As with most things in life, a road trip is best run with an idea of where you want to go, not an itinerary. If you say you absolutely want to see XYZ, you might ruin your whole trip over that. That’s why I do love traveling with no destination and no obligation – you can feel your way through the adventure.
My first trek was to head up the California Pacific Coastal Highway. I’ve been pretty far up but never past Calabasas. I thought I’d try to make it via the Pacific to San Francisco from Venice. As a precaution, I blocked The Ultimate Mush on my cell – I feel like I had to do my part to heal the world and my bad luck somehow and TBH this was first on my to do list before gas for my car. I packed up the car and hit the road.
Big Sur, California
The Pacific drive is an adventure in itself. About 3 hours in, the beaches lose their depth, going from giant football fields to just small areas of sand. The access roads I was driving on continued to climb higher and higher, and the Ocean view turned from peaceful sun over water to dramatic rock formations off the windswept and ocean barred coast. There were bridges a skyscraper’s length above the canyons and the southern palm trees gave way to the deep green firs of Big Sur.
I must have looked like a complete jack off, my face out the windows, shouting, “Wow,” at every new bend in the road, with a new view point to see. This was easily one of the greatest drives I have ever had in my life. I took my time, so much so I only made it to Monterey, which was pretty awesome. Sadly, that town was still completely shut down because of COVID ☹ so I just called it a night.
Twin Falls, Idaho
Next day I popped into San Francisco, which was a ghost town. A quick stop for pizza and onward. I knew I wanted to see some kick ass Redwoods before heading East, but the San Fran’s Redwood park shut down and the “real deal” near Eureka was a good six hours away. I flipped a coin, HEADS I would head north, hit up Eureka, Portland and Seattle; TAILS I would start East towards Idaho for the night…
It came up tails, which meant I would be heading through Sacramento and Reno. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it also meant I would not be driving into the height of the riots in Portland (I tend to miss a great deal of news when I am road-tripping). My first lucky break. The Mush Phone Block worked!
I stayed the night in the Sacramento Hard Rock (read more about it below) and spent the next day traveling to Twin Falls, Idaho. This town claims to be the Niagara Falls of the west, and it is in fact beautiful. But if you claim you’re like Niagara Falls, I expect to see some damn casinos. BIG disappointment. It was the end of May, and Idaho was opening bars that night. Just to be safe, I passed on going out, ate a bag of potato chips in my room and passed out.
Jackson Hole -> Yellowstone -> Cody, Wyoming
My next stop was Jackson Hole. I took a quick detour to Shoshone Bannock Casino and smoked them (Mush block in full effect!).
The drive to Jackson Hole was awesome and the views were amazing, but Wyoming hadn’t fully opened just yet. I stayed in a wonderful lodge and started towards Yellowstone the next day. My target, Old Faithful and some other things.
The drive into Yellowstone from the south approach takes you through another park, The Grand Teton Park. Buy the annual membership for entrance here and it will get you in to every national park out there – $80 per car. You can also put a second name on it so it’s a pretty great deal. Approaching Old Faithful was awesome. I finally saw some live buffalo in person as opposed to on a machine and the lakes and nature of Yellowstone was a thing to see.
So beautiful.
On the other hand, Old Faithful didn’t quite live up to its name. I waited for an hour, in hail and rain, and the best shot she could give me was a little dribble out the pipe. Lots of sex jokes here but I’ll leave those to your imagination 😉
The drive out of Yellowstone east was probably even more beautiful than inward, and when I got to Cody, Wyoming had finally open up bars and restaurants. I ran out and had one cocktail in an empty bar, and went to bed.
Deadwood and Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
After Yellowstone, I hit two towns, Billings, Montana, and Deadwood, South Dakota. I had a blast at both (check out my Deadwood casino review below) and made my way to the last thing I had thought to see – Mount Rushmore.
Mount Rushmore is about a 50-minute drive south of Deadwood or a 30 minute drive west of Rapid Falls. It is an amazing view to see, to look at, to think about the feat of engineering that was accomplished there. Just breathtaking. For about ten minutes. Then there is absolutely nothing to do unless you want to hike or eat ice cream or read up on history. Honestly, because it was so low on obligation and options, probably one of my favorite stops. I got in my car almost as fast as I got out. A great hit and run!
The next few days of the road trip were uneventful. I stopped in Jamestown, North Dakota, Mystic Lake, Minnesota (see my casino review below), Davenport, Iowa, and finally Toledo, Ohio before heading home. Between the pandemic, riots, curfews and closures, most of America was shut down so I’ll have to put a pin in those towns for now and come back to them. Oh well, at least I didn’t have anything planned so I wasn’t too disappointed 😉
