Alaskan Burrito Quest 2005

12000 miles, 13 states, 4 provinces, 1 territory, 6 national parks, 2 continental divides, 5 time-zones, and 3 Taco Bells. Also 12 grizzlies, 5 moose, 2 porcupines, 1 Bald Eagle, 8 million flies, 1 fifteen foot tall beaver, and a plethora of black bears, elk, caribou, mule deer, bison, Canadians, mountain goats, Dall sheep, red foxes, wild horses, arctic ground squirrels, pika, marmots, harbor seals, sea otters, salmon (bitch and otherwise), golden eagles, hawks, falcons, ducks, geese, and miscellaneous other critters.

(Click on photo for larger version, or select "medium" or "large" links below each image).

Hitting the Road

Left Baltimore on Aug 22, heading roughly "up and to the left".

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How much further?

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Chicago

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Chicago, World's Tallest Sears

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Girly-drink product placement

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Highway multi-tasking

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Corn Palace (SD):

The Corn Palace is a big brick building whose exterior is decorated with corn, sort of like paint by numbers, with a new design every year. They have a bathroom, so they got that going for them. There's also an auditorium inside, and two weeks later, the band Loverboy was scheduled to perform there. I wanted to wait.

We also stopped at Wall Drug in Wall, SD, which also has a fine bathroom. This is a genuine piece of Americana which, like every remote rural tourist attraction west of the Mississippi, appears to be staffed entirely by 20-year-old Russians.

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Badlands NP (South Dakota)

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Mount Rushmore

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Too cheap to pay to see the big Indian

Devil's Tower, WY

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gave their lives so that I might eat a 7-layer burrito in Alaska

Glacier NP (Montana)

Two years ago I met a nice older couple in a motel laundry room in Cody, Wyoming who said I simply had to go to Glacier NP. OK. It was real purty.

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McGyvering a tripod for self-portrait

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Banff NP (AB, BC)

Crossed the US/Canada border into Alberta on Aug 28. We were well below the allotments of 48 beers and $10000 in cash, and didn't look too threatening to Canadian homeland security, and so were mostly just waved through. As always, an initial flashing moment of confused, short-lived elation, followed by embarrassment and eyes-rolling, at the sight of the first "110" speed limit sign, or $1.35 at the pumps. Friggin' metric system...