Cross Country Trip (with kids), Northern Route, Virginia to Oregon

 

In 2020, bachelor's degree in hand--or rather, packed in a shipping container--my family prepared to move from Southwest Virginia, back to Oregon. We had started making plans before the pandemic lockdowns. Yet, we still decided to take the opportunity for another cross-country drive, rather than a glance or two from an airplane window. Restrictions were easing by the summer, but there was the chance of getting stranded somewhere along the way, should they tighten again. 

We weren't returning exactly to the place from whence we came--we wanted to be closer to the bigger cities, my family in Washington, and MFA programs. I shopped online for our new home, choosing a place where the cost of living and crime were low.

The usual scramble to pack was exasperated by the last-minute realization that we had accumulated more than would comfortably fit in our Dodge Caravan. On our last day in town, my mother rented a U-pack container and she and I played a rapid, sweaty version of real-life Tetris--what a stressful, yet lovely memory! 

For those who read the adventures of our first road trip, it may be noted that there was no parallel plan for our sweet dog, Junior. He had crossed the "rainbow bridge," peacefully, at home, the year before. Part of me was thankful that we didn't have to consider whether or not we should take him away from the country hills, where he had lived the most joyful, good-boy years of his life.

We were "on the road again," August 1st. Our first leg was one of the longest: just under seven hours to Indianapolis, where we would stay two nights with one of my best friends. On our way, we made delicious pitstops in Louisville, at Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen, for our last taste of southern favorites like chess pie and strawberry rhubarb, and New Wave Burritos, which I cannot praise enough. The Hooter and (ironically) The Garbage were the perfect blends of flavors, with a little crunch from the tater tots and Fritos blended in. 

A few days later, on the way out of Indianapolis, we were excited to pull up to the Children's Museum and the three-story-tall dinosaurs, poised as though they were breaking into and out of the building. You can't pass up a place where you start having fun before you even step inside.

The afternoon was another long drive, passing corn fields and wind farms. I also noticed the white farmhouses, surrounded by acres of grassland, yet uniformly featuring trees planted purposefully around the house--it took a while to realize the trees were likely to moderate the temperature indoors and create a windbreak to protect the houses.

We stretched our legs at Iowa's Rest Stop 6, where a historic marker told the story of Josiah Bushnell Grinnell, who founded the nearby town and helped shelter over a thousand enslaved people making their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad, as well as the fiery abolitionist, John Brown. (If you haven't seen the fictionalized, slightly satirical film about Brown, Good Lord Bird, I highly recommend it.)

August 4th, we stayed in the Motel 6 in West Des Moines, Iowa. For breakfast, it was bagel sandwiches at Einstein Brothers (cream cheese bar? Be still, my heart!) and then to Pappajohn Sculpture Park, where I felt awestruck to recognize a Kusama pumpkin. As much as I love art, I rarely watch biographies about them. Kusama: Infinity was one of those rare treats. Olafur Eliasson's Panoramic Awareness Pavilion was another park favorite. 

Then, mini doughnuts for the road from Mahalo Donuts. Cake donuts are generally not my favorite, but the kids loved them, especially seeing them cooked in front of customers. 

After a three-hour drive, we stopped in Sioux City for tacos at Evelyn's Bakery (Panaderia & Taqueria). This stretch of road had more than a dozen taquerias. From the window, I could see almost a dozen on as many blocks. It was as many taco shops as the northwest has espresso drive throughs in similar radius. The server loved Sioux City so much, he practically convinced us to stop the road trip right there.

Instead, we bought sweet breads for the road. Before completely leaving town, we stopped at the Sioux City Public Museum. This is the most entertaining city museum I have been to. Plenty of fascinating local history to pull from, a wide variety of topics, highly interactive. The corn palace art and history was my favorite.

I was really excited to start seeing the Wall Drug billboards. They are all different, many humorous, with a nostalgic artistic style. I remembered seeing them for the first time, with no context, when I made part of this drive (Indianapolis to Washington) in 2007, with my brother and his high-school sweetheart (now wife). On that trip, we were powering through the drive in three days, despite hitting a blizzard in the mountains. We took turns driving and only stopped once at a hotel for a three-hour nap in real beds. Yet, we had been lured to Wall Drug.

