One of our goals on this upcoming trip is to taste a local wine from every state we pass through. (Well, OK, it's one of my goals--Clyde isn't much of a drinker. Which is good because he can be the designated driver.)
I'm not exactly a wine connoisseur, but having spent the last six years in California, I've developed an interest in wine. My palate and descriptive vocabulary aren't that sophisticated, but I've been learning a lot at a monthly tasting group of about a dozen friends, led by an assistant winemaker at Ridge Vineyards. So far, I've stuck mostly to California wines, and my favorite varietal is zinfandel.
In researching this trip, I was stunned to find out that there is at least one winery in all 50 states. A great resource to find them is the All American Wineries site, put together by Bob Hodge, a former Californian who now lives in Pinnacle, N.C. He nicely organizes the wineries by state and offers lots of other helpful links.
Which means I now have a new goal to put on my list of things to do before I die: visit all 50 states and taste a wine from every one (hey, it's a lot more interesting than the visit-every-ballpark quest that some baseball fans undertake).
Weird fact of the day: Idaho has 19 wineries in two major regions, the Panhandle and the Snake River area. We'll be visiting at least one of them and telling you what we find. If you Idahoans have any suggestions, send 'em along.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
ROAD TRIP: Life as a vegetarian
BY CLYDE LERNER
What motivated me to become a vegetarian?
Around 1990, I dated a woman named Annie from Santa Barbara. I knew she was a vegetarian, but this didn't daunt me from going out with her. She made me a dish that showed me that it wasn't too difficult being a vegetarian--boy, was I wrong (more on this later). The dish she made me was vegetarian scrambled "eggs" with "bacon". We had tofu quesadillas, large bountiful salads with pine nuts, vegetarian burritos, baked potatoes, breads and all other kinds of food that I was used to. I just eliminated one part of the meal. I saw the way Annie respected the planet and her body by becoming vegetarian and I wanted to do the same.
Do they serve non-iceberg lettuce salads outside of San Francisco?
Will I be eating iceberg salads and French fries for the next 10 days?
Will pistachios and peanuts become my staple food until I reach civilization?
Stay tuned....
Sunday, August 07, 2005
We finally begin our road trip...with a detour to the Apple store
BY VINDU GOEL AND CLYDE LERNER
MILEAGE: 0
It's about 4:00 Sunday and we're finally about to head out on the road. We got delayed by a variety of things, including last-minute complications with Vindu's move as well as the fact that WE'RE JUST NOT MORNING PEOPLE. (Plus, we spent a lot of time on the last post, made earlier today, passing along many of your travel suggestions.)
We're determined to make it to Reno tonight. We've even booked non-refundable reservations at the Circus Circus Hotel.
We actually managed to pack everything we need in the car. Vindu is hogging most of the room with the giant green backpack you can see here, with most of Clyde's stuff tucked away in nooks and crannies you can't see. (He assures Clyde that there are secret cargo spaces in the car for at least a small souvenir or two we pick up along the way.)
But first we have to make a detour to the Apple store in Valley Fair Mall. A salesperson there sold Vindu a new U2 iPod last week that was supposed to show off color photos, which we're going to use as our photo album for the trip. Except the iPod they actually gave him was the old black-and-white model. With the receipt and box packed away in storage, we are going to test just how good Apple's customer service is.
Wish us luck, on both the trip and the Apple experience.
Next post from Reno.
Monday, August 08, 2005
DAY 1: We Arrive in Reno with U2, Prince, Black-Eyed Peas, Apples and Peaches
RENO, Nev. -- Sunday was a fun-filled adventure - there were apples and peaches, winnings and losings.
After a later-than-planned start, we first hit the Apple store to exchange Vindu's black-and-white U2 iPod for a current color-screen one. Without receipt or box, we feared a real hassle. But Tim, the manager of the Valley Fair store, was extremely understanding and got Vindu the proper iPod himself (although he did charge him the $30 extra that the newer machine runs). That kind of customers-first attitude builds customer loyalty--Vindu said the last time a computer company impressed him like that was Dell Computer about 15 years ago.
Before leaving the mall, we stopped for a wonderful vegetarian feast sandwich (Clyde's early dinner) and not-so-wonderful turkey cranberry sandwich (Vindu's late afternoon snack).
And finally, at nearly 6, we headed off to Interstate 80 in the red hotrod! Clyde started off at the helm and we drove off in the hot Bay Area weather with the top down and wind flowing through our baseball caps. We followed our trusty Mapquest route, which didn't steer us wrong.
For this leg of the journey's audio entertainment, we used Clyde's blue iPod mini, plugged into a Newer Tech RoadTrip+ FM car charger/radio transmitter. We tuned the radio to 87.9 FM and got wonderful sound (when the wind wasn't blowing our ears out). The Newer Tech device blows away the iTrip on any day of the week. We listened a wide variety of music from Baha Men's "Who Let the Dogs Out," General Public's "So Cool, You're Hot," Prince's "Vicki Waiting," Black-Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" and U2's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday." Clyde thinks it will take us all trip to get through the 871 songs on it, not to mention the songs that Vindu will be loading on his iPod.
