Cross Country Road Trip
A conversation at work made me think about a cross country road trip Jennifer and I took a few years ago. The entire trip was in a little two seat convertible. I documented the whole thing with over 50 rolls of film and a journal that I would write in every night before bed. We only had a few rules: never drive at night because you miss too much scenery and never eat at the same place twice so we would be forced to find the local joints. The top was down every day of the 28 day road trip! If we were on the road when the sun would start to set, no matter where we were, that’s where we were going to stay.
We started the journey in Seattle, Washington. From there we drove south into Oregon. On the way to Crater Lake National Park, we stopped off at Clearwater Falls. After the lake, we continued south into California passing through the Redwood National Park on our way down the coast. We crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. We stayed there for a couple of days, and then headed east to Yosemite National Park. Our next stop was Death Valley and onto Las Vegas where we stayed at the Luxor for a couple of days. Then it was onto the Hoover Dam and Utah. We went to every national park in southern Utah. First we explored Zion, Bryce Canyon and then Capital Reef. We stayed in Moab, Utah a couple of days nestled between Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. We then went south through Monument Valley into Arizona. We toured the Grand Canyon in a helicopter. Then we headed south and further east to see the Petrified Forest National Park. The trip took us though St. Louis and eventually to Saratoga Springs, New York.
The few sentences I have written to briefly summarize the trip does it no justice. Every single day was an incredible adventure. Whether it was seeing another natural wonder, finding a hidden local treasure, or meeting someone new, every moment of the journey seemed to be better than the last.
Delicate Arch
I took this photo of Delicate Arch at Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. We hiked up the trail in the late afternoon. The sandstone the arch is made of appears light brown under a hot sun, but for a few minutes while the sun is at the horizon during a good sunset, the arch turns a fantastic red. When the sun took its place for the sunset, all 50 or so of us out there were completely quiet. All you could hear was the clicking and beeping of the dozens of cameras.
Moab is nestled between two great national parks: Arches and Canyonlands.This town is for outdoor enthusiasts. On the main street in town, you can rent 4×4’s, mountain bikes, or just browse through some hiking shops. People from all over the world come to the famous Slickrock to test their mountain bike skills or see how good their 4×4 really is. I’m no off road expert so we rented a Hummer, complete with a driver, to take us on some of those class 5 trails. We rented from the Moab Adventure Center. They do all sorts of stuff like horseback riding tours, skydiving, flight tours, rafting, rock climbing, and they just add tomcars. The tomcars you can drive yourself!
If you are ever in Moab, you have to go to the Moab Diner. We actually heard about it from some of the local residents. They kept raving about the diner’s famous “green chili.” They can put it on everything from hamburgers to omelettes. So we had to give it a try. It was incredible. Too bad they don’t ship it out!
Climbers in Zion
I took this picture in Zion National Park on one of our road trips. See the rock climbers in the lower right corner? Sometimes it can take even experienced climbers a couple of days to ascend these walls. So at night they must set up in a portaledge. If your in the canyon after dark, look up. You might see lights hovering over head of climbers catching a nights sleep.
