Pictures

Pctures from the trip are available here

Debriefing - TOP lists

Starting with TOP lists, shoutout to the top road trip resource web sites:

1 - Road Trip USA (www.roadtripusa.com)

Really good maps and descriptions of the locations, sights, restaurants and other places of interest which you can print out free of charge. Described for 10 different trips across the continent. Our main resource for stopping information on US50 (the loneliest road), I-40 (Route 66) and Hwy 1 (Pacific Coast Highway). Well written and comprehensive.

2 - Roadside America (www.roadsideamerica.com)

Best site for comprehensive listing of weird attractions, the true americana in our books; responsible for pointing us to Mike the headless chicken, Mystery Spot, Pez Museum of California to name just a few. Bonus points for a very good 'Electric map', the sights mapped on Google Maps user interface. Really convenient. Also special thanks for all the information on Colorado's own Alfred Packer, the maneater.

3 - American Byways (www.byways.org)

Official site listing all scenic and historic byways in the States, with excellent pdf-printout capabilities. We had >20 byways printed out along our route. Good maps, less information on the locations.

4 - Lonely planet USA discussion forums (http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/categories.cfm?catid=26)

Excellent FAQ concerning road trips, tipping and other stuff. Also good road trip information especially from user Willysnout and a couple of other frequent posters there. All the basic information comes up there if you search the archives a bit. And do believe them when they say that you cannot go coast-to-coast in 4 weeks!

5 - Chowhound (www.chowhound.com)

Discussion forums for best restaurant information and suggestions, great for on the road.

6 - Priceline (www.priceline.com)

Best site for booking hotels on the road (and the only one with the web site managing to work in our mobile phone browsers!).

Last days in San Francisco

On Saturday 21st we went for a wine country tour to Napa and Sonoma. Taking a bus tour made more sense than going around in own car, since a) there were so many wineries to go to and we hadn't researched them, and b) drinking (even just to taste) and driving really didn't mix in our book. So, on a tour we went.

The bus tour was guided and driven by rather Ed Harris -looking guy who had a very incomperensible american-italian (?) accent and good story material for all the trip. We visited three wineries on the trip from a small, boutique-style winery to very large bulk-type winery producing millions of bottles per year. However none of the wines were so much to our taste that we would have bought them. Our stereotype of Californian red wines being light and not very full-bodied seemed to be reinforced (even though the ones from Central Coast we tried in San Luis Obispo had also full-bodied varieties. Oh well).

After the trip we did a quick visit to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. It clearly is San Francisco's most popular tourist attraction, with lots of people and souvenir shops and amusement rides. Not completely our kind of place, we headed to North Beach for an italian dinner, on the trip home we wondered the steep slopes of Russian and Nob Hill.

On Sunday 22nd we first went shopping, because we had only one day to go anymore, and shopping sprees weren't that effective in the centre; we needed a shopping center or a mall. We aimed for Hillsdale Shopping Mall 20 miles south of SF, actually pretty close to Milbrae where we spent the very first night of the trip. So, we got Patsy out of the parking and headed there. Hillsdale had good shopping to do, we managed to get clothes and shoes and stuff; also the Harry Potter book we didn't have time to get earlier. When we got back to the hotel, we noticed that a screw had punctured Patsy's rear tire, but luckily the leak wasn't that bad so we didn't have to change it (and luckily we had to drive only to the airport anymore).




As Sunday was our first wedding anniversary, so we had deciced to go eat well in the evening. Unfortunately our prime candidate for fine dining, Gary Danko, had no free tables so we decided to try something more local. We had actually become a bit bored of eating at restaurants, so we weren't in a hurry to try to book another "famous" restaurant. We went to Brick, a restaurant just next to our hotel, which looked like a pretty trendy one with californian style food but a bit mixed reviews on the net.

The food in Brick was found to be excellent! Really well made and presented, with very good service. The funny thing was that one of the complaints on the net, portions being too small, was actually a very good thing! For the first time on the trip (well, excluding Bouchon) we could eat all three dishes of the meal and not feel absolutely too full; in contrary we felt excellent. So all in all, a very good experience.

After the dinner we went to Top of the Mark (a restaurant on top floor of Mark Hopkins InterContinental hotel with great views of the city) for drinks. The city was at the time, and typically to the time of year as I understand, quite covered in fog, which gave it more atmospheric and dream-like ambiance. So a very successfull evening.

On monday we had our flight at 3pm, so we decided to do a bit of last-minute shopping, and went to Tamforan shopping mall which we remebered from the beginning of the trip and which happeded to be right next to the airport. The flight left mostly on time, and for some reason the flight seemed to go really quickly (we probably had gotten used to sitting ;), which of course was nice. Had a stop in Amsterdam, where we had lunch and immediately noticed the difference in service levels in European restaurants (to the benefit of American ones, of course) and did the last quick hop to Helsinki.

