land formations

When one is driving across the USA, one pays attention to the divergent landscape. After the Great Plains of Iowa and parts of Nebraska and Wyoming, mountains are quite interesting. Of course, there's the patches of snow on the peaks above 10,000 feet, but along I-80, some of the most interesting formations are raised platforms of rock and sand. I have learned that the largest of these is a plateau - an area that is above the adjacent terrain on at least one side; similar is the mesa - from the Spanish for "table", it too is a flat raised area, but it is toyally surounded by lower terrain. Finally, the smallest of these is a butte - which one dictinary says is an "eroded mesa". but can be seen as a smaller version. Completely eroded buttes often result in hoodoos - tall spire like formations. Descending from the mountains into the basin of Utah, one encounters the salt flats - a flat section of land that is covered with salt from evaporated water (aren't you glad you asked?) We drove passed the most famous of these - the Bonneville Salt Flats, a section of which is used to speed test cars. The speed limit on the highway near there is 75 mph, although most folks go a bit faster. A favorite practice of the locals is to take dark rocks and stones arrranged on the white salt to make formations like hearts (better than carving on a beech tree I think) or initials or messages like "peace" or "Go Vikings" (I don't think they mean the ancient Danes, probably a local sports team).

Rocky Mountain High

We're in Utah, about 40miles from Park City (home of the Olympics), surrounded by the grassy sagebrush hills of the Rocky Mountains. We're staying in a lovely little cabin (emphasis on the little) near a stream in the quaint town of Coalsville. After dinner, we took a stroll up a country road and saw some wildlife: an osprey on his nest (didn't know they liked streams), a goldfinch (had to come to Utah to see the NJ state bird), a rainbow from a distant storm, and now, as I finish this outdoors on the picnic table, thunder and lightning from that not-so-distant storm!

Shy Anne

We covered the entire state of Nebraska today. We made good time, traveling through its capital (Lincoln) and following the various Platte Rivers as we drove. Lunch was a Sunday Buffet at "Grandpa's" in Kearney, NE (pronounced just like the one in NJ). Very popular spot for locals, but I think we were among the youngest in the room. Nevertheless, they gave us the "senior discount" without being asked. Damn - I didn't think we looked old enough. But "all you can eat" for $10 each? I'll take the deal.
We also took a get-out-and-stretch break in Ogallala, where we found the "Mansion on the Hill" open for tours. We'd been by this home years ago on a previous trip while visiting nearby Boot Hill cemetary, but it was closed. So we took an hour to explore this brick home built in the 1870s, filled with interesting items from those years and on into the early 20th century, when the nearby river was dammed, creating a reservoir. With the time change (we're now in Rocky Mountain time, even though those peaks are not yet in evidence), we made up the visit, went way past our intended destination in Nebraska, and made it about 60 miles into Wyoming to stop for the night in Cheyenne. No camping though - it's raining and we need showers after the 90 degree temps down on the plains.

Our Stake in Omaha

We are finally "camping" - in a KOA, sleeping in the van, and heating up some leftovers on our new Bass Pro stove. We're just outside Omaha, Nebraska in the town of Gretna. It's a little buggy - gnats and flies don't totally understand how the new "Off fan" works. But I'm sitting at our picnic table, listening to the locusts buzzing in the trees and watching the sun go down, a little after 8 p.m. CST, across the cornfields. We had a great drive from Illinois, 415 miles on I-80. We crossed the mighty Mississippi (running high; they had floods in Iowa last week) and saw fields of wind turbines - about 30 in a row, stretching across the cornfields and rolling hills of Iowa. (Interesting place, Iowa. Is it "State Fair" that says "You really ought to give Iowa a try"? We have in the past - the bridges of Madison County, the Danish themed town of Elkhorn, - but we could come back for a cluster of German villages from the 1850s called Amana Colonies and, of course, there's Des Moines and Council Bluffs. It really is amazing what is out here - or anywhere for that matter - for us to see and explore.)

But no time. San Francisco beckons in 3 days. And Nebraska is more than 450 miles long!

Continuing a theme...

