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My wife and I had been talking about going on this road trip with our kids for a few years now but it wasn’t until I
told her about my family reunion in Wisconsin this summer that we finally decided to do it.
We had purchased our first four man camping tent at Walmart last year and went on our very first camping trip to Lake George
in upstate New York and then to Wilmington, Vermont for two days each. This summer we decided to go for it.
Our plan was to take interstate 80 from Pennsylvania and go west to Rocky Mountain National Park. Then to Monument National
Park at the western end of the state, Arches, and Canyonlands national parks in Utah and then up to Grand Teton and finally
to Yellowstone national park. We were all very excited about our journey west. We had never done this before, especially with
our twelve year old 1995 Toyota Corolla (bought it in 1996 as a pre-owned lease.)
You know, as a side remark here, and for your information, Toyota makes some of the best affordable cars on the market today.
This year our Corolla past the 200,000 mile mark and it’s still running good. We drove that car across country with
absolutely no problem at all. Of course, I had the car checked out before we left and had all four tires replaced but that
car is the best. A little cramped though, but we only have two daughters: a nine year old and a sixteen year old. I’ll
admit it would be nice if we had a Sienna minivan but then again we’d have to go out and buy another car, have those
monthly car payments hanging over our heads and all but why. The car we have now has been paid for since 1998 and it’s
all we ever needed.
Since finding out from last years camping trip how limited our trunk space is, I purchased a car top carrier called a Roofbag. Go ahead and click on that highlighted link and check out roofbag.com. Yea, there’s
Thule and a bunch of other car top carrier manufacturers out there but Roofbag is a very good product and a good value as
well. The soft top carrier that Thule has was a lot more expensive than a comparable product at Roofbag. Go ahead and check
em’ out. You’ll be glad you did.
So, we stuffed our tent, all our sleeping bags and our cold weather gear (the Rockies get cold in the summer and man was I
glad we did.) plus some thick cotton blankets to line the bottom of our tent. In the trunk we stored some dry food, cooking
stuff and our personal bags. Then we left the morning of June 25th from Norwich, Connecticut to what was once the Western
Frontier.
We made the Ohio border by ten o’clock that evening and got a room at a Motel 6. The next day we traveled through the
rest of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. By the afternoon we were cruising through Iowa. Man, nothing but gentle rolling farmland.
But there was something eerily peaceful and comforting about the state of Iowa.
Come around five o’clock my wife and I started searching for a restaurant to have dinner. For a while we were wondering
if we’d ever see anything in all of this farmland. But finally we came to Newton, which was right off the interstate,
and pulled into a place called Pizza Ranch. Now, this is strictly a Midwestern
Pizza chain restaurant but this place has excellent pizza. Well, I suppose that’s a very subjective comment to make.
After all, pizzas come in a variety of styles. What we ordered was a New York styled soft crust. Now if you like Dominoes
Pizza this was very similar to Dominoes but better in some way, I don’t know. But it was definitely an improvement on
Dominoes. It’s just that secret ingredient that I’m at a loss to identify.
But not only was the pizza great but the service was exceptional. Our order came to us within about fifteen minutes and they
were constantly coming by to check on how we were doing. But not only the waitress but the manager and even this cute teenage
girl with the sweetest smile who was busing the table at the end made our stay there so very pleasant. There’s something
about the attitude that they all had here. They seemed to be giving purely and unconditionally from their hearts to serve
and take care of us.
Now, we have our favorite pizza restaurants in Norwich and they are the nicest people or else we wouldn’t go there.
But these people at Pizza Ranch in the town of Newton, Iowa were something special altogether. Whether it was the fact that
they happen to live in an area which is very rural and provincial or that religion expressed by the Christian churches here
plays a very important role in a farming community, I don’t know, but the people in Iowa, well in Newton anyway, are
pretty unique.