We arrived home on Tuesday, 24th at around 5pm, a good 29 days and 12 hours after leaving, bit tired, but happy!

Total number of miles by car: 5066
Final results of 'heppa' game: 27-27 (a tie, no less!)

Back home

We still have few days to describe here. We decided we will create post of each day, since we saw so many things that otherwise we will not remember it ourselves! :-)

But other things we still be adding here are list about the experiences, TOP 5 restaurants, TOP 10 road trip music we listened etc.

The list I promised to give was about all the wild animals we saw during this trip so let's start with that:

-Wild horses and burros (wild donkeys) (the story behind the wild horses in US is a sad one, they used to be killed for fun, meat etc, but now as the laws protect them they reproduce in huge numbers and as they do not have too many natural enemies and the herds may grow too big to actually survive in the areas they live... SO EVERYONE, GO ADOPT A MUSTANG http://www.mustangs4us.com/!)
-Deer
-Black Bear
-Elk
-Beavers
-Different types of squarrels
-Whales (Humpback)
-Sea elephants
-Sea lions
-Sea otters


Birds (lots of them we do not recognize them so here only a few)
-Different types of woodpeckers
-Hummingbirds (Kolibri in Finnish, we did not realize they would come to Colorado, they always seem so tropical for us)
-Hawks and eagles
-Ravens (they move in pairs and seemed to be following us around, the Indians see them as teachers so we thought they were trying to teach us something (at least we learned they move in pairs...))

Arts and witchcraft

First night in San Francisco and we had an earthquake, 4.2 richter.
You could feel it but it was small enough to cause no damage.

Friday was a Harry Potter day (of sorts). In the big bookstore in the
center they were preparing for the publishing of the last Harry Potter
novel the next day, and they were preparing to start selling the book
at 12.01 am. We decided not to go for the numbered wristbands for the
midnight to buy the new book, they promised they should have it still
in the morning), but we went to see the new movie in IMAX, with parts
of it in 3D. Fun!

Before the movie we visited SF Museum of Modern Art where we had a
guided tour of their photography section. It was very good and very
interesting.

In the evening we aimed towards the waterfront and went there in true
SF style: with a cable car (a tram, not a gondola). We continued with
a little shopping and went to eat at Chowhound food site endorsed
vietnamise haute cuisine restaurant, the Slanted Door. We had no
reservation but we managed to get seats in the lounge area, even
though there was a lot of people there. Apparently, if a restaurant is
popular is SF, it is really popular!

On our way back to the hotel, we decided to go by the bookstore to see
whether there was a major Harry Potter partying going on there. It was
quite quiet there, just a couple of teenagers in costumes, just
reading or something. Apparently, the bookish types aren't at their
best in throwing a party... I mean, reading in a party, what's up with
that??

If you're going to San Francisco...

Yesterday we started the day by seeing whales!!! Amazing, we took a
whale watching boat to the sea, and saw humpback whales, mommy and a
baby. We have never seen whales; it is amazing how close they let the
boats to come and how big they are! We also saw Californian sea lions
and otter and seals (in Finnish we called these marine mammals
"meripunkerot", "sea fatties"), the seals came to see us and jumped
around the boat. We have seen so much wildlife during this trip we
have to add an entry listing animals we have met (some very close
encounters, others bit more distant like the black bear, fortunately).

After brisk sea trip we were quite hungry and ate the Monterey
speciality Clam Chowder (resembles Finnish fish soup but was bit
better in our opinion :-)) went to see what the Aquarium was like and
then we were done with sea life and wanted to see something completely
different...

And that we definitely did! we went to the Mystery Spot in outskirts
of Santa Cruz, in dark, mysterious forest. In Mystery Spot, mysterious
things happen! Such as balls roll downwards and people can't stand
straight on crooked surfaces :). But the guided "show" was
entertaining enough. Certainly, one of the strangest tourist
attractions we have seen, and not because of myserious forces working
in the area.

In the evening we came to San Francisco, it was nice to be in the city
for a change. We noticed being quite tired of all the driving and
running around so we decided not to plan too much for the weekend and
just relax (let's see about that...).

Miles: ~100 (forgot to check)

Total number of miles on the trip so far: over 5000!

Rosebud

We continued the coastline drive through Highway 1. We stopped for
excellent breakfast in Redwood Cafe in a sleepy tonw of Cambria. Best
breakfast so far during this trip!

Very near fast the first sight of the day, Hearst Castle. The Hearst
Castle was built by William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper magnate from
early 1900s, and the real-life of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. And it
was very Citizen Kane indeed...

