Best of the Drive For 5-0

Best of the Drive For 5-0

Here is the previously promised photo gallery of some of my favorite pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

7,611 miles and 19 states later, it's all over. We got in late last night, so I apologize for the late post today. I plan to post more photos and some general thoughts/highlights from the trip over the next few days, so please check back. Once again, thanks to everyone who followed this somewhat insane journey. It definitely helped me keep going knowing that so many people were thinking of me.

The Long Sprint Home - Day Three

That, friends, is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Mo., which means we have crossed the Mississippi and returned to the East. Today we made the relatively short drive from Lincoln, Neb., to Metropolis, Ill., getting us within 700 miles of home.

Not a lot to report from the Thursday drive, though we did hit some pretty funky storms across Missouri and Illinois. This morning we will head across town to the Superman Museum before completing the final leg of this wacky experiment.

Thanks to everyone who has been following along and we'll be home soon!

The Long Sprint Home - Day Two

Sorry for another relatively short post, but you'd be amazed how little energy you have to write about a day of nonstop driving.

Just for reference, here's what we've done since lunch Tuesday. Yesterday was Ogden to Lincoln, a lovely little drive that took us across both Wyoming and Nebraska (is it weird to anyone else that those two states share a border?)

Below you will see the state capitol of Wyoming in Cheyenne, where we ate dinner last night. The only restaurant we could find downtown was the Albany, which triples as a bar and a liquor store in addition to being an eatery. Talk about one stop shopping.



The only other real news of notes is that I had my first run-in with law enforcement personnel last night about midnight. But good news! It was only for not coming to a complete stop at the top of an off-ramp where I was stopping to get gas and a got off with a warning. Finally these good looks come in handy.

You'll notice that the bobbymap has been updated, while the scoreboard has not. That's because I keep forgetting to check my mileage when I park for the night. That said, I am well over 6,000 miles for the trip, which is fun.

The Long Sprint Home - First Leg

Not a whole lot to report today, just a lot of driving yesterday and a lot of driving ahead today. Yesterday we made the trip from Seattle to Ogden, Utah, today is Ogden to Lincoln, Neb. Google map it yourselves to see how crazy we are. I'll go into more detail next time I get a chance.

Oh, and by the way, that's all 50 states for those of you keeping track.

Yay me.

Evenflow As You Are

Monday was the last big city of the trip - Seattle, Wash. No plaid, depressing grunge rock or rain here, though. It was a beautiful day, and it featured the debut of a special guest that will be joining me for the rest of the trip - Lauren, official girlfriend of the Drive For 5-0. She's done with finals and helping me make the 3,000-mile sprint home by Friday, which is awesome because I was starting to talk to myself and that's never good.

Anyway, Monday morning I made the short drive into the city from Marysville and settled into the city. I don't think I can overstate how nice the weather was/still is. Lauren said the flight attendant told her it was only the second time she could remember flying into Seattle and the sun being out. Needless to say, I've gotten lucky again. Here's hoping that it won't run out before North Carolina.

After walking down to the famous Pike Street Market, I eventually found what I was looking for - a place to eat sushi for lunch. I had three rolls - spicy crab, tuna with mango and cashews and shrimp tempura. They were all excellent, as you might expect.

I rested for a bit back at the hotel before picking up Lauren from the airport, and we immediately headed down to the Space Needle to get there before dark. It was worth the trip...(look for the fading Mt. Ranier in the background)

So the overwhelming thought for the day was that I was completely spoiled by a perfect day in Seattle.

Today we start the long, not-so-slow journey home, but not before a stop in Portland, which is located in Oregon, which is state No. 50! After that it's back east by Friday.

I'm fresh out of witty titles

Maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, today was my day to enjoy Vancouver, the only non-American city on this here journey. So after a lazy morning of watching the Braves, I headed out (and this will shock you, considering this is the Pacific Northwest) into the rain to see the city.

Vancouver is basically a giant peninsula, and the downtown is essentially another peninsula off that. So after I cracked that code and got the right bridge into downtown (driving without a map is a whole new experience on this trip), I parked to grab lunch.

I ate at Prima Taste, a restaurant that specializes in food from Singapore. Best that I can tell, it's a chain, but the only ones in North America are in Vancouver and San Jose, Calif. The rest are in Asia, which is fun. So it was something I couldn't get at home, which is basically all I'm looking for when eating on the road. And all the other people in the place looked to be of Asian decent, so I figured that was a good sign that the food was up to par, which it was. I had a chicken and rice dish as well as some curry chicken pastries (kinda like empanadas) which were fantastic.

