Day Twenty-one - Homeward Bound

Today is the last day of our trip, but before pulling out of Kentucky we decided to make a stop in downtown Louisville to tour the Louisville Slugger museum and factory.

Outside the museum is the “World’s Largest Bat” an inside you can see Babe Ruth’s bat, and experience many virtual/hands on exhibits which let you face down a fast ball and feel how heavy pro-bats are. The best part of the museum is that you also get a tour of the factory and watch baseball bats being made from beginning to end. While we were there, the gallery was also hosting an exhibit of “Peanuts at Bat” which featured art, toys, and television shorts of the Charlie Brown gang at play. After receiving our souvenir mini bat, which comes free with the tour, we were back on the highway.

After leaving Louisville, we passed through the top part of Kentucky, just barely nicked Ohio, and then made our way into West Virginia. It was here that we made another detour and followed the Ohio River up the boarder to Point Pleasant, WV. For those of you not familiar with American “Mythology,” Point Pleasant is where the Mothman appeared in 1966-67, just before the Silver Bridge crashed, and has been rumored to be home to strange events ever since.

Point Pleasant has embraced their Mothman legend and have even built a statue of it in the downtown district. Other than the looming steel man-bug, Point Pleasant is a very quaint small town by the river. We walked along the river front and down Main Street, and then stopped into a local shop to look over the Mothman merchandise. It was here that we met a very colorful character, Bob the truck driver.

Bob’s the man, he’s very much into the Mothman story and constantly goes out to the old TNT area, where Mothman was spotted the most, and takes pictures. He had plenty of pictures of “orbs” which he then enlarged. Bob showed us tons of large pixilated photos of orbs which he claimed had the shape of a face, or even a “baby” mothman. We were also treated to many other stories about mysterious pictures taken under the harvest moon, mysterious people appearing on the street, etc.

Bob even drew us a map to where he had taken most of his pictures, and after a bit of debate we went for a little ride to have a look around. Sorry, looks like Mothman only comes out at night… or for that matter, only for Bob.

After bidding farewell to Point Pleasant, we headed on towards Virginia and finally made it home right around midnight. Three weeks exactly, give or take a few hours, and we’ve made it back to good old Fredericksburg.

Day Twenty - On the road again

There’s not that much to report about today. We woke up in Kansas City and spent the day driving towards Kentucky. We didn’t plan any stops for today, it was suppose to be purely for driving, and for once we pretty much kept to our plans.

We did, however, still see some interesting things. First, we saw our first coyote today. It leapt right out into the road in front of us. Second, I spotted the “Elvis is Alive” museum on the side of the road. Fortunate for Carl, I only saw it after the exit, so we kept rolling on. Finally, we found ourselves cruising down the highway among a pack of cars participating in the Hot Rod Magazine’s “Power Tour ’07.” It was very cool to be running down the highway and seeing all sorts of new and classic cars traveling in packs.



We decided to camp outside Louisville for the night, and thanks to a glitch in our mapping program, we were treated to a nice little run through the countryside before finally arriving at the KOA. Still, the ride was good, and after looking at the map we realized that the road we were one skirted the land belonging to Fort Knox.

The Louisville South KOA is probably the largest campground we have stayed at on this trip, boasting over 300 spots plus cabins, but bigger does not always equal better. The entire camp services (store, pool, spa, etc) shut down at 8pm, and we actually got kicked out of the pool.

Tomorrow we plan to do a bit of touring in downtown Louisville, and then it’s a long haul home.

Day Nineteen - Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Twine

It’s hard to believe that we have been on the road now for 19 days. At some points this journey has felt as though it has gone on forever, but at other times it’s amazing to see just how quickly the time has slipped away from us.

Today we were in Kansas for most of our drive. We woke in Wakeeney, KS and after a delicious breakfast of homemade pancakes with sun flower designs pressed into them, we headed off to a very exciting destination.

Silly as it may sound, I have been looking forward to visiting Cawker City ever since Carl and I began planning this trip. It’s a little nowhere town which today seems to be held together by just one thing… the world’s LARGEST ball of twine.

The ball of twine was begun in 1953 by Frank Stober and has been growing ever since. Each year the town gathers for a twine festival and adds on to the colossal string giant. The sign beside the twine sums up the lesson it teaches: “Thrift + Patience = Success.”

Following the “trail of twine” along Main Street, a painted path leading to various shops and buildings, we were treated to local art which depicts the twine in a variety of settings. In these paintings, the twine is placed next to the wonders of the world, great works of art, and beautiful scenes of nature. Truly Cawker City values their big slice of American roadside attractions.

