San Francisco to Mt. Rushmore and Back!

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2009-07-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well, that about concludes our blog. Today we drove from Las Vegas to Bakersfield and stopped for the night. We ate at our favorite - California Pizza Kitchen. We'll head out tomorrow morning and stop in Gilroy to do some shopping before getting home. As fun as it is to be out visiting different cities, it's nice to go home too.

Thanks for following our blog.

Marc, Ellen, & Ethan

Green River to Las Vegas

2009-07-11T22:32:00.001-07:00

Today we were headed from Green River to Las Vegas, and it was a very long drive. We broke it up as much as possible, but there really is a lot of open space between the two cities. We made it all the way to Saint George and had lunch at one of our favorite burger restaurants - Red Robin. The food was great, it hit the spot, and we were on our way again...

We made it to Las Vegas by 3:00 since we had a time change as we passed through to Nevada. Actually our route popped us into Arizona for about half an hour, then on to Nevada. We caught the corner of Arizona, but it looked the same as Utah and Nevada!

When we arrived we quickly took to the strip and walked through many of the hotels. We stayed in the Mirage, so we walked first to Caesars Palace which is right next door. The forum shops are always fun to walk through, especially when it's 104 degrees outside!

Once we covered all of the forum shops, we headed next door again and viewed the Bellagio. What a beautiful hotel, both inside and out. We chose their buffet to eat at since it's rated as the best in Vegas. It did not disappoint and we all left so full and so content!

By this time the sun was set and we walked along the strip looking at the sites. The Bellagio water show is excellent, and the Paris's version of the Eiffel Tower is pretty close to Paris :-)

We finished up the night by walking around the Venice hotel, then watching the volcano erupt at the Mirage. It was a VERY tiring night and we all will sleep well.

Hotel: Mirage Hotel - As expected the room is very nice. Check-in was fairly quick. Hotel is sold-out due to a fight. Vegas is packed. Everything about the hotel is fine, but the bathroom could be a little bigger.

Denver to Green River, UT

2009-07-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

Today was a very light sightseeing day as we got a late start from Denver. It was so nice to just sit and talk to Debbie since it was her day off of work. We eventually left around 10:45 and headed out for a long driving day (for us). The beginning of the drive takes you up over the mountains with passes of 11,000+ feet. Very high! On the way down we stopped in Vail and had lunch, walked around, and took in the sites.

Vail is really a beautiful little town and I can imagine what it's like in the winter with snow covering the streets and skiers finishing their day of skiing. We lounged for a bit, and then headed on our way. The next stop took us to Grand Junction where we took a quick pitstop mainly for gas (and some chips for the ride). Most of the drive by this time is really nice. The mountains change to plateaus, and the colors are just wonderful.

We made it all the way to Green River, Utah and were a bit concerned about the hotel we booked. There are such limited choices, but it was better than trying to make it all the way to Vegas in one drive (that would be about 11 hours). We arrived around 6:30, checked in, relaxed a bit, then headed out for dinner. No dinner choices to really talk about, but we had a quick sandwich and headed back to relax and talk about our day.

Tomorrow we are headed to Las Vegas and the kids are really excited to see the lights at night! Ethan is looking forward to a good buffet as he's getting quite picky about the restaurants that he chooses :-)

Hotel: Holiday Inn Express - Definitely worth booking. Very nice, new, clean rooms. Good bathrooms. One step down from the Hilton Garden Inn, but the room is really great. Other hotels in the town don't look 1/2 as good.

Denver

2009-07-09T06:28:00.000-07:00

After being on the road for so many days, we really needed a day to just relax and get some rest. Denver was perfect for that! We woke up late, lounged around the house, and finally left around noon to head to downtown to see what the city was like. We heard that the aquarium was a nice place to visit, so off we went...

I think that overall we are spoiled when it comes to aquariums since we live so close to the Monterey Bay aquarium, which is one of the best in the world. This one was more targeted to younger kids, and seemed more like a theme park than an aquarium. It was still fun walking around, but I seriously could not figure out the connection between a tiger and an aquarium. Granted I am not a science teacher, but I'm pretty sure that tigers are not part of the aquatic life.

After our stroll through the aquarium, we headed down to the 16th street area which is part of their historic downtown. I must say that Denver has one of the largest "nice" parts of their city. There were so many blocks in each direction, all with great stores, restaurants, and nice people. It was great to walk around such a nice city. We popped in for lunch at the Corner Bakery, which seems to be a chain in this area. We equate it to a Panera's or Le Boulanger, but Ellen claims it's much better! I think she was just hungry.

After lunch we took their free shuttle down a few blocks to 14th street. We had heard that they had a gelato store that was the best in the world. Well, maybe not the world, but really good! We were not disappointed when we tried the samples at Gelazzi, and then chose some of our favorites to eat. It was nice to sit outside, watch people walk by, and enjoy some good gelato.

Believe it or not, by now it was almost 6:00 and we were going to meet Reagan and Debbie for dinner. We chose California Pizza Kitchen as we missed their food. There was one located near Reagan's office, so we headed south out of town and met them all there for a nice dinner. We finished off the night at home, talking until much later than we should have. I know Reagan looked tired, and he had to work the next day! We also had a long drive for us (5 hours), but it was so great to catch up with friends that I had not seen for so long.

Tomorrow we are headed to Green River, Utah. It's a half-way point between here and Vegas. We'll make stops on the way, if there are any!

Casper, WY to Denver, CO

2009-07-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

Today was really a light day and we had little planned other than the drive from Casper to Denver. The kids needed a rest, so we all slept late and did not leave until about 10:30. The drive south through Wyoming is uneventful with a lot of empty land used for farming. Seriously, it seems that Wyoming is one big empty state that is used to grow hay. It's beautiful to me, but the kids find it pretty uninteresting!