Well, we missed Utica (see last night's post) because of a diversion of traffic on I-80 just west of Chicago. But, in a continuing theme of last night's entry, we traveled "alternate I-80" through Newark, Lisbon, Norway, Peru, and Marseilles, all within the space of 30 minutes and geographically in Illinois. Talk about "alternate". We ended up staying the night in Ottawa - no, still in Illinois. But we got talking with a couple in the parking lot (small dog in their arms, a ball of yarn in Patty's: natural elements for a conversation to start up) who were actually from Ottawa, Canada! They're heading for Vancouver Island and decided it might be fun to visit a namesake town. Forecasts of heavy T-storms made us pass up on our planned encampment at Starved Rock State Park and settle on Holiday Inn instead. We'll watch for a camp tomorrow, somewhere in Nebraska.

On the road again...

It's 2010 and I'm going to try to keep this blog up to date with an occasional entry as we travel west to San Francisco and then North to Alaska once again. Our first day took us through several major back-ups thanks to closed lanes on I-80 in PA, but we arrived safely if late. As we drove along, I was thinking about the places that replicate other place names across the USA. I mean, here I am in Boston Heights, Ohio! Not a hill overlooking the Massachusetts city. Not too far from here is Miami (OH) and on the way out, we passed by the Jersey Shore in Pennsylvania. (I've heard that a group from NJ settled on the banks of a nearby river and the natives of the area began to call that bank of the river "the Jersey shore".) And we also passed nearby Indiana, Pennsylvania - those folks just can't decide where they are!
Of course, there's only one Rahway.
Tomorrow, it's off to Utica...Illinois.

History in a Weekend

Heading the opposite direction from our summer travels, we concluded the summer of 09 with a trip north and into the past. Massachusetts, being one of the oldest settlements in the "New World", has a fascinating and involving history, both political and literary. We settled on a long weekend in Sudbury, about 20 miles west of Boston, largely because we got a great offer through Travel Zoo. (If you don't know that site, check out http://www.travelzoo.com/ - we have enjoyed our various stays through its services.)
Anyway, Sudbury is home to the Wayside Inn, as in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn", reclaimed from history by none other than Henry Ford, who used it as a summer home. It is now a restaurant and a BnB, and its grounds feature the removed-from-its-original site-and-reconstructed Red Brick Schoolhouse which reportedly is the school attended by Mary of little lamb fame. It also has a rebuilt gristmill, still used - the flour, cornmeal, and bran ground there is used by the restaurant for its delicious breads served wth meals. (The gristmill is also the site of the plastic "duck race" on Labor Day to raise funds for a children's hospital. We have a "six quack" of entries - their words, not mine - so wish us or them luck. The ducks are released upstream of the mill and then careen down a waterfall and stop a few yards down stream.)
A few miles north of Sudbury is Concord, of grapes and revolutionary war fame. We spent a while walking over the "Minuteman Bridge" (which Ralph Waldo Emerson called the "shot heard round the world"), and pacing the old Boston Post Road which begins the "battle road" of April, 1775. We also visited the Emerson home known as the Old Manse, which was owned by the Emerson family and borders the Concord battlefield. Years after, it was the temporary home of Nathanial Hawthorne, who authored "Mosses from the Old Manse" there which contained his early short stories like "Young Goodman Brown". (He also wrote graffitti on the windows by etching the glass with his wife's diamind ring. The words are still there.) And, of course, you can't spend too much time in Concord without mentioing Henry David Thoreau - a main shopping street in town is named for him; he was a good friend of Hawthorne; his Walden Pond cabin is a few miles south of town; and he, Hawthorne, and Emerson are all buried on "Author's Ridge" in the nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetary. Down the road a piece is Lexington where the battle continued and essentially began the Revolution.
Another short - well, about 50 minutes - trip southwest of Boston is Quincy, home to the birthplace and residences of John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy Adams, the first father-son presidents (we won't be visiting the homes of the second). They are also buried nearby, in a crypt under a Unitarian church that John Adams helped raise funds to build. Fact I did not know (or at least remember): John Q. Adams is the only president to return to Congress after his presiency, serving 17 years in the House of Representatives, where he literally died while giving a speech one day at the age of 81. It was a slight thrill to stand on the same porch that John Adams did and walk down the "President's Hall, used by John Quincy, when he stayed in his "summer white house" there.
Some great natural areas abound as well - Boston has "Blue Hills Reservation", a huge public park that borders Quincy and Milton, with some fabulous trails through the woods and up to a few hills (only 500 feet above sea level, so not a lot like West Virginia) but with an astounding view of Boston and its harbor. Nice trek through piney woods.
An instant return to the 21st century as we drove onto I-93 and I-95 at 65 miles per hour back to our lovely little Carriage House Inn in Sudbury.