I'm back. And alive. Two things I wasn't sure would happen while this whole trip transpired. I'm not even sure where to start. I'm still feeling super tired from it. I may miss some stuff along the way because brain cells have died for this trip. So much sleep lost ... it hurts me to think about it.
Wednesday after work I drove up to Tristan's house and spent the night. We woke up late, and generally got a slow start on this trip-and-a-half we were taking. Already without Charles, we had more than enough luggage in the car, and didn't know what we were going to do when we got him. We arrived at his house (after multiple wrong turns in his residential area) about 1:30pm, got him packed, and took off.
We weren't sure which direction we wanted to head. There aren't any useful diagonal interstates anywhere in the Pacific Northwest we decided, and no matter what we did, it was a matter of going straight north, or straight west. So, we decided we would take both paths, one on the way there and one on the way back. So we headed on up to Kansas City, MO, and then headed west, cutting through the heart of Kansas. Wow. Nothing. A big old nothing out there. We stopped about 100 miles in at a gas station, and played some frisbee. Only on the road for maybe 4 hours and we were already bored? That's no good. Kansas officially got the motto: "Good roads, no scenery."
Charles decided that he was in charge of the road trip provisions, so he broke out some trail mix and poured it into a large plastic pitcher that he had brought along (no idea). This, he decided, was so that the person driving didn't need to take their hands off the wheel, and he could pour the trail mix into their mouths while they drove. To add to this stupidity, Charles then added red hots and animal crackers, thus ruining the trail mix. At one point Tristan grabbed a handful and said, "If I get a red hot I'm going to kill you, Charles." Moments later, a pained expression hit his face as he muttered, "It's over."
I'd like to say that Kansas came and passed, but it just kept coming .. and coming .. and coming. About 11pm (I think) we finally passed over into Colorado with a big cheer from the entire occupancy of the car. We kept talking about getting out and doing something in Denver just because we wanted to. Well, Charles starts calling folks at 2am in the morning just to annoy them, and I just want to be in Montana, so we keep on trucking. About 15 minutes outside of Denver (which took us at LEAST 15 minutes to get through ... and was all lit up, with interstates and clubs, skyscrapers and the such), Charles says, "When are we getting to Denver?" "We just passed through it." "What? Wha-wha-What!?!?" When? WHAT? Turn around, we're going back." This just makes me and Tristan hysterical, and we keep on driving with Charles tearful moaning droning along in the background.
Then we hit Wyoming. The biggest open-wide worthless state we've seen. We were going 100 mph the majority of the way because we couldn't see another car for miles. Pretty much anytime we saw a gas station we stopped to fill up so we wouldn't be stranded in nowheresville. Somewhere in here we finally stopped mid-state at the nicest rest stop any of us had ever seen. It was obvious that tax money had to be used somewhere since there were only half a million people to use it on, and amazing public restrooms won the vote. We got some pictures there and played some frisbee in the parking lot at 4am. Tristan took over driving at this point and I went to sleep, only to wake up for Tristan pulling under a bridge for a restroom break, and to Charles later screaming, "Tristan LOOK OUT!" I tried not to be nervous, but I couldn't sleep again after that either.
About 8am, Tristan started really feeling the hurt of staying awake all night, and I took over again. Dull dull dull. I drove it all the way into Montana at this point, and we arrived at the Glatz household about 3pm.
There have been other accounts of the Montana portion of the trip, and I really don't feel like remembering every little thing. Needless to say, we show up, we're tired the whole time, there's a wedding of some sort I remember being at, we slept outside one night, and then we headed home. I'll keep this more about the road trip than anything.
We all piled in the car (which had red hots everywhere for some reason. In the trunk?!), and took off about noon on Monday. Montana still took the award for longest boring road in the trip. We went flying by quite a few cops that didn't care one bit. For this, Montana ended up earning the state motto: "No speed limits, no laws!" (It made more sense if you were in the car .. or maybe it didn't.)
Wyoming came and left again. Left very slowly. On the way home we decided to take a different route entirely, taking a left turn in Wyoming and heading east across South Dakota. Both routes were about the same length (different by about ... 30 miles?), and we didn't want to see Kansas ever again. On the way through Wyoming, the thunderclouds started rolling in, and we were pretty sure we were in for a huge storm. Well, it started drizzling, but the sun was shining brightly behind us. The next thing we know, there is the stem of a rainbow rising up from the horizon. I point it out to the guys. Then, we see a second stem right next to it coming up from the horizon. A double rainbow! We're pretty excited (the best thing we've seen in Wyoming altogether). The rainbows start extending higher and higher as we drive, and the first inner rainbow that we noticed is so bright now that it's like looking at a light show. Finally as we're staring at all this and driving, they BOTH finally finish their arch and both rainbows are fully realized across the sky. Inside the inner rainbow, the landscape looks like noon on a summer day, while outside of the outer rainbow it's almost the color of night time. So amazing. I pulled the car over on the interstate (it's Wyoming, we saw one car the entire time we were stopped), and we all clamored out and looked at it for a while. The wind was blowing us all over the place (Charles' hat almost took a trip through the Wyoming countryside), and the rain was pelting us in the face, but we took it, cause it was THAT dang cool.
