Cross Country - The Sequel

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Sean: The next part of the story isn’t nearly as fraught with danger and excitement as the previous one. After leaving New Orleans, we boogied fairly quickly across this great nation, eager to get back to the Northwest as soon as possible to spend time with family (and not to mention that we had just driven across the country less than an month before). Hurricane Rita (about to make landfall in the Lone Star State) convinced us to alter our route and not travel across Texas. We definitely didn’t want to keep arriving late at night to “No Vacancy” signs. So this time we went straight north out of New Orleans and spent our first night in Memphis. Then it was up early to make the loooong leg to Sioux City, South Dakota. We stopped briefly on this 15 hour sojourn to snap a few shots in St. Louis of the Wainwright Building, America’s first true skyscraper. Designed by Louis Sullivan and built in 1891 it is a pretty cool building for construction geeks like us.

From Sioux City we crossed through South Dakota on our way to Sheridan, Wyoming, stopping briefly at the Corn Palace, Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore. All three are “must sees” on any American adventure. What could be better than visiting sites that honor four great presidents, a great Native American leader, and one devoted solely to celebrating that excellent crop, corn?

[Note from Shannon: Driving across country this time was different in one respect - the big ass moving van. I had never really given much thought to how long-haul truckers lived, but up in the cab of our Penske, we became one of them. When we made the reservation, I had been expecting one of those “little” U-haul trucks - more truck than semi. You may have noticed in the pictures of the last blog that what we actually drove was a full-fledged International semi-truck cab attached to a 26’ trailer - the kind of cab that has steps attached just so you can climb in it). As we drove down the road, we were eye-to-eye with the truckers. The view, incidentally, was amazing - no more having to strain over barriers to see what you’re passing over as you go across a bridge. It took a little getting used to and you definitely couldn’t just pull in anywhere to get gas. Thus, we became truck stop regulars. We even started to look for the “good ones” - truck stops with a lot of services (restaurant, convenience store, good bathrooms, lots of “trucker” stuff for sale). It was a whole new world.]

Back to Sean’s rants currently in progress:
After Sheridan it was on to Spokane for a few days of R & R at my Ma’s house again. I got to go on a great motorcycle ride with Barry and you couldn’t have asked for better roads or weather to scoot around than the rolling wheat fields of Eastern Washington in late September. After the ride, I handed him the keys fully comfortable that my baby was going to be in good hands.

From there it was on to Port Orchard and Portland to spend some time with the rest of the family. We had a wonderful time catching up with Joey at a Mariner’s game, we went to a see The King and I with Dad and Lin, I saw Rich practice with his band, and we spent a lovely week with Michele eating at all of the tasty restaurants in the hippest parts of Portland. What an amazing two months it’s been.

And we haven’t even left the country.

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