Driving through the Willamette Valley and breaking down in Grant's Pass, Oregon

Yeah, so the Willamette Valley is gorgeous to tool through, but try REALLY hard not to break down in Grant's Pass...there's not much to do there. Trust me.

Easy St is off to the right...



There are several Weeds in OR, this here is the way to "Central Weed."



Right about at Grant's Pass, the car started doing some funny stuff, like puttering the way a car does when it's running out of gas. I didn't want to push it and end up damaging it worse, so we pulled into a Holiday Inn parking lot and called up AAA and got our SECOND tow of the trip (the first being in Durango, if you'll recall, Dear Reader).





Grant's Pass -- "It's the Climate!"

The Grand Coulee Dam & Spokane, WA

Well, there are so many shots of Glacier National Park, that I'm still working through them, however, I have finished working on shots of the Northwest so let's get them up here!

After staying in Glacier National for a night we headed back to Missoula, MT and then on to Seattle, WA. That's a heck of a long drive though, so we decided to stay in Spokane, WA on the way. Then we figured we may as well hit the Grand Coulee Dam on our way out of Spokane the next day.

First we had to drive through a bit of Montana and through the top of Idaho.



This is the entire town of Haugan, MT, I believe:



We did not get any potatoes:




We made it Spokane, Washington, no problem. It's a very pretty little city.







Another beautiful carousel, who knew that so many cities had one?



They have a gondola that's not really worth doing, I would say.



Now, would you believe that Spokane, WA has a hotel that is considered to be one of the world's finest and certainly most ornately and lavishly appointed? Well it does, the incredible Davenport Hotel. Check this baby out.





Every surface is encrusted with decoration and carvings:



Infinite mirrors:



The lobby:



Before leaving the next morning we hit up Frank's Diner, which is in an old railroad car and is awesome. If you go, get the biscuits and sausage gravy, they do them AWESOME here!



The Grand Coulee Dam is a biggun'. Here's what Wikipedia says about it: "Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. In the United States, it is the largest electric power producing facility and the largest concrete structure. It is the fourth largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world...The Grand Coulee Dam is almost a mile long at 5223 feet (1586 m). The spillway is 1,650 feet(503 m) wide. At 550 feet (168 m), it is taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza; all the pyramids at Giza could fit within its base. Its hydraulic height of 380 feet (115 m) is more than twice that of Niagara Falls. There is enough concrete to build a four-foot wide, four-inch deep sidewalk twice around the equator." It was built between 1933-1944, as one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's public works program. Check it out --





It's a huge dam, but not super interesting to look at...plus the car was smelling like it was burning oil so I was anxious to move on and get to Seattle. The Grand Coulee is seriously in the middle of NOWHERE and in case something happened to the car that's not where I wanted to be stuck.



On to Seattle!

The Drive from CO to Yellowstone NP, through Wyoming & the Grand Tetons!

Breathtaking country! First, as we left Ft. Collins, CO and headed NW into Wyoming, we encountered some pretty hilly and dry terrain. As we hit the Teton area, it was more than hilly, they are HUGE, and there was even snow on the ground right outside where we were driving! Finally, just about an hour before we got to the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone, we watched the sun set behind the Grand Tetons. You know I had to pull over several times for that!

These photos start in the Northern CO and Southern WY areas and then end during sunset in Northwest WY at the Grand Teton National Park, near Yellowstone. Enjoy!

The land rises slowly...



Bones, anyone?





Big sky country, no joke.



Ok, now we're getting to the Tetons...



Snow on the ground!!!!! We were just in the FL keys like 2 weeks earlier!!!



The Tetons are Grand!





And then the sun set behind the Grand Tetons.







Bathed in sun set light.

The Drive from Durango to Boulder, CO

I think these "driving" posts are sort of silly, but they help me organize my memories of the trip.

For this drive we opted for the slightly-longer-but-much-easier-on-the-newly-repaired-car path from Durango to Boulder. This way only had one major mountain pass whereas the other option had three and was the path on which the car had popped its coolant system on several days earlier.

I understand that heading through the mountains north of Durango is the prettier drive, but we headed to the east and then north, we got to drive by the Sangre de Cristo mountains, we met a nice chipmunk, drove over Wolf's Creek Pass, and we saw an awesome sunset!



That sunset was wild! In the pic on the right it looks flat, and it was, but if you look at the big version of the shot you'll see the Sangre de Cristo's looming out there on the horizon.



Ho hum just another waterfall here at the top of the Wolf Creek mountain pass.



A bunch of Elk, presumably this is a ranch and they're not just hanging out, but who knows.



He didn't seem rabid or anything, but he was crazy -- he was walking right up to me and practically taking stuff out of my hand (dumb I know, yeah yeah).

The drive from Albuquerque, NM to Durango, CO

The moon made an appearance in the late morning.



Before we left in the morning we slapped a few stickers onto the back of the car, a few FSU stickers, a little ninja, and a Brooklyn Love sticker from the tattoo spot where Carson got inked up before our trip. You can also see my Stetson back there, which shrunk when I left it in the sun and then disappeared somewhere along the way. You can also see my Fraternal Order of the Police badge, which is all screwed up looking and probably wouldn't help me if I were pulled over anyways. Of course, the one time that I was pulled over on this trip, I was in a rental car, so who knows (more about that later).



Things were sort of flat when we left Albuquerque, but they quickly turned mountainous as we neared CO!



Along the way, we drove through an Apache Reservation, passed 7,000 feet of altitude, and saw quite a few run down one-stop-light towns.





That's a massive cliff edge to the left!

Roswell, NM and the drive from Carslsbad to Albuquerque

Roswell is a funny little town, they're big on the alien thing there just like you've heard! Along the way from Carlsbad, NM to Albuquerque, NM was another one of those sections of road along which the landscape is awesome (though you would NEVER want to break down out there!).

Roswell, NM:





Along the road: