Road Trip: Iowa and Nebraska

Well, we're finished with the driving portion of this vacation and are back in Wyoming for a few days before flying back to Seattle. It was an exhausting couple of weeks but so much fun that we're already talking about next year's trip. The last 2 days on the road were spent in Iowa and Nebraska. We had both fun and frustration during this part of the trip.

Iowa: In Iowa we met up with 8Nuts and MotherGoose in Davenport for some waymarking fun and great Iowa grub. I don't think that Hunter will ever stop talking about his barbecue dinner. They found us some great waymarks for categories that we still needed marks in, and even took us to a travel bug hotel so we could exchange some bugs that we had brought along on the trip with us. Unfortunately, after we said good night and went back to our tent a storm rolled in dumping 4 inches of rainfall in 6 hours. In the morning we were dry, but the bottom of our tent was like a water bed because the tent was resting in a 4 inch poll of water. While wading through the site and taking the tent down chiggers feasted on my ankles and I am still itching the 35 bites they took out of me. We had time for a couple more marks and breakfast with 8Nuts and MotherGoose before we hit the road, which made up for the rough night.

Nebraska: Hmm... The last time I was through Nebraska I was 6 years old and all I remember was that it took what seemed liked years to get to the other side. 32 years later it was pretty much the same experience. A gripe I have is that they don't sign their rest areas well at all and I missed all but one of NevaP's great waymarks and caches along the way. They don't even sign the restaurants/services at each exit. It really was a pain.

So, we'll be back in Seattle on Sunday and I'll get Wayward Waymarking updated, my emails caught up, and start in on the enormous task of posting the several hundred waymarks that I've taken and all the caches and travelbugs that we've visited. I look forward to sharing these great spots with the waymarking community. If you've emailed me and haven't received a response, know that I'm not ignoring you. Things will be crazy for the next couple of weeks, but I'll be returning emails soon.

Happy waymarking!

Road Trip: Midwest

Tonight we've finally made it to the Chicago area after 2 days of driving from Rapid City. Last night we stayed in Minnesota on the bluffs of the Mississippi River and I was squealing like a little girl about the bugs. God, give me a good old Washington state slug any day. They grow mosquitoes the size of mosquito hawks in Minnesota and I spent more time hiding in the tent than enjoying the views. I'm embarrassed to say that I have this weird panic thing when I comes to mosquitoes. I have seen bears and huge elk across the trail from me on backpacking trips, held tarantulas, let huge Australian stick bugs crawl all over me, but put me in a cloud of mosquitoes and I panic. Even the clouds of these ugly big moth things in Dubuque today didn't bother me. I know - weird. Anyhow, I have survived my multiple panic attacks and am ready to brave the cockroaches of Chicago tomorrow. We'll be in the area for several days so I'll try to post again before we start the trek back to Wyoming.

The picture above was taken at the Spam museum, which I joked about in a past post. We ended up stopping there and were happily surprised. The place is an amazing museum. I'm not joking! There was all of this history, fun and goofy interactive games, and much more. Even for an anti-spam person like me it was a blast. Seriously! Once you see my waymark you'll believe me.

The Way-Vacation

We're getting ready for our road trip through the Midwest and I find it hilarious the level of planning that I'm putting into the waymarking aspect of the vacation. As many of you know, along with my special favorite categories, I like to fill up that waymarking grid, and so there's a certain desperation to make sure that I get those location specific categories taken care of. Along with 9 new state historic marker categories, we'll be able to waymark all three highway categories (Lincoln, Rte 66, and Dixie), the Pony Express and Butterfield Stage markers, the "Marry Me" category, and many, many more. I mean, we're talking the possibility of 30 or more new category icons on my grid! As with many of my beloved waymarking pals out there, I tend toward the compulsive side, and so I'm having to put a check on my urge to waymark my way across the middle of the country.


I have created a vacation spreadsheet like you will not believe - a sheet for the schedule, another for lodging, and another for activities. There's the highway geocache sheet and then there's the waymarking spreadsheet with a page for each state we'll be traveling in and the waymarks that I'd like to hit in each of those states. Waymarks for categories that can only be found in a particular state or region are highlighted. I know, it's sad isn't it. Luckily once I get on the road I loosen up and am actually fairly laid back when things don't go according to plan. My way is to plan things as thoroughly as possible, and then kick back and enjoy the surprises that get thrown at us.

We'll be hitting Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, a short 1/2 day in Indiana, and Nebraska. As you've just read, our time is a little over scheduled :) but if any of you lie along our path we'd love to meet you - and to have you sign our waymarking sticker seeker book. It would be nice to finally have someone log a visit to our sticker seeker waymark! (and vice versa.)

So - 23 days and counting until we embark on this summer's adventure! We should have internet access at least every other day, so we'll try to post to the blog about our adventures as we go.

Oh - by the way, the picture above is of the Gemini Giant in Illinois - one of the coolest muffler men ever. I have shamelessly snagged the photo from waymarkers Special Ed and FallenFaery who have waymarked him in the roadside attraction and rte. 66 categories (pssst - the muffler man waymark is still there for the taking.)

Happy waymarking!