Staying Connected on the Road

We’ve tried really hard to stay connected while on this adventure, but it hasn’t been easy. We were psyched when Boingo offered us access to their connectivity service, but I found a Boingo hotspot one time, while in a parking lot in Keystone, South Dakota. We haven’t expected wifi in the state parks, but the commercial campgrounds are serving up signals – I can read one now, camped by a river in Monroe, Wisconsin, but it’s weak – I’ll have to stop up above by the office in the morning to upload this post. We spent some time in the bar at Cedar Shores Resort in Oacoma, South Dakota, the waitress kept us topped up while we updated our photos. That was the best connection we’ve had, the rest of the time we’ve done our writing and editing while sitting at picnic tables, slapping mosquitoes and prepping our data for the moment when we can find a decent connection.

It’s this hunting for wifi that found us squandering the afternoon in a Dubuque, Iowa, coffee house. We had time, we were feeling really behind in our updates, and Dubuque is darned cute. After we’d perched for a good two and a half hours, I went over to thank the guy behind the counter for not throwing us out or pestering us to buy stuff – though we had, indeed been doing so. “We’re on a road trip and we just haven’t been able to get connected,” I told him. “No problem! That’s what I’m here for!” he said, and maybe 20 minutes later walked over with three glasses of iced tea, followed, after that, by a plate of snacky cookie bites.

We spent about four hours in total in Jitterz, drinking coffee, loading pictures, chatting online with our pals back home, but we also spent some time talking to Bob, the owner, an ex-British Petroleum guy from Alaska. He declined to be interviewed on camera but he did ask if I’d like to learn how to make a latte. (There’s some video of that, you’ll get to see it as soon as it’s been editing.) Bob is planning – with his wife – to ride across the US by bicycle, all the way to Eugene, Oregon where his son lives. He sent us on our way to Galena, complete with a printed map and a recommendation to eat at an Italian restaurant in that impossibly cute little town. He did us right, the pizza was first rate, though my brain was a little distracted by the fact that the two guys working our table were such utter opposites, one slight, short, dark guy with a little mustache and the other, a towering big pale man, a near giant with a sweet soft voice and manner.

I digress. When you stay in hotels and visit chain convenience restaurants, wifi is easy to find, it’s nearly a standard service. But when you get out here in the middle of the corn fields, when you like to visit places that are off the grid a little, well, you’re off the grid. That shockingly cheap breakfast joint in Mitchell didn’t have wifi, but it did have chocolate cake for 85 cents.

Crowdsourcing the Local Experience

Some might argue that the internet should be cast aside when you’re out exploring the world. Talk to locals they say, get a sense of what’s going on where you are and leave the internet behind. Striking up a conversation with a stranger can often tell you a lot about the place or the traveler. Heck, we wouldn’t have learned that the Ponderosa Campground was the best bet from an elderly man with crazy eyebrows sitting outside the closed Visitors Center in Cody, Wyoming or that the local pastimes of Iowa were “farming and drinking beer” if we hadn’t shared a table with two twenty somethings from Des Moines.

But on this trip, we’ve also embraced the internet and its random chatting abilities. Whether it be via twitter or the WonderMap, we’ve asked for a lot of help for along the way. And while, we wholeheartedly approve of getting to know the locals, we just don’t think you need to drop virtual interaction from the equation.

The virtual and real world advice collided yesterday when we stopped for a lemonade in Sioux City and met up with Thomas Ritchie of SD Explorer and Online Director of the Sioux City Journal. He found us on twitter and sent Peter a message offering to meet us in Sioux City and share his knowledge of local history with us. We took him up on the offer.

Thomas painted a picture for us of Sioux City’s history from its roots as little Chicago to its modern day plight. (A fine for indoor furniture used outdoors is one the current issues pressing the city council.) Some notable historical facts on Sioux City include it’s place in history as the only place where a member of Lewis and Clark’s expedition team died and the fact that it had a fully functioning red light district until the mid 1990s. We learned that local celebrities include Ann Landers, Beaver Cleaver, and the guy who puts someone’s hand into a blender in Children of the Corn. We also learned a bit more about Iowan pastimes, including the annual bike ride through Iowa or Ragbrai (Register’s Annual Grand Bike Ride Across Iowa), that we might run into along our route across the state. A moving party of bicyclers and those who like to follow, Ragbrai exudes the Midwest spirit where locals open their yards for the night for impromptu parties, camping, and dining al fresco. He tells us there’s good food to be had at Ragbrai, including the legendary Mr. Pork Chop, who serves the pork chop on a stick and who’s dinner call can be heard for miles. (It’s really unbelievable, check out a video clip of him here.) We lamented that our route would probably take us elsewhere, but that didn’t leave Thomas without ideas. He reminded us that he had pointed out a few spots on the WonderMap, including the tiny town of Monroe, Wisconsin. He had barely uttered the phrase “beer and cheese” for the three of us to begin plotting out an alternate route. And we’ve awakened this morning to find ourselves headed to Monroe. Route altered, fond memories made, and the reaffirmation that we love twitter for travel.

