Yearn to Wander
The Journey Home
Autumn is a wonderful time to travel if you like the colors. But leaving Armstrong made us feel a bit melancholy because we left behind La Chien d'Ora (the Golden Girl), Die Blau Blitzen (the Blue Lightening), and Mama Sita, the three canines, and Miss Round Heels, the nine month old kid, all animals we'd come to really like during our stay. Plus we had thoroughly enjoyed the people, the food, and the natural beauty throughout our travels in BC. Provincial license plates proclaim BC "The Most Beautiful Place on Earth." I think they're right.
From Armstrong, we headed south on Highway 97, the longest single numbered highway in North America (from the Yukon-BC border to Weed, California). Later we would pick up Highway 200 to cross Idaho for Missoula, Montana and Interstate 90, from Missoula home. Both offered lovely scenery, and a nice summary of our fun journey.
Our first stop, Kelowna, just 80 km south, was a good resting point. We'd fallen in love with it the first time. It's another Okanangan Valley town that's full of flowers and surrounded by vineyards and orchards, as well as next to a eighty mile long, half mile wide glacial lake. From there, we followed the Valley, along Highway 97, into Washington State. The terrain remained the same, but ranching crept into the land use and displaced some of the high density use by vineyards and orchards north of the border.
Shortly we turned east through two national forests, the Okanagan and Colville, through Republic, an old mining town to Spokane. In the forests, short hikes were good for stretching legs and hunting for more mushrooms. The Tamarisk was turning golden as this unique deciduous conifer prepared to shed its needles until spring. In Spokane, we spent two days scouting the town, and decided we'd like to return.
From there we picked up Highway 200, that same "blue highway" we'd traveled earlier across Montana. I'd wanted to complete its length across Montana. While I-90 is pretty in Montana, MT 200 follows the Clark Fork River, non-stop breath-taking scenery, all the way to Missoula. There we put the pedal to the metal to cruise on home in three days.
Across Montana the mountain ranges came and went from view. Fun names like the Absarokas, the Gallatins, and the Big Horns, where ice fields shielded much of the north face, treated us from afar. The road elevation declined from five and six thousand feet to four as we entered the high plains grasslands with intermittent mixed forests of conifers and softwood deciduous. We clipped the northeastern corner of Wyoming, where Powder River Basin is. Forty per cent of America's coal reserves are close to the surface, and from there 150 car trains depart many times daily in every direction.
We interrupted the cruise in South Dakota for a quick tour of the Badlands. The ancient seas that covered central North America millions of years ago could be imagined, and a cutaway showed how long prairie grass roots help prevent erosion. Across South Dakota, fields of hay bales were ready for winter fodder; drying sunflowers and corn, no longer yellow, awaited harvest; and bright green winter wheat soaked up the sun before the cold, snowy winter would let it go dormant until spring.
In Minnesota, two sights stood out: our first wind-farms of the entire journey and a different way of harvesting corn. (I've seen many in Wyoming on previous trips, but none anywhere on this trip.) Half a dozen wind-farms dotted the landscape. Some were under construction. A couple blades were en route as wide cargo; they were 131 feet long. One farm had nearly 150 turbines that would produce about 1.4 megawatts, enough to provide electricity for several hundred average homes -- if the wind blows.
Minnesota farmers harvested their corn differently from what we saw in BC. In Minnesota they separated the corn cobs from the stalks, baled the stalks for a lower quality silage, and left the ground covered which harvest residue. In BC we saw the farmers cutting and shredding the entire corn plant, and leaving short stubble in almost clear fields. Does anyone know why the processes are different?
Good-by to the West for now. The Mississippi River had arrived. Along it and across Wisconsin the final days of the autumn color were in bloom. Here reds and oranges mixed with yellows, instead of mostly yellows in the West. It was beginning to feel good to be back in the Midwest, especially as we enjoyed our last dinner overlooking Lake Como, near Lake Geneva, with a crane catching his evening dinner of shiners in the shallows of the lake at sunset.
