Why 3 Travel Bloggers And A Minivan Is An Excellent Configuration For A Road Trip

Crew note: We realize that because VW is one of our sponsors, the tone of this post sounds suspiciously advertorial. We  want to assure you that all the stuff Peter says here is actually absolutely true.Just FYI in a CYA sort of way.

In a nutshell, this trip has been an absolute blast.  I’m not bragging.  I’m only bringing it up because I’ve been dissecting what’s happened these last eight days to find out what has made this trip such a complete success (while noting Pam and Kelly still have to drive BACK to Seattle).  And I think I’ve come up with some answers I’d like to share for those pondering such an endeavor.

1) Get A Mini Van - I never thought I’d say this out loud or type it in the semi-permanence of the Internet, but a minivan is a wonderful option for a road trip.  Maybe I’m just getting old or possibly more sensible.  I’ve road tripped in many a vehicle; station wagons, vans, Suburbans, sports coupes, Jeeps.  Nothing compares to the sensibility and ease of use I’ve found with our minivan.

Thanks to Pam and her connections, we found that VW was quite excited about lending us a Routan for the journey to Chicago and back.  And we were excited to have a vehicle to drive!  The Routan, named Snuffleupagus, arrived approximately 20 hours before out set departure time and it was oh so pretty.  All clean and new with only 6000 miles on the odometer.

As I write this post, now 2621.1 miles and 8 driving days since our departure, I can state with a firm tongue that the Routan is an excellent choice for a road trip.  It has a storage all over the place, including a sunken trunk that swallowed up our camping gear and travel bags and kept them well below the review view glass.  There is storage under the floor behind the front seats, excellent for muddy shoes or things not needed often.  Cupholders!  There are eight cupholders up front (most of which became gadget holders for us), sliding side doors with roll down windows making road side photography a breeze and a sunroof.  Our model was the base S model, without the fancy DVD players, navigation system or 110V outlets.

We average around 21MPG for the trip with the AC on most of the way with the minivan loaded pretty lightly.  Cruise control on the Routan worked quite well, keeping us up to speed on the most demanding hills.  And the manual override for the six speed transmission is located close to the wheel, making downshifting to pass traffic safe and easy.  With one of the mid seats flipped up there was plenty of room for a cooler and the three power outlet were enough to keep our massive thirst for battery charging sated.  I really liked that the middle slide doors created easy ingress when jumping out to grab a camera tucked next to the cooler.

The biggest gripe we all had for the Routan was the driver’s seat ergonomics.  For me, there wasn’t ample lumbar support and instead it allowed me to slouch too much while the the headrest pushed my neck forward.  Instead of cradling me, it forced me into a C shape that was uncomfortable after three hours.  The passenger seat was the same but didn’t require upright seating and thus was more comfortable slightly reclined.  Oh and the wipers. None of us figured out the wipers the first time each of us went to use them.  Those who had mastered the use still weren’t able to explain their use to the others.  They just seemed a bit odd to control and I’ve driven a VW Passat for five years.

2) Three Is A Really Great Number - Three travelers, be they bloggers or not, is really a great number for a roadtrip.  Again, I’ve traveled with groups from one to six and I found the three of us on this trip to be a perfect combination.  It gave us ample room in the Routan whereas four would have been just a bit more cramped.  It also allowed us to divide up the jobs; passenger seat was for navigation and handing things to the driver while back seat was the designated TwitterFone(tm) and napping spot.  The far back seat held items needed while driving, but not needed all the time.  While the VW would have held seven of us, I can’t imagine taking the trip with that many bodies.

Plus three people move better.  It’s still a small group so unloading and reloading was easy with no one in the other’s way.  No need to climb over the seats into the back.  Not to mention three people can decide on music easier than four or more.

