We didn’t leave Ft Collins until 3pm so we couldn’t make it to South Dakota before sunset. At 6pm we stopped in Wheatland and ate a patty melt at Casey’s Timberhouse and it was delicious.
All the way to SD, we listened to David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day which is read by him and hilarious. As we approached the Black Hills Park, we saw many prairie dogs. As we stopped to take pictures they started barking loudly and you could hear hundreds of them.
In Custer State Park, we ran into a bison right in the middle of the road. It seemed to be minding its own business and didn’t even glance at us. By then, the sun was setting so we looked for a campground which we found right in the middle of the park. The place said it was full but thanks to cancellations we got a spot and made in just in time to watch the 20minute Spring Prairie movie.
After our best night of camping ever, we got on the road at 6:30am and saw some bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelopes on the way to the Crazy Horse memorial. The memorial was huge but we didn’t get to get close as we were there too early and they were also blasting the mountain.
We then drove back and up the Needles Highway Scenic Drive to Mount Rushmore. Both Rushmore and the Horse memorial were somewhat of a letdown after the amazing nature we saw in the last few days.
We stopped by Rapid City, bought batteries, wifi card, movies, Naked on CD, and drove on. One the way over we saw huge signs for Wall Drug and, thanks to Sarah, I knew to stop. We ate lunch and drove to the colorful Badlands.
Lodging: Marriott@$72 in CO & Custer Park Camping@$15 in SD
Car’s Mileage: 12103
Gas: $12@1.48 & $13.95@1.65
Roads: 25 to Orin, 18/85 to Hot Springs, 385 to Wind Cave Nat. Park, 87 and 244 to to Mt. Rushmore, 16 to Rapid City, 90 and 240 to the Badlands
Sites: Custer State Park, Crazy Horse Memorial, Black Hills National Park, The Needles, Mount Rushmore, Rapid City, Wall Drug, Badlands Nat. Park
Now that we’re staying at a hotel with broadband access I figured I’d post our route in case people have recommendations. We’ve been adding sites as we go along so this schedule is not rigid. I will put the added sites in italics so you can see how much we’ve already added. Also, the original plan was not to drive more than 200/300 miles a day so if it seems we are covering very little ground per day, that’s the reason. We’ve also gotten more flexible on that so I’ll try to show those changes, too. The days are not dated since we didn’t want to be locked into a date in case we chose to stay somewhere longer.
Day 1: Boston to Pennsylvania – driving through New Haven for some banking needs
Day 2: Pennsylvania to Louisville, KY
Day 3: Kentucky to St. Louis, MO – we ended up making it to St. Louis in two days and spent the fourth of July weekend in town with good friends.
Day 4: St. Louis to Oklahoma City, OK
Day 5: Oklahoma City to Dallas, TX
Day 6: Dallas to New Mexico Border Big Spring, TX
Day 7: Big Spring to Carlsbad Caverns, NM – that day we also did White Sands and ended up spending the night by Valley of Fires
Day 8: Carlsbad to Santa Fe – we also visited Valley of Fires
Day 9: Santa Fe to Great Sand Dunes, CO – we ended up driving all the way to Colorado on Day 8 and spent the night at the Grand Sand Dunes so we ended up saving one more day
Day 10: Great Sand Dunes to Rocky Mountains – we also saw Black Canyon and drove to Fort Collins, CO for the night instead.
Day 11: Colorado to Badlands/Mount Rushmore/Crazy Horse Memorial, SD – this is a bit ambitious so we might take two days, especially since we won’t get on the road until noon. It turned out that we camped at Custer State Park that night and saw all of the above the next morning.
Day 12: South Dakota to Devil’s Tower/Yellowstone, WY – we thought this might take two days as well. We ended up spending the night in Gilette after the Devil’s Tower and drove to Yellowstone the next day spent the night and drove around the park the day after. We also visited the Grand Teton National Park.
Day 13: Wyoming to Missoula, MT – we also wanted to add the Great Falls (I’m not sure that’s what they are called) We skipped Missoula, went to Glacier National Park instead, camped, and visited the park the next day. We did also get to stop by Great Falls.
Day 14: Missoula to Spokane or Seattle, WA – depends on how much driving we can do that day. We made it to Seattle and are planning to visit the Olympic National Park and Mt. Ranier National Park so we will probably take an extra day here.
Day 15: Seattle to Portland, OR
Day 16: Portland to Boise, ID
Day 17: Boise to Craters of the Moon Nat. Park – we were also told to visit Red River along the way.
