Road Trip to Chicago - June 2016

During Early June I made a road trip to Chicago Illinois.  The purpose of the trip was to deliver Nancy’s car to her daughter who lives in Chicago.  Nancy was in Montana already so I drove from Sacramento to Montana where I picked up Nancy and we drove from there to Chicago.  Of course the trip was a more or less leisurely trip with plenty of opportunity to see various sights and oddities along the way.

I started from Sacramento on Thursday morning and made the well traveled path (for me) up I-80 to Truckee and into Nevada.  I passed through Reno and Winnemucca and stayed the first night in Elko.  I have stayed in Elko many times and I quite like the town. I stayed at the Thunderbird Motel, an old hotel in downtown with a wonderful old neon sign and I dined in perhaps the best place in the downtown area - Luciano’s.

The next morning it was more of I-80 to the down-on-its-heels town of Wells.  I drove around the older part of town which has lots of old motels, bars and casinos that are now closed and deserted.  What a sad but interesting place.   Once a lively town and now passed-by by the freeway.

The Wild West Inn, Jackpot, Nevada

North from Wells I headed for Idaho on Highway 93.  The border town on the Nevada side is the aptly named Jackpot.  It has a much grander and modern casino but not half as interesting as downtown Wells.  

The first large town in Idaho was Twin Falls.  I didn’t see any falls, but I did wander around town a bit before lunching in a mediocre coffee shop. Twin Falls is unusual in that it is not laid out in a N-S grid like most towns, it is on a 45 degree grid. That is a bit confusing especially when there are still North and South named streets.

Snake River outside Twin Falls

From Twin Falls I traveled East towards Pocatello.  On the road there was an overlook where apparently there is evidence of old wagon trail ruts from the Oregon Trail.  I saw the sign in a field of long grass and I wandered around for a while, but I couldn’t make out any ruts.

I skirted around Pocatello and headed north on I-15 to Blackfoot.  Blackfoot has the honor of hosting the Idaho Potato Museum.  A must see if you are passing that way but I wouldn’t make a detour to visit it - not the most interesting museum, though they do have a nice collection of potato mashers (really - an entire display case full of them covering one wall).   Out of state visitors can get a free packet of dehydrated potatoes if they should need one.

The Idaho Potato Museum, Blackfoot

From Blackfoot I diverted off the Interstate to Highway 26 towards Atomic City and Arco in search of the first Nuclear Power Station in the world.  I thought Atomic City might be the location but not quite it is out in the middle of nowhere - EBR-1, the first working power station that generated nuclear power.  They only generated enough power to illuminate 3 light bulbs but it was the first time it had been done and it proved the concept.  The facility is now devoid of nuclear fuel and is open as a museum.  Fascinating to think that they did this back in 1951 out here in the middle of Idaho.   Also on the site is a prototype engine for a nuclear powered aircraft.  The project was canceled before it was ever mounted in an actual aircraft.  There is currently a lot of nuclear research going on at the nearby Idaho National Labs (INL).  On the road to Atomic City I was passed by several large anonymous buses taking employees from INL to Pocatello.  No one lives on the INL site and one wonders what they get up to out there.

The first two light bulbs powered by Nuclear Power

EBR 1 Reactor, Idaho

After the EBR-1 museum I continued into Arco.  This is the first town to receive its electric power from a nuclear power station (EBR-2 I think).  In the middle of the town is the conning tower from a submarine - the serial number of the submarine is 666 (a number that has dark significance to some people) and the boat has been referred to as the Devil’s Boat.  The link between the city and the submarine is the fact that in the nearby Idaho National Labs research was carried out on the power unit for nuclear powered submarines.

The Devil's Boat Conning Tower

From Arco continuing on Highway 26 brings you to the Craters of the Moon National Park.  This is a volcanic area with lava flows, lava tubes, splatter cones and all sorts of other surface volcanic activity.  It would probably be a pretty hot and inhospitable place in the summer but when I visited in the late afternoon at the end of spring it was quite pleasant.  But the crowning glory was not the geology it was the flowers - they were in bloom and the black volcanic soil was covered with small purple flowers.

Craters of the Moon National Park

I drove around the park and then headed out towards Sun Valley for the evening.  Sun Valley was a bit affluent (and high priced) and I ended up staying in the slightly more downmarket Hailey.  In the evening I visited Ernest Hemingway’s grave in Ketchum.  A simple granite gravestone under a tree in the cemetery.  It was adorned by lots of pennies and a bottle of white wine and a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Ernest Hemingway's Grave

The next day, Saturday, I drove up through Sun Valley and then through Wood River Valley and the Sawtooth Range.  A wonderful drive through some amazing country.  I breakfasted in Stanley which is a bit of an outdoor center for rafters, canoers, hikers and campers.  The Stanley Museum was worth a look - built to a high standard by the Conservation Corps.  

