Random Thoughts from the Trip

Some Fun Facts

• 1 million buffalo (OK, a bit of an exaggeration, but lots of buffalo)
• 8,705 miles
• 4,800 vertical feet of elevation gain (highest hike)
• 3,996 photos
• 38 days
• 31 tanks of gas
• 19 bags of ice
• 14 holes of golf (before it got dark)
• 13 campgrounds
• 13 states
• 10 national parks (if you count the two Canadiens)
• 3 grizzly bears
• 3 Best Buys (bought iPod transmitter in FW, traded it in OK, returned it in SD)
• 2 provinces
• 2 brake pads
• 1 bull moose
• 1 night of freezing temperatures (and rain)
• 1 failed attempt at backcountry camping
• 1/2 dome

A lot of people I met on the trip asked me what my favorite park was. It's impossible to sum them up and pick one, but I have tried to pick out the highlights from along the way.

• Most beautiful - Glacier National Park - so green, so much water, so many flowers
• Best hike - Half Dome, Yosemite National Park
• Best waterfall - Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park
• Best campground - Canyon, Yellowstone National Park
• Worst campground - Bridge Bay, Yellowstone or whatever its name was in Whistler
• Best single view - Lake Louise from the Fairmount Chateau, Banff National Park tied with Grand Canyon from anywhere on the South Kaibab trail
• Most accessible park - Yellowstone National Park
• Most expensive lemonade - Lake Louise, Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse, Banff National Park - bring your own water
• Most expensive gas - $3.75 a gallon in Banff (California is a close second)
• Least expensive gas - $2.07 a gallon in Tucson
• Prettiest drive - either the road from South Dakota to Yellowstone through Cody or the road from Jasper to Whistler - Icefields Parkway from Banff to Jasper and Sea to Sky from Whistler to Vancouver should have won here, but it was rainy and cloudy for both of them
• Fastest speed limit - 80mph in West Texas
• Best hotel - "The Springs", Banff
• Best meal - Bow River Grill, "The Springs", Banff
• Best salad - the wedge, Snake River Brewing Company, Jackson, WY
• Most expensive shower - $5 Curry Village, Yosemite
• Least expensive shower - $1.38 Glacier National Park
• Best beer - Pyramid Thunderhead IPA
• Most expensive beer - $9.75 at "The Springs"
• Biggest disappointment - Yosemite - picked the wrong time of year (little or no water), didn't have a camping reservation, fire cut off the valley, etc. I would go back, but earlier in the summer and not without a confirmed reservation.
• Worse fashion trend - young males piercing their ears and implanting progressively larger disks to stretch out their ear lobe. The California kid at a gas station with a dime sized disk was bad enough, but the kid at Phantom Ranch with a hole the size of a hockey puck was a bit much

Things that confused me.

• In Wyoming and Montana, nothing but round bales of hay. In Washington and Oregon, nothing but square bales of hay. Does Obama really think he can get a consensus on nationalizing health care if we can't even agree on something as simple as the optimum shape for a bale of hay? I think not. Instead, he should be focusing on the escalating cost of showers - from $1.38, to $2, to $3.25 to $5 at the end of the trip - shower inflation is the number one problem facing our country!
• Likewise, I counted at least six or seven different ways that states ban trucks from using their engines to brake - No Engine Braking, No Exhaust Braking, No Engine Retarder Braking, No Compression Braking, etc. Do we really need so many ways to say the same thing?
• Why does Oregon not allow self-serve gas? With pay at the pump, its kind of stupid to have to pay an attendent. Is the gas station attendants union really that powerful? The two teenaged girls that pumped my gas didn't appear to be hardcore union activists, but you never know.
• Canada spends millions on freeway overpasses - FOR WILDLIFE ONLY! All I could think of was putting a deer blind at one end of those things and thanking the Canadian government for bringing the wildlife straight to me. What happened to survival of the fittest? Its a necessary survival skill to be able to cross a freeway without getting run over. When will these entitlements end?
• Why do Europeans always order Bud Light, Coors Light, and Miller Lite when quality beer options are available? If anyone should know good from bad beer its them. Very disturbing.
• Germans I met were almost universally friendly and Brits I met were generally jerks. And the Germans spoke better english too. Go figure.
• Why don't Japanese people get english speakers to look at their tee-shirts before they buy them? INTERCOURSE Canning Co. is offered up as an example.
• How do you take a horse and a donkey and come up with a mule which is bigger than either one of its parents? No more GMOs unless of course they are carrying your dinner and trash! I'm putting all of my money into a new mule breeding venture I heard about - DOH!