Vacation 2010.... The outcome...20:03 Jun 13 2010
Times Read: 598
Well, we made it back alive... Don't roll your eyes, there were a few spots that were kinda iffy...
Ahhhh yes, first thing I would like to say is to Michigan, what's up with all the dead deer on the interstate? Seriously, that is not good for tourism. We seen 36 dead deer on this trip and 28 were in Michigan... Get some Turkey Vultures like we have here in Illinois.
On with the trip..... (I might have my days wrong so don't hold it against me!! I got about 90% of the days right)
Day 1:
Locked up the house around 6:15 AM or so on Saturday... Ask to make sure we got everything. I ask "Do you have the title and registration for the car?" We looked for it for 45 minutes. Can't find it anywhere... It's lost... I was so nervous since I think this is one of the few states where all the cops need is license and proof of insurance. Drove through a toll area without paying because I swear they didn't make the signs clear.. I am sorry if I was too busy watching my driving and other peoples driving to read all the signs. The sign I saw said 80 this way, and maybe under that said cash toll way lanes, I don't know, I was looking to get onto 294... Luckily there was a website posted saying if you missed paying a toll go to www.?????????.com. Took care of that over in Canada. Drive over to Canada taking pretty much I94. Get into Canada finally after waiting in the customs line forever (I swear the people who do the customs thing are so mean and serious all the time... I don't like dealing with customs) and exchange US currency to Canadian... For 300 US we got 295 Canadian, last time we went to Canada I got 140 Canadian for 100 US. Lets not even talk about gas prices.... WTH??? Anyway, we settle in for the night near the African Lion Safari in Cambridge Ontario. Will admit though, Canada is such a clean country!
Day 2:
Go through the safari. Go through the lion and cheetah area (I will post pix probably on this journal entry at a later time since I used up my 200 allocations in the portfolio area, so check back for tons of pictures!!) We rolled our windows down to take pictures but the park rangers or whatever they were, were like 'roll up your windows' its not like the animals were charging or anything, just laying down... pffffft, Then we weren't going to go through the baboon area with the car, but decided to go which I am glad we did because they were a lot more tame than the last time we were there. We seen so many animals! We decided to go through the park a second time which I am glad because this time when we went through the baboon area I opened the window just a crack and made monkey noises so the baboons were all jumping on the car haha... One sat on the side view mirror and one sat on the roof and one sat where the windshield meets the hood to pick out our native Illinois seeds to eat :) (I will not post every detail this journal entry would be way too long). Get back into the states after waiting in customs for like 40 minutes, at least this guy was a little more decent, still mean and serious but less so... Customs makes me so nervous and I didn't even do anything wrong!!!!!!!!! Stay somewhere in Michigan or Indiana (I think). Oh yeah, all happily doing 70 on the interstate and this white van just came over into our lane without checking the mirrors or looking or anything, came within a foot of the median wall... Stupid people!!! Nice to know they are stupid everywhere!
Day 3:
Drive.......
Day 4:
Get up into Canada again via I29 in either Minnesota or North Dakota (it's all kind of a blur); drive to 1 up over in Winnipeg... I swear, they need crossing guards for all the prairie dogs there, I was playing hop scotch with the car to avoid hitting any (yay I didn't hit any) Though I think it was this day a bird flew into my windshield... That was very sad... Why do they have to fly so low in front of the cars?
Day 5:
Drive some more... Don't think anything exciting happened this day
Day 6:
I think we were still driving west.....
Day 7:
Still driving west.....
Day 8:
Get over to Banff and take a bus ride on a glacier and walk on the glacier too... It was cold and windy up there.. Was fun though. The Canadian Rockies are very nice. The clouds were very low so I got as best of pictures as I was able to. The glacier is as deep as the Eiffel Tower is tall. That is pretty cool... If you ever get a chance, check out the Columbia Icefields in Alberta. You would get to walk on the Athabasca Glacier.
