In the spring of 1999, Mayela and I were itching to get out of Buffalo and move to another state. We sat down and came up with a list of seven states that we thought might be nice places to live Vermont, Maine, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington and Alaska made the list. I had already burned up most of my vacation time for the year with a ski trip to Colorado, so I asked for three weeks off without pay from Leica. In June, we took off on an adventure to hit the ones out west. I had a GMC G3500 Vandura at the time with a 6.2L diesel engine. It was an awesome machine and never left me stranded. I had added an inverter, a couple of extra batteries, a refrigerator, water tank, and a small table. In the back we put an air mattress on the floor and it was the perfect road trip machine. We drove straight through from Buffalo to the Badlands of South Dakota. We set up camp in a grassy meadow in the back of the park and set up a tent and put the awning up off the side of the van with a tarp. When we woke up in the morning, a heard of bison were milling around, grazing on the grass. It was pretty cool and a bit scary to be so close to these two ton monsters. That day we went around some of the sights and did some fossil hunting. Mayela found a jaw bone with some teeth and was ecstatic. We also took the four wheel drive track up to Sheep Table Mountain. The view from up there is awesome. You get an endless panorama of the badlands. Centuries of erosion has carved a landscape of spires and corrugated cliffs as far as the eye can see. We crawled up to the edge of the cliffs that the four wheel drive track follows and it is a sheer 200 foot drop-off.
Then next day, we broke camp and headed for Yellowstone. We stopped for the night in a small campground in Montana. It was simple, but had nice showers and running water. When we got to Yellowstone the next day, we just toured around the park and took some hiking trips up the boardwalks to see some of the geysers and natural wonders. It was about 4PM and I said to Mayela, "don't we have to be at Mt. Hood at 8AM to meet James?” We literally got back in the van and drove non-stop all the way to Mt. Hood in Oregon. It rained the whole way out there all the way through Montana, Idaho and Washington.
In the evening, we were driving on Route 287 in Montana, headed to Interstate 90. The road skirts Earthquake Lake on the Madison River in the Gallatin National Forest. I just missed a boulder that had rolled into the road. Ironically, Earthquake Lake was formed when an earthquake that measured 7.3 hit the area on August 17th, 1959. This cased an entire hillside to crash down into the valley creating a natural dam. The Army Corps of Engineers decided that they had to do something about the lake that was forming behind it quickly, so they installed spillways and core drilled and grouted the fill to prevent a catastrophe if the water ever breached the natural dam.
We made our way down the canyon formed by the Colombia River, it was still pouring and I was really tired because it was like 1 in the morning. As I got to close to the bottom of the hill, there were a couple cars on the side of the road with their flashers on. Not thinking it was anything important, I continued on and rounded the bend to get on the bridge that crosses Wanapum Lake Resevoir. As I made the turn, there was a mountain of hay in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid it and then there was another, then another. I missed the first two but kind of ran over the third. Fortunately, someone else had already plowed that one and the van just went right over it, launching Mayela out of the bed in the back. When we got to the other side of the bridge, a double tractor trailer was on the side strapping the last few bales back onto the trailer. I was yelling to myself, "thanks for the warning!” As we crossed the border from Washington into Oregon, it was still raining. When we got to the turn to go up Mt. Hood to Timberline resort, it was still raining. We picked up a hitch hiker at the turn and she said we would probably "break out". We asked what that was and she said to wait and see. As we rounded the final turn into the parking lot, we came out of the clouds and there was the peak of Mt. Hood in glorious sunshine.
We both had brought our equipment with us, so we got our gear on and headed for the slopes. No sign of James. After our first run of the day, I heard a motorcycle in the parking lot and thought, "That has to be James". Sure enough, there he was, soaked to the bone. I told him we would take a couple more runs while he rented some equipment. As we were taking our third lift up, I saw him and yelled "we'll wait at the top". I climbed up above the lift a little and strapped in waiting for him. The way they carve out the exit from the chairlift left a cool little natural quarter pipe. When he got off the lift I said "watch this". I dropped in and hit the quarter pipe with WAY too much speed. I kicked out and flat bottomed from about 30 feet. I could feel and taste my ankle pop. It was sick. Of course whenever you crash on a snowboard, the first thing you think is to flee like a felon to evade embarrassment. I slowly inched my way down and out to the parking lot. James must have taken another run and came out to the van. He looked at me and said, "You better take that thing up and stuff it in you boot, 'cause I didn't ride 12 hours through the rain to watch you sit in the parking lot like a pussy." So I, duct taped it up and stuffed it back in the boot, lacing it up as tight as I could. As long as I didn't do anything radical, everything seemed O.K. but it did hurt. The next run, he wanted to go through the park. He told me to follow him off the kickers. I said no fucking way, but he insisted and told me to follow right behind him and match his speed exactly. The table top jumps up there were so perfectly formed that you could cruise right off them and land smoothly with now problem. It was the first time I had attempted any of the park features in my life, and I did it with a broken ankle.
At the end of the day we bar-b-qued in the parking lot and I medicated myself up pretty good. It was a glorious day in the sun. We went down into Portland and got a hotel for the night. The next day we drove up to Vancouver Canada to spend a day with James. He was living up there at the time and we toured around the city. While we were there, we went to Blunt Bros. It is a cafe in Vancouver where it is legal to smoke pot. I got nervous when we got to the door and there was a cop, but he is there to keep people from messing with the customers. It is really nice inside and there are couches, board games, a little head shop, and a coffee bar there. We sat right at the table and rolled up a fatty. It is nice to smoke in a cool environment with no fear of getting busted. The next day, James hooked us up with some stash and we headed north to Alaska.