Day 18: Idaho to Salt Lake City Vicinity, UT – we decided to add on the Bonneville Salt Flats and we were told to stay in St. George in Zion National Park for the night.
Day 19: Utah to Four Corners/Canyons of the Ancients/Canyon De Chelly, AZ – we were told to go through Sedona on our way.
Day 20: Canyon de Chelly – Grand Canyon – we may take an extra day here, depending how tired we are and how much of the canyon we get to see.
Day 21: Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, NV – we added Hoover Dam on the way
Day 22: Las Vegas to San Diego, CA – our new home!
There you have it. This is the plan as it stands now. I am sure there will be changes and additions but we’ve been having a blast and we think we’ll end up seeing almost every great site in the country. The one thing we left out was the Pacific Coast Highway which we decided would be a trip of its own once we settle down in San Diego.
Including the trip in May, the states we will have not visited at all will be: Vermont, Maine, Nebraska, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and North Dakota.
Did we miss anything? Are we seeing something that’s not worthwhile? All comments are very appreciated. Our method of choosing the sites was opening a US AAA map and looking carefully so we may have easily missed some amazing places.
We arrived at the Colorado Great Sand Dunes at sunset. We walked around for a few minutes and then drove to the campground four miles away. We camped on the side of the mountain at quite a steep slant. I kept falling sideways in my sleep.
We awoke at 5:30AM local time and revisited the dunes. The amazing thing about such a huge quantity of sand is that it makes you lose your perspective of height and distance. We kept thinking we were almost at the base of the dunes but there was always more to walk. Especially with the huge mountains behind them, the dunes look small from a distance. Only when you climb up do you realize how incredible they are. Jake climbed all the way to the top as the sun rose and I waited at one of the hills. Over an hour later we got back on the road to Gunnison Park where the Black Canyon is. This site was picked last minute from the AAA guide which turned out to be a very good pick. The canyon was deep enough to fit to Empire State buildings on top of each other.
We then drove from the westernmost end of the state to the Rocky Mountain National Park passing amazing badlands, canyons, the Colorado River on the way. The difference between New Mexico and Colorado is striking and the mountains here are truly awe inspiring.
We arrived at the Rocky Mountains National Park at 7pm and worried that we wouldn’t be able to see anything but the ticket collector told us that it would be light till 9. During the awesome ride up, we saw elk. At the top, we saw the sun set. Simply Magnificent.
Lodging: Great Sand Dunes Oasis Camping@$12
Miles on the car: 11541
Gas: $10.08@1.62 & $8.89@1.69 & $15.70@1.89
Roads: 285 to Alamosa, 160 to Blanca, 150 to the Great Sand Dunes, Road w/ no number to Mosca, 17 to Poncha Springs, 50 to 347 to Black Canyon, 50 to 70E to 40 to 35 to the Rocky Mtn. Nat. Park, 287 to Fort Collins
Sites: Great Sand Dunes Nat. Mon., Black Canyon of the Gunnison Nat. Park, White River National Forest, Rocky Mountain National Park
Carlsbad Caverns and Santa Fe were two original spots we had decided to visit but once we drove into the state we decided we had to go to the white sands and our friend Travis recommended that we check our the Valley of Fires so we’re doing it all.
New Mexico so far has been drastically different than anywhere I’ve been. The roads are completely flat with nothing for miles and miles. We occasionally see some cows and some mountains in the distance. We’ve seen a few little animals scurrying off the road. They look like squirrels but kinda small. I have no idea what they are. But we’re often alone on the road for miles at a time, which is a bit scary in the middle of the torrential rain that just poured.
The cavern was unbelievably huge, very humid and somewhat smelly. It was a long hike to get to the bottom but it was worth it.
On the way west, we drove through Cloudcroft where the air suddenly went from 100s to 60s. We started seeing trees and mountains. The town is around 8000ft. and seems to be a ski area.
The contrast between the sands and the lava and between the barren desert and the lush Rio Grande area, the flat and the mountains makes this state fascinating to me. The cutest part of today was Jake seeing a prairie dog on the side of the road and our seeing a couple on a bike and dog with its very own tiny helmet.
In Santa Fe we emailed our teacher, Prof. Miller, from CMU who works at the Santa Fe Institute. We hadn’t seen him in 6 years. He was there and we had a nice chat and tour and got back on the way. We’re now driving to the scenic route through the Carson National Forest up to Colorado.