After that I walked around downtown for a while until the rain chased me off. It was a little disappointing to miss out on really getting a good look at the city, but lucky for me there was an alternative.

I headed over to the Vancouver Art Gallery where they had an exhibit featuring, wait for it, photos of Vancouver. It was a great exhibit and it was neat watching the locals go through the photos pointing out places they'd been. Sort of a fun firsthand/secondhand way to see the city.

I then left downtown to drive through the campus of the University of British Columbia. With the crummy weather, I didn't have it in me to take any pictures, but it looked like a pretty standard college campus. There was a good looking golf course right at the edge of campus, which is always a good sign.

After another extremely annoying trip across the border, I was back in the United States. I'm holed up in Maryville, Wash., for the night before heading into Seattle tomorrow. After a night in Seattle, it's Oregon Tuesday and then...well, that's it, I guess. No more states, mission accomplished. Kind of unbelievable.

Until tomorrow...

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

The Drive For 5-0 is officially a multinational blog this evening, as tonight I am sleeping in Vancouver, British Columbia, conveniently located in our docile neighbor to the north - Canada. Special thanks to the Canadian member of the International Brotherhood of UNC Sports Information Personnel, David Tinson, for tonight's accommodations (even though he's off in Whistler like a big shot).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This morning I walked down to the Lake Coeur D'Alene to take some pictures and enjoy the weather. The view along the shore is, well, see for yourself...

After lunch, I hit the road once again, this time headed for Washington, state No. 49. Not much to report from the Evergreen State (I'm saving Seattle for Monday), though there was a great scenic overlook of the Columbia River off I-90 near Vintage. I could definitely picture someone trying to float a covered wagon down that baby.

So another long day of driving is in the books. Tomorrow I'll sink my teeth into Vancouver before heading back to the United States for Seattle on Monday, with the completion of my task on Tuesday in Oregon.

Oh, one last note about today. Crossing the border into Canada is an intimidating process. I have nothing illicit in my car, a perfectly legitimate reason for being here and a passport and I still got nervous when I pulled up to the customs agent. He asked a bunch of rapid fire questions (Where are you going? Why? Who are you going to see? What is his name? How do you know him?) that I had answers to, but it still is an intense experience. I can't imagine what it must be like trying to do something illegal as you cross.

Ok, that's all for now.

Things to do in Idaho when you're dead

Dead tired, that is. Evidently communing with nature is exhausting, as I was in a funk all day Friday. But have no fear, dear readers. I made the drive from Butte to lovely Coeur D'Alene, Idaho without any trouble, despite some intermittent snow showers.

Before grabbing lunch I made a quick stop at the Grant-Kohrs Ranch, a National Historic Site that has preserved an old Montana cattle ranch. This turned out to be an unexpected highlight (I hadn't even heard of it until I saw the sign), as the views were amazing and it was awesome getting to see what life on the ranch must have been like over a hundred years ago.

I stopped in Missoula, Mont., for lunch, and did a quick drive through the campus of the University of Montana. It's amazing how much nicer a very bland campus can look when surrounded by mountains.

After a spicy grilled cheese with sweet potato fries at the Iron Horse (great value at $5.95), I made the 165-mile drive to Coeur D'Alene, where I stayed for the night. I'll take some pictures of the lake that shares a name with the town today, but it was another in a long line of beautiful towns here in the west.

No real plan for today, so if you have suggestions, give me a call. Also, I'm now in the Pacific Time Zone for a few days, rounding out the four time zones here on the Drive For 5-0.

Also, no new states yesterday, but Idaho is now red on the bobbymap.

They call me Mellow Yellow(stone), quite rightly

So today was a big one, making the relatively short drive from Billings to Yellowstone National Park. I could make you listen to me ramble on about how cool it was, but we both know you want pictures. I'll be here for witty banter when you get back from the gallery...

Yellowstone Park

Cool, huh?

A few things to note:

• The southern entrance/exit to Yellowstone was closed. This wouldn't be all that significant except that that road is the road to Jackson, Wyo., and Grand Teton National Park. So no Teton for me.

