Recently, my wife and I had a great opportunity to make a cross-country road trip. I accepted a position within my company in Vancouver, WA, which is just north of Portland, OR. Since we were living right outside of Philadelphia this was a monumental move to orchestrate. However difficult moving across a continent may be, it provided a wonderful excuse to take our truck and traverse the vast expanses of North America. While we aren’t the type of people to go see every single tourist attraction along the way, we made a few stops that were worthwhile and uncovered a few things we might do differently if we ever make the journey in reverse.
Saturday October 24
The journey begins starting in Havertown, PA and stopping in Independence, OH, about 15 minutes outside of Cleveland.
We got on the road around 3:00 PM and were unable to go much further than Cleveland. We decided to make the best of the Mistake on the Lake and go downtown on Sunday morning to check out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The R&R Hall of Fame is as corny and cheesy as you might expect. The attractions inside mostly remind me of a basement or garage of an extreme Rock & Roll memorabilia/junk collector. It’s an experience, for sure, and one that you shouldn’t miss out on if you happen to find yourself in Cleveland, but I wouldn’t make a special trip there just for this museum. Be careful, in Cleveland the parking garage pylons are sneaky and like to jump out and hit your car’s front bumper…
Sunday October 25
After departing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, we drove straight through Chicago to Rockford, IL. If we had more time to make the trip a stop in Chicago would have been very welcome. Not stopping in Chicago to take in the awesome Midwest city is the first of few regrets along the way. Although, if we hadn’t stopped in Rockford, we would never have seen foot-long worms wriggling across the hotel parking lot.
Monday October 26
Despite an anti-climatic evening in Rockford, we pushed onward to our next bogey: the Mall of America outside of the Twin Cities. Who could resist the immense economic gravity of such an establishment, inexorably drawing you closer to the apex manifestation of consumerism? Not I, said the soon-to-be-underwhelmed man. We had high hopes for the largest mall in North America, with its four-story Lego store, Nickelodeon theme park, and over 400 stores and restaurants.
Unfortunately our eagerness was misguided, as the Mall of America is, indeed, just a mall. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, or how such a place would wow me, but after it was all said and done, it was just a big mall. Even the Lego store was a let-down. It’s not a four-story store constructed entirely out of Legos as I had been led to believe; rather, it was a first-floor store that had massive Lego creations hanging up to four stories high. That’s not the same thing at all. Afterwards, we made the several hour trek to stay for the evening in Sioux Falls, SD.
Tuesday October 27
Sioux Falls is actually a pretty nice little city. For those of you living in the Northeast, I use the term city loosely. Although, I came to find out on this trip that most places called cities in the middle to western U.S. are what Northeasterners would call suburbs. Sioux Falls was only a layover on our grander journey, and the rest of the day was spent driving to Mount Rushmore, near Rapid City, SD. This was the one thing I was very excited to see on our drive. For no other reason than there is a very small probability my travels will take me anywhere near South Dakota in the future. Despite being an American icon, Mount Rushmore was a bit disappointing. Sure, it was the famous faces carved into the side of a mountain. But it really wasn’t nearly as large as I expected. Not to mention the incredibly touristy feel of the whole area with signs for this or that local attraction run out of someone’s garage. In the end I am glad that we made the detour and checked out a great piece of Americana, but I left wanting to have seen something more majestic. When we left Mount Rushmore, we had come across some weather problems along our projected route through Wyoming and had to make an unexpected change to drive up through Montana. We wound up driving later than expected that evening and stayed in Billings, MT.
Wednesday October 28
Oh, Montana. It’s big. Really big. I’ve never been to Texas, but I tell you Montana is massive. Even the trash cans were big.
Other than that, it was mostly gorgeous scenary and a really, really long road. We only made it through Montana and the narrow portion of Idaho that day, finally settling about 20 miles inside the Washington state border at Spokane. Nothing fun to report this day except for the attempt at seeing the pictographical caves near Billings, which we couldn’t locate because the Garmin took us to the county parks and recreation office instead of the park itself. Nice one, Garmin. Speaking of GPS, don’t trust it in Montana. First it tried to make us take a state highway that was closed, and I don’t mean closed for the day, or an accident, or whatever. I mean this road was closed for the season. Not a good call, Garmin. Stop telling me to return to highlighted roads!!!
Thursday October 29
Arrive at destination day. It took a good five to six hours to drive from Spokane, WA to Vancouver, WA. The landscape forces you to get out of Washington and come back in if you are going to Vancouver. We had to drive down the eastern edge of the state into Oregon where we headed west on I-84, and finally once we hit Portland we turned north back in to Washington. Western Washington state is nothing like the eastern side. The eastern side of the state is desert-like, with similar features (in my humble opinion) to western South Dakota and Wyoming. However, nothing but road sight-seeing on this day as our destination was at hand and we were weary from the road, only to arrive at our new home with nothing to sleep on but sleeping bags and a pillow.
All in all it was an excellent experience. I just wish we had a little more time to make the drive so we could have stopped at one or two more places. I also wish that we could’ve done it in spring or summer. Once we got past Minnesota a lot of things were shut down for the winter, and we had to adjust our course to drive around blizzards. Other than that I’d do it again soon with a few minor tweaks: spring or summer, add a stop in Chicago and Yellowstone/Grand Teton area, and I would be a happy man.
5 Comments
So if you really had to choose, what was the highlight of the odyssey? The worm?
Indeed, the worms were fascinating. But I would say that the natural beauty of the country itself is the highlight. Then, of course, there was the dinosaur statue at a convenience store in Wisconsin…that might be the best thing. Hard to say.
Sounds like you’re running for Congress again.
Have you found a place out there to get your Ridgeline fixed?
The picture is a bit misleading because we took it right after the incident occurred. Most of the yellow paint rubbed off by hand so I don’t think it’s an urgent matter. I will look to get it fixed in the spring once I’ve found a body shop.