The chronicles of my summer cross-country road trip

Well, night 1 of camping was successfully completed. I didn’t get a very good night sleep though. I don’t know how much sleep I got, but it was very little. I think the main issue with sleeping was my brain wouldn’t shut up. It does that sometimes. The other factor was it poured off and on and got quite windy at times. This of course made a lot of noise which didn’t help me get to sleep. And finally there’s a bunch of wind turbines around here which are quite noisy. Anyway, I stayed dry and warm enough. I really like my tent. It was 42F when I got up.

I woke up, got a fire going, and then fixed me some breakfast. I had coffee, oatmeal and I toasted a bagel over my campfire. Not bad for a camp breakfast. Then I took the tent down and packed everything up and hit the shower. The shower at this place is similar to a dorm. Nothing fancy, but it did the job. At least the water was hot!

So in a minute I will be leaving here and going to Niagara Falls. Since I don’t have my bike, instead of biking over to Canada, I’ll walk. With all the stuff in my car and since I wont be over there long, I figure it’s simpler to just walk over rather than drive. Hopefully I can meet an online friend up there, but he might not be able to make it early. I’ll call him up in a minute.

I have campground reservations in Geneva, OH tonight, but it looks like it will be getting windy and in the low 30’s there. I’m trying to decide if I should try to cancel (and possibly forfeit my entire $35) and get a hotel, or get some more equipment for cold weather. I didn’t plan on sleeping in 30 degree temps with 25mph winds. I’ve got plenty of time to think about it while I drive.

Off to Niagara Falls…

Well, I made it to Cohocton. It thunderstormed a bunch but now that I’m here it looks like everything is done. My internet connection here is extremely slow so no pictures will be uploaded. Got the tent set up and I’m about to cook dinner.

The drive was pretty uneventful with the exception of the thunderstorms. The only bad thing to happen so far, is my in-dash CD changer is messed up somehow. It doesn’t work, period. It ate a CD and that was it. Fortunately I still have XM and my iPod.

Pennsylvania has some nice landscape driving up 83 and 81. My main complaint with PA is their drivers suck. I saw way too many idiots driving in PA. Oh well, I made it.

So, I’m going to get the grill out and make some dinner. It’ll be dark soon and I’ll probably turn in relatively early. Tomorrow: Niagara Falls and Canada!

When I get some fast internets I’ll upload some pictures and videos.

Well, everything is packed up (except my laptop obviously). I’m ready to go! Next stop: Tumble Hill Campground in Cohocton, NY.

The weather looks like it wont be nice. Lots of rain and then… COLD?! Oh well. There’s no turning back now.

I will definitely be missing Maryland. Most of all I’ll miss Nancy and my mom and hanging out with my friends. But this adventure has been a long time dream and now it’s finally going to become a reality.

Sadly I can’t bring my bike. Below are the pics of the car fully packed. There’s no room for even a kid’s bike. Since I definitely don’t want to deal with driving across country with a rack and getting my bike wet and grimy from road dirt, I will just pass on the bike. It is one less thing to deal with anyway.

Here’s my car all packed up:

Here’s the route for today:

View Larger Map

Well the rain isn’t going to wait, so I should get the heck on the road! Let the journey begin!

So far, everything is a go. I got my oil change done and car looked over. Everything is green across the board. I stopped to pick up some final items at Bass Pro. I have a nice new backpack that is geared for trail use, a camelback hydration system to put in it, some camp cookware, and propane for the stove.

So now it’s time to pack it up. The weather is looking very iffy tomorrow and Sunday. There will be chances of rain showers and thunderstorms as the cold front moves in and then near-freezing temperatures where I’ll be camping by Sunday morning. I figure it wont get much worse than that on this trip, but who knows?

Let the packing begin!

Finally! The final is out of the way. It was really tough. But, forget about that because now it’s time to focus exclusively on the road trip!

Some new developments have happened with the planning since I last updated. First and foremost I now have my good friend Brian Cook confirmed to be joining me for probably the best part of the whole trip. He’ll be flying into Denver on May 24 and we will see Rocky Mountain National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and Glacier National Park. He will fly out of Spokane on June 3.

The other update to the trip plans is I do not intend to see Minneapolis now. Two people I know near the area suggested to stay away unless I had a specific reason to go there. Since I don’t really know of anything in particular I want to see there, I decided to spend some more time in Wisconsin. They gave me some suggestions for places to see there. And the final update to the plans is that I have reserved my first camp spot in Cohocton, NY and I also booked the hotel I will be staying at in Chicago (Evanston). One potentially new development is another friend might attempt to join me. If you can make it out there Matus, it would be awesome. 🙂

I got a chance to test out my new tent. It seems to be solid and hopefully it will be reliable. Now I wont have to fumble around figuring everything out the first night I’m trying to camp. I still need to get a few more things and start packing. I also should get my car’s oil changed before the trip. I guess ALL of that has to happen tomorrow. So it’s going to be one busy day tomorrow. I really should get started right now.

Anyway I’m burnt out from Calculus right now so I’m going to chill out and try to relax some tonight. I’ll start packing tonight so I don’t have to get everything done at the last minute.

Finally… the adventures can begin!

Updates have been few due to the fact that I have been busy getting ready for this trip. But now I have a few things to write about.

As mentioned in my last post I planned on picking up a bunch of things at Bass Pro shops to start gearing up for my trip. I did that, and also got some new hiking shoes, and some new clothes as well. All in all I’ve spent about $600 gearing up for this trip so far, but I have more things I need to get. I will give more information on the things I am bringing later after I have finished getting them.