At one point, Clyde had a hankering for more than just water and nuts, so we had to get him some fruit. We tried the Vegetable Patch in Fairfield which was closed. We got lost trying to find Larry's Vegetables. With tears welling up in Clyde's eyes, we kept driving. Vindu said, "Look, over there, across the highway." And lo and behold - behind 3 cars which had various parts strewn outside - there was a blissfully, yet simply named store, "Dixon Fruit Market." Once inside this heavily air-conditioned structure, Vindu and Clyde scanned the shelves and found pistachios, cold drinks, chili mangoes, 6 different types of licorice, all kinds of taffy, and in the far back corner, some actual fruit! Clyde picked up some pistachios, some pebbles (jelly bean-like things), a Calypso Mandarin Lemonade and unbelievably - even to Vindu - a Dixon Stone Free peach! With the hot sun baking down on us, Clyde relished the juiciness of the peach (after washing it outside near some scary-looking pink bushes). He even got Vindu to try a bite.
After that, it was nonstop to Nevada. Clyde and Vindu checked in with F and V - their girlfiends - and Clyde incessantly checked his Treo 600 for email while simultaneously programming a new playlist into his iPod.
We landed at Circus Circus at about 10, where Clyde immediately had to wage a huge amount of money in the lobby before registration. See the photos for the joy of anticipation and the pain of loss that Clyde felt as his quarter went down the slot.
Like hobbits, we decided to have a second dinner at the 24-hour restaurant. Clyde stuck to his vegetarian ways, but Vindu dared to eat the chili, only to regret it an hour later. But at least he won 20 cents at the slots while Clyde continued to sink quarters into the insatiable maw of the casino.
On Monday, we hope to cross the state of Nevada and into Utah, if the scattered thunderstorms don't get us first.
ELY, Nev. -- Wow, if every day is this jam-packed, we'll never make it to Minnesota.
After staying up till 3 a.m. working on the last blog posting (let's just say that Circus Circus has pretty lousy high-speed Internet access), we decided to sleep in.
Clyde had no trouble with that part, but Vindu the Insomniac got up early and started planning the day's route, which he ambitiously expected would cover roughly 500 miles of driving across the state of Nevada and into Utah to the entrance of Zion National Park.
We left the hotel about 11:45 a.m. and went in search of brunch. Clyde had his heart set on a real vegetarian meal in a bona fide vegetarian restaurant. Accessing www.happycow.net and www.vegdining.com, he located two veggie places near downtown. Too easy, right? We went to the first place, Pneumatic Cafe, only to find an apartment building at that address (we later found out the cafe was tucked away on the side). So we went in quest of the second place, the Dandelion Cafe, only to be repeatedly stymied by downtown Reno's endless construction. (Message to all those Reno PR folks who used to bug Vindu about how great Reno is: spend some money on detour signs like San Jose does.)
We persevered, however, and found the Dandelion, a pleasant cafe that serves primarily vegetarian food with a smattering of meat sandwiches. ("We are where carnivores and vegans can come together like the lion and the lamb," owner Anthony DeMasi told us.)
Clyde chowed down on a hummus and artichoke heart sandwich with a glorious green leafy salad (the last one he expects to see in weeks!), while Vindu sampled the 13-bean soup and a Mediterranean veggie wrap featuring eggplant and falafel that was quite tangy.
After the meal, we chatted a bit with Jennifer (our cute waitress) and Anthony the owner, who said that there aren't many vegetarian places in town, despite the hordes of Californians moving there from places like Sacramento and the Bay Area. He does a good business at breakfast and lunch, supported by catering, and he's been at it 10 years, adding new lines, such as his wheat-free, dairy-free, gluten-free muffins. He reminded us that it's best for him to say "vegetable lasagne," rather then "vegetarian lasagne" to sell his lasagne to meat-eaters.
Clyde completely agrees with Tony. It's best to do whatever it takes to get people eating a healthier, plant-based diet. Have you noticed that AFTER someone has a heart attack or a stroke their doctor puts them on less meat and more fruits and veggies? Why not start now and avoid the HUGE doctor bills and early death?
We finally left Reno around 1:30 p.m. on Interstate 80. Vindu was so enchanted with his new iPod, already filled with more than 1,000 songs, that he forgot to tell Clyde to turn off onto Alternate Route 50. By the time he noticed, we were deep in the alkaline flats, where the land was lifeless and covered with white powder. When we finally reached an exit and turned around, we had lost a good 10 miles in each direction. Not an auspicious start.
We finally got onto Route 50, known as "The Loneliest Highway in America," at Fernley, famous for being the location of Amazon.com's western warehouse and shipment center. New homes are going up everywhere, and for some reason there are lots of rock shops around; yet it's still rural enough that we saw a corn field right next to the furniture stores. Once we left Fernley, it started getting awfully quiet.
Since Vindu was so, er, PATIENT with Clyde's veggie quest, Clyde decided to help Vindu in his quest for a bottle of wine from one of Nevada's two wineries. Despite visiting one supermarket and two liquor stores in Fallon, we couldn't find any--but there was lots of California wine (vegetarians aren't our only export, apparently). The closest we could come was a Nevada beer, Ruby Mountain Angel Creek Amber Ale (nice and hoppy!), and a church dedicated to the fellowship of the vine. In fact, Vindu hasn't yet had any wine to drink on this trip, since every place we eat seems to feature white zinfandel.
