years before, but it's not open to the public.

Well, OK, that was out.  But as luck had it, it turned out the bakery was famous in Southern Ohio - the Red Brick Oven.  They had a number of great pastries, breads and baked goods in their cases.  We picked up a couple things, some milk and coffee for the road and took off.  Sort of glad we found the place.  It was actually kind of neat. 

We made it into Portsmouth in a driving rain and decided to go back across the river into Kentucky and drive that side for awhile.  As we were trying to figure out how to get to the bridge that would take us across, we ended up in the downtown area of Portsmouth next to the river.  We turned a corner and found ourselves on a street that was bordered by a huge flood wall that had a series of murals on it depicting the history of Portsmouth.  It was pretty cool to see a bunch of images on this flood wall that talked about the 2000 year history of Portsmouth and its place as one of the starting points of the Underground Railroad, it's history of professional football back in the 1920's (Jim Thorpe played for the Portsmouth team in a league that was a predecessor to the NFL), and how it was an important shipping port throughout the 1800's and into the early 1900's.  We must have spent a half hour just walking and looking at the large number of murals. 

We were on our way out of town on the west side and we passed a place that looked like a micro-brewery.  Cindy said, "Hey, let's go back and see what that's about."  Turned out it was the original building for the Portsmouth Brewing and Ice Company and had roots of brewing beer there back to the 1830's (see map).

The brewpub was actually called Mault's Brewpub and they served a number of different types of beers.  They had a little bar area and a restaurant.  We got a couple beers and an appetizer to tide us over and their beer wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything spectacular. 

When we were getting ready to leave, a guy came up to us in what looked like it was a party room and he said, "Have you folks seen the basement?"  We said, no, we hadn't - kind of wondering what he was getting at.  He said, "We're working on restoring the basement and making a banquet area out of it."

He took us down these rebuilt steps and into this big brick lined room in the basement.  He explained that the room, back in the 1800's, was their ice room - they'd cut blocks of ice out of the Ohio in the winter time, bring them up to the ice house by cart and store them under sawdust.  They would use the ice to brew their beer with and sell to the citizens of Portsmouth. 

But, he also told us that the ice room also acted has a holding area for slaves escaping the south via the Underground Railroad.  He told us that there was a hidden tunnel down by the river that slaves fleeing the south (Kentucky was a slave state, Ohio was not) would use to get into another area of the basement of the Portsmouth Brewing and Ice Company.  He said he couldn't even begin to guess the amount of slaves that may have come through here, but his guess was "hundreds, possibly well over a thousand". 

He took us back upstairs into the large room that was set up for a wedding reception.  He said the room was actually the alley way between the brew pub and the brewery back in the 1800's and into the 1900's, but they closed it off and made a big room out of it.  It was kind of neat. 

He took us out into a big garden area where he was smoking a hog and some beef for the reception that night.  The garden abutted up to a flood wall and his smoker was right next to the wall.  This is the guy - we never did get his name - but he was a nice guy.

Cindy liked all the vegetation and flowers that he had growing in the beer garden.  He had tons of tomato plants in all different sizes of containers.  Cindy asked him, "What do you use to grow the tomatoes in? "

The guy matter of factly replied, "Shit.  Plain and simple.  It's shit.  I go get manure and put the plants in there.  They're the best tasting tomatoes around.  We use 'em all the time here in the restaurant." 

We thanked the guy for his time and he said, "Hey, check out the old Federal Prison next door before you go."  He said it was the second federal prison built in the United States, sometime around the 1820's.  They housed river pirates, more than anything, he said.

So, we walked next door and there was this old brick structure.  It wasn't very big, but the shell of the building was still intact.  It was actually pretty cool.  We guessed that there were upstairs and downstairs cells in the place.  I thought that something like that should have had some sort of a historical marker.  But it didn't.

We moved over across the river and started out on Kentucky State Highway 8 and went west.  We meandered through small towns, along tobacco fields, coming up next to the Ohio on several occasions. 

We got out and took some pictures from time to time when the weather would allow us.  Here's a nice picture of Cindy along the Ohio in Kentucky.

We kept on Highway 8, going through a little town called Concord and we kept going on 8.  Only problem was that about 12 miles down the road Highway 8 stopped.  Dead.  I don't like to back track, but we went back a little ways and found a gravel road that took us south.  We sort of meandered around on gravel and one-lane black top roads in northern Kentucky for awhile, trying to make our way west.  We stopped on a little hillside next to an old cemetery down a dead end road we turned on to (lots of dead ends in northern Kentucky) and had a little snack.  The weather was starting to break and it was clearing off and warming up.

