Grand American Tour

Saturday 9/9 RAIN!!! The first day the weather turns bad. On the road again, we drive back to Rapid City and go on 90 east. The fog is so thick that we decided to skip the Bad Lands. We drove pretty much all day with less exciting weather towards Sioux Falls. As we approached Chamberlain it got brighter and we stopped by the Missouri river before we crossed him. This was a long ride. Boring? Not at all - it is so different. It also helped us a bid more to understand the mental and social discrepancies between the Native Americans and the Euro Americans who took over the land. We arrived late afternoon and found a very nice and very contemporary restaurant - some you won't expect in South Dakota. Excellent Pizza.

Friday 9/8 We get up early and leave for our next target: Mount Rushmore near Rapid City, SD. We continue I-90. The land get’s flatter, yet more green. We called I-90 rabbit death road. If we would have counted it would probably be 100 dead rabbits on the road. That was depressing. The rolling hills went on and on and we saw more and more farms right and left of the Interstate. We arrived in Keystone and Mount Rushmore at lunch time. Even so the picture is so well known – it is impressive to see it in reality. Since every hotel offers Internet access we decided to stay here in Keystone in the Mount Rushmore President’s View resort. A relaxing lunch break allowed us to watch tourists leaving and entering their respective busses from New York, Chicago and California. We used this afternoon for updating the blog, uploading photos, do some laundry and relax. It’s our first week now on the road. 1,809 miles so far, about 600 pictures taken and the second time we have Internet. We saw so muc...

Thursday 9/7 Our original plan was to get up early, drive to Buffalo, WY and relax for the rest of the day. But after we heard about the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, we had to go there. And we spend the whole morning. This museum is good for a 3 day tour. Extremely well done, it shows the history of W.F. Cody aka Buffalo Bill, Indian History, literally thousands of guns (over 2,800), Art and other things from the area. This is a ‘must see – can’t skip’ if you are in the area. Overwhelmed with impressions we left towards Buffalo. A ride through ever alternating mountains and deserts. Wyoming gas is less expensive then in California or Nevada, except Buffalo. You have to buy gas before you get there – it is 50 cents more expensive than Sheridan 20 mile s away. We decided to stop over in … about 10 miles outside Buffalo. Johnny … a Vietnam Veteran is running the place – a beautiful secluded lodge right at a creek with a little fish pond. After a great dinner we went to our cabin, turned o...

Wednesday 9/6 We started the morning with a quick trip to Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. It is really a grand canyon. It’s a bid hazy so that the photos won’t be really good – but we carry the pictures in our heart. From here we start the tour going north towards Mammoth and its terrace springs. The geysers make it like we are on another planet. It looks like ice, salt, copper and many other ingredients out of a chemical kitchen. Some of the many little ponds are dried out but it still looks very impressive. We continue towards Old Faithful, pass by many other geyser spots with incredible colors and end this day tour through Yellowstone at the West Thumb, the place we were too lazy to stop yesterday. We liked those geysers most. They were very approachable, so clear and deep it was just amazing. Since we couldn’t stay another night in the park, we had to proceed – actually as planned – to Cody, the next town after the east entrance of the park. We called the Mayer’s Inn, that we will be l...

Tuesday 9/5 In the morning we have a continental Breakfast with great cake at the Jackson Inn and leave for the Great Teton Park. How ever we do a nice little detour about 5 miles after Jackson straight into the tundra north of Jackson - now we really appreciate the 4 wheeler. From far we saw a large herd of buffalos and following a trace we come closer and closer. We keep a distance of about 1/2 mile and shot down the engine. There is nothing but the wind, the smell of the herd and about 50 buffalos that ignore us. The wind comes west so they won't smell us - but we surely smell them. We just sit on the roof of the Jeep and watch them. This is so wonderful, our greatest experience so far. We return to the road and go further north towards Teton Lake. The Tetons are so majestic and impressive because they come strait out of the ground and raise to their full size with no other mountain or even hill in between. We follow the lake, have a break at the lake and continue to Yellow Ston...

Monday 9/4 We left the Giesbrechts with the feeling like we are leaving some of our relatives. After a great breakfast with superb waffles we went back onto I-86 east. The 3rd gas station on our tour was in Idaho Falls. Gas is getting a bid less expensive than in California. We continued to pass potato fields and seed producers. And I have to say we heard often people belittling Idaho and their potato farmers, but being here it feels more like a professional breed of people who developed very sophisticated methods of optimizing irrigation, seeding, growing and harvesting in every possible way. In Idaho Falls we pass by high tech tractor dealers and many seed and produce manufacturer who probably looked very different just 10 years ago. After turning onto HWY 26 we pass by many corn fields which are looking like gold – isn’t California the Golden State? The further east we come the more mountain we see and the greener it gets. More and more trees and higher up into the mountains. Quick ...

