Last night I didn't sleep very well, I think I was so over tired that I wasn't able to fall asleep. I got up to go to the bathroom around midnight or so, and after that I slept pretty well. Jonny left around 5am and I continued to sleep until about 7am which would be 10am at home. I actually was awake before Anna which was a huge surprise since she told me she usually wakes up around 7:30, I was content with laying there on my phone for an hour. We got up around 8:00 or a little after and Allie came out around the same time to get ready for work. I decided to clean out my overweight suitcase since carnation breakfast had spilled all over the contents of it. I made some tea, smoked up the whole apartment, and headed outside to wipe everything off, and dump out the remaining powder. Seems the culprit was only one package. What a mess! Allie headed off to work, and I put the empty suitcase in their laundry room to store while we are on the trip. Inside, Anna was finished showering and researching some information on her computer so I jumped in the shower next. We packed everything into the car (surprisingly fit very well it has a huge trunk!) And decided to find a Walmart so we could pick up a few things, and get breakfast items since we were famished. We left the key under the mat along with a note for Jonny and Allie and headed 10 minutes to the nearest Walmart. Heading right for the camping/outdoors isle; we forgot that Burning Man was going on and their shelves were practically wiped clean, meaning we couldn't get our stove fuel here. We scattered around picking up toilet paper, bagels, cheese, craisins, sunglasses, and ziplocks before deciding we would have to find an outdoor store similar to REI/EMS. After checking out, the hanger (angry hunger) was setting in and I needed some food in my body. We both sat in the seats of the car loading bagels with cheese and craisins (it's an amazing combination don't knock it until you try it.) It was a much needed delicious breakfast and gave me a more human like personality. Jonny had told us about an awesome outdoor store similar to a Cabela's but of course we couldn't remember the name; luckily there was an REI nearby. We set the navigation and figured 8 minutes wouldn't be too far; and sure, it wasn't far but the hell if we could find the place. We drove around 2 different plazas and it was no where in sight, mind you REI's typically are not a small store. Finally, after driving around the backside of a building and getting odd stares, we saw the REI sign. We grabbed fuel and were out in no time ready to start our road trip journey. The navigation told us that Shoshone Falls was 6 hours and 45 minutes away and boy did we make great time. The scenery was mostly desertous and monotonous but we were excited to be on our way. I was the driver and I swear I saw more cops on this first day than I did my whole 29 day April-May road trip it was insane. Anna was impressed with my driving skills and the ability to make ramen while driving and then proceed to eat it after it warmed up a little on the dashboard. The gas take read quarter of a tank, and I knew I should try and find a gas station soon. Having prior experience out in the middle of nowhere running on fumes looking for a Shell station I didn't want to relive the horror. We had about 10 miles to "play" with before we reached the falls, and even still there is no guarantee that there will be a gas station in town. I watched as the remaining miles until empty went from 92, to 91, to 90, to 89 and then back up to 91. Anna joked that when I drive cars, they gain gas mileage and save time to the destination. We watched as the mileage went from 91 to 92 and then stayed at 91 for well over a mile. I decided to stop at a "mom 'n pop" station to put a few gallon in until we come across a Shell station. When I stopped it was only on 89 miles until empty and that was way more than it should have been. It was strange but after several hours the desert started to take on farm qualities and there were more living landscapes. It is amazing to think that someone looked at the dry, rocky, pumice like landscape and thought, "hey I am going to cultivate this for grass or hay to grow." Before we knew it, large crop lands, turned to farms, and then houses, and then stores and gas stations. We were within 15 minutes to the falls and came across the most gorgeous houses out here, mansions and I am sure they are not a million dollars like they would be back in Connecticut. We crossed another time zone losing an hour which put us at the falls at 6:00pm. It was strange to think just a couple hundred miles ago we were in the desert and now we are at a waterfall taller than Niagara Falls. The canyon and small falls along the road were beautiful, but nothing compared to when we got down to the parking lot with the main fall. We stood on the platform and were in awe of the beauty. There was an older couple who we talked with for 10-15 minutes who were on a similar traveling journey. They are from Phoenix, and had just come from Portland, which we will be heading to eventually. Alice; the woman, told us to visit her daughter's bar called the Portway in Portland so we plan to do so. Next we checked out Dierkes Lake which was pretty awesome as well. We decided to make dinner here and enjoy the beauty; though there were a gaggle of overly girly 12-14 year olds which made the atmosphere less relaxing. Not to mention the 12 year old boy singing and dancing to Taylor Swift, that was just entertaining. Dinner was pasta primavera Mountain House meal for me tonight and Anna had her first ever Mountain House which was beef stroganoff. We booked a campsite at Oregon Trails Campground for the night and had to be there before 8:00, we got there around 7:45; perfect timing. The employee inside was an overly friendly genuine guy, he was interested in our journey and even recommended places for us to go tomorrow since we hadn't really planned that out yet. First he recommend Yellowstone National Park; and although I'd love to go there someday, it was like 5 hours of of the way. We were seriously debating the possibly however, when his wife came over and suggested Redfish Lake in Sawtooth National Forest which was less than 2 hours away! So happy to know what our plans are for tomorrow, before tomorrow. He proceeds to grab a business card and I thought he was going to write down the names of the lake and park for us to remember. No, better yet he starts to draw a map. There's a symbol that looks like the pi sign in math class, then draws a horizontal line and writes SV which looks like "SU" for Sun Valley, then an arrow with some scribbles that I now know say Stanley a town where we were headed, and then a cloud like object with a side lightning bolt coming out of it. If I didn't have GPS I would have no idea how to get there I thought. We thanked them both, and followed him to our campsite. He let us know that Opal would be coming in later around 10 or 11:00 and camping across from us not to worry, we assured him we would probably be sleeping by then but thanks for the heads up. We unpacked our tents and sleeping gear, got settled in, and sat up on our phones for maybe a half hour before deciding to call it a night and get some rest. Tomorrow we only have an hour and 45 minute drive to our next destination so we plan to go back to the falls in the morning for breakfast.
No comments:
Post a Comment