Sunday we packed up and and headed into the southern suburbs of Kansas City to stop at a Trader Joe's store, mostly to see if they have a KC themed TJ's grocery bag. They didn't have a KC themed bag so we just picked up some salads, snacks and wine to cover us the next couple of days. The salads will go good with the BBQ we picked up at LC's yesterday. After TJ's we continued west through Lawrence toward Topeka, the state capital, where the KOA is our destination for the night. Not a long driving day but it does knock over an hour off the next day's drive west to Wakeeney. Besides, it gives Kris a chance to visit The Sewing Workshop, a mail order place that she is familiar with, as they have a retail store front in Topeka. While there she had a great chat, with the owner and a couple of other employees, about numerous sewing and knitting places she has been on this trip.
Bit of a bugger to end the day though. Brian's credit card was declined back at Trader Joe's. When we got to the KOA in Topeka he called the bank only to be told that his card has been compromised and must be replaced. Third one since we left home on this trip! Sure wish the USA would hurry up and move into the current century and make chip cards universal! A real pain in the ass especially when traveling as we have to figure out a place they can send the new card to. We have since found out that the USA is going country wide with the chip cards in October of this year.
Monday morning Brian called the KOA in Cheyenne Wyoming, talked to the owner and he said that we could have a package sent there and they would hold it for us. Nice. Called the credit card company to find that more attempts had been made with Brian's number so the old number was officially cancelled and to have the new card sent to the KOA in Cheyenne. We expect to be there Wednesday afternoon so more than enough time for the card to get there before us.
That done, we packed up and headed west. Our travels over the next week will basically be daily drives until we get to Petaluma California, about an hour north of San Francisco. This is close to the same route we took 3 years ago when it was terrible drought through Kansas and Nebraska. On the other hand maybe, fingers crossed, it won't seem as boring crossing Wyoming, Utah and Nevada :-)
Using Mapquest, from Topeka, Kansas to Petaluma, California is about 2900 kms with an estimated 29 hours driving time. For someone who likes to put in mega miles and mega hours driving each day, this could probably be done in two to three days. That's definitely not our style. We'll break it up into eight days something like this:
- Topeka to Wakeeney Kansas; 3.5 hours driving; 380 kms
- Wakeeney to North Platte Nebraska; 3 hours; 290 kms
- North Platte to Cheyenne Wyoming; 3.5 hours; 360 kms
- Cheyenne to Rock Springs Wyoming; 4 hours; 415 kms
- Rock Springs to West Wendover Nevada; 4.75 hours; 490 kms
- West Wendover to Winnemucca Nevada; 3.5 hours; 355 kms
- Winnemucca to Truckee California; 3 hours; 318 kms
- Truckee to Petaluma California; 3 hours; 290 kms
There you have it. Set the cruise at around 100-110 kph (around 65 mph) and take it easy. Take good lunch breaks and get there early to mid afternoon so lots of time for pooling, if available. There's lots of room on the interstates for all the folks who like to go a lot faster. This will also be a pretty blasé part of the overall trip so most days will be: get up, shower and make coffee; pack up; drive for a while; stop for lunch; drive for a while; stop for the day; have a swim; have some dinner; watch an episode or two of The Wire; go to bed. Repeat...
Monday we stopped for lunch at Martinelli's Little Italy in the pretty town of Salina before continuing on to Wakeeney. The KOA at Wakeeney is one of those nice little overnight stop places. Besides they have a lovely cold pool which keeps most other folks out leaving us with a pool to ourselves. Early evening we drove into the small town to see if the old saloon (The Western Kansas Saloon & Grill) on main street was open. Rats... closed Monday. Too bad, might have been our last chance at it as we doubt we will come this way again.
