Epic Covid Roadtrip - Very Photo Heavy

[JDS]

Well, now that we're nearing a return to society, I guess it's about time I post photos from my road trip adventure last summer! My immuno-compromised son was finishing school in North Carolina last August, and ready to come home to the San Francisco Bay Area. My wife and daughter are also immuno-compromised, so we were taking precautions as aggressively as pretty much anyone- so we weren't about to put him on a plane. What to do...?

Roadtrip! I figured out I could rent an unlimited mileage Chrysler Pacifica minivan (sorry for the miles Avis), and build it into a vanlife setup based on internet photos & measurements. I built a bunch of wooden stands for plywood "beds" so I could be on the road within a couple hours of getting the minivan. Then Avis gave me a Toyota Sienna... No matter, an hour or so of cutting and fitting and I was ready to depart:

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I've done cross-country trips a half-dozen times, and Connecticut to Los Angeles always took us five days with two drivers. The drive from Walnut Creek to Asheville, North Carolina & back was 5700 miles and I would be doing all the driving over the course of nine days, so I needed a plan to make it survivable and maybe even enjoyable? So, I mapped out photo stops at roughly two to three hour intervals across the entire country and back, ending each day at a rest stop so I knew there would be a safe place to sleep. Showers and bathroom breaks would be self-contained to avoid exposure, we don't need to get into details. Think 1800's wagon trains... Anyway, off to my and soon our adventure!

 

[JDS]

Day 1: Walnut Creek, CA to Pequop, NV

After a couple hours of fitting my van life interior and packing the van, the afternoon of day one was driving past Tahoe into Nevada, with stops for a sunset picture near the Winnemucca Museum in Nevada, ending at the Pequop Rest Area near the border with Utah. First the sunset photo, from the side of the road:

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The rest area was -Surprise!- a construction site with spotlights and heavy trucks, so plan A didn’t work for the night. Plan B was a nice area further up the road at Oasis, which seemed like a great idea until I discovered it was on fire:

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Plan C was the Pilot Peak Historical Marker, which was where the Donner family stopped for water back when their cross-country trip was going well. Maybe a bad omen?

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[JDS]

Day 2: Eastern Nevada to Sidney Nebraska

Morning meant traveling through the hills on the Utah border, which I found harshly beautiful:

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Then into Wendover Utah, home of the Wendover Historic Airfield (home of the Enola Gay B-29 bomber of Hiroshima infamy if you’re into history, or the filming of “Con Air” if you’re into Nicholas Cage):

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The Enola Gay Museum was closed of course, but there was a great relic of a WWII transport plane:

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Plus the remains of a racetrack facility with some wonderfully patinaed cars:

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Then of course- the Bonneville Salt Flats:

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Then, I had to make tracks because lunch would be at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah. Ski jumpers are crazy, these ramps were huge:

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Enough with Utah, we have plenty more saved for the return trip. Wyoming! There’s a wonderful frontier museum at the Fort Bridger State Historic Site, which I had almost all to myself. This fort was a stop along the Pony Express, which is remarkably well remembered for a business that failed after only a few years:

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Keeping with the “Wyoming is a tough place” theme, dinner was at the Wyoming Frontier Prison Museum (don’t commit a felony in Wyoming):

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But the neighboring landscape is lovely:

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But Nebraska beckoned, and there’s an impressive Lincoln sculpture to welcome you at the border:

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[JDS]

Day 3: Sidney Nebraska to Wright City, Missouri

The rest stop near Sidney conveniently had some deserted hills nearby, so the morning routine would be simple.

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That is, until I saw the multiple "beware of rattlesnakes"signs posted everywhere. Dying in the hills of Nebraska would be a bad way to end the road trip, but having my body discovered next to my portable "facilities" would be much worse. After finding safer "facilities", on to the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles:

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Next was Kearney where they have a big arch over the freeway, but I didn't capture it well so let's save the bandwidth. Lunch was at the Museum of American Speed, closed of course but with a sweet dirt track race car in front:

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Evening saw Missouri and the remarkable National WWI Memorial in Kansas City. Yes, the statue is phallic, but also what wonderful architecture- I loved it:

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(ugh, I should have straightened this photo first- maybe I'll edit later but most of these are SOOC Jpegs)

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[JDS]

Day 4: Wright City Missouri to Asheville, North Carolina

Day four started with a lovely alfresco shower near Wright City:

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First stop: the beautiful town of Paducah, Kentucky on the Ohio River. There was a park on the river called Schultz Park, since that's my last name I had to visit:

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Downtown Paducah is very picturesque:

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...with a great ice cream place (rolled ice cream, what a concept!):

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At this point I had to hustle to get to North Carolina, so the photo experience faded a bit- until day five...

