SNAP!SHOT

Okay, so I've been back home for a while now. Here are some pix from the trip. I haven't added any posts about the rest of the trip because I don't know if anyone is interested. If I get some requests, I'll post about more of the trip. It was amazing.

Special: We Are All Just Fine -- Part II

I am skipping ahead to today, even though there is over a week of backed up stories I still owe you. But just in case anyone is concerned...

At 6:05 pm local time today, the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis collapsed. Jake and I were several miles away in Champlin, watching our cousins play basketball, when the tragedy occurred. We are okay and our family in Minnesota is okay.

We are of course praying for the families of those who were not so fortunate.

24. Goal Ball

I know what you are pondering. "Why did they stop in Bemidji?" you are asking yourself. Ponder no further, I will enlighten you.

We went to Bemidji to see my friend Rob. Rob is a teacher at the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind in Tucson. Among his many talents, Rob is a goalball coach. One week out of every year, he coaches goalball in Bemidji at a camp for visually impaired students. Although we've had plenty of chances to see him at work in Tucson, for some reason we never managed to make it to a game until we got to see Rob at work in Bemidji.

We started with a tour of Bemidji State University, where the camp takes place. It's a really beautiful campus, on the shore of Lake Bemidji (they use the lake as a parking lot during the winter). Then we went to the gym to see the students play goal ball. We were there at the very end of the camp, so we were seeing the tournament that determined the camp champion goalball team. The game is fascinating, though like soccer, I think goalball would be more fun to play than to watch.

We had dinner with Rob at a lakeshore restaurant, and I also got to join Rob for breakfast Saturday morning before we headed off for a short 100-mile drive to Bay Lake.

23. The Center of North America

Friday was an easy driving day -- only half the distance of the day before. It was also just about completely uneventful except for one pleasant surprise -- our route took us right past the geographical center of North America. I understand that the precision of the measurement of this location is fairly dubious, but this is where they marked it and it's probably as good a location as any.

We were in Bemidji by 2pm, and ready for our next adventure.

22. Skipping Canada

Wednesday's troubles left us way behind schedule. Our plan had been to go further north and drive across a big chunk of Alberta and Saskatchewan on the trans-Canada highway, then drop back into North Dakota. To get back on track, we decided to skip Canada, and drive straight east for 630 miles to get back on track as quickly as possible. So we got ourselves onto U.S. Highway 2 and drove east. Along the way we proved that it is possible to get a speeding ticket even in Montana. We discovered that highway 2 is a popular route for bicyclists on coast-to-coast treks. We must have passed about 30 bicyclists loaded down with camping gear. They ride on the shoulder of highway 2 with cars buzzing by at 70 mph. The idea of a cross-country bike ride appeals to me, but not on the narrow shoulder of a highway! I think we should take a one-day break from the war, and use the money we save to build a nice bike lane from Maine to Washington alongside highway 2.

Anyway, we managed to get to our destination -- Minot, North Dakota -- well before nightfall, tired out from the extra long drive but happy to be back on track.

Mountain Goats in Glacier Park

21. One Bad Thing

--or how to save money--

I suppose that on a trip of this magnitude, it's inevitable that One Bad Thing will happen.

This was a section of the trip that I was particularly looking forward to. A couple of years ago I wrote a short story that involved a road trip through Glacier National Park. I wrote the descriptions based on maps and photographs, since I had no memory of having been through the park myself. I had been hoping ever since to have a chance to travel the same path that my protagonists did, and to see how closely the reality of the road matched my imagination of it.

Tuesday night found us in Kalispell, outside the western entrance to Glacier. Lodging near the park entrance is quite expensive, and rather than spend upwards of $150 for a hotel room, I decided to spend about $25 for a tent spot at a campground. Now, the best laid plans of mice and men are often gang aglee (or something), but these were hardly the best laid plans. As soon as I started to set up the tent, it started to rain. It would rain off and on all night. Stands to reason that our one night of camping would also be our one night of rain. We had dinner at the campground restaurant. I had a hoagie and Jake had ribs. Jake said the ribs tasted a little funny, but not too bad.

The plan for Wednesday was to drive through Glacier park in the morning, ending up at Cardston Alberta hopefully by one in the afternoon, and Swift Current Saskatchewan before nightfall. The drive from Kalispell to Cardston would echo the drive my characters took in my short story, though presumably without their mishaps.

I woke up in some amount of pain. I injured my back a couple years ago, and every now and then it flares up. Sleeping on the hard ground instead of a nice hotel bed probably didn't help.

Jake awoke feeling just awful. I mean really really awful. We thought it might have been due to the altitude, or the twisting winding driving we did the day before, but our prime suspect was the ribs. Which we saw again that morning, if you catch my drift. We couldn't leave right away anyway because we needed to give time for the sun to come up and dry out the tent. So Jake rested while I went and got coffee; then I came back and broke camp while Jake rested more in the car. Jake was still not feeling great, but he decided to try to tough it out. I didn't know if the mountain air would revive him, or if the twists and turns of Going-to-the-Sun highway would only make things worse.

It was the latter. Jake was miserable on the entire trip through Glacier. He lay there with his eyes closed and moaned while I saw some of the most magnificent scenery on this planet. Jake did manage to open his eyes momentarily to watch the big horn sheep that walked casually across the road in front of us. I did stop a couple times to snap some photos, but didn't spend anything like the time or attention that I wanted to in the park.

By the time we reached Saint Mary at the east exit of the Park -- only about 60 miles into our intended 400 mile drive -- it was clear that we were done for the day. The only thing available at the Saint Mary lodge was a 2-room cabin for a hundred and eighty bucks. So we checked in and I got Gatorade and water and Pepto for Jake. I hoped that this wouldn't last more than a day. I canceled the reservation in Swift Current, and began to strategize a plan to get the trip back on track.