To Ames and Back
It was on the 10th day of our most recent vacation — last Tuesday afternoon, to be precise — when I made the type of mistake that you remember all your life. So naturally, I feel compelled to tell you about it.
I was inside the women’s restroom at the Shell gas station in Hood River, Oregon. I had rushed into that restroom because a couple of hours earlier in Spokane, I had imbibed two glasses of Diet Coke to go with my pizza. Well, that Diet Coke had prompted me — seriously prompted me — to seek out a restroom at that Shell.
So I found out where the men’s and women’s facilities were — and quickly went to the men’s door. Locked.
I turned around — checked the women’s door (yes, I’ve occasionally used the women’s loo in previous times of need) — rushed inside — and locked the door.
Except I didn’t. You see, in my haste, I had failed to completely turn the “lock” knob. So there I was, standing over that commode, when a tall woman with glasses opened the door. It was not my wife.
She took one look and, startled, backed out. I had looked her way and instantly realized she had taken that one look. I was mortified, of course — the same way George Costanza had been mortified in that “Seinfeld” episode decades ago when a woman had caught him with his pants down right after he’d come out of a swimming pool.
I tried to finish what I’d started — could not — so I washed my hands and left the restroom. The woman was outside the door. I stammered my apologies and rushed outside the service station, back to our rental car, where I told Sharon what had happened.
She laughed. I wonder if that other woman had laughed, too. But for the wrong reasons.
So now you know what happened on that particular day of our two-week trek, which was supposed to have started with a flight out of the Fresno-Yosemite International Airport on Saturday, June 17th. Well, it didn’t, because of “mechanical problems” with our plane.
But that cancellation came only after we’d spent about six hours at the airport, waiting to take off. At one point, the American Airlines people told us the plane only needed an oil change. Then they found a hydraulics problem. I don’t know much about hydraulics, but that did not sound promising.
At one point, I was standing in line with another would-be passenger — both of us trying to get information — when he pointed out the giant terminal window to our plane and said, “That doesn’t look good.” No, when you see a bucket underneath your plane — and it’s catching a dripping substance leaking from the plane — it’s not a great look.
Shortly after that, the announcement came: “This plane won’t fly today.” And there was no other plane available to take us to Phoenix that day or evening so we could catch a connecting flight to Des Moines.
So we got into our car and drove back home — stopping along the way to get lunch at one of our favorite spots a few miles from our place in Tesoro Viejo in Madera County. Rocky the cat seemed happy to see us — though a bit confused, since the college woman we had hired to look in on Rocky that day and Sunday — before our son Bradley could fly in to spend two weeks at our place — had already been there to feed and water Rocky.
Anyway, Sunday morning saw us back at the airport, and this time, our plane took off on schedule, with us in the first-class seats we’d been “awarded” for not being able to fly the day before. I must say, those seats were wide and comfy. Nice to have found out how the “upper class” fly.
Our connecting flight from Phoenix got us into Des Moines at 5:30 on Sunday afternoon, and we drove our rental car up to Ames. While Sharon shopped at Target for food to take to our nearby hotel, I went across the street for dinner with my old Iowa State University journalism teaching buddy Tom Beell.
Over the years that Sharon and I have trekked to Ames — which included years when we owned a condo there and stayed weeks or months — I’ve dined with Tom dozens of times. We’ve hit almost every restaurant in the city — and there are lots — and we’ve shared many stories — of which there were plenty, on that Sunday night.
Monday saw us scrambling to make up for that “lost” day in Ames. It started with Mayor John Haila and me, making our way to a couple of major construction sites in the city. The mayor is one of my regular guests on the hour-long morning program I host once a month on KHOI Radio in Ames. On this day, I wanted to do some quick on-the-scene interviews with him that we could drop into our usual live discussions on upcoming programs.
I was especially appreciative of Mr. Mayor — who is a good man and a fine city leader — on that Monday morning because he had just returned from an exhausting trip to Japan. He did not have to meet me — but he did, and our interviews were excellent, thanks to him.
While I’d been gabbing with the mayor, Sharon had been shopping on Main Street downtown. She loves those Main Street clothing and shoe stores, and she showed how much by buying stuff — lots of stuff.
I met her at my favorite Ames hangout — Cafe Diem on Main — and we drove over to the Stomping Grounds — a fine restaurant, indeed, just south of the Iowa State University campus. There, we met old friends Cliff and Cindy Brockman for lunch. Plenty to talk about and “catch up on.”
