Final Trip Statistics

We compiled the following statistics to wrap up our trip blog. Thanks to all who kept up with our travels, your comments & emails during the trip helped us remain connected.

Total Days of trip 56 days (8 weeks exactly)

Total Miles traveled door to door : 12,900 miles

Average MPG 28.5 MPG

Gallons of gas used: 450 gallons

$ spent on gasoline $1850

Books read: Ivo: 2 S: 1 Xi: 8 Q: 3

Highest gas price $ 4.59 Beverly Hills CA (middle of trip)

Lowest gas price $ 3.59 Columbia, MO (near end of trip)

Highest temperature 114˚F in Las Vegas (but it was a dry heat!)

Lowest temperature 25˚F in Silverton, CO

Days of rain: Only ½ a day!

Photographs taken: 12, 200 images (54 GB)

Steepest grade driven 16% for 5.5 miles at Black Canyon of the Gunnison in CO

Scariest drives: From Durango, Co. to Ouray Co, the Mesa Verde National
Park access road, and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison campground access road with its 16% grade.

Scariest hikes: Angel’s Landing hike in Zion Natl. Park because of sheer steepness and narrow trails and Glacier National Park because of the constant threat of grizzlies

Highest elevation hiked: 12,100 ft. at Spencer Basin near Silverton, CO.

Nastiest shower : Sequoia National Park showers (being demolished this fall because they are over 100 years old!)

Nastiest restroom: Weed, CA at the Chevron gas station

Coolest swim

Xi: Pacific Palisades Beach in CA
S: Jackson Lake at the Grand Tetons in WY
Q: Malibu Beach, Ca. Amarillo TX Best Western, Nephi, Ut. Best Western
Ivo: Rob & Suzie’s lap pool Indianapolis, Moab UT Best Western, Snake River while white water rafting in WY,Pacific Palisades Beach, SanFrancisco Best Western (guess who likes to swim?)

Miles hiked: 90.5 miles

Longest day in the car: 30 hours from Rawlins, WY to Cincinnati, Ohio (technically more
than one day, but it was one drive!)

Average hours driving when traveling to new location: 4.5 hrs.

DVDs movies watched in car while driving S: 4 Xi: 0 Q: 10 Ivo: 11

Longest it took to break camp and load car: 3 hours the Shortest: 1 ¾ hours

Average time it takes to load the car when all bags/gear is sitting ready next to car: 15 min.

Accuracy of Lupe’ our Honda GPS navigation system : 95%

Number of blisters Xi-2, S-0, Ivo- 3, and Q: 3

Number of packages sent back home during trip: 11

Favorite meal (s) S: Mexican food in Socorro, NM & Delphi Greek L.A. XI: Frank & Lupes’ Big Sombrero in Socorro, NM (Mexican) & our meal at Claudia and Ted’s in Silverton, CO. Ivo: Pancakes & bacon at the Sequoia campsite, Natalia’s restaurant in Silverton Co. after a big hike. Q: C.J.’s diner in Durango Co.

Scariest car traffic: SM’s-San Diego to L.A. between 9-11 p.m. on a Saturday night Xi’s-5 a.m. rush hour in St. Louis, MO during a thunderstorm.

Thanks again for following along!

S, Q, Xi, Ivo

Yellowstone National Park for the Day
Along with a few thousand other tourists, we are here waiting for the Old Faithful geyser to erupt! This was great fun as we had 2 pints of Hagen Daas ice cream to eat while waiting.After Old Faithful did its thing for 90 seconds and fizzled away, Q said,
"I think I like the fountain at the Bellagio casino better!"

Adjacent to the visitor's center and boardwalk is the Old Faithful Inn. This 100+ year old log building has a fantastic light and airy almost cathedral-like feel, yet it also seems like a wildly cool tree house. We discovered a bar on a second floor balcony where we all enjoyed a fancy 'umbrella drink' while watching people assemble for the next Old Faithful show. I shot this photo of the crowds at one of Yellowstone's waterfall attractions. Because of our tight schedule, we hit this park on a Saturday, something we have been good at avoiding on the trip until now. Because we only had one day here, we did not do any hiking. We found that if you are willing to hike a little, you will encounter very few other tourists. We would like to go back to this park in the off season. They say you can have the park to yourself at other times of the year.