 

[JDS]

Day 5: Asheville, NC to Bakerville, Illinois

Day five started at a lovely rest stop near Asheville, in the Black Mountains near the Blue Ridge Parkway. Facilities were a challenge, until I found this asbestos dump nearby (more foreshadowing?):

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As this is a photography site I'll spare the happy reunion photos, let me just say it's a true thrill seeing your teenager again after months of enforced separation! Our drive started on the Blue Ridge Parkway, because of course it did:

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There was a certain amount of tracing family history during this trip, so our next stop was a train bridge in Knoxville, Tennessee. My dad used to cross this bridge as a kid, after listening to the tracks for oncoming trains. He was crazy- imagine if he had to jump!

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Continuing with the family history theme, we stopped at Fort Negly in Nashville, Tennessee, where my great, great, great uncle was stationed during the Civil War (and yes, I need to get better at using the level- or doing some damn post-processing):

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The evening saw Metropolis, Illinois- and of course Superman (I'm using the photos without my son, I don't like family pictures posted openly on the internet). Safety first - Superman was wearing a mask and distancing:

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[JDS]

That's it for now as work beckons, will post the remaining days this afternoon. It's fun to relive the trip through these posts, thanks all for indulging me!

 

[TNcasual]

Day 4: Wright City Missouri to Asheville, North Carolina

Day four started with a lovely alfresco shower near Wright City:

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First stop: the beautiful town of Peducah, Kentucky on the Ohio River. There was a park on the river called Schultz Park, since that's my last name I had to visit:

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Downtown Peducah is very picturesque:

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...with a great ice cream place (rolled ice cream, what a concept!):

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At this point I had to hustle to get to North Carolina, so the photo experience faded a bit- until day five...

Note: It is spelled Paducah.

Great documenting!

 

[JDS]

Day 6: Bakerville IL to Grainfield, Kansas

Day five ended with a huge question- can two large males actually sleep in the back of a minivan, on plywood sheets suspended by wooden brackets? Well- yes actually, pretty comfortably. Clip-on fans powered by the cigarette lighter outlet really worked well. I brought mesh screens & suction cup clips to keep the windows open without attracting bugs, but we really didn't need them. You would think the setup would be shaky and bouncy, but it was remarkably stable- better than a queen bed. And I extended the boards to create some small dividers, so we weren't kicking each other. Vanlife - not bad, actually... especially if you have a powered cooler and an outlet at the back of the minivan.

Stop one- St. Louis & the Gateway Arch (it's a generic & mediocre photo so I won't spend much time on it):

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Next up: back to the WWI memorial in Kansas City, as I thought my son would enjoy it. It was cool to see it in different light:

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On to Topeka Kansas, and the segregated school that precipitated the Brown vs. Board of Education decision at the Supreme Court. After a summer of protests around Black Lives Matter, this was a really poignant visit- and we had it all to ourselves:

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[JDS]

Note: It is spelled Paducah.

Great documenting!

Thank you, another typo to fix!

 

[JDS]

Day 7: Grainfield Kansas to Crescent Junction, Colorado

Facilities on a road trip like this are, um, not luxurious, but someone thoughtfully left this oil well for us in Kansas:

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Kansas is a lovely state, but we were struggling a bit to find memorable photo stops along Interstate 70. How about a Huey Cobra near a gas station...?

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Many of these little towns along the freeway get much of their funding from extracting bits of cash from some of the passing traffic. Lunch was at one of these, the Old Town Museum in Burlington, a very nice stop- we were happy to share a few bucks to visit:

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I loved almost every mile of this trip, America is a physically amazing place, pretty much everywhere. Except Eastern Colorado. Apologies to any locals, but damn- east of Denver is rough... But then you get to Denver, and the Wings Over the Rockies museum. I would love to go inside sometime, but the B-52 in front is brilliant (I gave my beloved E-P5 to my son, who isn't a photographer but really enjoyed it):

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Onto the Rockies, and the spa town of Glenwood Springs, where masks and social distancing wasn't very much in effect... Superspreader site anyone? We stayed clear of all that, but did enjoy the setting- and would love to return someday:

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Sunset on the horizon looked weird, then absolutely spectacular. I would have one of the spectacular photos, except I didn't take any- we realized my son's E-P5 was back at the outdoor table in Glenwood Springs (we recovered it thankfully!):

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The weirdness was soon explained- more fires:

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[JDS]

Day 8: Crescent City to Ely, Nevada

Day 8 was the magic day- where we took extra time to explore Utah. Get ready, this day was photo crazy!

