The End

We are home.  We got here Sunday, August 29 at about 1:30 in the afternoon.  We spent 3 great days in Boise visiting Terry, Elizabeth, Emily & Thomas and Jole, Jim, Nick & Max and Melissa and Sheri & Mark and Warren & Amy.  It was a good way to finish up our 9-week sojourn; visiting friends in a town that sort of seems like home.  It eased us back into reality.

The Yard Bauble's last road trip appearance 

Can you see it?

Milepost 21 on Highway 21 between Boise and Idaho City

Home of Amy & Warren and their menagerie

Seattle - Portal to the Pacific - Home Sweet Home

About 40 states worth of bugs - poor things

Here are a few final thoughts, comments and stories:

• Thank you EVERYONE who hosted and visited with us.  We very much appreciate your hospitality and your friendship.  We apologize that we were unable to include photos of everybody.  Know that you are all equally loved by both of us.
• We were very fortunate to have no accidents, no car problems or break-ins and that we did not hit any wildlife.  We must have had angels traveling with us!
• We drove over 12,000 miles and final count on the pictures is 1,710.  Average MPG 26.16.  Over-budget?  3.58%. (Did I mention that I kept an Excel spreadsheet with detailed information and tracking?)
• This trip was very valuable to us on many levels.  We urge you to consider doing it too.  We are available for coaching appointments!
• We had some really bad hotel and restaurant coffee over the last 2 months.  Here's the worst.  At the Budget Motel in Burley, Idaho the lobby coffee was so weak that Rob pulled out our camping coffee setup and used the motel coffee as the hot water to pour through our coffee grounds and filters!  The result was pretty darn good.
• When we left Elkhart, IN we started listening to iTunes in alphabetical order.  We aren't through the letter A yet.  That's what happens when your husband has over 8,900 songs in his iTunes library!
• We saw lots of ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) money hard at work repairing and improving thousands of miles of roads all over the country.
• Our car is sporting 18 new bumper/magnetic stickers.  When I was young I always envied the kids who got to go on long summer road trips and whose parents put those state stickers on the station wagon to show where they had been.  Now I have a fun bumper too!  The Wall Drug sticker didn't make the cut, though.
• Heather and Will are having a BOY! 
• Seattle's recycling program and our generally green/sustainable culture is light-years ahead of most of the places we visited.  It was really hard to see how much garbage/trash/waste is still being created in most of the rest of the country.
• We are glad to be back and look forward to re-engaging with our family, friends and community here in Seattle.
• THANK YOU HOMESTEAD SITTERS!
• We are already talking about what our next road trip might be...
• Thanks for reading all the way to THE END.

Yellowstone and the Tetons - Lots of Bear Hype, no Bears

I'm writing from our hotel room in Burley, Idaho.  Today we head to Boise, the last stop of our 9-week journey.  We will end our travels with a bang, visiting a bunch of good friends for a few days.  Both of us are feeling rather melancholy about being so close to the end.  This trip has been so amazing.  I really do think that we could keep going and I think part of that is due to the fact that we are able to keep in close touch with home via our cellphones and the internet.  So, if we turn south instead of west out of Boise....  Just kidding.

We've had lots of mini-vacations within our grand vacation - visits with friends, long weekends in fun cities, a week down the shore.  And, for the last week or so, a camping trip in South Dakota and Wyoming.  

Last summer Erin and I drove through Yellowstone and the Tetons in a day on our cross country trip to move her back to Seattle.  It was great to be back again this year with time to explore.  Both parks are eye-popping.  We stayed 2 nights at Canyon in Yellowstone and a night at Lizard Creek in the Tetons.  At both parks we were required to keep everything related in any way to food or cooking or cleaning up inside our car if not in use to discourage bear visitations.  While we are glad that we didn't experience any bear curiosity at our campsite, seeing a bear at a distance would have been OK by me!

Yellowstone dished up some volatile weather and we camped through drizzly evenings and nights.  The overnight temps in the mid-30's were a bit of a shock.  We are doing minimalist car camping - most of the gear we brought is our backpacking gear.  No blue tarp available.  So, picture this, one evening we sat in the car reading so that we didn't have to spend 12+ hours laying around in our little 2-person tent!  The weather, combined with our end-of-the trip sadness, put a dent in the mood for a little while.  It didn't last.  Our daytime explorations at both parks and the warm dry weather in the Tetons made up for the discomfort brought by the late-day rain and cold in Yellowstone.

Here are some pictures.  I couldn't figure out how to keep it to only a few!

Shell Falls in the Big Horn Mountains

We spent the night in Cody, Wyoming after leaving the Black Hills and before heading into Yellowstone from the east.  Driving from the Black Hills to Cody requires crossing the Big Horn Mountains on Route 14.  It is a steep and beautiful climb out of the valley followed by a plunge into a scenic canyon.  Not to be missed.

Yellowstone

We spent two days exploring both loop roads in the park. Got to see some wildlife along with the natural splendor of the landscape.

One could easily spend a week or more.

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

See the rainbow?

Canyon art shot by Rob

The Falls - Yellowstone River

One of many hydro-thermal landscapes in the Mammoth Hot Springs area

Other-worldly.

Ditto

This is not Old Faithful

We saw Old Faithful erupt, but I've got to say that there are lots of other amazing sights that get short-shrift.  We saw and heard geysers and mud pots and hot springs and fumaroles and steam vents that blew us away.  

So, sorry Old Faithful, you don't get your picture on this blog.

One last shot as we were leaving the park

 Jackson Lake - Grand Teton National Park

This is the beach at Lizard Creek Campground.  Just down from our campsite.  Nice spot for our breakfast.