• It was a pretty snowy day in the park, but kind of what you would expect Yellowstone to look like. The snow was pretty light for most of the day until I got to Old Faithful at around 4:30. The next eruption was not due until around 5:45, so I had some time to kill. Over the next hour, the snow went from slow and steady to near-blizzard conditions. It got to the point where I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to see the geyser when it finally went off. But the Yellowstone gods smiled on us few brave souls, and around 5:40 the sky opened up, the sun came out and Old Faithful did its thing.

• The southern entrance closure meant I had to leave via the west entrance, which proved to be very lucky. First of all, the road to the west entrance had by far the most wildlife of any part of the park I'd seen. Second, US-191 was a beautiful drive through the Gallatin Mountain Range that lead to lucky thing No. 3 - dinner at the Bugaboo Cafe in Big Sky. There I had the top meal of the trip thus far, a bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin. Sadly, they don't have a Web site, but if you're ever in Big Sky, head on over there.

So that was Thursday, Day 10 of this adventure. I drove from Big Sky to Butte for the night, and the plan for tomorrow looks to start with driving to Missoula for lunch. After that, it's probably on to Spokane, Wash., via Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, but we'll see how it goes.

Close encounters of the Wyoming kind

(Note: If the Little Bighorn National Monument had been open when I drove past it, this post would have been called "Everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't." But alas...)

After quite possibly the quickest oil change in recorded history (it helps when there are five guys and no other cars), I said goodbye to Rapid City and headed toward Wyoming. But not before stopping for lunch in historic Deadwood, S.D. Contrary to what I've heard about the HBO show of the same name, no one used any fowl language in my presence (I guess they've cleaned up their act since the 1800s) and it seemed like any other sleepy mountain town, not unlike Maggie Valley or Blowing Rock. Except for one thing...

...there was a casino in practically every building in town. Even the mild-mannered saloon where I had a buffalo burger for lunch featured an assortment of slot machines. I did mosey over to the Old Style Saloon #10 (they had $2 single-deck blackjack, resistance was futile), but it was quickly back on the highway for Wyoming.

Last night the plan was to go straight to Yellowstone, but when I got in the car this morning I remembered that there was something on the way that I definitely wanted to see - Devil's Tower.

Devil's Tower was the first national monument, and, with all due respect to Mount Rushmore, the best one I've seen so far. Unlike Mount Rushmore, you can't really sneak up on Devil's Tower. It is a 1,000-foot high stone tower jutting out of the ground, after all. It is also a sacred Native American site, and it's easy to understand why. Not to get too flowery with the prose, but you really get a sense of the awesome power of nature when you see this huge rock that was probably part of an underground volcano 300 million years ago. Very cool.

After the 1.3-mile hike around the monument, I got back in the car and headed west. I stopped for dinner in Sheridan, Wyo., before settling for the night in Billings, Mont., in what has to be the world's nicest Best Western. So tomorrow, if all goes to plan, I'll hit the daily double of Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Oh, and only two more states to go (!).

Note: As promised, I uploaded a full gallery of the Badlands/Mount Rushmore.

Hail! South Dakota, a great state of the land.

Tuesday was a day I'd been looking forward to for a long time - South Dakota. To get to the part of the state worth seeing (the people here in Rapid City confirmed that was the case), I had to drive south on US-83 from Bismarck to I-90 in South Dakota. Once I got to the interstate, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to Badlands National Park. I did make one bathroom stop on the way from Bismarck, in Mount City, S.D. (pop. 89). The only public bathroom I could find was in the city park, which seemed like a fitting stop as I head toward some of the nation's largest parks.

So I arrived at the Badlands around 3 and it was definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far. You can read about it on your own, but basically it's an area that was under water a few hundred million years ago and is now one of the most unique landscapes in the world. I'll upload an entire gallery later (as promised:)

South Dakota

Last, but certainly not least, was a trip to Mount Rushmore. It was as cool as I'd hoped, with a surprise. As I walked up toward the monument, I noticed that the main viewing area was blocked off. I feared that it was under construction or closed, but it turns out they were filming National Treasure: Book of Secrets. So I stuck around a little long than planned to get a glimpse of Jon Voight, Nicolas Cage and Helen Mirren. I thought this picture was a neat contrast of the movie lights, the lights that illuminate the monument and, of course, the sunset.

Today I'm off to get an oil change here in Rapid City then west to Yellowstone!