Slower Sunday

Today was pretty slow as well. After a morning of television and fried bologna sandwiches, Samara suggested a walk. This time we reversed my route from yesterday. We took the path to the beach on the next road over. (Did I mention that these are all gravel roads?) Anyway, we got some nice pictures this time. It wasn't too horribly cold, but the wind sure blows hard around here.

Here's Samara standing in the wind.


These are the flats that I took a picture of in the dark yesterday.

Here are the windy seas.

Here I am sitting on the sea wall.

This is a tug moored at the harbor.


Two common sights in Dillingham: a shipping container used as a storage building and a "dry-docked" boat.


So that's a visual tour of Dillingham for the day. Hope you enjoyed it. Have a good Labor Day!

A Slow Day

Well, we didn't do a lot today. We woke up late, and watched a bunch of television.

Lunch was good. Samara fried up some bologna and onions. We made sandwiches on Alaska brand wheat bread with some American cheese. It was actually pretty tasty.

Before dinner, we figured out we needed a can opener. We headed into town and bought some bread, a can opener, some soy sauce and a pork steak. We also filled up the rental car with gas, so that we could take it back early this next week. We'll be car-free for a while, since renting a car is just too expensive.

Dinner was a really great stir-fry that Samara made. We had a candy bar for dessert. A Snickers is 95 cents in Alaska. Crazy. Samara bought an avocado (manager's special--$1). Even though she carefully selected it, it turned out to be bad. Kind of disappointing.

After dinner, I decided that I should take a walk. Yesterday, we took a walk down toward town, and took a left down a side street that seemed to go towards the harbor. We made it down to the beach, and then turned around and came home. I wanted to make it a little further, but Samara wasn't feeling up to a long hike tonight.

I headed off down the street, and made a left again. Almost immediately on the right is the yard full of containers. I guess that's where they offload stuff when it arrives on the barge.


To the left, there's a small, unkempt cemetery.


I also saw a not uncommon sight in Dillingham--a boat sitting in a yard.


When I got down to the beach, I took a few more pictures. There's a retaining wall along the beach, and above it are the bluffs that our apartments (Beluga Bluffs) are named for.


I walked along the path on inside the retaining wall for a while. It was getting dark, and I wanted to be able to get back before it was completely dark. On the other hand, I wanted to see if I could get around to the end of the point, beneath where our apartment building is. I made it around to where the retaining wall ends, and there was an area of flats where the tide was obviously out.


To my relief, there also seemed to be a road leading up the bluff. I walked on up and ended up on the next road over from our street. I just had to walk down to where there's a street that cuts in front of the Moravian Church, and I was able to get back home before the light was completely gone. I think I'll see if I can get Samara to go walking with me tomorrow.

I did see some wildlife, by the way. It was seagulls. That's it so far.

Care Packages

Oh, you want to send us a care package?

That's so nice of you!

Seriously, though, we would be very happy to see some packages full of dry foods. We spent almost all of our money coming up here, and the sticker shock at the grocery store is killing us.

So, here's what we bought today: some kitchen trash bags, a big thing of lemonade mix and a plastic pitcher, american cheese, bologna, peanut butter, diced tomatoes, baby carrots and fig newtons. That was $50.47. Then we went to the other grocery, since we knew some things would be cheaper there. We bought a bag of chips, a small bottle of generic mustard, microwave popcorn, and two frozen pizzas. That was another $24.12. So that's $75 worth of food, here in Dillingham.

Here's what I'm getting at: I'm sure some of you lovely people are missing us. So if you really want to, go to the Dollar Store and see what you can send us. We'd love some ice trays, some more microwave popcorn, laundry detergent, fruit snacks, assorted candy, and well, whatever seems like it would be lightweight and ship well. Just bear in mind, you've got to send it by US Mail PRIORITY MAIL. If you ship it by parcel post, it takes 4-6 weeks. The post office says it takes 12 days. It lies. So you've got to use priority mail. It'll probably still take a week, but until we get some paychecks rolling in, we're just sitting around watching TV, playing on the internet and staring at our empty kitchen cabinets.

Did I mention that we love you people?

Oh yeah, and our address is:

Aaron & Samara Baker (or Dr. & Mrs. Baker, if you prefer)
PO Box 1248
Dillingham, AK 99576

Thanks!

Samara's edit:
Oh and I have an amazon wishlist because my birthday is coming up. Just if you need ideas. ;)
Wishlist

It's Friday and we saw wildlife...

poop. When Aaron and I went to walk down to the post office and the courthouse we found a present on the front porch.
I thought I would share this with you. It might be the poop of a wolf or a coyote. So yeah, that's the end of the wildlife part of this blog.

Just to get accustomed to the way the locals talk, I thought I should say that no one really pays attention to street signs. So when I was on the informal interview, they asked where I was living and I said that I lived off of "C" street. They looked at me like I had said something foreign to them. Then I explained that I lived past the satellites and they both went "oh." So here are the satellites.
We walked to the post office and we saw more of the mountains without all the cloud coverage. It was very pretty. We walked a little further to the Courthouse which looks a lot different than the courthouses we are used to.
Aaron went inside and met with Ruby, the law clerk he is replacing. He also met some of the secretaries and the magistrate. The judge that he will be working under has been out for the last 2 weeks, so Aaron will have to wait until Tuesday to meet him.