After Fallon, Nevada gets desolate fast. The desert road wound up and down through mountains with long straight stretches and very few cars. Clyde decided to take a nap, and Vindu decided that the 70 mph speed limit was a bit too restrictive. Clyde didn't wake up as Vindu took the car over 100 mph several times, including a few seconds at 125 mph that violently rattled the soft top. Satisfied with this proof of his manliness (or perhaps his macho stupidity), Vindu dialed it back down to a reasonable level. Just for grins, Clyde kicked it into post-100 mph when Vindu wasn't looking.
We stopped for a few minutes in the Austin courthouse. We went up the stairs looking for the tourist info, walked into a large empty room with rows and rows of chairs, then turned our attention to the front of the room where 3 men and 1 woman were looking at us from behind a table. They asked if they could help and we replied they couldn't and wanted to know what they were doing there by themselves at 5:30 pm. They were conducting a land planning meeting and were waiting for one more member for a quorum. Freaky!
Upon exiting Austin, "the center of the Loneliest Highway in America," Vindu made the mistake of pointing out Spencer Hot Springs on the map to Clyde. Clyde LOVES hot springs. He wanted to go immediately, even though the springs were 7 miles along a bumpy dirt road off the main highway. Fortunately, some giant cockroaches crossed the road as we got started, scaring off Clyde, who really HATES bugs. The HUGE craters in the road simultaneously scared both Vindu and his delicate car (which Vindu notes is more like a road bike, fast and lean, than a mountain bike, big and sturdy).
Our next dirt-road diversion was only slightly more successful, to see the Hickison Petroglyphs, which were hardly more than a few engravings in the sandy rocks, embellished with grafitti by recent visitors. Far more interesting were the giant bugs, maybe two inches long, that appeared to be feasting on their dead brethren. They looked like grasshoppers or crickets or something--perhaps someone knows what they are? (See picture.)
The highlight of our afternoon was driving down a stretch of 50 near the Eureka County line with the top down, a slight drizzle blowing past the car, a humongous rainbow on both sides of us and Elvis crooning "Jailhouse Rock" and "Teddy Bear" from the U2 iPod.
Who would've thunk that half an hour later Clyde would encounter his version of hell: trying to get an edible meal in Eureka. We don't know what Eureka is really famous for, but to us, it was all about meat, specifically steak and hamburgers. Every restaurant in town, including the Chinese place, featured burgers and steaks. Clyde finally settled for his saved 1/2 vegetarian sandwich from Circus Circus and a grilled cheese sandwich at a diner that had the worst table service we've ever seen (we had to serve ourselves our menus!)
About 10 p.m., we pull into (pronounced EE-lee) in eastern Nevada and start looking for a place to crash. There aren't a lot of chain motels in Ely--and more importantly, there isn't a single place with high-speed Internet access. We ended up at the Jailhouse Motel in "Cell 254," a remarkably clean and quiet place, where we composed this post to you and filed it via a 28.8K dialup connection.
Ironically, over the 24 hours we have been in Nevada, we've only gambled about $5 (with Clyde gambling at each gas station, restaurant, and bookstore.). We're too tired writing these late-night bloggerific blatherings to play blackjack (Vindu) or craps (Clyde).
HURRICANE, UTAH -- We made it to within spitting distance of Zion National Park on Tuesday, a full day behind the schedule that Vindu plotted for us on Monday.
We began the day with a late breakfast at the Hotel Nevada across the street from our motel in Ely. Clyde picked the place because the waitress actually knew what egg substitute was and the hotel actually had some. He ordered a veggie-filled breakfast burrito, while Vindu tore into a rib-sticking pair of blueberry pancakes and Starbucks coffee.
As we pored over maps and plotted the rest of the trip, Clyde suddenly felt the souls of dead animals in the room. Looking up, he saw their remains on the walls: two decapitated elk heads, a 20-foot snake skin and a feline of some kind, caught mid-howl, stuffed and mounted. Clyde almost lost his breakfast.
Vindu asked the waitress why there were so many heads: Ely, she told us, is a hunters' paradise, with people coming from all over to shoot elk. Clyde tried to plant the seeds of change by urging the restaurant to start offering a tofu scramble in addition to its many meat dishes. And then we got out of their gun sights.
Determined to make it to Zion, we nevertheless couldn't resist a detour to Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park near the Utah border. After all, we're both night owls and we feel comfortable in dark, artificially lit structures.
The cavern, with a series of interlinked rooms, was discovered in 1851, when Absalom Lehman purportedly fell through the ground and discovered some wonderful underground rooms full of bacon, soda straws, curtains, stalactites, stalagmites and shields. It's pretty awesome to see what water and minerals can do over thousands and thousands of years.
According to our guide, L.A. native Kelly Trainor, early visitors to these caves held weddings, receptions and even Boy Scout campouts underground, inscribing their names, breaking off rock formations and leaving fire soot on the roof. But the caves were protected beginning in 1922, when they became a national monument. (Now if you touch anything, they have to kill you.)