They were able to keep themselves amused for most of the ride playing hang-man. You can really pass a lot of time with that game.

We arrived in Cheyenne for a late lunch and really had no idea where to eat. Cheyenne is the largest city in the state and houses the capital building. We drove through their downtown area, past their capital building, and stopped in their historic downtown. It seems that most cities around here have historic downtown areas.

We recognized a restaurant that we ate at in another city (a small chain), and went in to use their facilities. None of us were excited about eating there, so we headed out for a walk around the blocks. Across the street was Pizzeria Venti that we walked into last as we thought it was just a pizza place. It turns out that it was an excellent restaurant that could have been in any southern Italy town. They had so many different "pizza" dishes that all looked so great.

When we walked in, an older woman treated us like she was our grandmother and started telling us what each of the different foods were. She really sold us on staying, and we're so glad we did. This was one of the best meals we had on our trip and we encourage you to stop by Cheyenne to eat there!

After lunch we headed south towards Denver. Actually Debbie and Reagan's house is in Parker, not in Denver, and this adds a bit more onto the drive since it's a suburb south of the city. As we drove through Denver we had a sort of culture shock. We've been in small towns for the past week and seeing such a huge city with so much traffic really shocked us. We arrived at their house after stopping for a car wash that was long overdue. It feels good to get all of the bugs off of the front of the car, as we probably had collected 1000's of them along our drive.

Their neighborhood is filled with houses that, quite frankly, we have never seen before in California. When I say large, it really does not represent the size and beauty of these homes. It almost makes you want to move to the area, but it's hard to give up California weather!

Gary and Tammy came over shortly after we arrived and we spent the night chatting about some old times and new times. All of the kids got along great (there were 6 of them total), and they ended up playing until around midnight when Gary and his family left. It was terrific to see everyone after so long.

Oh, one thing that I forgot to mention is that Reagan and Debbie actually have a slide in their house. Can you say unique? It provided hours of fun for the kids.

We don't have any firm plans for tomorrow in Denver yet. We will head to their downtown area, see some of the big sites, and then meet with Reagan and Debbie for dinner as they will be working all day. They've really made us feel at home here in Denver, and we appreciate it very much.

Mt. Rushmore to Casper, WY

2009-07-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up relatively early and headed off North to the town of Deadwood. Ellen chose this town from the list of places that we wanted to see around Mt. Rushmore and it sounded great to all of us. It's a good hour or more from Mt. Rushmore, but since we were staying in Rapid City it was only about a 40 minute drive.

The city is a really charming old town that has been restored very well. Once you arrive, you quickly love the look of it and just want to walk around and look at all of the buildings and the stores that have since taken them over from saloons and banks. Since we did not eat any breakfast at the hotel, we chose the Buffalo SteakHouse Saloon which served up big breakfasts for all of us.

Now that we were all fueled up, we wandered from store to store. There are quite a few casinos here, most of which had some kind of theme or had restored the original buildings so well. It almost felt as if you were walking around in the late 1800's or early 1900's. Very fun!

Looking down the street you can see the old architecture of the buildings, and as you approach each one it displays it's original purpose and when it was built. Granted most are now taken by small shops selling touristy stuff or by restaurants, but it still retains it's charm.

At the end of the block (and over one street), there is a great museum. The Adams Museum has so much stuff from the time when this town was a thriving mining town. Ellen spent so much time in there after Ethan and I already finished the three floors. She was reading everything! She really loves those "Wanted" posters, as they were originals from the 1800's.

The rest of the town is filled with all kinds of funny signs (many of which are real of course). You cannot help but love to wander around and look at everything.

After wandering around for hours, we headed up to the Broken Boot Gold Mine which is only about 5 minutes outside of town. This gold mine was a real gold mine that has long since been closed. They now give tours of it and provide you with some information on the reality of gold mining. The tour is only about 30 minutes which is a great length for us! The only downside was that the mine smells of sulfur, but that only seemed to bother Ethan.

As you can see from the entrance, you actually walk into the original opening of the mine. Granted they fixed it up to look better, but you really are walking in where they entered to do their mining.

Inside the mine it's quite dark and about 68 degrees. It's refreshing in there in the summertime! You were allowed to take any of the rocks you found inside the cave, but it did not seem like there were any leftover hunks of gold to be found!

After the tour, the kids opted to "pan for gold." They provide you with pans and a bag full of rocks and dirt and teach you the technique to separate the gold from the rock. I think Ethan had better skills since he ended up with about twice as much gold flake as Ellen. Maybe mining is in his future?

By this time it was already mid-afternoon and we wanted to head down to Casper, Wyoming to stay for the night. There's really not much to see on the way, but we had to stop for a very late lunch and we decided on a small restaurant in Gillette, Wyoming. Granny's Kitchen was the lucky restaurant for us, and Granny served up some good soup and chili for me. I don't think we met Granny as our waitress seemed a bit young.

According to our travel book Gillette is the second wealthiest city in Wyoming. This surprised us since the town is tiny and not that nice. It consists of a few blocks of shops, and some industrial areas. We asked Granny (well our waitress at the restaurant) why it was so wealthy. Apparently they have tons of coal and oil! Maybe this really was Granny! Jed and Jethro are somewhere in the back cooking the food :-)

After moving on, we drove for a few hours and saw absolutely nothing other than farmland. Not even tiny houses along the way all the way down to Casper. It's amazing just how much of Wyoming is nothing but farmland that farms hay. Those cows really eat a lot of hay!

After arriving in Casper we checked in and headed downtown to have some dinner at a recommended Italian restaurant. All of us enjoyed our dinners at Botticelli's and would highly recommend it to others.

