Last week I tried to get a credit card that had an expiration date after my trip ends so I don't have to deal with it expiring when I'm abroad. The problem with that was that when they send out a new credit card, they cancel the old one. I was about to head across the USA so I decided to wait until I got to Wisconsin and get an expedited credit card sent to me here.
But when I called, they started out by telling me the same stuff that the first guy said, but after a bit of time, the customer service guy said that they could send out a new card with my same number and not turn off my current card. So I'm getting an expedited card and my current card is still good while it comes out. Why couldn't the first guy give me that offer? Oh well. At least it's going to work out well. I just have to be home Tuesday from 8 to 5 to wait for the courier.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Seeing The Brother
Later today we are all heading to Chicago (actually a northern suburb) for dinner with the brother, wife, and nieces. My cousin and his wife might be there too. It'll be one last chance to see them all before my risky adventure in Africa.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Flight Booked
We have officially booked our flights. We leave from O'Hare at 6:30pm on Friday, March 14. Connect in Warsaw. Then to Barcelona! Why Warsaw? Because the cheapest flights by far were on LOT Airlines out of Poland--only about $640. Who would have guessed?
We got a hostel in Barcelona near the Familia Sagrada for a couple of days. So we are set to get to Europe! We will figure out how to get up to Montpellier from Barcelona.
We got a hostel in Barcelona near the Familia Sagrada for a couple of days. So we are set to get to Europe! We will figure out how to get up to Montpellier from Barcelona.
Bad Gas
We woke up from our slumber in Murdo. No murders in Murdo while we were there. We hit the road and drove east, and east, and east, and east. It was very windy--the kind of wind that makes you drive with the steering wheel aimed at 1 o'clock (okay, actually more like 12:20). We gassed up in Mitchell at a Cenex and headed east. Once again my mileage was off. We only got 240 miles on the tank instead of the 360. Just like my tanks in Vancouver. So is it bad gas? Or the wind? Who knows? We gassed up again in Albert Lea, Minnesota and the mileage was back to normal. But the wind also died down at that point. Why do all my mileage events have to have these extra variables so I can't isolate the gas as bad gas? Anyway I had a fun time talking about bad gas. Elena also enjoyed my bad gas jokes--for a while.
We got to Minnesota and then through Minnesota, finally arriving in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Then we headed 2 or 3 more hours to home.
We saw no police in South Dakota and Montana. But once we hit Minnesota and Wisconsin, there were police speed traps. In one case in Wisconsin, a police man decided to enter the highway right in front of us. So we had to wait until he pulled someone over before resuming our scofflaw speeding ways.
My parents expected us a day later and we didn't call. Just decided to drop in. At about 6:30pm we pulled up to the house, and I tried the door. Locked. Then I rang the door bell. My Mom answered wondering who it was. I got almost my whole line of "excuse me kind folks. Would you be willing to put up two homeless unemployed people?" before she realized who I was. About 5 minutes later my Dad came home. Then we all drank a 1.5 liter Yellow Tail Chardonnay and 2 Pizza Pit pizzas.
So we made it safely from Vancouver to Jefferson in 4 days! Very nice. No problems worse than the key fob stopping--and that was a worse problem for the people in the Motel 6 who had to hear my car alarm go off 3 times that night as I tried to fiddle with it.
The only regrets--I wish I would have taken some pictures of things that I wasn't aware of until it was too late:
We got to Minnesota and then through Minnesota, finally arriving in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Then we headed 2 or 3 more hours to home.
We saw no police in South Dakota and Montana. But once we hit Minnesota and Wisconsin, there were police speed traps. In one case in Wisconsin, a police man decided to enter the highway right in front of us. So we had to wait until he pulled someone over before resuming our scofflaw speeding ways.
My parents expected us a day later and we didn't call. Just decided to drop in. At about 6:30pm we pulled up to the house, and I tried the door. Locked. Then I rang the door bell. My Mom answered wondering who it was. I got almost my whole line of "excuse me kind folks. Would you be willing to put up two homeless unemployed people?" before she realized who I was. About 5 minutes later my Dad came home. Then we all drank a 1.5 liter Yellow Tail Chardonnay and 2 Pizza Pit pizzas.