Now, we'll have to wait to see how long we'll be home and where we'll head next. Stay tuned! Thank you for sharing our journey.
PS I still owe you entries about the bark beetle infestations, wildland fires, and my new found interest: mushrooms. Other articles may be added, too. They will be posted in general order of occurrence of their subject, but article date will show date of posting. In the meantime, we're enjoying reconnecting.
Our first stop, Kelowna, just 80 km south, was a good resting point. We'd fallen in love with it the first time. It's another Okanangan Valley town that's full of flowers and surrounded by vineyards and orchards, as well as next to a eighty mile long, half mile wide glacial lake. From there, we followed the Valley, along Highway 97, into Washington State. The terrain remained the same, but ranching crept into the land use and displaced some of the high density use by vineyards and orchards north of the border.
Shortly we turned east through two national forests, the Okanagan and Colville, through Republic, an old mining town to Spokane. In the forests, short hikes were good for stretching legs and hunting for more mushrooms. The Tamarisk was turning golden as this unique deciduous conifer prepared to shed its needles until spring. In Spokane, we spent two days scouting the town, and decided we'd like to return.
From there we picked up Highway 200, that same "blue highway" we'd traveled earlier across Montana. I'd wanted to complete its length across Montana. While I-90 is pretty in Montana, MT 200 follows the Clark Fork River, non-stop breath-taking scenery, all the way to Missoula. There we put the pedal to the metal to cruise on home in three days.
Across Montana the mountain ranges came and went from view. Fun names like the Absarokas, the Gallatins, and the Big Horns, where ice fields shielded much of the north face, treated us from afar. The road elevation declined from five and six thousand feet to four as we entered the high plains grasslands with intermittent mixed forests of conifers and softwood deciduous. We clipped the northeastern corner of Wyoming, where Powder River Basin is. Forty per cent of America's coal reserves are close to the surface, and from there 150 car trains depart many times daily in every direction.
We interrupted the cruise in South Dakota for a quick tour of the Badlands. The ancient seas that covered central North America millions of years ago could be imagined, and a cutaway showed how long prairie grass roots help prevent erosion. Across South Dakota, fields of hay bales were ready for winter fodder; drying sunflowers and corn, no longer yellow, awaited harvest; and bright green winter wheat soaked up the sun before the cold, snowy winter would let it go dormant until spring.
In Minnesota, two sights stood out: our first wind-farms of the entire journey and a different way of harvesting corn. (I've seen many in Wyoming on previous trips, but none anywhere on this trip.) Half a dozen wind-farms dotted the landscape. Some were under construction. A couple blades were en route as wide cargo; they were 131 feet long. One farm had nearly 150 turbines that would produce about 1.4 megawatts, enough to provide electricity for several hundred average homes -- if the wind blows.
Minnesota farmers harvested their corn differently from what we saw in BC. In Minnesota they separated the corn cobs from the stalks, baled the stalks for a lower quality silage, and left the ground covered which harvest residue. In BC we saw the farmers cutting and shredding the entire corn plant, and leaving short stubble in almost clear fields. Does anyone know why the processes are different?
Good-by to the West for now. The Mississippi River had arrived. Along it and across Wisconsin the final days of the autumn color were in bloom. Here reds and oranges mixed with yellows, instead of mostly yellows in the West. It was beginning to feel good to be back in the Midwest, especially as we enjoyed our last dinner overlooking Lake Como, near Lake Geneva, with a crane catching his evening dinner of shiners in the shallows of the lake at sunset.
Now, we'll have to wait to see how long we'll be home and where we'll head next. Stay tuned! Thank you for sharing our journey.
PS I still owe you entries about the bark beetle infestations, wildland fires, and my new found interest: mushrooms. Other articles may be added, too. They will be posted in general order of occurrence of their subject, but article date will show date of posting. In the meantime, we're enjoying reconnecting.
ms
2010-10-31
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