After a friendly visit with one of the locals in an antique shop, we headed out of town and towards yet another state border. As we passed through Kansas City, we said goodbye to wheat state and hello once more to Missouri. Tonight we’re camping just east of the city, and tomorrow we’ll continue our travels east.

Day Eighteen - Vertigo

We had a good night’s sleep last night, with the exception of 3AM and 5AM wake-up calls courtesy of the nearby railroad… Finally on the road we headed south from Denver to Colorado Springs and the legendary Pike’s Peak.

For those of you that don’t know, Pike’s Peak towers over 14,000 feet (that’s almost three miles…) above sea level and is the site of annual hill-climb races which began in 1916. The drive up isn’t really for the faint of heart. The 19-mile drive to the summit includes dirt roads, sharp switchbacks, and a lack of guardrails. Couple this with the possibility of altitude sickness upon reaching the top, and you have my definition of a cool drive. Coming up to the toll gate we were informed that it was below 30*F at the summit, and that the road was only 90% passable due to snow at the top. The attendant also said there were storm clouds rolling in that could cause more of the road to be closed off. Undeterred we paid the toll and set off.

The transformation as you ascend the mountain is almost eerie. You start at 70* and sunny at the bottom of the mountain, and as you climb the temperature not only drops, but the vegetation changes, not to mention warning signs for various forms of wild life, and Bigfoot...

Passing the 12-mile mark we began to reach the tree-line, and the road and weather conditions were steadily degrading. The road was sloppy and muddy, and you could see a thick layer of clouds descending upon the mountain. Surprisingly, the road wasn’t closed and we marched onwards towards the top. Reaching the top you find a rest stop/gift store/café/railroad depot. Oh yeah, did I mention there’s also a cog railroad that you can take up to the top? I’ll stick to 4 wheels and 4wd...

While at the summit it began to snow/sleet and so we headed back down to find the road closed to up-hill traffic at roughly the half way point, so it was a good thing we got there when we did. Coming down to the bottom of the valley we stumbled onto yet another road-side attraction, Santa’s Workshop.

Leaving Colorado Springs, that little snowstorm that rolled into the top of the mountain was a raging thunderstorm at the bottom, so we headed east to out-flank it. The rest of Colorado and Kansas wasn’t really anything special, with the exception of a police-chase in front of the Goodland WalMart. Tonight we’re at the Wakeeney, KS KOA and just settling in for the night. Tomorrow we continue east, and somehow Lindy’s convinced me to take a detour to see the “World’s Largest Ball of Twine,” which I’m sure you all are dying to hear about…

Day Seventeen - Why did the Antelope cross the road?

We woke up this morning and drove into downtown Salt Lake City. One thing that Salt Lake is well known for is the Mormon temple, so we headed towards Temple Square to have a look around. We realized that it was a Sunday morning, but were still surprise to see just how bear the streets were, all the shops were black and there was hardly anyone moving along the sidewalks.

Finding a parking place, we followed the looming temple steeples until we arrived at Temple Square. Even though Sunday morning is obviously church time, the gardens are still open to the public. We were both amazed to see all that was around there. Temple Square boast a variety of shops and restaurants, two visitor’s centers, various other buildings, statues, a reflection pool, gardens and fountains, AND the temple itself. Tours are not given of the inside of the temple, but we were able to walk around and snap some photos of the grounds.

Heading out of Utah, we began our long days journey through Wyoming. I wish there was something to say about the state, but there really isn’t. We saw a few chemical plants and mines along the roadside, but other than that we passed the time playing travel games, and looking for anything along the roadside that would spark our interest. To answer the question which titles today's post: Q. Why did the antelope cross the road? A. Because there's nothing else to do in Wyoming.

Finally we crossed the boarder into Colorado. It was amazing to see how quickly the landscape changed. Wyoming’s roadsides were very rocky, and reminiscent of some places we’d been further south, like New Mexico; Colorado’s landscape soon turned plush and green with a sweeping blue sky and fields that went on forever. The air changed too. We could see lightening and storm clouds off in the distance, and the air smelled of rain and felt must moister than it had in the desert states.

We were glad to be in Colorado, until we reached the toll road. Previously, our highest toll had been $4 to get out of California (money well spent), but Colorado gave us a new surprise. We got on the toll road, paid a reasonable $2 price, and took off down the highway. About 8 miles later we met another booth asking for another $2. We told the lady at the counter that we had already paid, and she told us that there was a series of booths all along the road, about 8 miles apart from each other, and that we would be paying one more before our exit. Three tolls, at two dollars a piece? We re-routed.

Tonight we’re staying just outside of Denver, and tomorrow we’re going to scale Pike’s Peak outside Colorado Springs….well, when I say scale, I mean we’re going to drive the dirt road up to the summit.