We took Route 97, also known as the Alaskan Highway. 1,390 miles of some of the worst roads on the planet. The benefit is that is it the worlds biggest wildlife safari. We say Black bears, Brown bears, Dahl Sheep, Marmots, Moose, Porcupines and many others. At this time of the year, the sun is up for most hours of the day. We happened to go through a monstrous construction site. It was so big and massive that a guide vehicle had to lead traffic through the carnage. We slipped of to the side and went up to a place where we could watch the construction process. They were literally moving a mountain so the road could go through, instead of around. Some of the biggest equipment was there working away. I thought the biggest dozer was a Caterpillar D-9. Well, evidently, there is a D-10. They had two of them hooked together on a drawbar pulling a single 6 foot long ripper through solid rock. It felt like a continuous earthquake rumbling through the earth. We pulled the van up next to a giant loader parked on the side of the road. Nice picture, huh. I learned the code for warning signs along the Alaskan Highway is that if there is a tripod "bump" sign on the side of the road, there is a bump. If the sign has a flag on it there is a really big bump. If there are two flags on it, you better stop, get out, and look.
The Peace River dam was worth the stop. Further north, the road winds along the Yukon River. It is such a raw landscape and the Yukon cuts a swath through it. I was actually disappointed when we got to Alaska. There are some really nice parts of Alaska, but the interior is desolate, flat, and dry. Fairbanks is little more than a town and the surrounding countryside is just tundra as far as the eye can see. Anchorage could be any city and was unremarkable. Since we were driving, the easiest place to get to the ocean seemed to be to drive down the Kenai Peninsula to Seward. We got there on the second of July and camped right in the city. It was so crowded that you could barely move and you couldn't even drink beer in the campground unless you were zipped up in the tent. Cops were everywhere and we decided to leave before the 4th. Good thing we did. The road back up the Kenai was non-stop bumper to bumper traffic all the way back to Anchorage. The scenery along the way was quite beautiful though and I would like to go back. We had planned to take a ferry, but they were all booked and we would have had to waste a week. We beat feet back to Canada and continued our adventure.
On the way back we decided to go through the Jasper National Forest to Banff. That is the most scenic highway that I have ever seen. Northern Canada has the real Rocky Mountains. The sheer faces seem to come right down to the road. Every effort was done to frame and preserve the natural vistas. They have even constructed special overpass features so the wildlife can migrate without having to cross the highway. We stopped at the Pemberton Glacier along the way. There is a parking lot right at the base and I felt like my ankle was good enough to climb up and take a run with the snowboard. There is a boot path right up the middle and the snow was perfect. Half way up there is an outcropping of rock where everybody congregates and picnics. There is even a huge kicker and a rating section with people holding up numbers to rate tricks. I hung out for a while then climbed the rest of the way up. I took one glorious t-shirt run down the whole glacier and got back in the van to continue on. We camped in Banff for a couple nights, went to the hot springs and toured around the eclectic little town. A bit touristy, but they have one of the best skate parks in the world there. I just hung out for an evening and watched some amazing skating.
After that, we went through Calgary and out into the great plains of Canada. It is the Kansas of the north. Instead of superhighway, it is a three lane road with the center lane alternating back and forth as a passing lane. Let me tell you, people are fucking crazy out there. We were driving as fast as the van would go and triple tractor trailers with tankers of gas were passing us. Unbelievable. We camped at a neat little place where there were still ruts from wagons left by miners headed for the Alaska gold rush. As we got out of the plains and went along the north rim of the great lakes, the scenery improved immensely. There is a contrast of stark granite shapes and wildflower meadow, then dense conifer forests that open up to lakes and hardwoods. I could really see living there. We stopped at a ski area that was having a summer carnival and hiked around in the open meadows on the slopes. We were able to camp right there. The next day we made our way back across Ontario and crossed the peace bridge back into Buffalo, U.S.A.
A week later, my sister was getting married in Maine, so we loaded the van back up and headed northeast. We took my mom, sister and her daughter with. Having 5 people in that van for 16 hours made me think I'd kill them all. Lisa and Tom got married on Sabec Lake in central Maine. What a beautiful state. Tom's family has a fabulous house and cabin on the lake and there was a sailboat, Jet Ski and a little motorboat right there at the dock.
The first night we just sat out and got hammered by the lake. The Siemers’ all showed up at once like a mini-Army and when Gram decided the night was over everyone stood up and started marching out. My brother Travis looked over at me and asked "what should I do” I told him, to stay in the doll house with Michelle. In the morning, there they were all curled up in the doll house with Travis's big feet hanging out the window. I spent the whole day touring around the lake in the little motorboat. Then I'd come back and practice docking it. Travis came out to the dock and told me "if you don't get that stinky boat out of here, I'm going to take it away". The wedding happened that evening. We had set up a tent and as the ceremony was about to start when a storm blew in. You could see it rolling across the lake toward us and it hit hard. We were able to batten down the hatches and get the wedding off without any problems. The reception was wonderful and the skies cleared up so we could feast on 200 pounds of lobster. I ate three whole lobsters. I've never been so full in my life.
By the time the whole 7 state adventure was over, we had burned more than 800 gallons of diesel fuel. The Alaska portion of the trip was 12,500 miles and we did it all in just under 3 weeks. Sure packed in a lot of adventure in a small amount of time and saw some of the wonders of North America. We ended up deciding to move to Oregon and the next spring we packed everything and left Buffalo for Eugene. Good times