American Roadtrip

“You lose sight of things... and when you travel, everything balances out.”

2009-07-12T00:58:00.012-04:00

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to add photos, so there are a lot here. We’re in a hotel in Boise, Idaho at the moment as part of our trip to Yellowstone. It’s nice to be out of the woods and a tent for a change. Tomorrow we will be at Yellowstone, where we’ll be camping for 3 nights. From then on it will more or less be a straight haul back to NH to make it home around July 18^th , with a few things in between. It’s been a wild trip so far, but it’s sadly coming to an end in a week.

We left Oregon today, where we spent a few days in various parts. I don’t have the photos uploaded yet, but will have them eventually. We spent yesterday and Portland, and the day before that we camped on a random beach and made a fire. Nobody was really around to bother us. It was really nice. Prior to that we were in the Redwood National Forest, which was really nice.

We drove all along the coast from San Diego and up to Oregon. What an amazing drive that was. It’s something that everybody should try to do at least once, if not more times.

One thing is certain; this trip is VERY well documented. I’ve taken about 3,000 photographs. They’re all really great and have a story. Here are some more of them:

Looking down Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam

Emily and her cousin that lives in Las Vegas. Boston fans are found everywhere.

View from the restaurant in the mountains that we went to just outside Las Vegas.

Fountain show on the strip

Future gambling addiction in the making...

Part of the Pirate Show are Treasure Island

It gets hot in the California Desert

Rabbits at the campground near San Diego

San Diego skyline from Coronado Island

Someone let us hang out with their parot during the sunset just south of San Diego at Imperial Beach. You could litterally see Mexico, and my phone connected to their tower making it think I crossed the border.

On the flight deck on the U.S.S. Midway. We got a free tour because we're special.

Here are some crabs.

Somewhere in San Diego. It's a very nice place.

Took a stroll through a San Diego cactus garden.

A fountain in San Diego

This kitten wandered up to our campsite one morning.

A very clever turtle in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara Mission

Santa Barbara is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Photos just can't do it justice.

Arroyo Burro Beach in Santa Barbara. It's a dog beach. During our last night in the city, we took our shower in the outdoor beach shower that they have to rinse off in. People looked at us strange, but apparently they don't know how the difficulties of camping cross country.

Part of the view from a restaurant where we had dinner. The other side was the ocean.

We took a long and very hot hike in the Santa Barbara mountains.

A Dutch city called Solvang. The whole city looks like this.

Sea lions and pelicans we saw on a rock during a drive.

Somewhere around Big Sur I think. REALLY nice place.

Big Sur sunset

Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco- where the hippy movement started. It's an interesting place.

Atop Mt. Tamalpais, where we camped just outside of San Francisco.

The sunset that followed on top of the mountain.

(We also watched the 4th of July fireworks from up there. Saw San Francisco, Berkeley, Richmond, and many other displays all at once!)

The "Painted Ladies" of San Francisco.

San Francisco is a very interesting city.

Trolly with Alcatraz in the Background. This is just as we were turning right to go down Lombard Street, "The Crookest street in America"

Driving down the windy road.

Alcatraz

Goldengate Bridge

Somewhere on the coast.

Part of the view from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite.

Sunset on Glacier Point

Waterfall with the sun setting behind me.

Management fire in the park

Top and bottom parts of the tallest waterfall in the country 5th tallest in the world.

Another waterfall - Bridalveil

The tallest waterfall again.

At the base of the bottom portion of the tall waterfall.

Yosemite's Half Dome during sunset. The sun set behind me, but made the dome look really great.

Inside an old dead Sequoia tree.

On a hike through a Sequoia grove, we saw this brown bear. He didn't look too happy to see us there, then started walking straight towards us. We started walking away backwards while facing it (never turn your back to a bear!) Then it started running. Fortunately it was away from us.

Once I realized he didn't want us for lunch, I tried taking a picture of him while he was running away. You can't tell from this photo, but he was about 25 feet or so away when he was at his closest. He was really big. It was quite the rush! It turns out it was probably more scared of us than we were of it.

