So, it was four years ago today that we got back from travelling the country. The last time I blogged I talked about what we had been up to since, and I suppose this blog will be just another extension of that seeing as we don’t have a “Fifty First States Part Two” that I somehow kept hidden from you all!
Other than getting slightly older, we have crossed a number of milestones of our life list. I obtained an AAS degree, and now am very close to finishing my bachelors; a feat I never imagined possible when we were living in England. We also moved out of our apartment and made the big commitment to buy a house. Yes, we officially put down permanent roots!
I apologize that this blog will be a little long, but since writing the original sharing travel stories has become a passion of mine and I don’t get to do it often, plus I am glad to say we actually have a couple of new stories to tell you about. While we haven’t returned to England since 2012, we did manage to get back on the road for not just one, but two major road trips!
With my fear of flying still forcing me to avoid planes unless absolutely necessary, in 2013 we decided the best way to relax by the beach would be getting into the car and putting the pedal to the metal. Unfortunately, Minnesota is a landlocked state and pretty much as far away as possible from an ocean in every direction. This only caused one real dilemma – East, West, or South?!
Our Fifty First States tour played a big part in our decision of where to vacation as we wanted to go to some places we hadn’t been. I remembered back to planning our original trip, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t justify the budget it would take to add in a stop to San Diego. There was just too much to do there that involved hefty entrance fees! We also had to skip Denver the first time we travelled cross country, so it seemed like this would be a great excuse to hit up two major cities we had missed out on. It didn’t hurt that our plan would involve crossing Vegas twice! West it was then!
After our detour through the gorgeous landscape
of Pikes Peak we headed back to Denver to catch a baseball game at Coors Field,
but not before stopping for a photo op with the famous big blue bear! You know
by now that we love a kooky photo op! When we did finally arrive at the stadium
we found it to be a nice, but chilly ballpark. We had to skip out early on the
game to get warmed up. Of course, law of sports, the second you leave something
exciting will happen and we missed a game winning grand slam.
Finally, we arrived back in Vegas! As we always
stay on the strip we decided we’d save the more flashy side of Sin City for the
way back and mix things up by staying in old school Vegas for a change. That
meant we got to enjoy the sights and sounds of Fremont Street. Unfortunately,
we were so exhausted from a full day of driving that we only spent about an
hour enjoying those sights and sounds before we crashed into bed. We didn’t
even gamble a cent.
The next morning we crossed into California and
made it to San Diego…and an ocean! The first stop on our itinerary was
obviously the San Diego zoo. As an animal lover this was a place I’d been dying
to visit. We had a lot of fun walking around and there were many highlights,
but mostly just getting to see real life pandas was pretty amazing.
The next day, and I hate to admit this now, but we did go to Seaworld. At the time I was very excited about getting to see dolphins and killer whales up close and personal. Sadly, now that I’ve watched the documentary, Blackfish, I feel guilty about having contributed to a park that puts profits over the safety of their staff and the wellbeing of their whales, so we’ll skip the photos from there and move on to happier details…like meeting up with Joe’s cousin, Kim! She is lucky enough to get to live in San Diego all year round, unlike us lame tourists, and she took us out for a lovely dinner at a kitsch 50’s diner. Thanks again, Kim!
For our last day in San Diego we went exploring at the Hotel Del Coronado and spent some time wading into the sea. While we’d been looking forward to seeing an ocean again, I’m not really one for swimming in the sea. As we’d done all our swimming in our hotel pool we were content to just dip our toes in the Pacific and leave.
It had arrived at the time where we had to turn
around and head home. This would have been more depressing, except it meant we
got to stop back in Vegas again! This time we stayed at Treasure Island, and I
gotta say I give it two thumbs up. One of the better hotels we’ve stayed at
there. Our time in Vegas was pretty chilled as we needed time to relax after
running around San Diego.
There was definitely an eerie vibe there, and
apparently room 418 is the most haunted. I therefore wasn’t impressed when we
were put in room 420, right next door. But turned out the scariest thing about
the place was the lack of air conditioning. We hardly got a lick of sleep
before our fourteen hour drive home!