Clyde didn't care about any of that. He kept pushing people out of the way and asking Vindu to take his picture next to various rock formations. Like his friend Dave, Clyde harbors a secret desire to become an actor and he wants to audition for a role in a remake of "The Wizard of Mars," a really bad 1965 movie filmed in the caves.
Vindu, meanwhile, had it stuck in his head that he had to drive up Wheeler Peak, a 13,063-foot mountain also in the park. The vistas were truly awesome, offering a view of the valley floor and the mountain's face, but equally breathtaking was our near-pancaking of a jackalope in the middle of the road and our close call with a group of fawns.
We finally hit the Utah border around 5:30. We soon encountered a strange misty rain that a minute or two later turned into a pounding storm, with lightning striking the ground on both sides of us. Clyde, who was napping through it all, was suddenly awakened when Vindu yelled, "Hey, Clyde, wake up! I'm not going through this thing by myself." The water drops were so large (as big as a Nevada cockroach) that we thought they were hail at first, and they were falling so hard we thought they might break the windshield. As quickly as it started, the rain passed.
Highway 21 through southwestern Utah is incredibly scenic, with long straight stretches through valleys punctuated by climbs into the surrounding mountains. The reddish rock glows in the setting sun, and we understood why the early settlers considered the area a special place.
Unfortunately, it's also virtually unpopulated for nearly 80 miles, a stretch that we traversed as the gas gauge fell dangerously low and the cell service was nonexistent. When we arrived in Milford, with two gas stations and a sttrong cell signal, we felt like we had reached an oasis. (Turns out it's also a major pig producer, which you can smell as you drive through.)
We pressed on southward to Hurricane, crashing at a Comfort Inn that was pretty nondescript--except for the pool out front and the miniature golf course out back (parents, this is a good spot to take the kids!).
Wednesday: we make it to Zion National Park and maybe Salt Lake City.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
DAY 4: Polygamy, Zion and Clyde's Girlfriend to the Rescue
PROVO, Utah -- We're writing to you Thursday morning from a rundown (yet suprisingly quiet and well air-conditioned) Travelodge well of Interstate 15 in Provo, about 45 miles south of Salt Lake City. We commence writing after a free conintental breakfast of bananas, bad coffee (Vindu's staple fluid) and packaged muffins and hearing a discussion about churches and Mormons. We ended up here about midnight last night because it was practically the last hotel in northern Utah with a room available.
For reasons we have yet to learn (all the hoteliers say, "Oh, there must be some big convention in Salt Lake"). there was a huge run on hotel rooms last night. Every hotel we called at all the major chains was booked. (Every Motel 6 for 100 miles in either direction around was booked solid.)
The only reason we got a hotel was that Clyde's girlfriend back in the Bay Area hopped onto the Net and logged onto Hotels.com, which pre-buys rooms at various hotels and resells them to consumers. When hotels show "sold out," that's often a good way to find the last few rooms. Thank you, F.!
Can someone tell us why Salt Lake City is so darn popular this week? Or does Utah just have a huge shortage of hotel rooms, in which case someone can make a lot of money building some new ones? (UPDATE: We hear there was a huge convention of outdoor goods retailers in Salt Lake City that caused the hotel shortage. Still seems odd that the whole state and much of Idaho would be sold out.)
The hotel quest capped an intense day.
We spent the morning using the wonders of the Net to book Clyde's hotel stay in Minneapolis, where Vindu breaks off to attend the Asian American Journalists Association convention. Vindu, a master of Internet travel booking, introduced Clyde how to use Priceline.com. After doing some recon at BiddingForTravel.com, a really useful site on bidding strategy, we logged onto Priceline and scored the Four Points Sheraton in Minneapolis for $35 a night, about one-fifth of the normal price of $179 offered on Starwood's Web site. It's by far the best Priceline deal Vindu has ever witnessed anyone getting, and it was nice way to introduce Clyde to Priceline.com.
We then went in search of brunch in Hurricane. The first place we checked out, a "homestyle cooking" joint called Sweet William's was a glorified burger joint (a place where even the salads have meat in them). But next door was Nature's Market, a health food store and lunch counter. How cool was this place? When Clyde requested no mayo on his Veggie Delight sandwich, Grandma Marie said, "Is Veganaise OK?" Clyde was in tofu heaven. Both Emily (the former pharmicist clerk) and Julie were quite helpful in telling us the origin of this oasis.
Next stop was the optometrist. Clyde's clip-on sunglasses suffered a wardrobe malfunction less than one week after he got them at Site for Sore Eyes, and he wanted to get them fixed. Samantha, the optical tech at Hurricane Valley Eye Care, tried valiantly to fix them but ultimately couldn't make it work. So she sold Clyde cool new clip-ons and charged nothing for the attempted resurrection of the original clip-ons.
While we were waiting, we observed two women come in, covered head to toe in old-fashioned dresses despite the hot day, to get children's glasses fixed. The staff at the optical store said they were probably wives of local polygamists, which is still practiced in some portions of the area.
