drivetofive

Odometer (ILX):  52,375

Odometer (Legend):  522,729

Leg Distance:  790 Miles

As much as I absolutely LOVE driving, the thought of getting in the ILX for another 22 hours of drive time to get home to Phoenix, Arizona was pretty daunting.  For the first leg, at least, I had some co-drivers.

Jodi took a turn, too.  She said it’d been 2 years since she’d driven a stick shift, but she got the hang of it quickly!

In Logan, Utah we dropped off two passengers and lightened the load a bit.

I was able to spend the evening with my dad and give the car one last rest before the final stretch.

Grandma and I were up before sunrise and out the door with plenty of road snacks to keep us fed.  My favorite things to munch on are Rice Krispy treats and string cheese.  We had both!  We made a restroom stop in Fillmore, Utah off Interstate 15.  Fillmore was the state’s capitol until 1856 when the legislature decided to move the capitol to the larger area of Salt Lake City.  The original statehouse is still standing today (below).

I had last visited this site in my Legend in November 2006.  It sure hasn’t changed much in 7 years.  Or in 158 years, for that matter.

At a stoplight later on, I looked to my right and saw this.  How many 81-year-old people do you know who multi-task with laptop computers and text messaging while on a road trip?  Grandma never slows down!

Viva Las Vegas!  Just 4.5 hours from home at this point.

And finally, at long last, I pulled into my driveway and breathed a sigh of relief.

To wrap it all up, here’s a 7 minute video capturing just a few of our weekend’s highlights.  You’ll get to see us visit homes my grandma had lived in 70 years ago, see some pictures of Grand Coulee Dam, and retrace the steps of that 1950 automobile accident that my grandma walked away from.

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Odometer (Legend):  522,729

Odometer (ILX):  52,236

Leg Distance:  293 Miles

All aboard!  The third and final leg of the Washington trip starts with our quest to head north even more.

We lucked out and the weathermen were dead wrong about their forecasts for rain on Sunday.  Partly cloudy skies and comfortable temperatures gave us the perfect environment to enjoy a cruise around Washington.  We made our way in the ILX from our hotel in Moses Lake to Highway 155 which parallels Banks Lake.

Banks is 27 miles long and covers 27,000 acres of surface area.  We’re talking about a lot of water here!  Pictured here are my mom, my grandma, and myself.  Oh, and the ILX trying to steal all the attention.

Not much farther up the road, we entered the cities of Electric City and Grand Coulee.  These towns line the waters that back-up from the massive Grand Coulee Dam.  It’s impossible to convey in photos just how massive this structure is.  The width, in fact, is a mile long!

Here are some Grand Coulee Dam fast facts that I found interesting.

• The dam generates more power than a million locomotives
• It contains almost 12 million cubic yards of concrete
• At 550 feet above bedrock, it’s as high as the Washington Monument
• It is also 500 feet wide at the base
• There is enough concrete in the dam to build 2 standard 6-foot-wide sidewalks around the world at the equator
• It took 9 years (1933-1942) to build the dam

Needless to say we were awestruck at the size & scope of this engineering marvel.  Today, the dam has 3 important functions:  irrigation, power production, and flood control.

We didn’t take the time to participate in a 50-minute dam tour, but we did spend quite awhile wandering through the exhibits in the Visitor Center.  One such exhibit was this scale model.

What was mom pointing at here?  Who knows.

This was one of the most interactive visitor centers I’ve ever been to.  They even have a jackhammer there that you can hold onto and activate.  It simulates 1/10th of what an actual jackhammer would feel like.

Grand Coulee Dam has a special place in my grandma’s memory because she lived in the area in the early 1950’s.  In fact, her workplace (“Green Hut Cafe”) once sat where the visitor center is now located.

One of the coolest features (I thought) from the exhibits were these 48 glass jugs.  Each one was labeled with a different state name.  When the Grand Coulee Dam was dedicated in 1942, water from each of the (then 48) states was poured from atop the dam’s spillway — symbolic of the fact that all states had contributed to its construction.

I found it fascinating that the flooded area behind the dam ended up wiping out multiple small towns, 2 railroads, 4 sawmills, and even cemeteries.  3,000 people were relocated to make way for the water that started backing up in the mid-1930’s.

After we’d had our fill of the dam, we continued our northbound trek on Highway 155, crossing over the 2-lane Grand Coulee Bridge.