We wrapped up the night with some rummy and relaxed with t.v. Tomorrow we are headed to Denver via Cheyenne. It's a long drive, but I'm looking forward to seeing Reagan and Gary along with their families. From memory it's been about 14 years since I saw any of them. Wow, how time flies. I'm really getting old!

Hotel: Garden Inn, Casper - Excellent as usual. Feels like home. Seems brand new! Highly recommended.

Sheridan to Mt. Rushmore

2009-07-06T21:18:00.001-07:00

Today was a packed day of traveling and sightseeing! We headed out early from Sheridan as we wanted to spend almost the whole day today near Mount Rushmore. We drove without stopping, and it went by quickly as we entered South Dakota for the first time.

We went directly to Mount Rushmore since I really wanted to see it. There is something about seeing in real life what you have seen in pictures many times. Well, it looked exactly like we all expected, but we also agreed that it looked smaller. Now, just as a reference point the nose on a president is about 20 feet, so they are big. However, they don't look as huge as you would imagine when you're standing at the base.

We grabbed lunch there since we wanted to head over to the Crazy Horse Memorial. The first thing that hit us was the cost to get in. I don't consider myself a cheap traveler, but $27 for the three of us? Come on, this is a national park area. Anyway, we're glad we did not turn around. The Crazy Horse Memorial is a work-in-progress and will be the worlds largest sculpture once it is completed (assuming it gets completed). You must click on the picture below to get the zoomed version, and then you will see the face of Crazy Horse to the left of Ellen's head. The final sculpture will have him on his horse and will be huge! It was really incredible to see.

In addition to the sculpture, they had tons of Indian arts and crafts housed in great galleries. They also had a lot of memorabilia from the times of the Indians. It was fun to walk around, talk to the local artists, and glance up at the huge sculpture on the hill.

We then headed off to Jewel Cave National Monument. This was probably one of the highlights of the trip as we will all remember it so well. Jewel Cave is the 2nd largest cave in the United States and has over 140 miles of documented passages inside. The park rangers give tours all through the day, and it pays to make a reservation before coming.

We did not make a reservation in advance, but got very lucky to take a lantern tour about 30 minutes after we arrived. Ranger Laura greeted us and gave us a 1 1/2 hour tour and lecture that was great. We headed into the cave which is pitch dark carrying old oil burning lanterns. For those of you that never used an old oil burning lantern, they don't throw much light at all, however once we were in the cave for a little bit, our eyes adjusted and the amount of light was sufficient. We headed straight down ladders and uneven steps in the dark. It seemed as if we headed a mile straight down, but in reality it was not that far. The total round-trip distance inside the cave was only about 1/2 a mile, but was very cool!

We were able to all turn out our lanterns in a large cavern underground and see what total darkness looks like. We also learned about the formation of the cave, as well as some very interesting stories that Ranger Laura told as we were going through the cave. If you do go, which we highly recommend, make sure you dress warm - it's about 49 degrees in there!

We were exhausted from the day and went to downtown for a dinner at the Firehouse Brewery. A fair meal in a very neat restaurant. Tomorrow we are headed off to Deadwood, a mammoth burial site, and hopefully to a goldmine. Then we will head south towards Denver, stopping somewhere along the way.

Hotel: Grand Gateway Hotel. We rate this hotel a 6 out of 10. There are almost no business hotels in this area and the picking is slim. The hotel is clean, but outdated. Best of the ones to choose from in our opinion, but we didn't see the insides of other hotels in the area.

2009-07-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

Today we had our longest drive yet for the trip with over 300 miles to be covered. The beginning of the drive took us up through Northern Yellowstone which offered great scenery, but windy roads. After we hit the interstate 90 and headed all the way through Montana, it was pretty much flat or rolling hills of farmland.

Since this was the longest drive so far, the kids had to keep themselves amused with no computer, tv, or video games. Ellen usually entertained or bothered us during the trip as seen here.

We stopped briefly at Bozeman to relax in Barnes & Noble and grab a coffee at Starbucks. Ethan rushed over to the Manga section and Ellen headed over to the girlie-teenager-book section. After about a half an hour of reading, we headed on, trying to make it to Billings for lunch. Billings was actually a pretty nice city and we stopped in for a healthy lunch at this Salad Creations restaurant. We wish we had them in California!

After lunch it was time to head on to Sheridan, but we took a brief stop to get some history at Little Bighorn. From what we gathered at the monument, this is where Custer made his last stand and had his butt kicked by the Indians. It was a tragic battle for our army, but given the poor treatment to the Indians, it's not surprising. It was good to see that the information presented was not biased and pretty much said that both sides fought for what they thought was right.

The black headstone is Custers. The rest are the few hundred soldiers that were killed during this battle.

As mentioned, we spanned West to East, then dropped down into Wyoming. This was an excellent welcome sign, one of the nicest we saw on our trip!

By the time we got in, it was nearing dinner time, so we headed to their old downtown area. This downtown definitely topped the old-town of Idaho Falls. Unfortunately it is Sunday evening and mostly everything was closed.

We chose Sanfords Grub and Pub for our dinner selection and the kids ate really healthy choosing salads. I, on the other hand, had a platter of fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. I guess I'll have to work-out extra hard upon our return.

On the way back to the hotel we spotted this really nice old fashioned locomotive. I'm not sure what it signifies, and we didn't bother to go up to read the plaque, but it makes for a great picture.

We wrapped up the night with some rummy and some planning of the sites we will be seeing tomorrow as we head to Mount Rushmore! It seems to be about a four hour drive from here. Wow, is Mount Rushmore far!!!

Hotel: Wingate Hotel by Wyndham. Rooms are big and clean. Bathroom is big, nice, and clean. We rate it a 9.