After those little delays, we finally made it to Zion National Park in the afternoon. WOW! The red carved mountains, reminiscent of the Grand Canyon, are just spectacular. We were in Zion Canyon, the main visitor area, and the rocks towered above us like sentinels.
We went for a hike along the river running through the canyon, then up to a pair of waterfalls. We continued up and up and up to a pool at the base of one of the mountains. Although it was crowded, it felt like we were one with the planet over there.
After we left, we headed towards Salt Lake, only to encounter our lodging crisis and a major lightning/rain storm (Clyde thinks these are very cool, Vindu is nonplussed about them) and ended up in Provo.
Today, we are determined to finally find a winery for Vindu, who's been in wine withdrawal ever since we left California.
Friday, August 12, 2005
DAY 5: Jim Carrey, Wine and Mormons on a Mission from God
(We're halfway through our road trip. Please tell us what what you think about our blog so far, either by posting a comment or emailing Vindu or Clyde. Thanks!)
BLACKFOOT, Idaho -- Salud! Today, after enduring five days of Clyde's veggie quests, Vindu, a wine aficionado (more like a nut, says Clyde), got to visit his first winery on their Silicon Valley-to-Minneapolis odyssey. And the experience was enough to impress even Clyde, who generally prefers fresh fruit juice to fermented grape juice.
La Caille Winery in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, is more a high-end restaurant than a winery. La Caille makes only one wine, a 2000 seyval blanc, and it's sold out of a gift shop. After two generous "tastes," Vindu pronounced it good: heavier than a sauvignon blanc, lighter than a chardonnay, tart, with a bit of melon and chalk, and a simple finish. Refreshing on a hot summer day. (The grapes are grown on the property, and the winery hopes to release a cabernet and a merlot soon.) Clyde politely drank half his glass, it being a bit early in the day for tastes of the vine for him.
The real attraction of the tour was the spectacular 24-acre grounds. With the Wasatch Mountains looming above the estate, we saw strutting peacocks, baby rabbits, a meandering rooster, a wedding carriage made of flowers and stunning gardens painted in every shade of the rainbow.
The main building, formerly a farmhouse where co-founder David Johnson grew up, is now a huge, three-floor restaurant with seating capacity for about 200 and room for another few hundred in a greenhouse area (called "the pavilion) used for weddings and the like. Those of you who saw the movie "Dumb and Dumber," starring Jim Carrey, might have seen the winery's top room, which was featured in the scene where Carrey's character lights his fart on fire. That room is also home to the winery's resident ghost, who knocks things over and suddenly opens doors.
We didn't eat at the restaurant, which is only open for dinner, due to our time constraints, but we woulda if we coulda. It's gotten rave reviews from the locals as well as a rare AAA four-diamond rating year after year. Entrees include tournedos du beef Bearnaise ($48) and for the vegetarian, champignon ravioli ($29). Our tour guide, Alaina Llloyd, who works in the office by day and serves dinner by night, noted that the flaming desserts were especially good. "We light a lot of stuff on fire," she said, from cherries jubilee to flaming baked Alaska (both $15). If you're thinking about going, aim for Sunday night, when La Caille serves a fixed-menu, family-style Basque dinner for just $34 a head.
Utah is a tough place to run a winery. The Mormon religion forbids drinking alcohol, and the Mormon-dominated government frowns on drinking, with very tough drunk-driving laws. Still, Alaina said La Caille thrives, primarily by hosting scores of weddings on its beautiful estate.
The winery was such a respite from the rigors of travel that we didn't want to leave, but Salt Lake City beckoned. We wanted to see the seat of the Mormon Church in Temple Square.
Dominating the square is the temple, which is off-limits to non-Mormons. Even Mormons must go through special preparation to enter, showing their devotion in various ways, including tithing 10 percent of their income to the church and performing special prayers.
As tourists, we were escorted around the other buildings in the square by a couple of Mormon women "on mission" (young people who typically perform about 18 months of missionary work for the church). The tour was more proselytization than information. The women, who asked us not to use their names or take their photographs without the permission of the church hierarchy, were clearly passionate about their beliefs. But their frequent references to Jesus Christ as their savior and life guide (not to mention their deference to the prophet, as the head of the church is known) were pretty creepy for heathens like us. (For the record, we consider ourselves spiritual but non-religious.)
And the Christus, a giant statue of Jesus Christ surrounded by the universe with a recorded voice narration from someone pretending to be Him, was pretty darn weird. More cheesy than awe-inspiring.
After the tour, we scooted out of there, grabbed some excellent Thai food at Bangkok Thai, and drove up north to Blackfoot, Idaho, home of the famous Potato Expo and our jumping-off point for the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone on Friday.
DAY 6 (part 2): Mighty Moose nestled between "Large Breasts"
(A note to our loyal fans and nitpicking critics: Clyde and I are experimenting with breaking up the day's adventures into separate posts to speed up the writing and give you a better taste of our individual voices. Let us know if you like this new approach. Thanks.)
Our destination goal for the day, leaving Idaho, the potato capital of the world, was to visit both the Tetonsand Yellowstone in Wyoming and lodge in Gardiner, Montana. As has been par for the course, something both of us bitch about, but don't really care about, we left later than expected.
