The chronicles of my summer cross-country road trip

I didn’t update this morning before I left where I ended up camping because I really wanted to get out of there.

So yesterday I woke up fairly early at the cheap hotel I stayed at in Tennessee. I traveled east through Asheville and I’m glad I waited until the morning to drive through that area rather than the night before with all the storms. There were trees on the sides of the road that had been cut up waiting to be hauled away that must have fallen in the roadway from the storms. Plus it was a very beautiful area and was definitely worth seeing in the daylight.

The drive east through Greensboro was long but uneventful. There was an accident at one point where some car that was towing a U-Haul trailer had an accident and ended in a totally burned out car. Hopefully everyone was ok. Along the way I called my Uncle who lives and works in Raleigh and ended up meeting up with him for lunch. It was a good lunch at a Carolina BBQ place called Smithfield (I think). I’m glad we went there because I ended up forgetting to get dinner before going camping (doh). It was really great to be able to meet up with him along the way. I feel like we made the most of the short time I was in the area. It was nice to catch up and enjoy some good food.

I kept driving east toward the coast but it was starting to get late. I checked on some hotel prices and the cheapest seemed to be around $150. The map indicated there was a Pettigrew State Park with camping so I decided to look for that place. I got there and a nice ranger set me up with a site for $15. When I got to the site I realized the whole area was very damp like it had rained recently. It was also extremely humid. What’s more is there were KILLER mosquitoes that were attacking me constantly! Holy crap it was bad. I hope I don’t have malaria now or something. I was as careful as possible to not let any in my tent, but they still followed me. They must have been on my clothes or something. It took me a long time to fall asleep until either I killed most of the mosquitoes that had made it in, or they were so full from sucking my blood that they didn’t want anymore. The last bad thing about the campsite was there was a thunderstorm over the lake for hours just lightning and thundering and raining hard a mile or two away. It never made it where I was at but it was very noisy.

So my last night of my trip was about as pleasant as the first night of my trip. Well it was more pleasant in that I actually did get to sleep last night as opposed to the first night on the trip.

I woke up this morning and started packing up and almost immediately the mosquitoes resumed their attacks. I had to flee for my health at that point. The drive over to Nags Head was pretty smooth. I found a 7-11 along the way and got some coffee which helped me feel a lot better from the night before. The coast was nice but not as amazing as the west coast was. The trip to the Atlantic coast was pretty much completely flat. On the Pacific coast you’ve got mountains and cliffs and all sorts of amazing geologic features that meet right at the ocean. But the water in the Pacific Ocean is way colder!

I turned north once I could go no further east and eventually found my way into southeastern VA. I had never been to Norfolk but now I have. I found the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and went on it. I did stop at the rest area in the middle of it and walked out onto the fishing pier. It was pretty cool. At least I had never been there before so it made it a lot more interesting. Much better than going up I-95 at the time of day I was going through there.

So, my trip is over. It was amazing and I hope everyone enjoyed following it. I will put the rest of the pictures up shortly at http://gallery.james2009roadtrip.com. I will definitely be taking more trips in the future. This was too much fun not to do again and I recommend everyone to take a road trip of your own. At least see our country’s amazing National Parks. I can’t recommend enough that more people try to go out and see more stuff we have here. You’ll have a lot of fun doing it too.

This will probably be the last post. Thanks for following along my blog. I plan to keep it up indefinitely, so start from the beginning if you forgot all the fun stuff I have done. 🙂

Where I stayed the night before was only about 60-70 miles from the Tennessee border. I quickly got to Memphis before I was even hungry for lunch so I kept on and eventually had lunch in Nashville. Tennessee is one of those long but skinny states. Taking the long way I’ve driven 435 miles through this state. When I got to Knoxville some serious storms started. It was hard to see in the quickly darkening skies. I also passed into eastern time zone so it ended up being later than I was anticipating. Originally my plans were to camp in eastern Tennessee. Instead I got a cheapo hotel in eastern TN. $39.95 for this Days Inn in Newport, TN. It’s not a dumpy place either. Guess all the cheap hotels are in this part of the country. With the storms and it getting darker an hour earlier than I planned, I think I made out pretty good with this hotel.

So after much thought yesterday I have decided that instead of being home tonight, which I could do, that I will continue east all the way to the coast. I just packed my map away, but I know I’ll continue I-40 until I get to Raleigh and then pickup another road that continues heading east (can’t remember the number now) and then pickup 13 and ride it up through Norfolk, VA and cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. I’ve heard that is a pretty cool structure so I wanted to check it out. I didn’t start from the Atlantic on my cross country road trip, but since I saw the Pacific and it’s not much trouble to get to the Atlantic and back from here, I decided that’s what I’ll do. I’ve seen plenty of spectacular mountains and ranges during my trip so the Blue Ridge Parkway can wait for another trip.

