The Seattle Restaurant Store

You know those places you see and file in your mental folder "I need to go in there and look around"? Well I was in Seattle visiting with Jon this week and discussing his yard plan, etc. Near their new home is a place I have had on that mental tickle file for some time, and I finally went in to check it out. It is called The Seattle Restaurant Store. If you are into kitchen stuff (they sell to the public), you have GOT to check this place out the next time you are in Seattle. It is on Aurora, just north a block or so from 145th. Have a great time exploring.

Laurel Wins the Prize

She got the "What are the four cities in the Quad Cities?" question answered correctly. For being such a diligent reader of our blog, she wins an two-day all-expenses paid trip to Moline, Iowa, staying at the luxurious "Moliner Motor-In", with all meals provided next door at the famous China Corn Palace Restaurant*. She will be excited to know their specialty is deep-fried chicken feet.

* Prize only valid if used on May 19-20, 2007.

Kristi's Auto Adventure

While we have been trying to decide what to do for a second car, Mom has been borrowing - including the "Silver Shadow". She was at work recently at the school and this happened. She didn't notice it until she was leaving Safeway and thought it happened in the parking lot there, but upon doing a little detective work, found the suspected culprit on the school security video doing the dirty deed. When confronted, the suspect admitted to the accident and we got out of a deductible payment. The interesting part was she said she just felt a little "bump" and thought no damage had been done to the other car. Yeah right.

Jazz Win Second Series

Hey - how 'bout them Jazz (the dumbest name in sports by the way, they should have changed it when they moved). Finally, someone to cheer for...they take down the Rockets and the Warriors - bring on the Spurs.

Rest Stop Wars

The verdict is in - Iowa has the best rest stops. Clean, fancy, tiled, kid's play toys, WIRELESS INTERNET, free maps, helpful people on site, cafes, endless vending machines....the list goes on. If they had a weekly Sacrament Meeting, I could live at one of them. The worst - Wyoming. They don't even call them rest stops. They are called "Parking Areas" and are an asphalted turnoff with a couple of dumpsters. Come on - get with it Wyoming. At least put some wireless routers in the dumpsters.

Home

Passed through Utah, Idaho, Oregon and Washington today (States #10, 11, 12, and 13).

Made the trip today to Wenatchee without incident. The Snake at Farewell Bend was as full as I have ever seen it, Eastern Oregon was green and beautiful, the mountains around Baker covered still with winter snow, the Grande Ronde at La Grande full to overflowing, and life is good. Pulled into the driveway about 8:30pm and very tired. Total new miles on the car: 3062.

The Mormon Trail

As I am now entering familiar territory (Mark's move), things began to move faster. Actually, I drove nearly the entire length of the trip Brigham Young made in the spring of 1847 with the vanguard company today, in ONE DAY. The only differences were: 1) the short stretch I did last night from Winter Quarters to York, Nebraska, 2) the fact I followed the railroad route across Wyoming, through Cheyenne and Rawlins, instead of over South Pass, and 3) I didn't go over Big Mountain at Henefer, instead following the Weber to Morgan, Utah. Some observations: 1) I didn't know Cabela's was based in Sidney, Nebraska - an interesting business history, 2) a lot of trains roll down the Union Pacific main line, 3) some parts of the country had a lot of snow this winter - there was still snow in the high passes around Laramie and Cheyenne, and the Unitas were still heavily snowpacked, 4) I did not know you could see the Colorado Rockies and Rocky Mountain National Park from this part of Nebraska and Wyoming - the Park is only about 40 miles from Laramie, 5) there is a giant wind farm along the freeway in central Wyoming, and 6) there is an interesting geographic situation around Rock Springs, Wyoming. Most people are familiar with the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada, and also with the concept of the Continental Divide. But also, around Rock Springs, the continental divide "divides" on itself to form the "Continental Divide Basin", another endorheric region (along with the Salton Trough in California) where there are no natural outlets to the oceans (only through groundwater). So I passed through Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah today (States #8, 9, and 10). After a brief stop in Morgan, Utah, I spent the night in Northern Utah.

Iowa

A glorious and beautiful day. And...and...this is a big country. I passed through Des Moines in the morning , then left the freeway southward, so that I could follow more closely the route of the Mormons as they crossed Iowa in 1846. I also had stumbled on something on the map as I was looking things over last night - the John Wayne Birthplace in Winterset, Iowa. I don't know how I missed that in all my planning. They have preserved the little cottage where he spent his early years and have a little store\museum next door. Interestingly enough, they are celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth next week with a big celebration. All of his children are coming and they are going to break ground for a larger museum and store. I found some nice things for my John Wayne basement that I didn't have (yeahhhh). The little downtown of Winterset looks like it hasn't changed since the 1940's - probably hasn't. Courthouse in the middle of the block, surrounded by a Ben Franklin, a drugstore with a soda shop, the theatre "Iowa" with the large neon sign, and the Masonic lodge (Wayne was a Mason by the way). The main street in Winterset is John Wayne Drive.