Our next destination was perhaps a bit odd in purpose, but still very worthwhile and meaningful.  In the early morning hours of August 24, 1950, my grandma was involved as a passenger in an auto accident just south of the town of Okanogan, Washington.  The car in which she rode soared up a hill at 85+ miles per hour and plunged off an embankment.  Miraculously, even after the car rolled an estimated 12 times, she was able to climb to the main road and seek medical attention.  Below is a newspaper article and a few pictures of the vehicle.

We knew very little about the exact location of the accident but we were determined to find it, so we made our way to Okanogan.

The newspaper article had described the site as:  “A curve one mile south of Okanogan on the new Twisp-Okanogan cutoff.”  Based on some Google satellite mapping research we had done previously we knew that the cutoff was probably Highway 20.

Sure enough, just past Okanogan city limits, we saw ahead of us a road which branched off to the right and climbed a steep hill.  It was an eery feeling to drive up it, knowing that the road had nearly claimed my grandma’s life 63 years ago.  The below picture is thanks to Google since I didn’t take a photo from the base. The road at right is the one that climbs away from Highway 20 and has a sharp right-hand turn at the top.

We parked the ILX and roamed around this place.

The guard rail in place today prevents similar accidents from occurring.  My grandma hadn’t been back here since the night of the accident, so technically she had never even seen it in daylight!

Here she is standing at the very corner where that driver lost control.

We were hungry from our voyage so we dined in Omak, just north of Okanogan.  We happened to arrive just the town’s annual “Stampede” parade had closed Main Street.

Soon, though, the road opened back up and we found a parking space and a great Mexican restaurant.

“Downtown Omak:  It’s All Right Here!”  I guess the word “all” is used pretty loosely here.  Omak doesn’t amount to much, but it has a fun vibe to it, and it’s only about 40 miles from the Canadian border.

Our last stop for the day, on our way back to Moses Lake, was at Dry Falls.  “How can a waterfall be dry?” you ask.  The answer would take thousands of years to explain, because that’s how long it took for this place to form.  Dry Falls is thought to be the greatest known waterfall that ever existed.  It was 10 times bigger than Niagara Falls.

Today, though, only the cliffs remain.  The cause for the eventual diversion of the water has to do with the melting of a glacier during the Ice Age and its impact on the shifting water flows.

It was totally un-planned that I happened to capture Jodi and grandma making the exact same (well, mirror) pose whilst soaking in the splendor of Dry Falls. Even their wardrobe matched.

I’d parked next to one of my favorite Hondas of all time:  the Prelude.  This one looked like a 1992-96 (4th Generation) Si model in pretty nice shape for its age.

From a sign near the Visitor Center parking lot:

These cliffs are skeletal remnants of what was once the world’s largest waterfall.  They bear stark witness to the tremendous power of catastrophic floods that swept over eastern Washington at the end of the last ice age.  The falls began 20 miles to the south, but receded upstream through powerful erosive action.  The retreat of the falls gave birth to the canyon below, the Lower Grand Coulee, with the enormous force of the floodwaters spewing several cubic miles of rock over vast areas downstream.  Today, Dry Falls remains as one of the most spectacular geologic wonders of the age of ice.

At the end of the day, we feasted on the best corn on the cob I’ve ever tasted.  Home-grown Washington sweet corn.

My cousins are as big into cars as I am, but in a vastly different way.  They build demolition derby vehicles and have brought home multiple awards.  This big old Chrysler looked pretty unstoppable to me!

The family reunion brought out the fun in everyone.

Billy Bob Tyson, at your service.

Tomorrow:  The return stretch to Phoenix.  Would I survive two more 12-hour driving days in a row?

Odometer (Legend):  522,728

Odometer (ILX):  52,211

Leg Distance:  430 Miles

Welcome to ‘part deux’ of the 3,300 mile road trip with the fam damily in the Acura ILX.  We didn’t linger for very long last Friday night in the state famous for its potatoes.  Back in the car we went, bright & early the following morning!  Wildfires east of Boise left the sky looking ominous as the sun peeked out.

Fitting four adults and their luggage into a compact car is a lot like playing Tetris.  It’s a good thing we were so skilled.

It only took about 50 miles until we entered Oregon via Interstate 84.  This marked the first time my Acura ILX has been in Oregon (its 15th state visited since I took delivery of the car in June 2012).

I couldn’t help but become reminded of one of my favorite computer games from elementary school:  Oregon Trail.

Thankfully, our mode of transportation was quite a bit more advanced than a covered wagon.   And nobody suffered from dysentery or anything of the sort, as far as I know.  In all, we would be spending about 200 miles on Interstate 84 westbound in Oregon.