So we made it safely from Vancouver to Jefferson in 4 days! Very nice. No problems worse than the key fob stopping--and that was a worse problem for the people in the Motel 6 who had to hear my car alarm go off 3 times that night as I tried to fiddle with it.
The only regrets--I wish I would have taken some pictures of things that I wasn't aware of until it was too late:
- Exit sign in Montana "Anaconda Opportunity"
- Exit sign in Montana "469"
- Skeleton of man walking skeleton of dinosaur
- Every single kitschy Wall Drug sign for the miles before Wall, SD
- Perfectly cast shadow of the profile of our car on the wall next to us
- The Missouri River
- The Mississippi River
- The Buffalo Bar and Restaurant in Murdo
Monday, March 3, 2008
A Leisurely Drive
At about 4am, our time, Elena woke up and told me to crank up the heat. I did and went back to sleep. But then she started laughing. It was over our blog comparison. She wrote a blog about the poetic imagery of the rising sun giving the tree branches an orange tinge, and I blogged about prices and the bathroom fixtures in the Montana rest areas. Anyway, we were in a good mood. We headed to the Subaru dealer to see if they could fix my key fob problem. In the time it took to consume one tall drip at Starbucks, Rimrock Subaru got it fixed. And it was free! Apparently the codes got wiped from memory somehow. So we hit the road ready for a good day.
We drove a few miles to the western start of the road that runs a few miles from where I grew up, I-94. Then we turned south to finish up Montana. We passed the location of Custer's defeat. Soon we crossed the border into Wyoming. Wyoming is a gorgeous state. The roads in some parts are red:
And the gas was only $2.99 (compared to $3.09 in Montana and $3.03 in Idaho). The visitor center was only 29 degrees, but we froze our fingers trying to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We weren't in Wyoming long (relatively speaking). Soon we crossed into South Dakota. The first thing I noticed was that the flags were flying at half-staff. Numerous attempts to find a radio station worth listening to (i.e. not Country, not Oldies, not Jesus) to hear the news to find who died were fruitless.
When we got to Rapid City, we went south to find Mount Rushmore. Along the way, there were many many tacky tourist attractions targetted to small boys. I theorized that the city is called Rapid City because if you take an 8 year old boy there, your money will disappear rapidly. I was wondering as we went up, if I would find the heads to be smaller than I expect, larger than I expect, or about the same size I expect. I think they were a bit smaller than I expected, but we were also much closer to them than I expected. We were pretty much right under them. In fact, it looked to be a 20 minute hike to the top. The bad part was that they charge $10 to park even though I have a National Parks Pass.
Elena claims we had a near death experience as we headed back to I-90. We came up to this intersection:
View Larger Map
Well, just as we got there, the train signal started going. We looked to the right and a train was slowly lumbering toward us. Since we had just seen several very very long coal trains, we weren't happy about the notion of being trapped watching a slow coal train go by. So I told Elena to punch it, and we sped through the intersection. Sounds dramatic, until I admit that about 5 cars behind us got through too. :-)
So we started to head east again. Elena drove for a couple of hours, I drove for an hour, and we crossed the Mountain/Central time zone. As soon as we crossed that and advanced the hour, we decided to stop for the night since it was about 6:30. City? Murdo (pop: 553). We stopped at a Best Western. Although it is part of the chain, it's not a Best Western like we all know--but the kind of Best Western found in a city with a population of 500. $53 for a night for 2 of us. Elena and I have been self catering by going to the grocery store to get food and wine. But when we squeaked into the (only) grocery store seconds before closing time (7pm) we found that they had no deli or hot food. The whole grocery store was about the size of a large convenience store. I found the liquor section. No real wine in 750ml bottles except some Lambrusco. The beer selection was basically the 4 main beers. They had some coolers and a hard liquor section. One box of Franzia graced their fridge.
So we decided to just go out to one of the three restaurants in town. We chose The Buffalo. I think the only patrons were the other guests at the hotels. Elena had a Salisbury steak and I had a nice rib eye. We pounced on the salad bar for beets and hot peppers besides the soup and salad. Dinner came with ice cream.
So here I am back in the hotel about to go to sleep and get ready to go east again.
