Across the High Plains

There isn't much to say about the state of Nebraska, except that it takes forever to get through and kind of reminds me of what the set of "A Prairie Home Companion" would look like -- which furthered my distaste for it. Sorry I just have never been able to get that show.

Anyway, when we left Tampa last Friday it was eighty-five degrees and coming through Nebraska into Wyoming this is what we drove through.



The weather aside we actually made great time and stopped in Cheyenne, WY around three in the afternoon to visit with my aunt and uncle and cousins that live there. The snow hadn't hit there that evening but when we woke up yesterday there was about two to three inches on the ground. We left a bit later than planned to allow for the roads to clear up, which were fine except for a few drifts that had blown into the highway.

Wyoming is one open valley after another, the horizons going on for dozens of miles to the north and south. There's a comfortable silence in the air between mountain ranges that calms any anxieties about driving through snowy passes. The elevation however was making me a little spacey but once we had been up that high, about nine thousand feet in some places, I started to adjust.

After crossing over the Great Divide Basin the elevation starts to go down a bit and from there it was only a couple of short hours before we hit Logan Canyon. Before you get into Logan Canyon you drive around the southern and western shores of Bear Lake which straddles the Utah/Idaho border.


Past the lake to the west is Logan Valley which houses the Cache National forest. The switch-backs on Rt. 89 that cut through the valley throw you into the humbling contrast of the snow covered peaks. It's a breath-taking drive that ends in Cache valley, bringing you to the eastern border of Logan.


We'll be here until Friday visiting more family and then we'll complete the last leg of the trip.

Through the seasons...

We made it up close to Macon Friday night and on into Nashville the following morning. We passed right by Atlanta on I-75 on the way there and I couldn't help smiling inside to myself thinking about how exciting the zombie apocalypse would be. For the first few days anyway.

Those first two days were shorter legs than we typically try cover. We planned it as such so that we could stop in Nashville and visit with Leslie's cousin Michelle, her husband Alex, daughter Mia and mother Barbara. We had some dinner in the hipster hub of Tennessee, a neighborhood near Vanderbilt college called 12 South. It was a fancy burger joint called "Burger Up" and it was stocked with as many thick black framed glasses (guilty as charged) and skinny jeans as you could stomach. They stock a great beer selection and some off beat burger creations. For myself I ordered the lamb burger with some kind of dill/mint mayo with a side of sweet potato fries and a frosty mug of Yazoo Dos Perros. I don't know if it was 'cause I was starving but the burger was outstanding and the beer had a perfect balance. It wasn't overloaded with hops like some micro brews can be. If you're passing through Nashville this place is worth checking out. It's not too far off of I-24 and there is plenty of street parking available. Fair warning though, you may end up waiting a bit for a table.

Enough drooling. Later on it was guys versus girls Trivial Pursuit and I'm sad to say that the guys were crushed, although it should be noted that we were outnumbered.

This morning we set off pretty early and made our way out through western Tennessee and on into Kentucky. We passed through a small southwestern corner of Illinois before crossing the entire width that is the vast nothingness of Missouri, with exception of St. Louis and Kansas City. We've stopped on the Iowa/Nebraska border for the night and will make our way over to Cheyenne, WY by (hopefully) early afternoon tomorrow. We've narrowly missed a snow-flurry system that's made it's way from eastern California on over to most of the western half of the country. If that doesn't slow us down tomorrow we'll be right on schedule.

Oh, and for some reason we didn't plan ahead when we packed our suitcase for this trip. I guess we became to complacent in the Florida weather and all that I have to wear for the next six days are a pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts. The rest of what I brought is shorts and I have one hooded sweatshirt to keep shielded from the elements. Oh well...

Day 1 of 8

We're leaving Tampa today and heading as far north into Georgia as we can before ten o'clock or so. I'm going to try to post at least once a day during the trip out to Portland for anyone interested. We'll be making a few stops along the way to visit family and should land in Oregon next Friday some time.

A couple of things that I forgot to mention about Tampa. First, we went to the new location of the Dali museum in St. Pete's. The building was completed late in 2010 and open to the public just last month. The architecture stands out right away making for an appropriate prelude to the works inside. You can pay for a guided tour and hear all about Dali's life and evolution as an artist, or you can just read the plaques. Either way you can knock this one out in an afternoon and then tour around St. Pete's for a bit.


Second, I volunteered at Feeding America Tampa Bay a couple of days a week. This organization is truly an amazing effort and is so well organized. Donations are taken in from local grocery store chains and private contributors and are then assessed for quality, organized into categories and redistributed back into the community. It's technically a food bank but walking into this place is like being in a Costco sized warehouse full of donated food items. They have facilities in every state and you can find their locations through their main site linked above.




One last thing that I'll miss about Tampa - the Publix chain of grocery stores. Seriously, I know how lame it is to have a crush on a grocery store but what I'm going to miss most about it is their generic store brand. Not because the food is necessarily leaps and bounds beyond anything else out there. It's the graphic design on the packaging. Anyway, I know it's lame but there you have it.

Cigar City Pt. 2

Hello again and forgive me but I forgot to create links for the content in the last post so please feel free to revisit and click your heart out. We're still in Tampa with about a week and a half left before we head out again. This time it's back to Portland, OR for (hopefully) good. More specifically it's an area called Clackamas. Apparently the state of Oregon let their younger citizens make up nonsense words when they were naming their regions.

All kidding aside though, we've had a great time in Tampa. We hit up a couple more "must-see" spots around town since the last time I posted. Well for starters we spent a weekend in South Beach Miami which I know isn't in Tampa but hey -- we had to see what all the fuss was about. First note, be sure that you start a swear jar or a Roth IRA before traveling down there 'cause it's expensive with a capital "$". Secondly, don't waste your time paying vomit-inducing cover charges to any of the clubs or bars. All you have to do for entertainment is stroll up and down the A1A or S. Ocean Drive.

We took in a drag show that set up on the sidewalk next to the restaurant we were having dessert at. Fleets of trophy trucks and cars with names that I can't even pronounce cruised the over-crowded streets on Friday and Saturday night. We were never without about a thousand people watching opportunities and they all paid off.


I kinda felt like I was in high school and all the cool kids had been invited to some party that I didn't even know about. Aside from a little insecurity though we had a couple of great meals and the picture to the right here is what the inside of our hotel, the Penguin, looked like. We spent the afternoon on the beach on Saturday and poolside with our friends Mary and Jon on Sunday before we left.


Back in Tampa I should note a rather unusual attraction. On the east side, just outside of the city limits, is a coal burning power plant. Tampa Electric, just north of Apollo beach, expels water that's used in the production of electricity into Tampa Bay. During the winter months when the Gulf of Mexico is a bit too cold, manatees that would otherwise graze there shuffle over to a small inlet that hugs one side of the plant. This inlet is where the ejected water, heated after being used to cool machinery inside, comes out. The manatees take full advantage of this and loll about lazily and graze in what amounts to a several million gallon hot tub. There's a wooden walk way built up across from the plant and it's free for anyone who wants to stop by and check out about a hundred or so sea cows.

Oh and I almost forgot -- there's a Yuengling brewery in Tampa! I took a tour of the brewery with my dad when he visited. The tour is pretty standard but there's a small bar next to the gift shop with free samples of every brew that they make. I tried a double bock seasonal that I'd never heard of before, it was great!


That about does it. We've had a great time warming our thick blood down here but we're ready for more temperate climes. Next time I see you it will be on Pacific time.