Trip out west - 1992

Trip out West: 1992

7/9/92

As usual, we stayed in the Best Western in Zanesville, Ohio, on our way to Indianapolis. It’s a good place to stop; we always landed there about five. We’ve come to know what there is of downtown over the years on our way to visit John, but the poor town has been “malled” to death and nothing exists except really dreadful antique malls full of junk and a whole lot of churches—all of them, malls and churches alike, jealously guarding their very own parking lots. We walked by Jack’s Bric a Brac in the hope that the totally weird clock we’d seen in its window the previous year was still unwanted, but, probably fortunately, it was gone and the place was closed for the evening.

7/10/92: Got to John’s house with no trouble. We puddled around with him and had dinner at a place called Snax. The next night JoAnn, John’s fiancée, invited us to dinner, and our final night the four of us ate at Parthenon, a Greek place in Broad Ripple that was pretty good.

7/13/93. We got off bright and early. Tried to call Erich Scheeler, Don’s godson, in Champaign, but he was out so Don left a message while we were having a truly bad cup of coffee in a doughnut place. We had lunch in Galesburg, Ill., crossed the Mississippi, and followed a very empty road up the river. Discovered that Clinton, Iowa, right on the river, is a town totally without any kind of charm. Really an ugly place that seemed to stretch for miles: every building we could see looked as if it had been built trashily in the forties. The town was so flat that we could see far down each cross street; nothing tempted further exploration. We expected to find a motel in Dubuque, but the combination of a huge thunderstorm and massive construction on the highway made it impossible to exit at the one or two we saw. We finally got off the road and asked at agas station: they sent us back across the Mississippi to Dickeyville, Wisconsin,  where thank goodness there was a decent motel. We were sent down the hill to Pat and Mike’s Valentine Restaurant, where they served us enough food for the next week. Three pork chops apiece plus a huge number of French fries, and then they couldn’t understand why we didn’t want any pie. Really nice people, though.

7/14/92: Next morning we headed out of Dickeyville after an equally huge breakfast at Pat and Mike’s, but as we passed a Catholic church I looked over and shrieked. I made Don drive around the block so we could go back and park and get out. Next to the church was a “grotto” that was beyond belief: it was made out of lumpy concrete, with a central chapel surrounded by a wobbly wall in a U-shape, full of little niches with hideous things in them. The whole thing was encrusted with broken bits of glass. We took pictures.

We had elevenses in Prarie du Chien, crossed back over the river, and had lunch in, believe it or not, Blue Earth. We drove very fast across the totally flat and dull bottom of Minnesota and into Sioux Falls, S.D., where we found no falls (all covered with concrete) and a Days Inn. Just got a sandwich in the room, and then went downtown to see what was there. A replica statue of Michelangelo’s David was there, oddly enough, and a little park by a creek nearby. Not very exciting.

7/15/92: We were beginning our habit of buying stuff for lunch in a supermarket the night before so as to avoid fast food and pounds, so we had lunch at a rest stop after Murdo. Don took a picture of the totally deserted four-lane interstate, with nothing in sight in either direction. South Dakota is not exciting to drive across. But we found a Colonial Motel in Rapid City, settled in, and then drove out to Mount Rushmore. It is pretty impressive, with a nice hilly drive to get to it. We dined at the Great Wall—a fairly decent Chinese place.

7/16/92: Next morning we had breakfast at the Morningside Café, which looked like the hangout for all the retired men in town. Then we headed through the Black Hills National Forest to the Badlands National Park. It was great—almost like Cappodocia in its weird eroded patterns. Great gullies and short peaks. Next up the road was Devil’s Tower, an enormously impressive sheer rock that just sits all by itself and is visible for miles before you geet there. You could see climbers all over it, though the Native Americans regard it as sacred and are not happy about climbers. Nice park around it, so we had our picnic there and walked around to stretch our legs a bit.

We headed west again, over the Bighorn Mountains. No more interstate available: just a two-lane road that was one of two “scenic” choices, neither of which looked populated. I remarked at one point that I smelled something burning, and Don said “That’s our brakes.” Chilling thought. Poor car wasn’t used to mountains, and these were serious mountains. At almost every curve there was a warning sign followed by a runaway truck ramp, headed off at a slight angle to the road and uphill with a sandy surface to slow down a truck that had lost its brakes. Glad we didn’t see any of those. The scenery was impressive, but Don had to concentrate hard on driving. Almost no traffic. We finally found Lovell, Wyoming, which seemed to be the only town en route, and luckily there was the Horseshoe Bend Motel. We had dinner and breakfast at the Big Horn Restaurant down the road.