Colorado and The Grand Canyon

2009-06-24T18:40:00.008-04:00

We stayed in Colorado for nearly a week in a few different places. I love that place. It is by far the nicest state we've visited on this trip so far. We stayed just outside of Denver for a few nights, and spent a day touring the city. We went hiking several times, increasing the difficulty as we went along. June 18th was Emily's birthday and we took a hike that lasted a few hours.

We then did an overnight backpacking trip deeper in the mountains. It was fairly difficult, but it was worth it. I'm not sure what our elevation was, but it was somewhere around 10,000 feet above sea level. Hiking at this elevation is SO much harder than it is back home. The air there is much thinner.

For our backcountry hike, we had to use hiking backpacks to store everything we needed such as the tent, our sleeping bags, etc. They were Emily's parent's backpacks from when they did the trip when they were younger. They weighed at least 50 pounds each, maybe more. So that added to the difficulty. But it was worth it to do something that challenging.

After that we drove through Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest continuous highway in the United States. It reaches an elevation of around 12,200 feet above sea level. It was quite the ride. We also took a hike just off of that road, and the view was incredible. We had a 360 degree view of snow capped mountains and nobody else was around us. We were in the middle of nowhere. The winds were sustained at over 60mph and it was very chilly.

We left the Grand Canyon yesterday and arrived in Las Vegas yesterday. Back in civilization... kind of. Words can't really describe what the Grand Canyon is like, so I'll just show the photos. The photos also don't come close to doing it justice. The downfall is that it is VERY touristy. And although we're tourists right now, I still hate them. We've done a few small hikes around and into the Canyon, but nothing too major. The best part so far has been watching the sunset here.

We'll be hanging out in Vegas today and tonight, then to San Diego tomorrow. The plan is to be camping on the beach there. I can't wait.

(photos are in reverse order of when they were taken)

Sunset over the canyon

Hiking in the canyong

Elevation on Trail Ridge Road - 12,202 feet (almost twice that of Mt. Washinton)

Rockies

Trail Ridge Road

On top of a mountain after a hike

Same place as the last

A marmot on top of the hike

A waterfall on our overnight backcountry hike in the Rockies

Snow

A lake high up in the mountains on our hike

Rabbit at our camp

Met this guy on a hike

They posed for the picture

So did this guy

Elk that passed in front of us

View of a storm coming in from one of our campsites

Another view from a hike

Red Rock Ampitheatre

Tampa to Denver

2009-06-17T00:00:00.011-04:00

Have you ever had to worry about tornadoes while you were driving? Chances are that it isn’t a top priority for most while they’re in the car. I hadn’t ever worried about it before, that is – until we drove through the plains. The big first storm we came upon was in Missouri. We were listening to the radio when the National Weather Service interrupted letting everyone know that a tornado had touched down. It was about 10 miles away from where we were driving. They were going on and on about how severe it was, but we didn't get to see it :(

Our second encounter was in Kansas. This time the storm was much more severe. We could see how dark the clouds were in the distance, but we both agreed to keep driving. Again the radio stations began interrupting. The storm gave everything around us a milky green color as lightening stretched all across the sky. There were reports that the storm was producing half-dollar sized hail. Fortunately, the only hail we saw was about the size of a pea.

Because Kansas is so flat, we were able to see for miles. We saw all the different lightening strikes from the storm very easily. At one point, I was able to see the sun setting to the right, while fork lightening lit up the sky to the left.

We could see a few tornadoes trying to form, but none of them reached the ground. We wish they had since we had never seen one before. We met a person in Kansas a few hours ago and we were telling him the story. We said that we would have loved to have seen one, and he said “Oh no, you wouldn’t!”

But before all of that, we stayed at my friends place in Tampa for a couple nights. It was good to see Steve again, and we would have liked to have stayed longer, but with so many stops planned for this trip, it just couldn't work out.