Despite the somewhat disappointing end to our
2013 roadtrip we weren’t put off from jumping back in the car again this spring
to take another shot at the west coast. Yep, we realized there were somehow
still a lot of things in that direction we hadn’t experienced, and so we
decided we would put that side of the country to rest once and for all with a
drive to San Francisco. While that was a location we visited on our Fifty First
States roadtrip, we had a lot of stops on the way there and back that were new
for us to explore!
North Dakota had gotten the brush off in 2010 as
we only touched the corner. This time we did it right as we went across the
whole state. Seems we should have been a little nicer to it as it was a pretty
scenic place, and the beautiful landscapes continued as we moved into Montana.
As we were travelling so early in the season, the East entrance to Yellowstone National Park was still closed, so we had to travel in from the North entrance. This allowed us to see a lot of Montana and we made the most of it with a stop at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman.
Back in the car we got our first greeting with
Yellowstone since 2010 as we clipped the corner of it to get to the town of
West Yellowstone. I had forgotten just how breathtaking the place was and we
couldn’t resist stopping to take a few snaps before our big tour of the park
the next day.
After a good night’s rest in West Yellowstone we
had a quick morning visit to the Grizzly And Wolf Discovery Center. It was cool
to see these animals so close up, but it was a small park without much to keep
us entertained for more than about thirty minutes. Apparently they are looking
to expand in the next few years, so I’m looking forward to going again in the
future.
The main focus of the day though was
Yellowstone. I had been disappointed on our first visit there because we
basically just drove straight through, only stopping to see Old Faithful shoot
off. This time we had a whole day to explore, and explore we did. While not all
of the roads were open because of it being April, coming at this time of the
year did have one major perk: The park was almost empty! It made getting around
so much easier.
We stopped at plenty of geysers and thermal spots, and of course, went back to Old Faithful. We even got to see a ton of buffalo, but the highlight for me was definitely Lower Falls waterfall. For some reason, I’m a sucker for waterfalls. Joe still doesn’t really “get” my fascination with them, but he humored me nonetheless.
All in all it was a long, magical day and we didn’t make it back to West Yellowstone until after sunset. I realized that the park is now officially one of my favorite places on the planet, and our day there will likely be one of the best days of my whole life. If you can go in spring, when there is still a little snow left on the ground and there aren’t a ton of people getting in your way, you’ll feel like it is just you and the beauty of nature with no distractions.
Wanting to get back to doing new things we decided a trip to the “moon” would definitely be appropriate. It had been nice to have the roads of Yellowstone mostly to ourselves, but we didn’t know desolate until we drove through Idaho. We could go more than ten minutes without seeing a single car! This seemed cool at first, but quickly became creepy, especially when we ended up on roads that kept suggesting there were top secret research facilities around. It felt like we’d stumbled into an episode of the X-Files…but eventually we found Craters of the Moon National Monument.
The park was extremely unique, and it was
amazing how the Idaho landscape had just changed from fields and mountains into
a set of a sci-fi movie. Lava fields from long dormant volcanic cones give the
area its rocky black terrain, and you can even walk around and explore some of
them. While it is remote to get to, if you’re passing that way I’d recommend
checking it out.
The next morning we decided to explore the lake in more detail and drove around the whole thing. The sun came out and made the views outstanding! It was so overwhelmingly good looking, the only way to recover was an afternoon at the hotel spa…
Leaving Lake Tahoe behind, we finally arrived in
San Francisco, and of course we had to stop and take advantage of a photo op at
the Golden Gate Bridge! The famous fog was in full force, but we still managed
to catch a glimpse of it.
We had thought we’d pretty much covered San
Francisco on our first trip there, but turns out there were a lot of places we
didn’t even know about…and most of them were covered by a CityPass. Yes, we
truly became tourists! We started our visit at the Exploratorium. This was a
cool museum focusing on science and education. Unfortunately, it was also a
haven for tiny humans, and we rushed through it to get away from the madness
that is kids on field trips.
Our next adventure was a cruise under the Golden
Gate Bridge, but unfortunately the weather had turned and our boat ride was
slightly wet and the water pretty choppy. It was still fun though, and we got
to see the bridge from a new angle.