As I left Winterset and headed west, I could see how the Saints 161 years ago must have felt as they slogged across Iowa, just about this time of year. The hundreds of streams and creeks that furrow this land....all the mud. They stopped and built many substantial bridges that were used for many years by the later settlers of Iowa. Such beautiful farms now. The lowest gas prices on the trip so far are in Iowa. A John Deere agency in every town. Flat country, but no sign of a tornado so far.

As I approached Council Bluffs (Kanesville for the Mormons), about 8 or 10 miles out I passed the edges and entered the area of what was in late summer 1846 the "Grand Encampment" that stretched all the way in to the Missouri River. This was the gathering place of the Saints in small groups that stretched for 10 miles on the edge of Iowa. Later these groups massed in today's Florence, Nebraska and built Winter Quarters for the winter of 1846-47. Winter Quarters was occupied by the Saints until 1852, then abandoned. I passed through Council Bluffs on the Iowa side (there are actual river bluffs, hence the name), then swung west, crossed the Missouri River on Mormon Memorial Bridge, and at the first exit in Nebraska, left the freeway at Florence. The Winter Quarters site is just as I imagined it. Of course, all of the log cabins are long gone, but the grid of the town is flat and the later streets appear to follow the alignment of the original settlement. You go up the original road to a small hill to the west, and there sits the new Mormon Trail Center, a pioneer cemetery, and the new Winter Quarters Temple, all very beautiful and peaceful. The exhibits in the Center are first-class. If no one else is going to tell our story, I guess we have to do it - but of course, maybe we don't WANT someone else telling our story. For some reason, they never seem to get it right. Oh yes, welcome to Nebraska (State #8).

By going north to Florence, I actually bypassed Omaha. I could see the downtown in the distance as I headed west. Went through Lincoln (University of Nebraska), and checked out the SAC Museum nearby. Stayed near Grand Island for the night.

University Row

I feel like I should be given an honorary college degree. I already passed close to the campuses of the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State University (Columbus), University of Dayton, and today:

University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana
Illinois State University Bloomington
Bradley University Peoria
University of Iowa Iowa City

Anyway, I passed all the way through Illinois today (State #6) and into soggy Iowa (more about that later).

Illinois is full of a lot of fairly large cities with no skylines. They jump out at you as you cross the prairie. And, other than Chicago, they are under the radar. I was very impressed by the new, just-completed freeway renovation in Peoria. I have always wondered why, since we are already spending billions to do this stuff, why not add a few little touches to make they unique and attractive. Well, it appears someone decided to do that in Peoria. Black railings and street lights, unusual and attractive overpass supports, retro-style lights at the ends of the bridges, rock accents - again, I was very impressed. I stopped in Galesburg for lunch and a quick stop at the birthplace of Carl Sandburg.

Reached the Mississippi in the early afternoon and crossed at Quad Cities. Okay - today's geography question - name the four "quad cities". I have been through this area before, having visited the John Deere World HQ and Museum in Moline on one of my prior trips. One of the best company stores in the world. Rock Island is a still-active military installation that has been used as an armory for decades. It was one of the North's answers to Andersonville, housing thousands of Rebel soldiers during the Civil War.

Welcome to Iowa (State #7) - they have been having a little rain lately and evidence of it was everywhere. It was a beautiful day for me, but over the last week they have had a huge amount of rain and all the rivers are running at flood stage. The corn fields are soggy and covered with puddles. The farmers are not able to plant their corn, and since this is the ethanol year when record amounts of corn was going to be planted - what are they going to do now?

I was really getting tired as I drove into Iowa, so I stopped to wake myself up at the Herbert Hoover NHS (not a popular one, I don't think). It has his birth home (white house below) and his presidential library, and is located in West Branch, Iowa. After passing through Iowa City (University of Iowa), I drove through several of the Amana Colony towns. Very unique. These German colonies were founded in the 1800's and have been preserved (the street below is in Amana, Iowa) - a little too perfect and preserved I thought - kind of like living in Disneyland in a way. But worth the visit. Stopped for the night in Grinnell, Iowa.