Yellowstone National Park

2009-07-04T21:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a full day devoted just to Yellowstone. Although we saw many things in the park yesterday, we were eager to see a lot more today. We started out with a huge breakfast at the ranch, and then headed into the West Entrance early. We quickly saw bison all over the place! One of them decided to wander across the street just one car in front of us. They really do look huge when you are up close to them.

The big bison are pretty imposing, but the babies are so cute. At some places there were baby bison everywhere. This one was just to the side of us and looked so nice and peaceful.

We then headed over to the area of Old Faithful and parked near the Old Faithful hotel which I would stay at the next time I come to Yellowstone. The location as well as the look of the hotel is great. There was a very cool car parked outside that deserved a picture!

And of course there's Old Faithful that is impressive to see no matter how many times you saw it before. You can see what it looks like "normally" with just a little bit of steam coming out, and then you can see it at it's best. Oh, if you're wondering how we know when Old Faithful is going to do it's show, you just walk inside the hotel and look on the board that shows the approximate time for the next show!

There was a nice 2.8 mile hike to Morning Glory that we all wanted to take. So, we set out on the way and for the entire hike you get to see tiny geysers, some of which just steam, some of which bubble, and some of which just smell!

When you finally get to Morning Glory, it is worth the hike. It's a beautiful pond looking thing that has super hot water (boiling) and incredible colors. There is no real way to describe it, and hopefully the pictures can paint a good picture.

Even Ellen looks more beautiful standing next to it :-)

We then decided to drive the entire loop around the inside of the park. Once we went further south, the scenery changed pretty dramatically. There is a huge lake that wraps around the south east corner of the drive. We stopped off at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel to have a view and a quick lunch.

The drive up and back to the West Entrance was quite long, but pretty. There were deer in many places along the drive, and we stopped a couple of times to take pictures and look at the scenery that was passing by.

After a hard day of hiking and driving, there's nothing better than some Mooseberry's ice cream for a snack. The ice cream place only has two flavors (chocolate and vanilla) and tons of toppings that they then blend into your ice cream. The result is your own flavor of tasty ice cream.

After a snack we needed a rest and found a nice bear bench to sit down on. The downtown area at the West Entrance is really a nice little mountain town. We walked in and out of the small shops looking at the souvenirs that they sell.

We wrapped up this day with a dinner in the downtown area, a few games of rummy (which Ethan won one of) and a movie. Tomorrow is a very long driving day as we have to make it all the way to Sheridan, Wyoming. Mount Rushmore is really far away, and we're eager to see a lot of the attractions surrounding it.

Hotel: Bar-N-Ranch - We were expecting much more from this hotel than what it delivered. First, the pro's - great breakfast, great ambiance, great staff. Con's - Room was smaller than expected. Bathroom is not as modern as expected (small leak in sink, no water pressure in shower, changing water temperatures in shower, plus very small and low shower). Restaurant is for high-end diners, yet there are a lot of kids who stay there. Almost no TV stations (I think we got one), though they had a large selection of DVD's. Distance from park is as advertised (6 miles to west entrance), but most of the sites that first-time tourists want to see in Yellowstone are about 40 minutes inside the entrance. We would have opted to stay at the Old Faithful Inn and would do so next time.

Idaho Falls to Yellowstone National Park

2009-07-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

We woke up to a great day in Idaho Falls and had a big breakfast as usual. We're getting used to these big breakfasts while traveling. It still amazes me how much Ethan can eat! The drive today is only a short drive so we should get the whole day in Yellowstone once arriving. With a minor wrong turn out of the hotel we were on our way! The road took us through a lot of green farmland and then into the southeast corner of Montana. Unfortunately the sign was dirty, but we took the picture anyway.

Well, Yellowstone did not let us down. Within minutes from entering the West Entrance, we were experiencing animals. At first we could not figure out how we would spot them, but then quickly realized that it took no skill at all. Just look for clumps of cars along the roadways as you drive, and you can be sure that you will see animals! We first came across a bald-eagle, followed by a nice deer along the side of the road.

Quickly after that we saw our first bison. They are truly amazing animals and although the pictures don't show it, they are very close to you. Some people, even though they tell you not to, get out of their car, walk as close as they can, just to get a picture. However, these animals can run 30 miles per hour. I would not want to be chased by one!

OK, since we didn't know, we're guessing that you may not also. Are they buffalo or bison? Well, they are bison since buffalo seem to be native to Asia and Africa only.

We decided to do a small part of the park today and were incredibly hungry by now as it was close to 2:30. We stopped so much along the road in the park that time just flew by. Since we were close to the Old Faithful Inn, we decided to stop in for lunch. The inside of this hotel is really neat. No picture can show it fully, but it's all wood and has many floors that you can walk up and look down upon a huge lobby with a grand fireplace. Very neat.

Lunch was also good, and not outrageously priced like we would have guessed given the fact that the hotel is grand and the location is literally on top of Old Faithful. In addition to some normal dishes, we sampled some bison chili. I liked it, Ethan thought it was fair, and Ellen didn't take a bite!

After lunch we walked outside to see Old Faithful. We had to wait about 15 minutes, but wow, was it worth it. I didn't think I'd be too impressed with this geyser, but it was really cool to watch. It is amazing how high it blasts!

After viewing the geyser we took to the road in the park and stopped at some thermal basins. These thermal basins contain algae, bacteria, and fungi that don't exist anywhere else in the world and 75% of the geysers in the world are located here. It's really an amazing place to see this type of scenery. Although the kids did not like the smell that was omitted in these areas, for some reason it did not bother me at all. The warmth that came from the ground was great considering that the weather in the park today was the high 50's. I bent down to touch the water coming out of these basins, and it was almost boiling!