Day 9:
Head back south to the states. I think this was the day we saw 5 bears!!!! That was so cool! There were 4 black bears and 1 Grizzly. The one black bear was really close to us. Just happily eating and not paying attention to the people, he kept moving up, so that he ended up maybe 20 feet from me before I started getting a little nervous. I was shocked, we were always lucky if we saw 1 bear on a whole trip! 2 were trying to cross the road (I think). The grizzly was down a large hill and across the river and in the trees so I think all I got of the bear was a shot of a big blurry furry thing. The 5th bear... I'd have to look at my pictures as I don't remember what he was doing.
*Many months later, I remembered the bear was on the side of a small mountain about 80 feet (at the most, I have always been horrible at distances) to the right of the car*.
Day 10:
Go and drive Mt Rainier. The northern part of it was still closed. There were not a lot of tourists at all at this time of year, so yay :) We were driving along and I saw something walking down the road, it was the prettiest fox. I got tons of pictures of the fox. The tamest fox I have ever seen, way more tamer than the ones we fed and petted at the wolf sanctuary last year. Such a pretty thing. I know you aren't supposed to do this, but (by it being tame you know others fed it) we gave it some bread and then it sat so we could take more pictures. I was so tempted to take it home, but knowing my luck if we took it, it would have done something to the ecosystem and the mountain would have imploded or something lol... It would have jumped in the car if I opened the door... That's how laid back he/she was... We continue our drive to the top... It was 43 degrees Fahrenheit, but no jackets were required since we were high up the sun was very warm. Go back down take a different route, and we saw another fox, but the fox didn't come by us, so we left it alone after taking some pictures. There was this one river that you could tell used to be HUGE because of all the rocks that were there, but the river was dried up.. That can't be good. The only thing I could think of was that maybe that river is for snowmelt only... Would all those rocks (the kind of rocks that are at the bottom of lakes and rivers) be there, if it was from snowmelt?? We drove out of the park and I was going to go to Forks and La Push just to say I was there, but we were running a little tight on time, I was also going to drive to Mt St Helens but as it turned out I was glad we didn't. There was this overlook on our route, and it looked just like any other big hill. Apparently after the 1980 eruption it lost over 1200 feet in height. Was so odd to think that was an active volcano... Just did NOT look like one. Oh yeah, back at Mt Rainier, there were these people who were beating on drums and chanting like they were American Indians... UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Hellooooo, they mostly had blond hair and blue eyes... Then the next day on the news it sounded like there was an avalanche or something and people were missing... What were these people thinking???? Lets pound on drums around mountains of snow and act like the reverberations are NOT going to cause something major... Again with the stupid thing (My co-worker put up a motivational sign that says 'Stupid Should Hurt')... We drive down to Oregon. I think this day we stayed in Newport and went shopping. It was all cold and rainy but it was northern Oregon, so it was the norm I guess. We were watching all the sea lions. They are so cute, but so stinky! I went into this underground aquarium and even though it was cool in there I was sweating to death. It was dark and a bit enclosed. I am afraid I must have a fear of caves or anything that resembles one. I don't know why... I love them, so interesting!