After leaving the potato museum in Blackfoot, we arrived at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Sausalito of the state (where a tofu burger costs $8.50), around 5:30 pm. We went to the Jackson info desk and the woman explained how it could take up to 5 hours, non-stop, to get to Gardiner and that we might have to stop for moose, elk and possibly a bison stampede (which normally lasts up to 45 mins). Vindu wanted to move on, but I figured that after 4.5 hours of sleep and Vindu having done most of the driving for the day, we'd bail on Gardiner.
After a few false starts with Super 8 motel reservations, we lodged at the local Anvil Inn, in Jackson, for $143/night - our highest-priced hotel to date. (And for that rate, Vindu gripes that there's not even any high-speed Internet access.) After settling in, we headed off to the Grand Tetons (otherwise known as the Big Breasts, because of their breast-like shape). We were quite anxious to see animals on our adventure and we were not disappointed. Our first sighting was a rather large elk crossing the road in front of us, which we had amble warning of, so we didn't have a close encounter of an unwanted kind.
We then viewed the gorgeous sunset around the wondrous mountains. They were breathtaking, although not as awe-inspiring to us as the red rock of Zion. After taking loads of photos, we were off to find more animals. We saw lots of cars parked by the roadway and decided to stop. We were thrilled to see a female moose under a bridge munching on grass. She probably was thinking, "Wow, this is much ado about nothing," but we all fussed and took loads of pictures of her.
Our last animal sighting was a male moose with huge antlers. All we saw was his large set of antlers, with no movement from the mighty beast. The sight of adults and kids fawning over a pair of antlers waiting for the male to stand up (which he didn't while we were there) was quite humorous.
Two animal rights notes: I think it's hilarious that people are so concerned with the safety of the animals in the park - 2 have been killed this season (wow!) - while almost everyone I've met on this tour is part of the group that kills 3,000,000,000 animals each year (or 8.22 million animals killed per day) for food and other human activities. I am concerned for the animals in the park as well as all the other animals on this planet. Additionally, a frequent road sign was quite offensive:"Game crossing." I speak for all the animals in Wyoming - I don't feel you are "game" (what kind of game is it anyways when the animal has no chance of winning?), I feel you are animals just like us.
GARDINER, Montana -- We didn't travel very far Saturday, but that's OK. We bonded with the bison in Yellowstone National Park.
Yellowstone rivals Zion National Park as the highlight of our trip so far. We liked the geysers, although we never made it to Old Faithful, the biggest of the bunch. We were OBSESSED with the bison.
Like Buffalo Bill, but armed with cameras instead of guns, we spent much of the day successfully hunting for the mighty bison, which fascinate both of us--something about the big shoulders, shaggy hair and the fact that they could mow you down in a second (travelling at speeds of up to 35 mph) if they wanted to. They are the largest land animals in North America--and like Clyde, they are vegetarian. (Clyde was hunting them with the photograpic equivalent of a club, a disposable camera, since he accidentally left his nice compact digital in Jackson (luckily found by an honest hotelier who's sending it back to Clyde....)
Our day began in Jackson, Wyoming, with brunch at the Bunnery, an upscale coffee shop with bad service and moderate prices. Demonstrating Clyde's influence on him, Vindu actually tried to order a vegetarian breakfast: a spinach and cheese croissant. But the fates conspired against him as the waitress delivered a ham and cheese croissant and then disappeared. By the time they corrected their error, Vindu had eaten the whole meat pastry. (Clyde, meanwhile, was pleased about the non-egg omelet, which was also delayed, since the first order was delivered with eggs in it.)
After brunch, we zipped through Grand Teton National Park without really stopping. (Taking advantage of the convertible's topless feature, Vindu shot some drive-by photos popping his head above the windshield. A fluke wind popped his cap off, which we couldn't find anywhere on the ground. Upon stopping in Yellowstone much later, we found the hat wedged between the soft top and the trunk!) We encountered a nasty accident on the short road between Teton and Yellowstone. It didn't affect our travels, but it backed up southbound traffic for miles. Our hearts go out to those injured in the crash.
After the requisite stop at the Yellowstone south visitor's center (Vindu absolutely MUST have his maps), we visited the West Thumb geysers. Clyde was moved by the warm pools, which he was aching to dive into. The toxins and the fact that Clyde's skin would be burned off convinced him otherwise.
Our second geyser stop, at the mud volcano area in the eastern part of the park, reminded us that geysers are nature's sewage system (or at least they smell that way). The gases spouting from the geysers damn nearly killed us. The cloudy vapor smelled like rotten eggs (sulfur) and sucked our breath away. Fortunately, we soon escaped the toxic clouds into a wooded area recovering from the ravages of the geysers. We saw some Uinta ground squirrels and some tiny chipmunk-like creatures called pika dance around the ruined trees. (In other wildlife sightings, a little later we saw a bear that was so far away it was just a black dot in the binoculars.)
That whetted our appetite for bison. We saw four separate herds during the day on the east side of the park in the Hayden Valley and Canyon areas.