North Carolina is long like Tennessee. I think it’s actually longer. So, it’ll be a far drive today. I figure I need to get far if I don’t want to get back home too late tomorrow night. I’d rather get home earlier in the day rather than later at night. We’ll just see how far I get today…

The drive east has continued pretty uneventfully. I have mostly encountered only safe drivers and there has been no weather at all to speak of since the west coast. Just sunny skies and high temperatures. The most drama has been the constant presence of the highway patrol in every state I’ve driven through. I haven’t gotten any tickets yet and don’t plan on it. Using the cruise control I keep my speed no more than 5 mph over and it has been working good. The speed limits are pretty high… from 70 to 80mph depending on the area. Yesterday was driving from where I camped in Texas, about 230 miles west of Dallas, and then I took 20-E all the way to 30-E and now I’m on 40-E. I plan to continue on with 40-E and go through Memphis. I’ll probably stop in Memphis for lunch and drive around for a short while. Looks like 40-E goes through some nice scenery so that’ll be a change from the straight flat and boring drive through most of Texas.

So I got to Little Rock, Arkansas around 8PM last night. It was still a bit light but my goal was to get some food and a couple of drinks. I succeeded in having some food and beers in downtown Little Rock. After that I decided I wanted to drive at least another hour and I made it to a hotel in Brinkley, AR. Hotel rates are pretty cheap here. I got my room for under $50. It’s not a dinky piece of crap place either. It’s fairly nice place especially for the money.

Anyway so I’m basically a 2 day drive from home so I’m a day ahead of schedule. So after looking at the maps I have come up with 3 routes. The first route is keep straight on the interstates and just get home the direct route. I’d probably be home tomorrow night. Another route is to take the Blueridge Parkway up and camp somewhere along that. It’d be a much slower road and I’d take the time to do some light sight seeing. And the final route is to continue all the way to the Atlantic coast and then take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel up and get to see the lower half of the MD/VA eastern shore. If I did that I’d probably camp say somewhere around Assateague or something. I haven’t decided which way I’m going to go yet. I’ll figure it out after I put some significant miles behind me. I should get out of here!

It got up to 107 according to my car while I was driving yesterday. When I pulled up to my campsite at about 7:45PM CDT it was still 101. I camped on a lake in Texas. I’m not in the desert anymore as there is abundant grass and trees here. Even though it wasn’t too humid, it didn’t cool off very much like it did in the New Mexico desert. It probably only got to maybe mid 70’s last night.

Texas is definitely oil country. At least the part I drove through yesterday. I did see several very large wind farms as well. Other than that, there isn’t much out here. There’s very little traffic and the roads are straight and flat and don’t have exits for miles at a time. You can make quick time on roads like that. I just took a look at my maps and I should be able to make it to Arkansas tonight. We’ll see how far into it I get. I think I will go through Memphis, TN as well. I’ve heard it’s a nice city, so I’ll check it out.

Well, time to get driving.

I ended up making it as far as Lordsburg, New Mexico last night. There was a KOA campground there so I decided to hit that up. I did and I was the only person in a tent which was nice since I got to use the group tent spots which had a huge fire pit with a bunch of wood already in it.

I spent all yesterday driving through the desert. My car was telling me it was 100F outside at many points and always in the upper 90’s. I made good time and besides some roadwork there wasn’t much traffic. There’s a bunch of mountains and interesting rock formations out here. But no grass really just lots of small bushes. Ants appear to be the predominant form of life out here. When I got to my campsite it was after 7:30PM local time and the sun was getting low on the horizon. I had plenty of time to get my campsite setup but at least the temperature had fallen into the low 90’s by then. In the last hour before the sun was completely set it got really windy. Once the sun set, the wind died down and the temperature started dropping dramatically. It was still warm when I went to bed, upper 70’s at least. But by 1am I was cold and had to close my sleeping bag. I’m not sure how cold it got. Probably around mid-50’s. It’s already almost 80 and going to 103 here today.

Anyway I’m going to continue the trek east now. Going to try to put away 500 more miles today.

I left San Francisco later than planned, but I had to take care of a few things like some postcards before officially heading out. Once I got on the road I drove until I needed gas the first time and then got some lunch. Then I drove until I needed gas again and got some dinner. Then, I got out my laptop and figured out my best location to stop for the night and found a pretty inexpensive hotel in Palm Springs. It’s a Quality Inn and it’s pretty nice. I’ve stayed in a few of these throughout my trip and they seem to be the best bang for the buck overall. I think my room cost was under $60 total.

The drive here was fairly uneventful. There was definitely some LA traffic to deal with despite not being rush hour or a weekday. I took US-101 down instead of the interstate. It was the scenic route and passes through some well known cities like Santa Barbara whereas the interstate doesn’t pass through anything. Besides I’ll be driving interstate most of the way back so it was nice to get some final fleeting glimpses of the Pacific Ocean.

Today I’ll be doing a lot of desert driving. I would like to make it past Tucson but we’ll see. Tucson looks doable from Palm Springs on a single tank of gas, but I think I want to make it further than that today. I’ll have to evaluate my options for stopping when I’m further down the road. There’s not a whole lot of big towns other than Phoenix and Tucson for awhile, and they both seem too soon to stop to me. But I’ll see what kind of time I’m making after I’m a few hours down the road and see where it looks like I’ll be getting to.

Well time to pack up this operation and get on the road.

