Pandemic Diaries - Year 2 Weeks #13 & #14

 6 June 2021

 

We've been driving from New Jersey to our home base in Bellingham, Washington.  The total distance is roughly 2955 miles, or 4755 km.  This map shows our route.  Basically, we stayed with major interstates and tried to avoid large cities so that we wouldn't need to drive through traffic congestion.

Of course, in summer we ended up driving through a lot of road work, which slowed us down a bit.  What can you do, right?  Just slow down and go with the flow.

 

So, we spent three days in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (outside Philadelphia) for the Bar Mitzvah.  We then drove from Swarthmore to Hershey (red line), and stayed in Hershey for 4 days.  Drove from Hershey to Lancaster (tiny orange route) where we stayed another three days for the Bat Mitzvah and more family events.  

 

Yes, we saw several Amish horse and buggies in the Lancaster region, as well as four beautifully matched horses pulling a plough through a farm.  I also ate an apple dumpling a few times, a traditional Amish food - it's a peeled apple mixed with sugar and cinnamon, wrapped in pie crust, and baked.  Like a personal-size spherical apple pie.  Always served with milk, but I don't like wet crust or bread, so I just drank the milk.

 

Then the arduous driving began, and we basically took turns driving to try to maximize our time and distance each day.  Lancaster, PA to Cambridge, Ohio (yellow), Cambridge to Bloomington, Illinois (green), Bloomington to Stuart, Iowa (blue), Stuart to North Platte, Nebraska (purple), North Platte to Wheatland, Wyoming (red), Wheatland to Sheridan, Wyoming (orange), and Sheridan to  Bozeman, Montana (yellow).  Whew!  

We managed to drive somewhere between 250 to 440 miles each day.  And we only got lost once!  We have no idea what happened in Indianapolis, but we somehow we either missed a major turn onto a connecting highway, or Interstate 70 just disappeared.  Well, we doubt it's the latter, since we stopped at a gas station and got directions back to I-70.  But seriously, we were merrily driving along, and suddenly found ourselves in the city instead of on the highway.  It was insane!  Oh well, getting lost just one time during a 2955 miles drive isn't too bad.  Especially given my track record.

Anyway, we tried to make time through the central prairie states, knowing that the geography (gentle rolling hills or flat prairie) made for easy driving.  We stopped in small towns or smaller cities, since they're easier to navigate, and are more fun to visit.  

In spring, the prairie is green and lush.  As we headed further north, we saw more and more flowing trees and bushes still in bloom - spring comes late to some of the northern states.  It really was a beautiful drive, even if some of the driving become rather monotonous and boring after a few hours.  We stopped at various rest areas, some of which were interesting.  I especially liked the ones in Nebraska - several had great art, including a metal sculpture out back.  Another had murals inside the rest area building, and a frieze on the exterior that featured various boats often seen on the Platte River.  Really great public art!

We always learn new geographic facts as we travel, even across the US.  Somehow it never registered that Nebraska is adjacent to Wyoming, but, well, they are.  One of those surprising fact.  Also, Wyoming has a wonderful state flag featuring a bison!!!  The American bison is their state mammal, so that seems very consistent. 

 

On our drive to Bozeman, we passed Little Bighorn - site of General Custer's last stand, where he miscalculated and made all sorts of tactical errors from the military point of view, and where a confederation of Lakota and Cheyenne Native Americans killed all but one of the US soldiers.   People can visit the site of the battlefield, but we only spent a little time there.  

 

The whole place is rather depressing, actually.  There are the graves of the military persons killed there.  There are the graves of the Crow guides who were assisting the military.  There are graves of unnamed soldiers, which really is even more depressing.  

 

Eventually the site was established as a national monument as well as a national cemetery, so other people in the region were buried here as well, including women and children who were either related to soldiers or lived in the various developing towns.  Military personnel can still be buried here, as well as their families.  Their website: www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm

Since we were there the day before Memorial Day, flags had been added to each grave.  It made for interesting visuals, but the waves of gravestones and flags continuing over the rolling hills seemed endless.  As if there were a never-ending supply of people to die in the name of country, or military aggression, or expansionism, or something, depending on your point of view and which side you're on during any given battle.  (Writing this on D-Day makes our impressions of Little Bighorn even more poignant.)  I just kept thinking that seeing all those graves, all that death, should somehow prevent continuing wars.  All those war-deaths just made the whole thing seem so pointless.

We both felt that the whole place was emotionally oppressive, so we didn't stay long.  We headed back toward the highway and stopped at the "trading post" there for lunch.  It was rather touristy, with various colored teepees out front, but it was also interesting.  While I usually don't take photos of food, I had to take a picture of my "Indian taco."  This is basically a regular taco on top of traditional Native American fry bread.  If you've never had fry bread, it's pretty much what it sounds like - something like bread dough (probably without the yeast) shaped into a large flat round and deep fried.  Really tasty, though likely not the healthiest option.  But the Indian taco is really delicious, and huge.  Richard had never had fry bread, so I gave him a large chunk.  We also had a nice chat with our waiter, a young man who is Crow.  We always enjoy talking to people about their culture, so between the yummy food and talking to him, our spirits were definitely lifted.

We continued on, and ended up in Bozeman, Montana, for three days.  We were there on Memorial Day, it was crowded, things were slow.  The following day we went to Yellowstone National Park, but that deserves a separate blog post.  (Yes, Yellowstone is mostly in Wyoming - but there's a northwest entrance not far from Bozeman, so we opted for that route.)

So our trip from Bozeman to Kellogg, Idaho (green) was through various mountain passes, with all the gorgeous snow-capped peaks and purple mountain majesties.  It all was picture postcard beautiful, although the actual drive took all our concentration with the ups and downs and twists and turns.  But gorgeous scenery surrounding us.

We spent one night in Kellogg, Idaho - for ski enthusiasts, this is the town near Silver Mountain ski area.  We were finally back in evergreen-covered hills, a sight that always brings relief to my eyes and mind.  The next day, we continued on to Yakima, Washington (blue), where my middle brother and his family live.  We're spending four days here, both going through our stuff in the storage unit and culling items, as well as hanging out with family we haven't seen in almost two years.  Our long absence was more due to being stranded on the east coast during the pandemic than due to our travels - it's been quite a year for everyone.

Tomorrow, we drive from Yakima to Bellingham (last purple), our home base.  We'll spend the summer there, doing our normal medical checkups and following through with any additional stuff our doctors recommend.  Such is life past 60-ish.  We'll also see my youngest brother and his family, and all my friends who now live in the Seattle area.  It should be a fun time, despite the continuing Covid restrictions.  I know, many regions of the country are more opened up, but Washington has had a hard time.  They were one of the first states to have a serious Covid problem, and there have been periodic outbreaks due to the living conditions for agricultural workers.  Seems so wrong, somehow - agricultural workers were deemed essential workers, but the living conditions provided for season workers in this essential industry are so crowded that they promote regional outbreaks of this disease.  To the point that farm workers were among the first to be vaccinated in this state.

Anyway, we'll enjoy summer in Bellingham, the best season to be there.  We have no plans at this point for life after September or so.  We both have ideas of what we could do, where we might want to go.  But if we've learned anything through this year of pandemicking, it's that things change.  Life isn't always in our control.  Things happen, plans change, and you can't always get what you want.

We'll figure it out as we go.  Not much else we can do.

As always, we'll try to have a good time, whatever we do and wherever we end up living for the winter.