Itinerary - Day 10

Day 10 has us back on the road again, this time traveling from Glacier National Park in Montana to North Cascades National Park in Washington. It's going to be a rough drive, 580 miles and an estimated travel time of 11 hours.

The ride will take us through Idaho, another state to add to Josh's list, and into Washington passing through the city of Spokane, Washington. I'm guessing that after 4 days in Glacier National Park, we'll probably be ready to find a supermarket to stock up on some supplies. Spokane should provide plenty of opportunities for us to do that.

When we finally arrive at North Cascades National Park, it will probably be early in the evening, so we'll have to focus on getting our camp set up and winding down after the long day in the car. Tomorrow will be spent hiking in the park. More on that in the next post.

Itinerary - Days 6, 7, 8 and 9

After five days of driving, we will arrive in Glacier National Park. I've wanted to see this park for a long time, and now we're finally going to get our chance.

The park is located in the Northwest corner of Montana, and crosses the Canadian border. On the Canadian side of the border, the park is named Waterton Lakes National Park. This park is all about natural beauty, and is dominated by mountains, lakes, grassy meadows, and yes ... glaciers. Sadly, some estimates indicate that as soon as 2030, all of the glaciers in the park will be gone, so Josh and I are fortunate to get this opportunity to see these natural wonders before they're gone.

We plan to spend these four days seeing the park on foot, in the car, and we might take a whitewater rafting trip and possibly even a horseback ride. There are countless hikes we can take, and as hard as it may be to believe, four days will hardly be enough to see everything, so we're going to have to focus on a limited number of things to see.

Another option may include a drive across the border into Canada to see the Canadian part of the park, and to make a beer run!

Having four full days here will also give us a chance to relax in the evening at our campground, since we won't have to worry about packing up and moving on. It will be nice to be able to just hang out, play some games and spend some quality time together. Josh is looking forward to doing a lot of the cooking on this trip, and I'm looking forward to having him do it!!!

That's really all there is to say for now. Our next stop will be North Cascades National Park, in Washington state. More on that in the next post.

Itinerary - Days 3, 4 and 5

On day 3, we will travel from Alma Center, WI to Bismark, North Dakota. It's another long drive, 572 miles, that is estimated to take approximately 9 hours.

Along the way, we'll be passing through Minneapolis, Minnesota, so right now, the plan is to take a little detour to stop and check out the Mall of America. We won't be able to stay long, but I figured it would be pretty cool to check it out, since we'll be so close to it.

After visiting the mall, we'll then continue on to Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, passing though Fargo, ND on the way. After spending the night, we'll continue on to our next stop first thing in the morning.

Day 4 has us traveling from Bismark, ND to Billings, Montana. The good news, is that at least we'll have finally arrived in the state that our first “real” destination is located in. 

Also, as a little bonus for today's drive, we'll have the opportunity to stop at Theodore Roosevelt National Park along the way. It's not an often-visited park, but given that we have to drive right through the middle of it, it certainly seems reasonable to stop and spend some time there.

From what I've determined, 2 – 3 hours should be enough to “see” the highlights of this park, and possibly even take a short hike. At this point, we'll have traveled approximately 1800 miles, since we started, and I'm sure it will feel good to have some time to get out of the car and walk around a bit.

After visiting the park, we'll continue on our way to Billings, the largest city in Montana, where we'll spend the night. The next day is a big day, as we'll finally reach our first destination, Glacier National Park.

On day 5, we will arrive at Glacier National Park, our first “real” destination of our trip. On our way from Billings, MT, we're going to take another small detour, this time to stop in Cut Bank, MT. The purpose of this stop is that this will be our last opportunity for anything resembling a real supermarket for the next 7 days. Our travel for this day has us driving approximately 400 miles, in somewhere near 6 hours and 30 minutes. We're actually going to be staying in the small town of St. Mary, MT, on the Eastern edge of Glacier National Park.

Tomorrow, we'll spend the day in Glacier National Park.

Itinerary - Days 1 And 2

We'll be leaving from our home on July 25. I hope to be on the road by 8:00 am at the latest. The first five days of our trip will be spent getting to our first “real” destination, Glacier National Park.

I decided to break the drive up over five days, instead of four, to allow us to make a couple of little detours and stops along the way, at various points of interest.

Day one will simply be a marathon drive, covering approximately 567 miles. Hopefully, we'll be able to do it in roughly 9 hours, but construction delays and stop time may dictate othewise. 

We'll be staying overnight near Perrysburg, Ohio, which is a little to the South of Toledo. As far as I know, there's really nothing terribly exciting about Perrysburg, so it's just going to be a way-point on our journey West.

Day two takes us from Perrysburg, Ohio to Alma Center, Wisconsin. We'll be traveling through Chicago, Illinois on the way, but we don't have any plans to stop. Of course, the draw of Chicago style pizza for lunch, may be too much to overcome.

One of the by-products of our travels over the years, is that Josh is well on his way to having visited all 50 U.S. states. Michigan is one that is missing from his list, and since we're going to be driving just a few miles South of the Michigan/Indiana border, we plan to take a little detour into Michigan, so that we can add it to Josh's list of states visited. We have two options for this, one which will just take us a couple of miles into Michigan for a short drive, or the second which will take us through the cities of Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, however, this option adds about 60 miles to our drive for the day. We'll probably decide along the way which option to take.

Today's drive is approximately 532 miles, if we take the shorter option through Michigan. We'll be spending the night near Alma Center, Wisconsin. Like Perrysburg, Ohio, there really doesn't seem to be anything at all interesting about Alma Center, WI, although from the sign, it's apparently the strawberry capital of Wisconsin! We'll just spend the night and head out first thing the next morning.

Next up, days 3 and 4.

The Sequel

When Josh and I embarked upon our "Excellent Adventure" two years ago, we talked about doing a follow-up trip that would take us to to the Pacific Northwest, and would include Glacier National Park, Olympic National Park and whatever other places we could find in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Northern California.

In just about seven weeks, we will undertake that follow-up trip as our "Bogus Journey" ... well, hopefully not.

Our motivation was provided by my nephew, and Josh's cousin, Alex, and his girlfriend Stacy, who are taking a similar nationwide trip of their own, just a few weeks before Josh and I are scheduled to begin our trip. After hearing their plans, I was energized to put together the trip that Josh and I had talked about taking two years earlier.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be adding posts to this blog, outlining our itinerary and planned adventures. During the trip, I hope once again to be able to post near-daily updates to the blog, including pictures, to document our exploits, and as a way to stay in touch with Patty & Rachel back home. Of course, I'll also encourage Josh to add his thoughts to the blog as well.

Jumping straight to the numbers, this time round, our trip will be 25 days long, will have us traveling through 20 states, visiting at least 8 national parks, and driving more than 7200 miles.

It should be another epic adventure, and I hope you'll join us via this blog!