From Sioux City, it was a little over an hour drive to our next hotel, Ramada on West Russell, in Sioux Falls. I surprised my kids with this one. Our room was feet away from their indoor waterpark and arcade. When my five-year-old saw the pirate waterslides, he grabbed my hand and kissed it. He kept up this show of gratitude sporadically throughout the evening.

In the morning, we had breakfast at Josiah's Coffeehouse. Great interior blending rustic and industrial and a choice of outdoor seating. Healthy menu with house-made bread for the avocado toast--really, a perfect way to start the day. Next, a short visit for beautiful views, historic ruins, and rock formations at Falls Park. After the kids had enough of climbing the rocks and statues, it was a short drive to the Aquarium & Butterfly House. I could have spent all day there, observing and feeding the butterflies!

In fact, I could spend a lot more time in this area, generally. From Sioux City, it was a little less than two and a half hours to the Akta Lakota Museum--another favorite museum among all I have visited in the country. It is also where I picked up two of my favorite souvenirs, Star-People: A Lakota Tale, by Sioux-Norwegian author and illustrator S. D. Nelson, and The Rough-Faced Girl, an adapted Algonquian tale in the Cinderella archetype. The Rough-Faced Girl is by far my favorite version of this archetypal tale, as it is the heroine's observations, love of creation, and wit that earns her happy ending--and the Invisible Being is more majestic than a prince!

Afterward, we realized there was a swimming hole practically in the lap of the museum. The American Creek is a little inlet off the Missouri River. This time of year, the water was perfectly warm. Locals were swimming and cooking on the shore. I considered cancelling our next hotel and staying here another day--but we were on a tighter schedule going west. This is one of the areas I most would like to revisit from this trip.

It was a two-hour drive to the Badlands. At the turn-off, we stopped at the Prairie Dog Observation Point to feed the little creatures peanuts. The Badlands are one of the most incredible natural features in the country. They are so unlike any of the others I have visited, so the energy is unique. There was a moment of terror as the children climbed the formations and I got a peek between two of the pillars, to the drop into the canyon below. (It is probably a bit of an optical illusion but it feels like you are on a precipice.)

It was an hour's sunset drive to the Grand Gateway Hotel of Rapid City As darkness fell, we began to hit those Midwest storms where the lightning likes to go sideways as often as not. Being able to watch the storms for miles all around you is incredible.

August 7th was a monster day of activity, so it made sense to start with a healthy and luxurious breakfast at Harriet & Oat. We had a house-made pop tart, quinoa bowl, granola bowl, croissant and brie platter, lattes and iced tea--and a waffle loaded with PB, banana, chocolate chips and house-made whipped cream. Two adorable touches were the VW van parked inside and the gratitude journals on the table.

It is a thirty-minute detour from Rapid City to Mt. Rushmore. There is a mountain slide there now. If the children were older (or I was braver) and we didn't have to rush to fit our full day's itinerary, we would have done it. I still owe them one!

From there, it was a backtrack and forty-five additional minutes to Deadwood. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the old west reenactments in the streets, as there was a motorcycle convention in town. I mean, hundreds of them! So we quickly scoped the museum and saw Jessie James' grave. There is some beautiful historic architecture and a peaceful, secluded feeling, nestled in the tree-covered hills surrounding the town.

We had a six-hour drive ahead of us to Greybull, Wyoming. As has become a tradition on our road trips, we stopped at Walmart for a new season of The Simpsons. It seemed like kismet when we opened the box to find the case art featured a road trip, dinosaurs, and butterflies!

Fantastic breakfast burritos and coffee were enjoyed at Beta Coffeehouse in Cody, WY, a tiny place absolutely stuffed with art (some slightly adult themed), house plants, books, small band CDs, a chess set, etc., etc. If it had been open, we would have checked out the board game store across the street.

After an hour's drive, we stretched our legs and tried our hands at a lasso in Old Trail Town. Here we are, standing in the doorway that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had once walked through.