I have spent the last two nights in San Francisco. Thursday night I camped on Mt. Tamalpais in a state park right across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then last night crashed at my friend from Boston’s friend’s place. It all worked out great and I had a blast in the city. I saw a lot of neat stuff and really got a feel for the town. Also, it’s crazy driving on the hills here! It is like being in a movie. It was fun and I quickly got the hang of dealing with these insanely steep grades in the middle of the city.

San Francisco is definitely a unique city for a lot of reasons. I ended up liking it far more than I expected. The people here are different but a lot more fun and relaxed. You definitely notice a difference here from the east coast. I think I like San Francisco the best of all the major cities I have gone through. I can see why people like it here. It’s a good place. But I would get bored with the same weather all the time.

Anyway so now it’s time to start home. I’m going to take the southern route so I’m going to end up routing through L.A. I hope I don’t get too destroyed with traffic but it is a distinct possibility since I ended up getting a really late start today. No worries though, it’ll be fine. So far I think I will make my target.

This is the end of the tourist part of my trip. If I see something interesting that isn’t out of my way, I’ll stop at it.  But I have no specific destinations or sites to see from here on out. I just want to drive on road I haven’t been before. That’s my only real requirement.

Well, time to get started coming home.

Finally I got to Yosemite right after noon yesterday. It was a lot longer drive than I expected. Lots of middle of nowhere driving and good mountain road driving. It was a fun drive though. The weather was a little cloudy, but dry. I got to the park, used the restroom and then went to the information booth. All signs pointed to all the campgrounds being full. Still, I asked if there was a tent site available. The woman at the counter said that I was in luck that someone less than 30 minutes before me had checked out a day early and I was able to get their site! It was perfect timing.

So I setup my site and did a driving tour of Yosemite. I would’ve liked to do some hiking but there simply wasn’t any time for it. Yosemite is gorgeous! One of the most beautiful places on earth. It is definitely giving Yellowstone a run for first place as my favorite national park. I got to see a lot of amazing stuff. Unfortunately since I was constrained with time I wasn’t able to see everything. I vow to go back to that amazing place again!

My friend screwed up his flight and ended up missing the original one. So I had some time before having to pick him up so I went to the University of California Berkeley campus to check it out. It’s pretty nice. I definitely like this area. It’s a lot busier than I have gotten used to over the last few weeks though.

Anyway, I’m off to pickup Jeff from the airport and then hang out around San Francisco. Not sure what I’m going to see or where I’m going to stay yet, but I’ll figure it out.

The end of the trip is rapidly approaching. The turn back day is only 2 days away. Starting Saturday, everyday I’ll be significantly closer to home. Oh well, it had to end sometime.

As of this moment I have driven 7,023.5 miles since beginning this trip. I will easily clear 10,000 by the time I get home.

I definitely love driving on the Pacific Coast Highway through Northern California. It’s a fun road and passes a lot of nice scenery. California is a massive state. Probably too big for their own good. That being said I definitely like Northern California. I wasn’t too impressed with Southern California when I visited it. Besides a whole lot of nothing there, you’ve got one giant mega-city in the L.A. area. Filled with smog, bad traffic, and chain store after chain store. Northern California has a lot of beautiful scenery, a lot of character, and far less traffic and pollution. I can’t comment on San Diego since I’ve never been there, but I could probably live in Northern California but definitely not in Southern California. But I don’t want to live in California at all.

So, like I said, Cali is massive. I didn’t make it to Yosemite today. I drove almost all day on US-101 before getting to I-508. The sun set quickly and I didn’t end up making it to a camp site. I tried, but didn’t find one in time. I did come across a Quality Inn in Tracy, CA which was pretty nice and reasonably priced. So, I got a hotel. Tomorrow I’ll finish driving the rest of the way to Yosmite and camp there. Then it’s hard driving back to San Francisco to get to the airport to pick Jeff up and meet up with him. I am a little sad I wont get to see as much of Yosemite as I wanted, but that’s the fact of running out of time. I will at least go and see as much as I can in the time I have.

Today as I was driving a black bear ran out into the highway. I didn’t come too close to hitting it but I stopped and he ran across the road into the trees on the other side. That was definitely a nice unexpected surprise. I’m just glad I didn’t hit it for both of us. Also, I drove through a large redwood tree today! I had heard of doing this since I was a kid, and I saw a sign leading to the place and I had to do it. Definitely worth the memory.

Well it was a good day of driving but I’m tired now. I’ll try to get some pics uploaded tonight or tomorrow morning.

Today I left Portland and drove west to the coast. When I got to the Pacific Coast Highway US-101 I turned south and just followed it for the rest of the day. Right now I’m camping in Harris Beach State Park in Brookings, OR. I didn’t quite make it to Cali yet, but tomorrow I’m going to Redwood National Park.

The view of the Oregon Coast is spectacular! Finally after days of overcast, sun! I got some really good pictures of the Pacific Ocean. I’m practically camping on the shores of the Pacific tonight. It’s nice to be near a city since I can get internet access from my campsite.

Anyway, I have a good campfire going and I’ll sleep soon. I’ll be up early to start my day tomorrow.