Ben and Laura Drive Each Other Crazy: 10/08/07

Some thoughts at the end of the first leg of our tour.

Now that we've arrived on the west coast of the continental U.S., I have a few thoughts to share:

1. 85 octane gas just doesn't work as well as 87. My car's tachometer proved this when my car shuddered up a hill at 5000RPMs, which scares me. I don't know if the gas is the real reason for this, but I'd like to believe it is. 85 octane gas is only available past the Mississippi it seems, and I gotta believe there's something behind it. Cue Patrick to make me look like a fool on this thought.

2. The further west you go, the higher the speed limit. I-90 made it to 80mph, if I remember properly somewhere around Wyoming. It's love.

3. Air mattresses are a gift from the gods on a road trip. There's never such a thing as sleeping on the floor when you have a couple of these.

4. There are a few perfect road trip songs. Let me proffer the following:
a) "King of the Road" --Roger Miller
b) "Take it Easy" --The Eagles
c) "Let's Get Out of this Country" --Camera Obscura
d) "I Drove All Night" --Roy Orbison
e) "Fist City" --Loretta Lynn

Please feel free to add to this list!
Thanks for reading along.
Keep it up, and we'll let you know about Portland, OR!

Seattle, WA

After driving from Glacier to Seattle, we were tired and needed to do laundry, change the oil, and update our blog. So today, we basically took care of business and met up with some friends.

Laura's friend Derek, holding the puzzle ring that Laura dismantled and almost ruined. However, it looks like he is playing air guitar, which is better.

We are at Beth's Cafe, which serves a mighty good chicken tender.

Seattle, WA

With the little time that we had to spend in Seattle today, we did some basic dude-ering. We did, however, go to Pike Market, where they throw fish and stuff. But we don't have pics of that. So imagine it: Lots of vendors, lots of people, it's actually one of the coolest things I've seen recently. Seattle is seriously in the running for eventual relocation.

The Market

Jeremy having a stare-down with Nova.

Nova is real cute. She kept trying to slip me her tongue, but I told her I just wanted to be friends.

Coffee in Seattle is pretty good, as evidenced by my face.

Glacier National Park, MT 2

This is where Glacier got even better! After staying in that resort lodge, everything seemed perfect.

St. Mary Lake, Mountains!
Mountains and Lake!

Same

St. Mary Lodge! We got a really good rate because it's crazy off-season. But the place was really nice, as you will see!

Here it be!
It was especially nice because we were basically staying inside the park, and it was virtually the only place to stay on the East side of the park, where all the most beautiful scenery is found.

Me, excited after a shower, Jumping in my towel. Looks like I'm wearing a pink shirt, but guess what! I'm not.

Then we watched 3 hours of Nip/Tuck and went to bed.

Pretty

Laura inside trees again.

Photographer!

We can't even remember where this is exactly. I think it's at St. Mary.

This is at St. Mary for sure.

Big Mountain, Trees.

Overlook

Two Medicine Lake in all its glory

Another Lake

Laura and another lake (not the above "another lake")

OOOOH

Horsies we saw when we were leaving. Located around Many Glacier.

Me, singing along to Jewel's "You Were Meant for Me" and crying with full emotion. A staple for any road trip/every day.

Yellowstone 3, Glacier National Park, MT

Mammoth Hot Springs. Real cold, still.

We did this on the way out of Yellow Stone, on the way to Glacier.

The drive up to Glacier was pretty uneventful. We tried to stop in Missoula, MT, but there was some weird conference in town and there were no rooms! So we went on to Polson, MT, where we stayed in a motel on Flathead Lake. Waking up to that was nice.

There was a big "M" in the mountain. You could probably see it if this weren't blurry.

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

The Eastern gateway into the park.

Here, BIG MOUNTAINS by a lake. Made me a man. So excited, I was thrown into a gleeful jumping fit.

Two Medicine. I highly recommend it.

There were effin cows in the road. As the ranger who pulled me over told me, they are dangerous.

My mom likes to talk to cows.
Anyone else out there crazy?

At first, I couldn't remember this picture. Then I saw myself peeing on the side of the road.

Laura inside a tree.

When we got to the end of the trail at Glacier (terminating at Avalanche Lake), we met these two hiking ladies from Sacramento who have been hiking buddies for over twenty years. They took these pictures of us, and it went like this:

"Oh, you want to take a picture of your backs? That's cute!"

"Now turn around!"

What they actually meant was for us to turn around on the bench and have our legs toward them....However, we opted for the "Glamour Shots" route, not even considering what normal people would do.

We didn't even realize what they were talking about until way later, even after we took pictures of them sitting like normal people.

Big Mountains and Lake.

Dense forest.

Me taking a video of the waters!

Glacier N.P. is highly recommendable.

Yellowstone 2

It was cold in Yellowstone. We knew it would be, and we were glad it was because it was much prettier because of it. HOWEVER, there were certain things that would have been a lot more pleasant, had the weather been a little more considerate of our feelings. READ ON:

Our gloves drying

Chompers.

Here's the thing. We went to bed and we knew it was going to snow. We were prepared for that. What we weren't prepared for: asphyxiation. Snow fell over the flys that cover the air vents in the tent, weighing them down, and preventing air from circulating in the tent. We woke up, cold and gasping for air. "Why...are...weee....?" "I....don't...know...altitude?" "Go...back...to...sleep?" "What...if...we...die?" And so on and so forth. Needless to say, we survived.