Yesterday, we safely arrived in the Bay Area, where my parents live. The journey from Massachusetts to California took 9 days and 3,900 miles (or 6200 kilometers). Along the way we mostly camped at campgrounds and stayed with friends, except for the last night, when we slept at a motel about 50 feet from the highway with our windows facing toward the traffic. This unfortunate situation occurred to us in Reno.
Among the highlights of the trip were the viewing of Niagara Falls near Buffalo, New York. It turned out that Niagara Falls is a very popular destination for international tourists, and especially Indians. We hadn’t seen so many Indians since India. We were told that the best views of the falls were from the Canadian side, and were also told by the parking attendant that if we were U.S. citizens and had a driver’s licence then we would be able to get back into the country without a U.S. passport. So, we parked our truck on the American side, and walked across the Rainbow Bridge to the Canadian side. Took some pictures, walked around, took in the sights, and then walked back across the bridge to stand in line to get back across the border. First of all, the border was severely understaffed which resulted in a long wait, and secondly there were signs prominently displayed proclaiming that the customs officers are the face of the nation. With such proclamations all around us, we were hoping for a pleasant border crossing experience. However, this was not the case. When we presented our licenses to the border officer, he asked us where we were born. Monica said Massachusetts and I said Estonia and that I’ve been a U.S. citizen since 2001. The following conversation proceeded:
Officer: “Where on your license does it say that you are a citizen?”
Simon: “It does not say on the license, but we were told that since we’re citizens that we could just get back across the border without bringing our passport.”
Officer: “Well, if you brought your passport it would have been much easier.”
Simon: obedient silence.
Officer: “Now I have to type in all of your information into the computer and ask you a bunch of questions about your parents, etc.,” and he proceeds to do that. “Next time bring a passport.”
Simon: “OK,” meanwhile thinking to himself that this guy is being ridiculous, since it’s his job to enter this information and he was refusing to do it and making it a big deal.
After this exchange, he started talking to us about some idiosyncrasies of local highway numbering and stupid small talk, and other nonsense. So, I guess the local border officers don’t really realize that they’re the face of the nation or this is the face that they choose to present. Then we met up with our friend Anita who moved to Buffalo the day prior to our arrival and was a gracious host to us. We went and had Buffalo wings at the restaurant that invented this American delicacy.
The next day we drove along Lake Erie, through eastern New York, eastern Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, and spent the night in Potato Creek State Park, south of South Bend, Indiana. Along the way we drove through Mennonite country (who are a less Luddite branch of the Amish) and saw people riding horse-drawn buggies and other funny things. Corn and soy beans fields were the predominant feature of the landscape starting from Ohio all the way to South Dakota. The park had a nice lake and a bunch of people camping in RVs. Some RV owners even had little signs out front stating who they were and some brought potted plants to beautify their habitat. A little strange considering that they’re already in a park. If they were not in RVs, they were camping in large palatial tents that could fit a small army regiment. Our two person tent was definitely the smallest one in the park.
The next day was a Monday which meant more congestion on the roads. This didn’t slow us down, and we covered a lot of ground that day, about 670 miles (1070 kilometers). We went through Illinois, skirting Chicago on the west, through Wisconsin, and alon gthe southern edge of Minnesota. We spent that night in the south-west corner of Minnesota, at Blue Mounds State Park, where they keep a herd of buffalo. That park also tried to preserve the natural prairie environment with tall prairie grass. Unfortunately, aside from this park, the rest of the prairie turned out to be great for farming vast quantities of corn and soy.
Our neighbors in the park were two families with a few kids each from Minnesota. They even spoke with a Minnesota accent, which was amusing to hear. They had a noble project in mind. They wanted to visit all 71 state parks of Minnesota over a period of 10 years, given that they were able to take a one week vacation in the summer. They also told us about ice fishing in Minnesota. The most fascinating aspect of ice fishing is that pizza can be delivered to your little tent out on the frozen lake! Also, it’s about negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 45 degrees Celsius) out on the lakes in the winter.
