POINT A TO POINT B (continued)

We are now at Home #2 in Juneau. Finally made it here around 12:30 a.m. July 9. 3,120 miles door to door of driving and 3 days worth of ferry ride from Washington to Juneau.

--mixed emotions being back - when I saw Mendenhall Glacier from a distance, and recognized "home", it felt nice - but driving the car to the house, the full moon came over the mountains and I got sad missing my friends in NY :(
By the way, the it doesn't get dark til almost 11:00 p.m.

We basically boogied like hell to make it through the eastern states and the major traffic jam in Chicago until we slowed down a bit once we crossed the Mississippi. We didn't have much time for detours so while Sade shot photos of road signs blurred from speeding by them, backends of semi trucks, mustangs, and windshield mortality victims, I kept the speed at 80 and waited for all the stuff on the roof to go flying off. I kept wondering why people would tailgate so damn close when they saw all the shit I had on the roof. Are they oblivious fools?

One night we must have drove through a swarm of fireflies and glow-in-the-dark guts decorated the windshield. I said to Sade "Watch this" and put on the windshield wipers and we had bio-luminescent smear all over. Very cool.















We did manage, however, to find time to view the Jolly Green Giant and the largest Bull Head (not the catfish variety) sculpture in the world...the only bull head sculpture in the world?




The only planned stop along the way was Mt Rushmore - with all the traveling I've done, I've never spent much time in South Dakota and never saw the Mount. Badlands Nat'l Park was right on the way so we made a detour to go there. We got there at sunset - and the colors of the dunes - or whatever they're called, were awesome. We rented a cabin right in the middle of the park and spent the next 1/2 day hiking around. It was hot as hell and I really think we almost killed poor Rosie. Her tongue was hanging out of her mouth and her eyes were dazed for hours after.




The hills were like cement and climbing them was tough - easy place to scrape skin. It was a really nice place and well worth the detour!

One thing I noticed was that yellow vetch was growing along side every road and was spreading across the prairie. I'm sure this introduced plant must be considered invasive in this area - and it is very close to the National Grasslands lands--- DOT in their infinite wisdom.








<--- worth framing this one!

Had to include this pic - there were black cows with white babies. What kind of cows are they?? I guess the babies grow up to be black? How nice... no racism here.

POINT A TO POINT B = 3,120 MILES

Well, we made it. In Ketchikan now. It actually wasn't bad - the weather was absolutely beautiful the whole trip. We took I90 the entire way NY, PA, OH, IL, IN, WI, MN, SD, WY, ID, WA & AK with only a few detours. The hardest part was not getting off every exit to go exploring.

Sade did a bit of driving - she got up to 80 miles an hour here in MN (see the wind turbines in the background?). Rosie was great - she slept almost the whole way and then we almost killed her in the Badlands - more on that later. And we found out that she loves fried pork rinds!

NEW YORK AND BACK...

Wow, what a whirlwhind. Arrived via plane to NY on June 7th, spend 3 weeks or so packing and cleaning up the house, loading the FJ, fixing doorknobs, painting the hallway, etc. - all in between heavy drinking and bbq-ing with my friends who I am going to miss dearly- to get ready for the journey back to Juneau via auto. The house is rented, and me, Sade & the dog, rosie, officially hit the road yesterday. Forgot to zip the rooftop cargo carrier so lost a few items on I88 within 20 mintues of leaving - that's ok, had too much stuff anyway and we were both teary-eyed and didn't care. Now Sunday night in Ohio visiting mom and the sister - caught my nephew in between heading back to Germanny. Tomorrow a.m early, we're heading west. Decided to take the northern route - via Chicago St Paul North Dakota Montana Idaho And Washington. So sorry my friends in the Denver area - Diane in Ft Collins, Jim in Boulder, and Dean in Littleton... I was planning on stopping by to see each of you but the northen route appears to be the quickest and I MUST be on the Friday Ferry at 3:00! So, wish me Bon Voyage!! (Bought Homer's Iliad on CD - actually 14 of 'em, 14 hours worth - to listen to in the car. Should be interesting... wonder how Rosie will like it.)

BLOG COMMENTS

OK Bennett, Eli, Jamie Rose, Jenna, Alena, Joshua, Laurabean, Olivia, Alex, et al., why aren't you commenting on my blog posts. I'm bored out of my mind. Sitting in the USO lounge at the Seattle Airport. Free wifi, coffee, cookies, hot dogs and fruit loops. Sade's using our laptop and I'm on the USO one. But i have nuthin to do on-line except add to my blog journal. You know what the USO lounge is? Well, it's a lounge for Active Duty military people to use. There's an xbox, movie room, bunks, guitars, computers etc. Am I active military? No, but I showed my non-active/civilian ID at the front and the nice guy said to me "Your husband's active right?" So, I say "Uh yeah"... and we're in! Cool. But we've been in here past 2 hours now and I'm bored - rather go shopping in the gift shops and wander the airport. I think I'll try to convince Sade to abandon ship... cya later! <:))))~ that's an armadillo.

Still More Craigs List stuff..

I unpacked these great moving boxes and just couldn't take them to the dump. I put an ad in Craigs List: "Free Moving Boxes or will trade for salmon". An elementary school teacher came and got the boxes and gave me a piece of king salmon her husband caught. We just ate it - delicious!
I sold Rusty for $200 more than what I paid for it. So now I am car-less once again. But I'm going home to retrieve my car in a few days. And I ran into Rusty at the home depot a couple days later and said hello to its new owner.
And, someone I know gave me an old smelly Zodiac inflatable, I put in on Craigs List Sunday and sold it within 20 minutes for $150! AND best of all the guy who bought it works at a helicopter place - he's a mechanic there (I won't mention company name) , and he's gonna set me up with a FREE helicoptor tour!
He told me people in Juneau scour Craigs List for goodies.

I love this town - the barter system is back and stronger than ever thanks to the internet!

"The Watering Hole"

As with anywhere, I suppose, the local highschool kids are the experts at knowing all the secret cool places to go. Here is the local "watering hole" where they jump from the cliffs into this deep cold pool of water! This photo of the waterfall with the tree logs leaning against it is actually the outflow from the pool! It pretty spectacular and a bit scary.

...and more.