I turned 40 this year and decided to take a road trip. My wife, two small children (Lincoln and Madison) and I travelled through 21 states and visited 28 National Sites, in a period of just over 7 weeks.
It was a long trip. And we experienced a lot. Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, San Francisco, Seattle, Mount Rushmore and Pacific Coast Highway, to name a few. You can visit the entire Road Trip here.
What we remember the most, are the little stories along the way. Sure, we are in awe of the grandeur of nature upon the vast untouched landscape. We feel the sense of identity that embody America’s storied history at every National site. And we sense the native people’s spirits inhabiting the land as we gaze upon ancient structures. These are all epic experiences.
Looking back, we remember the moments most when our adrenaline is on peak, our hearts were warm, are in panic, or laughed so hard – we cry. These are those moments.
Madison’s Broken Arm
Seattle & Yellowstone – Mom looks away for a brief moment, as Madison was egged on by his older brother Lincoln to climb onto the zip line at the playground. Not fully secure, his brother ushers him down the line. Suddenly, he’s on the ground. Before long it’s clear there is something not right. We rush to the closest urgent care with a Radiologist near Seattle. His wrist is broken. Adding a challenge to the injury, the small window of time his follow-up appointment needs to be scheduled is when we are at Yellowstone. So Mom and Madison drive on a 3 hour day trip (each way) to Cody Wyoming for the hard cast.
Lincoln’s Land Bridge
Yellowstone, Wyoming – When asked about his highlight of the trip, Lincoln, goes back to the day when Madison and Mom are on a road trip to a hospital in Cody for Madison’s hard cast. Dad and Lincoln are walking along Yellowstone lake and find a felled tree leading to a small natural barrier island about 30 feet from the shore. Together, we crawl out on the tree and spend an hour exploring the island. Lincoln’s sense of adventure is on peak. A woman finds us as we cross back onto shore from the island. She says she has a picture of it and will text it to us, takes our number down only to never hear from her again.
High Altitude Mustard Incident
On the way to Moab – We’ve all been there. The convenience of those handy squeeze bottles that carry condiments have a price. Dad’s is paid when driving through the mountains of Colorado, Dad decides it’s time to pull over for lunch… and a sandwich. Turkey on bread, out comes the mustard, lid pops off and mustard is ejected onto the ceiling, blinds, floor, feet and shirt. Dad is frustrated and quickly cleans up. After a pause, the situation suddenly becomes hilarious. It’s forever known as the high altitude mustard incident.
Sandboarding is Awesome
Great Sand Dunes – When asked, what was the coolest thing you did on your trip? We surfed the dunes of Colorado. Everyone had a great time.
Grammy
Temecula, California – One of the main reasons we took off 2 months to go on a 9,200 mile trip is my Grammy. She is turning 90 this year and does not travel. We made a special stop in Temecula California, so she could spend time with us and the kids. Quality time. I would not trade this for anything.
Lincoln’s Birthday Celebrations
Temecula, California – Lincoln’s Birthday falls on June 21st. This meant we celebrated his birthday at every stop with his family. We celebrated a total of 4 times. Madison’s wondering when we will celebrate his birthday. He wants at least 5 celebrations.
Oklahoma Storms Are Crazy
Oklahoma – “You’re not from around here, are you?” Says the neighbor at our middle of nowhere Oklahoma KOA campsite. “You might want to put that awning down tonight. Storms around here are wild. I learned the hard way. Cost me $1,500 to replace my awning. Have a good day y’hear.” Heeding the advice, I quickly drew in my awning. Sure enough, the storm shook that camper all night long. There is so much lighting it was nearly daylight outside.
Yellowstone Bear
Yellowstone – Apparently bear sightings are rare. In Yellowstone, driving on the North Loop, we spotted a black bear. Safely in our car, all our hearts were racing. When asking Madison’s doctor in Wyoming about whether bear sightings were common, she says out of the 50 some odd times she’s been to Yellowstone she’s only seen a bear 3 times. Coincidentally, when my mom was 3, she was eating a candy bar in the back seat of the family car with the window rolled down driving through Yellowstone. To my Grandmother’s horror, a bear had walked up to the car, reached in and snatched the bar from my Mom’s hand. My mom remembers nothing of the incident, but my Grandmother remembers well. You don’t forget something like that.