Tuesday we headed a bit west then north into Nebraska. We stopped for lunch at the very quaint Landmark Inn in Oberlin, Kansas, where it is fun to have the waitress read off what they have available. Kris chose the Salmon quiche with salad and Brian chose the Taco quiche with salad. Both excellent and then.... we chose the German chocolate brownie sundae and it too was excellent even if over the top decadent :-)
For the night we stayed at the Holiday RV Park in North Platte Nebraska. For dinner we went down the street to the Whiskey Creek Wood Fire Grill where the menu has changed since we were last here. We sat at the bar so we could watch a ball game while eating burnt ends (brisket) and a slab of ribs. On the BBQ continuum, this place would be on the lower end of the scale, although these were all new items on the menu so maybe their bbq-ing skills will improve over time :-(
Wednesday continuing west, we stopped in Sidney Nebraska for lunch at Grandma Jo's, a small main street diner serving decent salads and omelettes. We were surprised that this little diner, essentially in the middle of nowhere, actually has a credit card chip machine. It was pretty new to them and the waitress had a hard time using it. The chip machine kept telling her to key in the amount, insert the card, then remove the card before asking for the pin which resulted in a cancelled transaction. She had to call the owner who took about 5 minutes to get there. We said we didn't mind waiting because of our recent experience and liked the fact that they were starting to use a chip machine. The owner arrived and had the same problems so ended up just swiping the card. Frustrating for them but they will get it worked out and the world will be a better place for it. After lunch we went into the Cabela's flagship store, part of their world headquarters office complex. It didn't seem to be the largest Cabela's store, as we had been led to believe, and nothing for us to buy on this day. We think the Cabela's store in Nanaimo might be bigger in footprint size. After that we continued on to Cheyenne where waiting for us at the KOA desk was Brian's new credit card. That was nice except the owner forgot (or neglected) to tell the front desk staff about it. When we asked about it the clerk told us that it just arrived earlier in the day and when she looked at it she didn't see a reservation in that name and almost sent it back right away. Lucky, she decided to hold it for a day! For dinner we dropped into a Safeway store and picked up some pre-made salad and deli chicken. We had thought we might break out the griller tonight but it was way too windy to do much outside. In fact, when we got back to the KOA, the bins we use for washing dishes etc, had disappeared. Turns out they had blown off the table and half way across the campground. Someone had turned them in at the office.
Thursday was the beginning of the most boring part of the drive to California. Parts of Wyoming are pretty picturesque but so much of it is flat flat flat. With the cruise control on, we decided we should start to play the alphabet game, although we violated the basic rules and just used any instance of each letter wherever we saw it, be it on a sign, license plate or even a car model name and the letter didn't have to start a word. We also played as a team rather than competing with each other. Kept us both awake anyway. Around lunch time we drove into the town of Rawlins to see what we could find in the way of eats. Not much down the main street so we drove around a couple of side streets. Kris spotted an old house that looked like it had been turned into a restaurant and it had an "open" sign in the window so we decided to give it a try. After finding a place to park the wee trailer we walked over to the old house or Aspen House Restaurant as it was called. Curtains closed across all the windows but what the hey... in we went. Turned out to be a delightful Thai/American place in this quaint Victorian interior of a historic house. The restaurant took up all the small front parlour rooms with a couple of tables in each room. We had a couple of excellent steak salads followed by a shared Key Lime pie for dessert. Very nice. For the night we stopped at the KOA in Rock Springs Wyoming, a rather forlorn place to say the least...
... nice view of the tank farm though :-) The park did fill up a lot more as the afternoon and evening wore on. It was really hot when we got there but somebody had put too much chlorine in the pool and they had to close it. No discount offered though! We went off and found a Starbucks and a couple of iced lattes instead.
Friday was the day to cross Utah. The boring drive and the alphabet game continued. When we got to Salt Lake City, we spotted a sign pointing to a Mellow Mushroom restaurant. We ate at a few of these places a few years ago but this is the farthest west we have seen one. For sure we headed off the interstate for some lunch. It took a bit to find the Mellow Mushroom but we finally spotted it then found a place to park. On the walk to the restaurant we stopped in a Dick Blick Art Supply place but just for a quick look.... there was a pizza awaiting our attention! We opted to sit at the bar so that we could watch a ball game on TV. The Little League World Series opening round started today and we watched most of the US bracket game where the West thrashed the Great Lakes team 14-2. The pizza was excellent as expected.
