Exploration! Destination: Decorah, IA

We've made it to the East Coast now (in fact, I've been in Richmond for the last three weeks)! I'm just now taking the time to slowly chronicle the rest of the road trip and wax nostalgia for the two weeks on the road and the brief respite from my all consuming fear of (continued) unemployment waiting for me in North Carolina.

But enough of my negativity! Onto the interesting things and Decorah is very interesting. Decorah must be the most interesting town in Iowa. Although I haven't spent a lot of time there (or any time really), I am almost certain that no other Iowan town can beat Decorah. I wish I had more pictures to share on Decorah, and thus better illuminating my point about how interesting it is, but by this point in the trip I started to get photography fatigue and the heat wave washing over the entire area didn't help. You'll just have to imagine the town, aided by my spectacular prose.

Picture taken after we dipped our feet into the cool spring water behind us. I sure hope it's not a drinking water source for people.

The main purpose of our stop in Decorah was mostly to visit our college friend, Steffen. Jack and I hadn't seen Steffen since the end of college, so it was nice to see him and catch up. The secondary purpose of the stop was to eat, drink, and be merry because we quickly discovered there were a lot of good food and drinks to be had in town.

After rolling into town on the back of a cresting heat wave in the Midwest, we dropped off our things at Steffen's place and quickly sought out anyplace with AC. We had some happy hour snacks and drinks ($3 Mojitos and $4 Martinis? Haven't seen those prices since Palomino's changed their menu) at the Tap Room Bar, located in the Winneshiek Hotel. The happy hour snacks would be the first in a string of amazingly delicious foods I would have while in Decorah.

After our 4pm drinks, we went over to the fish hatchery at a nearby park (one of two things we did in town that did not involve us eating or drinking). The fish hatched at the hatchery are eventually released into the local rivers making for an easy capture by local fishermen. At the park you can buy a fistful of fish food to feed the trout, so of course I had to put in a quarter for the food. While I had fun seeing the fish whip themselves into a frenzy for the pellets of fish food I threw in, I also had a small, brief pang of guilt because I knew that all I was doing was fattening them up so they could eventually be "released" into the river just to be captured by fishermen.

After all the fish feeding fun, we headed back to town for dinner at La Rana Bistro, which if you were not paying attention (or somehow got lost for about 2,000 miles) looks like a restaurant found in the Northwest. They have a focus on local foods with a small changing specials board and they offer a nice selection of beers and cocktails. So of course, we all have another round of drinks with our dinners. It was a hot day, after all.

After dinner, we strolled along the main drag and eventually ended up at a Homebrew Contest hosted by a local gallery, the ArtHaus. Seriously, are we in the Northwest? After some good beers and some not so good, it was starting to get dark and the fireflies came out! Fireflies! Or, I guess as they call it out here, lightning bugs. At first I thought my eyesight was being affected from all the beer tasting but, it was just the little bug lights flickering and disappearing as they search for their little lightning bug mates.

The next day, we started out at the local farmer's market. The chef from La Rana had a booth with food and, of course, based on the dinner we had the night before, I had to go and try the offerings. First off, there was the coffee, which was billed as a New Orleans Ice Coffee, and that was ridiculously addicting. Once it hit my lips, it was so good! It was like a new revelation in coffee and I've decided that I must have that recipe, so that I may make it at home by the bucket full and drink nothing but that all day. Second, there was the bagel bomb, which consist of a "pastry" made from bagel dough and stuffed with bacon and cream cheese. I don't even like cream cheese and I thought it was delicious. Holy crap, what a way to start the day.

Afterward, we headed out to Seed Savers Exchange, where Steffen works, to check out their public garden area, take in a tour, and poke around a few of their fields where they grow and maintain different heirloom seeds. I'm not someone with a particularly green thumb (I killed a chive plant, once), but visiting Seed Savers gave me hope (that and Steffen gave me a bunch of seed packets). I also learned a lot about heirloom seeds, how to properly propagate them, and a many other things that I fear have been lost into the folds of my brain.

Just before we left, we stopped to have one last meal at Ede's and the Angry Pickle Deli. It's no Salumi, but it was filling and the perfect send off for another day on the road. I was sad to leave Decorah and the town of delicious foods, because we wouldn't find good food until we hit Richmond, VA. Although there was the hot breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Chillicothe, OH...they had warm biscuits and gravy and all the coffee I could drink!