Continuing on Highway 75 the road down the Salmon River Valley was beautiful.  I stopped at the small museum in Clayton which is full of all sorts of historical artifacts.  There I met a refugee from the LA area who had sold up and moved with her husband to Clayton.  Life for them in Clayton sounded idyllic and a whole lot cheaper than LA.  They were even a mixed race couple and that surprised me given Idaho’s white supremacist reputation.  Continuing on past hot springs, where the water was indeed very hot, I headed north on highway 93, still alongside the Salmon River, into Challis and Salmon, the Bitterroots, into Montana and finally ending the day in Missoula.

Missoula is quite a nice town - a university town on the Clark Fork River with a nice feel to it.  My friend John Griffing who is from Missoula told me that I should hike up the mountain above Montana State University as far as the M.  Many towns in the USA have a large initial for the town marked on the hills above the town (presumably to help identify the town to passing aircraft?  I don’t know.).  Anyway the Missoula M is a nice one and from the top you have a nice view of the town below.  It was a popular early evening hike amongst the locals too.

The M in Missoula

I also visited the Kettlehouse Brewing Company (also on John G’s suggestion) to sample their product.  Alas a brewing facility in Montana has to close at 8:00pm and I was too late.  There are some strange licensing laws in many places in the US.

The next morning I drove north still on Highway 93 to Ravalli to the bottom end of Flathead Lake where I turned off to go up the east side of the lake to Bigfork where I picked up Nancy who was staying with friends there.  Bigfork was quite affluent and there is obviously a lot money floating around in the area.  Lots of high end homes and developments.

From Big Fork we drove north to Whitefish, another high end touristy place, and we ended up staying at a nice lodge just outside Whitefish overlooking the lake.    After all the driving it was a welcome rest for me.  For recreation that afternoon we rented a jet ski and traversed the length and breadth of Whitefish Lake.  It was lots of fun, even when Nancy was driving.

McDonald Creek, Glacier National Park

Moving on the next morning we drove into Glacier National Park.  There is a road through the park called “Going to the Sun Road”.  While it was still closed with winter snow, we drove up as high as we could go, past Lake McDonald, up alongside McDonald Creek until the road was gated.  We then walked up the road for an hour or so before returning to the car and driving south.

It was another stunningly beautiful ride south through the magnificent Montana countryside.  We dropped down into Helena, the state capital and took a look around there.  The capitol building is quite impressive and to our surprise it was open and you could just walk in.  Admittedly there  was no legislature in session but there was no entry fee, no security check, it was just completely open to all.  You can’t do that in Sacramento.

Capitol Building, Helena, MT

Just south of Helena we came across a group of metal sculptured horses placed on the hillside adjacent to the road.  What an interesting sight - from a distance they looked real.

Horse Sculptures

From Helena we pushed on to Bozeman where we stayed for the night.  Bozeman was another very appealing town.  Also a college town with many beautiful buildings in the downtown area.

The Station Building, Livingston, Montana

From Bozeman, the next morning we drove east to Livingston and took time to investigate a little.  It was an old railroad town (Northern Pacific Railroad) and it housed a sort of interesting railroad museum in the old station building.  There were lots of fine buildings in town showing that it once was quite a significant railroad town.  It is now one of the gateways into Yellowstone National Park.

Traveling east on I-90 from Livingston we hit Billings for a late lunch.  Unlike the other Montana towns, Billings did not look at all appealing. Nothing there made us want to stop and look around.

Just south-east of Billings is Little Big Horn - the Little Big Horn National Monument to be exact.  The site of George Armstrong Custer’s Last Stand.  It is quite a moving exhibit.  There are markers wherever they could identify where a soldier or indian was killed.  The hillside is scattered with these markers.  There is an adjacent cemetery where many of the soldiers and indians are buried (it is a military cemetery so there are also those from other conflicts too) and there is a more modern sculpture arrangement to commemorate the Native American dead.

Little Big Horn Memorial Site - the black gravestone is Custer's 

We continued on to the east on highway 12 stopping for dinner in the town Broadus. A very small town with only one restaurant as far as we could see, the Powder River Stockman’s Club.  There wasn’t much of a choice on the menu but the spaghetti special worked for me.  It’s hard to imagine what life would be like living in such a place as Broadus.  You are a long way from anywhere down in that part of Montana.

