Cross Country Road Trip 3

I have mistakenly driven across the country again. To be clear, the mistake here is not moving back to Seattle but the drive itself, particularly through, in this case, South Dakota and Wyoming which are painful for the same reason I keep failing to learn my lesson. There’s nothing there. Heading West, both states end in natural beauties that make you question whether those hours of nothing but Wall Drug billboards were worth it. Don’t worry though. The rest of the trip was plenty eventful. This part is just a reminder to myself next time I’m considering it which hopefully won’t be for a long time.

From Nashville, I started by visiting my brother Isaac¹. We mostly hung out and caught up. He showed me around a farmers market, South Bend, Notre Dame, Indiana Dunes, and his aquaria. He also now has a blog. No coercion was involved.

After leaving Isaac’s I stopped in Madison to charge my phone at a cafe which was having an open mic. I stayed to listen to a song called “Kentucky Cyborg”.

The next day, I visited Taliesin and The House on the Rock, two houses built by eccentric men a few miles from each other in the Driftless Region of southwest Wisconsin, each named for its position on the land². The comparisons practically write themselves but don’t convey the whiplash of a pleasant afternoon drive through the rolling countryside to the most garish and excessive State Fair carnival sideshow imaginable.

You get the sense that every inch of Taliesin was meticulously planned (and now preserved). You could create a formidable attraction with all the Tiffany lamps, butterfly collections, spooky self-playing instruments, engraved whale teeth, and inlaid cabinetry that’re shoved into some dusty corner of HOTR, and it wouldn’t even be missed. With a couple more inches of clearance in some places, I would gladly live in Taliesin. HOTR made me want to cover my eyes and ears for 24 hours.

Instead, I teleported to Badlands NP just in time for sunset and camped out under enough stars to make the comparison to grains of sand feel reasonable. This was the night I learned that the wind sounds like something trying to get into my tent. On the plus side, I was up in time to see the Sun spill over the horizon. Then I ran the Castle Trail which I wouldn’t call an essential Badlands experience unless you’ve been doing a lot of driving and need some exercise.

Visiting Grand Teton is something like being trapped in a postcard. From anywhere in the park, you have a unique, picturesque view of the tetons. I camped just outside the park on Toppings Road. The other campers included some fishers, some backpackers who kept asking each other if they should pack this or that, a man with 4 chocolate labs, a couple with at least a 20" height difference, and a couple from Knoxville who kindly shared a beer with me. The next day, I hiked around Jenny Lake and up Cascade Canyon which was beautiful if a little crowded which I don’t mind as much in bear country. I slept soundly lulled by the sounds of some girls meeting Russian guys around the campfire.

Yellowstone was indeed incredible³, yet the whole time the phrase “Variations on a Theme Park”⁴ kept ringing in my mind. More so than the other parks, it feels that the main activity is to drive miles through lodgepole pines between the stunning geysers, mudpots, terraced hotsprings, iridescent pools, and its own Grand Canyon. Even though I know I prefer actual hiking, I am compelled to see all these features because I’m in Yellowstone and can go hiking any old place.

That said, I think the solution is actually to stay for longer so you can see all the geyser eruptions you want and still have time for solitude and nature and fishing, boating, horseback riding, and the other activities they have all over the parks. Either that or I could actually get into backpacking so I can brave the backcountry and get my fill of hiking.

One thing I failed to account for is that, if you don’t have a backcountry permit or a campground reservation, it’s kind of inconvenient to camp because you want to be in the park by day and out of the park come night. It isn’t a big problem in smaller parks like Badlands or Grand Teton which have popular boondocking spots outside, but Yellowstone is huge. Anyway, I’ll leave it there without mentioning how long it took me to find a place to camp outside Yellowstone or how far I drove my little Honda Fit up the washboarded dirt road or how scared I was of the bears and the owners of other dark, solitary vehicles parked up there or how many hours of actual sleep I ended up getting.

The final week of my trip I WWOOFed on a farm in Western Montana. A woman I met in Athens who was on her way to a farm in Israel reminded me of the program. I picked the farm arbitrarily because John Steinbeck says he loves Montana in Travels with Charley. They had availability, and it worked out to stop there after Yellowstone.

I must have really lucked out because it was a really wonderful experience. I helped a little with harvesting onions and cabbage, cleaning garlic, picking flowers and elderberries, and processing tomatoes for seed (squishing the insides out into a bucket). The farmers were kind and answered lots of my questions (more nosy, personal than farming-related). There was also a part-time worker who’d been with the Forest Service and told me about land grants and whose conversation generally made the time fly by. I felt bad that I was only expected to work in the morning because it seemed like they had so much to do (and the bunkhouse was so cozy and I ate their cheese and yogurt), but I got lots of time to explore other towns in the area.

The last day I was there, there was an event where people cycled to different farms, and I got to listen in on their farm-related questions. There was also a dinner afterwards where I met a lovely older couple who told me about teaching in Philadelphia. I told the farmers that all software developers dream of quitting to live on a farm which they got a kick out of. They took my picture in front of a sheep to brag to all my friends.

I’d initially planned to visit Glacier NP after the farm, but I was tired enough of being on the road that I decided to head straight to Seattle and save Going-to-the-Sun for another Summer.