Also interesting thing to notice was that the Hearst Castle is the
second-most visited tourist attraction in the states, it's right there
after Disneyland.

Later in the afternoon we drove through Big Sur, stopped every once in
a while to take pictures of the amazing coastline and the sea, and had
a lunch stop in restaurant Nepenthe of the cliff by the shire (Orson
Welles had orginally bought a cottage in the restaurant's place for
his wife Rita Hayworth). On the way we saw elephant seal and otters
among other sea wildlife.

You wouldn't think it but the californian
coast has an abundance of sea mammals and other sea life.

In the evening we arrived to Monterey where we booked a whale watching
trip for the next day, did some laundry and went to fish restaurant
for dinner as you are supposed to do while in Monterey.

Miles: 160

California life: beaches and wine tasting

We started the day with a stroll in the Venice beach, and then headed
to the Pacific Coast Highway, the road which many say to be the most
beautiful in the country. It started with LA beach suburbs (ie.
Malibu), we visited also one beach there, dipped our toes and thought
we haven't come this far to swim in cold water... You wouldn't know it
by looking at the map, but the Pacific ocean is really cold! Water
temperature was around 60-70 F / 16-20 C.

"Lunch stop" was in Santa Barbara, where we strolled around the beach
area and finally went swimming to the Pacific Ocean. It was still cold
but there were so many people around us, we decided to inspire them
with our Northern courage. And after us, someone else also tried it,
so the inspiration worked!

We spent so much time on the beach we ended up missing the lunch time
of the restaurants. so we continued towards San Luis Obispo.

San Luis Obispo was a truly pleasant surprise for us again, we loved
the normal-sized streets with normal-sized houses, where we could
actually walk around the city!

Also a surprise for us was the "culinary" feel of the city, lot of
restaurants offering fresh produce from around the town, as well as
the wines! We ate at Big Sky cafe, again great food, and visited most
technological wine tasting room ever (simply called Taste), with
automatic tasting machines for over hundred wines from the Central
Coast Area, and an elevator/huge rotating shelf for moving casks from
the cellar.

Miles: 202

Las Vegas to Los Angeles

We stayed in late in the Venetian, enjoying the pool in the morning
and having some lunch in one of the Venetian's restaurants: Zeffrino.
It was really good and really authentic north italian cuisine. Service
was also excellent, we had an Italian waiter who was in desperate need
of someone to discuss about football, we mean the REAL football,
soccer.

After lunch we decided to quit Las Vegas while we were ahead; we aimed
towards Los Angeles for a night's stop in Santa Monica. Our original
plan was to go to Death Valley, but we wanted to have a bit more time
to use in California. The trip was a bit boring, just a long
high-speed burn on I-15 through the desert.

Approaching LA, we noticed a halo hovering around the west coast just
over where the highway was going; however when we got closer it
appered to be LA's national weather monument: the smog over the city.

Los Angeles is truly the ultimate car-culture city. When we entered
the greater LA area, we were still 100 miles from Santa Monica beach!
With huge numbers of 8-line highways full of cars everywhere.
Incredible.

Santa Monica is a nice community with good shopping and restaurants
along the walking-only 3rd street, a true difference in the
car-oriented city. Also, seeing the Pacific ocean with its cool
breezes was great change from the mountains and the deserts.

Miles: 296 miles
Mileage: 22,5 mpg (=not very good)

Viva Las Vegas

Everyone recommended us to stay in the Venetian, so we did. Amazing
mock-Venice, the hotel was beautiful and our room full of the glamour
you can expect from Las Vegas. The hotel was also a perfect choice
since the restaurant Bouchon (managed by French Laundry's, the
world's 3rd best restaurant's, owner Thomas Keller) we wanted to eat
in was in that hotel, there were clubs and shops enough to keep us
entertained until late night, since it was totally too hot to walk
anywhere, and impossible to drive.

The heat outside was something we weren't prepared for; it was 110 F /
45 C outside at 5-6 pm, and 98 F / 38 C at 9 am in the morning.

The thing that amazed us the most in Las Vegas, was the fact that we
enjoyed it so much. We had thought it would be too something for us
but we had fun! Ate well, drank a little, gambled a little, spent time
by the pool etc.

Miles: 190 mi

Bryce

Today we were bit tired. "Only" went through the Bryce National Park,
hiked a little in 96F/33C heat and took a detour to Coral Pink Sand
Dunes, and walking there in the sand really took all energy...

We discussed we should have named the blog Leyla's and Petteri's
Amazing Race, we have been running through the sights with such pace -
but we like it.