Interesting side note... all the beer taps on the bar are fake. The waitress explained that it was due to the type of liquor license they have. Children are allowed in the bar area and, in this jurisdiction, children are not allowed to see the dispensing of alcohol. So all dispensing is done behind a wall unseen by prying eyes. Well, we are in Utah!
The morning drive through the eastern part of Utah had a few interesting geological formations...
Tuesday we headed a bit west then north into Nebraska. We stopped for lunch at the very quaint Landmark Inn in Oberlin, Kansas, where it is fun to have the waitress read off what they have available. Kris chose the Salmon quiche with salad and Brian chose the Taco quiche with salad. Both excellent and then.... we chose the German chocolate brownie sundae and it too was excellent even if over the top decadent :-)
For the night we stayed at the Holiday RV Park in North Platte Nebraska. For dinner we went down the street to the Whiskey Creek Wood Fire Grill where the menu has changed since we were last here. We sat at the bar so we could watch a ball game while eating burnt ends (brisket) and a slab of ribs. On the BBQ continuum, this place would be on the lower end of the scale, although these were all new items on the menu so maybe their bbq-ing skills will improve over time :-(
Wednesday continuing west, we stopped in Sidney Nebraska for lunch at Grandma Jo's, a small main street diner serving decent salads and omelettes. We were surprised that this little diner, essentially in the middle of nowhere, actually has a credit card chip machine. It was pretty new to them and the waitress had a hard time using it. The chip machine kept telling her to key in the amount, insert the card, then remove the card before asking for the pin which resulted in a cancelled transaction. She had to call the owner who took about 5 minutes to get there. We said we didn't mind waiting because of our recent experience and liked the fact that they were starting to use a chip machine. The owner arrived and had the same problems so ended up just swiping the card. Frustrating for them but they will get it worked out and the world will be a better place for it. After lunch we went into the Cabela's flagship store, part of their world headquarters office complex. It didn't seem to be the largest Cabela's store, as we had been led to believe, and nothing for us to buy on this day. We think the Cabela's store in Nanaimo might be bigger in footprint size. After that we continued on to Cheyenne where waiting for us at the KOA desk was Brian's new credit card. That was nice except the owner forgot (or neglected) to tell the front desk staff about it. When we asked about it the clerk told us that it just arrived earlier in the day and when she looked at it she didn't see a reservation in that name and almost sent it back right away. Lucky, she decided to hold it for a day! For dinner we dropped into a Safeway store and picked up some pre-made salad and deli chicken. We had thought we might break out the griller tonight but it was way too windy to do much outside. In fact, when we got back to the KOA, the bins we use for washing dishes etc, had disappeared. Turns out they had blown off the table and half way across the campground. Someone had turned them in at the office.
Thursday was the beginning of the most boring part of the drive to California. Parts of Wyoming are pretty picturesque but so much of it is flat flat flat. With the cruise control on, we decided we should start to play the alphabet game, although we violated the basic rules and just used any instance of each letter wherever we saw it, be it on a sign, license plate or even a car model name and the letter didn't have to start a word. We also played as a team rather than competing with each other. Kept us both awake anyway. Around lunch time we drove into the town of Rawlins to see what we could find in the way of eats. Not much down the main street so we drove around a couple of side streets. Kris spotted an old house that looked like it had been turned into a restaurant and it had an "open" sign in the window so we decided to give it a try. After finding a place to park the wee trailer we walked over to the old house or Aspen House Restaurant as it was called. Curtains closed across all the windows but what the hey... in we went. Turned out to be a delightful Thai/American place in this quaint Victorian interior of a historic house. The restaurant took up all the small front parlour rooms with a couple of tables in each room. We had a couple of excellent steak salads followed by a shared Key Lime pie for dessert. Very nice. For the night we stopped at the KOA in Rock Springs Wyoming, a rather forlorn place to say the least...