We pressed on to the south and west to find a main road and finally came out on Kentucky State Highway 8 - again!  Geez - they forgot to finish the friggin' road!  8 took us into Maysville, a nice little river town and the hometown of Rosemary Clooney, the singer and aunt of George Clooney; and the hometown of Heather French, Miss America 2000. 

We ended up crossing the river back into Ohio and picked up Highway 52 and headed west.  By this time, it was partly sunny and much warmer than it had been earlier in the day.  It was going to be a nice 90 minute drive into Cincinnati.  Only we found that we had one more stop we had to make.

Outside of Cincinnati about 35 miles to the southeast is a little town called Point Pleasant, OH.  There was a sign outside of this little unincorporated town that said, "Birthplace of the 18th President of the United States, Ulysees S. Grant".  Well, I've always felt somewhat of an affinity for President Grant as he and I share the same birth date (April 27).  So I said, "Huh!  Maybe we ought to go see it." 

So we turn onto a road and I see a sign that said, "15 miles" or at least that's what I thought it said.  I told Cindy, "Oh, geez, I don't want to drive 15 miles to see his birthplace."

So Cindy immediately protested, "Oh, come on!  You've said you've always wanted to go there..."  And suddenly I look over to my left and there it is.  Not any more than 200 yards off of Highway 52.  She still gives me grief about A) Not wanting to go even though I thought we were 15 miles away; and B) That I'm still not very observant when it comes to driving.

We parked the car in a lot across the road from his birthplace and I took this picture.  Check out the little plaque above the door.  That's a marker of how high the Ohio River got in 1937 - the worst flood on record for the Ohio.  This house is about a half mile from the banks of the Ohio.  The river got to 85 feet deep at that point.  Wild. 

We went in and gave a donation to look around.  An elderly lady dressed in 1800's clothing gave us a short little tour and answered a couple of questions we had.  The main house was just a one room building that was actually restored and moved after the flood of 1937 up to Columbus, then it was sent via railroad flatbed to a number of places across the nation for viewing before it ended up back in Point Pleasant in the 40's.  A couple additions were added on the back when it came back to its original location.  It was furnished with 1800 period furniture and accessories.  It was kinda neat.   Glad we stopped. 

We made it to Cincinnati and our hotel in the downtown area around 4:30.  When Cindy found that the hotel was in the heart of a shopping district, she was mad.  She said, "If I'd known that there was all this shopping around here, I would have told you this morning to step on it and get me to Cincinnati!"

But I know she enjoyed the trip.  We could always go back for shopping in Cincinnati later.  And we did... 

Tunnel of Trees - Michigan

Cindy and I took a trip to Michigan in the fall of 1997 and explored a number of areas along Lake Michigan.  One of the coolest areas we went to was the Petosky/Harbor Springs area of NW Michigan.  We had been told that north of Harbor Springs is one of the neatest drives in North America - The Tunnel of Trees - and we were hitting it at the right time.   

We first stopped in Petosky and watched the fishermen going after salmon as they were trying to make their upstream spawning run from Lake Michigan.  There was about a 10 foot falls in a little park in Petosky and there were fishermen on either side trying to catch fish below the falls.  Some would take the fish they caught and bring 'em back up above the falls and let 'em go.  Sometimes the fish were so tuckered out from trying to get up the falls that the force of the water coming downstream would take 'em back over the falls. 

We stopped off at a little deli in Harbor Springs and grabbed a couple sandwiches and went west out of town.  We hooked up with Michigan state road 119 and took off along the lake.  It was a gorgeous day and the trees still had some color on them for a mid-October.  They weren't brilliant, but they were still pretty. 

We got up the road a bit and found a clearing on a bluff overlooking the lake.  We stopped on the shoulder (M-119 is a one lane road, so we were over as far as we could get) and went over and sat on the grass and had our sandwiches.  It was just beautiful.  The blue water of Lake Michigan, not a cloud in the sky.  Where we were sitting we figured was probably private property as it was nicely mowed and there was a house sort of across the road, but we didn't give a damn.  It was too nice to not use. 

We continued up the road and we were going along and the lake was just down the bluff to our left.  Cindy said, "Oh, my God, Will!  There's a church down there!"

So I turned around and went back.  We found this little road that took us down the bluff and it opened up to a beach in front of us and an old church with a cemetary right next to it.  It was way cool.  We sort of hung out there for a while, walking along the beach, exploring around the church and cemetary and just taking in the beauty of the day.

We took off again and got up to Cross Village.  Actually the famous Legs Inn was in Cross Village, but we didn't stop as it was getting late and I wanted to get pictures of the Mackinac Bridge before the sun set. 

But it was one of the neatest drives I've ever taken in my life.  I know we have pictures around here and when I find them, I'll scan some and post them.