The first time, they were far enough away from us that we got out of the car and watched. A couple of males got into a serious head-butting fight. Bison rolled around in the dirt to get rid of the bugs, taking a reverse shower--getting as much mud on themselves as possible. A bird rode a huge male as he led a small group across the road. We even saw a baby take a leak...
The second time, we stayed in the car as bison were all around us, including right next to the car. We kinda chickened out (or acted safe, as our moms would say) and kept the top up, since a bison is six-foot-tall and could easily attack us over the open top. A bit further down the road, we watched a herd cross the Yellowstone River, swimming seemingly without effort.
The fourth time, they got even closer--walking right in front of our stopped car. They were so close that Vindu snapped some great photos outside his window. A bit later, Clyde walked up to some of them, keeping a distance of 75' (or was it 20'?). He just couldn't stop snapping photos of the majestic beasts.
We spent so much time looking at bison that, after a quick meal at the Canyon lodge (where Clyde found the first tofu of the trip!), we headed out of the park. Our last stop was the Norris Geyser Basin, which we reached at dusk. The boardwalk into the Porcelain Geyser area headed into the middle of the muddy wasteland, and it was haunting in the fading light, like a scene out of Dante's Inferno.
About 10 p.m., we finally reached our Comfort Inn in Gardiner just outside the park. Clyde was completely disgusted and almost puked as all the walls were covered in stuffed animals--rabbits, deer, bears and the like.
As we finish this Sunday morning, we're a full day behind schedule, so the next couple of days are going to be long drives and less sightseeing. But we hear there are wild bison in South Dakota!
Monday, August 15, 2005
DAY 8 (Part 1): Nail in the Native American's Coffin: Custer's Last Stand
LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL MONUMENT, Montana -- It was with great reluctance that I visited this tourist trap. There were multiple gift shops and loads of people everywhere upon arriving at such a historic site.
I know a bit of history about the Native American people, since my grandfather was active in the '70s assisting one of the Native American tribes, the Havasu, in the Grand Canyon survive by teaching them how to run a store and get funds from the federal government. I also took a class on Native American history and visited the Havasu people in the mid-'80s.
A good summary of the battle is here. Bottom line, the wonderful U.S. gov't felt it was in their best interest to round up all the Native Americans in reservations, like they do with equally harmless cattle, so they knew were they all were. The government stole all their land and signed treaties giving them small bits of land instead, stripping them of their way of life, which was a nomadic one based on following the bison, not a stationary one, where one goes to the store and buys goods.
On June 25, 1876, Custer disobeyed orders as he attempted to round up large numbers of Native Americans. He split his troops into 3 groups as he strategized to take the Native Americans in 1 day (contrary to the three days that his Native American scout recommended). His strategy backfired and the Native Americans killed him and his troops. This was the beginning of the end, as the gov't was way pissed off about this and increased the pressure to round up all Native Americans into slave camps titled "reservations." (The reservations, unfortunately were for a lifetime and non-cancellable). By the end of the century, the Indians were "pacified."
For more than a century, the battlefield has had a number of monuments to the fallen officers and soldiers and even one to the horses. Only very recently did they erect a monument to the Native Americans who died there (see picture at right).
After the battlefield, Vindu and I drove through the town of Lame Deer on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and were saddened by the poverty and lack of people there. I'm sure 100 years ago, these areas were flourishing with Indian people and large amounts of bison. Today, all that remains are scattered houses, about 50% of them in disrepair, and some farmland. Quite a sad state of affairs for a once noble people.
On a bright note, we happened upon St. Labre High School, a Catholic school just outside of the reservation. We were immediately struck with the beauty of the building and structures. My interpretation is that the cross, shown crushing the church, is symbolic of the white man/church crushing the spirit of the Native Americans. In researching the school a bit, it appears (looks can be deceiving), that after 120 years in existence (129 years after Custer's Last Stand), the majority of the teachers/higher-ups in the staff are of non-Native American descent. If I had more time, I'd call the school to get more info.
DAY 8 (Part 2): James Bond and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Deadwood
DEADWOOD, S.D. -- I could tell you about our long drive through three states (Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota) and our close encounters with deer four times along the way. Or the massive construction project we encountered in the middle of nowhere on U.S. 212 in Montana. But it wasn't that interesting, other than the places that Clyde is writing about. It was just a long drive.
The end of the day was a different story: Deadwood, South Dakota, in the heart of the Black Hills area. The storied western town, known as the baddest of the bad in frontier days (think Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok), is now a national historic landmark and a modern-day casino town. It has at least one haunted hotel (the Bullock) on its downtown strip. And it's the star of its own television series, called "Deadwood," on HBO.
How cool is that?
We stayed at the Comfort Inn, a bit out of the center of town, but after unloading our stuff on Sunday evening, we went to the center of town in search of food. Sadly,Clyde's vegetarianism was once again a challenge. For more than an hour, we wandered up and down the street looking for someplace, ANYPLACE, with vegeterian options. The closest we could come was a fancy restaurant that was closed for the night and a burger joint/casino that offered a lone veggieburger on the menu. Sigh.
The quest did allow us to see virtually all the buildings on the main drag, some of which date to the 19th century and still have Victorian furnishings.
