Seattle to Lewisville
Hi Everyone!
This is the sixth and final installment of Ed and Kenneth's trip to Alaska and back. At last email, we were heading west on I-90 from Seattle...
We headed east over the Cascades and then south along the pretty Yakima River valley. In the town of Yakima there were a couple of impressive art decco buildings with ornate marble facing and '30s styling that looked rather incongruous in this small town in the middle of nowhere. We stopped in Richland and went to the local museum which had all sorts of exhibits on the Hanford nuclear reservation. The best thing about it was our conversation with a guy who had worked at the facility for many years. He told us all about the radioactive waste stored there and about how many of the storage tanks are leaking. It's all a big mess, and the US taxpayer will of course foot the bill for the cleanup which is scheduled to take decades.
The next day we looked around Spokane, which did have a couple interesting sights. First was the county courthouse, the usual tall civic-looking structure, except that it was done in classic 18th century French style, and another building which we never did find out what it was, but it was hideous and had rounded turrets at each corner that resembled roll-on deoderant. We named it the "Ban Roll-On Building." We then walked onto a bridge over the Spokane River for a look at Spokane Falls. There was only a pathetic trickle of water coming off the rocks, but somehow it seemed to slowly increase as we watched. This is when we realized the floodgates on the dam just upstream of the falls had been opened. Within 15 minutes there was a torrent coming over the falls and it was quite impressive. We continued east along I-90 to the old mining community of Wallace where we toured the old railroad station that has been converted into a museum.
The next four days we spent in Yellowstone Nat'l Park, a truly amazing place. Yellowstone is usually great for wildlife, and we weren't disappointed. There was a herd of elk at the Mammoth Hot Springs visitor center, just lazing about and looking rather used to all the tourists clicking their cameras at them. There was a bull elk with huge antlers presiding over it all, and we gave him plenty of space. We walked around the thermal areas and saw several terraces and pools, some with incredible colors. We hiked out to Tower Falls where a beautiful waterfall poured through hoodoos (towers of rock). We saw an interesting geyser cone at the edge of Yellowstone Lake called "Fishing Cone." It's a couple feet high and maybe 4 feet across, and it sticks up out of the water a few feet offshore. The story goes that in the days before conservation in the park really took hold, people would stand on the cone and fish. When they had caught one, they would simply dip the fish right into the boiling water and cook it, never having to take it off the line!
Of course we saw Old Faithful, but the other geysers in that area are actually more interesting. Some make all sorts of gurgling or growling noises as they build up pressure for an eruption. One slowly fills up a pool until it builds up pressure, it spouts up maybe ten feet for a few seconds, then all the water drains out of it like someone pulled the plug in a big bathtub. Another geyser shoots water about 75 feet into the air in an arc right over a small river. We took a few hours to hike up Mt Washburn for a great view of the area, including Yellowstone Canyon, Yellowstone Lake, and we even saw the Grand Tetons which were over 100 miles away. Yellowstone Canyon was beautiful as usual, and we walked out to Artist Point for the classic view seen on a million postcards. We also hiked down to a nice view of Upper Falls (100 feet high) and Lower Falls (300 feet high), with enough mist and sunshine to provide a rainbow.
Since it was getting down to freezing at night, we decided to spend the money for motel rooms in the park. (We're getting soft, I know.) The accommodations were pretty good (they better be for what we paid!), and we were able to use the opportunity to email the last newsletter. We had a delicious dinner at the Old Faithful Inn, a beautiful wood structure with a huge fireplace, the kind of place you could picture Teddy Roosevelt smoking a cigar and telling stories about the Rough Riders. There were more geysers and hot springs to see, boiling mud pools, and steam vents, with interesting and usually apt names like "Spiteful Geyser" and "Dragon's Cauldron." When we departed the park we drove along the Tetons for great views of this incredibly jagged mountain range. Heading east we went through the Wind River Range full of valleys turning with the fall colors. An interesting stop along the highway was the Tie Hack Memorial. Tie hacks were the guys who made the ties for the railroad expansion through the west in the late 1800's through to WWII. There was no assmebly line involved; instead, each hack would select a tree, fell it, remove the bark, and using simple tools cut it to the required dimensions. It was dangerous and tiring work, and it's amazing that they did this all by hand even up to the 1940's.