7/17/92: We went the rest of the way across Wyoming and got to Yellowstone. It was surprisingly crowded—we wondered how all the people got there, as we’d seen almost no one on the road. Cauldrons, canyon, waterfalls, all quite wonderful. We were puzzled at how out of breath we were climbing up to a lookout point that wasn’t very high, then realized that the altitude was getting to us. We weren’t conscious of being so high, but a sign told us different. We did the circle around the park, getting out and walking a good bit at all of the marked places, and had our picnic lunch overlooking a gorgeous field of wildflowers. The whole western half of the park, our last bit, was totally burned over. Little shoots of pine trees were beginning to come up, but it was all pretty bleak. We drove down past the Grand Teton Mountains, which Don remarked looked like a child’s drawing of mountains, with peaks and no foothills, on the way to Jackson, and found the Horseshoe Motel. The proprietor told us that we should get into town for the shootout right away, so we did. Apparently they do a whole mock gunfight every night. It was fun. One remarkable thing was that they had huge arches over the street in several places made of elk horns all woven together. We ate Mexican at the Merry Piglet.

7/18/92: We should have stayed an extra day to explore Grand Teton, but Don had his foot in the road and I hadn’t yet rebelled at our pace. So we drove south through the Snake River canyon—a gorgeous ride. We slid past Salt Lake City, avoiding the attacks by the worst drivers in the country. Took a small detour off the interstate to go see the Great Salt Lake. The only place we found to get out of the car was an apparently defunct pier and hotel or something. The water was very low, and odiferous mud flats were all that was near shore. Unimpressive, to say the least. We had a long ride down to Salina—as I recall we had to get off the interstate to find a town at all. We found the very nice Cedar Creek Inn and a surprisingly good dinner there. I had to go find some conditioner at a drug store across the street, having discovered that the western water made hair into hay. Annoying, since I had left two bottles of never-used conditioner at home.

7/19/92: We had breakfast at Mom’s Diner at the only traffic light in town, and went down 89/70 to Bryce Canyon. Had our picnic there and walked at the end of the park. We didn’t go down among the “hoodoos,” but admired them from a distance and appreciated the remark made by Mr. Bryce—“a helluva place to lose a cow.” It is a spectacular site. Strange very old trees, all gnarled and half dead, all over the upland area. I think they are bristlecone pines, and are the oldest living things known. After we left we saw a perfectly awful wreck that had happened, mercifully, before we got on the road. A car had apparently tried to pass something and hit a bus head-on. The car was totally flattened: they were  piling it on a flatbed truck when we passed. I’m sure everyone was killed.

The cliffs going into Kanab were very red and impressive—the town motto is “The Greatest Earth on Show.” I finally rebelled and told Don we were going to stay here two nights, not try to see Zion National Park in an hour or two. He muttered, but agreed. We stayed at the Treasure Trails Motel and made the mistake of having dinner next door—awful.

7/20/92: Had breakfast down the road at Trails End Restaurant, which was much better, and went out to Zion. It was breathtaking. We did the “Journey to Narrows” walk in the morning and then had our usual picnic. We tried the “hidden canyon” walk after lunch. It was supposed to be two miles round trip, but the trouble was that a good part of it was straight up. I stopped halfway; the 100-degree heat was getting to me and was too much. I sat under a tree while Don got a half-hour further before quitting, sending messages back to me by people going in the opposite direction. Later we did the “Emerald Pools” walk, which was very easy, but the pools were almost dry and not very emerald. In between our walks we waded in a lovely creek to cool off. Dinner at Trails End, which does catering for forest firefighters all over the west. Don got the car serviced while we ate. As usual, we found a supermarket and stocked up our ice chest for lunches.

7/21/92: Breakfast at Trails End, and off to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The drive was through forest most of the way. We stopped at the lodge and walked to Bright Angel Point, then drove to Point Royal and Imperial Point, where there was a nature walk. We picnicked overlooking the canyon. Wow. What can you say about that place? All you can do is gape. We took a lot of pictures, which of course give no impression of how it really is.

Then a long drive past vermillion cliffs, across the Colorado at Marble Canyon, ;and down and over into the Navaho Reservation. Very bleak scenery, with nobody around except for occasional tent malls where they sell jewelry and stuff. We stopped to look at one, and Don bought me silver earrings and a blue and silver necklace for my 50^th birthday coming up. I was somewhat bemused to see one of the Navaho salesmen reading Tony Hillerman. We were getting nervous about finding a place to stay in all this desolation: miles and miles of road with nothing around. Finally, much to our relief, we found the Tuba City Trading Post with its attached motel, very nice, and were lucky enough to get what may have been the last room. From our window we could see cars driving up and then leaving when there was no room. Attached restaurant was quite good for dinner and breakfast, and shopping without buying was entertaining.