Finally they both faded away, and we were sad. But then the lightning show began, which was almost as impressive. The entire sky was lit up with crazy bright streaks of lightning in every direction possible ... it was all around us. This finally gave way to the 3rd part of the show: crazy torrential downpour. This ended up being the CRAPPIEST part of the show, mostly because it made us all think we were going to die. We could barely see the road at all any of the time. I ended up driving down the striped white line just so I wouldn't possibly go off the road into the ditch. Not to mention that truckers are unbiased towards any type of weather, and came barreling past us at 70 mph, which mostly just scared us into driving about 40 mph until they were way off in the distance. The amazing rainbows were just not enough to make up for bad scenery and near-death thunderstorms which brought it its state motto: "Why, Wyoming, why?"
We got across the border into South Dakota and looked for a hotel in Rapid City somewhat close to Mt. Rushmore. OK, to give my shock validity, we're talking about looking for a place at midnight at LEAST. The first place we go to looks nice. Tristan goes in and asks. The rooms they have available are $95+. OK, I can understand the price on these nicer rooms, but do they expect anyone else besides us to show up after midnight? Take the money if you can get it, and show us a cheaper rate. Oh, and I think Tristan said they had the "Crayola room" available if we had any kids. Thanks. The next place was a Holiday Inn. The "Rushmore Holiday Inn" actually. We walk in there (Tristan and I) and the place is NICE. Downstairs bar and restaurant, inner courtyard, 3 stories, 2 glass elevators. I didn't expect THIS place to be any nicer about prices than the last .. probably worse. So, I ask the lady "What do you have in terms of 2 bed rooms? We're just price checking." "We can give you one for .. $60?" See? That's what I'm talking about. Who else is going to take it if we don't? So we did.
Tristan and Charles somehow were wired when we got there, and neither of them wanted to go right to sleep, but I was exhausted, so I fell right into bed. About 20 minutes later, my phone starts ringing, and it's Pat. I answer it in half a stupor, and to add to my confusion, it's David on the phone. I try to talk to him, but I know that I made ABOSLUTELY no sense on the phone. I can usually wake right up from being asleep and be totally coherent, but after all the lost sleep in the last 5 days, I had no chance, and I let him know that (incoherently), and said goodnight. About 30 minutes after that, Desiree called, and that call started about the same way. And by started, I mean it continued that way. Not only did it continue that way, Desiree's questions only made it worse. She asked me if Tristan and Charles were already asleep, and so that brings up the question: Why are they not back in the room yet? That was like 45 minutes ago and it's like 1:30 in the morning. Then my sleepless craze starts freaking me out: why AREN'T they back yet? Have they gone and gotten killed in the middle of South Dakota? If so, how will I end up getting home? Death of friends and acquaintances starts to mean less and less when you don't really know what's going on at all. Desiree is suitably concerned about why they aren't back yet as well, and let's me go so I can go find them. Well, after deciding how much clothing I really care to put on before I traipse around the building, I finally go downstairs and find them checking their email in the little office area downstairs. So, we head back up, and I collapse again, this time, without any more interruption.
I get up early .. just because it's my curse to do so. Charles and Tristan sleep in pretty late. I go downstairs to see about breakfast ... annnnnd they don't have free breakfast. They have a restaurant (that they point me towards). Yeah, thanks. We finally check out about 11am (after getting out, leaving our cards, then having to go back in, get a new card reissued, and retrieving Charles pillow), and head towards Mt. Rushmore. We stop at Pizza Hut for lunch, and then head on towards the biggest moment in our trip. The road is long. I mean, it's not very far as far as a map is concerned, but all the ups and downs, and the fact that we're practically driving up a mountain takes a long time. We saw lots of billboards for a "Mystery place" .. and that was about all they would tell you about it. They just hyped up that there was something somewhat mysterious about the place, but they didn't say anything else ... just where it was located. We were REALLY close to taking the exit just to satisfy our curiousity.
Finally we approach Mt. Rushmore. We get to the top of the moutain and there is a toll booth. A TOLL. We're not paying $8 to go see Mt. Rushmore! We can see it from here. Outside of the parking area. And to tell the truth, it wasn't very impressive. I mean, it was cool. But it's not this HUUUGE mountain that we were expecting. It was more like a tall hill with the faces carved out of the rock face at the top. So, there are 3 lanes going towards the toll booth, and no one is showing up, so Charles jumps out of the car and takes some pictures. Then Tristan puts the car in park and we both jump out and get in a picture with Mt. Rushmore ... from the free toll booth lanes.
Finally we jump back in. We look for a way out .. but there are no lanes going the other way. One sign says to get out you have to go through the toll booth. What a bunch of bunk! This part I can barely describe with words. To our left there is a short roadway that is coming our direction and merging with the three lanes we are part of, but past the small roadway is a traffic light that can lead us out. The problem? The small roadway says "Do Not Enter." But NO ONE is driving here .. we can't believe we've been sitting in the middle of the lane so long and only seen maybe one car drive by us. So, Tristan looks both ways and says, "I'm doing it," and jets through the small section, and we're at the stoplight getting out.
