For a long time, I wanted this website to have a “map” feature, where you could look at a nice, dynamic scrolling map of all of the places I visited.

Well, guess what! I’ve had one on the site since 11/11/21. You can find a map of all posts on the map page, or individual maps of posts in each series on any series page.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to get a map set up and working, and even once I got started writing the feature, I was still stuck for a fairly long time before I got it running. It’s still imperfect, and my code can get cleaned up, but it’s probably worth sharing for anyone else that tries to create something similar.

What follows are a bunch of code/implementation details, specifically related to my choices of the Zola static site generator and OpenLayers javascript map library.

I wish I had a bit of better timing for the last day of my trip, but hey, what can I do.

Much of the “in between” from Boise to Seattle is highway, or mountain. An easily accessible hiking trail seemed off the cards, because many seemed like they were more of a detour than I was willing to take.

Meanwhile, Oregon is home to the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute – the only Native American museum along the Oregon Trail. I wasn’t super interested in going to hear any settler accounts of the Oregon trail, but this sounded like a nice stop, and a place that could be really interesting.

But, I my drive was on a Sunday and the museum was closed. Instead, I decided to visit Toppenish, Washington, with the hope of getting some Frybread Tacos for lunch.

To my dismay, the restaurant opened only in the mid-afternoon, and I wasn’t going to hang around for hours, but the detour meant I got to check out… *erm* the many murals of Toppenish.