The Wild West Part VI -- Road Trip

Navigating by GPS is great, but realistically you have no real idea of the big picture. I could plot a course to the Million Dollar Bar in downtown Jackson just fine with my GPS, but I could not plot a 4 day road trip across the prairie to Chicago that would take in the places where we wanted to stop off and visit along the way without that old style thing... the map. I love maps, I really do. I love to see where I am and where other interesting places are that I have never visited. I also like to see where I have visited in the past as that brings back some very happy memories so have bought some big area maps for home and have started to push little pins into them marking where we have been! I know, pretty anal. Whatever. So I bought some road maps and along with Google Maps started plotting our way back to Chicago. Total distance approximately 1500 miles with stops and side tracks along the way; 4 days and 3 nights; how long in each side visit....

See. People still do do back of the envelope!

It took us to some fun places too. The further east we drove, the more cars, people and towns we encountered. The stretch across Minnesota was fairly busy. It could have been the 4th July driving weekend I suppose but that bit wasn't as enjoyable as the earlier bits. For accommodation I chose wherever I could to stay at places on the Missouri River, trying to keep a Lewis and Clarke theme if I could. It didn't work after the Little Big Horn excursion as that area is almost totally devoid of towns, the nearest being a tiny town called Hardin where things closed down at 8.30 pm which came as something of a shock when we were looking for dinner. It turned out just fine in the end though but it did make us consider that we should probably look to do things earlier in the evening for the next couple of days.



We chose Wisconsin Dells because of its proximity to Chicago (less than 3 hours on our final day) and because we wanted to try some cheese! However if you want to know what we enjoyed the most on our road trip, in no particular order they are:

The Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. Viv bought a can when we came back to Penang!

The sight of Viv cleaning dead bugs off the windscreen and the amount of hand soap used afterwards

The really beautiful locations

The huge country... and of course the hat.

The ever changing roads

Most of all the company

The Wild West Part I

Now I cannot remember whether this is Part 1 or whatever for this title but as it chronicles our visit to Wyoming and car trip back to Chicago across the prairies, that's what I will call it. More parts to follow.

I don't know if I've mentioned before in this blog that Viv and I have the notion to visit every one of the 50 states in the USA, so we do and this trip ticked off a lot of new ones for us. But of course that isn't the reason for wanting to do this trip, it's that Viv and I enjoy road trips and the US is so big and so diverse that it makes it really interesting, fun and easy to do. This time... and it really never occurred to me before in this way ... I really do see why the Americans love their driving, their big cars (bikes and trucks too) and not that infrequently do not feel the need to get a passport as their country is both big enough and accessible enough for anyone.

We were in Toronto after our Bermuda trip and whilst not exactly wondering what to do with ourselves, had a couple of notions of things to do whilst we were in North America. My first thought was to circumnavigate the Great Lakes. Lake Ontario is one of them so the start and end point wasn't too far away and as the lakes spread out across the continent, they take in a mass of both US states and Canadian provinces.

The Great Lakes

Then we remembered we'd have to hire a car and cross the international border at least a couple of times, if not more. And we've heard about the increased delays with all the Homeland Security stuff so thought it may be simpler to just stay in one country which meant looking for a flight west somewhere and then onwards. So Plan B (again mine) was to hire a car in Chicago and then drive out to the Rockies... and back. In a week or so. Viv said isn't that quite a distance so I looked on Google Maps and discovered that yes indeed it was a long way. About 3,000 miles there and back actually.

So onto Plan C.

Viv suggested flying out to the Rockies and then hiring a car and drive back. Now this was a better idea and of course the driving distance back would be just about half of Plan B, so much more manageable. And we'd get to spend some time way out west too instead of just driving there and turning right around.

Next question was where? Then I remembered about Jackson Hole which is in Wyoming.

Being a nerd, all I knew about Jackson Hole was that it was the home of the annual Fed jamboree, sort of like a Davos but in the USA. It takes place in August each year. This is what the Kansas City Fed website (the sponsors) say about it:

'The Jackson Hole Economic Symposium is an annual symposium, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City since 1978, and held in Jackson Hole, Wyo., since 1981. Every year, the symposium focuses on an important economic issue that faces world economies. Participants include prominent central bankers and finance ministers, as well as academic luminaries and leading financial market players from around the world.'

Pull the other one, I say. What a load of nonsense. They could do this symposium in Cleveland or Dodge City even if they wanted to stay in Kansas, but by chance selected the most picturesque little town on the edge of the Rockies with plush resorts and 5 star dining everywhere you looked. Does the 7,000 feet high mountain air really clear the boffins' minds or is this just a total bean feast? Yeah, right.

... which of course was great for us as (a) the great and the good would not be there and (b) it sounds like a really spectacular place.

It was.

Booking flights, car, accommodation and tours was of course a breeze but before we left we went for dinner to a friend's house in Toronto and he told us that Jackson Hole was THE Mecca for skiing in North America. We didn't know this but then again he and his family are big skiers so they do know even though they've never visited. He backtracked later that same evening and said that Jackson Hole was A Mecca, rather then THE but still its reputation was pretty darned good.

So much to look forward to then. One thing that was a pain was the flight leaving Toronto to make the connection to Jackson Hole. It was at 6.30 am which meant a ridiculously early start. Why couldn't those important people complain about the ungodly hours? Oh yes, forgot. They use their private jets.

Cool airport!