Day Sixteen - World's Fastest Indian

When we set off this morning we had no real goals for the day other than to get as far away from California as humanly possible. We had a long stretch, almost 400 miles, to go to get from Reno, NV to the Utah line, with almost nothing in between.

While it was nice to watch the scenery change bit by bit across the state, it soon got pretty old. I guess I should also mention that we passed by numerous hot springs, but they were nothing more than a brief glance as we motored along. There was one hope keeping me going during all that time though, the prospect of reaching the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats.

As we crested the mountain on the Nevada – Utah border we could see nothing but a sea of white. Ahead of us lay the salt flats, the remnants of a by-gone lake that regularly finds its way into the history books. It was this stretch of land that caused the Donner party a great deal of trouble and delayed their entry to the Sierra-Nevada mountains.



Coming down the hillside we peeled off as the land flattened at the Bonneville state park. Expecting to find gates and signs instructing us to stay off the salt, we were pleasantly surprised when the road ended with nothing more than a sign and an endless bounty of flat, hard, salt.



Unfortunately we’re a bit early for the land speed record attempts, they will occur later in the summer. What this did mean though was that there were no swarms of people to prevent us from enjoying the salt by ourselves. After a brief stroll around we were out on the salt, with visions of land-speed record-breaking grandeur in my head. To learn a little more about that you may want to check out “The World’s Fastest Indian” starring Anthony Hopkins as Burt Munro, a New Zealander who traveled to Bonneville in 1967 to set a new motorcycle land speed record on his 1920 Indian.




Back on the road we headed for our stop for the night, Salt Lake City, Utah. Passing by the Great Salt Lake we could see the city approaching, and we rolled into the local KOA. The campground is very nice, and quite possibly the largest we’ve stayed at so far. On site and just nearby it has a homestyle resturant, a pizza place, a bar, a mexican place, and two car washes, but everything is still grassy, wooded, and away from the highway. Most exciting of all this is that I FINALLY got to wash the truck. Five+ days of sand, dirt, and salt, as well as 15+ days of splattered bugs rolled off the truck and camper, and everything is clean again. It is very quiet though, and the best part of all is that they have a pool; A nice, warm, relax-your-bones-after-a-long-day-of-driving pool. After a little swim we fixed dinner and went for a walk, and here we sit at the picnic table beside our camper posting this. It’s a comfortable 70*F, an unbelievable change after the 40*F weather we had just two nights ago on the coast of CA. Tomorrow we’re heading towards Colorado, with the goal of either Denver or Colorado Springs, to allow us to check out Pikes Peak on Monday.

Day Fifteen - Like Steve McQueen

It was freezing this morning when we woke up at Half Moon Bay, but thankfully the showers were nice and warm. Cleaned and packed up, we began our journey up the coast and into the city.

We had had a variety of things on our to-do list for San Francisco, but as the day wore on we slowly knocked them off one by one. First, we had wanted to do a tour of Alcatraz, but due to the weather and the difficulty of getting tickets, we decided to save that for a potential future trip.

Next, we wanted to take a ride on the famous San Francisco Cable cars; however, we did not realize how difficult it would be to find parking. After several failed attempts to find a suitable parking garage (ie one that was tall enough for our truck and camper – seriously, one we saw had a height of 5’ 8”, meaning me and Carl couldn’t even stand up in it!), and some other mishaps, we called it quits and headed away from the city.

Out of the center of town, we took time to run some of the hilly streets. Carl had a great time retracing some of the chase scene from “Bullitt,” and we even found the apartment building where Steve McQueen’s character lived in the film. We also kept our eyes peeled for the “Full House” house, but to no avail. Apparently you can find the park from the opening credits, but the actual house either does not exist or its location is carefully hidden.

We also took time to go down by the bay. There we at least had a view of Alcatraz. We also got plenty of pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge from both the bay side and while we drove across it.

After crossing the bridge, we made our way out of San Francisco. We made a pit stop a little ways outside of Sacramento to have our oil changed. We also ate at the “original” Mel’s. Mel’s was the diner from American Graffiti, and there is now a franchise around this area which bears its name and 50s/60s décor.

Heading out of California on I-80, we soon began to notice a change in our surroundings and a constant incline in the road. Next thing we knew we were in the mountains. During our mountain passage we went from 0 to 7,000 feet and caught some beautiful views of the mountains, some with snow still on them, the river, and some old train tracks. Judging by the names of local places, it appears that we were around the region where the infamous Donner party met their end. After passing by Donner pass, Donner lake and so forth, we made our decline into Nevada, and have found our way to Reno to camp.

Tomorrow we will continue our trek east. We’re taking a northern route this time, so hopefully we will see plenty of new and interesting things.