An important milestone took place as we were nearing Baker City.  I captured the 50,000 mile rollover on video which you’ll soon see.  It’s hard to believe I’ve already been enjoying the ILX for 1/10th of 500,000 miles!

Did you know that it’s illegal in Oregon to pump your own gas?  Fueling up in Oregon feels like taking a step back in time to when stations were full-service.  We rolled up to the Shell station in La Grande and I lowered my window.  The attendant approached me and took my credit card.  “Fill it up?” he asked.  “Yes, 91 octane please,” I replied.

The attendant left my gas cap hanging against the paint which was a pet peeve of mine.  There’s a reason why Acura put a cap holder built into the inside of the fuel door.

Soon we were climbing the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon and the grades became steep.  Truckers are warned multiple times to check their brakes before the downgrade heading into Pendleton.  I used my 6-speed transmission to its full capacity as we reached the 9,000 foot summit.  For being loaded with passengers and gear, I was surprised to have plenty of power from the 201-horsepower motor.

State #16 came shortly on Hwy 395 northbound.  The Washington state line follows the Columbia River, so the welcome sign was on a bridge.  Unfortunately, this kept me from being able to pull over for a picture.

Focus & dedication!

We had one more destination on our trip back in time to rediscover some places of my grandma’s youth.  We headed east on Highway 260 near Connell, Washington toward to the tiny town of Kahlotus.

The last time my grandma lived here was in the mid-1950’s.  It brought back a flood of memories for her to be back in the area.

Though established in 1906, Kahlotus had been settled as early as the 1880’s.

The Town Center is really not much at all to look at.  The buildings are old and run-down and there are abandoned vehicles sitting here and there.  Today, the town is home to fewer than 200 people.

Oddly enough, though, it’s also home to two Acura Legend coupes!   I spotted this 1987-89 coupe right away, and it was the first Legend I’d seen the entire trip until this point.

Not even 5 minutes later, I spotted a second Legend.  This one appears to be a 1991 in Golden Glow Pearl.

We had a mission, though, and it wasn’t to seek out Acuras.  We were looking for a house that my grandma rented in 1955.  Below is a picture of her, my grandpa, and my uncles.  We didn’t have an address to the house (in fact, house numbers weren’t added until many years later when they became required for emergencies), so the only way we knew we’d be able to identify it was by its 4 rounded front steps in the picture.

We’d almost given up.  There were only a few streets in town and we carefully scrutinized the entry steps on every home that we drove past.  There was only one road left to check out:  Martin Street.  Seconds later:  “There it is!  There are the steps!  Stop!”  I hit the brakes and backed up.

I’ll be darned.  There was that house.  Excited, grandma went to the front door to see if anyone was home.  I stood with my mom for a quick picture to celebrate our investigative success.

A family photo was in order, taken by the home’s current occupant.

The most exciting part of the story was the conversation that ensued with the home’s owner.  We started talking about who might still be in Kahlotus from the time when my grandma lived there.  As it turned out, the man knew my great-grandma and her husband.  “Oh, Frank and Reta were good friends of ours!” he said.

The world is just too small.  The black & white photo I was holding in the below picture was dated September 1955.

With that mission accomplished, we roamed around town a bit.

I couldn’t tell if the jailhouse pictured here was for real or some type of movie prop!

The only store in town is called Farmer’s Daughter.  We stepped inside to find some refreshments and it felt like we’d traveled back in time 50 years.

Hey, one-stop shopping!

Jodi picked me up a root beer float that was most refreshing.

Most of southeast Washington looks like this.  Rolling wheat fields as far as the eye can see.  It’s quite a contrast to what I’d perceived “The Evergreen State” to look like.

Another fun spot of civilization lies just a few miles to the east.  We looked around Washtucna but things were eerily quiet.  It’s approaching ghost-town status.

Sitko Chevrolet Co.  I wonder how long it’s been since this dealership was functional?

Ted’s Garage looks to have closed its doors long ago, too.

Even some of the homes have been left abandoned and are wide open for entry.  Washtucna is an urban explorer’s playground.

I took a peek inside this home but I got spooked by a swarm of bats that came flying out of the ceiling.

By this time, we needed to make our way toward Moses Lake where we’d be attending our family reunion.

And, we made it!  Moses Lake is located along I-90 in central Washington.

See the red “A” marker on this map.

The town was named for an Indian chief who had originally owned the land.

The city was originally named Neppel, after a town in Germany where one of the original settlers had lived.The first settlers established fisheries and farms — some of the first exported items were carp, jackrabbits and fruit — but irrigation attempts failed and settlers left at about the same rate as they came. When the town was incorporated and renamed Moses Lake in 1938, the population was estimated at 301 people.