We spent Saturday at the beach. Steve first took us to Sunset Beach, which is a more secluded and lesser known beach to those who aren't from the area. We went out to eat, then went over to Clearwater Beach afterwards. It was the first time I had ever seen the sun set over a body of water. It was nice so I took some photos.

– Steve’s condo complex.

– Guy playing with fire on the beach

– Clearwater dock

Sunday morning came and we began our drive to Memphis, one of our two stop-over points before Denver. It was a very boring drive. Nothing but water towers and churches. There were more churches than houses it seems.

We stayed in Memphis, TN Sunday night. It's nothing like I thought it was. It was really run down and ghetto. Fortunately, they do have one thing that's somewhat worth seeing - Graceland. We pulled up along Elvis's old home and took a few photos. It's been an accepted tradition to sign your name along the outer wall that surrounds the front of the estate, so we decided to add something too.

-Famous blues street in Memphis

We also crossed the Mississippi:

There was a monument along the Mississippi…

…but it was very typical of the south:

We made the drive from Memphis to Junction City, Kansas yesterday for our second of two stop over points. That was a long boring drive, with the exception of the storms.

We're on day two of camping in the Colorado Rockies. Colorado is an amazing place so far. The views are incredible and photos or words just can't do it justice. Last night it got really cold, somewhere in the low 40's or maybe 30's. The view from our campsite is a snow capped mountain range.

Here are a couple photos for now, I'll add more as I take them:

-This is one of the views from our campsite in the Rockies. It's by far one of the nicest places I've ever seen, let alone camped at. Photos just can't do it justice though.

-This is part of the 360-degree view that's just a small hike up from where we set up our tent. The view continues in both directions.

We’ll be doing some sightseeing throughout Denver, as well as get the splash guard repaired on the car (getting it done now while we use their wifi). After Denver, we’ll be headed further into the Rockies where we'll be doing an overnight hike in the mountains. We’ll probably stay a night or two and then be on our way for the next leg of the trip. I’ll update again when we leave the woods and return to civilization.

Some other stuff:

Just about 4,000 miles driven already!!

…Missouri

… Kansas City

… Atlanta, GA taken on our way down to Florida

Washington D.C. and the Smoky Mountains

2009-06-13T14:34:00.016-04:00

We left very early Sunday morning to start our trip. Our first stop was in Washington D.C. where we camped from Sunday night to Wednesday morning just outside of the city. We traveled into the city using the metro system, which was really easy to use.

We did what you would typically expect for a D.C. trip. We visited the White House, the Washington Memorial, both World War Memorials, Arlington Cemetery, The Capital Building, The Lincoln Memorial/Reflecting Pool, The Archives Museum, The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and many other things. This was spread over both Monday and Tuesday. We also visited my friend Joelle which was nice because I hadn’t seen her for awhile.

Washington D.C. was a very interesting city with lots of things going on, and endless things to do. The center of D.C. is very much a walking city, with everything being much farther away from each other than I had expected. We were able to do a little driving throughout other, less tourist-y, sections of the city. I had heard all sorts about what D.C. would be like, but I was very impressed with what I saw.

Our campsite was alright, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. There were lots of strange spiders, and we have never seen so many ticks in one place. Emily found well over a dozen deer ticks on her. I only found three. Either I was lucky or didn’t look hard enough.

Unfortunately it has rained every single day of our trip so far. Luckily for us, they have mostly been relatively short storms, oftentimes leaving better parts of the day for us to go walking or hiking. Thankfully there are things called tarps. Without them, our camping trip would not be quite as dry. The rain during the first night got the inside of the tent a little wet, leaving my sleeping bag wet for a few days. It wasn’t that bad though.

We left Washington D.C. early Wednesday morning for the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, which is part of the Appalachian mountain range. The drive wasn’t terribly exciting, it was mostly just various countryside areas with small towns here and there. We had some minor car problems when the car’s underside rain guard was pulled most of the way off by some cables that laid across the road. We pulled over and ripped the rest of it off and continued on our way.

We spent the next two nights camping in the Smoky Mountains. I had never put too much thought into what Tennessee would be like prior to this trip, but I was amazed at how nice it was. Well, this part of the state at least – the rest of it… not so much.

