Tuesday, July 3, 2007

goatish summer road trip '07

The Great Goat Summer Road Trip '07 began midday Wednesday, June 27th.

Wednesday

Our great friends the Nagels were finishing up their grand summer adventure, had stayed with us the prior few days, and we were planning to do something of a caravan back west--for them home, for us vacation. Their vacation is documented here.

A rest stop along the Ohio Turnpike:

(Bonus rant: What's the deal with turnpikes? I mean, I understand toll roads, bridges, tunnels, etc. But the PA-OH-IN turnpike is not only terribly inconvenient--too few exits, and exits in weird, inconvenient places--but the road conditions are horrible. And it's crowded. Super crowded. And not only do you pay, you pay up the wahzoo. Shippensburg to the Ohio state line, over ten dollars.)

We stayed Wednesday night in Bowling Green, Ohio with old Nagel friends. The Nagels stayed in Toledo some 20 miles to the north. We stopped outside of Cleveland for dinner and took pictures.

Thursday

The next morning we leapfrogged our way on to Chicago. We stopped in South Bend to watch them dig big holes to push the old buildings into (probably) and plot our next move.

The Nagels veered into Chicago for the night while we pressed on to Omaha. We tarried in Davenport for a while. A shop owner there has been selling Valerie's wares and she wanted to check it out. I wanted to get in a ride. We rendezvoused here, at the self-proclaimed world's largest truck stop:


Also, in Iowa, there are sunsets.


Friday

Friday we spent with Justin and Meghan and boys. I got a nice little ride in on some of the vast network of Omaha bicycle trails. We also ate delicious food. That night Meghan's mom was coming in, so we scurried back to Des Moines to hang with Devn and Abby.

Saturday

On Saturday we did lots of stuff (can you tell I'm losing steam), some of which included swimming, riding, art festival going, lawn game playing, and--when the Nagels caught back up with us--Guitar Hero.

You can read more about this here.

Sunday/Monday am


The long slog in to Idaho Falls--1,176 miles. We rolled in just after 5:30 am. We slept until the pm.

...

A million thanks to Justin, Meghan, Issac, Ian, Devn, Abby, Ellee, and the Nagel's LA friends for hosting us, feeding us, playing with us, talking to us, and all of that. Also a million thanks to Harper, Owen, Miles, and their parents for enduring our nonsense and being our friends.

Also of note, Devn, in his typical Devn-ish way, wouldn't let me leave his house without unloading some piece of expensive electronic something or other, and this time I walked out with a new (to me) digital SLR. Cannon D30, so I can swap lenses with my Elan 7. Yesterday, I bought a new battery and flash card so look for some exciting new photography to come. It's going to be fun to start taking real pictures again.

3 comments:

k8 said...

you guys are brave. i get bored on the 90 mile drive to San Diego.

sjnagel said...

How funny you chose to use the picture of yourself jammin' on the guitar. We were going to use the exact same one! (We've had problems uploading pics.) Guitar Hero in Des Moines. Fun times.

Sara

It's glorious to sleep in my own bed.

Anonymous said...

Good times. I hope there are more caravans in the future.
MTN