My son had gone to a camp in Utah, and was very excited to share some of his locations with me. We left the interstate early, and routed south through the Grand Staircase Escalante- but I'm getting ahead of myself. For starters, a very rough, desolate but strangely beautiful morning routine site:

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Cleaning crew at Avis: I'll never meet you and you'll never see this, but I sincerely apologize for what you had to do to get this ready for the next customer. We tried to keep the interior clean, but the nose, well...:

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Before the "good stuff" we drove south- even the "boring stuff" is beautiful in Utah:

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This is an unnamed, whatever stop along the way. Really, Utah is otherworldly:

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First up: Grand Staircase Escalante national park, the highlight of the trip. Or was it, because of what followed...? Anyway, what an amazing place:

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Lunch was near a grove of Quaking Aspen, one of the largest living things in the world. That cluster of trees is one plant:

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[BrianMc]

Hey now - we made it through the summer with reasonable case rates! Maybe it’s because everyone at the hot springs in the summer is from out of town though.

 

[JDS]

Day 8: Crescent City to Ely, Nevada, Continued...

Utah is too big for one post, we're not even into the heart of Grand Staircase Escalante yet! I warned you, image heavy...

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Next up, Bryce Canyon. Okay, maybe Bryce was the highlight of the trip:

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Let's stop, as I could post dozens more. Western Utah along the border with Nevada was our location for dinner, near some old kilns. This was the most desolate place I've ever been, maybe two cars went by during the hour or so we spent there. Finally, we could use our portable grill! (I'll break my rule and post my son, as this is what I have)

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Our last experience while driving into Nevada was to stop in the mountains and shoot the Milky Way. It was cold and windy, we were on the side of the road with occasional, fast traffic, I had a micro tripod set up on the roof of the van and I've no experience shooting stars (and didn't have time to research). All of that showed in my results (i.e. this photo kinda sucks). I'll try again someday:

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[BosseBe]

Thank you for sharing!
I love to do road trips in the US, but yours must have been extra special since you had a real purpose with it, bringing home your son!
You have shown me places that I want to visit and beautiful pictures, Thanks again!

 

[JDS]

Day 9: Ely Nevada to Walnut Creek, California (home!)

Our final day on the road! We slept at the Train Museum in Ely, where they had a wonderful steam engine and some great classic cars:

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The morning routine was along an unused train track at a deserted mine nearby- or so we thought!

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Our timing was lucky, as after we got back in the van we discovered that nearby tracks were still being used!

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Ely started us on "The Loneliest Highway", Highway 50 through Nevada. Spoiler alert: in mid-August 2019, it was not- 50 was a busy throughway compared to Highway 21 through Western Utah. That said, we did okay getting the classic "Highway 50 shot"

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Lunch was in Eureka, the retail district downtown didn't contain Chanel or Nordstrum's:

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The afternoon stop at the end of Highway 50 included the by-now ubiquitous military aircraft shot:

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As we approached home, we started to get Bay Area driving & traffic. We were passed by a nut job driving at mach speed down the breakdown lane through heavy traffic. I said to my son that, just once, I want to see one of these bastards pay the price for putting us all at risk. I guess the road trip gods were listening:

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Glad that wasn't us! A sour note to end a road trip that provided memories to last a lifetime.

America really is this physically spectacular- shots are SOOC, Natural setting on the camera + polarizing filters for many shots. But not exaggerated, Instagrammed, etc- it looks like this. If you have a chance to do a cross-country road trip with a teenage child, I can't recommend it highly enough!

 

[DeeJayK]

What an epic journey! Glad to see that you were able to turn a challenge into an opportunity for adventure.

Would love to see map of your route.

- K

 

[Phocal]

Some really great photos and a great story but for me it is just too much, this is coming from someone who does long post. I feel it would have been more effective if you had broken it up into multiple threads, maybe combine a few states together for each thread.

 

[Avondale87]

Enjoyed the read and the photos
A memorable trip with added purpose
Thanks for sharing

 

[stevedo]

Great roadtrip and thanks for sharing.

Looking at the EXIF data, you took quite the collection of lenses.