Next day’s drive was relatively short. We did stop at the world’s only corn palace in Mitchell, SD. The outside walls are all made of corn, and are covered in murals also made of corn depicting various themes, which change every year. We stopped for the night at the entrance to the Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota. The Badlands look similar to the geological formations in Cappadocia in Turkey, but came about differently. We drove around the Badlands, and witnessed a spectacular thunderstorm approaching the area with darkening skies and frequent lightning. It also turned out that the week that we chose to go through this area was the week of the annual and world-famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. Sturgis is a small town in the Black Hills of South Dakota, also in the southwest of the state, and attracts an estimated half-a-million visitors during the 10 days of the Rally. There is wild partying going on, complete with visiting Playboy Bunnies and massive amounts of Jack Daniels Whiskey. Aside from the partying, the bikers like to ride in the vicinity of the event through the beautiful nature of the Badlands and the Black Hills. So, over the next two days we observed a strong American sub-culture, leather-clad, overweight, and riding mostly Harley-Davidsons, on vacation. We also visited Wall Drug, a drug store which displayed billboards for its store starting 355 miles from their actual location, and regularly updated you on the wonders inside their store. They were indeed wonderful. Aside from prescription and over-the-counter medications they also have a restaurant and a soda fountain, a store full of Wall Drug paraphernalia, a Western clothing store, a fudge counter, a jewelry store, and a some other stores that I don’t recall. In the backyard, they have a large figure of a T-Rex that roars every 12 minutes, and a statue of a jackalope (a mix between a jack rabbit and an antelope).
The next day was spent driving around the Black Hills, taking a little hike in Custer State Park, seeing Mount Rushmore and the unfinished carving of Crazy Horse and a lot of wild animals such as herds of buffalo close to the road, wild donkeys blocking our car, antelope, deer, prairie dogs, eagles, and chipmunks. We stayed at Bismarck Lake campground in Custer State Park on the lake, which was very tranquil but lacked shower facilities. Our tender sleep was rudely interrupted by bikers taking their steeds for a spin at 7 in the morning. Also, Monica set out two bananas on the picnic table for us to have for breakfast, and a chipmunk stole both of them and ate them. In the end the chipmunk took more than he could handle and half of a chewed up banana fell from the tree as we were about to leave the campground.
On the way out of the Black Hills we stopped by Deadwood and saw this historic gold mining town now famous for spawning a popular TV series.
From the Black Hills we drove to Sheridan, Wyoming, the “#1 Western town in America.” When we entered “The Mint” bar in town to meet up with our friends Christina and Phil (who were vacationing on a dude ranch nearby), all of the patrons of the bar turned toward the door and gave us a once over. Never has this happened to us. Then they returned to sipping their beers at 2:30 in the afternoon. A few minutes late Phil, Christina, Kate (Phil’s sister) and Chris (Kate’s boyfriend), met us, we had a beer and went to the ranch where they’ve been staying for the prior 10 days. We were welcomed to this ranch very graciously by Phil’s grandmother who first came to vacation at the ranch in 1936. Eatons’ Ranch, located in Wolf, Wyoming, has been around since the late 19th century, and one of their notable early guests was Teddy Roosevelt. The ranch is located in the shadows of Bighorn National Forest, a collection of dramatic mountains against the background of flat. Very beautiful and Phil and Christina and Sis were great hosts.
The next day we drove west and through Yellowstone National Park and spent the night in Grand Teton National Park, just south of Yellowstone. In Yellowstone, there was a sizable fire which made for some beautiful photos of the sky. We didn’t see Old Faithful, but saw the field of geysers in the West Thumb area.
That night was very cold and we got out of there first thing in the morning. We drove the the next 13 hours and 770 miles later we arrived in Reno, Nevada – a depressing place overall. We drove through Idaho and Nevada. It turned out that Nevada is very sparsely populated state with few gas stations between towns. On the last day, we drove into sunny California and arrived at my parents house in the early afternoon.
My grandparents joined us for dinner, and it was great to see everyone!
Now, we’re starting to look for apartments in San Francisco.