After a day in the park, we headed over to our "ranch" to check-in. It was just outside of the West entrance, and we knew where it was as we passed it on the way in. Turning down the long driveway, we were faced with tons of cows across the road. Quite frankly we didn't know how to deal with this, but we just inched our way up to them and they parted ways. Upon arrival, we asked Cory how he deals with them and he said "I usually just honk at them and they move. Cows are not too smart." So now you will know what to do when faced with a road full of cows!

After a quick shower, we headed downtown for some dinner. It was already 7:30 by this time, and the downtown area offered a variety of BBQ places to choose from. There were tourists from all over the country here, and we had a good dinner and a quick drive back to the hotel, again to face the road full of cows!

We lounged around a bit tonight, relaxed, and watched Pink Panther 2. Tomorrow we're planning on spending another day in the park and getting in some hiking along the way.

Hotel: Bar-N-Ranch - We were expecting much more from this hotel than what it delivered. First, the pro's - great breakfast, great ambiance, great staff. Con's - Room was smaller than expected. Bathroom is not as modern as expected (small leak in sink, no water pressure in shower, changing water temperatures in shower, plus very small and low shower). Restaurant is for high-end diners, yet there are a lot of kids who stay there. Almost no TV stations (I think we got one), though they had a large selection of DVD's. Distance from park is as advertised (6 miles to west entrance), but most of the sites that first-time tourists want to see in Yellowstone are about 40 minutes inside the entrance. We would have opted to stay at the Old Faithful Inn and would do so next time.

Salt Lake City to Idaho Falls

2009-07-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

Today we planned a pretty easy day since we didn't want to make the long drive all the way to Yellowstone in one shot. So, we have two relatively easy days to get there. We're going to stop in Idaho Falls, Idaho, which will only leave a very short way to get to Yellowstone tomorrow morning. On the way, the kids wanted to stop at Nielson's Frozen Custard, which is infamous in this part of the country. The custard, nicknamed "Concrete Custard" was very thick, creamy, and delicious. Watch out though, the portions they give you are HUGE! It is definitely a must-stop if you are in the area.

There's not too much to say about the drive north through Utah and into Idaho other than "farmland." It's pretty much all you see on the way, but the one difference from other parts of the country is that the hills are rolling green. It's really very pretty, as farmland goes.

After only a few hours we were welcomed to Idaho Falls, Idaho by a really pretty sign! We didn't have much planned for the city, other than some rest and relaxation. It was already late afternoon, so we were sure it would not be hard to fill our day.

We were really surprised by the great view right from our hotel room. The hotel is located next to the Snake River and there's a wonderful view of a Mormon Temple directly across the river. Walking outside of our hotel we were immediately on a great walking path along the river.

And, as the name implies, there were falls! Just a short walk along the river we had wonderful views of falls that are used for hydro-electric power. They were beautiful and good for the environment, what could be better?

We headed over the bridge of the river and into the "old historical part of downtown." It was a bit longer of a walk than anticipated, but the guides recommended it. So, we took the challenge...

Unfortunately there were not even any stores that we found appealling enough to walk into. The restaurants were pretty limited in the historical part of town, and other than this cool Psychodelicatessen, it lacked pretty much all the things we were looking for!

We did stop off on the way back at the Brownstone Restaurant and Brewery. The restaurant was located directly along the river across from the falls. We were expecting typical brew-pub food, but were incredibly surprised by the excellent meal we had.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and did some laundry and played rummy. Ethan finally won a game, so Idaho is his favorite state so far since he was on a losing streak since we started the trip! Tomorrow morning we will head off early to Yellowstone and keep our fingers crossed that the weather will hold out!

Hotel: Hilton Garden Inn - We rate these hotels a 10. Breakfast is free. Wi-fi is free. Rooms are nice, clean, and big. This hotel was right on the Snake River with an excellent view of the Mormon Temple and river. Awesome hotel.

Salt Lake City

2009-07-01T19:38:00.000-07:00

Today we had a lot of stops mapped out and decided to head off to the University of Utah area which has a few things we wanted to see. First on the list was the Utah Museum of Fine Arts which we thought was having a Picasso and Monet exhibit. Once we arrived we discovered that the Picasso and Monet exhibit was last summer. I guess we were reading some outdated material!

We all seemed to enjoy the Native American art the most. There were some incredibly intricate pieces there all in great shape. Native Americans were great at crafts!

After the museum we headed off to the Red Butte Garden & Arboretum. This is also located on the University of Utah campus. It was surprising how new all of the buildings at the university looked. It seemed as if the campus was built last year! Some of the buildings like the arena were built for the 2002 Olympics that were hosted in Salt Lake.

The garden went above and beyond our expectations and claims to be the largest botanical garden in the Great Basin. It encompasses over 75 acres. Needless to say we did not walk around the entire area!

The garden was broken into different areas such as herbs, medicinal, roses, floral, woodlands, etc. The ground was so immaculately cared for and was a pleasure to walk around, even in 90 degree heat.

The only letdown was that we did not get to see any rattlesnakes. As this is rattlesnake area, we were hoping pass by one, but even if they saw us, we didn't see them!

The flowers they had in the gardens were beautiful, and I'm sure that no picture can show it well enough. However, we have to try, right? :-) The garden is also perched up in the mountains, as is the entire U of U campus. It has beautiful views overlooking the entire city with snow-capped mountains in the background. Except for the extreme weather, it would be a great place to go to college.

The next stop took us to Trolley Square. The write-ups touted it as a great remodeled area that used to house trolleys. We were under the impression that it would show some of the historic buildings and possibly some of the historic trolleys. However, it didn't. Although it was a nice area, it was basically a mall laid out in a few blocks of the city. Once again, everything seemed new and nice, but we didn't have to drive so far to see a mall!