The Road Trip Mad Lib

Help us tell the TBEX Road Trip story, Mad Libs style.

1. Copy the text below and paste it into a text editor.
2. Type your suggestion over “Your Suggestion Here”
3. Paste your suggestions into the comments.

We’ll publish our favorite on Sunday morning before we head over to TBEX.

[Place Name: Your Suggestion Here]
[Greasy Food: Your Suggestion Here]
[Carbo Loaded Food: Your Suggestion Here]
[Repeat Place Name: Your Suggestion Here]
[Verb: Your Suggestion Here]
[Noun: Your Suggestion Here]
[Noun: Your Suggestion Here]
[Adjective: Your Suggestion Here]
[Noun: Your Suggestion Here]
[Verb: Your Suggestion Here]
[Noun: Your Suggestion Here]
[Verb: Your Suggestion Here]
[Verb: Your Suggestion Here]
[Same Place Name: Your Suggestion Here]
[Verb: Your Suggestion Here]
[New Place Name: Your Suggestion Here]
[Noun: Your Suggestion Here]
[Verb: Your Suggestion Here]
[Noun: Your Suggestion Here]
[Verb: Your Suggestion Here]
[Noun: Your Suggestion Here]
[Twitter Name: Your Suggestion Here]

Directions, Tents, and Geysers, Oh My!

Check out our first video montage, care of Kim at TBEX.

What is the TwitterFone?

If you’ve been keeping up with the road trip at all, you’ve undoubtably heard/read Pam, Kelly, and Peter referencing the TwitterFone.  I realized today, that nobody ever explained what that IS, for all you folks not actually along with them on the road.

When Kelly left, she took my Google G1 along with her, since it has crazy Internet powers: Twitter, web browsing, email, chat…all in the palm of your hands.  And when you’re on the road and want to let folks know what you’re doing, it’s an invaluable tool. I had no idea it was going to be such a popular little device on this trip, but I’m glad they’re having fun with my little baby, now dubbed the TwitterFone.  How I miss it so.

Breakfast in America

Biscuits and gravy, short stacks and tall, choice of meat, hash browns, scrambled eggs, omelets, whole wheat, sourdough, white toast, chili rellenos, fry bread stuffed with scam, pork hash, and bottomless cups of coffee. It’s the most important meal of the day not just for you, but for the TBEX Road Trip. We stumble out of our beds, have a snack, pack the car, and then, we drive. We’re looking for breakfast.

The first day, we dine at Minnie’s in Thompson Falls, Montana. “I’ll tell you one thing about our food,” the adorable and very efficient waitress said. “It’s BIG!” She wasn’t kidding. Peter’s cinnamon role was the size of a loaf of rye bread, my pancakes sprawled to the edges of the plate. Kelly went for the half order of biscuits and gravy, it was a farmer’s breakfast, enough food to get you back out into the fields.

Day two, a perfectly fine diner meal in West Yellowstone. There are lots of diner style restaurants there, we just picked one at random and ate more of the same totally predictable and filling food – hash browns and scrambled eggs, bacon, fried eggs with sides, biscuits…
Day three, Lisa’s in Graybull, Wyoming. The menu says the serve the best breakfast you’ll have on your vacation and so far, the menu has not been proven wrong. There’s lots to choose from, fluffy eggs wrapped around green chilies, frybread stuffed with scrambled eggs, polenta topped with pork chili and eggs however you want them. The plates were generous, the food was fresh and delicious, we headed out fully fueled again.

Day four, another diner. Right now, I’m sitting in the van outside Tally’s, my belly full of hash browns and scrambled eggs. The coffee – my first in two days—was decent, the hash browns crispy, the cheese on top of my eggs a slice of barely melted processed American. You win some, you lose some.