Aviation History

Was up early and on my way. First, I stopped by one of the visitor centers for the Dayton Aviation National Historic Park. It is made up of a number of aviation-related sites commemorating aviation history in the Dayton area. After their flight in North Carolina, the Wright Brothers returned to Dayton and their business enterprise (bicycles), but devoted much of their time trying to develop a plane that could not only fly, but would be practical. They used a vacant field near Dayton to test their ideas, in time developing a plane that accomplished their goal. The movie on the Wright Brothers in the Center was exceptional, one of the best I have seen at a national site (and I have seen many).

The Wright Brother's Memorial next to the DANHP visitor center. What a beautiful spot on a beautiful day!


The area, known as Huffman Prairie Flying Field, where the Brothers tested their planes. It is called the first airport in the world.

The big presence in Dayton, employing 13,000 people, is Wright-Patterson AFB. It is a huge, sprawling facility, and on its grounds is the United States Air Force Museum. A fabulous facility, with hundreds of airplanes and exhibits. I could have spend all day walking around, but had to hurry more than I would have liked. It is rumored that the remains of the aliens from the Roswell Incident were brought here for analysis - didn't see any of that in the Museum.

While they were developing their airplanes, the Wright Brothers financed their activities with their successful bicycle business. The shop has been restored quite nicely. Interestingly enough, one of the reasons they chose Huffman Prairie was the trolley car line that went by their home, and to the end of the line at Huffman Prairie, eight miles away. That way, they could travel daily by trolley, using the public transportation to carry their tools and materials to the flying area.

Crossed into Indiana after leaving Dayton (hello State #5). I really think that Indiana is the crossroads of the nation - I have never seen so many trucks. They probably know something about the shortest routes across the United States. I liked Indianapolis. Clean and things happening. Made a quick stop at the President Benjamin Harrison Home and the Indianapolis Speedway. The speedway opened today for the beginning of the trials and testing for the 500 (the race is on May 27). I was surprised by how big it is - I thought that only parts of it had grandstands, but the entire huge area is rimmed by very large bleachers. It must hold hundreds of thousands of people. I am going to add it to my "future things to go to" list.

It was a fun day crossing Indiana. Flat and rural. Beautiful farms. Country music blaring in my ears. I got a room in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Nice steak dinner - yummmmmm.

Crossing the Ohio River

It took me awhile to find the Church here (it is a little more spread out than I am used to), but did find a building in Washington, PA. Crossed three major rivers this morning, the Youghiogheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio. The Youghiogheny empties into the Monongahela a bit upstream from my crossing and the Monongahela joins with the Allegheny to form the Ohio at Pittsburgh. The Ohio then swings southward to where I crossed it at Wheeling. The big rivers in this area form deep cuts in the land, so you know as you approach one, as you enter a gorge. Just after Washington, back on I-70 now, I crossed into West Virginia (State #3). It was a short passage, as I was in the narrow northern spike of the state.

At the western edge of the spike sits Wheeling, on the Ohio River, the river forming the boundary between West Virginia and Ohio. There is a very pretty bridge connecting the states at Wheeling and a lot of barge traffic in the river. Wheeling reminds me of Moline and St. Joseph, similar size and set in a cut on a major river. An old feel to it, with lots of brick buildings and tied to a bridge.

Welcome to Ohio (State #4). A beautiful day. Followed I-70 across Ohio, through Cambridge, Zanesville, and on into Columbus, home of Ohio State University. The freeway here follows the route (pretty much all the way through Illinois) of the famous "National Road", originally authorized by Thomas Jefferson. This part of the freeway also overlaps one of my earlier wanderings, as I was here at the end of our Niagara Falls\New York trip. I like the feel of Columbus - it seems to have direction and some degree of prosperity. A very pretty downtown skyline. It is located at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers.

I continued on I-70 to Dayton. I meant to arrive early enough to see the USAF Museum and the Wright Brothers sites, so I could get a few more miles under my belt, but got there just as they were closing. Managed a tour of Dayton, trying to find a suitable place to stay for the night. Dayton has a much different feel to it - a city struggling to find an identity for itself, lots of vacant manufacturing capacity, and many, many old homes. Dayton also sits at the confluence of several large rivers, where the Stillwater and the Mad Rivers form the Great Miami.

Pennsylvania

I had a too-quick visit with the soon-to-be Seattle Anderton's, dropped Jon off at the airport, and I was on my way in the early afternoon.

Starting point - Baltimore, Maryland (State #1). Not quite, but nearly as far east as you can get in the United States. Maybe I should drive up to Cape Cod or Maine, so that I can get more miles between me and Washington? Beginning mileage on speedometer: 90120. Kind of a cloudy cold day.

