OK, folks. As promised, here are a few pictures -- and some commentary -- from my road trip. Those of you who followed this missive as it developed know that it turned into a bit of a monster. Originally planned as a six week tour, it began in mid-Spring and finished up just two days shy of 10 weeks later on the 3rd of July.
Most of these images were taken with my DC210 digital camera. Money and time no object, I'd shoot K64 and scan in the slides but these digital snaps should at least give you a feel for things. I've sized the graphics to fit a 640x480 display. (Yes, Olga, the larger images are available upon request.) Some of the Montana pics have slightly blurry areas. This is because there was a (blankety-blank, obscene, unprintable) fingerprint on the lens that I didn't notice until later -- a disadvantage of using a camera with a viewfinder.
To keep individual page weight at least sort of reasonable, the thumbnails embedded in the text link to larger photos.
Herewith, the trip . . .
The Trip Out
I didn't take many photos on the trip out to Montana. I was preoccupied with driving and shaking things down. Also, my old IBM laptop which I use for transferring the images from the camera was getting very flaky.
I
drove from the Redneck Riviera to Nashville the first day (26 April) and then on to
my father's house near Newcomerstown, Ohio. Newcomerstown is in the hills
of NE Ohio. My father lives on 10 acres of heavily wooded hillside. The
house is fed by a spring some distance up the hill behind it. He shares
living quarters with a cat named Gridley. The beat up brown mini-van is my
expedition vehicle. I'd guess it will have at least another 7000 miles on
it by the time it returns to Florida.
From Newcomerstown I traveled to Chicago where I stayed with Greg and Dian (the Mousetrax folks) for a couple of days (30 April - 1 May). It is what you might call an active household. I had a great time meeting all the people and dogs, but took no pictures.
The next stop was a visit with the people at BioMedix
in Bloomington, MN (2-4 May). I helped them get their DSL setup working and met a
lot of folks I hadn't seen for quite some time.
Oh, yeah, the Mall of America is in
Bloomington -- the largest mall in the world at one time. Lois was
appalled that I spent maybe an hour in there getting a little shopping
done. The place is roughly the size of Delaware and probably has the same
annual energy budget. It looked like someone built a suburb of Disneyland
and then wrapped four levels of shopping around it.
The run from Bloomington to Kalispell took three
days. I overnighted in Bismarck, ND, on 4 May. Bismarck is across the Missouri from
Mandan where Lewis and Clarke spent their first winter. It hit 40
below and one expedition member got frostbit in a delicate place.
According to Jim there are many other points of interest, but I was behind
on my sleep, so my knowledge of the area is still mostly 200 years out of
date.
The second night was a rainy/sleety/snowy
stay in Butte, MT, just over the Continental Divide. Many folks in Montana
pronounce "Butte" as if there is no trailing "e". This
attitude is not entirely without justification.
I left Butt(e) well before sunrise, left the crappy weather behind about 1/2 hour later and arrived in Kalispell by early afternoon on 6 May.
Montana
The first week or so in Kalispell was spent
renovating my old offices (well, OK, hogging out and repainting my old, overcrowded
apartment back on the alley) and getting a lot of long-neglected
mechanical stuff back in order. Linda, the neighbor two doors down, did
most of the work on the apartment, did a great job, and probably spent
three days recovering from the effort.
One
of the critical mechanical items was my old '74 RamCharger, a far more
appropriate vehicle for slamming up the North Fork Road than my aging
minivan. We own 28 acres near the west edge of Glacier National Park and
getting there is often a bit of an adventure.
What is the "North Fork"? It is
local verbal shorthand for the valley of the North Fork of the
Flathead River. The North Fork defines the western boundary of Glacier NP
and there is a scattering of private land in the area.
Once we got up to the North Fork (Lois had arrived by then), I took a few more pictures. Viz.,
The Trip Back . . .
After a brief delay -- like about 3 weeks -- I tied up some loose ends, changed oil in the van and and started the long trip back to Florida. I've listed my itinerary below. The active links take you to photos and some narrative.
Salt Lake City, UT (19-21 June)
Wichita, KS (22-23 June)
Garland, TX (24-27 June)
Benton, AR (27-28 June)
Nashville, TN (28 June - 1 July)
Atlanta, GA (1-3 July)
and home (3 July) . . .
All text and photos
Copyright © 2000
by William K. Walker
Last update: 11 July 2000