We drove a few miles to the western start of the road that runs a few miles from where I grew up, I-94. Then we turned south to finish up Montana. We passed the location of Custer's defeat. Soon we crossed the border into Wyoming. Wyoming is a gorgeous state. The roads in some parts are red:
And the gas was only $2.99 (compared to $3.09 in Montana and $3.03 in Idaho). The visitor center was only 29 degrees, but we froze our fingers trying to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We weren't in Wyoming long (relatively speaking). Soon we crossed into South Dakota. The first thing I noticed was that the flags were flying at half-staff. Numerous attempts to find a radio station worth listening to (i.e. not Country, not Oldies, not Jesus) to hear the news to find who died were fruitless.
When we got to Rapid City, we went south to find Mount Rushmore. Along the way, there were many many tacky tourist attractions targetted to small boys. I theorized that the city is called Rapid City because if you take an 8 year old boy there, your money will disappear rapidly. I was wondering as we went up, if I would find the heads to be smaller than I expect, larger than I expect, or about the same size I expect. I think they were a bit smaller than I expected, but we were also much closer to them than I expected. We were pretty much right under them. In fact, it looked to be a 20 minute hike to the top. The bad part was that they charge $10 to park even though I have a National Parks Pass.
Elena claims we had a near death experience as we headed back to I-90. We came up to this intersection:
View Larger Map
Well, just as we got there, the train signal started going. We looked to the right and a train was slowly lumbering toward us. Since we had just seen several very very long coal trains, we weren't happy about the notion of being trapped watching a slow coal train go by. So I told Elena to punch it, and we sped through the intersection. Sounds dramatic, until I admit that about 5 cars behind us got through too. :-)
So we started to head east again. Elena drove for a couple of hours, I drove for an hour, and we crossed the Mountain/Central time zone. As soon as we crossed that and advanced the hour, we decided to stop for the night since it was about 6:30. City? Murdo (pop: 553). We stopped at a Best Western. Although it is part of the chain, it's not a Best Western like we all know--but the kind of Best Western found in a city with a population of 500. $53 for a night for 2 of us. Elena and I have been self catering by going to the grocery store to get food and wine. But when we squeaked into the (only) grocery store seconds before closing time (7pm) we found that they had no deli or hot food. The whole grocery store was about the size of a large convenience store. I found the liquor section. No real wine in 750ml bottles except some Lambrusco. The beer selection was basically the 4 main beers. They had some coolers and a hard liquor section. One box of Franzia graced their fridge.
So we decided to just go out to one of the three restaurants in town. We chose The Buffalo. I think the only patrons were the other guests at the hotels. Elena had a Salisbury steak and I had a nice rib eye. We pounced on the salad bar for beets and hot peppers besides the soup and salad. Dinner came with ice cream.
So here I am back in the hotel about to go to sleep and get ready to go east again.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Billings
Howdy from the Motel 6 in Billings, Montana! Elena and I stopped in Billings and got a room with internet access. The second cheapest hotel in Billings seems to be $71, but the Motel 6 is only $45 plus $3 for the connection.
I left off on my last blog looking like this:
See the honking huge coffee by my hand with the mouse? A City Brew Grande is a Starbucks Venti and the City Brew Tall is a Starbucks Grande. Yikes! That's a lot of coffee.
Elena drove from there and I was the passenger. I snapped a couple of photos:
We drove along I-90 for miles and miles and miles:
Then the coffee caught up with us. Which brings us to the Montana rest areas:
They have cool bent sheet metal urinals. Check out these:
The guy who came in just after I took the last picture probably wondered what I was doing in there. ;-p
Here I am behind the wheel:
We finally decided to make Billings our stop for the night. We priced a few hotels and settled for Motel 6. A little searching and we found the Albertsons where we picked up a bottle of wine. I was scared that Montana would be a hick state that doesn't sell alcohol on Sundays, but fortunately, it's not that hick-Christian. After that we stopped at a Pizza Hut where we ordered a large Chicken Supreme with 10 Buffalo wings. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, they gave us $20 because we waited so long. So our dinner was only $4 for the Pizza Hut part.
Unfortunately, I realized just now, that I left my camera battery recharger in the power strip in Elena's place. So that means I either need a new charger or a new camera. The battery is not lasting very long at all, so I'm thinking a camera might be a better bet than buying a new charger and a battery that can hold a charge. Anyway, it means fewer pictures as we head to Wisconsin.