Crowds aside, this was still a wonderfully strange and 'other worldly' place. The geothermal activity and mineral deposits are wild.

We all agreed that being at Yellowstone was like being on another planet. You had to stay on the boardwalks, so you didn't wander into a hidden hot spring and get scalded. It definitely felt alien!

While this looks like snow, it is some type of residue left by the hot springs. The area smells strongly of sulfur.

The beautiful turquoise colors are due to the different microscopic organisms that can live in these extreme environments.

Grand Teton National Park

Neighboring Grand Teton National Park was next on the itinerary. We camped for 2 nights here on Jackson Lake and it was spectacular. The grandeur of the Teton mountains is the result of having no foothills, they just blast-off to the sky.

The Continental Divide has always intrigued me. This is the line or ridge that separates the watersheds of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Call me weird, but I have always wanted to pee on the divide! Half of the contents of my bladder ending up in the Atlantic the other half in the Pacific. When we came across the divide, I slammed on the brakes and the kids & I scampered off into the woods to leave our our mark. Xi just rolled her eyes!

Cedar Point or Bust!!!

On the way home, we hit an Amusement Park in Ohio. When planning the trip, we all wanted to visit a world class 'roller coaster park.' After doing significant Internet research, we discovered that our old favorite, Cedar Point, was the best ride park in America.
We completely agree!

Ivo checks out the 'Wicked Twister' ride from the line. She found these big sunglasses next to a stream in Glacier National Park a few weeks earlier!

Another happy camper in line at Cedar point.

I shot thousands of pictures from the car window on this trip. The west is packed with amazingly wild geological feature. Because they were shot from a moving vehicle they are not clear enough to print but will make great reference material for paintings. I have decided to do some oil paint abstractions based on some of the images I have collected on this trip.

Q was the grand master of spotting wind farms on the horizon before anyone else.
We passed dozens of these green power plants in many states. We thought they looked elegant.

Celestial Seasonings Factory Tour in Boulder, Colorado


Celestial Seasonings tea company is located in Boulder Co and we hit their tour on the way home. We had read about the world famous 'mint room' in books and decided it was something we had to see for ourselves. Peppermint, spearmint, and wintergreen are tea ingredients, but because the aromas are so overpowering they cannot be stored near any other tea herbs. So the company build a 30' X 30' 'vault' to keep them isolated. Pallets of bagged mint are stacked 20' high in this room. You are allowed to enter the room for as long as you want, but most people only stay for about 30 seconds. Your eyes immediately start watering and automatically begin closing and your lungs feel like someone has poured Vick's Vapor-rub in them. We lasted about 3 minutes, it was great!

Not another hotel...

We decided to do a 30 hour marathon drive to save on lodging costs and to speed our return journey. Doing 2 hour shifts and drinking a number of energy drinks and mocha cappuccinos got us from Wyoming to Ohio via Boulder.

Arriving at my sister's home in Cincinnati was a relaxing and recuperative 2 day stop. G did our laundry for us while we crashed and chilled out; thanks sis!

Along the way we encountered this forest fire. You could see it 200 mile away! We are still about 30 miles away at this point. On the great plains the scale of objects and vast open spaces is so alien to us New Englanders.
We drove past an airport where this giant helicopter picked up a load of fire retardant to
drop on the forest fire; it flew right over our car!

Note: Our next post will be the final one for the trip. We are compiling some trip statistics that you may find interesting. Check back in a few days.

The Columbia River Gorge
The Columbia river gorge was beautiful. Dozens of waterfalls flow into this beautiful valley between Oregon and Washington. Can you see Quincy cautiously walking closer to the water?
Ivo writes:
"This picture was taken at the Oregon columbia gorge on our 'unexpected hike' that was a loop that went out to some famous waterfalls. This black thing that I am pointing to is a huge slug that was creeping along the trail infront of us."