Exploration! Destination: South Dakota

I drove through South Dakota and so now you don't have to! Oh, but you want to anyways because, as far as I can tell, it is the more interesting of the Dakotas. There are at least four places, in my opinion, worth stopping for in South Dakota: Mt. Rushmore, the town of Wall (home of WALL DRUG), the town of Mitchell, and the city of Sioux Falls.

First stop: Mt. Rushmore

It was deceptively sunny and bright out.

Honestly, Mt. Rushmore is not nearly as regal or an inspiring as I expected then again, after visiting Yellowstone, a lot of things seem not nearly as regal or inspiring. Also, it doesn't help that the Park Service decided to make Mt. Rushmore less about the awesome scenery you are looking at (among the Black Hills in South Dakota!) and more about the man, one Gutzon Borglum, who designed the monument. There's the Borglum Visitor's Center, the Artist's studio, and many numerous busts of the man and his son, Lincoln Borglum, scattered throughout the park.

Fun fact: Borglum actually started construction on a "Hall of Records" somewhere behind/near Lincoln's head thinking that the US Government would want to place our nation's most important documents in this "Hall of Records" (documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution...to start with). Luckily the government declined.

Next stop: WALL DRUG

I started seeing roadside advertisements for this "WALL DRUG" (and always in bright, attention grabbing CAPITAL LETTERS) as we left Mt. Rushmore. Since the town of Wall is a little over a hundred miles away, I saw about a hundred miles worth of billboards like: FREE ICE WATER: WALL DRUG or VISIT WALL DRUG: HOME OF FIVE CENT COFFEE & DONUTS (but FREE FOR HONEYMOONERS or VETERANS!) or WALL DRUG: PAN FOR GOLD! or WALL DRUG: HOME OF GIANT T-REX! After about a hundred miles of seeing it, you can't NOT stop by. As it turns out, all the advertisements are true...sort of.

It essentially was like the 50,000 Silver Dollar Store in Montana, but somehow MORE AWESOME. It's a weird middle-American Disneyland--every store inside is themed and sells everything a tourist would want: from free ice water and five-cent donuts to souvenir mugs and t-shirts to artisan and locally made beer soap to $10,000 wood sculpture art. Oh, you can also pan for gold or mine gems.

There's also the option to ride a giant jackalope.

NEXT STOP: MITCHELL CORN PALACE

I had only heard of this place through the many Travel Channel specials about amazing things in America and never though I'd have the opportunity to visit, but I consider myself so lucky to be the one driving that day so that I had the final say on stopping in Mitchell after seeing the billboard for the Corn Palace.

Essentially, it's just a building where the outer facade is decorated using every part of the corn plant. When you go inside, the smell of popcorn (and all the additional flavors added on to the popcorn) hit your nostrils and the aroma lingers as you go through the corn gallery featuring all the previous year's decorations dating back to the early 20th century. Then there is the souvenir shop, which is appropriately corn-themed. And...that's about it for the Corn Palace.

Also featuring more art using corn decorations!

LAST STOP: SIOUX FALLS

Appropriately, I found out that Sioux Falls is South Dakota's largest city via roadside billboard. (I learned a lot from billboards on this trip.) We just stopped there for the night before heading to Decorah, IA the next day. I included this stop because, surprisingly, we happened upon a delicious little Vietnamese place: Lam's Restaurant. It could be that we were starving, but relative to whatever ethnic restaurants I assume are out there in Sioux Falls, it was one of the most unexpectedly delicious dinners we had while on the road.

The next day I insisted we explore for a little bit, so we went to Sioux Falls Park. Again, after seeing the pristine waterfalls Yellowstone had to offer, Sioux Falls was a bit...dirty. It didn't help that there were pieces of trash stuck near the bottom of the falls. Oh, and the park is about a mile away from a livestock auction, so depending on which direction you get into the park, you have to pass trucks of livestock being loaded/unloaded to be sold and butchered. BUT NEVERMIND THAT! We ended up grabbing some food at the Overlook Cafe run by Utopia Catering and that was surprisingly good too--considering that most food you grab at the park is usually of the pre-packaged sandwich and soda variety. Here, I had coffee (from locally roasted beans), some fancy Thai-inspired chicken wrap, and Jack had a Cuban pulled pork sandwich. Good enough to start us off on another day of driving.

EXTRA BONUS STOP THAT I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT: SOUTH DAKOTA AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM

It's no National Naval Aviation Museum or even the Museum of Flight, but if you are fond of once-fancy jets on sticks (Air Force jets in particular) then the South Dakota Air and Space Museum just outside of Ellsworth Air Force Base might be worth a stop. We walked around for a bit before retreating into the souvenir shop for some free AC, browse all their wares for sale, and wonder how much it must suck to be stationed there (seemingly) in the middle of nowhere.