Tour of Dillingham and the shopping trip

Yesterday we decided to drive out to "Lake Road." It has another name, but the locals just call it "lake road." So, 18 miles out lake road, there is a lake. We're not sure if it was the right lake, but we stopped and took pictures. It was a pretty drive out there. There are some mountains along the way.

See, lake. Pretty. The only real problem is Aaron has been wanting to see a bear or a moose and our landlord told us that out lake road is where we might see one. We didn't. But as soon as we see some fun wildlife, we'll let you know.

As we went back into town, we took a few pictures. The following is a picture is the view of the mountain from the post office.
I also took a picture of the local Ace Hardware Store. They had a display of dyson vacuums. The DC07, which is what I have was $550.00. When I bought mine, it was priced at $400, but I had a coupon and ended up only paying $300. We went there to make a key for me for the apartment. They also had ATVs for sale in the basement. I kinda want one now.

I also decided to take a picture of the local Inn. If anyone wants to visit us and they don't want to stay on our extra twin bed, the Bay Inn is where you can stay. I believe that a night there is $110.00 for one night.
After a had what I would call a informal interview, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. I was shocked at the prices. I knew they were going to be high, but $10.99 for a 12 pack of soda was crazy. We had to pick up things like a set of pots and pans, plastic forks and spoons. As we were shopping we came across a few things that were a bit strange. For example Doritos Toasted Corn flavor. So this is basically just unflavored Doritos. Huh.
The last thing that amused me was a HUGE pallet of Vienna sausage. Did you know that you can buy bulk vienna sausage in Dillingham? Well, you know now that you can, if for some reason you wanted to.

We finished up our meager shopping spree buying mostly carbs since carbs are cheaper than anything else. We now have a set of the cheapest pots in Dillingham, another 12 pack of soda, 2lbs of rice, 6 cup of noodles, 8 ramen noodles, shampoo, dish washing liquid, cups, forks, spoons, an onion, a green pepper, a bag of chips, and 2lbs of potatoes.

Today, we are planning to buy pillows. We are currently using towels rolled up in a pillow case. It might be cheaper to have someone send us some pillows. But we'll see.

More on the second day in Dillingham

First, I'll start by trying to answer a few questions. Although I can see Nushagak Bay from my living room window, there are no belugas visible from "Beluga Bluffs." And I haven't started work yet. I start September 2nd, the day after Labor Day. I have driven by the courthouse building, but I don't plan to go down and meet anyone there until tomorrow.

No, today was a mostly lazy day. We got up, and had a breakfast of apples. Then we watched a bit of television. Samara wanted to go shopping. I wanted to balance the checkbook. I won. Turns out, we're pretty much broke from moving, which sucks.

Samara called Shelley at the hospital to let her know that she was in town. Shelley seemed to react as though Samara was her long-lost friend. That seemed like a good thing. So Samara made a plan to meet with her at 3:30.

That gave us a few hours to kill. We started by driving to the post office and making sure our keys worked in the PO Box. They did, but it was empty, of course. I found out from talking to someone later in the day that the postal service doesn't know dick about sending packages to Dillingham. The promise of 12 days for parcel post service is a load of horse crap. It takes about 4 weeks, if not longer. Yeah, that's right. Our clothes that we mailed before we left won't arrive until about the time that our car does. Lame.

So went from the post office to get some lunch. We stopped at the Windmill Grille, on windmill hill, but they weren't taking credit cards yet--only local checks or cash. So we drove out towards the hospital, so that Samara would know how to get there.

Then we went for a drive down Aleknagik Lake Road, out to the lake. Actually, I'm not sure if we went far enough. We found a lake, but it wasn't very big. We took a picture or two, though, and then we came back. Maybe if we get bored this weekend, we'll take another drive.

When we got back to town, we came home and made turkey sandwiches, since that's cheaper than the restaurant options, and we're suddenly poor. (Now's a good time for another shout-out to everyone that gave us gas cards and money before we left--THANK YOU! We'd be really, really poor if it hadn't have been for these folks.)

After the sandwiches, we went to the local bank. There's only one, but thankfully it's a Wells Fargo. We've already got our home equity line of credit and home mortgage through them, so it was easy to add a checking and savings account. Samara had to leave to go see Shelley about half way through opening the accounts, though, so she took off in the car.

Mary, at the bank, was really nice. She's been here 19 years, with her family. It seems like everyone we've talked to here has been here for a long time. She said it's bear season, but that since they containerized the dump and starting burning trash, there hasn't been a big bear problem in Dillingham. To be honest, we're disappointed that we haven't seen any wildlife.

On the plus side, Mary at Wells Fargo said that there was a teller position open at the bank. So that's at least one option for her.

I walked home from the bank. I have to say, I think as long as the weather is good, I can walk to and from work.

Samara got back from the hospital, and she wasn't exactly thrilled. She met some nice folks, but there's some bad news. Apparently, the hospital has a native preference policy. That means that if any qualified native applies for the job she's after, they get it instead of her. It doesn't seem like such a bad policy, except that the job she wants only requires a high school education. It's a tobacco cessation program job, and that's what Samara wrote her Master's degree thesis on. So she's probably more qualified than anyone could be, but she won't get the job if someone with a high school degree applies. To be honest, that kind of sucks. Anyway, they said she'd find out in a couple of days. Apparently they already did offer the job to a native, but it was turned down. So maybe Samara has a chance. If not, that teller job is available.