Driving across Nebaska is not exactly a trip highlight, as the scenery is fairly nonexistent. However, we did check out the home of Buffalo Bill Cody in North Platte. This colorful character made his home there, which included a nice victorian house and a ranch. We thought someone had bought the ranch and turned it into a cheap tourist attraction because on the roof of the barn was stenciled "Scout's Rest Ranch" in huge white block letters. Then we found out that in fact Cody himself had the sign painted. We learned a good bit about the man by walking through the house which is now a museum. Buffalo Bill apparently made a name for himself as a pony express rider even before he became a buffalo hunter. He made a record ride of about 300 miles in 24 hours, then bought stock in Preparation-H, I guess. The pony express only lasted 18 months, the business (ad)venture put to an end by the invention of the telegraph.
We stopped in to visit our friend Kim Peters in Kansas City, and were grateful for the tour we got of the area, and also the hospitality he shared by putting us up in his new home, which had two things we hadn't seen much on the trip: indoor plumbing and television. Kenneth's sister and brother-in-law, Gwen & Darrin, came up from Missouri for the day and we went out for a great barbeque dinner and then talked late into the night until the cops came and cited us for talking so loud they could hear us at the police station.
On our way out of Kansas we stopped at Ft Scott and saw the well-restored frontier fort there. One more night on the road camping in Oklahoma and we arrived back in Lewisville on Sunday October 4th. The temperature was 93 degrees and this felt like an oven after the trip to Alaska. But luckily, the next day was in the 80's and it appears we managed to miss the heat wave that our friends here had to live through, almost 60 days this summer over 100 degrees. Of course, we probably traded that for 60 days below 58 degrees, but it was well worth it.
Hope you have enjoyed the newsletters even though thery were long and far apart. We're still waiting for affordable satellite communications so we can email while camping! If you can stand one more message from us, we will send out, by popular demand, The List
This is the sixth and final installment of Ed and Kenneth's trip to Alaska and back. At last email, we were heading west on I-90 from Seattle...
We headed east over the Cascades and then south along the pretty Yakima River valley. In the town of Yakima there were a couple of impressive art decco buildings with ornate marble facing and '30s styling that looked rather incongruous in this small town in the middle of nowhere. We stopped in Richland and went to the local museum which had all sorts of exhibits on the Hanford nuclear reservation. The best thing about it was our conversation with a guy who had worked at the facility for many years. He told us all about the radioactive waste stored there and about how many of the storage tanks are leaking. It's all a big mess, and the US taxpayer will of course foot the bill for the cleanup which is scheduled to take decades.
The next day we looked around Spokane, which did have a couple interesting sights. First was the county courthouse, the usual tall civic-looking structure, except that it was done in classic 18th century French style, and another building which we never did find out what it was, but it was hideous and had rounded turrets at each corner that resembled roll-on deoderant. We named it the "Ban Roll-On Building." We then walked onto a bridge over the Spokane River for a look at Spokane Falls. There was only a pathetic trickle of water coming off the rocks, but somehow it seemed to slowly increase as we watched. This is when we realized the floodgates on the dam just upstream of the falls had been opened. Within 15 minutes there was a torrent coming over the falls and it was quite impressive. We continued east along I-90 to the old mining community of Wallace where we toured the old railroad station that has been converted into a museum.
The next four days we spent in Yellowstone Nat'l Park, a truly amazing place. Yellowstone is usually great for wildlife, and we weren't disappointed. There was a herd of elk at the Mammoth Hot Springs visitor center, just lazing about and looking rather used to all the tourists clicking their cameras at them. There was a bull elk with huge antlers presiding over it all, and we gave him plenty of space. We walked around the thermal areas and saw several terraces and pools, some with incredible colors. We hiked out to Tower Falls where a beautiful waterfall poured through hoodoos (towers of rock). We saw an interesting geyser cone at the edge of Yellowstone Lake called "Fishing Cone." It's a couple feet high and maybe 4 feet across, and it sticks up out of the water a few feet offshore. The story goes that in the days before conservation in the park really took hold, people would stand on the cone and fish. When they had caught one, they would simply dip the fish right into the boiling water and cook it, never having to take it off the line!
