It was Beth’s idea that for Spring Break Courtney and I should do a road trip and after 26 years I’ve learned to listen to her. However, a college student is still of a mindset that spending time with Dad is far less enjoyable than romping on a beach with her buddies. Well, I can’t say she was wrong in her thinking but I told her I’d try really, really hard to not be boring. In the end and much to my excitement she accepted. The stage was set.
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Between two extensive road trips covering what will amount to more than 22,000 miles I decided it was appropriate to post a reminder. There are plenty of lovely sites near home in the mid-atlantic area. One such destination is Ricketts Glenn which is a four hour drive into Pennsylvania and in theory a one-day round trip. Here youll find a network of 21 waterfalls over a very short distance, making it both pleasant to visit and gratifying to photograph.
Check out the original blog post here: Ricketts Glen Falls.
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Can you say “hodge podge”? That’s what this trip turned out to be but not in a bad way, simply in a multi-themed way. Wide variety pervaded this trip!
The initial reason for travel was my cousin’s wedding in Portland. Tagging on to the theme of family was working with my uncle on his business and spending time with my sister visiting from England. Then there was the incubator theme, visiting organizations that help start-up businesses succeed. Oh, and let’s not forget the goal of completing my circumnavigation of the continental United States or visiting all the Presidential Museums!
Get the picture? This trip was all over the place.
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Often the last leg of my trips is simply about getting home. However, this time I wasn’t shooting to break land speed records so I wove in a few interesting distractions into each day. Given the new path I had chosen for my return, finding new things wasn’t difficult.
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Boulder … Denver … Colorado Springs, all major Colorado cities sitting at the edge of the Great Plains with their backs to the Rockies. All relatively close to one another and all very worthy of exploration. Here I paused for two days in my cross-country drive to get exercise and enjoy the uncharacteristically warm weather.
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Time to meander home. Why “meander”? The fact is that all the primary east-west routes via the Interstate Highways I’ve already explored. Sure, there’s alway more to see but they’re not the rich passageways as they once were. By taking secondary highways and especially diagonal highways I come across abundant new veins of discovery to mine.
Not in keeping with the above, I started down the Columbia River Gorge which I love, love, love to drive. However, once I emerged on the east side of the Cascade Mountains I jumped on a quiet road, the John Day Highway, to the National Monument I had once visited too briefly. Then I cut east through the Blue Mountains to historic Baker City.
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Chris, my cousin who I had not seen since he was eight years old, got married to
a lovely lady named Amanda. I still don’t know her at all and oddly I don’t know him either but I plan to remedy this next time I’m in Portland. The wedding was remarkably tasteful and well done and provided an opportunity to see lots of family. Very nice.
The next day I attended a Superbowl party. “What? Travis Good watching a football game? What’s up with that?”
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I will look for ANY excuse to spend time in San Francisco and this trip I had plenty but primarily Macworld 2011 and visiting incubators. In addition, I’d committed to doing more urban hiking while in good weather and there’s no place like the Bay Area to find good weather. From here I’d head north for my original primary goal, to attend my cousin’s wedding in Portland.
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Normally I drop into a rut when I drive up the California coast: relax, enjoy becomes hurry up, running late. To reset where my rhythm kicks in I reached the coast via a new route. Now I had the luxury of suffering the same pattern but starting at a different spot on the coast.
Back when we lived in Los Angeles, Beth and I talked about living in San Luis Obispo some day. Why? It’s not too complicated an answer. SLO lies along the glorious stretch of California coast, has a large enough population to have all necessary services and benefits from having a local university: Cal Poly.
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When I choose a theme I can’t help but wrestle it to the ground. The Nixon and Reagan Presidential Libraries are both in Southern California so to keep progressing down my list of the 12 managed by the National Archives I visited them both. Nixon’s was very good but interestingly the Watergate section is still not finished; Reagan’s was in an amazing location but key sections were closed due to preparation for his 100th birthday celebrations. I’ll have to return to Reagan’s because too much was unavailable and I might as well visit Nixon’s again to see if they ever finish Watergate.
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