Then it was on to Tom and Linda Emmerson’s place on Ridgewood in Ames. Tom is another of my old teaching friends, and he and Linda have always been delightful to see when we’re in town. We talked about golf and teaching and politics and their cat Moe – the kind of stuff friends who have known each other for almost a half-century discuss.
But wait! Our day was not over, by any means. Sharon and I drove back downtown, to the KHOI studios, where a staff potluck was underway, and where Laura Belin and I were about to do our weekly live political-analysis program, “Capital Week.” We’d done this program for about two-and-a-half years — and we’d never met in person. She broadcasts via Zoom from her home in the Des Moines suburbs — while I broadcast via Zoom from wherever Sharon and I are living or visiting.
Anyway, we met, did the show in the studio for the first time together, and then headed out for a pizza. Laura is an excellent political analyst, and she enjoys pizza, so we had a great time.
Tuesday saw us scrambling around, again, to get everything “in” that we could. We drove to Ankeny for another lunch with Cliff and Cindy — then hustled back up to Ames so Sharon could spend more time spending money on Main Street. While she did that, I strolled back to KHOI Radio, where I was a guest on Eric Blocker’s absolutely fun afternoon DJ show. We spent about 90 minutes, reminiscing on-air about radio in the 1960’s and ’70’s — and about NBC Radio’s legendary weekend “Monitor” program — which magnificently aired for about two decades.
Then, Tuesday night, it was dinner time again with Mr. Beell. I must admit, the sandwich he got from Panera that evening was a big one, indeed.
We drove out of town on Wednesday after a quick bite to eat (you get the idea? Ames is one big “eating” and “meeting” place for us) at one of the best barbecue spots in the Midwest — Hickory Park in Ames. If you’ve never been there — just go and find out for yourself how good it is. As for Ames — it remains what it’s always been — the best place we’ve ever lived — a grand old university town with lovely Victorian-era homes and trees that canopy its Old Town streets. But we had miles to go on this trip — lots of miles.
And our travels that day took us about 250 of those miles to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This is a handsome city with a gorgeous park that features a series of river falls you really have to see to appreciate.
Our next day’s trek was longer and harder — nearly 500 miles from Sioux Falls to Gillette, Wyoming. We bypassed some of the places we’d seen on earlier trips — like the Corn Palace in Mitchell and Wall Drug in, yes, Wall, South Dakota. For us, they had been one-offs — one visit was enough.
But one spot we’d visited before warranted another stop. This goes by the name of Sickie’s Garage Burgers and Brews in Rapid City. It’s a great hamburger place with a mechanic’s motif — motorcycles suspended from the ceiling, and more.
Then it was on to Gillette, where we stayed at a remarkable rustic lodge across the street from a giant convention center. Because that center has so many visitors from around the country, the Arbuckle Lodge has a unique offering — TV newscasts, live from various cities across the nation. Since I did a bit of TV news in my career, I flipped through newscasts from New York City; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta and Dallas, before settling on newscasts in Los Angeles (KNBC-TV, where I once worked) and San Francisco (KGO-TV. I had worked at KGO’s competitor, KPIX.)
From Gillette, our vacation road trip continued another 400 miles to Three Forks, Montana. Before we got to Three Forks, we stopped for lunch at a wonderful dive in downtown Billings, Montana. It’s called, in fact, the Burger Dive. Good burgers and the best milkshakes we’d ever eaten, created by a little elderly man (that means he’s even older than I am) who delivers them personally to your table.
Late Friday afternoon, we arrived in Three Forks, where friends and former Paso Robles neighbors Paul and Sharon Finlayson moved in 2020. Shortly after they left Paso, we sold our home there and eventually (after a year in which we stayed in our Ames condo and Airbnb’s) wound up back in the Central Valley.
Paul and Sharon built a place near their son’s outside Three Forks proper — and many other people are building their own homes in and around the Finlayson subdivision. Some of those folks — but not all — are refugees from California who left for the usual reasons — affordability, taxes, crowding, the homeless. Ironically, of course, the more refugees from California who trek to Montana — the more problems they’ll bring to Montana. That’s the way life works.
We spent three memorable days with Paul and Sharon. We went out to dinner in Three Forks on Friday night — then made our way to the widely known Gravel Bar restaurant in Ennis on Saturday. Then it was on to Bozeman. As fast as Three Forks is growing — Bozeman is the true “love child” of growth in Montana. The coronavirus pandemic forced lots of people from around the country to work from home. Many decided to make their home in Bozeman — which now boasts one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation.
