Caffeinated Simpleton

All the photos from my trip to San Francisco can be found here.

I arrived in San Francisco early this afternoon after spending an uneventful day and night on the road. Palm is putting me up in an apartment in downtown San Francisco for a month until I find a more permanent arrangement. The apartment is on the 25th floor of 26 in a mid-level high rise. It’s a beautiful apartment. It’s right in the financial district, which is perhaps too high rent and too low excitement for permanent living, but it’s fantastic for the time being.

You can see two different views from the apartment here, as well as a picture of the living room. I played with the lighting a bit since it’s just past dusk. I clearly have a lot of learning to do if I’m ever going to get the most out of this camera.

I didn’t write yesterday as I was exhausted. That means I have a lot to say today.

After awaking in the South Dakota Badlands, I drove through them. I got some great pictures, and I saw prairie dogs. I had never seen prairie dogs, but they play a big part in stereotypical westerns, so I was very excited.

My goal for the day was Yellowstone. I wanted a full day today (Wednesday) to play, so I wanted to get there yesterday. However, I was heading through the black hills and decided to see Mt. Rushmore while I was in the area. Big mistake. I got a few pictures, but it took me 60 miles out of my way and cost $15. In the end, I didn’t think it was that cool. I know I’m supposed to, but it seemed pretty dumb to put these huge sculptures in the middle of nowhere. A picture of them does a good job of getting the idea across too. They’re huge, so they don’t really benefit from a closer look.

After getting back on the road in Rapid City, SD, I started making pace across Wyoming. I wasn’t sure of the best way to get there, but I eventually decided that the East entrance was the most direct and offered an interesting ride as it spent a lot of time on Wyoming Route 14, which was not an interstate. I was definitely right about that. My drive on 14 went up through sunset, and it was an absolutely perfect way to get a taste of the Rockies. I made it to Cody, Wy with plenty of time to spare. I got dinner at a Taco Bell and started down the last 50 miles before Yellowstone. As I was rolling along, I got to thinking. There are bears in Yellowstone, and I don’t have any bear boxes. It’s past 9, are the gates even open? Yellowstone is huge, will the campsites be obvious? Where should I camp that would offer a solid trip in the morning? Without answers to these questions, I decided it would be best to get a hotel for the night. It turned out to be the right choice. I didn’t even realize how tired I was until I plopped into a real bed at the AmercInn in Cody. It was glorious. I took a shower and slept on a spectacularly soft mattress without waking even once.

I had found out some information last night, so I was ready to take on Yellowstone today. I got there in good time and was almost taken out by a buffalo as soon as I got in the gates. At least, that’s the way I saw it. Unfortunately I didn’t get a good picture of the guy. I had decided to claim a camping spot in the northern piece of the park and then set out from there. It took me over two hours to get up there with all the things to see and the distance. I had wanted to get lunch at a restaurant that was up there, but it was closed for the season. I backtracked to a General Store (which was mostly a gift shop) and grabbed a sandwich. Then I went up to where I wanted to camp. It was full. So, I backtracked to another campsite that seemed promising. It was open, and it was also right across from the General Store. I should have just stayed there from the beginning.

After finding a spot, I immediately got on the trail. It was a short trail that stretched a couple miles up Tower river. I was surprised at how primitive it was. It was barely better than an animal trail. It went through the floodplain of the river, and they had not even cut a way through the drift wood and fallen trees that were everywhere. It was slow going. Finally I came to a place where the trail was impassible. There was a sheer cliff that ended right on the river. Clearly, something was wrong. I took out my map and realized that I had missed a bridge. The trail was actually on the other side of the river. I found a place to ford and meandered through a buffalo meadow (luckily they had chosen to spend the day elsewhere) until I came across the trail. In that time, I found an almost complete skeleton of an Elk. It was something to see.

I hiked most of the way down the trail before turning back so that I could make it back before dark. I lost the trail twice more on the way back, but it was easy to find again. The river was pretty clear, so all I had to do was follow that. Eventually I came upon the foot bridge I had missed. It was completely washed out, there were just the stone foundations jutting out. There was also no way to cross there. I worked my way back upstream a bit, forged, and made it back to camp with a few minutes to spare before sunset. I quickly set up camp and had a bite to eat for dinner.

Now I’m writing by lantern light on a Macbook, just like the old days. I think I’ll listen to my book for a bit and then get to sleep early. Tomorrow I should make it to northern California, and I can’t wait.

