Summer 2007 Road Trip: One girl. One car. Over 8,000 miles.

Well, I did it! I literally drove Interstate 90 (which turns into 94 for a few states, but goes back to 90) from coast to coast. I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Seattle, WA.

It’s been one heck of a journey. I encountered storms (in Montana and Wisconsin), sickness (for the past few days, I’ve had a low-grade fever that I can’t quite figure out), twisty mountain roads (Montana, Idaho and Washington), potential car trouble (Montana, but turned out to be nothing major), trouble finding hotel rooms for the night (North Dakota) and lots and lots of miles.

My journey isn’t over yet, but I feel I reached a major milestone by hitting the west coast. I’m now only about 2 days from my final destination (for the next 2 weeks, at least), which is Southern California.

I’m a little irritated that I didn’t reserve a hotel in downtown Seattle, since I’m paying the same here near the airport that I would have paid there, but I just wasn’t sure that I’d make it to Seattle. So I had to take whatever hotel I could find. When I pulled into Butte, Montana Saturday evening, I had a light flashing on my dashboard that turned out to be due to the gas cap being loose. That steep mountain road and 82mph speed apparently contributed to it.

Photos by State

I got some decent photos this time. Not good, but decent. I’ve arranged them below by state, with some descriptions.

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North Dakota:

The above two photos are east North Dakota, near the Minnesota border.

These photos are from a scenic rest area called “Painted Desert, ND”. It’s an area pretty close to the Montana border. Absolutely breathtaking, although the photos don’t really do the place justice.

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Montana (East):

A typical road in Montana, on I-94.

More Montana.

Storm! There were lightening bolts hitting the ground within those clouds, but unfortunately I couldn’t get pictures of them. I was too busy holding onto the steering wheel since the wind was gusting like crazy and I could barely keep my car in one lane.

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Montana (West):

I’m sure you’ll all agree that western Montana is much prettier than eastern Montana.

AND… right before I got into Idaho, there was this cool used bookstore. I saw signs on the interstate for the store that boasted over 100,000 used books. I pulled off into Alberton, MT, and went to the store, which was amazing. I absolutely love used bookstores, and this one didn’t disappoint:

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Idaho:

Then I finally got into Idaho, which was pretty much the same. I did stop in a small little town to get gas, called Wallace, Idaho. I found it small-town charming:

There were huge mountains in the background.

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Anyway, that’s all the photos for now. I will shoot a couple of photos of Washington State today, and Oregon, then post them tonight.