Road Trip 2015

[muon2]

Day 10 and 11

This was the business part of my trip. A conference is in Seattle this week and I particularly wanted to attend sessions on Tuesday. The subject was the 2020 Census and redistricting, is anyone surprised? During the day the rest of my family did some shopping and visited the Space Needle and Chihuly glass museum. We all joined some of my colleagues for dinner at Canlis with a spectacular view of Lake Union. Even my 20-year old son put on a jacket and tie for the occasion. The meal and drinks did not disappoint.

Wednesday included the standard tourist visit to Pike Place Market and watch the throwing of the fish. We planned to go to the Boeing factory tour that afternoon. We arrived to find that so many showed up that day the wait for a tour was three hours. Ouch. We bought tickets for early tomorrow instead.

[PJ]

Day 8

This was a highlight day as we took the whale watch out to the San Juan islands. It's really an orca watch, since orcas are not technically whales. In any case we were not disappointed as the 2 1/2 our cruise to western San Juan island treated us to three pods converging to the same area. Lot of tail slapping and a few good breaches. Even the captain seemed impressed, especially by the breaches of Granny, the 104 year-old matriarch of J pod.

Here's one orca I caught with my camera during a breach.


The tour included a two hour stop at Friday Harbor for some shopping. We got back to Bellingham to enjoy one of the many brew pubs that pepper the city. It seems to be a mecca for local brewing.

I love the San Juan Islands. I wasn't lucky enough to get that good of a view of an Orca though, much less a picture.

[Torie]

Anything of particular interest emerge at the conference on the census and redistricting? Any mention of the pending SCOTUS case on whether just citizens should count?

[muon2]

Anything of particular interest emerge at the conference on the census and redistricting? Any mention of the pending SCOTUS case on whether just citizens should count?

The Census is prepared to do what it takes to comply with whatever may happen with Evenwel (residents vs CVAP). They wouldn't go into further detail until the case is decided. They did say that they expect to provide cross reference files from 2010 to 2020 census objects so that ACS CVAP numbers in 2020 built on 2010 geography could mesh with 2020 Census data. In 2011 states had to wait until fall 2011 to get ACS data built on 2010 geography.

One issue that came up in multiple panels was the problem of vendors. No one really knows who is going to be around since there isn't any demand at this point in the decade. If states are going to move in the direction of supplying mapping tools to the public, then there is an open question of what platform will the mapping software will use. We on Atlas see this problem as well with the pending demise of DRA due to software incompatibility.

Once notes on some of the other upcoming cases are posted online I'll start threads.

[muon2]

Day 12

The first half of the day was our make-up trip to the Boeing factory in Everett. The tour is one of the better factory tours I've been on, with a relatively short intro video so more time seeing real construction. The tours are very well synchronized so we never felt pressed by another group coming or going. The scale of the aircraft and the facility are the real stars - I liked the comparison that the assembly building could house 17 Taj Mahals.

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry and other chores to get ready for departure tomorrow morning. All told we put about 700 miles on the car during our week here.

[muon2]

Day 13

Road trips work best when they stay somewhat flexible. Then when something new and unique presents itself the trip can adapt. Today is checkout day, and originally we were supposed to spend a day on the Olympic Peninsula stopping at a few places in the rain forest and on the coast. However, one of the themes of this trip was for my wife and daughter to visit quilt shops participating in the H20 theme this summer. One of the opportunities for a quilter is to be the first to complete a quilt using 8 patterns from different shops and present it to win a package of fabrics for future quilts. Yesterday in Bellingham they discovered that no one had claimed the prize at that store, so they pulled an all-nighter to put a complete quilt together using patterns picked up during the trip out west. It wasn't done until about 1 pm but they got the prize.



All this postponed our start by about 6 hours, and left me to do all the driving since no one else was likely to stay awake. Thus Olympic NP was cut from the itinerary and replaced by a visit to a lavender farm in Sequim and then a scenic drive down the Hood Canal on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. There were some very clear views of Mt Ranier across the canal. For the first time we arrived at our destination after dark - in Portland, OR.

[Torie]

Too bad you missed the rain forest on the Pacific coast. When it is sunny, that place is just an amazing array of green, with ferns everywhere on the ground. It seems like a place the Elves in Middle Earth would live. I visited there in conjunction with the Seattle world's fair, and still remember it like I had been there yesterday.

Nice quilt!

[muon2]

Too bad you missed the rain forest on the Pacific coast. When it is sunny, that place is just an amazing array of green, with ferns everywhere on the ground. It seems like a place the Elves in Middle Earth would live. I visited there in conjunction with the Seattle world's fair, and still remember it like I had been there yesterday.