I love a big breakfast, late in the morning. It’s a great thing to do while traveling – go out for a big morning feed. You’re full up for hours and hours, it’s usually quite affordable, and often delicious. Breakfast joints are friendly, easy going places, people are sleepy, the waitstaff is indulgent, breakfast has no attitude. We sit in diner booths, Peter, Kelly, and I, silly in our morning moods, planning our day, talking about what happened the day before, and generously tipping our waitresses – they’ve all been perfect and oh so cute – before tumbling into the day ahead.

The Last Time I Was in Yellowstone: Day Three on the Road

We packed up and headed out of the Big Sky Resort this morning and after an adequate breakfast in West Yellowstone (two adequate breakfasts for Peter, he wasn’t taking any chances with …..) and headed into Yellowstone. I was the only one in the car that hadn’t been. But Pam, Peter, and perfect strangers had loads of stories to tell and the phrase “the last time I was in Yellowstone” was a popular phrase today. Almost as popular as Yellowstone itself.

Memories included, the last time I was in Yellowstone….
Old Faithful seemed a whole lot bigger.
the visitors center was over there.
I saw a huge stuffed buffalo.
we met an Indian kid on his way to university in Fargo, North Dakota.
we couldn’t sleep all night because of loud, amorous elk.

So, I stared to wonder, what are my memories of Yellowstone going to be? Now that the day is complete, and we’re resting comfortably at our campsite in Cody, Wyoming I’ve got a few of my own to share.

The last time I was in Yellowstone…
I saw my first buffalo.
I was mesmerized by the aquamarine pools of water, steam vents, and geyers.
I got sprayed by a geyser.
I met five high school friends in coordinating pastel, cowboy hats.
I shot campy videos at the Continental Divide sign.
I stood atop hot, stinky sulpher on the shore of Yellow Lake.
I saw a lone sailboat on the lake.
I couldn’t stop taking photographs of big blue skies dotted with near perfect clouds.
I saw meadows flooded in a sea of red, yellow and purple wild flowers.

One thing for sure, there will certainly be a chance for me to utter the phrase “the last time I was in Yellowstone” because I will be back. Have a favorite memory of your last time in Yellowstone, we’d love to hear it. Leave us a comment!

PR Chat: Angela Berardino

Angela Berardino works for Turner PR; she’s the rep who helped us get our REI loaner gear lined up. She’s also on the “Bloggers and PR” panel at TBEX — our destination in Chicago. Angela tackled the same questions Lisa answered in the last PR Chat post. The road trip crew is really grateful for the insight these PR people are giving us in to the process of working with bloggers. We hope you’ll leave your questions in the comments. Now, introducing Angela.
Read the rest of this entry »

TBEX Rolls! Day One on the Road

We tossed most of our gear into the Routan last night – this morning, mostly because we discovered we had a shocking amount of extra space, we tossed in a few extra items – okay, I did. A pillow for camping nights, Original Sock Monkey because every trip needs a mascot, and, wow, you should see the technical gear we have. Kelly packed an extra computer, no kidding, so she could have a bigger screen for editing photos, Peter has two Canon cameras, one that got a lens on it that weighs about as much as the car. We have stuff stuck in wells under the floor, in the seat pockets, in the upper glove box – my binoculars are there, okay, they might be extra too – and oh, we’re going to have to really go through this thing when we give it back because there are so many places to hide stuff.

We watched the landscape change from suburban Seattle to sagebrush desert, and then there were lodgepole pines and crops, labeled with signs swinging on the fences – corn, wheat, potatoes, alfalfa. Dust devils spun up high and gray, farmhouses sat down in bright green patches in the dry gold fields.

We made two stops, the first at the Ginkgo Petrified Forest. Stumps of trees, now turned to stone, sit below protective grates – probably to keep people from taking pieces of them. It was hot, the air smelled strongly of sage. On the road below us, trailer trucks carried windmill blades to the windfarm a few miles to the west. Then we stopped in Moses Lake to pick up snacks and drinks and a big bag of ice. At the offramp, an unhappy looking man in his sixties sat on a crate holding a sign that said “Free Poetry” and maybe, “Jesus Loves You.” I reached into the ice chest and pulled out an apple and asked Kelly to roll down the window and give it to him. “Is that a Macintosh?” he asked. “You know, it’s not an apple unless it’s a Macintosh!” We all laughed and he did too. “Thank you for your kindness,” he said, and handed over two sheets of photocopied rhymes, full of religion and country and military endeavors past.