So now it's off to the N&N Market, or perhaps the AC Value. We need some toilet paper, among other things.

Scenic Dillingham

Okay, here come the details.

We woke up at 5:15am in Seattle, and got our luggage together. Another Sikh driver pulled up in the shuttle, and we got our luggage loaded up. A short drive got us to the airport at the Alaskan Airlines unloading area. We went inside, waded through the check-in (the TSA is actually really good about flying with firearms in Seattle--I guess lots of folks take hunting rifles to Alaska), and then got to our gate.

There we got to see a lot of Alaskan Airlines planes. There's a face painted on the tail, and in fact, it's some random Eskimo named Oliver, not Abraham Lincoln, as someone told me.

The first flight went fine--we flew out of Seattle to Anchorage on a 737. Samara felt sick, but that was helped by some crackers on the plane. They also served Jones Sodas. I paid $5 for a digital entertainment portable device, and we watched the movie Juno on it. We also took some pictures out of the window of the plane as we came in for a landing.


Anchorage is really beautiful. We got off the plane, and picked up a sandwich in the concourse. We sat down and ate it, but I was nervous that we wouldn't make the next flight, as we hadn't found our next gate yet. In fact, we had followed some signs towards it already, and ended up outside the TSA security checkpoint. I thought we'd have to spend some time going through security again.

Nope. We got downstairs, and there's no security for Penair flights. Very weird. Also, there were about 20 people waiting there for four upcoming flights. The lady at the counter called our names, and when we went up there, she wanted to know what we weighed. Not really a good sign.

The plane itself was a Saab turboprop. We boarded by heading out onto the tarmac in the spitting rain and climbing the plane's stairs. We were seating in the second row, in the two right-hand seats. There was only one seat to the left, so it's not a large plane. We were given earplugs by the single flight attendant as we boarded, since the turboprop engines are a bit loud.

Samara promptly fell asleep. I read my book a bit, and watched the clouds out the window. It was an hour and fifteen minutes, and then we touched down in Dillingham. Now THIS is a small airport. We pulled up the the Penair hanger, hopped down and walked into the door off the runway. We were in the small lobby, where they do both baggage claim and security.

Samara met our landlord's wife, who was there to pick up guests for her bed and breakfast. I went upstairs to the giftshop to get our rental car. After paying and getting the keys to our tan Kia, I went back downstairs and helped Samara load the luggage into the car in the gravel parking lot just outside. Our landlord pulled up in his beat-up pickup truck. We made some room for him in the backseat so he could direct us to the apartment.

It was a left onto the paved road, and pretty soon we were on the main road. We went over windmill hill and across the flats and into the town proper. There's not much to see. We passed the firehouse, with the single gas station behind it. Then came the two markets, the AC Value and the N&N Market. Up past the Nushagak Cooperative (electric, cable, phone and internet) and we got to C Street on the right. We take the turn and go past the Moravian Church and GCI satellite dishes. Down on the right is Beluga Bluffs, our apartment building.

We went inside, and it's pretty nice! The kitchen isn't nearly as large as the one in Lexington, but it'll work. The living room/dining room is plenty big, and has a large window that looks out over the bay.


There are two bedrooms, both with beds. The bathroom is pretty nice as well. I like the plastic tub surround. There's a stacked washer and dryer in there between the toilet and sink. The furniture provided by the landlord works for me. There's a brown leather couch and a green recliner. The television is huge.


We filled out a bit of lease paperwork with our landlord, and then took him back through town to his shop outside of town. He showed us the local schools, the court building, and the post office. After dropping him off, we made a trip to the post office. We got a PO Box, but our packages sent to general delivery had not arrived yet. Our new address is: Aaron & Samara Baker, PO Box 1248, Dillingham, AK 99576. So start sending presents, letters and postcards!

After that, we stopped by the Nushagak Cooperative and got our digital tv box and our cable modem. The folks there are real nice--but I already knew that from talking to them on the phone. At home, Samara went straight for the bed and a nap. I hooked up the tv, and we've got lots of movie channels since we get satellite tv over the local cable network. I watched a bit of the movie Rounders then took a bit of a walk around the building and checked out the area. We're at the end of a gravel road, and there aren't a lot of houses. We can see the bay on two sides. I doubt there's going to be a lot of noise from the neighbors.


Pretty soon, I realized it was quarter to five, and I didn't know what time anything closed. We didn't have any food. So I left Samara sleeping and went to the N&N Market. I spent nearly $90, and didn't get much. I got some pizza rolls, soft pretzels, hot pockets, sandwich fixin's, soda, chips, Oreos, a bag of apples, and a cable splitter and cable cord. Stuff is expensive.

Back home, I tried to the hook the internet, but the modem wouldn't connect. It was after five, and there was no one at the Nushagak offices. I left a message.

Samara woke up, we had some dinner, and then we watched some TV. We went to bed by 8pm.

This morning, we got up around 7am. That bodes well for me, since I'll have to get up early for work starting next week. We had apples for breakfast, and watched some more television. Nushagak called back, and now the internet is working.


Hopefully we'll have some more exciting news after another day in Dillingham.

Hi, I'm in Dillingham.

