On September 11th, 1998 we began our trek from Ottawa, Ontario to Rohnert Park, California.  We took a week and half to make the trip, stopping at places such as the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder (in De Smet, SD), The Badlands National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and gambling in Wendover, NV. 

The dark blue indicates the route we drove.  The light blue circles roughly indicate where we stayed, but not all nights are shown (and a few are added).  

	Ottawa, Ontario. These are views from our old apartment in William Mosgrove Tower on Richmond Rd.   We used to overlook the Ottawa River, and past that, the Gatineaus. You'll notice that there's no pictures of the view from our new apartment building. There's a reason for that.
	Lake Michigan, Michigan
	Somewhere on the Road, Iowa (also Indiana, Illinois, Ohio...). The mid-western states were long.  Really, really long. At this time we were driving 10 hours a day.  There really wasn't much to stop for.
	The Badlands, South Dakota The Badlands sprung up out of nowhere from the prairieland. We felt like we had entered another land altogether.  These pictures hopefully give you some of that feeling. The cute little guy at the bottom right is a prairie-dog.  The cute little guy at the bottom left is Ian.
	Mount Rushmore, SD Americans...masters of the art of subtlety.
	Wyoming Wyoming was one of the most beautiful states we drove through. The scenery was hugely varied, and we have never seen rock this red...
Drive-Through Rock We surprised a deer one morning..	The Black Hills, South Dakota These hills were the first signs of elevation we had seen in days. We climbed into them in the morning, saw some unspectacular caves, but spotted some wildlife on the way.
On the road to the park... ...we pass a lake. Hot Springs.. We can still smell the sulphur Mammoth Hot Springs - truly  other-wordly.. Nice rack on this elk... Petrified Tree Coyote, one of a few we saw Neat rock formation by the Yellowstone Grand Canyon Surrounding scenery Mrs. Moose across a river Big Horned Sheep we saw from the road Mr. Moose finally stands up.. Swans Old Faithful	Yellowstone, Wyoming This park was the reason for the detour/strange route we took.  Animals and scenery were everywhere - you really couldn't miss them.  One of our most rewarding finds were the moose as we exited the park. It's a neat experience, being amongst a crowd of 100 people, dead silent, watching this huge moose 40 feet away. We saw the female moose first, but someone then spotted a rack from her mate a bit further down the stream.   We waited 20 minutes for the bull moose to stand up, and our patience paid off.
	Salt Lake Flats, Utah This is the site of the Bonneville Speedway. The salt flats stretch out forever in all directions.  Just looking at the picture is enough to make me thirsty..
	Somewhere else, Utah
Scenery from the Valley floor Half-Dome  (No hiking required to get to this vista)	Yosemite National Park, CA After the moving company announced they were 3 days late with our stuff, we continued our vacation to Yosemite National Park. We didn't do any real hiking, but there's a lot of very cool drives that can be done, all on very good roads.
	Rohnert Park, CA Installing the new California license plate on the car!

This page last updated 04/19/06.