3) Relax - None of us are uptight people and I didn’t realize this until a few days into the trip.  As mentioned previously, we really didn’t know each other that well before taking off last week.  Would they like listening to Jimmy Buffett when I wanted to chill out and Pink, Disturbed or Chemical Brothers when I wanted to drive faster?  What would camping be like with strangers?  And route finding…..are they the type of people to freak out when we make a wrong turn?

It turns out we are all fairly relaxed people when it comes to that little stuff.  And that was a huge relief once the reality of it sunk in.  Pam and I often sang along to most songs (even when we got Billy Joel lyrics wrong ), Kelly took to camping like a fish in water and many a ‘wrong’ turn was made with only a shrug of the shoulders and second check of the map.  We all knew we’d make it eventually.  No freak outs, no shouting matches.  Just going with the flow and adapting when needed.

Is three travelers and a minivan the ideal setup for your next road trip?  I can’t say with 100% certainty.  I do know that for this trip to TBEX it’s been the perfect configuration for me.

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.

Mount Rushmore and Badlands National Park; WOW!

Siggy was a recent high school grad from Poland who we picked up hitchhiking in Big Sky, Montana.  Siggy told us not to go to Mount Rushmore.  He seemed to know what was best about our country as he had literally just flown into Chicago and then drove, with four of his buddies, to Big Sky on the West side of Yellowstone National Park.  An outsider’s view.  We listened to his advice, ponder it for a few hundred miles and expected to see a rather small representation of some of our most beloved presidents.

But Siggy was wrong.  Dead wrong.  On day five of the TBEX road trip we woke up just five miles from Mount Rushmore National Memorial.  Our campsite near Horse Thief Lake was quiet and just a bit dewy, but the skies held promise of a crystal clear viewing.  We had decided to not show up at 8pm with overcast skies the night before, in favor of catching the morning glow on the faces of those four, chiseled presidents in the morning.  It turned out to be a grand choice. 

Siggy did have one valid point.  As you can see from the photo above, most pictures taken of Mount Rushmore look a lot like the postcards for purchase in the gift shop.  It’s hard to really capture a different view of the presidents the way it’s possible to capture the many moods of, say, volcanic mountains like my favorite, Mt. Baker Washington.  And with only an hour and a half in the park, we weren’t going for any award winning shots. 

For me, the most exciting part was watching the making of Mount Rushmore in the park’s visitors center.  The 15 minute film is narrated by Tom Brokaw, a South Dakota native, and is an incredible story of the nearly two decades it took to sculpt the mountain.  Considering the tools available in the 1920s, I’m still amazed at the quality of the work finished.  It’s on a scale hard to comprehend and yet, there they are, staring across the Black Hills.

While this area of South Dakota holds many treasures, we don’t have time to discover them all on this trip.  And soon enough we were back in the car heading for Rapid City for breakfast.  Ahhh breakfast.  As Pam mentioned in her last post, breakfast is our main meal of the day and by now is highly anticipated.  While the breakfast in Rapid City was situated in the cute, tree covered, bronze presidential statued lined streets of downtown Rapid City, the surliness of the wait staff and slowness of delivery left much to be desired.  But nothing cheers up the day like posing with Ronald Reagan! (pictured at left)

Grasslands, grasslands, grasslands.  That’s what comes after Rapid City on the way to Badlands National Park.  It’s also what comes AFTER the Badlands.  Split into two distinct section, we opted for the more popular North district after a stop at the visitors center, which included another video not narrated by Tom Brokaw.  But it did a great job of showing the park in its many moods, complete with Buffalo that had eluded us, nocturnal ferrets we’d never see and freezing blizzards in the winter months.  Done with the video, it was time to see some seriously bad land.

Below are but a sample of the awesome geology and sights to be had on the drive along Highway 240 towards Wall and I-90.  It’s yet another park we wish we had extra time to explore but will have to save for another day.

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!

