Then It Was On To Complete The Journey...

After leaving Naperville, IL and Brother/"Professional Wifey" Brandenburg behind I headed West through Iowa and stopped for the evening in Des Moines. This was the old stomping grounds for another great brother named Melissa who I have recently gotten to know through AKPSI and she has since moved to Seattle to work for my old company Microsoft!

Though I did not get a chance to do as much in Des Moines or Iowa has I had hoped, it was still nice to drive through and see the country and peacefulness that exists out there away from huge metropolis' and traffic and pollution and on and on and on! Des Moines also has a special fondness in my heart due to an old game called "MASHO" if anyone is familiar? But alas, that is a story for another time!!! ;)

From Iowa, I was Northwest bound into Nebraska briefly before entering South Dakota and spending some great times in this part of the country. While is S.D. I drove through Custer National Park named after Gen. Custer who had and is famous for his "last stand!" The park was absolutely beautiful and I drove all around it taking in wildlife from all angles from inside my car. I saw sheep and buffalo and horses and cattle and mountain goats, etc! Most impressive however were the free roaming buffalo who nearly walked right up to "Yarissa" if I had let them! I didn't stick around to see if she could fend for herself against these "Wild Buffalo" as she had already gone head to head with a Semi on the free way who kicked a rock her way and cracked her beautiful windshield and a left fog light as well!

After Custer Nat. Park, I headed to Sturgis where I took in a little Motorcycle history with museums and retail stores and historic bars just to name a few! I even got to take in a little car show action before heading out toward Mt. Rushmore! While in Sturgis, although there weren't any major rides going on with thousands of bikers, there was definitely still a lot of activity going on and fanfare for bikers and car enthusiasts and tourists alike! I had a blast and spent several hours there drinking a beer in what could only be described size-wise as an "Alcoholic Big Gulp" straight from what could have been 7-11 as this beer was 50oz! I also finished that off with some of the best steak tips this side of anywhere and talked life and history and everything else under the sun with a great bartender I had befriended there! I will never forget Sturgis and am thankful that I was able to do as much as I did while in town and not get crowded out by 100,000 bikers if infact it had been rally time!!! ;)

Mt. Rushmore in S.D. was great too! Especially since I was able to see everything and soak it all up for free but yet again my famous motto comes into play and..."That is a story for another time!" I will however say this...despite the amazingness of carving something like that into the side of a mountain, I was fairly unimpressed overall compared to other national monuments, landmarks, geographical anomalies and such that I had seen along my journey! Sorry Mt. Rushmore, but you're officially being downgraded by the Mack next to "The Alamo" with the title "Nice Attraction But Still A Disappointment!"

From South Dakota it was on to Wyoming and Devil's Tower! I made excellent time through this part of the journey and pulled into town just as the sun was going down behind the tower. What a sight! I slipped into the small town of Hulett, where I spent the night in an old Motel Cabin that was pretty sweet actually! Met some nice folks and caught up on some much needed rest. The next day I was up extra early to pack a lunch and head out to hike the tower! I spent the next few hours circling the Nation's FIRST National Monument and learning about all of the history and spirituality that exists there! What a place, after a ton more photos and sunshine and aching calves, I was off once again for Colorado en route to the Grand Canyon in Arizona!

Colorado was nice, I had never been there before and though I didn't spend that much time in the state, I took full advantage to drive through as much of it as possible! I spent the night in Fort Collins which was pretty cool and then drove through Denver and then through endless mountain ranges and ski towns including Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, etc. This driving part of my journey was one of my most fun and memorable and I will definitely return to Colorado to spend more time there in the coming years to vacation. Definitely got a "Rocky Mountain High" on Life(Unofficially) while I was driving through though, man what a drive! I had already previously been through Utah and Salt Lake City before so I flew through Utah and all of the Mormons as quickly as possible in a race to get back to Arizona.

