USA Road Trip: Week 15

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Detroit was another place to visit family and friends; Pete has some friends from Sri Lanka who have been in the Detroit area for awhile. I also have a cousin living there, so it was nice to catch up with them. We drove through Chicago in the evening, so weren’t able to go to a Chicago Cubs baseball game; that’s still on my bucket list. We also drove along and across the Mighty Mississippi, the “fourth longest and fifteenth largest river by discharge in the world” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River).

Glarus is a town in Switzerland; we happened to be in “New” Glarus, Wisconsin on August 1, Swiss National Day, which is like July 4th in the U.S. New Glarus is kind of like Leavenworth - the buildings are designed like a Bavarian town. Further on in our travels, we visited a former co-worker and his family who now live in Minneapolis.

After that, the drive was pretty much straight-forward across the Northern U.S., including North Dakota. The “Badlands” in South Dakota are better known, but North Dakota has the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which has similar formations.

“The first humans to see this area were Native Americans. Modern tribes like the Lakota called this land ‘mako sica’ (mah-koh see-kah). This has been translated into ‘badlands.’ Some of the first European explorers came up with similar names. French traders called it a ‘bad land to travel.’ ... Imagine traveling east to west across the Great Plains of North America. You see flat, rolling, grass-covered land for miles. This is pretty easy to travel through. Then you come across canyons of loose rock and mud. There is no more grass and the land is not flat. Strange landforms and hills make it hard to get across this area. This stretches on for miles. There is little water and not much to eat. What was an easy journey is now very difficult. You are in a bad land!” (https://www.nps.gov/thro/learn/kidsyouth/whatarebadlands.htm) I thought the same thing about the Grand Canyon - you’re travelling nicely across the continent, then you come upon this huge rip in the earth - how far do you have to travel to get around it?

We didn’t spend much time in this park, but we saw lots of animals, including bison (massive), beautiful birds, and prairie dogs (which are part of the squirrel family, not dogs). Supposedly they were named for their habitat (prairie) and their warning call, which is like a dog’s bark. They burrow into the ground, which protects them from the elements (hail, snow, heat). Very cute to watch. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_dog)

We thought Texas was a wide state to get through, but Montana also seemed to go on forever. It was pretty, and we visited Glacier National Park. The glaciers are retreating, though. This link has then and now pictures; you can slide the cursor to cover or uncover the whole picture. https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm.

We thought it would be appropriate for our last stop before Seattle to be in Leavenworth. For those in Seattle, this needs no explanation. It can be a fun experience, although extremely tacky. It’s also a great area for skiing and hiking.

We used AAA maps for most of the trip, which have designated scenic roads. We also had GPS, but the GPS lady always wanted to send us on the fast roads, or freeways. At the other extreme, she also tried sending us on dirt tracks. So it was good to have a hard copy of a map, to get an idea where she was sending us. I usually tried picking the curviest roads; we like taking the slow, scenic roads, where I can yell out “stop, turn around, I need that picture.” If you’re on a freeway, you can’t easily pull over or turn around to get that perfect shot.

The road trip was over, but the traveling continued (for a few more weeks) ...

Miles driven after this blog, from Seattle: 22,383 miles, or about 36,005 km. Wowee!

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