... nice view of the tank farm though :-) The park did fill up a lot more as the afternoon and evening wore on. It was really hot when we got there but somebody had put too much chlorine in the pool and they had to close it. No discount offered though! We went off and found a Starbucks and a couple of iced lattes instead.
Friday was the day to cross Utah. The boring drive and the alphabet game continued. When we got to Salt Lake City, we spotted a sign pointing to a Mellow Mushroom restaurant. We ate at a few of these places a few years ago but this is the farthest west we have seen one. For sure we headed off the interstate for some lunch. It took a bit to find the Mellow Mushroom but we finally spotted it then found a place to park. On the walk to the restaurant we stopped in a Dick Blick Art Supply place but just for a quick look.... there was a pizza awaiting our attention! We opted to sit at the bar so that we could watch a ball game on TV. The Little League World Series opening round started today and we watched most of the US bracket game where the West thrashed the Great Lakes team 14-2. The pizza was excellent as expected.
Interesting side note... all the beer taps on the bar are fake. The waitress explained that it was due to the type of liquor license they have. Children are allowed in the bar area and, in this jurisdiction, children are not allowed to see the dispensing of alcohol. So all dispensing is done behind a wall unseen by prying eyes. Well, we are in Utah!
The morning drive through the eastern part of Utah had a few interesting geological formations...
... but the afternoon west of Salt Lake City is brutal with, for the most part, salt flats as far as the eye can see...
... at times it looks like a wall but then you see a long line of telephone poles disappearing into the distance to regain the visual effect that you are actually looking across many miles of, well, flat salt flats. There was also a lot of smoke from the fires further north and west; at times there was no point of reference on the horizon - just white salt flats bleeding up into a white/grey haze.
For the night we stopped barely over the Utah/Nevada border in West Wendover, Nevada. We didn't get a picture of it but there is a casino, The Golden Nugget, that sits literally inches over the state line. They have a line painted on the road out front. The casino parkade is in Utah but the casino itself is in Nevada! We had read numerous really negative reviews about the KOA in West Wendover but we arrived to find absolutely nothing wrong with the place. Excellent pool and washrooms where you could eat off the floor (if you were of the mind to do so that is). Sure, it's all gravel but you sort of expect that in this part of the world. We had a very nice afternoon swim, in the pool of course, where we chatted with another couple on a grand adventure. They are from Maryland and are on their way home after spending time in north west. Early evening we went to the Red Garter Casino restaurant to do a bit of gambling and have some dinner. On the way into the casino we were treated to a pretty cool sunset...
... that had some added colour due to the haze from forest fires further northwest. For dinner Kris had prime rib and Brian had sirloin steak. Pretty darn good meal for less than $20 for the two of us.
Another side note: when the waiter brought our bill he said "I have bad news and good news... the bad news is that I gave your bill to another couple so I need to give you theirs. The good news is that their bill is a couple of dollars less than yours". Ok, we can accept that. Before and after dinner we sat at one of the casino bars and played video poker while sipping dreadful wine. Besides the dinner we lost only about $10... entertainment value!
Saturday we continued across Nevada. We stopped for lunch in Elko at Winger's Roadhouse Grill, the same place we stopped on this route a few years ago. Kris had a combo lunch of salad and chicken tortilla soup (Rick Bayless at Topolobampo, in Chicago has nothing to worry about) and Brian had a very large bacon, cheese, mushroom burger. Late afternoon we arrived in Winnemucca to find that the High Desert RV Park we stayed in a few years ago has joined the KOA family. The guy at the desk said that the move has definitely been good for business. Another excellent pool but again, the water could have been a bit colder for our tastes, but very refreshing none the less. For dinner we drove into town and picked up some baked chicken and salad fixings at Raley's a supermarket chain in the west.
Another week done...
Another week done...
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