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to post about the trip from Seattle to Dillingham yesterday. The cable guy had to hitch up his dog sled team and climb up the hill after a bear took out most of his team. Then as he was getting to our new place, he was gored by a moose. So we had to wait until today to get a new cable guy. Ok, so that's not quite what happened. We just tried hooking up the cable after 5pm which is when the cable company closed and we had to wait until this morning to get the internet up and running.

Aaron had a nice flight from Seattle to Anchorage. I don't fly well. Most of the time I was trying not to puke on the guy next to me. Aaron said the flight from Anchorage to Dillingham was loud--they gave us earplugs to wear during the flight. I have no idea, I was asleep before it took off and I woke up about 5 minutes before we landed.

Then I was awake for about 2 hours before I went back to sleep. I then woke up for about another 2 hours before I went back to sleep. Yeah, I'm lame, I went to sleep at about 8pm and woke up at 7am.

We will post more about yesterday and today a bit later on.

Day 5: There IS sun in Seattle

**Samara's comments are in italics.

We woke up this morning to find that it was possible for the sun to shine in Seattle. It was cloudy, mind you, but at least it wasn't cloudy and raining.

First things first, we had some breakfast. There was an IHOP down the street, so that's where we went. Once we got back to the hotel, we called the cab company to see what the rates were, and also called Northland Services to see what we needed to do in order to drop the Canyonero off.

Apparently my Google maps directions were okay, as were the Northland Services website directions, so off we went. Samara was a little mad that I had apparently misplaced her umbrella in the packing, but so far the rain in Seattle hasn't been too horrible. The thing is, I wanted to pack the umbrella since we were staying in Seattle for at least two days and would be without a car for at least one day. I was going to pack it into my purse, but I didn't want it in my purse for 3 days. So Aaron said that he would put it in the car so we could get it out in Seattle. So we get here and Aaron says he can't remember where he packed it. He pokes around for a bit and then says he can't find it. I'm annoyed because while it isn't all out raining like it was when we first arrived it was drizzling. So here I am in Seattle without an umbrella.

We got to Northland, and the guy at the gate handed us two orange vests after checking our IDs. We went across the scale, punching a button to take the weight ticket, and pulled into Lane 1 behind a tractor trailer. Basically we were now in a yard full of 40-foot containers, giant forklifts and tractor trailers. I donned a vest, went into the office, and filled out the paperwork to get our SUV onto the ship.

Back outside, I handed the paperwork to an inspector guy. Samara asked if rats would get into our car while it was on the ship. He said it would probably be okay, and then told us a charming story about finding a very large rat in his car one day. He swears it was from his home garage, not the shipyard. I told the guy about the time a opossum got in to my brothers Camaro. The guy looked at me like I was nuts and proceeded to ignore me.

Back inside, we paid Northland for the privilege of receiving our Canyonero in October. Then they called us a cab. When it came near, the license plate said "fresh" and there were dice in the mirror. Not really. But it was driven by a coughing Sikh. The cab itself had horrible shocks, and the Sikh took advantage of its dilapidated state by driving extremely fast. He also hit the hooka too much. He kept coughing and hacking. I was worried he had TB, but more than likely he just smoked too much.

Oh, but I almost forgot, in my haste to make a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air joke, that we had to wait a few minutes for the cab to arrive, so I made use of the porta-facilities, aka The Honey Pot. EW!


So we had the coughing Sikh take us to the Space Needle. We weren't about to pay $16 each to go up in the damn thing, but we did snap some photos. We wandered around the base, where there were some sculptures with homeless people sleeping under them, and an amusement park of "lame fair" proportions.


Also, there was a giant seagull. It was like the size of a chicken.


Then, tired of the fun, we decided to take the monorail! What's it called? Monorail! The monorail, for the princely sum of $2 each, took us from the Space Needle to the Westlake Shopping Center (a mall of some sort).


Update: Apparently we were riding this monorail. Yes, the red one that failed and stranded 190 people on Saturday. The blue one is actually out of service completely so that it can be refurbished. Wonder if we would have rode the monorail if we'd seen this news story first.

We ate there at the food court, which had Indian food. Mall Indian food and there was mall sushi as well. Amazing. After that, we decided it would be worth walking further downtown so that we could avoid as much of the taxi cost as possible. We walked about 10 blocks downtown until we decided that cabs were starting to look scarce. Samara called the cab company, and this time our cab driving was a more sedate Arab. He got us back to the Skyway Inn without scaring us too much.

We took another bath in the giant jacuzzi, and washed our hair--It was dirty from the drizzly rain. Pretty soon it will be time for some pizza and some more television watching. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning at 8am, which means we're taking the 6am airport shuttle to make sure we have enough time to check in.

Seattle, by the way, is full of hippies. On the news as I write this were two stories. The first was about a campaign to prevent a school district from cutting down some trees on its property to build a new school building to replace one that is unsafe and leaking. The second story was about the 20 cent grocery bag tax that the city of Seattle is trying to levy. That's some serious hippie stuff right there.

By 1:15pm Alaska time (4 hours behind Lexington), we'll be landing in Dillingham. I don't know how long it will take to get into our apartment and get things hooked up, so I'd recommend waiting until Wednesday to call us. But here's our new Alaska phone number for everyone: 907-842-5047.

And by the way, it is currently raining in Seattle and here I am without an umbrella.