We followed the cruise up with a trip to the
Aquarium of the Bay. This, sadly, was a tad underwhelming, so we quickly moved
on to the submarine, the USS Pampanito. It was cool to see how the naval men
lived, but was a little claustrophobic for my liking.
Keeping the pace going, the next morning we
headed over to the Walt Disney Family Museum. Having worked for Disney for six
years, I think I will always have an everlasting affection for anything related
to it. It was fun to learn about the history of Walt’s family and how he built
an empire.
Our last stop of the day was the California Academy of Sciences; another cool museum. Unfortunately, we arrived 20 minutes before closing and had to rush around the whole thing. Luckily it was a strangely small place, and we somehow managed to experience everything, including the indoor rainforest and the earthquake simulator.
On our way out of town the next day we made a detour as we had come all the way to the West coast without stepping foot on a beach. This was unacceptable, so we drove down to Half Moon Bay, a place I think I would happily retire to.
Feeling satisfied that we’d seen the ocean
again, we headed back inland to somewhere that has always been on my bucket
list: Yosemite National Park. My original idea for our Fifty First States tour
was really borne out of a dream I’d first had when I was just sixteen and
became interested in photography. It was then that I had discovered the work of
Ansel Adams and I wanted to visit the place that he had made look so majestic. That
dream then expanded into wanting to travel the whole of America taking photos.
Despite that dream being the birthplace of what
would later become our epic 2010 adventure, I somehow didn’t fight hard enough
to include stopping at Yosemite back then because it was a hell of a detour to
include. I’m glad now though because Yosemite needed more limelight than it
would have gotten when mixed into with a 74 day trip where it would have got
buried.
The beauty of Yosemite is hard to describe. It
just takes your breath away. It is a prime example of why the National Park
Service is so important. We’ve now been to many NPS locations, and I love what
they do by preserving these amazing places. They keep them from being ruined,
but also allow us to get up close to historical places that wouldn’t otherwise
be accessible.
The next day we had planned to hangout downtown,
but there was nothing appealing about going back there, so we treated ourselves
to another spa day! If you ever have the misfortune to find yourself in Reno,
make sure to stay at the Atlantis, visit their day spa, and then hit up the
all-you-can-eat sushi buffet!
It wasn’t hard to leave Reno behind, but it was
a long trek to our next stop: Salt Lake City. Apart from being a little smelly,
the actual lake was serene and calm. We hung out for as long as our nostrils
could stand it before heading into Salt Lake City. Having just recently seen
the musical, The Book of Mormon, I now can’t hear the name of that place
without wanting to giggle…
Our end goal for the night was Park City, Utah,
home of the Sundance Film Festival. Being a huge movie nerd, I’d always been
curious about this town and seeing as we’ll likely never get to the actual
festival, I just wanted any excuse to go there. As it was just a place to lay
our heads for the night we didn’t get to do much more than have dinner there,
but I could imagine going back one day; even if it’s just to ski the awesome
looking slopes rather than rubbing shoulders with Hollywood hotshots.
Heading over to Crazy Horse we were expecting to
be wowed by how much progress had been made. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like
much had changed in four years. We’ll have to wait another few years before
going again. We escaped into Custer State Park, where we did actually see some
buffalo this time round! Joe enjoyed the hairpin turns of Needles Highway about
as much as last time, and so did I. Not sure we’ll ever agree on how much fun
mountain driving can be!
Our two major road trips since 2010 reminded us how
much we love getting out and exploring everything the open road has to offer.
We’re extremely hopeful that next year will bring another one (we’re leaning
east). If we learned anything, it’s that despite how extensive our original
trip was there are still a crazy amount of cool places we haven’t even come
close to seeing, and until we do this blog will live on.
I might not update it
very often, but I can assure you we are always thinking about our next big
adventure…and holding onto the hope that we’ll one day make it to Hawaii!!
After all, the Fifty First States tour won’t truly be complete until we do, so
until then, we’ll just have to keep exploring!
Thanks for reading.
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