I headed out I-70 westward through Frederick and Hagerstown, and into the hills. Maryland narrows as you head westward, at one point being just a few miles wide, then it widens again into its western panhandle. At the bottleneck sets Hancock, and here I-70 juts north into Pennsylvania, where I crossed into State #2.

I-70 veers east toward Somerset and Pittsburgh. At Somerset, I left the freeway and wandered around some rural roads trying to find the United 93 Memorial. The signage was not the best, but I finally found it around 430pm. I was surprised to find it still sits on private land (I thought it had been purchased by now for the NHS), on what was clearly a fairly recent coal excavation site. It had been strip-mined and after restored to the contours of the surrounding countryside. There is a makeshift parking lot and a small shed, but other than that no improvements. Someone erected a section of fence, where people have placed every manner of personal item - hats, fireman jackets, t-shirts, banners, etc. There are handmade painted signs, rocks, coins, crosses, and almost every conceivable type of artifact scattered about, all with writing of some kind expressing grief or lauding the heroism of the passengers of Flight 93. I talked to the person watching over the site and 1) they have stored over 30,000 more items (other than the ones currently out in the open) for future use in a visitor's center and 2) over 175,000 people visited this spot last year and that number may double this year. It is an eerie place. Quiet. There were many people there with me and no one spoke. The wind was blowing and that is all you could hear. The flight path of the plane was over the memorial and toward the small flag and trees in the distance. The plane came to rest near the hemlocks.

I crossed the Laurel Ridge (crossing paths with one of my earlier trips - F.L. Wright's Fallingwater is near here) and spent the night west of Pittsburgh. The roads in this part of the country do NOT go in straight lines. At every successive mountain ridge (that generally run to the southwest, the road must search out the "notches" created by rivers or some other natural force. That is why the road maps look so unusual in Pennsylvania. I stayed in Latrobe, the home and birthplace of Arnold Palmer.

Transcontinental Journey - Phase I

Jon begins his new job in Seattle on Monday. He was going to rent a car until he could get his two cars, family, and belongings across the country next month. Cher is staying in Baltimore and finishing the packing, while the kids finish the school year. Then, we (Jon, Cher, and I) were going to drive the whole schebang to Seattle the first week of June. As we talked about it, it occurred to us that maybe I ought to fly back now and drive one of the cars for Jon to use and thus save the rental costs. He could use my car in Seattle until I arrive and we could then just switch. How do you decide to drive 3000+ miles on the spur of the moment? Well, maybe it is one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. It does make sense logistically, and perhaps it is better undertaken WITHOUT thinking about it too much. Then multiply it by two in the space of a month and....and....and....am I perhaps losing my mind? Time will tell. I drove to Seattle last night and caught a Southwest flight to Baltimore, via Chicago Midway. I got into BWI at about 8:30pm Eastern, and Jon and kids were there waiting for me as I rolled my bags out of the airport.

It was a glorious day to fly across the country. I had a window seat and as we crossed West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the light was hitting the Alleghenies just right and it was spectacular. I love how those mountains go northeast-southwest in orderly rows, with all the roads and towns tucked in the furrows. We live in a beautiful country.

Getting Some Things Done

After KR got back from Utah, we were determined to get some things done on our TO DO lists. Do you have those? Those lists that no matter how many things you get done, they seem to grow longer. The key is to focus and take things off faster than you add them. We are going to do that this summer. We FINALLY found some deck furniture we liked and you can see the cute model showing the end result. Now we can enjoy those wonderful Spring and Fall evenings outside. We did wonder why the sales clerk laughed under his breath though when he told us there was some assembly required - that was a lot of small screws and mighty small allen wrenches for these stubby fingers

I finished the redo of the watering system in the garden box. It now has a better hard-wired timer in the garage (thanks Monte for the help) and permanent tubing that moves to smaller hoses to water each plant. And the pressure is great. No more worrying about the vegetables drying out. I also spent a lot of time on my hands and knees checking and fixing all of the irrigation hoses in the front two beds and cutting back the trees. They were getting very shaggy. Notice the two new pots for annuals. Finally, I spent two days on the rock fall area under the back kitchen window installing permanent sprinklers (there was no water there before for plants) and planting 15 new perennials to add some color to that area. It looks so much better.

Last but not least, the safe I have always wanted, and found at the home show, was delivered this week. We had to figure out where to put it, finally settling on the downstairs office. Now if we only had some valuables to put in it!