Day 11:
Drive along the coast to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. This was unplanned but glad we stopped in. Was very interesting! Got tons of
pictures of Nettles and Jellyfish and Colorful Sea Anemones and starfish. Got to touch a bunch of those too. The Anemones felt sticky! :) Saw sharks and eels and many odd looking fish and sting rays. I don't know how good the pictures came out since the fish wouldn't stand still, er, or float still!!!!! Then went to the Sea Lion Caves. That was cool, and super fun... Tons of sea lions and seals and it was so windy.. I loved it! There were 2 sections for the sea lions after walking a ton of stairs but it was worth it. Since we were at sea level, wasn't that hard to walk the 20% slopes or the stairs. Stayed in Coos Bay
Day 12:
Went to the Game Preserve Safari (I think that was name, it was around Bandon Oregon). This was unplanned too, but it was worth it. I got some excellent pictures of Bangel tigers and bears and white tigers and deer and goats and peacocks and tons of other animals. There was this little goat standing on the back of a Llama was the cutest thing ever. The llama let the goat on his back for at least 15 minutes before he lightly bucked the billy goat off. I got pictures taken with lion cubs, they were so cute and playful and boy their little teeth were sharp, but it was a blast! Ahhh for the part that will probably make you laugh, but almost made me vomit.... We went by the chimp cage, and this chimp was sitting still (she was HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) until there were a lot of people around the cage, then she took a ball (hard hard plastic, almost like the red ones you see outside of the Target stores, but way smaller) and started bouncing it... more like dribbling it...then she bounced it so hard it smacked off the ceiling, then I heard someone say, she was getting ready to throw poop... We stayed a few seconds longer, then everyone started to run... All of a sudden I feel something hit the back of my head and jacket.... Yeah go ahead and laugh... it was disgusting.... Luckily it wasn't diarrhea. Get that all taken care of and we stay around a little while longer. Then go to the Wildlife Safari in Winston Oregon. That was disappointing. Back in 03, the animals were mainly free to roam, now the bears and bigger animals like that were behind fences. I guess the animals kept hurting themselved by sitting on peoples cars so they had to put up fences. Glad we went there in 03, Probably won't be going back. Was still fun to see, but not as good as the one in Ontario.
Day 13:
Go to Crater Lake... In 03 it was so beautiful, but because it wasn't a bright sunny day, it was just OK... Was a bit disappointed. Then started back east. I think this was the day I hit a chipmunk it was so sad, I cried for hours. Later on this day I saw something far up on the road, but then thought it was in the fields and the road curved off but there were cowboys herding at least a couple hundred cows, Cows are so pretty, but then they were all over the road, and I thought they were gonna stampede the car, but they were really cool about it... Took pictures of that since we are originally from Chicago, and don't see things like that very often... er, ok, we never seen anything like that. Oh and the cowboys were all mean and stuff... Drive to Salt Lake City, never went there before. It really is salty there. Stopped at a rest area and the salt flats were blowing in the wind.. The wind had to be at least 50mph, Was a warm wind though but hard to drive...
Day 14:
Drive from SLC to Kearny Nebraska. Oh, we stop somewhere in western Nebraska at a rest stop. When we get there I stop in to ask the lady if she knew how many miles there was from where we were to Kearny and she said 265... Then she said that we were probably going to be stuck at the rest area for awhile and I kinda looked at her all weird. There was this truck driver that was driving westbound and fell asleep behind the wheel and went into the grass median, woke up, slammed on the brakes and ended up on its side in the on ramp of the rest area going eastbound. We ended up going the wrong way on the off ramp and had to make a right to get back onto I80. Luckily there were either city workers or government workers who directed us back onto the interstate. Passed by the truck and it did not look good. It just happened, cause there were only cops, no ambulances or tow trucks to get the truck turned back to get the guy out... And then weather turned crazy for us toward the end of the day. Luckily around 2 I called to make reservations at the Motel 6 that was there that we always stay at (usually that is the first day stop west from Chicago, and the last stop when we take I80 back home too) because it started storming like crazy. Then it let up until we got into the room, then it started really badly with the winds and storming and hailing, we were in Tornado country, and around 1030 I went to the front desk and asked the guy if the storm was anything to really worry about, and he said no... I was only worried because we had gotten at least 2 cracks in the windshield on this trip..
Last day (Day 15):
Drive from Kearny to home (yay no drama just a nice uneventful drive)... brought stuff inside tried to go online for awhile to write all this but, that didn't happen. Watched Alice In Wonderland that I bought somewhere on this trip then went to sleep.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo that was my trip. I will probably post pictures at least on Facebook before I go back to work on Wednesday. Hope you had an enjoyable read! :)
COMMENTS
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MysticalWench
07:48 Feb 20 2011
Damn.. I just deleted all the pictures that were here. I thought I was viewing this on another site.. oh STUPID..... Yeah, STUPID SHOULD HURT!!! Oh well, I am sure no one would care anyway... Never got one comment on this entry anyway.. Guess this is what I get for working at stuff at almost 2 am! D'oh!