A Day in Seattle, Washington

The photos above and below are both from the Pike Street Market in Seattle. Walking through this market, the air was filled with the aroma of flowers from numerous flower stands. We wanted to buy a bouquet just because we'd never such gorgeous flower arrangements for so little money. You could get a bouquet like this one for $10!

At the fish stalls, we watched the workers throw fish to be weighed as people ordered them.

One of the best ways to see Seattle and the Puget Sound is from the water!
The next 4 pictures are shot from the ferry going from Seattle to Bainbridge Island.

Here you can see the bicyclists heading off the ferry. We had a great pizza dinner followed by a bowl of Moira's ice cream (indescribable).

As the ferry traveled back to Seattle we could see Mount Rainier glowing in the distance.
Our friend Marco climbed this mountain earlier in the summer!

We visited the Space Needle in the morning and again at night (day/night ticket).
Above we look out at the Seattle skyline at night. Below, Q and Ivo are posing next to one of the bolts that anchors the Space Needle.

Time to head to Glacier National Park

We found the plans for this camping box on the Internet. It holds all the tools for the camp kitchen. The ‘chuck box,’ as we call it, was built with the help of my father and J.C. (thanks guys) during that last crazy week before we left. This container allows us to setup the kitchen, ready to prepare meals, in literally 3 minutes.
We spent 4 nights at Glacier National Park in Montana. The first 2 were spent car camping at the Avalanche Campground.
The first day, we explored the park by car, driving the length of the Going to the Sun Highway. To call that road windy would be putting it mildly. As the switchbacks wound around the mountainsides, new mountain peaks were constantly revealed.
Here we are at the beginning of a 3-day backpacking trip into the backcountry wilds of Glacier. The packs were heavy but as we consumed the food each day, they became lighter. Every ounce counts when backpacking, we even cut the handles off our toothbrushes to save weight. At bedtime during the first night Ivo burst out laughing, she had discovered her (heavy) beanbag stuffed animal ‘cow’ hiding at the bottom of her sleeping bag! We let her keep him!
When backpacking, weight matters. Xi has to rip her book in half; she couldn't survive without a book!!
The first thing you have to do when you arrive at a primitive campsite is stop at the food preparation area and hang all of your food on the bear pole. Glacier has both grizzlies and black bears, so food storage is taken extremely seriously!

The ladies relaxing on the beach in front of our tent playing cards. When the sun came out, they went in for a refreshing dip!

We met a crew from Appleton, WI and discovered that R knew and worked with Xi's college roommate...truly a small world! After dinner, we played the game Mafia.

In over 7 weeks of travel, we only encountered a 1/2 day of rain! Unfortunately, it was while backbacking, but the sun came out later in the day. We hear this has been a very wet summer in New England.
Ivo poses next to a fresh bear scraped tree. We were well armed with (2) bear pepper spray cans, made lots of noise along the trail, and all knew what to do if we encountered a grizzly. The park service requires all backcountry hikers to watch a 20 minute video on how to avoid/deal with bears and mountain lions before they will issue hiking permits.

On the trail in the near Quartz lake in Glacier.

The backpacking experience was completely different from car camping. In the back country at Glacier, all cooking and food storage is required to be done in a small bench-enclosed area in order to isolate the food smells for wildlife (grizzlies). Because of this requirement, you get to know your fellow backpackers quite well (there are 3 or 4 tent sites in each backcountry campground).

The minerals in the glacial run off make the water a beautiful turquoise color.

We stopped and spent the night with cousin David and family. It has been over 20 years since we last saw each other in Deleware. It was great to take the first shower in 5 days and hang out drinking beer and catching up!

Ivo shows off the delicious bacon-blue cheese burger she got at a little diner in the town of Babb.

The Family poses next to our growing collection of bumper stickers. We have enjoyed hunting down good additions at each major stop on our trip.