We stayed the night in a small town of St. George, had quiet evening
to save energy for tomorrow and.... Las Vegas!

North Rim and Little Hollywood

Today we decided to dedicate the whole day for the North Rim of Grand
Canyon. We spent the day looking the views and hiking. The North Rim
is behind a quite long drive, but the drive there is very scenic in
itself. North Rim it is not as touristy (more of a national park and
less of an amusement park) as the South Rim, but we thought it was
definitely worth the drive, scenery was amazing - better than on South
Rim, we thought - and it was much cooler than the South Rim, so nicer
for walking! During one of our hikes down we were met almost
face-to-face with two deer. So if planning a visit to Grand Canyon,
you definetely shouldn't miss North Rim.

We thought we would be done quite early, but it was almost eight when
we got to our city for tonight, Kanab. We had just chosen it from the
map without any knowledge of it being the "Little Hollywood", town
where dozens of movies we filmed, including many Western movies plus
the Planet of the Apes (both versions). Lassie etc... Again just by
luck we came to the Parry Lodge, a beautiful Inn where the movie crews
have stayed. A place you should all see! It had a movie showing in its
old barn (where all movie star horses have slept, they show movies
there all summer nights), "Thunderhead - son of Flickan". Story tells
about a horse, and was filmed here of course! I remembered the movie
from our favourite TV series Gilmore Girls, they've watched it at
least once or twice...

We had a small introduction of the place, the movie, had some popcorn
and soda; a wonderful experience.

Our distance today: 279 mi

Canyons and craters, grand and less so

We started towards our goal of the day, Grand Canyon, on I-40 towards
Flagstaff. Our first stop was Meteor Crater, as name implies, it's a
meteor crater 1 mile across and 300 ft deep. It was interesting enough
by itself but was almost dwarfed by the tourist attraction / museum
complex built alongside it (the attraction, as well as the whole
crater, is in private ownership).

Next stop and a slight detour away from the route was Sedona and Red
Rocks in Oak Canyon. Beautiful rock formations not unlike those around
Moab. Road there was greener than the ones in Utah and beautiful!

We reached our day's main attraction, Grand Canyon, at about 4 pm, an
appropriate time for sight-seeing and photograph-taking. But before we
could enter It, we went through Tusayan, a strange non-town just
outside the national park and home for few hotels and an IMAX theatre
(I wonder to whom it's for; the people who'd rather look at Grand
Canyon on screen less than 5 miles from the real thing).

Grand Canyon is fantastically large, but we missed a bit of the wow-factor perhaps because we had seen stuff like Canyonlands and Black Canyon already on the trip. But it grew on you as you looked at it for longer time, you have to let yourself sit down and let the grandness sink in.Since we decided not to sleep at Tusayan (which was very expensive) we aimed for Cameron, a little town on the map 50 miles from Grand
Canyon. As we approached Cameron and saw absolutely nothing we became
a bit apprehended - where were we going?

Cameron proved to be a collection of little houses on desert at the
crossroads of two small highways. We almost gave up hope of finding
lodging here (it was 7.30pm and we had been travelling since 8.30an),
when we noticed a "trading post", actually a big motel with a
restaurant and a bigger souvenier shop. The motel was very nice with
clean and new rooms. It wasn't cheap (but cheaper than Tusayan's
hotels anyway), but the strangest thing was that they didn't serve or
sell any kind of beer or other alcoholic beverages. Why? We don't know
(and did not dare to ask). We slept well there, beautifully decorated
rooms with Navajo style (pastel colours and geometric patterns somehow
appeal to the Scandinavian taste).

Miles today: 330 mi
Situation of 'heppa' (horsey) game: 20-20

Get your kicks from Route 66

Today our way followed the historical Route 66. First stop was Grants,
an old uranium mining town along route 66, with its mining museum, old
cafes and motels.

Near it we also hiked to an volcano and an ice cave! Some extremes for
the trip. Another theme for the day was the Indian reservation areas,
we drove through many and finished driving to Holbrook (surrounded by
the Navajo nation), where we also saw traditional Navajo dances and
music (not a show exactly, more like people gathered to have easy time
in the park).

Before we came to Holbrook we visited the Petrified Wood and Painted
Desert National Park, the scenery there was at times like from another
planet again.

Holbrook also has one of the great wonders of modern world: a wigwam
village motel! Yes, a motel consisting of concrete wigwams for rooms.
Unfortunately, it was booked full when we arrived to Holbrook :(.
We got into another vintage motel, Desert Motel, which is otherwise
great but we can hear the railroad loudly behind the building...

New Mexico

On Tuesday we spent the day mostly driving. We saw Pat Parelli's (all
horse people know who he is) place in Pagoda Falls and visited his
office, but they did not have any sales items or happening there.