Sunday 9/3 We got up pretty early and decided to have Breakfast at the Griddle in Winnemucca. What a lovely place – HIGHLY recommended. We set outside at the patio and welcomed our second day on the trip. Not only that the breakfast was excellent this place was as clean as it can get. Now back onto I-80 north/east towards American Falls, our next stop over. We continued to see deserts and gambling halls in an interesting exchange. It was simply astounding to see how those towns develop. Yesterday at Sparks we thought there are more than 1,000 new homes under development. Today pretty much every village looks like in huge growth mode. What a difference compared to Idaho. We did a short stop right after Rogerson, ID at the Deep Creek. It was lovely, almost romantic. We drove further towards Twin Falls where we missed the exit to I-86 east – VERY fortunately. After a detour and a shortcut right before Hansen (on our way back to HWY 50) we had to cross the Snake River at a gorgeous canyon ...

Saturday 9/2 We plan to get up at 4AM and leave by 6AM – we finally left at around 7AM. The drive to Sacramento was a breeze – no traffic. We had breakfast short after we passed Sacramento. At a stop over at Truckee River, we met a nice couple from New Hampshire who toured the West. We passed Reno and took a little detour to Pyramid Lake. After some 30 miles through the desert, here he was – in it’s entire beauty. The light was good and we could take a great picture from the pyramid on the other side of the lake. We saw a few people fishing but other than that the lake was like untouched – it was wonderful. It was totally silent – no other cars on the road. It is great to listen to silence. After a while we drove along the lake and hit I-80 and after a short stopover in Lovelock and a tour through Nevada’s desert we stopped in Winnemucca’s Red Lion.

We want to stay in rather original places not the big hotels and not on camping ground. And we are not going to do any reservation ahead of time, basically because we don't know when and where we wanted to stay. But we wanted to have at least some options handy. After reviewing the typical travel sites we found BedandBreakfast.com. A marvelous web site with all the very nice B&Bs we wanted. Also here the Internet is a priceless tool. In combination with Google maps we checked little villages around the tour and were able to identify Bed and Breakfast places where we might stay. Right and left off of the main Interstates are gorgeous places. The price levels for 40+ nights are OK and the king of places are exactly what we are looking for. As we travel we will make notes from the places we stood and post our experience for everybody who wants to do a similar trip throughout the USA.

Touring with Google maps. Now since the first cut of the tour was done, I did a dry run by using Google Maps in Satellite mode. This was a lengthy but fascinating experience. I put the zoom so that I still could easily identify little villages but high up enough to see the surrounding scenery. Most of the time I "flew" in hybrid mode to easily follow the roads. Lot of aha effects: Oh Pyramid lake isn't that far off - let's do a detour. Wow driving through South Dakota is a real stretch. Ahh - now we come into Wisconsin - hey this is a much more dense population than we thought. Didn't realize how close New York is from Philadelphia - we may as well drive up there for a day. Now I see what people mean when they talk about the Blue Mountains in Virginia - but it is a long long windy road. Not sure we can do it on that trip. I can go on and on. But this was one of the most helpful exercises in planning that tour, in particular when I came to the end of the trip in Ar...

We haven't seen too many sites who posted their great tours. Here we will put several up as we come across them. A swiss couple touring the world http://www.h-e-eisenring.ch/default.htm

This is our initial plan: Day 1 -- Starting in the Bay Area, driving up north to Winnemucca, NV Day 2 -- Further north to Idaho - Twin Falls Day 3 -- Highway 88 to Idaho Falls and then to Wyoming - Jackson Day 4 -- Relaxing at Yellow Stone Park Day 5 -- Crossing Wyoming towards Sheridan Day 6 -- From Wyoming to South Dakota - Rapid City Day 7 -- Relaxing at Mount Rushmore Day 8 -- Continue through South Dakota to Sioux Falls Day 9 -- Through Minnesota to Minneapolis and St. Paul Day 10 -- Madison - Milwaukee to Chicago Day 11 -- Enjoying Chicago, dining and night life Day 12 -- From Chicago through Indiana and Ohio to Cleveland Day 13 -- Crossing Pennsylvania to Philadelphia Day 14 -- Relaxing in Philadelphia Day 15 -- From Philadelphia to Washington D.C. Day 16 -- Exploring Washington Day 17 -- Along the Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk Day 18 -- Relaxing in Virginia Beach Day 19 -- Crossing North Carolina westward to Knoxville Tennessee Day 20 -- Crossing Tennessee to Nashville Day 21 -- Me...

Many people around the world dream about touring the Unites States from coast to coast and enjoy the country in between. Typically you do that when you retire. But my wife and I are not ready for retirement - but we are so ready for a "Grand American Tour". The typical years of preparation kind of collapsed to a week or so. Oh well, thanks to Internet, weather.com, Google's satellite views of the world, a great service at AAA and a few very good tips from helpful friends we get the tour planed out pretty well. A few days ago we decided we will leave in two weeks. Enough to coordinate jobs and prep the tour - we hope :-).