Of course we saw Old Faithful, but the other geysers in that area are actually more interesting. Some make all sorts of gurgling or growling noises as they build up pressure for an eruption. One slowly fills up a pool until it builds up pressure, it spouts up maybe ten feet for a few seconds, then all the water drains out of it like someone pulled the plug in a big bathtub. Another geyser shoots water about 75 feet into the air in an arc right over a small river. We took a few hours to hike up Mt Washburn for a great view of the area, including Yellowstone Canyon, Yellowstone Lake, and we even saw the Grand Tetons which were over 100 miles away. Yellowstone Canyon was beautiful as usual, and we walked out to Artist Point for the classic view seen on a million postcards. We also hiked down to a nice view of Upper Falls (100 feet high) and Lower Falls (300 feet high), with enough mist and sunshine to provide a rainbow.
Since it was getting down to freezing at night, we decided to spend the money for motel rooms in the park. (We're getting soft, I know.) The accommodations were pretty good (they better be for what we paid!), and we were able to use the opportunity to email the last newsletter. We had a delicious dinner at the Old Faithful Inn, a beautiful wood structure with a huge fireplace, the kind of place you could picture Teddy Roosevelt smoking a cigar and telling stories about the Rough Riders. There were more geysers and hot springs to see, boiling mud pools, and steam vents, with interesting and usually apt names like "Spiteful Geyser" and "Dragon's Cauldron." When we departed the park we drove along the Tetons for great views of this incredibly jagged mountain range. Heading east we went through the Wind River Range full of valleys turning with the fall colors. An interesting stop along the highway was the Tie Hack Memorial. Tie hacks were the guys who made the ties for the railroad expansion through the west in the late 1800's through to WWII. There was no assmebly line involved; instead, each hack would select a tree, fell it, remove the bark, and using simple tools cut it to the required dimensions. It was dangerous and tiring work, and it's amazing that they did this all by hand even up to the 1940's.
Driving across Nebaska is not exactly a trip highlight, as the scenery is fairly nonexistent. However, we did check out the home of Buffalo Bill Cody in North Platte. This colorful character made his home there, which included a nice victorian house and a ranch. We thought someone had bought the ranch and turned it into a cheap tourist attraction because on the roof of the barn was stenciled "Scout's Rest Ranch" in huge white block letters. Then we found out that in fact Cody himself had the sign painted. We learned a good bit about the man by walking through the house which is now a museum. Buffalo Bill apparently made a name for himself as a pony express rider even before he became a buffalo hunter. He made a record ride of about 300 miles in 24 hours, then bought stock in Preparation-H, I guess. The pony express only lasted 18 months, the business (ad)venture put to an end by the invention of the telegraph.
We stopped in to visit our friend Kim Peters in Kansas City, and were grateful for the tour we got of the area, and also the hospitality he shared by putting us up in his new home, which had two things we hadn't seen much on the trip: indoor plumbing and television. Kenneth's sister and brother-in-law, Gwen & Darrin, came up from Missouri for the day and we went out for a great barbeque dinner and then talked late into the night until the cops came and cited us for talking so loud they could hear us at the police station.
On our way out of Kansas we stopped at Ft Scott and saw the well-restored frontier fort there. One more night on the road camping in Oklahoma and we arrived back in Lewisville on Sunday October 4th. The temperature was 93 degrees and this felt like an oven after the trip to Alaska. But luckily, the next day was in the 80's and it appears we managed to miss the heat wave that our friends here had to live through, almost 60 days this summer over 100 degrees. Of course, we probably traded that for 60 days below 58 degrees, but it was well worth it.
Hope you have enjoyed the newsletters even though thery were long and far apart. We're still waiting for affordable satellite communications so we can email while camping! If you can stand one more message from us, we will send out, by popular demand, The List