It didn’t take long before we saw our first bear, which was walking along the side of a road that led to our campsite in Cades Cove. By the time we had left, we had seen four bears in total. Two of which were an adult bear and its cub. Along with bears, we’ve seen all sorts of other animals such as turkey, many deer, chickens, squirrels (of course), and lots other insects, reptiles, and other things.

We went on a really nice hike on Thursday. It was a fairly small hike, only 5 miles total, but it had a lot to offer. There was a big waterfall at the end of it where you can go swimming. There was a sign saying how the trails were closed due to aggressive bears, but we decided to hike it anyway. There were also several warnings of how five people have died at the falls in recent years, and to take caution.

...Video of Emily jumping into the falls

While we were at the water fall, a strong thunderstorm moved through. The sky opened up and poured down in a way that you only see a few times a year in the dead of summer. The trails that rolled through the hills turned into muddy rivers, and all you could hear were loud rumbles of thunder overhead amongst the downpour. Being nearly 3 miles in the woods, you would think this would be a nuisance, but it was surprisingly kind of exciting. By the time we got back to the car, the storm had just finished. That’s how it’s supposed to be though.

That night we met a group of people traveling cross-country, similar to us. One of them was apparently a professor at Perdue University. We sat around our fire cooking up smores and exchanging travel stories for awhile before it was time to head off to sleep. So far we’ve met a few really nice people, as well as some crazy ones. For example, there was a really mentally disturbed person in a bathroom arguing aloud with himself (and his other self) about whether or not he should kill me. That was really awkward, but he obviously listened to the right voice. Other than that the people we have met have been great.

We just arrived in Tampa, Florida. We’ll be staying with my friend Steve for a few days which will be awesome. After nearly a week of sleeping in a tent, it was be a welcomed sight to see a couch… or ever just the carpeted floor! In a few days however, we’ll be back in camping mode. Only 5 more weeks, I wish there were more. There are so many other stories I could write about, such as the couple that were conducting a train that I saw stop in the middle of the tracks so they could grab a bite to eat. This is already too lengthy, so I’ll write more the next time I can access the internet. Until then…

Some more random photos of the couple hundred that I took:

Packing

2009-06-07T00:38:00.000-04:00

It's late Saturday night/early Sunday morning right now. The excitement and reality of what we're about to try and do is setting in. We're leaving at about 6am to head down to Washington D.C. for the first stop of our road trip. We're camping just outside of the city - about a half hour or so drive. We'll be heading into D.C. during the day on both Monday and Tuesday. We'll be camped there until Wednesday morning, then we start driving again to Tennessee. There we'll camp in the Smoky Mountains and hopefully get in some hiking. Pictures will be added the next time I can make it to a computer. Until then...

Our Travel Blog

2009-06-04T14:34:00.000-04:00

I'm not a blogging type of person, and I was split as to whether I should go about setting one of these up. But after some peer pressure, I caved. Peer pressure always wins it seems.

My friend Emily and I have decided to make the most out of this summer by taking a roadtrip. With college ending, the job market looking grim, being young, and quite frankly not really having anything else better to do at the moment, a road trip seems like the perfect choice.

Our trip will consist of about 5-6 weeks driving across the United States. In very general terms, we'll be cruising the country in a clock-wise path: Northeast -> Southeast -> Southwest -> Northwest -> then back home to the Northeast. Our itinerary will be bringing us to many places, and I'll be trying to document as much of it as I can while we're on the road.

I've set up this blog with the purpose of keeping family and friends up to date on our travels. Those that have an interest at least. There will undoubtably be some very interesting photo's and stories uploaded here.

Oh, and another thing... we're camping the entire way. Yes, 6 weeks or so of living out of a tent. I will update this blog as often as I can, but living out of a tent will make it tricky. I'll be swinging through libraries and wifi hot spots when I get the chance.

We're leaving the morning of June 7, and (hopefully) won't return until after or around mid-July. See you when we get back!

-Craig