After a quick late lunch at Whole Foods, we headed to the Utah state capital. We must confess that none of us knew who the governor of Utah was. After all, remembering the governor of California is so easy with Arnold at charge, but Utah? Well, it turns out that the governor of Utah is Jon Huntsman. The capital building is very impressive, but the heat was pretty overwhelming. It resembles most state capital buildings, but is still fun to see.

Inside the building which is much cooler (temperature wise), there are really nice views. The dome below is one of them, as well as many of the marble stairways and architecture through the entire building.

The capital is also perched on top of a hill and provides another great view of the city. All in all, the city was so clean, easy to get around, had so little traffic, almost no homeless (that we saw), great restaurants, as well as many cultural activities. I'd rate it pretty high on the list of good places to live, with the exception of this heat during the summer time.

Before dinner, we went back to Temple Square to take the tour given by Mormon missionaries. Since there was no one else waiting for a tour, we had our own private tour with two missionaries. One of them was from Korea, and the other was from Texas, both of whom spend 18 months here in Salt Lake educating tourists on the Mormon religion. I must say that I was really impressed with their knowledge, as well as how nice they were. I'm not a big believer in religion, but these people look very happy and are so nice.

We learned some interesting facts about the old and new testament, as well as information about the Mormon temple here in Salt Lake. A few of the questions that we got answered included:

Mormons do allow non-Mormons into their temples. Whenever a new temple is built, the first two months are open to the public. After that they close them off and it is no longer available unless you are Mormon.
The statues around the Temple Square area are not eagles, they are seagulls. When the Mormons first came to Salt Lake, they had a tough time farming. One of the problems was with locusts eating all of their crops. They prayed and prayed, and seagulls appeared from the West and ate all of the locusts.
Why are there only women missionaries here in Salt Lake? You never see a man here giving tours or answering questions. And there are tons of missionaries all around Temple Square. The reason; Women are nicer. At least this is the reason we were told by our two tour-guides. Made sense to us.

As I said, I'm not a big believer in religion, but it's nice to see such sincere people who have a passion and want to help others. Hats off to them.

After our tour, we stopped off at The Gateway for dinner and had another good meal. This time we chose to eat at Z'Tejas which serves southwestern food. The cornbread, which is made every thirty minutes, was better than our sourdough bread!

Tomorrow we are taking a leisurely ride to Idaho Falls, Idaho. We were planning on going out to the Timpanogos Caves, but after reading a lot of reviews on the web, we are opting to go to the caves near Mt. Rushmore instead. This means we no longer have to wake up early in the morning! As I'm typing this it seems that rain is coming. According to the forecasts we are going to hit some rain over the next four or five days. I still think that Yellowstone will be beautiful, even if it's wet!

Hotel: Hilton Garden Inn - We rate these hotels a 10. Breakfast is free. Wi-fi is free. Rooms are nice, clean, and big. It is a walk to the free light-rail that runs downtown. If you want to go to the Temple area, you must drive or take the light-rail (5 minute ride).

Elko to Salt Lake City

2009-06-30T20:20:00.000-07:00

This morning we started off our day in Elko by going to the Northeastern Nevada Museum which claims to be the largest museum in the area. The only thing they do not mention is how big of an area they are comparing themselves to!

The museum was actually pretty neat. It was small enough so that you don't get bored, but large enough and diverse enough to have things that we all enjoyed. Outside of the museum there were a few original artifacts from the cowboy days. You can see Ethan and I in front of a carriage that was used to carry people to the Hot Springs Hotel. Well, we're not really sure that is what it was for, but it seems like it was.

Ellen and Ethan spent hours inside the Pony Express Cabin. Well, not hours, but a good two minutes! The cabin is an original cabin that was located along the Pony Express where the riders would swap horses and rest for the night. The inside was furnished with the original furniture.

Once inside the museum, there were a few different sections. One section that was interesting included old stuff from the cowboy days. Ellen really liked this cash register, but unfortunately it was not for sale. They also had old gambling artifacts, one of which was a slot machine that had a big jackpot of $36. I'm sure in those days that meant a lot more than today.

Outside the back of the museum they had a petting zoo. They had so many different animals and you could feed all of them as long as you bought the special petting-zoo food that was sold in the museum. Here's a picture of a lion that kept following Ellen after she fed him so much food.

Actually these were all stuffed animals, but they had so many of them that looked real. There was one of almost every wild animal that we've heard of, and even more. Most of them looked very real to us.

The only odd part about the museum was the clothing that was worn by the museum staff. We could not figure it out since it was 90 degrees outside, but I guess this made them feel more authentic.

After leaving the museum we took the scenic drive towards Salt Lake City, Utah. On the way is the Bonneville Salt Flats, where people try to set world speed records. This is a huge area of salt just on the side of the freeway. It goes on for miles and miles and apparently is a great surface for driving "cars" over 600 miles per hour. They are not really cars, but more like rockets that somehow stay on the ground going at those speeds. Unfortunately they don't race every day, so we didn't get to see any of the rocket cars. They do have a pretty nice observation place on the side of the road so that you don't have to drive out on the salt flats. From the road, it almost appears as a sea of salt.

Along the way, there are really no sites other than nature. I enjoyed the drive as I find it pretty relaxing. The mountains form some beautiful sites and some of them look unreal. It's hard to capture them in pictures, but the ground is completely white from the salt, and the rocks seem to float on top of them.

There are a few man-made sites along the way, one of which is the "Tree of Utah" that was created by a Swedish artist Karl Momen. It took him over four years to create this 87 foot high sculpture made out of 225 tons of cement that he covered with over 2,000 ceramic tiles. In any case, it was a stark contrast to the flat white salt that covered so many miles of the landscape.

As you drive you constantly see sites that are so beautiful they could appear on postcards. There are just too many of them to post here.