Lodging: The Four Winds Motel, Carrizozo, NM@$44
Miles on the car: 10715
Gas: $20.72@1.49 and $10.12@1.45
Roads taken: 180 to Carlsbad, 285 to Artesia, 82 to Cloudcroft, 82 to White Sands, 54 to Carrizozo and 25 to Santa Fe
Sites: Carlsbad Caverns, Lincoln National Forest, White Sands National Monument, Valley of Fires, Santa Fe
We arrived at Dallas around 5 in the afternoon. We were close to the border hours before that but decided to stop and experience some Dairy Queen, a first for both of us. The woman at the store was extra kind to us, first-timers and mixed in chocolate chip, cookie dough ice cream with a ton of fudge and a banana. It was delicious. I’m afraid we’re going to have to stop at many DQs from now on. We then went on some farm roads to find cows. We stopped to talk to many cows. The first two times they got scared and walked away but the third set seemed curious, especially the calves, so we hug out there for a while.
We went to Jake’s friend Ivan’s house in Dallas and spent the night with them. Like our friends in Missouri, they too have a big and beautiful house. They grilled us some food and we chatted. The next day we drove to downtown Dallas and had yummy Mexican food. There are many huge, mirrored buildings in Dallas. My favorite was the enormous Pizza Hut building. It must be their headquarters because I can’t imagine why Pizza Hut would need that big a building.
We then got on the road to Carlsbad Caverns, NM. We took I-20 and I drove the entire way. Around 8pm, we decided to stop at the last big town on route: Big Spring, Texas. There were only two still-functioning hotels. We picked one and spent the night. Dinner was from Schlotzky’s Deli which we were awfully surprised to see in the remote corner of Texas.
In the morning, we checked all of our car’s fluids since the next part of the trip will be through some hot climates, and got on the road. We found a dealer in Santa Fe, where we plan to be in a day or two, so we can get on the road. Big Spring supposedly is a big oil town so there is a huge refinery. There is also a huge landfill. We’re now on a small road with nothing but grass ranches on both sides. This supposedly takes us right to Carlsbad.
With its red clay, rundown and deserted stores, magnificent cacti, and delicious food we enjoyed Texas quite a bit.
We were still not too tired when we passed by Tulsa, so we decided to continue to Oklahoma City and arrived in town at 7:20pm local time. We set up camp at an RV Park right off of the highway. There was only one more tenter, a woman with two young kids. She told us she would have slept in the car if we hadn’t been there.
After we set our tent up, we drove down to the memorial which really was quite magnificent. Afterwards, we drove around looking for a movie theater and finally asked two women at a gas station. Legally Blonde 2 was so bad that even I didn’t like it and I’m not exactly what one would consider selective.
Driving around last night and this morning, the city seems so deserted. There are many run-down, empty gas stations and stores. It didn’t feel scary, just odd. I wonder what people do in this city. The one place that seemed somewhat lively was a small section called Bricktown. It has a pretty canal with bars and restaurants overlooking it.
Today’s drive is south on 35 to Dallas. Here’s a bit a trivia I learned recently: the odd numbere highways go north-south and the eveb ones go east-west and the numbers increase from south to north and from west to east. Oh and if you ever wanted to visit the largest McDonalds, it’s on 70 somewhere between Missouri and Oklahoma.
After two long days of driving, we arrived at St. Louis on Friday night and spent the weekend at my friend Ashlie and her husband Travis’ new house. In two days, we watched some amazing fireworks, saw penguins, puffins and prairie dogs at the zoo, went up into the arch, ate toasted ravioli on a riverboat, and spent quality time with my three good friends.
Besides the obnoxious heat, I found St. Louis to be very pretty and charming. This opinion was, of course, strongly influenced by our amazing hosts. They went out of their way to make our experience really memorable. Especially, Travis (see, I told you I’d write about you.) He has also helped us fine tune our travel plans to make sure we don’t miss anything amazing and we skip the unneccessary. So now, we’re all set for the next month.
We’re currently driving through Oklahoma, on our way down to Dallas where Jake has a good friend. Today’s highlights included driving on the famous Route 66 and a sign for a porn store that was immediately followed by one that said “porn ruins lives”. We have been driving by lots of farms so we see many cows and lots of neat hay bales. We even saw mini oil wells in Illinois on the way to Missouri.
Our stop tonight is Tulsa or Oklahoma City depending our mood. I want to see the memorial in Oklahoma City which, I was told, is breathtaking.
After a week in the Caymans, two days in NYC, ten days in Turkey and four days in Boston, we’re back on the road. This time our final destination, and hopefully our new home, is San Diego.