 In another hour, we were in Yellowstone National Park. The first impression was driving alongside the winding rivers, passing herds of buffalo. We stopped for a hike to see the Upper waterfalls, and again for a plunge in Firehole River, where it is only half-freezing cold, as it is slightly warmed by the run-off from the hot springs. And last, of course, the hot springs themselves. It was eerie, walking the boardwalks over the scalding water, which dyes the sandy bottom a variety of colors from teal to rust. The sulphury steam feels like it is just degrees away from blistering your skin. With no guard rails and children--well, I wasn't as relaxed as I would like to be. Afterwards, we saw Old Faithful erupt.

A few of the restaurants that were on our wish list were closed for the pandemic and restoration. But we were able to book a room at White Buffalo on the western side of the park. Night fell as we were driving through the canyons during the last miles to the hotel.

August 9th was a five-hour-drive with nothing particular to see, so it became "the day of three playgrounds," each with a very different vibe. (Note: I use "park" and "playground" interchangeably, but Google does not. If you want wide open spaces, ask for "park," for play equipment, "playground.")

First, Ennis Montana's Lion's Club Park. The kids had an absolute blast with the dozen or so tractor tires for climbing. There is a pretty view of a trout pond, too. It was a very hometown, retro feel.

Now is when I admit to you that on these trips, I took no notes. So, five years later, I retrace my journey using photos and email confirmations. About half the time I do some major sleuthing based on time stamps and tiny details in the photos. That is how I know that we ate lunch in Ennis. We had a brie and turkey panini with seasoned house-made fries. Based on some photos and the use of white plates, I think it may have been Tavern 287, although this is not a regular menu item.

Afterward, we got espresso to go from Sure Shot --a fact that I nailed down based on the photo below. Yep, no other coffee drive-thru on the route had grass around it, only gravel. The final confirmation was the noteworthy fence, with its signs of opposites, which both I and some angel on restaurant guru thought funny enough to photograph. We don't need to talk about how long I spent in Google Maps and other search engines, figuring this out.

It is only through the memory of Our Lady of the Rockies statue towering over the town that I know our second park was Stodden Park in Butte Montana--about an hour and twenty minutes from Ennis. This is an enormous, completely modern park with amazing accessibility features.

After another hour and forty-five minutes in the car, we reached Missoula, for the third park: Dragon Hollow Playground. This featured a beautiful wooden art-deco-Norwegian-dragon/castle structure. There were tons of hidden art tiles by local children and other lovely details, such as the ASL alphabet plaque.

After all that hard play and driving, we were ready for a hearty dinner at Michi Ramen in Missoula. Not only are the portions enormous and delicious, it is beautiful inside. Exposed brick, enormous murals and other large artworks, a wall of cherry blossoms and ceiling of paper umbrellas and greenery--there are beautiful surprises everywhere you look.

After dinner, we still had almost an hour and a half to the Black Diamond cabins in De Borgia, Mt. It was already dark, but we built a fire in the pit and enjoyed what felt like the last official day of the road trip. We still had hours ahead of us to drive, but we would be meeting with family along the way, feeling more like life as usual.

We powered through the six and a half hours to Bonney Lake, where half of my family lived. We had a fun, disorienting surprise when I walked in to see my best friend--who we had stayed with in Indianapolis--had flown ahead to meet us!

After two or three days, we made the final three-and-a-half hour leg to find out where we had decided to live, sight unseen. Our final stop before reaching our apartment was the Fork Forty Food Hall in Salem, Oregon, where we had our first bao bao sandwiches.

Obviously, Oregon and Washington being our usual neck of the woods, I could say a lot about what there is to do in that stretch, but that will be other blogs to come.

Side note: Anyone else collect signs from the pandemic? Businesses really got creative with the handwashing and social distancing themes. See, the All-Star by Smashmouth handwashing time at the Butterfly House. Somewhere I saw one that said, wash your hands like you sliced jalapenos and you are going to touch your eyes. "Stay one cow apart" was from Old Trail Town. And the signs at Old Faithful specified not only how far to stay away from other humans, but from wildlife, as well.