Our trip has not gone the way we planned! I don't mean that it has been bad, no i mean that we have been driving like crazy to get from A to B. We started out with a quite easy map, maybe you still remember it!
But the more people you meet and the further you come the more recommendations you get. This "simple" map has changed. And it is still not close to beeing over! Proudly I present to you:
"The real thing!"
"The real thing!"
Thousands of miles have passed since our last "Roadtrippin" blog post. We like to share a few new experiences we have made on the road.
Pulled Over. Driving 50 miles/hour in a 30 zone is not a good idea. That´s not only what we think, but also the police. Eventually they pulled us over. We were coming from Mount Rushmore driving through some little town in Wyomingwhen it happened. The speed limit signs are really hard to see I have to say. In Germany they look different. We were driving down the road when I suddenly discovered there was a party in my rear mirror. Red and blue and blue, blue, red and red. The colors were just flashing all over the place. We stopped on the shoulder next to the street and waited for the police officer to show up. In the States you are not supposed to get out of the car when pulled over. You have to stay seated and put both hands visible on the steering wheel. To make things work for us we pulled out our strongest German accent and apologized. Indeed I was just following the car driving in front of me. So I didn´t look at the speed limit. The officer asked us whose car it was, so I replied that it´s my uncle´s car. Then the officer went down on his knees, looked straight through the driver´s window and pointed at Ferdi: " Is this your uncle?". He said that with such a straight face, it was so hard for us not to laugh. In the end we got away with driving 20miles/hour to fast. We received a written warning from the State of Wyoming. That was it.
In general, the police is strictly controlling the speed limit. You see police cars everywhere. Mostly because they have already stopped someone. Here is a picture of a what a police car in action looks like. Watch out for them!
Pulled Over. Driving 50 miles/hour in a 30 zone is not a good idea. That´s not only what we think, but also the police. Eventually they pulled us over. We were coming from Mount Rushmore driving through some little town in Wyomingwhen it happened. The speed limit signs are really hard to see I have to say. In Germany they look different. We were driving down the road when I suddenly discovered there was a party in my rear mirror. Red and blue and blue, blue, red and red. The colors were just flashing all over the place. We stopped on the shoulder next to the street and waited for the police officer to show up. In the States you are not supposed to get out of the car when pulled over. You have to stay seated and put both hands visible on the steering wheel. To make things work for us we pulled out our strongest German accent and apologized. Indeed I was just following the car driving in front of me. So I didn´t look at the speed limit. The officer asked us whose car it was, so I replied that it´s my uncle´s car. Then the officer went down on his knees, looked straight through the driver´s window and pointed at Ferdi: " Is this your uncle?". He said that with such a straight face, it was so hard for us not to laugh. In the end we got away with driving 20miles/hour to fast. We received a written warning from the State of Wyoming. That was it.
In general, the police is strictly controlling the speed limit. You see police cars everywhere. Mostly because they have already stopped someone. Here is a picture of a what a police car in action looks like. Watch out for them!
Pulled Over Reloaded. Again it was me driving. What a bad luck, but in the end we were lucky again. It happened in Grand Teton near Jackson Lodge. We had just eaten the worst dinner in America, had a long day and wanted to drive home to our camp ground at Jenny Lake. It was so dark already and no car was there, that I didn´t see a stop sign. I was supposed to stop and count 1,2,3. Since there wasn´t any car coming I slowed down and immediately turned to the right. This and driving 5 miles/hour to fast triggered our 2nd road party on this trip. We were pulled over again, this time by a female officer. We pulled out our German accent, said sorry we didn´t see the stop sign - which is true. In the end we got away again. The reason why she pulled us over is that driving in a national park can be very dangerous. There is a lot of wildlife crossing the roads. Indeed it didn´t take us 5 minutes and we saw a fox on the street, barking in the night. 2 minutes later we saw a dead fox on the street, maybe the reason for the first fox to bark. Another 5 minutes later Ferdi yelled:" Freddy, Pass auf" [Freddy, watch out]. It didn´t take much and we would have a road-kill on our record. There was an elk [Hirsch] standing on the shoulder of the street. It had really big antlers and was only 6 feet away when I passed it with 30 miles/hour. We tried to get a picture, but it turned out well. We will have to wait until Grand Canyon where we will see a huge elk, with even bigger antlers.
Speaking of road-kills, we keep track of the road-kill that we have seen:
6 dears, 3 raccoons, 2 cats, 2 big birds, 4 foxes, 1 squirrel, 3 marmots and 7 unidentified objects the size of a cat. It´s macabre to count, but when you are on the road that much you see some big shit. A picture would not be adequate here. We support wildlife!
You also see all kinds of cars, like a big RV, pulling a truck, carrying a jet-ski. Since Patrick asked me to deliver more of these pictures we offer you a small variety to choose your favorite from.
Speaking of road-kills, we keep track of the road-kill that we have seen:
6 dears, 3 raccoons, 2 cats, 2 big birds, 4 foxes, 1 squirrel, 3 marmots and 7 unidentified objects the size of a cat. It´s macabre to count, but when you are on the road that much you see some big shit. A picture would not be adequate here. We support wildlife!
You also see all kinds of cars, like a big RV, pulling a truck, carrying a jet-ski. Since Patrick asked me to deliver more of these pictures we offer you a small variety to choose your favorite from.