Nice quilt!

It was one of those cases where we were torn between two choices. The unique chance for the quilters to meet a competition challenge won out. BTW the patterns on the quilts represent and were picked up at a number of stops: 2 from MN, 2 from MT, 1 from ID, and 3 from WA. We decided we would have to come back another time for the rain forest.

[muon2]

Day 14

What better way to start from Portland than with a couple of Voodoo Doughnuts. Seriously, this place has as wild a selection of weird combinations on fried dough as I've ever seen. And yet the place smells just like a bakery should. Excellent.

From there it was a short drive to one of the longest vertical drop waterfalls in the US - Multnomah Falls. There were a lot of visitors even at 9 am on a Saturday, but I didn't feel crowded. The drive up the Columbia Gorge was worth the planning, too. It's hard to imagine that people who fly to the West Coast can appreciate how rapidly the terrain changes from the wooded space around Portland to desert a hour to the east all along the same river.

We made it to Walla Walla by mid afternoon and that left plenty of time to engage in a few tastings at the many wineries in the area. We took in three in two hours, and it was handy to have my son available as a designated driver. We found a nice restaurant in the city center and I enjoyed a thick pork chop with a peach, sweet onion and fennel topping - all from local sources.

[muon2]

Day 15

Here's a chance to give some props to Atlas and its posters. This wasn't expected to be a very interesting day. We had to drive from Walla Walla to the Spokane Airport to drop off my daughter before noon then push on to Helena MT for the night. The return trip tends to be less interesting, in part because we all are ready to get back home.

Enter KingSweden.  Back on Aug 2 he offered to make some suggestions for our passage back through the Spokane area. I said we'd be looking for lunch today and he recommended Veraci Pizza. It sits right on the bank of the Spokane river with a patio that overlooks the gorge and the pedestrian path along the river. There's an osprey nest right nearby to add to the interesting viewing. We split a well-made thin crust with prosciutto and arugula on just a garlic and oil base fired in their brick oven. Perfect.

We were fortunate to be going east on I-90 today. There was a crash between a semi and a motor home trailer (no injuries according to reports) on the westbound side just over the pass where there was roadwork diverting the traffic to one lane. Cars and trucks were backed up 7 miles going uphill to the pass with many people out of their vehicles to avoid running the engine. With no radio or internet service in those parts of the mountains I can imagine the frustration.

[muon2]

Day 16

The day opened in Helena with a short drive to the Canyon Ferry dam on the Missouri river. It's significant for us because my wife's great uncle was an engineer on the project from 1949 to 1954.



By late afternoon we reached the main point of this leg. That was to visit the Little Bighorn National Battlefield. The ranger gave one of the best 45 minute interpretive descriptions I've heard at any national park. It probably helps that he's an art history professor by trade and on his 26th year doing the ranger job as summer work.

As we were leaving the monument someone had left a note to point out that we had a flat tire. We were fortunate that it wasn't completely flat, but just very low pressure and that was enough to go the 2 miles to a service station with an air hose. The pressure seemed to hold, but a leak was going to impact the remaining 3 and a half hour drive remaining that day. We were doubly fortunate to find a tire place 12 miles back the way we came willing to stay open 15 minutes late to patch the tire. With that we could get to Spearfish, SD a little after 10 pm MDT Monday.

The good fortune was especially helpful in light of a phone conversation earlier that day. On Friday the possibility of a detour to Springfield IL was looking quite likely, and today it was confirmed. In particular I should be in Springfield by 11 am CDT Wednesday. From where I'm writing this, that's about 987 miles away. Interesting side trips will be on hold for tomorrow.

[muon2]

Day 17 and 18

As I noted on Day 16, Day 17 was going to be a major driving day. The need to go to Springfield opened the potential of a direct 1000 mile drive in one day. I've done it, but I wanted to be alert the next day, so it wasn't my best choice. Also road construction can play havoc with plans so we decided to shoot for a late lunch in Sioux Falls, about 400 miles along the way.

Panera Bread is a frequent choice of ours on trips since one can choose salads, sandwiches or pastries, with some bread to go. They also have free wifi so I could set up my laptop to investigate a range of options. We settled on Keokuk IA, which would provide the opportunity for my wife to stop at a couple of shops and only leave two and a half hours to drive the next day to get to Springfield.

I arrived in plenty of time and it was nice to see a unanimous vote on part of the budget, even if it came after some political amendments and partisan bickering. My wife used the opportunity to tour the Capitol, much of which has been restored over the last decade.

In the end we made it home after over 6000 miles and 115 hours in the car. We were in 11 states, 37 CDs, and 146 counties.