Day 4: Wherein we arrive safely in Seattle

Well, we woke up this morning early in Montana. Just so no one worries their way through this post, I'll spoil the ending. We made it to Seattle safely.

So after leaving Whitehall, we stopped in Butte for breakfast at Denny's. Typical Denny's breakfast.

From there, we drove through Montana for a while. Samara saw a sign for the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival, and she was sad to learn that it was over on August 3rd.


Of course, it wasn't long until we were in Idaho. It was actually a very pretty state. As we came down the mountains into Coeur d'Alene, there was a lot of water. We stopped and had Outback for lunch.


After lunch, it was back on the road. We passed quickly into Washington, which is surprisingly flat and boring. It was much nicer to drive in than South Dakota, though, which is also flat and boring. Mainly because it was less windy.


As we were driving, I spotted a couple of girls in a Honda Civic that were also on a roadtrip. Their back window read "Epic Road Trip '08, 25 States, 7,000 miles." Since they had Washington plates, I assume it was nearing the end of that trip.

After a while, there were a few mountains. We stopped at a gas station to fuel up, and then got some Starbucks. Samara drove for a while, but was feeling sick. So we stopped at a scenic overlook in Wanapum Recreational Area. It was pretty cool. I've never been to the Grand Canyon, but this overlook was really high up and had lots of pretty rocks.


So of course we got back on the road, with lots of more mountains. I thought we'd never get to Seattle. We kept heading down and down into the mountains, where the trees were enormous and the clouds came down to the ground.


People are stupid when driving is involved, so of course the interstate came to a standstill just an hour from Seattle. There wasn't any apparent reason for the hold-up. Just lots of people, a little bit of rain, and mountain roads.


When we finally neared Seattle, it was foggy and raining.

We did finally make it to our hotel, the Seaway Inn Seatac. It's near the airport--you can tell by the planes flying overhead. It's otherwise a small and not very attractive hotel. But we did get the jacuzzi suite! So that's something!


We ate dinner at the First Class Pub & Grille, down the road. It wasn't first class, but for a dive bar, they did do a decent burger. I had a Midori sour as well.


We also picked up snacks in the 7-11, and headed back to the hotel to get our blog post done. Tomorrow the only thing we really have to accomplish is getting the Canyonero to the dock to be put on the boat, and then catching a cab back to the hotel. Our flight for Alaska leaves 8am on Tuesday morning.

Samara's take on day 3

I have to admit that even though the hotels we have stayed at had free breakfast, we haven't eaten any of it. The idea of eating food that has been picked over by people that haven't washed their hands since they woke up is a bit gross. Most people grab and scratch at themselves in their sleep and then they go to the free breakfast at the hotel and paw everything. The public health professional in me cringes at this thought. I managed to talk Aaron in to stopping at a Starbucks on the way out of town. We had talked about going to Deadwood in the morning, but decided that getting through the mountains to our hotel was more important.

Aaron remembered that we still had a Shell gas card and remembered that a Shell station was just down the road. The place that we stopped was a gas station/post office. I was able to send out post cards to a few people while Aaron gassed up the Canyonero. The nice German postal worker told us about Vore Buffalo Jump. She said that the native Americans used to herd the Buffalo to the sink hole and get them to jump/fall in. It made for cheap, easy fencing. The sink hole is now being excavated for bones and artifacts.

Buffalo jump is where Aaron decided that instead of covering his mouth to sneeze, he would sneeze in to the wind and thus on to me. This caused some strife between us. I do not like getting snot and sneeze juice on me. Keep that in mind.

We drove for a while, stopped for lunch in Buffalo Wyoming. It was alright. It was a buffalo burger with cheese and bacon. The bacon was better than the burger. It turns out that most of the stuff in Wyoming is foothills and trees.We reached Montana at about 3pm and needed gas. So we stopped at the first place that advertised fuel. I went in to the grocery/ hardware store to go to the bathroom. As I walked in, a nice Native American man said hi to me. I was in a bit of a shock. First, the store was dark compared to the brightness out side and it took a minute to readjust to the light. And second, I have NEVER seen a Native American in real life. It was kinda neat. I wanted to ask if I could have my picture taken with him, but decided that it would be rude and awkward.
Montana is basically boring. It's pretty at first and then the same scenery repeats itself. I was glad to pull over at our hotel when we did. Even though I think I could have driven at least another 2 or three hours. But here we are in scenic White Hall. And by scenic I mean boring. The clerk at the front desk told me that there are 3 restaurants in town and a bowling alley. There is this thing here that you could call a casino, but it's more like a smoke shop with video poker. I'm holding out till we find a nice casino on a reservation.

Day 3: Wherein Samara has no fun

So we've decided that we're each going to post a separate blog entry for Day 3, since we've got both computers up and running in the Super 8, here in Whitehall, Montana. So you get the Aaron perspective, and then you get the Samara perspective. You might get a little doubling up on the pictures or the anecdotes.

So today was a particularly boring day of driving. We did lots of fun stuff yesterday, so we knew today was just going to be about 8 hours on the road. By the end, we were both definitely getting tired of it.

We started off from the Days Inn in Rapid City, South Dakota. First stop after we loaded up was the Starbucks around the corner, where I got a chai tea latte, and Samara got some sort of super-sugar candy-coffee. Then it was on to more flat South Dakota.