We arrived in Salt Lake City around five o-clock and checked-in to the hotel and rested a bit while deciding on what to see in the evening. There's so much to do here on our list, and hopefully we will be able to cover it all over the next couple of days. Luckily in the downtown area they have a nice light-rail system that is free as long as you stay in the areas that house all of the touristy stuff. Fine for us, since we need to see a lot of things in that region.

We first headed off to the Gateway Plaza for some dinner. There are tons of tourists in town and we bumped into a nice couple from England who were doing a similar loop around the States as we are, but they are going in the opposite direction. The Gateway Plaza seems to be a huge outdoor area with an enormous amount of stores and restaurants which made a dinner choice pretty easy. Afterward we walked over to Temple Square to take a first look at the Mormon Temple. It's really a beautiful section of town to walk around and includes a tour of their visitor center as well as the entire square that outlines the Mormon culture and the expansion of Salt Lake City. We opted to take the tour tomorrow when we have more time, since we know almost nothing about this religion. There are many missionaries there from other countries who lead the tours as well as wander around and answer any of your questions. Regardless of whether you believe in the Mormon religion, these missionaries are incredibly nice!

That about wrapped up our first evening in Salt Lake City. We're looking forward to the next few days to see all of the sites that we read about!

Hotel: Hilton Garden Inn - We rate these hotels a 10. Breakfast is free. Wi-fi is free. Rooms are nice, clean, and big. It is a walk to the free light-rail that runs downtown. If you want to go to the Temple area, you must drive or take the light-rail (5 minute ride).

Lake Tahoe to Elko

2009-06-29T21:39:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up and headed down for a quick breakfast in the hotel and then out to the beach. Ethan wanted to build some sort of sand castle, which ended up being a nice sitting place for a baby who walked over and sat down right in the middle of it. So at least Ethan's hard work was appreciated.
Ellen decided that she would just walk around and look beautiful. She did a great job of that as seen in the next photo. The weather this morning was so nice, but we did need to head out by noon for our drive!

We were planning on heading to Elko today which meant that we had about 320 miles to go. We were not sure where we were going to stop, but we had a few towns in mind. However, once we saw a sign for LoveLock, NV, Ellen wanted to stop. I guess the name sounded interesting to her! So, here we are in front of the town which had a few small shops and a city hall. We strolled around the town a little bit, but the 100 degree temperature made us want to get on our way.

For those of you that never drove across the United States, there's a whole lot of nothing out there! Most of the ride between towns look like a long straight road with no sites in between. Here's a shot or two from the drive, which could have been anywhere along the way.

The most interesting part to me was the amount of huge road-work projects that go on in the middle of nowhere. You will first see a sign that says "Road-work Ahead". Then shortly after they will reduce the speed from 75 mph to 55 mph and set up literally miles and miles of orange and white barrels on the road. The amazing part is that these barrels, which are spaced about 10 feet apart go on for 10 miles! They must have huge warehouses somewhere in the middle of nowhere just to store all of these barrels. Plus, these projects are huge. They have indusrial bulldozers doing something along the road, which quite frankly is in better shape than the roads in Silicon Valley. I wonder where all this funding comes from!

It was time for lunch, and the biggest town near us was Winnemucca, NV. Plus it had a cool name, so we stopped. Well, after visiting the visitor center and getting pointed to "the mexican restaurant across the street or the coffee shop" which we never found, we opted for Subway. No need to describe that, as I'm sure they taste the same no matter where you are. We took a vote and no one wanted to stroll around the town, so we headed off to Elko. As we were heading out of town I saw something that was funny to me (although the kids didn't seem to find any humor in it). We passed by the Route 66 Diner, and directly under it in a temporary sign stated "Mexican Food". Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that Route 66 symbolized the heart of our country. Times are changing!

Upon arriving into Elko, NV, we quickly noticed that the town was much bigger than Winnemucca and seemed pretty nice. No wonder it is a popular stopping point by many. We checked into our hotel and looked up where we could find good Basque food. This entire part of the country apparently was home to a large Basque population and their food seems to be a big deal in all of the information you read. There are three big Basque restaurants in the town and the top one is the Star Hotel. The Star Hotel was established in 1910 to cater to the local Basque population who were typically herders. Since it was the number-one choice, we decided to give it a try. For a Monday night, the wait was about 20-30 minutes and the place was filled with people.

What can we say about Basque food? What we understand is that it is not just the food, but the way it is served. Everything in Basque restaurants seems to be served family-style with big bowls of all the common food placed in the middle of the table (and lots of it). Your main course (which is usually meat, chicken or fish) is served separately. You can even opt to have no main course and just have the common food. Ellen did this, and it is more than enough food since the common food that comes with all meals consists of vegetable soup, bread, salad, green beans, baked beans, pasta (with red sauce), and french fries. On top of all this food, you then get your huge steak. Needless to say the people in this restaurant are quite large and we ended up with tons of left-overs. If there are any homeless people in Elko, I highly recommend that you go stand outside of this restaurant and you will eat like a king.

As we finished dinner at 9:00, this pretty much ended our day. Tomorrow we're going to get up and go to the best museum in the area and head off to Salt Lake City where we'll spend three days.

Hotel: Hilton Garden Inn - We rate these hotels a 10. Breakfast is free. Wi-fi is free. Rooms are nice, clean, and big.