I'm not really a gambling man, but I have to admit the Deadwood slots are a bit more fun than those in Reno and Las Vegas (although the downside is they close down the table games like blackjack early on Sunday evenings). Somehow the crass commerce goes down better in the Old West setting--it makes you think of all the gambling and vice that happened there long ago.
My favorite was the Celebrity Hotel, which has a mini car museum with classic celebrity vehicles, such as a couple of James Bond cars, Tom Selleck's Ferrari from "Magnum P.I." and a stunt version of Herbie the Love Bug.
We even saw a bit of California in the lobby, with Arnold Schwarzenegger's bullet-ridden leather jacket from one of the "Terminator" movies.
Clyde loved the slots as much as he did the bison, hitting a number of casinos and slot machines. Starting with a $20 stake, he made about $8. Starting with a $4 stake, I made $1. Are we compulsive, big-spending gamblers or what?
And then we called it a night. Monday is another long day as we traverse South Dakota with Mount Rushmore and the Badlands in our sights.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
DAY 9: PAYING HOMAGE TO CRAZY HORSE, WALL DRUG AND THE BEAUTIFUL BADLANDS
(NOTE TO READERS: For some technical and scheduling reasons, our account of our final day of the road trip might be delayed until late Wednesday. Also, please check back later this week for Vindu's report on Idaho and South Dakota wines and for followup posts on gas prices, what it was like to travel in the tiny S2000 and lessons we learned on the trip about technology, travel planning and writing a blog.)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.--A couple of lifetime's worth of patience--and a lot of dynamite--that's what it's going to require to see the completion of the gorgeous memorial to Crazy Horse being built in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Crazy Horse, an Oglala Sioux, is almost universally revered by Native Americans because he never signed a treaty with the white man and never went on an Indian reservation. For his courage and defiance, he was stabbed in the back by a U.S. soldier while he was reportedly resisting arrest.
The monument, which rises 563 feet high and is 641 feet long, was begun in 1946 when some Lakota tribe members, including some survivors of Custer's Last Stand, asked Korczak Ziolkowski, who helped build Mount Rushmore, to build a statue of Crazy Horse out of a granite mountain in the Black Hills, Crazy Horse's ancestral land.
With amazing vision, Korczak built a 1/34th model of the statue and a staircase with 711 stairs up to the top of the mountain. Working alone for years, Korczak walked up and down the stairs with his gear. Because of technical difficulties with the compressor for his jack hammer, which was at the bottom of the mountain, he would often have to make the trip several times--one day, nine times up and down. While working on the statue, he married and had 10 kids. Although he died in 1982, Korczak left behind three books of drawings to guide the project, and his wife and seven of his kids continue to work on it today.
According to the foundation, the Ziolkowski family has twice refused $10 million of federal assistance, funding the project entirely through private donations. They believe that if the public supports the project, they should fund it with their own contributions.
The contrast with Mount Rushmore, both artistically and on the government funding front, is startling. The sculptures of the four presidents would all fit inside Crazy Horse's head. And because of the design, it's impossible for people to get close to the monument. Furthermore, Mount Rushmore was funded almost entirely with taxpayer money.
We were both deeply moved by Crazy Horse's valiant leadership of his people and by Korczak's fortitude and vision.They are role models for all of us.
We enjoyed a different kind of beauty later in the day, when we visited Badlands National Park.
In sharp contrast to the lush forests of the Black Hills (which reminded us of some our favorite areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains), the Badlands are dry, eroded, sandy hills and towers. It looks as if a giant dehumidifier sucked all the water out of the mountains and whole sections started to slough off. (In fact, the Badlands were created the opposite way: by rivers depositing silt and eroding the original hills.)
The stark landscape is hauntingly beautiful and intimidating at the same time. If you've seen the "Lord of the Rings" movies, you might recall the scene when Frodo and Sam first glimpse the land of Mordor. Subtract the rivers of fire and you have some sense of the forbidding majesty of the Badlands.
On the lighter side, we stopped at Wall Drug, a cornucopia of pleasures for everyone. This humongous tourist attracton, actually containing a real live pharmacy, boasts dinosaurs, free ice water, 5-cent coffee with freshly made donuts, any dead animal you can think of plastered to the wall, boots, clothing and a place for the kids to play. They really build the place up about 30 miles before you get there with a plethora of road signs. A sample: "Entering Wall Drug County", "Free ice water," "Milkshakes," "Root beer," "We fit any foot...well, almost any foot," "Kids bored?" Basically, they list something to lure everyone into their fun-filled store.
For the last supper of Vindu & Clyde's Road Trip 2005, we ate at the H&H Restaurant next to the Best Western in Kadoka, S.D. It was a pleasant place, offering a grilled cheese sandwich cooked totally away from meat for Clyde, and a nice homestyle meatloaf for Vindu. They even had a salad bar, although some of the vegetables were a little dubious. The blackberry pie was great, and overall, it was our best diner experience of the trip.
After dinner, our speed run along Interstate 90 to Sioux Falls was grueling, landing us at our hotel at 2 a.m. But we're now less than 300 miles from our destination, Minneapolis.