We’ve learned some good lessons from the first leg back in May so our car is a lot less heavy now. We broke up the stuff across three smaller bags instead of one huge one. We didn’t bring the 47 pairs of shoes I own. We traded the box of books for a bag of books. Especially since all I read in the last month was Five Quarters of an Orange, the Shipping News, the Eight and Range of Motion.
The back seat holds only the food, the cooler and the AAA maps. We have two 12-packs of diet coke and quite a bit of snacks.
We put another 256megs of RAM into my laptop and got a car-charger so I can continue the Python coding I’ve been doing for my father-in-law. We brought along two more laptops, the little libretto and an old loaner. With one blackberry, two phones, three laptops, five cameras, two iPods, one Rio, one Palm and one Visor, we have quite a bit of charging to keep up with.
We planned out most of the route. The trip doesn’t really start until we leave St.Louis since we’ve seen most everything east of that, we decided to zoom to Missouri, see our friends and go from there. We have 21-driving days planned but I can’t so far tell if we’ve over or under estimated.
We didn’t get on the road till 1pm but we’re now making way through Pennsylvania, hoping to reach St.Louis tomorrow night. We’ve already begun reading a fascinating book, The Secret House by David Bodanis.
Right as we entered Connecticut, I looked over to my right and made an eye-connection with a driver to my right. I remarked to Jake about how much the driver looked like my friend Pat. A few minutes later, the same car put on its sirens and pulled us over. The cop came over to me and after giving us a bit of a hard time decided a ticket would be a terrible way to start our trip, so he let us go.
Lucky!
After a magnificent week in the Grand Cayman Island, we made it back to New York and are already on our way to Istanbul. I can’t wait to hug my nephews.
Save for the obnoxious allergies I had all week, the Caymans was truly enjoyable. We stayed with our friends Adam and Crystal and their friends John and Elsa. The view outside our balcony would have looked too perfect even for a postcard. We could see all the way to the bottom of the aquamarine water. We went diving (with an instructor since neither of us had a license) three times and hand-fed sting rays. We saw a plethora of colorful fish of all sizes and very colorful coral.
I will write more about our trip and post our pictures when I land in Turkey, hug my nephews, sleep and log in.
After much debate, we decided to spend two days in Boston and do the trip to Pgh in one day. This means we won’t get there early enough to see our professors from college but we had a much-needed extra day to rest.
The drive from Philly to Boston was long and uneventful. We ended up getting on the road at 3pm because we had a long and very fun conversation with Jenn. Such, we didn’t arrive in Boston till nearly midnight.
The wedding in Pgh is of a good college friend and we’ll have other classmates there which makes this event tons of fun. We’re also staying with a friend’s friend whom we haven’t seen in a long time. Going to Pittsburgh is like going home for me since it’s the first American city I ever lived in.
After my mom’s birthday yesterday and my nephews’ today, our one-year annivesary is approaching fast. I can’t believe that, as of Sunday, we’ll have been married one whole year. And what a year it’s been! I’m glad I’ll finally have a chance to taste my wedding cake.
After a ten hour drive we made it to Shadyside in Pittsburgh and sat in my beloved Max&Erma’s. Now it’s time to rest.
We woke up to another rainy, crappy day and thus decided not to get back on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Instead, we are taking major highways to get to spend tonight with my friend Jenn in Philly.
The return trip has been less fun and less interesting mostly due to tornadoes, a ton of rain, having to stay in hotels, raised anxiety levels due to the accident, and long days of driving. Nickel and Dimed is proving to be an interesting read as well as sad and thought-provoking. We’re nearly done with it and I’m looking for other good read-aloud suggestions. It appears non-fiction works better than fiction. I’ve already read The Tipping Point and Fast Food Nation, both of which I think would have been good reads. If you have any suggestions, leave me a comment or email me.
I’ve only been to Philly twice before, once during college to visit my boyfriend-at-the-time and once two years or so ago to visit my brother in law, both in UPenn. My friend Jenn is also working at the school where she’s a PhD candidate in Art History. I wonder if everyone in Philly is somehow or another connected to UPenn?
We made it to my friend’s house on time and spent a beautiful night with her. To top it of she sent me on my way with three books. Anywhere I can stay for free and walk away with books is magic to me.
Gas: $10.99@1.39 and $7.27@1.41
Toll: $7.00
Miles on the car: 5802
Lodging: Marion, NC Days Inn @ $42.63
States: NC, VA, DC, MD, DE, PA
Sites: well we took 40 to 85 to 95 so we saw pretty much interstate highways all day long.
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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