Upon entering Arizona, I drove for miles through the most beautiful desert and rock formations I had seen in some time, I drove through Moab, AZ and other resort and vacation towns and cities that were fun to take in! Eventually I pulled into Grand Canyon National Park just before the Park closed but it was already dark so I slipped in under that cover of darkness and once again made out like a bandit, more stories, no time!!!

I found a campsite and for the first time in two and a half months on the road I broke out and pitched my small one person tent and had me a good old fashioned night in the wilderness to myself with coyotes and strange creatures howling occasionally in the night but the sky was truly amazing! Though there was much fog/clouds that blow in from the pollution in California and L.A. I could still see the entire sky and the stars were all seemingly blinking at me! It was quite surreal and I will never forget this as I had never seen stars behave in this manner before. Very special and I slept like a baby! More importantly I rested for what would be my greatest hiking challenge of the trip!

The next day I awoke early and trekked down to the Canyon edge to buy souvenirs and eat breakfast before beginning the hike. Met some nice people and workers at the Canyon and they gave me much needed hints about where to go and what to do! Note to others looking to do the Canyon... DO NOT what ever you do... DO NOT... go to the Indian Reservation and walk out on the glass bottom bridge that takes you over the canyon! I DID NOT do this myself but everyone I spoke to who had, said it was the biggest rip off and waste of time and money as it took an additional hour or two to drive there and then depending upon how big your family is it could be over $150 to go and see it and when you do, you aren't even allowed to bring a camera or recording gear with you to prove that you actually did it! Like I said, a FREAKIN' RIP OFF!!! Don't Do It!!! Anyways, I digress... The LEGIT Canyon experience was amazing and one of my favorite places again on the journey, very spiritual, very challenging hike (the way back up anyways!) and I spent half the next day taking pictures and videos and learning about the history behind the Canyon and hiking its various trails. I took the Angel trail as well, and loved it and would recommend it to everyone!

After the Grand Canyon and barely making it back up to the top all the while avoiding heatstroke, overly sun burnt skin, and death... I headed back out and traveled Northwest to Nevada where I saw the HOOVER DAM, you guys remember National Lampoon's "Vacation" with Chevy Chase and that line, "Welcome to Hoover DAM, I'm the DAM tour guide, do you have any DAM questions!?" Yeah it was a brief visit and drive through but I still laughed going over it. They were doing massive construction still and most likely because of 9/11 where they will eventually circumvent traffic over the damn via massive sky bridge to ease congestion and most likely also avoid potential for additional terrorist threats! This part of the journey was also where my car and every car before and after me was systematically stopped and searched prior to the Dam for anything suspicious and I also had a feeling they were looking for certain unidentified individuals as well by the looks of things and types of searches they were doing!!! I made it through unscathed and without felonies or misdemeanors discovered though so onward I went!!!

After several more hours I finally pulled into Las Vegas, NV though very unceremoniously at rush hour on a weekday evening so a 20 minute jaunt to the strip turned into almost an hour and a half!!! Boo on you Vegas traffic!!! Regardless though I was there...finally... for what had been planned as a sort of mini-vacation to relax, recoup and re-energize myself for two nights and three days before heading on the last leg back up to Seattle, WA!!! As I pulled on to the strip after hours of driving and hours barely moving on the freeway entering the strip, I crashed into my upgraded suite at the NEW YORK, NEW YORK which I found fitting as I had chosen not to go to NYC in New York state due to time constraints earlier in my trip. At the time I had wanted to do NYC right and chose to instead do a FULL ON vacation there sometime down the road when I could do everything I wanted and not be rushed over say 5 days at least and not less than 2 which I would have had at that point in the journey! So needless to say, I got my FAKE New York on in style and showed Vegas a thing or two about the Mack before moving on! What a time and more to come as I try to catch everyone including myself up on this journey and the blog!

Thanks for putting up with such a long post and I hope you all truly enjoyed the photos on Facebook and the blogs in their entirety to date! Cheers and more to come soon!

Sincerely,

Matthew "The Mack" Allen

"MACK OUT!!!"