State of the Union?

[10X 3,296]

OK, a bit of a presumptuous thread title, but I'm just back from an almost-cross-country road trip that took me through 16 states, from NJ to Idaho and back.  The goal was to get out to visit Mom, for the first time in almost a year.   My wife wasn't ready to get back on a plane ('flying aluminum germ tube', in her vernacular), she's never seen most of the interior of the country, I'd not taken any vacation yet this year, and so the plan for a 16-day, 6000 mile road trip was hatched.

The good news, Mom is fine.   Her assisted living facility locked down tight back in March.  No visitors in the facility, period.  Harsh, but they've not had a single covid case.  If they had been in Cuomo's NY, a quarter of the residents would be dead.  Recently, they started allowing in-person (masked, socially distant) visits, so we scheduled our trip to take advantage.

We originally planned to camp (minimizing risk of bringing the virus to Mom), but learned that nearly all hotels have Covid protocols in place, deep cleaning between guests, no maid service during a stay, grab and go breakfasts instead of the buffet, etc. so we wimpled out and decided to not take a chance on snow camping once we got to higher elevations.   Most of the states we passed through require masks when indoors, but are pretty much open for business.   Mask compliance in the the common areas of the hotels, restaurants, and in stores ranged from maybe 80% in most states to perhaps 60% in a few...Indiana, Wisconsin, Montana seemed particularly low.  Mask use correlated with age; older, at risk folks nearly all wore them, the young-uns didn't care so much.   No confrontations over masks anywhere we went, everyone just went about their business. We had lunch with a friend of mine in Billings, and in a week a Covid flare-up had Billings hospitals at full capacity, with new patients being sent to nearby towns.

We drove long hours most of the way out, did a quick tour of Notre Dame since our route took us through South Bend, then enjoyed the Chicago Skyline after dark, without the slightest interest on getting off the beltway to actually go into Chicago.   Interestingly, and I take this as a further sign of Chicago disfunction, EZPass works until you get halfway around the Chicago beltway, then abruptly it is no longer accepted at the toll plazas, and you have to use iPass, which of course we didn't have, and all of the cash lanes were shut due to Covid, but also to stick it to any non-locals passing through without a valid pass.  I'm still waiting to find out what blasting through those last 4 or 5 toll plazas is going to cost me.

Sightseeing really started in South Dakota, with a few hours in Badlands national park (where I lost my drivers license, apparently when purchasing a multi-park pass).  Both Dakotas have badlands, and they are both very cool to visit.  Besides the fascinating geology, we saw a lot of elk bison, and pronghorns, and a bighorn ram, just 30 yards off the road.  I grew up in prime bighorn range, and this was only the second or third one I've ever seen.   Next up was Mt Rushmore, and a drive-by of Wall Drug.

Montana was more of a focus for us, both to visit a number of towns we're considering for retirement in a few years, and also to visit Glacier National Park.  I'd not been there in decades.  We lucked out with the weather.  It was warm and dry, they'd not yet had any snow this year.  The Going to the Sun Highway is the road that bisects the park, carved out of a mountain face most of the way (it's a National Civil Engineering Landmark), and most years it is snowed closed by mid-Oct...and not plowed open again until early July.  It gets a LOT of snow, there are sections where drifts and snow slides can bury it under 80 feet of snow.  But we got to drive it in both directions, with only a little smoke from distant wildfires partially obscuring the highest peaks.

We crossed into Idaho and followed the Salmon river south for half a day.  It's some of my favorite country anywhere, and it happened to be the first day of Elk season so every turnoff was occupied by trucks, horse trailers, quad runners, etc.   I had to smile at all of the gun cases we saw carried through the hotel lobby that night.   Saw quite a few nice racks on trucks, too.   Almost every general store seemed to carry ammo, alongside the groceries, fishing tackle, auto supplies, etc.

My home town has a Sportsman's Warehouse, like a Cabelas, but less gentrified.   Biggest guns and ammo department I've ever seen, so I had to check it out.   The inventory of guns was definitely low, but they didn't seem to be quite out of anything.  Lots of revolvers, shotguns, bolt action rifles.   Quite a few semiautomatic handguns. Just a handful of ARs, and their usual good selection of .50 cals.  They had quite a bit of ammo as long as it wasn't 9 mm or .22, I didn't see those.   They had a pretty good stock of reloading supplies, most bullets and many powders, but primers did seem to be completely sold out.   Prices on anything in stock seemed normal, or very close to it.   They chose to sell out rather than price gouge.

We didn't do much sightseeing on the way back, other than a diversion to drive around Bear Lake, a rather large and incredibly turquoise body of water spanning the Idaho-Utah border.

A week after we left Glacier, they had five consecutive days of snow with highs in the single digits, lows in the minus single digits.   Two days after our stay in Des Moines, they got 9 inches of snow.  As I said, we got lucky with the weather.   And I avoided getting ticketed for driving without a license!

[Bklynracer 1,265]

Sounds like a great trip when I have time and can do it, I much rather drive and see the country .

Most people have no idea what this country has outside there immediate area.

Drove back from CA twice once went southern route and once across the middle. Still need a trip like you did, Montana, Wyoming the Dakota's.

 

[brucin 923]

3 hours ago, 10X said:

The Going to the Sun Highway is the road that bisects the park, carved out of a mountain face most of the way (it's a National Civil Engineering Landmark), and most years it is snowed closed by mid-Oct...and not plowed open again until early July.

I was out there about 7 years ago for a wedding on 10/2 and went up hoping to see Glacier but the Going to the Sun Highway was closed after about 8 miles in. We inquired about driving around to the north entrance but that was closed also. Maybe in the future I hope.