It wasn't long until we crossed the border into Wyoming. We had considered stopping in Deadwood before we left South Dakota, but I opined that it would take longer than just an hour to do that, and I didn't want to arrive in Whitehall, Montana too late tonight.

Once into Wyoming, we stopped for gas at a Shell station, which also had a post office attached. We mailed off some postcards, and the nice German postlady told us all about the local sights. We took her advice and headed down the local road for a ways. But first, we took pictures of us with our ride.


After passing through Buelah, population 39, we took a left into the Buffalo Jump Historic Site. Our Canyonero looked nice parked in the lot there, so I snapped a photo. You can see how weighed down we are in the rear.


The Buffalo Jump is an archeological site where a pit full of buffalo bones was discovered. This natural sinkhole allowed the Native Americans to drive the buffalo into the pit, where they fell to their deaths and then were butchered for the meat and hides. That left a pit of bones at least 20 feet deep at the bottom. Archeologists are digging up the bones, but they weren't there, and the pit was covered. Nevertheless, if you're willing to brave the posted risks of rattesnakes and poison ivy, you can walk down into the sinkhole and see the metal cover that blocks the more interesting view of the actual dig. So I badgered Samara into walking down even though she was mortally afraid that a snake would eat her.


We got back on the road and pushed through to Buffalo, Wyoming, where we ate lunch at the Bozeman Trail Steakhouse. They serve a buffalo burger, which was okay, but the bacon that was on the burger was even better. We shared it, with various potato sides. Not bad.

Back on the road, and I fell asleep for a while. When I woke up, Samara informed me that we were in Montana. What can I say about Montana, other than there's a lot of it?

Oh, yes... the gas there sucks. And it's hard to find. After we got into Montana, Samara tells me that we're running low. She hasn't seen a single exit with gas since we crossed the border, and indeed, many of the exits have signs indicating "No Services." Some of these exits turn into dirt roads not more than a hundred feet after the ramp ends.

Thankfully, we made it to a small town with a gas station. The town was called, if I recall correctly, Lodge Grass. We pulled in to the only station and I snapped a picture of the pump.


Yeah, that's right. Eighty-five and a half octane. That's shit gas. So I filled up with the mid-grade 88 octane. As you can see, the 85.5 is $3.989 per gallon. The midgrade was $4.349 a gallon. I guess that's just good preparation for $6 gas in Dillingham.

The gas station in question was run by Crow Indians, on their reservation. If it weren't horribly rude, we would have gotten a picture of the guy running the place. He was very nice, but had the stereotypically craggy face of a hard-living Native American. A couple of young Native American guys came by and filled up while we were there. They were driving a beat-up pickup truck with an extra bench seat in the bed.

Back on the road, and we started seeing plenty of mountains off in the distance. It was hard to maintain speed up hills, but I really think the Canyonero is only having problems because it's so heavily loaded. Nothing else seems amiss--just low on the acceleration power up hills. I'm looking forward to the Rockies.


Finally we pulled into Whitehall, just 30 miles short of Butte (the pronunciation of which was the subject of much debate on our drive). The Super 8 didn't have our reservation, because I had screwed up and made it for tomorrow night. Oops. It was easily fixed, thankfully, and I did double-check that our reservations in Seattle are for the correct nights.

Samara asked the lady at the front desk what the best local eatery would be, and she recommended the Two-Bit Saloon. We drove down into Whitehall, and scoped out the main drag. There's a movie theater, but it's only showing one movie (Hancock) and it was starting too soon for us to catch it after dinner. So we sidled on in to the Two-Bit Saloon. What a great place!

There's no air conditioning there, but with both doors open, there was plenty of circulation. It reminded us a bit of Jamaica. They've got giant wooden tables, and a long bar. The big flatscreen TV was showing the men's marathon at the Olympics. The Africans were in the lead, not surprisingly. We ordered some food, and it turned out to be really good. I had a steak sandwich, which was really just a decent steak between two slices of toast. That came with fries, which were definitely home-cut. Samara had the chicken fingers, which were also home-made and came with fries. She tried two beers--the Harvest Moon Belgian White and the Harvest Moon Pig's Ass. The latter was apparently not up to par, so she had a glass of the Belgian White. She recommended to one of our waitresses that she order some Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale for the bar, which the waitress said she'd do. Turns out that both the young waitresses were sisters, and their parents owned the place. I'm pretty sure mom was cooking and dad was tending bar. If you're ever passing through Montana, you should stop by and eat there. It was some of the best food on the trip so far. Oh, and they made their own sauces. The ranch and bleu cheese were both really good!

Then, finally, back to the hotel, where we both have internet access, and the room is pleasantly clean. Tomorrow is the last day of driving--we push all the way through to Seattle. Somehow I failed to notice that our route includes Idaho in addition to a bit more of Montana and then Washington. I don't know what I thought--I guess I forgot that Idaho existed.

So we'll be in a hotel next to Seatac in Seattle tomorrow night. Monday we have to get the Canyonero loaded onto the ship, and then Tuesday morning, we fly to Alaska.

Day 2: The Big Day of Play

So, after spending 12 hours driving on Day One, we knew that we'd have it easier today. We only had 7 hours of driving planned. That allowed us to make it into Rapid City and see Mount Rushmore before dark. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, there was breakfast in Iowa.

