Three weeks, 8,250 miles of driving, and a breathtaking set of experiences. I won’t elaborate on it here because I’ve done that in spades here. <fix> Our National Parks are amazing and San Francisco is out of this world!
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Category: Travel
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Categories
Enter: Small Adventures
During certain months it’s difficult to take road trips. Camping isn’t an option. Weather doesn’t cooperate. Parks are closed for the season.
At the same time, I live near some of the world’s greatest cities. Washington D.C. and New York City are two excellent examples and they’re both a reasonable driving distance. I’m committed to not repeat my past mistakes; I will take advantage of getting to know great places near where I live.
As I write this, I’m putting the finishing touches on a new sidebar feature of this blog: Day Trips. Here I will pull together my smaller sites which describe short trips. With this feature I hope to have fresh postings often.
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Out by 8:30 AM and back by 5:00 PM. Not long but rarely do I get this much quality time with Court and Kels. Going skiing today wasn’t my fondest idea of how to spend the day but their enthusiasm fueled our exit and once we hit the road the fun began. En route we came across a covered bridge and a child’s playground, both at which we had fun. While at Ski America we skied all the slopes available to us.
Basically we skied till we dropped. It was fun! See pictures …
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The light bulb went off. “Why not walk Manhattan from top to bottom?”
This lead to a series of discoveries. Broadway Avenue actually runs the entire length of the island and extends up into the Bronx. Google Maps allowed me to build a detailed plan and Street View allowed me to preview neighborhoods. The 1-train tied together my hostel, the Bronx, and Midtown. Jordan was interested in making the trek with me. The pieces fell together nicely.
A rendezvous with my nephew and off we went down down down Broadway.
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During certain months of the year it’s difficult to take long road trips. Camping isn’t an option. Weather doesn’t cooperate. Parks are closed for the season.
At the same time, I live near some of the world’s greatest cities. Washington D.C. and New York City are two excellent examples and they’re both a reasonable travel distance from my home. I’m committed to not repeat my past mistakes; I will take advantage of getting to know great places near where I live.
This page is about trips to appreciate that lie close at hand:
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Since retiring in 2006 and with the unbelievable support of my family I’ve been traveling to unfamiliar frontiers. There’s been no master plan. An idea occurs to me, it starts to take shape, and before I know it a new adventure has begun. Often I’ve taken road trips but not always. Often I’ve stayed in the U.S. but not always. Regardless of where I go or what I do three things are certain: 1) I will take lots of pictures, 2) I will share my experiences, and 3) I will learn new things as I travel. My good pursuits are a source of continued growth.
Another thing I’m learning along the way is web publishing. The consequence is that I have an evolving series of web sites with different styles. This makes for a bit of a hodgepodge but it’s all a part of my learning. Even though slightly messy I hope you enjoy my stories.
Here are a few of my travel sites:
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Categories
GoodPursuits now means “Travel”
Enough of blogging about anything! I need to focus. I need to narrow my blogging pursuits to what I’m passionate about. Since retiring, travel seems to be what I enjoy doing most so ready or not, here we go!
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(This post is a condensation of a site I created after my trip.)
Welcome
This page is about my three week road trip through the Scottish lands of Caledonia.
Road trips are a great way to explore new places. You can stop any where. You can choose your own route. You can carry everything with you everywhere you go. It’s no wonder to me that in a country as big and varied as the United States that driving would be a national past time. All you need is time, a car, a goal and intestinal fortitude to pay for the gas.
This site is about the latest of my road trips. In the recent past I’ve driven down the U.S. west coast, across Canada, up the Mississippi, and along Historic Route 66. This trip is a venture to the north of the United Kingdom. I’ll be spending just over two weeks getting to know Scotland.
My planning has centered around three themes: scenic road trips, staying at hostels, and creating this web site. After checking out several books of driving tours, I settled in on a book by Frommer’s entitled Scotland’s Best-Loved Driving Tours which contains “25 unforgettable itineraries” and did my best to stitch them all together in to one long road trip.
Hostels were going to be a relatively new experience for me. Though I had stayed in one on Isla Mujeres near Cancun in 1983, all I really remember was it being incredibly cheap and having to rent sheets for my hammock. Recently on a ferry ride from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland I rented a bunk in a dormitory and found this worked fine for me. These two experiences convinced me to try hosteling this trip. But which hostels to stay in? Again, after looking around I came across a book entitled Hostels U.K. which was full of frank assessments of hostels throughout England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Using it as my guide I booked a few hostels. Unbelievably, even six weeks in advance, I found many were already full. This discovery caused me to book everything early. I didn’t want to find myself stranded!
Lastly, there’s this site. This theme is actually much more involved than you might think. Not only are there gadgets like cameras, computers, and video recorders to deal with but there are Internet connections to find, batteries to charge, and software to learn. For now I’ll only say that I’m trying a new publishing system called Sandvox for this trip. It’s new to me and there’s lots to learn but what I’ve seen so far looks promising. Let’s hope I’m not wrong!
So, enough with the introduction! This site will be fleshed out over the next few weeks. Please check back for updates. Oh, and write me an email at the left, if you’re so inclined.
Thanks for visiting my site! Travis
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Since I was going to drive the length of the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH), from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia, I was going to need regular exercise so as to stay fit and an engaging project to keep my mind occupied and interested. If I could do both and at the same time learn a lot about Canada then all the better.
The answer of what to do came from a book entitled “Canada: Coast to Coast” which not only details thousands of points of interest along Canada’s major highways, but also includes full walking tours for 14 of Canada’s largest cities. Twelve of these 14 were along my chosen path so I resolved to walk all twelve tours.
This site is not about my walking tours.
This site is about something I did during each tour.
At every tour stop I recorded a brief video from my wife and daughters.
This page has the videos I made across my three week journey down the TCH (12 Apr 07 – 2 May 07).
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As I took up a life of travel, I got the itch to write and the web was an obvious destination.
This page chronicles my journey and scrapes together roadkill from the ride.
I can’t say I recommend my process but in the end I learned a lot.
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