The other minor problem is that somehow the keyfob unlocker stopped working. We couldn't get the car open with it. Then when I used the key, the car hadn't been unlocked from the keyfob, so the alarm started going off as soon as I tried to start the car. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe there is radio interference there or something. I hope it's a temporary problem.
I left off on my last blog looking like this:
See the honking huge coffee by my hand with the mouse? A City Brew Grande is a Starbucks Venti and the City Brew Tall is a Starbucks Grande. Yikes! That's a lot of coffee.
Elena drove from there and I was the passenger. I snapped a couple of photos:
We drove along I-90 for miles and miles and miles:
Then the coffee caught up with us. Which brings us to the Montana rest areas:
They have cool bent sheet metal urinals. Check out these:
The guy who came in just after I took the last picture probably wondered what I was doing in there. ;-p
Here I am behind the wheel:
We finally decided to make Billings our stop for the night. We priced a few hotels and settled for Motel 6. A little searching and we found the Albertsons where we picked up a bottle of wine. I was scared that Montana would be a hick state that doesn't sell alcohol on Sundays, but fortunately, it's not that hick-Christian. After that we stopped at a Pizza Hut where we ordered a large Chicken Supreme with 10 Buffalo wings. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, they gave us $20 because we waited so long. So our dinner was only $4 for the Pizza Hut part.
Unfortunately, I realized just now, that I left my camera battery recharger in the power strip in Elena's place. So that means I either need a new charger or a new camera. The battery is not lasting very long at all, so I'm thinking a camera might be a better bet than buying a new charger and a battery that can hold a charge. Anyway, it means fewer pictures as we head to Wisconsin.
The other minor problem is that somehow the keyfob unlocker stopped working. We couldn't get the car open with it. Then when I used the key, the car hadn't been unlocked from the keyfob, so the alarm started going off as soon as I tried to start the car. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe there is radio interference there or something. I hope it's a temporary problem.
A Stop In Missoula
Well, we're in Missoula. We spent the the night at Motel 6 in Ceour d'Alene, ID. We left Vancouver at 8ish and hit the border for a hour wait. For a while it seemed like we were in the slow lane, but resisted changing lanes and were lucky that we resisted because as soon as we decided against changing to the other lane at the border, ours started going faster.
Once we were through, one off my two worries was over. I was worried because our car is packed to the rafters with stuff. The border guard didn't even ask about our pile of stuff. Just our trip and Elena's promise to not try to find a job in the United States.
As soon as we got across, we fueled up with American gas ($3.55/gal!). Then drove to Seattle. Then my second fear was came to an end. Once we were on the road, my gas mileage went right back up to where it was. So no need to stop and have the Subaru shop diagnose the huge drop in mileage.
In Seattle we dropped off and picked up stuff at my storage which was still intact. As we drove through Eastern Washington we played PacMan with the tumbleweeds. Here is a bit of tumble weed still stuck to the car:
Then, a few minutes we were on I-90. We made it to Coeur d'Alene and decided to stop for the night rather than press on to Missoula. I'm glad we did because the road got really crappy after that and it was dark.
We stopped at a rest stop for breakfast.
Here is Elena at City Brew in Missoula writing her new blog.
Well, off to my dirty car to continue our journey. :)
Once we were through, one off my two worries was over. I was worried because our car is packed to the rafters with stuff. The border guard didn't even ask about our pile of stuff. Just our trip and Elena's promise to not try to find a job in the United States.
As soon as we got across, we fueled up with American gas ($3.55/gal!). Then drove to Seattle. Then my second fear was came to an end. Once we were on the road, my gas mileage went right back up to where it was. So no need to stop and have the Subaru shop diagnose the huge drop in mileage.
In Seattle we dropped off and picked up stuff at my storage which was still intact. As we drove through Eastern Washington we played PacMan with the tumbleweeds. Here is a bit of tumble weed still stuck to the car:
Then, a few minutes we were on I-90. We made it to Coeur d'Alene and decided to stop for the night rather than press on to Missoula. I'm glad we did because the road got really crappy after that and it was dark.
We stopped at a rest stop for breakfast.
Here is Elena at City Brew in Missoula writing her new blog.
Well, off to my dirty car to continue our journey. :)
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