We got into Omaha, Nebraska that night around midnight. Man, were we pushing it. But we stopped in a Super 8 motel just outside
of town. This one had a swimming pool and a hot tub. You know, it’s great that more and more of those bargain motels
are building their motels with such amenities. Although it means that you’re paying like eighty bucks a night, still
it’s nice to have that when you’ve been driving on the road for such a long time. They had the continental breakfast
thing too. It’s a self-service breakfast room adjacent to the main lobby. But it was clean and comfortable and had a
television too. My daughter and I especially liked the waffle iron that we used to make some old fashioned Belgian Waffles.
I was a little confused at first how to use the thing. First you put the pre-measured batter in, close the lid and then you’re
supposed to turn it over so that the timer starts. Well, the timer didn’t start for some reason but I have enough experience
with making waffles at home that this wasn’t a serious issue. And they were good too. So was the choice of either orange
or apple juice, pastries and of course, plenty of coffee.
I had given up coffee now for a year. Why? It doesn’t agree with my stomach. Now, I didn’t know that until I threw
up in the middle of the night about five years ago. But did I listen to my body and kick the habit? No. It was only
until I had gotten overweight to where I was at 200 lbs bordering on having some serious cholesterol problems and my doctor
about to start pushing those cholesterol lowering drugs on me that I finally got smart and stopped drinking coffee, began
drinking white tea and then green tea and eating the right foods. That’s when I dropped 50 Pounds in like three years.
Now I’m at my ideal weight of 155 and feeling great. But, this was a road trip and driving those long lonesome roads
out west can get very monotonous even with all of my favorite tunes on my IPOD and my wife to talk to so for the duration
of the trip I would, sparingly and only when necessary, startup my caffeine habit again. Now that I’m back home I’m
back to drinking green tea….straight. No milk or sugar. None of that bottled green tea you see in the supermarket that’s
flavored with sweetener. Just green tea. We get ours from the local Chinese market here in Norwich, not in a bag, but pure,
unadulterated ground tea leaves.
Why do I get so distracted from my story to tell you this? Oh well, perhaps that was something you needed to hear. Anyway,
on with our western adventure.
The next day we spent much of it driving through Nebraska and then through a portion of western Wyoming and then down into
Colorado. There’s a lot of flat land in Nebraska. It was during this portion of the trip that I was so glad that my
wife gave me an IPOD as a Father’s Day gift. I love that thing. I have over 110 albums stored on my computer at home.
So far I put three quarters of that on the 80 gigabyte ipod and it’s only half full. Way to go, Steve Jobs. You
finally created a useful appliance that everybody can use and enjoy. Because when finally my wife and our two kids fell asleep
it was just me and a road full of annoying semis. It was so good to hear The Grateful Dead on the road. It’s better
than a strong cup of java.
By evening we got into Loveland, Colorado as we traveled along that winding road through the foothills to the Rocky Mountains.
If you’ve been there, you know that winding road well. What a great drive. Of course I was to find out later that this
was just a precursor to the spectacular main event of the weekend.
It was near dusk when we arrived in Estes Park. But man, when we drove through downtown there were the Rockies right there.
It was just awesome. We got a site at a campground right near the entrance to the park. Of course, it was Friday and the campgrounds
in the park were booked solid. Now it was dusk or actually the waning part of dusk just before the black of night and here
we were at this RV campground wondering if we were going to get a site to pitch our tent.
It seemed it was all full if it wasn’t for this wonderful lady of Mexican decent. She was staying at a site with her
husband and their friends and she knew of a site that was open near them. She took us there in her SUV as we followed. We
found the site she had led us to at the rear of the campground. We got out to survey the area. There were some college kids
next door to us and a nice family from Greeley to our left and right where our tent was to go were these little piles of deer
crap. I mean it was like as if the deer intentionally came over and marked the site for us like it would normally mark it’s
territory.
Lucky for me my wife and two daughters were experienced campers since last summer in Vermont. I was so tired and cranky from
driving. I just couldn’t think straight but with their help we got our tent up and went to bed.
Our 2008 Western Vacation Part 2
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