Entering New Mexico, we saw the landscape change once again: mountains
and pinewoods gave way to plains with mostly sagebrush and some
scattered mesas. The place definetely looks as an area where you can
find UFOs, or at least people who think they have found them. That,
and a lot of folk / outsider art.

A nice surprise sight on the way was Rio Grande gorge; we thought we
were content with canyons but they still seem to affect us. This bodes
well for Grand Canyon.

We stopped for late lunch and relaxed stroll in Taos (where we saw a
seat used by Clint Eastwood (and/or the orangutang) in the movie "Any
which way but loose") but decided to drive to Santa Fe for the night
to get bit towards the west. Funny how we noticed thinking about home
more immediately when we 'turned back' towards to the west.

In Santa Fe there was music performance (modern pop version of Native
American music) on the main square, we enjoyed it a lot.

We decided not to eat at a restaurant (all in the center were quite
expensive) but went to Whole Foods for fresh salsa and guacamole, some
olives, nachos and red wine. Which was nice

Miles: 298 mi

Cliff dwellings and more cliff dwellings

We went in the morning to Mesa Verde National Park, it is dedicated to
Ancestral Pueblo Indians houses built inside the mountain mesas. We
went to few guided tours around the places, and I definitely overcame
my fear of heights by climbing some steeeeep and looong ladders...

The tourguide on the second tour started for some reason complaining
that many of the Mesa Verde artifacts were stolen by Nordenskjöld and
now locate somewhere middle of nowhere, in Helsinki Finland! We told
her we are from there and she was quite amazed... We have to find out
where they are in Helsinki!

We spent the whole day in there, and it was clear there would be
plenty to see for another, but we decided to drive to Durango for the
evening.

Durango is an interesting mix of toursim resort and real town. We
followed Allison's recommendation and went to Seasons' for dinner. We
had a 3-course meal with red wine which was just great! We went to
sleep very satisfied.

We decided to skip Silverton tomorrow as the train trip there and back
would take all day.

-Leyla

Miles: 104

Epilogue: We visited the Helsinki Museum of Cultures, there the Mesa Verde artifacts were on display in Tennispalatsi, Helsinki. Funny.

On the road again and surprising locations

On sunday morning we headed back on to the road again, with lot of
places to visit left on our itinerary, but not before replenishing
supplies at the world's third largest Safeway store, located in
Conifer. It was big.

Our target for the day was either Telluride or Durango, a good 400
miles down the road. We started in good weather to head towards
mountain range after another. A couple of miles before Salida we found
the first interesting location: Mt. Antero, 14000 ft high peak. But
better still was on the way...

During one notably-long straight part of the road we came to pass
Colorado's best-known little town: South Park, ample parking day or
night. The town really looked like its cartoon counterpart, down to
its mountain skyline on the background.

Another nice excursion on the road was Black Canyon, a really deep and
astonishing canyon digged to ground by a river. Although you start to
think how many canyons you can see before getting bored with them.

We had a stop at Telluride, a resort town in between mountains with
great scenery and undeveloped lots costing $3.5 million. We decided to
move on.

We finally made our final stop at Cortez, close to Mesa Verde national
park. It was quite common-looking town with not many notable features
of its own. but after 10 hours of driving it felt very nice to have a
place to rest.

Miles: 406 mi

Horses and campfire

yesterday we started the day relaxed in Allison's and Gary's place,
just discussing so intensily that we almost did not make it in time
for the first scheduled thing that day, Swede Gulch stables. We met
Karen, the owner of the place last time I was here. She has a
beautiful boarding stable where she also breeds quarter horses ams
Swedish dressage horses. Me and Petteri ended up riding the Swedish
horses, it was hard work on such altitudes (7500 feet about 2,5km
above sea level).
After that we continued even higher up the mountains, to Jill's and
Scott's place in Conifer. They have 30 acres, we took a little hike
before dinner with their 3 dogs around there.

Nancy and Jim (my hosts from last year) also came for dinner, we had
great food (again) and then sat by a fire outside grilling mashmellows
for s'mores (graham cookies, melted chocolate and marshmellows).
tastes amazing!

-Leyla

Miles: 51

Art and Allison's party

We're couple of days behind in blogging. The following happened on friday:

We started the day at Cherry Creek Arts Fesival (Cherry creek is an
upscale shopping district in Denver). The area was filled with arts
exhibitions, music performances, food stalls and stuff. We ended up
spending most of the day there. Rest of the day was spent either
ogling iPhone at Apple center, or hunting for a new camera (my camera
broke down, mirror reflex). Ended up buying a new Canon 30D to replace
the old one (and old it was, 5 yrs already!).