When we arrived at our stop for the night, our hostess, Tawni, was out front watering the lawn. “I’ve been tracking you!” she said, making us feel extremely pleased about our interactive map. She told us a bit about the history of the property – Grandma used to live in the biggest house, one of the cabins was a logging cabin that was moved, piece by numbered piece to this property on the edge of Lake Pend d’Oreille. We met Brent down on the dock told me about the music festival and the rail bridge and the boat he’s restoring. He pointed across the water to Sandpoint. “It’s 19 miles across the water to town, we used to boat across before we could drive. Town is trouble, my dad used to say, everything we need is right here. Now I tell my son that. He doesn’t believe me, of course.”

We ignored Brett and went into town anyway. I wanted coffee, because I knew there was a long evening ahead. Sandpoint has changed this the last time I was here, more than 20 years ago. It’s got twee little shops and a few high end gear stores, I remember fishing and hunting and hardware stores being more prominent and certainly there was no yoga studio, no restaurants proclaiming that they serve gluten free meals. There were Native Americans and guys in plaid, I don’t recall seeing quite so many tattooed 20 somethings in board shorts. There’s a marina and a lovely beach park, there’s a cupcake store and a few cafes, there’s winetasting – all this on the strip that I’m sure was bait and tackle and pizza joints and diners. Now Sandpoint feels like a beach town without a beach – you can rent a bike, buy a bikini, eat sushi and tapas, and pick up a second home on a few piney acres for 500k.

When I try to think about our evening, there’s too much going on for me to tease the stories out in any kind of manageable way. There was a boat ride, there was wine and cheese, there was a lovely dinner at 41 South, a lodge on the edge of the lake. There was an osprey nest on the rail bridge, there was an amazing story of our waiter’s death defying bicycle accident. Everyone told stories – of baking bread and earthquakes and old dogs and travel in France and pet rats and technology and localism … it was one of those evenings that’s a blur of scenery and laughing and the hospitality of strangers. I know that I should write you a review of the restaurant (lovely appetizers, didn’t love the entrees, slow service but what’s the hurry, stellar location) or the wine (I loved the both wines we drank on the boat, but the Chardonnay we had with dinner was too sweet for my taste and the red just wasn’t right with my food), but to do that is to focus on the details and not so much on the fact that Sandpoint right now is lovely, the people we met almost aggressively fit and attractive, and it was an awesome first day out.

More About The Wonder Map

Now that the TBEX Road Trip crew has made it through their first full day of traveling, I figured it’d be a good time to write a little bit about the super cool trip map page that so many of you have been using to keep track of their progress.  

What is the map? 

Even if you’ve seen the map, you still may be wondering what it is, why it’s here, and why you ought to care?  First, what this map is, is a representation of everything these three bloggers do, see, and say.  You can track where the roadtrippers ARE, where they are going, see the photos they have taken, the blog posts they’ve written, and even their tweets - all on one convenient page.  You can even make suggestions!  How easy is that?  Very, I hope, because accessing that huge mass of information simply and easily is precisely why I made the map.  I couldn’t even imagine how many photos, posts, and other stuff three active bloggers would make…much less how you could keep track of them via their respective sites and services.  Checking 3 different Flickr accounts, Twitter, AND a blog didn’t sound like fun.  So I set out to make something do all that for me, and be fun to use.   

How do you know where they are?

Peter owns a neat little gadget called a SPOT (a satellite-talkin’, GPS tracking, position reporter) which can report where it is to its parent service (usually used by hikers.)  The folks who make the SPOT have a website where you can track your friends’ SPOTs no matter where they are in the world.  Luckily for us, I’m able to harvest this data and put it on the map.  So, wherever you see the little Routan is the last place that Peter’s SPOT reported.   

Technical Ramblings

I won’t go too much into the technical details (unless someone is really interested) but I’ll give everyone a sense of where I’m getting my data.  All of the photos are on Flickr (accessed with the handy, dandy phpFlickr library.)  Their tweets are available on the side thanks to the easy-to-use Twitter API CodeIgniter Library.  I’m using the Google Maps API along with the Local Search API to provide the suggestion data that my little “Suggest A Place” tool uses.  Almost everything else was done by hand in PHP, Javascript, CSS and HTML.  

Got any questions, suggestions, or even bugs? Let me know in the comments or contact me directly via email: austin (at) travellious (dot) com.