Exploration! Destination: Yellowstone National Park

We're still on the road!

I am going to do you a grave injustice right now: I am going to attempt to sum up the entirety of Yellowstone National Park in a blog post. I know this will be a grave injustice not because I've been helping myself to some delicious Big Sky beer while I type this, but also because Yellowstone National Park is something you should definitely go and see for yourself. It is AMAZE-BALLS.

Jack and I essentially did a quick and dirty one-day round trip grand circle tour through Yellowstone--it was roughly 160 miles and it took us about 10 hours with stops for lunch, assorted dawdling, and picture taking. We hit all the spots that one would consider a "hallmark" of the park: The Grand Prismatic Spring, the "Grand Canyon" of Yellowstone, and (of course) Old Faithful. While they were definitely worth the stops, it was also a pain the major ass to deal with parking and the tour buses (oh god, the tour buses!). In the end, it was the smaller, more quiet spots that I enjoyed the most.

I call this one: Pensive on Yellowstone Lake

While we were driving through the park, I started keeping a little log book of all the things we saw and what we did. It turned out to be pretty handy because it did become a bit overwhelming, given all the things that you can see. Halfway through the park, Jack and I switched driving, so then he was in charge of the log book. I will share an excerpt below and see if you can tell who is writing what:

• Minerva and Jupiter Springs: Mineral rich waters from the springs hardens the trees, which makes them technically dead.

• Swan Lake: The more "traditional" shots of Yellowstone: Meadows and mountains in the distance.

• 1706: Joanne "toots" in the car. Twice.

• 1830: Petrified tree; Joanne's bad parking not noted.

• 4Jul2012: Mud volcano. Buffalo next to boardwalk. DRAGON!

Exploration! Destination: Missoula, MT (or basically the entire contiguous United States)

Ahoy from the road! Our first "real" stop outside of Washington State (on our way driving cross country) is Missoula, MT. Jack has family who live in town and there's the old Flynn Family Ranch,  which is still owned and maintained by Jack's family.

But before we get actually get into Missoula, I HAVE TO stop at the 50,000 Silver Dollar Store, partly because it's roughly in between Spokane and Missoula and by that time I would need to stop and pee, but also because it's tradition. I have a thing for "traditions." The store touts itself as Montana's largest souvenir shop, what they don't tell people is that it is also home to Montana's largest collection of the Three Howling Wolf shirt and plentiful turquoise tchotchkes--what I'm saying is that you should visit the 50,000 Silver Dollar Store.

Anyways, Missoula is a quirky little college town nestled all nice in between the mountains; it's like the Austin of Montana and while there's the family farms and ranches, there's also plenty of hippie types to go around.

Tell me this doesn't kind of look like Portland to you. Even the graphic design trends are similar!

We were lucky enough to get into Missoula on the weekend, so we spent Saturday wandering around the farmer and craft markets in town, shopping in the downtown stores, and experiencing the weirdest bout of cognitive dissonance. You'd expect Montana to be all rough and tumble with ranchers, cowboys, and other more tough alpha males, but walking around in Missoula you'd think that you were in Seattle (minus the hipsters) or Portland (Montana has no sales tax!).

Another fun attraction in Missoula is hiking up to the "M", which is basically a giant M on the side of the mountain behind the University of Montana. The view is nice and when we hiked up wild flowers were blooming so it made pretty boring hike into a mildly interesting one. I say it's boring because the trail is basically made of switchbacks, if you've been on a hike with me once before you know how I feel about this. Going on a switchback feels so futile because you're basically zigzagging back and forth as you gain elevation. Oh, I also hate elevation gain (or too much elevation gain over a short distance, thus requiring the use of switchbacks on trails).  And now I have climbed the M, so you don't have to! Here's the view from the top:

They don't call it Big Sky Country for nothing.

ADDENDUM TO THIS POST (AND REALLY, I SHOULD BE HUNG FROM MY HEAD FOR NEGLECTING TO MENTION THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE):

While we were in town, we HAD TO stop at Big Sky Brewing, because they make some delicious beer. I'm sure they offer a tour, but I've never been on it, usually whenever I find myself in Missoula (which is 3x's more often than you'd think) I head to the brewery for their 4 daily free samples and at least two growlers of beer. Beer is much better if you get it directly from the beer cow.