I’d seen 91 and 93 octanes, but I don’t know that I’d ever pumped 92 octane premium gas before.  It was time to refuel the ILX as well as our bellies after a long day in the car.  I got 34 mpg average that day..

Our catered dinner at Porterhouse Steakhouse was accompanied by a number of family members who I’d never met before but who I instantly felt comfortable with.

Most importantly, Grandma was reunited with her older brother who she hadn’t seen in a couple of years.  Finally we were able to take a breath and relax after couple of long days on the road!

Coming up:  A trip to the country’s largest hydroelectric project:  Grand Coulee Dam.  Trust me, it was a “dam” good time.  I think you’ll agree after reading tomorrow’s blog post.  See you soon.

Odometer (ILX):  52,155

Leg Distance:  1,200 Miles

If my passport hadn’t expired, I would’ve visited Canada in the ILX this past weekend.  At the northernmost destination on my road trip, I was only about 40 miles from the border!  This time, unlike on most of my trips, I had multiple passengers along for the ride.  Our destination:  Moses Lake, Washington for a family reunion.

I departed on the 3,300-mile journey last Thursday afternoon and headed out of Phoenix.  Smoke from nearby wildfires created an amber hue in the Las Vegas sunset.  I wouldn’t be stopping on the Strip, though.

When I arrived in St. George, Utah to pick up my grandma, we pulled out the 2014 Rand McNally atlas and grandpa pointed out some trip highlights that we would experience on the drive to the Pacific Northwest.

From gma’s house, my iPhone’s map application said it was 1,000 miles exactly to where the reunion would be held.

But, we had to pick up two other important passengers in Logan, Utah along the way.  My mom and my aunt Jodi were waiting anxiously for the ILX taxi to pick them up.  This picture was taken in Sardine Canyon, approaching Cache Valley where Logan is located.

“Let’s get this show on the road!” says grandma.

Here is our pre-departure picture, featuring me, my grandma, and Jodi.  Grandma and Jodi ended up staking out their domains in the back seat while my mom rode shotgun.  It was a tight squeeze to fit all of our luggage into the trunk, but we did it!

It should come as no mystery that there was no shortage of conversation with all these passengers in the car.  For once, I gave my audio system a break and enjoyed chatting with my family members.  Our first pit stop was in Deweyville, Utah.

The home pictured above is where my grandma lived during her high school years during the 1940s.  Deweyville today is probably about the same as it was back then.  As of the 2010 census, there were only about 330 people living there.

Grandma’s old home is up for sale with a price tag of $134,900.  She shared with us some memories of what it was like inside those upstairs bedrooms.  Interesting note:  This home was featured in the 1998 Vince Vaughn / Joaquin Phoenix film called “Clay Pigeons.”  Here’s a video clip from the movie that clearly shows the Wellsville Mountains in the background.

Our next stop was about 2.5 hours later in Burley, Idaho off Interstate 84.  My grandma lived in this home when she was about 8 years old.  We had an old black & white picture from 1940 featuring my great-grandma and her 3 kids on a bicycle in front of the house.  Sure enough, the home today looks almost the same as it did back then.

Below is our re-creation of the original picture.

The current owner of the home happened to get home just as we were looking it over.  She was caught a little offguard that there were strangers in her yard taking pictures of her home, but when we showed her the 73 year old black & white picture, it all made sense.

I gave up the reins to my mom for the next segment of the drive from Burley to Boise.

And thus I had a little bit of time to snag some pictures and actually goof off for awhile instead of watching the road.

Are we there yet?

Look at that driving technique!  10:00 and 2:00 demonstrated to the fullest extent.  I hope she got an “A” in Driver’s Ed.

We spent the night in Boise, Idaho.  At 210,000 residents, it’s Idaho’s largest city but it still had a small-town feel as far as I was concerned.  It was that evening when I met up with Josh who drives the 370,000 mile 2005 Acura TSX.

The following day, we’d cross an important milestone in the ILX and take it into 2 states that it hadn’t yet seen before.  More on that tomorrow!  A 4-part roadtrip write-up awaits you.

Odometer (ILX):  52,135

I drove the ILX 3,356 miles over the last 6 days through 6 states.  Stay tuned this coming week for the trip write-up as I take you along for a ride the beautiful Pacific Northwest.  It’s time for me to catch up on some much-needed sleep.  Until then, will somebody please come get these bugs off my car?