We stopped for gas not too far out of Omaha, after passing back into Iowa. We knew from a little online research that there were two Speedway/Superamerica gas stations left on our route, and since we had a gift card (thanks to Teddy, and also thanks to everyone else that gave us gas cards or prepaid VISA cards!), we wanted to fill up at one. So after putting just a few gallons in the tank, we looked around the exit for a place to eat. McDonald's seemed to be the only thing open, but I staunchly refused to bow to the temptation to eat there. I pointed out a hole-in-the-wall place attached to another gas station, and that's how we ended up at Janz Restaurant.


After a wonderful Iowa farm breakfast, we got back on the road. This is some FLAT country. We drove through a few hours of more Iowa corn and pulled into Sioux Falls and stopped at the second to last Speedway/Superamerica in the country. We stocked up on snacks and headed back on the road.


Before long, we got over into South Dakota. We had to run the length of the state to get to Rapid City, where we're staying tonight. More flat. More corn. But there were highlights along the way. First up was Mitchell, and the CORN PALACE! That's right. It's a-maize-ing, apparently.


Well, it was okay. We both took a bathroom break, and I'm proud to say that I pooped in the corn palace. We looked around a bit, and then got back on the road.

It was after the Mitchell stop that we started noticing problems with the Canyonero. Basically it's using a fair amount of gas, and bogs if you've got your foot to the floor. That's a problem if you're trying to maintain 75 mph uphill. (That's the speed limit in this flat country, by the way.) So we went a bit slower sometimes, but a rest area break showed nothing obviously wrong with our SUV. Coolant level was fine, and thanks to the gauge that Kieran and I installed before we left, I could tell that the coolant temperature was fine as well. Voltmeter was okay, gas gauge was okay (although dropping faster than I'd like), and oil pressure was okay. Anyway, it may need a fuel filter change or something. Hard to tell. It's hard for it to be so loaded down and taking long uphill slopes at higher speeds.

So we took it easy for a while, and as we were running close to an empty tank, we stopped for gas at a little station in New Underwood that advertised the World's Smallest Biker Bar. The little dive next door did seem to be a small bar, and there were some bikers around. I noticed that the wind had been doing a number on the tarp containing our rooftop luggage. That's okay, though--it only has to last two more days.

Pretty soon, the signs for Wall Drug (which start at the other end of South Dakota, as soon as you cross the border) began to become more frequent and frantic, and then we were suddenly there.


Woo! Wall Drug!


It's actually fairly anti-climactic. We took some silly pictures, got some postcards, and then headed across the street for some dinner. This is by far the biggest tourist trap in South Dakota if not the entire US. The corn palace pales in comparison. We didn't even look in all the little shops. Is there anyone on the planet that needs a leather cookie jar that looks like Elvis?


We ate at the Cactus Cafe, and had the buffet. That included Buffalo meatballs and a HUGE Angus beef roast. The beef was excellent. It was actually the best thing on the menu. The guy that cooked it said he started cooking it at 5am. It was about 5:30 when we sat down for dinner. The whole thing was impressive. The meatballs were just ok.


Then it was time to push on further. We're lucky to be gaining time as we go. So far we've gained an hour for Central, and an hour for Mountain Time. That's nice.

After leaving Wall, we were only about an hour from our hotel in Rapid City. We pushed on in and checked in at the Day's Inn. Then we headed back out to go to Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore is on the other side of Keystone, and we nearly got lost because my Google maps directions were to the middle of Keystone, SD, not to Mount Rushmore itself, and I wasn't really watching the signs. But after a single wrong turn, we figured it out and headed up the hill to the big stone faces.

Mount Rushmore is breathtakingly amazing.

Oh, wait. No it's not. It's a bunch of heads carved into a mountain. It looks like they did a great job on George Washington, and then slacked off with each subsequent president. Teddy's mustache is kinda cool, but Lincoln kinda looks like the Phantom of the Opera with his face barely done. (Also, it kind looks like Roosevelt and Lincoln are sharing some secret that they're keeping from George.)


So we took some pictures of us picking their noses and squishing their heads. Then we used the facilities. There's apparently some deal where they light up the monument after dark, but there was a crapload of tourists sitting in the bleachers, and we didn't want to get stuck in traffic. So we headed back down the mountain to Rapid City.

The hotel has a bar/casino and a outdoor heated pool. So we threw on our swimsuits, grabbed a drink at the bar, and swam around the pool a bit. Just a note--if you order either an Amaretto sour or Midori sour in Rapid City, South Dakota, apparently you're gonna get Seven instead of sour mix. Since bubbly Amaretto isn't my thing, I didn't drink much of mine. But at least it was cheap.

And now, it's down to the blogging and sleeping. Then it's back on the road tomorrow.

Day 1: On the road again

We saw a few folks Wednesday night before we were planning to leave. After they left, we decided we weren't tired, and were ready to go. We finished packing, and by then, we were ready for a short nap. We got up at 5:30, stopped by our storage unit, and then we were on the road by 6:00am.

The first leg was a short one--to Louisville. We stopped there and saw our good friend Matthew. He treated us to breakfast at the Brown Hotel (a famous hotel in Louisville). Breakfast was very nice. The lobby smelled like grandma farts. Good thing we didn't have to eat in the lobby.

