Day 9: Ashland WI to Eagle River MI via lots of trees

The final day, not huge (180mi or so), nice relaxed start, swimming in the morning, drive through a few nice towns on Lake Superior, then up north M28->M45->M26->US41->M26->home. Note the presence of M26 twice there, it takes a much more circuitous route through the upper peninsula than US41.

Some stats for the trip are below. Note that the html composer screwed up the formatting, so I'll fix it later.

Total miles: 2749mi
Total fuel: 109.6gal (assuming 25mpg for the last leg)
Avg mpg: 25mpg

Date	City	State	Mileage	Temp	Cond	Cost	Fuel	MPG	Trip	word
Mon Jun 23	Piedmont	CA	176350	75F	sunny					home
Tue Jun 24	Chico	CA	176512	86F	sunny	$58.29	14.4gal		305.9	hot
Tue Jun 24	Montgomery Creek	CA	176627	83F	sunny					uphill
Tue Jun 24	Lava Beds	CA	176760	75F	sunny, windy					bats
Wed Jun 25	Klamath Falls	OR	176804	61F	part cldy	$52.91	12.9gal		292.7	cows
Wed Jun 25	Crater Lake	OR	176862	43F	rainy					snow
Thu Jun 26	Bend	OR	176983	57F	rainy					ducks
Thu Jun 26	Grass Valley	OR	177091	69F	sunny					horses
Thu Jun 26	Biggs	OR	177118	77F	sunny	$51.52	12.7gal		313.7	teenagers
Thu Jun 26	Kennewick	WA	177224	78F	sunny
Fri Jun 27	Spokane	WA	177374	67F	cloudy	$46.31	10gal		255	hoops
Fri Jun 27	Albeni Falls Dam	ID	177417	60F	cloudy					snake
Fri Jun 27	Kootenai Falls	MT	177518	69F	part cldy				143.7	bridge
Sat Jun 28	Kalispell	MT	177624	61F	cloudy	$37.64	9.4gal		249.8	salmon
Sat Jun 28	West Glacier	MT	177678	50F	rainy				53.7	rapids
Sat Jun 28	Shelby	MT	177818	63F	sunny, windy				193.8	rabbit
Sun Jun 29	Malta	MT	177909	69F	clear	$63.25	15.6gal		385	downtown
Sun Jun 29	Wolf Point	MT	178144	75F	part cldy				135	Missouri

Sun Jun 29
Minot
ND
178371
68F
clear, windy
$56.76
14.3gal
363.1
sauna
Mon Jun 30
Grand Forks
ND
178581
66F
rainy
210.2
waterpark
Mon Jun 30
Grand Rapids
MN
178780
62F
rainy
409.9
tin man
Tue Jul 01
Ashland
WI
178912
77F
sunny
$76.48
19.7gal
541.3
estuary
Tue Jul 01
Eagle River
MI
179099
55F
sunny
184.5
grandparents

Day 8: Grand Forks ND to Ashland WI via a water park and more Route 2

Along the Bakken Formation in North Dakota is a significant increase in the number of rigs for oil (and some natural gas) now that the extraction technology has improved. Lots of people coming up to the area to work on the rigs (or setting them up) and normally lower-paying service jobs are advertising at 2x the normal rate (hotel service for example). For housing, there is a big shortage of housing in general, I believe the rents per square foot are the highest in the country (source), and there are three main types of new housing.

First are permanent structures that are mostly long-term residence hotels, similar to the ones in Winnemucca during the recent silver rush.

Permanent housing

Second are slightly more temporary structures that are basically the standard trucking container built into apartments and stacked 2-3 high in leveled off areas near the rigs.

Temporary housing

Third are just leveled off dirt lots with 100's of RVs parked on them. (sorry, no picture came out for them)

The changes from the last time we drove down Route 2 a few years ago were myriad, and one other notable addition was the large number of new drilling rigs or rigs under construction.

Today's journey was mostly about playing in the water park in Grand Forks, so didn't roll out of town until about 3pm Central, then gently rolled down Route 2 through Grand Rapids MN and ended up in Ashland WI for the night. Tomorrow should be an easy ride to my parents in Upper Michigan, looking forward to some non-travel days for a couple weeks.

Tin Man

Day 7: Malta MT to Grand Falls ND via lots of Route 2

Iron butt day today, 500+ miles, saw a cool part of the Missouri river at Wolf Point, Scandinavian Heritage site in Minot, and lots of wind (but no bugs) and rain along Route 2. Finally landed at the hotel at midnight (Central) and hitting the sack now. Tomorrow possible second iron butt day to arrive in Michigan, but probably will split into two parts.

Day 6: Kalispell MT to Malta MT via Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park looks cool but an avalanche prevented us from driving through fully. Saw mountain goats licking rocks. Hit a lot of bugs. Now listening to the baseline of some songs blasting from the bar across from the only hotel within 200mi with any vacancies. That was a badly structured sentence :)

Day 5: Spokane WA to Kalispell MT along Route 2

Super nice day, started out a bit rainy, cleared up in the evening. There is a giant 3-on-3 hoops tournament going on in Spokane, kind of cool with lots of closed down streets and people playing basketball all over the place. The hotel was overrun with athletic teenagers and their parents. Route 2 is beautiful once you get into the countryside, we stopped at Kootenai Falls which has a very unstable footbridge across the Kootenai River. Tomorrow should be a tour through Glacier National Park, some of the roads may still be closed due to snow ...

Day 4: Bend OR to Spokane WA via the Columbia Gorge

A bit longer day (~390mi), pretty intense rainstorms off and on, lots of lightning near Kennewick WA. The Columbia Gorge is extremely large, hard to grok until you see it in context (though it consumes much of the context). Lots of wind turbines around, volcanic rock everywhere. Hint: good taco truck in Kennewick (Tony's Tacos).

Day 3: Klamath Falls to Bend via Crater Lake

Another short day in terms of mileage, but Crater Lake is a pretty interesting place to visit. Unfortunately much of the East Rim Way was closed, so we went around the West Rim Way instead. Surprisingly, it rained and was about 40F at the rim (about 7000') with fields of snow still left from the winter. Last time we were here it was around the same time of year, sunny and no snow at all.