Well, about this time, a park ranger happens to driving by the other way, and does a quick U-turn in behind us. How in the world could we have timed it so badly? We keep driving down the mountain. "He's a park ranger," says Charles. "He can't do anything to us as long as we get out of the park, right?" Way to go, jinxmaster. Lights come on behind us, and we get pulled over. The ranger comes up to Tristan's window and says, "Do you know why I pulled you over? You went through a "Do Not Enter" sign." "Oh." "You saw the sign right? I saw you guys whip through there pretty quick. Just don't lie to me, you saw the sign." Yes, we saw the sign, we've been bad little boys.
"This is your lucky day. I don't have my citation book because I'm on my way to a meeting. I just need to see your license and registration." OH SNAP. Busted. Tristan's license is expired. I just sat and prayed, although you almost feel guilty praying about something that you're responsible for anyway. He comes back finally and tells us that his license is expired AND that the registration is, too. Tristan has registration that is current, but just not the paperwork in his car that shows it. So, the ranger says, "I can't let all this go. I'm going to have to call my buddy and have him bring my book down here." So, I got in the driver's seat, and Tristan had to go back and sit in the ranger's truck with him. Let me tell you: probably the slowest 15 minutes of my life. Charles' too. He kept looking back and being all fidgety .. "How long has it been? You see anything?" Finally he came back. Seems the ranger was being real nice. Took Tristan's money, but he was real nice. This whole ordeal really tarnished Mt. Rushmore for us, and we don't even like to think about it. For this reason, South Dakota was giving the state motto: "This is your lucky day."
The rest of South Dakota is a long ways. We didn't leave Rapid City until about 1:30pm, and it's on the western most border of the state. I can see another all-nighter rapidly approaching. We take a scenic route a little ways down the road because a) we're already way behind and b) the route sorta goes south a bit, then just runs parallel to the interstate, so we won't really lose much time. We can't really figure out why it's so scenic at first, but then we realize we're in a national park. It's the badlands. And it's actually quite interesting. About 10 miles before we get back to the interstate though, we see signs: "Badlands National Park. Toll ahead." YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!?! The sign says $15 a car. I can't believe that they are going to charge us to drive on a US highway. We get up to the booth and it says "If booth is closed, pay upon exit." Oh great, we can just think about this the whole time.
We jump out at some of the spots, and the view is just spectacular. The whole place looks desolate, and you see for miles and miles on the horizon. At one stop, you walk way out to a outlook, and the wind was blowing so hard that I was afraid we were going to get blown over into the huge canyon on either side of us (there were no railing on the way to the lookout, and although the path was large enough, it was still scary to imagine that we were only a yard or two from taking a huge plunge). We're finally coming to the end, and I see the toll booth ahead. The light is blinking .. yellow on the booth? I pull all the way up to it, and the window on my side says, "Thank you. Drive through." Thank God for the little things. Maybe He realized that after the citation we didn't really need anymore unexpected costs.
From there on, South Dakota just stunk. Although we caught up with another huge storm that ended up showing us ANOTHER double rainbow. It wasn't as amazing as the first, and we couldn't see the full arch, but we knew that the chances of something like that happening to us twice was pretty rare. We stopped at a gas station for snacks and to fill up, and when we went in, Tristan brought a large Aquafina bottle in and filled it at the water fountain. I told him that they had that size bottles here and that it might look bad if we walk out with it. He agreed and we went to the counter. "Hi, I have a question." "We don't have girls here." THAT caught me off guard. "...Aaaaand that brings me to my second question. My friend here filled his water bottle over at the water fountain, and we just wanted to make sure you knew that so it didn't look like we were just walking out on you." "OH! Pfft, that's fine. We just don't have any women here." "In South Dakota in general, or just here." " Oh no, we have them in South Dakota, just not right here." "Alrighty, thanks." Very strange. They were obviously joking, but the joke made so little sense it was confusing. I played along for them. I mean, come on ... it's South Dakota. I'd be bored too.
Along the way, we saw sign after sign that was advertising the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. Everything from "Ears to you!" to "It's A-maize-ing!" After all the hoopla, I had to take them by it (I'd been there before when my family went up for a family reunion. Sad, I know). The whole idea is that they decorate the outside of this building with nothing but produce (mostly corn). By the time we got there (about 6pm) it was already closed, but we were able to drive past it and stare up in a-maize-ment.
Most of the state of South Dakota from then on was chasing and being chased by the huge storm. We stopped as soon as we hit the Iowa border and found ourselves someplace to buy a book or two, and then didn't stop for anything more than a bathroom break or to fill up until we got to Charles' house. That was at 6am. Two weeks later, I'm still feeling this crazy sleep schedule. Tristan and I hurriedly threw his belongings out of the car and into his house and then headed back. Tristan drove to his house while I tried to sleep. Then about 9:30am, I took off from Okmulgee and made it to my house about 1:30pm and fell in bed without anyone even knowing I had shown up.
Was it worth it? It depends on when you ask me. The number of boring states we went through were the majority of the ones in the Union. Except Nebraska. We were ever thankful for that.