One cool thing I will have is a handheld high-definition video camcorder. This will be awesome for taking videos of Niagara Falls and other amazing sites I’ll be seeing. I also have got a very good 10 megapixel Canon camera that should be able to get some really nice photos. Nancy is letting me borrow her digital camera and she bought the HD camcorder for me. I have setup a photo gallery for all my trip pictures. The link is: http://gallery.james2009roadtrip.com. Most likely I wont be able to upload pictures on a daily basis. Much of the time I will be in the middle of nowhere without access to the internet. But I plan on uploading pictures organized by date so pictures can be cross-referenced with blog entries for that day. Of course, there is nothing there… yet. As for the videos, I will upload them to YouTube since there’s no way I can host videos too (yet).

The planning phase has been coming along. I have spent many hours in front of a AAA road atlas, campground books, a large foldable map of the U.S. and Google Maps. So far, here’s a basic outline of what I have planned to this point:

1. May 16 – Drive to a campground in Cohocton, NY and camp there for the night.
2. May 17 – Niagara Falls. Meet up with an online friend on the Canadian side of the falls. Try to get a good way toward Chicago that evening and camp at some location yet to be determined in Ohio.
3. May 18 – Chicago – Evanston, IL. Meet up with another online friend and check out Chicago. Probably drive through downtown at least. I will look up some tourist attractions. I will be staying in a hotel in Evanston this night. I don’t really intend to explore Chicago too much, but I’d be interested in seeing a couple of things. Maybe do some biking as well. I might check out a baseball game, depending on the circumstances.
4. May 19 – Leave Chicago area, and travel through Milwaukee and Madison, WI. I would like to see the Brewers Stadium and also the Wisconsin State Capitol. I also hear Madison is quite a nice college town, so I’m interested to see what it is like. I might do some biking around Madison. Depending on how things go this day, I will either camp or find a cheap hotel.
5. May 20 – Depending on circumstances I might check out the Wisconsin Dells, primarily the Cave of the Mounds. Then, drive to Minneapolis, MN. A possible meet-up place for one of my MD friends, Brian. If he makes it in that city or not, I still want to check out the city for an evening and see what’s up at the baseball stadium. Most likely stay in a hotel in the area, but this is not decided.
6. May 21 – Primarily a travel day. I want to get to Chamberlain, SD and setup camp around the area to setup the next day’s adventures in The Badlands National Park.
7. May 22 – The Badlands National Park. Drive around the park and possibly do some biking. I will try to camp in the park that night at a primitive campground. It wont have running water or toilets, but it’s free!
8. May 23 – Visit Mount Rushmore and drive through Rapid City, SD. I’m not that pressed to see Mount Rushmore, but I’ll be in the area so why not? I will try to camp somewhere in Wyoming that night, or possibly a cheap hotel.
9. May 24 – Drive to Denver, CO. This is another possible meeting spot for my friend Brian. Spend the night somewhere in Denver.
10. May 25 – Rocky Mountain National Park. Do some hiking and sightseeing. Camp in the park that night.
11. May 26 – Probably hike another trail early in the day in Rocky Mountain National Park then drive toward Utah and Dinosaur National Monument. Camp that night.
12. May 27 – Dinosaur National Monument. Spend a couple hours checking out some dinosaur fossils and seeing good ole evolution at work. After that, head straight for Jackson, WY. Most likely camp that night somewhere in Wyoming.
13. May 28 – Jackson, WY, Yellowstone National Park.
14. May 29 – Yellowstone National Park
15. May 30 – Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park

That is as far as I have managed to get in the planning phase of this. I don’t anticipate that I will plan out any further in advance before I leave. A lot of things can happen in the two weeks I have outlined above that could drastically change the schedule. But, for now, my plan is to do what I’ve outlined above.

So, now that I’ve got a pretty good plan, I still need to finish getting everything together for the trip, figuring out when Brian will be able to join me, and MOST importantly, study for my Calculus 3 final which is Thursday. Wish me luck.

Finally, I have the last calc 3 midterm out of the way… but there is still a final next Thursday. I think I might have done well on my exam. If I never have to evaluate a triple integral in spherical coordinates again it will be too soon!

Tonight the plan is to go to Arundel Mills and Bass Pro shops. Hopefully they will have some quality stuff there so I can start getting equipped for the trip. Once I take care of that I’m going to try to figure out where I really want to go and estimate how much time it will take. I don’t plan on simply driving through places. I want to do some hiking, biking and camping in some of our great national parks.

The items I plan to buy this weekend:

• New tent. Had one… not sure where it went, or if it was even a good one. I figure a good one will be more likely to be used again in the future, so I want to get a good one.
• Stove/grill. This will be necessary for cooking, from heating water to make oatmeal in the morning, to burgers or chicken at night. I’ll also buy some camp cookware, and some propane for the stove.
• A good knife (or two). An extremely useful tool.
• Hiking boots and a new pair of shoes.
• Some more bike equipment such as a new frame pump, rack, and larger bag for gear.

I’ll detail more when I have actually gotten all the items I need. But for now, I have to get shopping.

As you might have guessed by the title of this website, I will be taking a road trip across the country. I have setup this blog as a trip diary so that my family, friends, and co-workers can all follow along on my epic adventure. In addition to writing about the places I visit and the fun I have, I will also include details about planning the trip, the stuff I will be taking, and probably many other things.

I intend to post lots of pictures of the places I go. I might even post a few videos. So far, I’m not entirely sure of all the details and exactly how I will make this trip happen. But that is part of the fun! As a first step, I have gotten this website up and running. Thanks to the wonders of Linux and Open Source this was a piece of cake. Feel free to follow along via RSS or just bookmark my page. Also, leave some comments! Let the fun begin!