This is not the last time we will be here (hopefully).

Grand Tetons - no way to get the grandeur in one photo

So here's another photo

Jenny Lake

Rob swimming in Jenny Lake

Fun story about Jenny Lake.  We stopped at the Jenny Lake Lodge to see if our friend Vaughn's daughter was still working there.  Sure enough, she was!  And, not only that, her Dad was visiting.  So we had a surprise visit with Vaughn at Sonia's cabin. I love random things like that!

After the swim, we drove into Jackson via Moose-Wilson road.  No moose, oh well.  We had dinner at the Snake River Brewery in town.  Then, we hit the road heading west and didn't stop until close to midnight.  One more photo below.

Moonrise over the Swan Valley

Eastern Idaho

South Dakota

We camped our way through southwestern South Dakota.  Check it out.

The Badlands

Camping in the Badlands with a not so bad man!

A view of our campsite from the top of the hill behind us.  Imagine 60+ bison in the field in front of the hill in the background.  That's what greeted us in the morning.

Sunset above our campsite

Hiking in the Badlands

 Up close and personal at Mt. Rushmore

Crazy Horse Memorial not so up close and personal but still stunning

Sunset at our campsite at Sheridan Lake in the Black Hills

Facts and Feelings at 7.5 weeks - from Sioux City, IA

• We have driven 9,700 miles and taken 1,225 pictures
• The mundane but important
• We got our car serviced by Barry Beck in Leola, PA
• Lee got a haircut at L & M in Goshen, IN
• Rob got a buzz at Scott's Barbershop in Goshen, IN
• Friends make doing our laundry easy
• We buy a bag of ice a day
• We love Wikipedia
• We are not homesick - but we are having more conversations about, "after we get home..."
• Erin is flying back to Seattle today
• Heather and Will are finding out the sex of their baby today
• We would be totally cranky if we didn't have air conditioning in our car
• Our first week in California seems like a really long time ago
• We hope we don't run into Bonnie and Clyde in Yellowstone
• The adventures of Lisbeth Salander have been entertaining us for weeks 
• We have had the best run at missing bad weather
• 9:35am - daily departure time (sort of)
  

Good Friends in the Midwest

The last five days or so we had the pleasure of visiting with people we don't get to see often enough.  Good friends who make life rich.

Susie and Denny in St. Louis

Jesse, Journey and Syndy in St. Joseph, IL

Dennis in Champaign, IL

Paula, Patricia and Pete in Elkhart and Goshen, IN

We Pause for an Important Announcement...

We are going to be GRANDPARENTS!  Yup, Heather and Will are having a baby in mid-January 2011.  They shared the happy news with the family when we were all down the shore.  So, word is out and now we can shout about it too!  We are very happy for Heather and Will and very excited about having a grandchild in our lives!  Check out the belly...

The beginning of Phase III - Going Back

We are back on the road.  Have been since Monday morning.  I am writing from Nashville on Thursday morning. 

After a fun week down the shore, we said our multiple goodbyes to our families. On Saturday we visited Rob's hometown, Kearny NJ, and then delivered Heather, Will and Rob's cousin John Murray from Scotland to the Newark Airport for their flights home.  We spent Saturday night in northwest NJ with Rob's sister and family and Sunday night with Lee's parents in PA.  For dinner on Sunday night, the Zimmerman gang went out to the Horse Inn (a family tradition) in Lancaster, PA to celebrate Lee's mother's 77th birthday.  Erin remains on the east coast visiting friends in DC and Harrisonburg.  She will beat us back to Seattle by about 10 days as she is flying home on August 18th.

So, we spent the first part of this week in Virginia and North Carolina, driving parts of the Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway.  We stayed in Asheville and Nashville.  Today we are driving to St. Louis to visit the Clancy family - Rob hasn't seen Denny in over 25 years!

Below are some photos from the last few days.

Skyline Drive - we got on east of Harrisonburg, VA

Blue Ridge Mountains

Blue Ridge Parkway - we got on just north of the VA/NC border

Blue Ridge Music Center - some great pickin'

More Blue Ridge Beauty

A Bed of Roses - our B&B in Asheville

A great little town full of art and good food!

Our hotel in Nashville

Union Station - a hotel located in the old train station - historic preservation

A totally worthwhile splurge for us!

The Station Inn

Look closely - that's John Haitt in the back!

We wandered into this music venue completely unaware that they were hosting a benefit evening featuring accomplished singer-songwriters and their talented kids.  We listened to John & Lilly Haitt, Ranger Doug & James Green, Gail Davies & Chris Scruggs, Gary & Luke Nicholson along with special guest Delbert McClinton.  We heard old standards, new works and some fantastic yodeling.  A real treat.

The Jersey Shore Gang

Here we are.  Well, almost all of us.

Down the Shore - Brandt Beach, Long Beach Island, NJ

It's Tuesday and we are a few days into sun, sand and sea fun with our families.  The weather and surf have been great.  Our family swims and beach time and meals and hanging out have been so fun and so special.  Below are a few pictures.  I will likely post more later in the week.

 Long Beach Island, NJ!

Our Beach House

Monday on the Beach - practically the whole gang

Breakfast with the Zimmerman Cousins

Will, Rob, Lee, Erin, Eric, Erika, Sarah, Steven, Heather

Almost all the Murray Women

Pat, Margaret, Lee, Heather, Erin, Jamie, Barbra

Almost all the Murray Men

Brian, Al, Rob, David, Will, John, Luke, Ted, Sam, John

 Mini-golf with the Z's - a family tradition