7/22/92: Off to Monument Valley, where we took a bumpy, dusty self-guided tour. We could see all the landmarks such as the “mitten” rock formations that are so famous. It made you expect to see a posse or a stagecoach—so many westerns have been filmed there. We drove on past the Valley of the Gods, looking and looking for a picnic place. No trees, no rest stops, no side of the road. Finally got to Four Corners, where they had picnic tables. Took the requisite picture standing in four states at once. Then we drove on to Cortez, where we stayed at the Sand Canyon Motel and ate at the very elegant Nero’s Restaurant next door. Excellent meal, much to our surprise. At the bar before dinner we loved the sign on the wall: “No snivelling.”

7/23/92: We at breakfast at The Homesteader and headed for Mesa Verde National Park. Spectacular views from the top. The cliff dwellings were hard to reach—lots of climbing, including some wooden ladders down to them in very narrow spots. They are truly impressive, but much smaller than they look in photographs. Makes you wonder how the Old Ones fitted into the rooms. We drove on through beautiful green mountains (thinking that the Navahos seemed to have gotten all the brown and the gringos all the green country) to Chama, New Mexico, and the Trails Inn Motel.

7/23/92: Breakfast at “Restaurant.” Only one in town. We drove down to Taos, which I had been eager to see, but it was having Fiesta Days and was terribly crowded and a bit too chichi for us. We stopped into a couple of galleries, walked around, and then drove out to see the pueblo. It looked just like we expected it to, and we left. Drove past Santa Fe to Tucumcara Motel on old Route 66—you had to get off the interstate if you wanted to find a place to stay, and there were signs offering a huge number of motels. We looked at the long line of people waiting to get into Denny’s, thought there must be an alternative, and walked a couple of blocks down the highway to a very nice and totally deserted Chinese restaurant. People are like sheep.

7/25/92: Breakfast at Denny’s, which was much less in demand in the early morning, and our usual stop at a grocery store. Then off across the Texas Panhandle, which had nothing to recommend it. Except I think that was where we saw Car Henge—the field where some eccentric buried five or six 1950s cars nose down in the earth. We got into Oklahoma City and found all the motels were full because of some big event, so we went on to Stroud, where we found a Best Western. Just behind it was a marvelous outlet mall, so we went shopping for Liz Caiborne, Bass, Adolpho, etc. We bought some really nice white casseroles, a skirt, a silk shirt for Don, three shirts for Matt. We had a pretty bad dinner at the motel, there being no other option.

7/26/92: Off through pretty green rolling hills, being amused at a couple of Oklahoma road signs: “Do not drive into smoke” and “Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates.” Makes you think, don’t it? In Missouri we stopped at an expensive Best Western and ate at the Diamond Restaurant—the only choice. Not great.

7/27/92: We drove into St. Louis and stopped at the Arch to explore. Don has pictures of himself on top of the arch while it was being built, before the two halves were connected. But we didn’t go up this time: there was a very big crowd waiting and it looked like several hours. The little museum under the arch was quite interesting, with pictures of later pioneers and tales of their travails. We drove on through southern Illinois and got off the interstate for a while, being fed up with interstates. That left us with no rest stops for our lunch, but we finally found a decayed rest area on the old highway and managed to find one table that wasn’t falling apart from rot. Back to the interstate in southern Indiana, where we stopped for the night in Corydon, west of Louisville. We ate at a Big Boy’s, which was much better than we expected.

7/28/92: Into Kentucky, and at my suggestion we continued our national park orgy by tooling south instead of east to go to Mammoth Cave. Hordes of people, long lines. Most of the more spectacular tours were oversubscribed, so we just went on the brief Discovery Tour into the entrance of the main cave, down long, big passages to two huge areas. No stalactites or other stuff, but really large. Then picnic back on the interstate, and a beautiful drive on the parkway to Lexington. Right outside Lexington we saw the most incredible castle, with keep and turrets and the whole bit up on a hill, and with a “for sale” sign out front. Tempting. We also drove past Calumet Farms. All the horse country was lovely. We got into West Virginia more or less by accident because of a lack of motels where we had expected to stop, and stayed out our first Holiday Inn in downtown Huntington, eating in the motel, where some little girls played the piano in turns.

7/29/92: And up the road to home.