In the evening we found our way to Allison's and Gary's home where
they hosted a party on their beautiful rooftop deck with amazing view
of Denver downtown. It was fun to see all the people, and with good
food, beverages and great company we stayed up to wee hours.

Miles: 20 around Denver

Big city life

Yesterday was our first city day. We spent the morning of it in Red Rocks and nearby dinosaur ridge, there were dinoraus tracks and all other interesting things.

After that we drove to the downtown area and went to the Nature&Science museum. There was Titanic exhibition (artifacts they have brought from the wreck). Great exhibition, really well put together, and amazing how well they had preserved some atrifacts (like papers which were readable after spending over 90 years in the bottom of the ocean). They gave everyone a Boarding pass when we came in, telling your story (real passengers of the Titanic) and after the exhibition you could see did you survive or not. Leyla did (35 yr old woman in 3rd class cabin losing two boys), I did not (60 year old male). We continued the Titanic experience in the IMAX theather with the movie about James Cameroon's another expedition to Titanic after filming the movie.


The evening we spent with Julia and Susan, they took us to Cherry Creek and there to Asian restaurant Little Ollie's. Great food and fun! The art festival had already some artists on display so we walked slowly through the area.

Miles today: 58mi

Fireworks of 4th of July

We started preparing for the party in the early morning. We had decided to make Finnsh specialties, mushroom salad and rhubarb-strawberry pie with vanilla sauce. The only thing was that the ingredients were not quite the same, the oven temperature was in Fahrenheit, the measures different so we ended up doing it just based on the feeling. Especially the pie (we made it gluten-free to add to difficulty level), we didn't have any recipes at hand. But, luckily enough everything tasted like it should!

The party was in Cindi's place (she didn't make it there herself until late) but we had a great time relaxing by the pool, barbecuing and enjoying ourselves. I got a swimming lesson from the kids they were so exited they could do it better than some adult! We got to meet Cindy's parents and other great people, it was really fun!

On our way home we stopped to see the fireworks, it rained few drops and when we got home it was raining. The fireworks were beautiful and we got great seats to watch them!


Miles today: none

Saddle sore

We amazed our hosts at the Elkhorn Lodge by not enjoying their free beer and wine too much, since we woke up at 6.30am to go for a 4 hour ride in the National Park. This stable was more touristy than the Rusty Spurr Ranch and the rules of the use in National Park didn't allow more than walking with the horses. But four hours walk is still quite enough, especially when we are not used to the Western saddles. The views were amazing, we climbed up hills so steep and rocky I would never take my own horse to such, and saw deer and other smaller animals on our way.

After the ride and a shower (really needed at that point), we headed towards Denver. We stopped for a lunch in Boulder, in the Tajikistan tearoom we had visited also last time I was here. I remembered the place to be unique and food was great, and so it was even today. At the counter there we met the first Finnish-origin American for this trip, a young girl who after seeing our name asked whether we were from Finland and then spoke perfect Finnish. Her mom was Finnish and obviously been talking Finnish to her, she had only slight accent in her speaking.

Then we arrived to Cindy's and were welcomed by excellent meal and a trip to Costco (wholesale supermarket the American way, I was so amazed) where they had e.g. one gallon mustard bottles for sale (honestly who needs one gallon of mustard??? 3,8 litres!!!).

Miles today: 77mi
On horseback: 15mi

Over the continental divide

We had breakfast at Kremmling's Moose restaurant, we have almost
become regulars! Then we jumped to PT Cruiser and headed towards Estes
Park through Rocky Mountains National Park. The drive itself was not
too long, but we were glad we had planned a full day for it.

In RMNP as it is known locally we got to break some altitude records:
driving an hiking (well, at this point it really can't be called
hiking, rather than just walking really slow) at the height of 3700 m
/ 12000 ft above sea level.

Accomodation we found in Estes Park in Elkhorn Lodge, a very
old-fahsioned and charming hotel that is quite worn down looking but
incredebly homely and quiant. It is almost empty as the owners are
planning to sell it. The big, empty hallways and banquet rooms make
for stephen king -esque feel at the hotel (even though there in
another hotel in Estes Park that was used in filming the Shining).
Additional bonus is the free beer and wine (they are emptying their
stock) as self service.

Miles today: 116 (not much but took most of the time still)

Kremmling - center of the universe

We spent the whole day in good care of Katrina's and Mark's. We saw
the new chamber of commerce building, went horseback riding on the
hills, and saw lots of fossilised sea life laying on the ground.

the ride was beatiful scenery and great western horses, fast in their
turns and really sensitive.

In the evening we went to see Cindy's cabin and got run afer by their
neighbourhood watchman who mistook us for burglars.