Yesterday I finished my trip across Minnesota and was really quite impressed by its beauty. In a way that Illinois never did for me, Minnesota broadcast the Midwest, at least for about half the time. It had low rolling hills with large farmhouses nestled at the bottom with the obligatory silo. There were small lakes everywhere, and they made for very beautiful Midwestern farm scenes. I found a perfect one, but unfortunately, I was moving much too quickly to get a picture.

Minnesota slowly flattened into prairie, and by the time I hit North Dakota, it was clear that that’s what I was in. Fargo was not a large town, and by the time I realized it was over and I still needed gas, the nearest gas station was several miles off the highway. I groaned and ventured into the prairie.

This was actually a good thing. It allowed me to get a grasp for what the prairie actually was. North Dakota, at least the part I was in, does not feature the interesting ditches and crevasses of South Dakota. The entire area was perfectly flat. I was cruising at 75 mph down country roads and did not feel for a second that this was too fast. You could see oncoming traffic from literally miles away. Perpendicular traffic was also easy to see, and at first it made me nervous to see traffic that was heading on a clear collision course moving so fast. I quickly realized though that they have stop signs like any other state, and I would be fine as long as everybody obeyed traffic laws.

The town I came on that was supposed to have gas was hardly a town at all. It was a grain elevator and a general store. I came to realize that this was what most of the towns in the Dakotas are, but it was quite surprising this first time. They seemed to be doing construction on the roads, but I couldn’t be sure. There were people working, but there was no guidance as to where traffic should flow. Apparently they don’t get enough traffic to warrant it. I drove through in what seemed to be a safe area and nobody seemed to indicate I was doing anything wrong. I guess I got it right. I got gas, took some pictures of the gorgeous skies, and headed back on my way.

I drove south from Fargo to just outside of Sioux City on I-29, through some side streets around the city, and then west on I-90. I was fascinated to see this stretch of land. As a kid, I was absolutely fascinated by the Sioux. I read every book on them in the local library. It was exactly how I imagined it, and was enthralled.

I made it to the badlands late, but that’s where I was determined to camp. I started into the park and was immediately struck by how beautiful it was. The moon was very full, and the jagged terrain seemed like it was from a different planet entirely. It was gorgeous.

I set up camp in a campground just inside the park. It was more full than I would have liked, but didn’t mind too much. I don’t know much about the wildlife around here, and was relieved to see that people had coolers and whatnot outside. Clearly, predators and pests were not too much of a problem. I set up camp under moonlight next to a dried out canyon as a deer grazed not 20 feet away, seemingly unalarmed by my presence.

This morning I woke to a gorgeous view, which you can see below.

I left from Champaign yesterday full of foolish optimism. I had just capped off a great weekend despite the low quality of Big 10 football, and I had discovered AudibleAir, an awesome sounding little program that would let me download books from Audible as I traveled across the country. I was set for my cross country adventure.

Within 24 hours, AudibleAir has become the bane of my existence. It is rare that I have encountered a program of such tantalizing possibility with such a disappointing reality. The program apparently has no error handling built in at all. Every time something goes wrong (which with a phone connection to the internet, it frequently does), the program bails on the download. Half the time it does not even connect to the internet in the first place. I have to boot up Internet Explorer, browse to a site, and then it will start downloading, only to inevitably fail within minutes. Even more maddening, it does not keep track of where the download left off, and starts anew every time. It nearly drove me insane as I made stop after stop driving across Wisconsin, desperately trying to get a book to listen to.

Eventually I found that if the stars aligned correctly and God started petting a kitten, it would successfully download one hour of a book. I started on a short (7 hour) book by Bill Bryson. After every hour, I would have to spend nearly an hour just trying to get the next hour to download. Then, when it would download, half the time it messed up the file and it wouldn’t work in the player. I am grateful I did not have to interact with anybody during this time; I was very ready to shoot somebody. In the end, the best thing to do seemed to be to wait for a midsize town with a faster cell phone connection and download it as many times as possible while in the faster network in the hopes that one would work.

I stopped for the night in Lake Maria, which is about half an hour east of St. Cloud, Minnesota. Lake Maria is not particularly remote, but it was deep enough into cow country that there was no visible man-made light. The moon was brilliantly full, and had I not camped in the shade, I could have set up without my lantern. I did not sleep that well, and ended up getting most of my sleep after the sun came up. I got a later start than I intended, but without any real destination in mind, it does not matter that much.

I’m now at a Starbucks just west of St. Cloud. They have Wi-Fi (for $4!), so I am downloading as many books as I can and loading them up the old fashioned way. Hopefully this will work.

No pictures yet, Wisconsin and Minnesota seem rather similar to the rest of the Midwest. There should be some coming.