Homes that should — in a normal world — sell for perhaps $350,000 in Bozeman — are now selling for a cool $1 million. And why not? The city is close to Yellowstone National Park, and it’s butted right up against the Bridger Mountains, which — on that late-June Saturday afternoon when the four of us were sitting outside on the patio of a coffee shop — were resplendent with snow on the peaks and lush green grass on the lower slopes. Quite a view, indeed.
On Sunday, the Finlaysons took us to the ghost town of Bannack. It was a nearly two-hour trip, and completely worth it. Like so many towns Out West, this one sprang up after gold was discovered. And — also like so many other towns — it boomed and then went bust. Our visit to Bannack was greatly enhanced by a park ranger named John, who gave us insights into its wild and crazy history (for instance — an early county sheriff was hanged there — along with a couple of dozen of his criminal compatriots, who had specialized in robbing travelers).
We took our leave of Paul and Sharon on Monday morning and resumed our trek west, landing in Spokane, Washington, on Monday night. But between Three Forks and Spokane, we lunched in Missoula, Montana — a beautiful university town at an elevation of 3,000 feet, surrounded by mountains that take your breath away. Yes, this is one of those places that Sharon and I “could have lived,” though how we would have made a living remains nebulous.
In Spokane, we paid $4.66 a gallon for gasoline — more than $1 a gallon higher than we had paid in the Midwest. The price of gas in Washington state is right up there with California’s. In case you’re wondering, we drove 387 miles that day.
Then came Tuesday — gas and more in Hood River — along with a delightful drive on Interstate 84 alongside the mighty Columbia River. That waterway is so massive — you wonder what Lewis and Clark thought when they traversed it on their trek to the Pacific. We skirted the southern edge of Portland during rush hour and eventually wound up at our daughter Amy’s Airbnb on a mountain in Amity, Oregon. It had been a 400-mile day in our rental car.
We spent two nights there — and a delightful Wednesday afternoon in downtown McMinnville, just a few miles up the road from Amity. McMinnville is a treasure, and its downtown is quaint and inviting. Yes, we had lunch there because, well, that’s what we do on vacations. It was at a delightful hole-in-the-wall place called Pura Vida Cocina. Yep. Go there, if you ever get to McMinnville.
Thursday saw us back on the road again — heading south through the beautiful Willamette Valley of Oregon to the university town of Eugene, which had a completely gluten-free restaurant Sharon had found. It’s called the Jazzy Ladies Cafe & Club, if you’re interested.
Then it was on to Ashland, the home (for 90 or so years) of the magnificent Oregon Shakespeare Festival. It was our first time there, and we lucked into tickets for an outdoor, nighttime performance of “Twelfth Night.” Yes, it’s another one of those must-sees, if you’re in the area. We had driven 265 miles that day to get there.
On Friday, we stayed on Interstate 5 all the way from Ashland to Elk Grove, just outside Sacramento– a 300-mile trek. Along the way, we saw a wonderful sight, indeed — Mount Shasta, with a ton of snow still on it. Just a year ago, the mountain was high and dry, and nearby Shasta Lake was two-thirds empty. It was a disaster.
But Mother Nature can and does perform wonders. Our incredible winter had put hundreds of inches of snow on Shasta — and the lake is now completely full. A miracle, indeed.
When we arrived in Elk Grove late Friday afternoon, it was 106 degrees — just a preview of what was ahead of us. The KCRA-TV newscast that evening warned us about the heat dome that extended up and down the Central Valley and urged us to stay out of it as much as possible. That night, we did.
But the next morning — Saturday — we were up early to start the last leg of our trip home. It was only 155 miles or so, but we were tired from all our previous days on the road, so it seemed longer. But then — there we were — back in our driveway at Tesoro Viejo, welcomed by Bradley and Nicole — who had kindly come West for the past two weeks to stay in our place and take care of Rocky, the Hart family cat.
We had only three hours with Brad and Nicole — including lunch at a nearby restaurant, of course — before we had to return our rental to the Fresno airport and drop Brad and Nicole off at the hotel where they’d spend the night before flying back to Washington, DC.
It was all bittersweet. We loved seeing them — and hated seeing them go. We loved being back home — but had loved being “on the road,” too.
It had been a fine trip. Plenty of memories, friends, good food — all of it, packed into two weeks. We’ve done this lots of times, and I hope we have some more times left.
And I’m still wondering — what did that lady in Hood River think when she opened that bathroom door?