At Katrina's and Mark's home we did hummingbird, deer and beaver
sighting with good results, after which we continued previous nights
discussion until late.
Had a great time!

Going to Colorado

Yesterday was also a travel day, we concentrated on getting to Kremmling from Moab, mostly driving on I-70.

We did have a stop at one of our preplanned locations, Fruita, the home of Mike the Headless Chicken. I must say Fruita was a surprisingly cheerful and lively town, clearly a change from the small towns of US50. We saw the statue of Mike (which incidentally was made by the same person who had made art at Hole N" the Rock), but unluckily for us, the shop selling Mike merchandise was closed! So sorry guys, no Mike the headless chicken souveniers for you. We also checked out the Dinosaur Museum in Fruita, which was kinda cool.

When crossing the broder of Colorado, it felt that somehow we had reached the goal of our journey, and we are exited of this next week. More people with whom we can reflect what we have seen.

We spent the night at Katrina's (who was one of the girls visiting us in Finland last year on GSE trip) in Kremmling where we were served with great barbecue dinner. we had fun night full of discussions and we managed to stay up past midnight (seems were done with the time difference!)

Total number of miles: 315

Red Stone

Yesterday we decided to have a "resting day" today and not make journey forward from Moab. Moab has enough things to see and do to warrant two nights' stay, and we saved a day yesterday when we decided to skip Salt Lake City.

We started the morning early and went to see Arches National Park before the heat got too bad. Still it was warm enough :). There we had an opportunity to hike a bit, which was welcomed change from just sitting in the car! Even though we did only short and easy hikes, the thin air made us loose our breath.

After that, it was past noon and we decided to have a little R&R in our motel's pool area. Where we stayed for full 5 minutes and left again to see new stuff!

In the afternoon we saw Hole n' the rock, which was pretty strange (google it to see what it's about) and some amazing scenery again in Canyon Rim recreational area.

The most amazing picnic table spot I've ever seen was in there, at the Needles Lookout. Really empty, distance spot (not actually inside the National Park and probably that's why not so known, but the scenery was breathtaking. No point of taking pictures, they will never tell it all.

Total number of miles (during the resting day...): 245
Distance made good: 0
Car comment of the day: for the first time we washed the front part of the car. It was caked with insects. Leyla suggested we wouldn't wash it for the whole period of the trip to keep as a trophy of sorts, but we decided against it for aesthetic reasons.

Lady's life on the road

Here some female perspective to our road trip.

First, I just love the driving! Especially the morning, when you feel fresh and eager to get going. If I could choose, I would probably drive the first leg every morning (I haven't told Petteri, he is supposed to read my mind, isn't he? The best relationships are not based on talking, but reading each other's minds?). Patsy (the car) is also amazing (I cannot understand why she should not have a name only cause she cannot speak like Jaanika. Our dog and horse have names and I've never heard them speak...) Anyway, Patsy is made to please and planned for our comfort. I do like the automatic gears, even though they let me down when passing other cars, Patsy isn't too fast reading my mind either. She may be bit slow in her turns and not too sporty on the uphill drives, but she is a great companion on the long drives, which are plenty in this country, I would guess.

Other great companions are the different fragrant sprays, I do have one for body, one for hair,face and feet. I want to smell like flowers even after hours of driving! the facial spray, available in the Finnish pharmacies (Favora Virkistävä kasvosuihke) is a must for all long air trips, car trips and long days in the office, you can spray it over makeup and it makes you feel so good! You notice that the driving days need some practicing, especially in the amount of breaks, food and drinks to carry in the car, I do get really easily annoyed if I do not get something to eat when I get hungry (nälkäkiukku)... Luckily we are learning fast and the second day already was far easier than the first one. The basic thing is to listen to your self (and also Petteri) and not try to see too much or be too fast, stop whenever you feel like it.

It is also important that you see the things that interest you, luckily we share similar interests with Petteri! Now I need to go, continue some other time.

Salt lakes and canyons

When we left Ely this morning, we had not yet planned where to go exactly, we continued the loneliest road, and saw really amazing sights and after the Great Basin National Park we were pondering whether to continue to Salt Lake City, Dinosaur National monument (norther) or go to Moab. Somehow the 400mile detour to Salt Lake City just did not seem worth it (and now anyone who thinks otherwise, please don't tell us), so we decided to come to Moab and spend here probably two nights. Moab seems to be a nice little tourist town (in a good way) there is plenty of choice in restaurants, accomodation and shops. We decided that our criteria for motel includes now a pool, the temperature is getting high (and the chocolate we brought from Finland is melting away...) and dipping to the pool after the journey was just wonderful.