Sunset Cruises with Madison
One of my favorite memories of the trip are my nightly walks with Madison. He doesn’t want to miss a thing. So he eagerly jumps on the stroller to go for a cruise around the campground at sunset. We admire it’s beauty. Gradients of orange, pink, purple, red, white and blue fill the sky. We hold onto the moment, just before the stars come out. Exhausted, we come back to the campsite and go to bed not to long afterword.
Da Da Fart
Our car, the “Daddy Yoda”, has this problem with the right front air-conditioning vent. It makes a high pitched squeaking noise, at random times, for no apparent reason. We discovered it shortly after leaving Moab, Utah. We call it the “Da da Fart”. After pulling over and checking everything is fine, we conclude it’s one of those strange things we’ll just have to live with. So we made a game that whenever it happens, the first one to say “Da da Fart” wins. Oddly, the problem went away after we got back to home.
Bighorn Sheep Sighting
Badlands, South Dakota – Dad and Lincoln are hiking off Trail. We get lost, in a good way, exploring the canyons. We happen upon a quiet area and small family of Bighorn sheep. It’s the first time both Lincoln and I see Bighorn sheep in the wild. Lincoln is so proud of the moment, he wants to tell the next ranger he sees.
Touching the Moon and Mars
Great Sand Dunes – During a evening ranger program on Astronomy at Great Sand Dunes National Park, the ranger had brought with him actual rocks from the Moon and Mars. They arrived to earth as meteor debris from asteroids hitting the Moon and Mars. The entire family were able to touch these rocks from such a far away place. A truly unique experience and inspiring for any budding astronomer.
Milky Way Perspective
Joshua Tree, Great Sand Dune, Badlands – Late at night, peering high into the sky during a moonless night, the entire milky way opened up in front of us. I often wonder about how we got to where we are as a civilization. I think about the people that must have lived on this land before us. We are the people who built large cities, and surrounded ourselves with fire, lights, and electrical gadgets. We focused inward, on ourselves, our comfort and conveniences. Now, we are nearly drowning in our own light and we can’t see past it. Noise from our podcasts, politics, religion, our technology, it’s our culture.
Where is the white space…? Where is the time to think…?
You come out to the desert, and it’s clear for a miles in all directions. That’s a different mind-set. Your surroundings invite or limit perspective, and that creates the culture. Views like the ones you get here, these make a different kind of person.
Lessons Learned
After all is said and done, what did we learn?
9,200 miles over 51 days is a Fast Pace! If I were to do it over again, I would either take 100 days to drive 9,000 miles OR drive 4,000 miles over 51 days. The key learning is… there is so much that we saw, but also so much we didn’t! For example we had to skip Zion and Bryce in Utah, and Mesa Verde in Colorado and so many other parks! Next trip, will focus on a smaller footprint of the US. And since we can’t take 100 days off work, we’ll just have to bite off smaller chunks.
Break-up the longer segments with long stops. When we drove 6 hours between Amarillo, TX and the Great Sand Dunes, Colorado – we stopped at Capulin Volcano for 3 hours. We hadn’t planned to stop there, but we did and were grateful for the experience. After Capulin, we decided that we would make it a point on each long driving day to find National or State Parks to stop at. We were able to see so much more as a result!
More rest days! We came back from the trip feeling exhausted. (I know, we shouldn’t complain!). I joked that I needed vacation from my vacation. Every morning we woke up ate breakfast, and either hit the road or went exploring for the day, we came back to the camper at the end of the day, ate dinner and went to bed. Rinse & repeat all trip. Next time, we will make sure we schedule rest days, to just sit around the camp site all day and do nothing without feeling FOMO.
Keep the Kids Engaged – How did we do it? The Junior Ranger program at the National Parks allowed them to actively participate in the trip. Second, each state we went to we listed all the previous states we visited. We kept a map with markers that so we could track our progress along the way. Solidifying the bigger picture of what we were doing with the smaller picture of why the places we were visiting were important. And of course, plenty of down time on the tablets so Dad could take naps.
In summary, next trip will be over a shorter time period, covering a much smaller area (with more stops), and enough time to linger to see things we didn’t plan on seeing. Maybe we can actually get bored?… Naw!!
At the End of the Road
So many stories, so much fun. And there you have it. Our highlights. Did we miss anything? Leave a comment below to let us know your favorite part about our trip!
Sincerely,
Dad
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