We drove through the dark through the rest of Montana, a little corner of Wyoming and into South Dakota before stopping in Deadwood.  Somehow we got a room at an old hotel in town which had quite ornate rooms, with a bathtub, a four poster bed and lots of quilts and cushiony things.  The lower part of the hotel was a casino, but it was not very active.  In fact Deadwood looked pretty Dead at that time of night (near midnight).

Wild Bill Hickock's Grave

Next day we arose to a more lively Deadwood.  We walked up to the cemetery on the hill where Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane are buried (next to each other) and wandered down the main street of the old town.  It was full of tee shirt shops, bars and casinos.  Nothing of any interest to me.  There was on the outskirts of the old town an Indian motorcycle repair/rebuild shop.  It was quite richly appointed, a testament to the high price of such motorcycles these days.  In actuality they probably made more money from the adjacent Indian Motorcycle clothing and accessory store than they did from the bikes. There was a trio of nice Indians parked outside.

Indians for Sale

After leaving Deadwood we did a little hike in the adjacent hill area.  I believe the trail was the Little Spearfish Falls Trail.  We also kept passing the Mickelson Trail, a rails to trails conversion that runs for over 100 miles in that area.  A good trail for a marathon.

Little Spearfish Falls Trail

Next stop was Sturgis just for a quick walk around to see what might attract thousands of Harley Davidson riders there every year.  It wasn’t much of a town and again too many tee shirt shops for my liking.

Mt Rushmore, SD

Moving on we passed by the outskirts of Rapid City and headed for Mt Rushmore.  Just outside Mt. Rushmore there was a town, Keystone and it was the tackiest assortment of hotels, casinos, shops that you could imagine.  I was not expecting something as crass as that so near to the monument to some of our greatest presidents - absolutely awful.  However, the Mt Rushmore site is a little more dignified and it was certainly quite popular.  Even in the early evening it was quite bustling with tourists.  My first impression of the monument was that it was not as big as I expected but once you get used to it, you can appreciate how wonderful it is.  Thank you Mr. Gutzon Borglum (the sites creator).

We stayed the night in Custer at the very fine and quite reasonably priced Rocket Inn and had a fine meal at the Sage Creek Grill.  We even squeezed down a piece of rhubarb pie at the Purple Pie Place.

Next morning we visited the Jewel Cave National Monument and took a tour of the cave.  Alright but once you have seen one stalactite or one piece of flow stone, you have seen them all.  An enjoyable tour all the same.

The Badlands, SD

Minuteman Missile Museum 

The Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD

 We then crossed the bottom of South Dakota on Interstate 90.  There is a lot of not much going on along the bottom of South Dakota but we did stop for the mandatory visit to Wall Drug, a quick look in the Badlands National Park, a visit to the Minuteman Missile Museum, the Corn Palace in Mitchell before stopping for the night in Sioux Falls.

The Pettigrew House, Sioux Falls

We enjoyed our stay in Sioux Falls, the bed and breakfast was great, the adjacent Pettigrew House and Museum was most interesting (Mr. Pettigrew was a businessman, congressman and senator in the 1800’s) and the falls on the Big Sioux River through the center of town were quite impressive.

Sioux Falls Park

Moving on after lunch we drove continuously all afternoon until we were through Minnesota and well into Wisconsin.  We stopped for dinner somewhere south-east of La Crosse and then drove south towards Spring Green where in the morning we had an appointment for a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home, Taliesin.  We stayed in a weird dome shaped round hotel that claimed to have some aspects of the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture style (a few exposed beams maybe).  The hotel did have an indoor pool which we took advantage of.  

Next morning we drove the short distance to Spring Green which is quite a nice little community.  While we there on what was a Saturday morning, the Fire Department were running a practice burn by setting fire to a soon-to-be demolished home.  It was quite dramatic, flames and smoke and lots of spectators but very rarely did any of the fire men do anything they just watched it burn.

Fire Practice in Spring Green

The Frank Lloyd Wright home at Taliesin was of course wonderful.  The way the buildings fit into the landscape, the detail of the interiors, I just love that stuff.  Like all FLW buildings it looks like it is having a bit of difficulty in places - some areas are subsiding and there are the usual leakage problems.  Still they are doing a fine job in maintaining the structures.  This was the location where there were the scandalous murders and fire where several people were killed by one of FLW’s employees.

Taliesin

Taliesin

From Spring Green we drove into Madison and did a very short walk around the city center.  They have a wonderful capitol building there and we had lunch just across the street from it.

The Capitol, Madison Wisconsin

We then set off south on the last leg of our trip to Chicago, 150 miles down the interstate.  The total trip was 3,439 miles door to door.  A great road trip through some wonderful country.  I had a train ticket the next day from Chicago to Sacramento - 2 days on the train to get me home.

More photos of the trip up to Montana are here and photos from Montana to Chicago are here.