Category Archives: Travel

My two favorite things about road trips are seeing new places and revisiting the places I’ve already seen. The seeing new places thing is obvious. New places are always interesting. But revisiting old places thrills me to the core.

When visiting places that you’ve already seen, it allows you to see how towns and road evolve and/or devolve. It’s really a great thing. Granted, I’m not one for vacations where you sit around a swanky hotel for a week. And unless they’re burning to the ground, I don’t really care much about the evolution of swanky hotels.

We’ve got a ten day summer road trip coming up and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s the perfect mix of new and old. The first part is a variation on the route that we took to Utah last summer. I like roads. I like old alignments and historic routes. We’ll be traveling along the Oregon Trail and old US Route 30 through Oregon and Idaho. And while we took some ancient immigrant and dirt roads into Utah last time, we’ll be on a newer US Route this time.

Hardly worried about the fear of a rerun, we’ll be taking the old railroad grade to the golden spike site in Utah. Yeah, we did that last year, but it’s something that both Smartz and I fell in love with. We’ll be seeing Spiral Jetty and dropping by Salt Lake City to visit Mandy and Earl (should they allow).

And while I’ve been to SLC fourish times, I’ve never been there for Pioneer Day!

The rest of the trip (about a week’s worth of traveling) will hit many places we’ve seen before. Sites like Carhenge, Four Corners, Douglas (Wyoming) and Monument Valley. We’ll be driving up over Rocky Mountain National (I did this in 2004 and 2006).

From that description, it seems like the whole trip is just a rehashing of my previous trips. But there’s plenty of new things, too. For instance, there’s Nine Mile Canyon – a wonderful place in Utah that’s got old Indian ruins and pictographs. It’s also got natural gas under it, so we better see it while we can, before the gas companies come in and ruin it like they’ve ruined so many other places.

We’re also focusing on the weird. Things like Pioneer Day with the huge Parade of Mormons in Salt Lake City. Also, places like the highest town in America, a cabin made of fossils, several dinosaur parks, and a gaggle of jackalopes.

To top it all, we might even have a special guest accompanying us. We’re still waiting for the final word, but we’re getting out hopes up.

We’ll have tons of photos, tons of surprises, and tons of fun. We’re leaving Friday, July 20. I’m sure I’ll talk more about this before we do.

I was getting really bugged out by this trip. Now, however, I’m feeling a lot better. The problem, as described here, was mostly time. We were going to be driving hundreds of miles with not a whole lot we wanted to see. There was more to it, but mostly, that’s the gist.

Sumpter Valley Railroad

So now we’re spending two nights in John Day, Oregon. Cost? $20. That’s right. $20 for two nights. Showers, wi-fi and the normal campsite stuff all for $10 a night. Insane.

This is a bit of a departure for us. We don’t usually spend two nights anywhere. This is the first time we’ve done it since Albuquerque in 2008. I generally don’t like doing this. But I think it’ll work out.

On Friday, we’ll drive down to John Day – about 400ish miles. Along the way, we’ll find fun. Saturday, we’re heading to Sumpter Valley for their town-wide flea market and railroad. I accidentally stumbled upon this narrow gauge railroad when I rode through Oregon on Scoot 66. I’m thrilled that I get to see it again. There’s also the ghost town of Granite nearby.

Painted Hills near John Day

Sunday, we’ll be checking out the John Day Fossil Beds and the Painted Hills.

Yes, it’ll be packed in lot of these places, but hopefully we’ll either assimilate or somehow beat the crowds.

Food will be an issue, of course. It always is. We’re not vegan for the sake of convenience, that’s for sure. But we’ll pack up some lunches. Yay trip!!

We’ve been planning this road trip to Idaho and Oregon for a couple of months now. I’m really trying to get excited about it, but I’ve just got a “meh” feeling to overcome.

See, the biggest problem is the timing. On Thursday night, we’re seeing Roger Waters The Wall in Seattle. The next morning, we’re leaving on the trip. Incredibly bad timing. Let’s not forget that this is Memorial Day Weekend. I hate Memorial Day Weekend. It’s horrible to travel during since everyone and their grandma is on the road.

Because of this, we had to make reservations. I hate reservations. Yes, they are sometimes necessary, but we’re in a tent. You should be able to pitch it anywhere. However, as a society, we’ve said “no” to such things – hence reservations.

I have no doubt that we’ll have a bunch of fun and see tons of cool things. Mainly, we seem to be focusing upon ghost towns and the John Day Fossil Pits. There’s also the Sumpter Valley Railroad, which I’m rather thrilled about.

It’ll also be interesting for me, since I’ve been through a lot of the Oregon bits on my 2008 Scoot 66 tour. This will be from a very different perspective, so I’m curious what I’ll remember.

Over the next day or two, we’ll be getting packed up and ready. It’s not a big trip, but the timing is off and hopefully it starts to feel better. I really need to get out on the road again.

And when it’s over, we’ll write all about it on Hey I’m Over Here.