Here are the notes I am taking while Molly and I are on a road trip through Idaho (briefly), Wyoming, and Montana, October 2018.

Part 1 is here | Part 2 is here  | Part 3 is here | Part 4 is here | Part 5 is here | Part 6 is here | Part 7 is here | Part 8 is here

OCTOBER 14, 2018

COLUMBIA FALLS — KALISPELL — SALT LAKE CITY — BURBANK — OXNARD

Yeah so I’m tying this bit from Salt Lake City Airport just as it’s been announced that my flight is late, putting me in grave danger of missing my train to Oxnard, which is going to make it extra interesting trying to get to Oxnard Airport to get my car out of hock; hence it is established that I’m in a sad, shit, end of vacation mood. I just said goodbye to Molly as she left for her flight to San Francisco. I guess it’s a good thing that it was hard to say goodbye. It’s been a perfect trip. The Mom Van was a gas guzzler and we’ve spend more money than we wanted to on this trip … and that’s about it. Oh wait, how could I forget my sinuses. Molly might add my snoring as being a less-than-awesome feature of the trip.

Before I do the hot-wash, as the corporate people say, here are the is the menu from last night’s feed:

And a tableaux from the large, very busy, and sublimely choreographed Syke’s, where I ate another insane meal, this time involving Andouille sausage AND bacon.

Mom Van gave us a scare as there was no Enterprise office at the Glacier Airport in Kalispell, but we found a drop-off area, thank heavens. Because the order has not been processed yet, I do not know how many miles we put in, but we put in a LOT.

Update: I just called Enterprise (on 10/24) and they told me we put 553 miles on the car. However, with very generalized itinerary (and not taking into account all the driving we did within the parks), Mapquest* is saying more like 1300 miles.

*I know, Mapquest, right? But I couldn’t find a routeplanner on Google that was that easy!

Oh! And: we got navigated to the wrong airport at first, because there are TWO airports (one international) in Kalispell, MT, population 22,000. Just want to mention that I’m now typing this from home, after nearly 12 hours of travel, 3 of which was trying to get home from Burbank Airport. Oxnard is the 19th most populous city in California and there is no international airport in its county. BUT I’LL STOP THERE.

Now: hot-wash. What makes Molly and self such good traveling partners? There are a lot of things. We have very similar love for beautiful nature, road trips, and Americana; we are both pretty flexible and “make the best of it”; she likes to plan and I like to go along with the plan (and we both like the fact there’s a plan); we both know visitor centers, plaques and displays, and weird little museums often make for the highlights of a trip; we both are pretty organized and like systems (eg, we trade off driving/navigating, we can maneuver around each other well in small spaces); and we have 19 years of knowing each other. I know Molly doesn’t chew gum but likes Huevos Rancheros! Molly knows I like pie and to take my shower in the AM!

A trip like this is a LOT of togetherness, almost 100% of the time. We’ve learned to chill in companionable silence on the road and in restaurants and to grab alone time here and there. Sharing a room at night is very hard at times, with snoring, restlessness, different sleep patterns, etc. but we just kind of roll with it. We’re on vacation, after all!

And coffee. This is the must-have. Two collapsible drip coffee filter holders, high quality coffee, travel mugs. A similar setup got us through our 2010 road trip; we refined it by adding this somewhat more portable hot water kettle, and adding a second drip system, for fair and efficient caffeine distribution.

After lugging my very, very heavy luggage home, I’m reflecting on what could have been left behind. The laptop was a pain in the ass, but I’m glad I would write down my experiences right away (and we might have needed it for some real computing at some point). Snow clothes, heavy winter gear — hard to lug but I would’ve been sunk without it if the weather was even a smidge worse.

Mistakes were made:

• OMG we screwed up with audio stuff! The Mom Van didn’t have bluetooth or modern auxillary cable hookup capability. Hence, out of desperation, the non-driver for the day would play whatever downloaded music she happened to have on her iPhone FROM her iPhone. Treble heavy and not great. And podcasts were out of the question, as the poor audio made them impossible to hear. All I needed to do was to tuck my tiny but powerful bluetooth speaker in my luggage and we would’ve had such better quality listening on the road.
• This is 20/20 hindsight, but I should’ve brought anything and everything to ease the pain of living in a very cold, very dry, and very allergen-heavy climate. More unguents and lotions of all kinds would’ve been happily used. I would even consider bringing some kind of portable vaporizer, and definitely a heating pad to try to ease the face and neck pain.
• I brought a small kit with scissors, rubber bands/bag clips, extra ziplocks, garbage bags (all were used) BUT a small thing of spices, particularly salt, were missed. We found ourselves a couple times in a kitchenette eating oh so bland fare. Wine and bottle opener would’ve been helpful too.
• Photos/videos. It’d’ve been fun to have used a GoPro (something on my wish list), and  a portable flexible tripod. It’s funny; my photos were better in 2010 as I brought a real camera. iPhones (now) are fine but I don’t know, I was really struck at how eh the photos made me feel. I like the videos I took but there was no efficient way to get them trimmed and posted. I reckon working with a WordPress blog platform doesn’t help. I look forward to the next road trip (hopefully not 8 years hence) and newer, better technology!
• I’m finishing up this post many days after the trip ended, because I’m suffering the effects of another mistake – timing this trip in the middle of a heavy work and work-travel schedule. M and I couldn’t have planned it for any other week this fall, if we wanted to go this year — but I went from a business/personal trip in September to a massive work event two weeks later, then this trip, then another work trip 60 hours after returning. Molly had a similar schedule. I haven’t been home, I haven’t had time to decompress, my place is a mess. But would I have delayed this trip till next year? HELL NO!!!

Anyway. Here we are at the end. This was such a stunning trip. I loved how shot through with nostalgia this journey was, not only for the places I visited, but because of the acknowledgement of how much traveling Molly and I have done — we were full of reminiscences about our grocery-stealing bear, previous teepee adventures, our spontaneous trip to Chicago for New Year’s Eve complete withscoring tickets to see Aretha Franklin (not blogged), our adventures as co-workers (more of a mind-trip), and letting fortune be our guide.

I love life!