Even though Samara said she wouldn't post a picture of Matthew, here he is! He's a good-looking bloke. Doubly so when he stands next to someone ugly like me.


After breakfast, it was time to get out of Dodge. The plan for the first day is a 12-hour push to Omaha, Nebraska. That will give us an easier second day and time for some sightseeing. So, as Kieran would say, we were oscar mike.

Out of Louisville, we went through Indiana and Illinois. Those states went by fairly quickly. Then we hit Missouri. That's the first long state-wide drive. We hit St. Louis, and saw the arch up close as we drove by. For lunch, we shared a burger at Steak'n'Shake.


Missouri gets really flat as you cross it. Once we got to Kansas City and turned north, it was kinda weird. Here's some pictures of Samara driving, me riding, and the flat horizon.


After the turn, we stopped for dinner at a local barbeque chain, Bandana's. It was pretty decent. Samara drove the last leg and got us into Iowa, and up to our first night's sleep. We crossed just over the border into Nebraska and we're staying at the Econo Lodge in Omaha.

More tomorrow after we do some sightseeing. See you in South Dakota!

Leaving Lexington

We are leaving Lexington in a few hours. This is the last post until we reach Omaha or some place with the internet. Who knows if Omaha has the internet. It's a series of tubes, you know. (Aaron says that's funny somehow.)

Good Bye Lexington, we will see you in a year.

Hugs and Love,
Samara and Aaron

Packed

Just a short post to say that we are officially packed! All of the boxes that were piling up into one corner have been loaded into our Canyonero. It actually has quite a bit of cargo room. Much to Samara's chagrin, I was even able to pack my welder and drill press along with some other tools. I'm hoping to find an indoors project to keep me entertained, since I won't be able to work on cars. At any rate, everything fit, so we are very close to being ready to leave now!

Going away party in Lexington

We had a small going away party here in Lexington. Allen hosted it at his house and his mom bought us a cake. No, I don't have pictures of the cake, but it was a chocolate cake with buttercream icing and it had a picture of an igloo on it and a little guy in a parka. It was very cute and very tasty. From left to right: Brad, JD, EV, Aaron and part of Kieran.


From left to right: the rest of Kieran, Andrew, Jonathan, Paul, Jeffery and Zack.

There are a few people that are not pictured: Kirsten, Violet, Allen, Natalie, Matt, Dennis, Teddy, Abi, Juicy Ann, Anne Ohdaddy and myself.

I will miss my friends more than I will miss anything in Lexington. More than I will miss the shopping, the restaurants, or the other stuff that is in lexington. *HUGS*

Jury Duty

Because of my Patterson School master's degree in diplomacy, it took me a total of four years to complete law school. During that entire period, I was a property owner, registered voter and Kentucky driver. Now, I'm pulling up stakes and headed for Alaska this week.

So what arrives in the mail today? My jury duty notice.

I would have loved to serve on a jury at any point during law school, but now that I'm headed to Alaska, I clearly cannot stick around to spend October on a jury.

Cruel fate.

I'm wondering whether I should risk simply sending in the form with my excuse, or if I should make a special trip down to see the Chief Circuit Court Judge, just to be sure. I have a few days to do one or the other before I'm headed off into the horizon.

On a separate note, we have pretty much completely finished packing. Ann's stuff got moved into the house today, and is almost completely here. She has a few things left in her apartment, but we made use of my dad's pickup truck while we had it. He and the rest of the family will be here tomorrow to visit a bit and pick it up.

The time to leave is drawing near!

Just about packed and getting excited

We are now just about packed and ready to go. We only have to actually pack the canyonero with all of our worldly possessions, move Ann's furniture into the house, go to our going away party here in Lexington and leave. I believe that we are planning to leave on Wednesday August 20th or Thursday August 21st.

We have been mailing some of our clothes and some household items to ourselves in Alaska. We decided to send it just to "local delivery" since we don't have a PO box yet. We'll get that when we get up there. It seems that people only have PO boxes and no one uses their street address, which seems strange to me. In fact, the guy we are renting an apartment from didn't even know the address to the apartment when we called the first time. He emailed that later to let us know since we needed to turn on the utilities there.

I am getting excited as we get closer to the day that we leave. I am going to miss all my friends and love ones, but this is an adventure that we just couldn't pass up. I am looking forward to the drive up to Seattle and then the trip to Anchorage and even getting a job and working. I am not looking forward to 4-6 hours of daylight in the winter or the 60 inches of snow, but like all things, I will deal with it as it comes.

One last note, I need people's addresses. If you want a birthday/christmas/postcard you need to comment with your address.
--Samara

In the middle of packing

I just wanted to give everyone an update as to where we are in the packing situation.
As you can see from the pictures, stuff is everywhere! I hate the way it is, but I believe that this is what is supposed to happen before you move...rooms a'splode.



Tucked neatly in what is currently the front room (but I've heard that it is going to become a bedroom), is everything that is going in the yard sale on Saturday. It's a mess and I'm looking forward to being able to see the floor again.



And this is the mess that I call my bedroom. We have started to pack up the clothes we are going to take on the trip, on the plane and what is going to be shipped via USPS.

Oh and we have bought our plane tickets! We are to leave Seattle on the 26 at 8:00am and arrive in Dillingham some time around 2:00pm.

That's all I really have for you right now. Enjoy.