Oh, speaking of wonderful, we came across an amazingly cozy diner in tiny tiny city of Salina, Utah, Mom's Cafe. They were proud of their food and for a reason. Anyone ever getting chance to go to Salina, go there (and this is probably the only reason to go to Salina anyway). We have been quite lucky with our choices of restaurants and motels, they nearly all have had some special in them. Lucky us!

Best spots on the way apart from the ones mentioned:
- Dried salt lake (Servier lake if I remember correctly) - weird feeling to be on the shore with absolutely no one around
- The portion of US50 next to this lake - completely empty straight of at least 20 miles.
- I-70 east coming towards Green River - absolutely magnicifient scenery

Miles today: 302

We really should have brought a laptop with us

Mobile blogging is not all it's cracked up to be. Even though all hotels so far have had free wi-fi, the whole moblogging experience leaves us lacking a bit still. And the free-to-use computers in hotels are either so old or so badly managed that blogger and gmail and such don't seem to work (javascript, activeX etc problems).

Oh well, maybe it's not too late to buy an macbook or something here :) the problem of course in that are the keyboards :(. Nokia internet tablet maybe?

Loneliest road in america

We started our day with a 100-mile drive to lake Tahoe. We decided not to go through South Lake Tahoe as there were the wildfires still going. And as we reached Zephyr cove, we noticed some smell of smoke there also, as well as some smoke clouds around the south part of the lake.

From Lake Tahoe we aimed towards US50. After driving past Fallon we started to notice where the name comes from. Ridiculously long straigths of some 5 miles with nothing than shrubbery for miles and miles.

Some more interesting stops on the way:
- Petroglyphs in 2 separate locations (interesting also in the sense that a lot of parking space but no visitors other than us)
- Sand Mountain (200m high mountain of sand. Yep.)

Now we are staying in historic Hotel Nevada in Ely, NV, in a room next to one Jimmy Steward used at least once. We were planning to spend the night in Eureka, but we still had some energy to drive so decided to continue.

Oh, and PT Cruiser is a gift that keeps on giving: today we found out that it has satellite radio! The only qualm we have with it is that is has the turn radius of an ocean liner... even though today we did not need to turn too often, we just let the cruise control do the work and
we admired the emptiness.

Miles today: 428
of which on interstates: 0

First day behind!

After going to sleep at 7.30 pm and waking up at 5 am, we were ready to start our 6000-km journey. We headed out of SF at 8 am towards Yosemite National Park, where (after detouring to buy hiking shoes for me) we arrived at around 2 pm, having seen many different types of vistas on the way.

Yosemite was beautiful, especially the valley and El Capitan, but also Tioga pass road, which was the highest point where i've ever been in a car (~9600 ft ~ 3000 m).

Now we are at Bridgeport, a small town with surprisingly many motels Maybe the fishing here is especially good.

Total number of miles today: 295

Named our navigator's guidance woman voice as 'Jaanika'. This is mainly because she speaks almost-good finnish with certain pronunciation mistakes. Leyla also wanted to name the car in her burst of anthropomorhpication, but I refused.

Tomorrow.: the loneliest road through Nevada.

Safely in SF!

Now in san fransisco! the plane trip was ok, leaving in the early morning worked for us. the tomtom navigator found us fine to the motel, voice of a lady repeating again and again in Finnish"oikealle".

the motel was clean and nice, we decided to join immediately the rewards club, we might end up staying some nights with
the same chain and gain something... even though I have never experienced such thing, but this might be the first time. We plan to still go shop for some basics and go eat out and then most probably sleep.

For all you who are interested: the car is a PT Cruiser. I'm yet to discover the number of hp, as total driving today was about 5 miles Which was good since we had about 18 hours of solid uptime under our belts.

Ps. SF looks great!

Packing

We need to pack this weekend! The plan is to pack something warmish for California, something less for rest of the trip, but all tips greeted with delight, what we must remember to bring? Is there mosquitos?

Here some list we have created:

sunscreen
sunglasses
maps and other navigation aids (the digital version has proven to be quite diffucult to get working in my phone)
iPod with the car plugin
clothes

Setting up to go

Ok, using most of the last day at work to set up various ways to blog on the road, including email and mobile blogging.

Let's see if we can get it working.

Preparing for the trip

Lots of emailing, lots of web browsing, lots of printing.

Today we got loads of travel guides, even though we are getting to have a basic plan for the trip (and rightly so, just under a week to go!). But we'll still keep our options open for new possibilities on the road. Just today adjusted the plan to incorporate New Mexico.

The rough plan is as follows (click on the map for details):

Oh the joys of Web 2.0!

Couple of days to go, we'll post some stuff before leaving Finland... maybe