Friday, August 9, 2013

Completing the fifth summer


I've been home six whole days. Already it feels like forever, but I'm still missing things (like my house key, seriously) and I still can't shake the feeling I have somewhere to be. This summer, I traveled to 29 states, including 9 I had never been to, and 25 Alice hasn't been to (with me). It wasn't supposed to be that many, but somehow it happened. And while my much more ambitious planned route zig-zagged across the south at an estimated 6-8000 miles, somehow, I only skirted the perimeter and made it home after a whooping 11,000 miles (more than I used to drive in a year, with my summer road trips!). That just shows how often one gets lost, turned around, or needs to go back and investigate as one is on her journey.

I was on the road 73 days, from May 23 to August 3. I went through 4 propane tanks and 4 tires. I read or listened to 14 books. I took a week off to Rendezvous camp, a 3-day break to spend 4th of July with family, a 4 day break to see my great great aunt, and a luxurious 10 days to go around Florida with S. I road an air boat and a bicycle. I went to art museums/galleries in New Harmony, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, New York City and Fayetteville, AR. I'm surprised that's it, but really I wanted to see state museums. Of those, I went to one in West Virginia; Albany, NY; Washington DC (the Smithsonian); Mobile Alabama (not sure if the Medical Museum counts, but I'm counting it); I'll also count the Permaquid Lighthouse Fisherman Museum, which was very cool, the West Virginia Glass Museum, the Cryptozoology Museum, and a tiny aquarium on Key Largo. I went to the Gettysburg and Antietam Battlefields. I saw the graves of Robert Frost, Mark Twain, Chester Arthur, and my own great great great great grandparents. I went to a house made of bottles, and the house Jefferson Davis retired to. I went to state parks in nearly every state. I saw giant statues, old and new, one carved from a tree, and a tree older than them all put together, estimated at 1,500 years (though still young by sequoia standards). I went to lots of beaches: freshwater, Atlantic, Gulf, private and public and side-of-the-road, sand and shell beaches, a landfill beach, brackish water beaches, and a beach my great grandmother hunted shells on. I climbed down a zillion stairs to view the New Gorge Bridge. Somehow I managed to drive Alice through Salem Massachusetts; past Paul Revere's House in Boston (which had a ridiculous turn I somehow managed with 3 Good Samaritan Spotters, who then informed me that was the sharpest most difficult turn in the city); through DC; around and around Philadelphia; Saint Augustine with no parking; and by the time I got to Miami, it was too easy. I saw (in the wild): alligators, armadillos, a black bear, blue fin crab, cats, chipmunks, cockatoos, crayfish, ducks, egrets, fighting conch, fox, geese, geckos, a great dane dog named Goliath, ground owls, grouse, hermit crabs, herons, horseshoe crabs, ibises, iguanas, key deer, mosquitoes, nieces, nudibranchs, an octopus, parrots, pelicans, pen fish, pheasant, puffer fish, queen conch, regular deer, sand crabs, sand eel, spiders (giant!), squirrels, tarpon, tortoises, tourists, turkey, and Yo-yo the blue heeler. I ate authentic southern BBQ, a fried catfish Po'Boy, a lobster roll, a Mystic Pizza, eggplant chips, lots of Mahi Mahi and Ahi Tuna, venison, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, local beers, local meat, seaweed salad, a NYC hipster breakfast, bean salads, chocolate, chips, and a small amount of fast food (Dunkin Donut veggies breakfast sandwiches, and Taco Bell quesadillas).

And now, the summer of 2013 travel has drawn to a close. Time to review all of my travels in Alice...


Reflecting on five years of travel, I can see missing parts, though not as many as a year ago. From above, you can see how thoroughly I covered the Midwest, and while my Southwest/West travels do not look as thorough, I have thousands of pictures and memories from those trips. I would like to return to Washington, as that leg of my journey was in the infancy of my project and thoroughness wasn't my goal then. I would also like to take Alice to Yosemite, and get her into a view a la Ansel Adams.

For my eastern and southern trip, I originally planned to be in 2 loops with a stop at home in between, so I could go through Nashville and Atlanta, as well as the eastern Carolinas. But I let the road take me where I am pulled. Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as all those regions in that open spot are easier "weekend" trips from here.

Year Distance Traveled Time Traveling States Visited Number of New States
2009 6,000 miles, round trip 3 months (including 3 weeks staying with family) IN, IL, WI, MN, ND, MT, ID, WA, OR, CA, AZ, NM, TX, OK, MO 15
2010 1,500 miles one way 2 weeks (while moving from IN to MT) IN, IL, IA, SD, WY, MT 3
2011 3,000 miles round trip about 3.5 weeks, with summer spent in IN MT, ND, MN, WI,
IL, IN,  IA, NE, WY
1
2012 4,000 miles one way (apparently I got lost a lot more on this trip!) 3 weeks MT, ID, UT, NV,
CO, KS, MO, IL, IN
4
2013 11,000 miles, round trip 10 weeks, 3 days IN, MI, OH, WV, MD, PA, NY, VT, NH, ME, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, Washington DC, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, TX, AR, TN, KY, IL 25

Not counting an extra camping trip to Yellowstone and countless local state park weekend trips, I have taken Alice on the road for 26,500 miles, that is, around the world a complete time, plus 1,500 miles. I had no idea the world was so small. It makes it seem both sad and more manageable. There is a lot to see, however, and I still wonder that the terrain, climate, and culture can change so much in 100 miles of driving. It makes it all the more clear how our homes, our special places really are special. True, many Main Streets in Small Towns looked the same. Many forests looked the same. But the trees changed: the species make-ups, the age of the forests, the presence or absence of animals up and down the food chain. In the Albany State Museum, a whole room seemed to be devoted to the large animals and predators no longer found in New York: moose, elk, black bear, mountain lions, wolves, and bobcats. (Meanwhile, 2 Mexican Wolf pups are being raised in my (new) hometown zoo, a species extinct in the wild.) But I traveled freely into other states where those species were still healthy. I marveled at the beautiful art and collections in Detroit, a city famous for being destroyed; it has since declared bankruptcy and there are threats to sell and break up those extensive, public collections to private collectors (never to be seen again).*

I'm still parsing through my data. I haven't even downloaded all the photos still in the camera (16 GB worth), nor reviewed the summer images as a whole. It is a lot to digest. There are stories to tell.

I haven't even told you how many boxes of rocks I collected and have to figure out what to do with!



1 comment:

  1. I look forward to each and every story!
    Mickie

    ReplyDelete