The grand trip

Here's a list of all the posts from the cross-country trip my friend and I took this summer. We drove 10,157 miles, from Everett, Washington, to Laurel, Maryland, and back. The east-bound leg was across the top (Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland); the west-bound more along the middle (Maryland, DC, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington). We didn't exactly retrace the ends, as we took US 2 across the mountains going east and I-90 going west.

I did five posts on birds and beasts, to cut down the number of photos in some of the day posts, but they're all pretty image intensive. I also pulled out the Little Bighorn Battlefield for its own post (we went there on Day 3), and Fort Kearny (Day 15).

Day 1 Everett to Coeur d'Alene
Day 2: Coeur d'Alene to Bozeman
Day 3: Bozeman to Glendive
Day 4: Glendive to West Fargo
Day 5: West Fargo to Osseo
Day 6: Osseo to Michigan City
Day 7: Michigan City to Youngstown
Day 8: Youngstown to Laurel
Day 9: Baltimore
Day10: Laurel to Salisbury
Day 11: Salisbury to Oak Ridge
Day 12: Great Smoky Mountains
Day 13: Oak Ridge to Marion
Day 14: Marion to Independence
Day 15: Independence to Grand Island
Day 16: Grand Island
Day17: Grand Island to Laramie
Day 18: Laramie to Colter Bay
Day 19: Colter Bay to West Yellowstone
Day 20: West Yellowstone to Post Falls
Day 21: Post Falls to Everett

Little Bighorn Battlefield
Fort Kearny
Birds in Montana and North Dakota
Wildlife in the Smokies
Birds in Nebraska
Birds in Wyoming
Wildlife in Yellowstone

(I've now visited (or at least been in) 45 states. All I need to visit are Hawai'i, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine!)

Day Twenty One: Post Falls to Everett

Whew. 10,157 miles door to door. (At least I got a ten day break; my friend's been traveling for five weeks now!) Tomorrow I fly back to DC...

We left Post Falls a bit later than usual, since we'd stayed at a B&B last night. But we'd decided to take I-90 all the way instead of US 2, so the drive wouldn't be as long.

We crossed into Washington almost right away - the Idaho panhandle is narrow.



The part of Washington after Spokane looks different from the rest of the state - it's the Columbia plateau, and there's corn and potatoes and wheat fields among the sage desert. I saw a lot of red-tailed hawks, but 70mph isn't conducive to photos of flying birds - or even birds perched on a railing.





Potatoes with a center-pivot irrigation machine - I sure saw a lot of those in the hot, dry states.



This is Moses Lake.



This is Puget Sound Energy's Wild Horse Wind and Solar and Priest Rapids Hydro Power complex. It's pretty stunning.



This little guy sounded exactly like a phone ringing. I'm not sure what he is - he looks like a wren, but he doesn't match anything in my book... Edited to add: He's a rock wren.



Here's the floating bridge over the Columbia at the end of the lake.



Here's the wind part of that complex - or part of it; there are 149 turbines in all.



The sign on the side of the interstate read "Mount Rainier in the distance"



Here's the approach to Snoqualmie pass in the Cascades



And the Seattle skyline

Wildlife in Yellowstone

Yellowstone was definitely the best place we went for wildlife. (There were also ravens everywhere; that link will take you to some shots of ravens playing in the sky.)

First, a chipmunk at Gibbons Falls



And another at Old Faithful

A deer just inside the park boundary, crossing the road

Buffalo! Bison! We've seen warning signs everywhere, but finally in Yellowstone we saw the animals themselves. Magnificent!

Here's a calf frolicking around its mother.



And after a while at Madison River, where the elk herd comes according to the sign, we started to drive away and then spotted this gorgeous girl across the road, heading slowly for the river.

Day Twenty: West Yellowstone to Post Falls

We got up early and left for Idaho. A raven was on the lodge roof - they had three personal safety tips for hikers there: don't take more than you can carry, let someone know where you're going, and beware of ravens, who will apparently rip your packs and bikes apart if they think there's food there.



The landscape rather abruptly became flat valleys surrounded by mountains or hills



The sky

These hills remind me of Northern California


At a Starbuck's we met up with a Zuni firefighter's group heading for one of the many fires blazing in Montana

Lewis and Clark. Those guys may not have been everywhere but they sure got a lot of things named after them!

A craggy hill



I'm not even sure I want to know...



Wildlife!



The Clark Fork river (yes, that Clark) winds under the interstate for a long way, back and forth. We crossed it a lot.





I'm not sure I've ever seen an Exit 0 before.



And we're in Idaho!



Stopped in Wallace again for lunch - barbeque, excellent!





We were a bit early to check in, so we went looking for a glass of wine. The Red Lion hotel had a restaurant that was open, but we sat for ten minutes without being served - or even acknowledged - so we got up and went to Templin's River Grill and had a wonderful pinot grigiot, and view.

Birds of Wyoming

Some birds I've seen in Wyoming.

Eurasian collared doves (a first for me, by the way)





And the ubiquitous grackle





Barn swallow chicks and one parent (there were two), at the restaurant in Colter Bay




There were plenty of ravens. This first one was at Lewis Canyon.



These ravens were at Gibbons Falls. They were so cool to watch as they soared and tumbled in the sky, pairing up and playing with each other, and then three chasing the fourth as it flew around with something in its beak.

The ravens at play at Gibbons Falls

Day Nineteen: Colter Bay to West Yellowstone

So today was almost entirely spent inside parks as we drove from Grand Tetons to Yellowstone via the connecting John D Rockefeller Memorial Parkway. I had not realized how much money and effort Rockefeller put into the Grand Tetons - the place, and the views of those stunning mountains, probably wouldn't exist were it not for him. And the views are spectacular. Yellowstone is gorgeous, too - of course we saw the geysers - I wish we'd had another day here. There were a lot of ravens - particularly four playing at Gibbons Falls. And it was here we finally saw an elk and several bison, though no moose or bear...

This is Lake Lewis, on the Lewis River (named for, yes, Meriwether Lewis)



The John D Rockefeller Memorial Parkway



What a great choice - you can't go wrong!



We picked this way (a borrowed image, the sign was covered in children, and we had a lot of cars behind us...)



Inside Yellowstone, the Lewis river runs through Lewis Canyon, where you can still plainly see remnants of the 1988 fire that swept through the park.







These falls are called - you guessed it - Lewis Falls



The Continental Divide snakes through the park along the top of the mountains; we crossed it several times



Still Lewis Lake



Note - we're higher this time



This spectacular thing is the Kepler Cascades



This sign is cute but pointed: it's a long way down



Here's a shot from the walkway; even with the solid floor and the protective railings, this view made me quite dizzy.



First view of Old Faithful - the bleachers (three deep) are a nice touch for us short folks! I took about fifty shots, but most of them look much alike. It erupted within a couple of minutes of their prediction, well within the window, and was (I keep using this word, I know) spectacular. We were well back from it, but still got drops of geyser water on us...










After Old Faithful, we walked the shorter loop (1.1 miles) and looked at others. Again I have seventy one pictures - here are a small sampling:

Pump Geyser



The geyser area



Aurum Geyser



Beehive geyser





We then stopped at Gibbons Falls where we saw ravens playing in the air as well as the beautiful falls themselves and the Madison river running off





The valley where the Madison River elk herd likes to hang out (though not today)



And we crossed into Montana to spend the night in West Yellowstone