I had a 10 hour challenge: leave home, take in as much of Gettysburg as I could, and be home in time for dinner. Crazy goal but there you have it. The good news is that I succeeded and it was a great, albeit cold, day.
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Where’s the southernmost point in the continental United States? Given the name of the blog post I don’t suppose you could guess incorrectly but just to be sure … the answer is Key West, Florida and they make the most of it.
After returning from the Dave Koz Cruise I stayed an extra day in southern Florida. Originally I planned a day of bicycle riding but the day seemed perfect for a long drive to a destination I’d long had in mind. After four hours driving, many bridge crossings and lots of great views, I arrived in Key West.
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We drove from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles but it was certainly not a straight line. To begin with we headed north to Cleveland and Chicago, then south and west along Route 66 through eight states to Santa Monica. We took many detours along the way and among them was a trip to San Antonio to visit my brother’s family, a trip to Dallas to attend a Rascal Flatts/Taylor Swift concert and a jaunt to the Grand Canyon. Yes, we drove a lot but we had a GREAT time!
Kelsey flew home; I headed to SF, turned right, and drove home.
On her return, Kelsey built a photo album that you can see here. <fix>
Suffice to say, on this trip we had the time of our lives!
For the Record:
We drove 4,550 miles to Los Angeles and I drove another 3,460 home.
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Our goal was to visit Reggie and Judy and their amazing progeny but drive directly to Charleston? No way! We chose to go down as far east as we could through Virginia, North Carolina, and North Carolina which meant driving down the wonderful Outer Banks. This 200-mile series of connected islands off the coast is the site of America’s first flight (by the Wright brothers at Kill Devil Hills) and the home of many, many vacation getaways. Check out the link above for a satellite view of the island and you can see why it’s so distinct.
How much can be accomplished in 48 hours? A lot! From their home in Mount Pleasant we walked to buy fresh shrimp at the fleet docks and ice cream sodas at the Old Town Rexall Drug Store. We drove to the Exchange and Waterfront Park in Charleston. We also managed a ferry ride to another of their homes on Dewees Island where the setting was so pristine, unpopulated, and natural that I almost felt I was on a secluded island in the middle of the ocean.
Feeling immensely satisfied and thankful we drove home after a great visit.
During our 9.5 hours on the road Kelsey grew a pair of “road trip” wings.
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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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(This post is a condensation of a site I created after my trip.)
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.
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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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