San Francisco to Lake Tahoe

2009-06-28T19:26:00.001-07:00

Today was a relatively short day of driving with only about 250 miles to cover. We started out pretty slowly with some pancakes at home before leaving around 9:30. The first leg of the trip took us across the bay and up to Fairfield, California. For those of you that don't know about Fairfield, it houses the Jelly Belly factory and is the highlight of the trip for Ellen and Ethan. Somehow they are fascinated with jelly beans. I admit that they taste good, but it's not the highlight of the trip for me :-)

The Jelly Belly factory gives a good tour, but today the plant was closed for maintenance. We were able to go on a "virtual tour" that was really informative, and we got to sample the new jelly beans that are not coming out for a few months. That's always fun. It is pretty amazing the way they produce them and how many are cranked out of their machines every day. I guess that is something we can thank Ronald Reagan for as he was a fan of the jelly bean and promoted it during his presidency. You do learn some trivia while taking the tour. For instance, did you know:

Jelly beans were invented in 1976.
It takes 7 to 21 days to make a jelly bean.
The original flavors of jelly beans were: Very Cherry, Root Beer, Cream Soda, Tangerine, Green Apple, Lemon, Licorice and Grape.

You get the idea... If you want more facts, search the web. However, the tour is informative, and when you walk around the production facilities you see bins and bins of jelly beans, enough to feed the world.

The tour of the artwork produced with jelly beans is also pretty interesting. There are tons of "pictures" that are created with jelly beans. The signs that they place under them are pretty funny. Did they really have a problem with people taking out the jelly beans from the art and eating them???

After leaving the factory, the car was quiet as the kids compared and traded their jelly beans. It was a shame that the ride was so quick as we were only headed to Davis to stop by the university and grab some lunch. The campus is really nice and there are so many new buildings going up. It's hard to tell that the UC system is having funding problems when you drive through this beautiful campus.

We wandered around the downtown area and stumbled upon a small chinese noodle restaurant. Since it was 110 degrees outside (honest), and the restaurant was nice and cool, we popped in for lunch. Their portions were huge, and my tofu was as fresh as home!

We walked off our lunch around the downtown area and decided that we would head on to Lake Tahoe (our final destination for the day). Before we went back to the car, we stumbled upon a London phone booth on the street. We're not sure why it is there, but it looks pretty neat!

We got into the car and the thermometer showed over 110, and then at one point it displayed three dashes (---). I'm assuming that it was too hot for the thermometer! The car was nice and cool though, so the remaining drive was beautiful and cool. We stopped at the border of Nevada, Ethan rushed out, and Ellen snapped a picture. This was only about 5 minutes from our final stopping point at the Lake!

Once we arrived at the hotel, we checked-in and took a walk down the "beach". It seems funny to call it a beach since it's on a lake, but I guess it still qualifies! It is a breathtaking view to look out onto the lake, see the snow-capped mountains on the other side, and the blue water below. We didn't stay long as we were not prepared for sand and water, so we took a stroll, checked out the water, and then headed back for an early dinner since the kids wanted to swim later in the evening. The weather was still in the 80's here, so it was just perfect.

We decided on an Italian restaurant across from the hotel. It turned out to be really good, and the waitress reminded us of one of the teachers at my school. It was not her, but it sure did look like her. As with all restaurants lately, the portions were huge and hard to finish. Very tasty though, so that's more important! Here's a shot of the three of us that our super-nice waitress snapped for us.

After dinner we relaxed a bit, then headed down to the pool which was pretty warm. The air temperature seemed to drop a lot, so once we got out of the pool, it was cooooold... Well, maybe not cold, but colder than 80 degrees! We dried off next to a big fire pit, then headed back to the room to relax and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning we are going to head to the beach while we're here. There's no rush to leave early since we're only headed to Elko, NV. If you've never heard of it, join the club. We will make stops along the way, but it is really just a stopping point between here and Salt Lake City where we plan on spending two nights.

Hotel: Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe. Room is very nice. Grounds are very nice. Walk across the street to the beach, but very nice beach. No free wi-fi, no microwave, etc. No free breakfast.

1 Day to Go...

2009-06-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

We leave tomorrow and it seems like there's no preparation to be done. Maybe this is because we're driving and it feels like we're just running out to the store or making a trip across town. But, after mapping it out on google maps, we're actually going to be driving more than 3300 miles. Wow, that's a lot of driving!

If you're interested in our general route, here it is:

It doesn't seem so far when you look at it on a small map. My guess is that there's a lot of empty country out there!

We are trying not to book hotels too far in advance so that we can skip towns or stay longer as desired. However, we are at least trying to book the next day. I gave Ellen the task of looking for hotels, and quickly discovered that she has high tastes for her accommodations. So, with that said, it looks like we'll be staying at the Hyatt on the shore of Lake Tahoe on the first night.

Other than that we're just doing some last minute packing and need to run out to get some snacks for the driving. The kids already put their playlists together on their ipods, so at least we have a lot of music to listen to along the way.

2 Days to Go...

2009-06-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well, after going back and forth deciding whether to drive out and fly back, or drive round-trip, we finally decided to drive round-trip! So, our plan as of now is to drive from San Francisco (south bay actually), out to Yellowstone, on to Mt. Rushmore, then swing back via Denver and Las Vegas. Yes, it's a lot of driving, but what could be more fun than driving with two kids to entertain me!

This blog will be written by all of us, and we hope that others who plan trips along this path may find value from it. Our stops that we have chosen at this time are as follows. These may change if we don't like a certain town or we like one more than another. The only firm date we have is for Yellowstone since we wanted to book a room in case they filled up. Other than that, we're wide open. So, here are the towns we plan on stopping at along the way:

Lake Tahoe, NV
Elko, NV
Salt Lake City, UT
Idaho Falls, ID
Yellowstone National Park
Grand Teton National Park
Casper, WY
Mt. Rushmore National Park
Torrington, WY
Denver, CO
Green River, UT
Las Vegas, NV
Bakersfield, CA

As you can see, the small towns may change based on how small they are or how interesting they are (or are not!). However, the big destinations are pretty firm.

We hope you enjoy reading about our adventures.