Red Ranger
Norfolk, VA

Bam! Done!

Today’s drive through Utah’s central basin was perhaps more breathtaking as any of the last three days.

The northern part of Utah (and western Montana) had snow-capped mountains and pine trees and the kinds of things I grew up with in the Adirondacks of New York.

As we moved south, looking at volcano cones and lava intrusions, we were regularly amazed at what we saw. 

The drive from Orem to the border is a gradual change from relatively lush fields to sagebrush to — eventually — desert.

Then.

The Virgin River Gorge. The section if I-15 in Arizona has it’s own wikipedia page, it’s so amazing.

At some places, 500 foot cliffs tower over the road. We didn’t try to take pictures, we were at the base, speeding along, unable to even see all the way to the tops.

Jaw-dropping. Insanity. Crammed into 10 miles of pavement.

Then — wham! — you’re out into the Arizona desert, looking over your shoulder at a line of mountains with a river to your east. The river eventually becomes Lake Mead.

The last 80 miles involves a lot of desert as wending down through Nevada. There are some vistas of vast basins surrounded by mountains. But the city of Las Vegas appears suddenly around a bend in I-15.

Dinner at the Draft House. A long way from where we’ll be living. We may not go back. Except for one thing. Walleye. We had Walleye in Wisconsin, and that’s worth a drive across town.

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Yesterday, I thought the Badlands were amazing. I’m not changing my position, but when you emerge on the west side of Billings and see the actual mountains, it transcends the mere amazement at the badlands.

It was almost "pull over to the side of the road and catch your breath” amazing. CA took pictures while I drove. 

Seeing the mountains for the first time means the plains have ended. This is where the trip changes complexion dramatically.

We’re no longer going to be flying down long, straight roads at 80 MPH. (Yes, that’s the Montana speed limit.)

We’re going to be winding up and down through a series of passes and valleys until we get through the Targhee pass and back to the high plains in southern Idaho.

Here’s the view from Big Timber.

Yes. It’s a street with storefronts, cars, and no traffic lights facing the mountains. 

Great lunch at the Grand Hotel.

Glad we got gas in the AM before leaving Miles City and again at lunch time in Big Timber. 

We’ve finally started to figure out the signage.

• No Services — don’t waste time getting off here: I-94 will get you to services sooner.
• Ranch Access or Local Access — don’t get off here, there isn’t even a road. 

And yes, it was perhaps 12 hours of looking at signs before we pieced the rules together.

If you look back at “The Route,” we’re about a day ahead of the original plan. Some of that may be driving at 75 MPH instead of 60 MPH. 

We’ve covered a lot of ground, Each dot in this image is a noon or night “anchorage.” Places where we pushed the button on our Spot locator. 

There’s a noon spot missing in the DC to Lima, OH, leg where we hadn’t put the batteries into the locator, yet.

Dinner at the Slippery Otter. The place was packed. It’s Memorial Day weekend, and the town was jumping.

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Yes, we crossed Minnesota in a day. 

The shift in terrain is dramatic. To me, anyway.

Eastern Wisconsin is rolling, with a lot of low, but steep hills. More relief than the northern part of Illinois, Indiana, or Ohio. Nothing like actual mountains of Western Pennsylvania. Enough ups and downs to make it challenging to pass an 18-wheeler.

The land seems lumpy enough to be distinctive.

This transitions — suddenly — to flat-ish. Western Wisconsin and much of Minnesota are mostly flat. Some hills and mounds. Wisconsin has a few out-of-place piles of rock. From this: https://wgnhs.uwex.edu/wisconsin-geology/ice-age/, it looks like glaciers didn’t get down to where I-94 goes.

Avon, Minnesota seems to be the setting for Lake Wobegon. Pictures don’t do it justice. Tiny. On a lake. No traffic control in the city.

Somewhere in western Minnesota it flattens out to extremely, unbelievably flat. Ocean-scale flatness. So far, (82 miles) we’re seeing that same flatness in North Dakota. 

Found one of these in the rest area.

It’s immensely long. 

A bit wider than one lane.

It has pilot trucks fore and aft.

It was scary to pass because, well, there you are driving and driving and driving and you’re still not out in front of it. 

Speed limit is 75. To get past it quickly, you’re going well over 80.

The Rock Tap Room in Jamestown has a great beer selection but mediocre food.

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After the hustle and bustle of getting out of DC, today was a fun drive. It was fun until we needed to find a hotel. Hammond, IN, is in the greater Chicagoland, so, suddenly all roads are jammed with vehicles.

Dropping the hook at 4-ish makes it possible to find a room in a place that seems well-light and secure. There seem to be places to eat within walking distance. 

Tomorrow will take us out of Chicagoland. Stay tuned to see how far we get. Wisconsin? Minnesota? 

Flying along the interstate, we saw some (to us) famous factories. The EZ-Loader trailer factor and a Taylor-Made factory made us wave and point. We joked about circling back to Taylor-Made for some factory seconds of fenders or other useful boaty stuff.

The other thing that was jaw-dropping was a team of six horses pulling a plow. 

The Byway Brewing Company is a short walk from the Holiday Inn Express in Hammond, IN. The food (and beer) were amazing. Really shiny and new.

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That wasn’t half bad. Red Ranger is in good shape. Surveyor had been all over her. We just ran through her checking on — well — a few things. Battery water, stowage, bilge-pumps. Things look good.

Our old home and our ride to another temporary home.

Here’s our peer group. 

They’re in the water. 

Note the missing masts. They took the masts off so they could do The Great Loop. Scott and Jeanie report that mast-free, she handles pretty well. 

She fits under a lot of bridges, so the trip up from Florida was expeditious. It’s 1,000 miles, but remove waiting for bridges, and it goes a little faster.

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There are a few ways to get to Las Vegas. The complication is using one of the passes through the mountains. We’ve decided to follow a northern route. Something like the following

Day 1
I-270 N into Maryland
I-70 W into Pennsylvania 
I-76 W — somewhere in Ohio we’ll stop

Day 2
I-76 W to I-80 W through Indiana into Illinois
I-90 W
I-94 W — somewhere in Illinois we’ll stop

Day 3
I-90/I-94 W into Wisconsin — I’m not sure, but I think we’ll stop somewhere here or perhaps right when we enter Minnesota

Day 4
I-94 W for most of a day, stopping again in Minnesota

Day 5
I-94 W into N. Dakota, stopping somewhere there, if we can find something.

Day 6
I-94 W some more into Montana. Ideally, we’ll stop near Bozeman.  We may take an extra day here. It will have been a long week.

Day 7
I-15 S into Idaho, stopping somewhere.

Day 9
to I-15 S into Utah, stopping somewhere. With the caution that this can be mountainous and the road may be closed.
Follow I-15 S through Arizona and Nevada. 

This is not ambitious. We’re planning for six-hour days. Unless cellular totally fails us, we’ll be booking cheap hotels along the way. It’s always difficult around the 5-hour mark to start locating a place to stay.

The complexity here is CA’s parents went on an extended camping trip across the country when they were first married. I do have my lifetime senior pass for the National Park Service, so we have that option. While I’d prefer motels, I may be disappointed searching for them in the remote parts of the west.

This isn’t quite the same as moving Red Ranger down the ICW. The boat is spacious and comfortable, and we could drop the anchor anywhere the water was deep enough and we could get out of the channel. 

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