Whoa, That’s Some Big Sky: Day Two On The Road

Day two started out odd for this road tripping, travel blogging crew.  We hit traffic in Sandpoint, Idaho of all places.  Not much, but then we needed fuel, which, obviously, led to a discussion with a gentleman at the gas station about the health care plan before Congress.  Pam has told us she attracts all kinds of strangers to talk with her and this was my and Kelly’s first experience with it. 

With that oddity out of the way, and with Pam courageously taking up the driving, we headed out East from Sandpoint on Hwy 200 on the suggestion from Lisa Gerber.  Hwy 200 is a great trip around the North and East sides of Pend O’Reille (pronounced Pond Oray I believe) as we wound through pine tress and the swamp lands of the Pack River.  Hope was our first destination and a seemingly good way to start the day.  But Hope is never what you think it should be, and the one joint in town that open really didn’t seem interested in feeding us.  Onward!

Soon after this point, I fell asleep.  Kelly and Pam say things were pretty as we left the lake and started following the Clark Fork River.  I’ll take their word for it.  I did briefly wake up at Noxon (our first town with a palindrome name!) as we hunted for breakfast.  Soon after we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone, quickly making breakfast a brunch affair when we found it in Thompson Falls, Montana. 

Big cinnamon rolls and a bear greeted us inside the front door of Minnie’s Montana Cafe, a likely spot filled with locals and just a few of us tourists.  Well past noon, we were happy to see it was a true cafe, offering breakfast all day, although Morgan, our waitress, warned us everything was big.  It’s a common Montana theme; Big. Big Sky, Big Pancakes Pam couldn’t finish, Big Hats, Big Chevy that took us to get beer later in the evening, Big Drunks at the bar where we bought our beer.  Everything here is indeed, Big, with a capital B.

Heading East and South out of Thompson Falls the geology changes to stratified hills laid bare on one face and the road goes from constructed to under construction.  Slow, slow, slow.  South, South, South until the speedway of I90 is again obtained near Butte with its 90′ tall Madonna on a hill.  We jack up the speed and fly up one side of the Rockies and down the other.  Some place along there was the Continental Divide but we missed the sign. 

Let me take a moment to explain one piece of amazing technology on this trip.  It’s called the TwitterFone(tm).  I’m sure it has another name, maybe even a model number, but for us, it’s a phone that connects us to Twitter.  And Twitter has been a valuable resource on this trip; finding us stops, helping us realize that 90′ tall Mary was not, in fact, not a statue of Jesus as I first thought and in general helping make this trip more interactive, fun, connected.  The Twitter phone is relegated to the back seat passenger with the shotgun seat reserved for navigation.  It’s a tight ship we run.  If you’re curious to follow and possibly help out (we need places to stay in Iowa, for instance) follow along with @nerdseyeview, @kag2u and @pwcarey as any one of us might be in the TwitterFone(tm) seat.

Pine!  Can you smell that piney smell?  Working out way South on Hwy191 towards Big Sky the pine jumped through the ventilation of Snuffulupagus raising spirits as the canyon walls killed reception for the TwitterFone(tm) (which also has Google Maps when we get lost).  Our sunroof became invaluable to me for scopping out tanned rocks along the road, dreaming of spending days climbing in this area.  The Gallatin River carved our path through the hills until we reached Big Sky, where the confusion started.

Our problem with the finding our accommodations for the night is Big Sky is Big!  The Big Sky Resort consists of three separate hotels, a mall, golf course, ski resort and more.  It’s Big.  With some meandering and asking around, we found our comfy rooms on the third floor.  The hotel seems to really be pushing the ‘green’ concept in a good way.  Compact fluorescent lights through out, ‘eco’ soap and hair products and signs about it here and there.  Settling in, and then grabbing some beer to go at a surly local bar (noting you can still smoke in bars in Montana), we set to the task of organizing the days thoughts, catching up on email, downloading photos and the general task of blogging on the road.  While I know the picture makes our life on the road look tremendously glamorous it’s still time consuming and work.  Fun work, but still work.  Ok, lame attempt asking for pity is done.  Back to looking for buffalo!!