All posts by Martin

I made it home yesterday.

I left New Orleans in a rental car at 3 a.m. Saturday morning. With just enough room for the driver, I managed to pack everything from the van into it.

This is not how these trips are supposed to be traversed. It was very cramped. I am used to having the bed in the back but in this situation, I could not even put the seat back to rest.

I made the most of it. I made it home Sunday.

This was my Saturday drive.

I would like to have gotten a coffee at Cafe Du Monde on my way out of town, but they were closed. I believe before Ida, they were open 24 hours. Ida hit New Orleans hard. It was very early morning and dark when I exited Louisiana and entered Mississippi.

	I drove into Alabama. Sweet Home Alabama. Home of the World Games this year and then the radio played Tuesday’s Gone by Lynard Skynard. I enjoyed that. The sun came up. I enjoyed that too.
I stopped for coffee at Just Love Coffee Cafe in Tuscaloosa, Alabama…	and I ate my first womlette. It made me smile…. and it seemed to smile back.

Birmingham, Alabama

I played George Ward Park Disc Gold Course in Birmingham, Alabama.

I didn’t realize I was going to go through Georgia and then I entered Tennessee. I had never been to Tennessee before. Now there’s only 5 states I’ve never been to.

Chattanooga Choo Choo

And it turns out, today was the 141st anniversary of Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

I stopped in Chattanooga, Tennessee to get some work done. I needed to finish out a few reports before the end of the day and opted for a little place across the street from the Chattanooga Choo Choo. I sat outside and when the reports were done, I treated myself to a nice cold beer. I enjoyed the beautiful weather, people watched and then took a little walk around the area.

Athens, Tennessee

There was a highly rated course that I wanted to play, however, I’d be arriving 45 minutes before sunset. I played Athens Regional Park very quickly …. and shot very well! It is such a beautiful course. I would like to get back here and enjoy a slow round some day.

Knoxville, Tennessee

I didn’t stay long in Knoxville. I was going to just drive past it and make some time before I got to sleepy. But the Sunsphere was only 3 minutes out of the way, so why not. “The Sunsphere, located in World’s Fair Park in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, is a 266-foot high hexagonal steel truss structure, topped with a 75 ft gold-colored glass sphere that served as the symbol of the 1982 World’s Fair.” – from the Sunsphere’s Google page

I drove through the night with frequent stops to rest, however, with the vehicle situation, rest was hard to come by. This was definitely a difficult trip and was a struggle at times. I don’t like driving like this and am looking forward to figuring out my next vehicle.

Sunday morning I stopped at a Planet Fitness in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and had a shower and a hydro massage. That was certainly helpful and I also stopped in New Jersey to see a cousin I hadn’t seen in years. I napped there before completing the last 4 hours.

I arrived home Sunday afternoon. It was nice sleeping in my bed.

I left home on Dec 17 and tonight is my last night before I start the 24 hour drive home.

It’s been months and it does feel that way. Hard to believe that my visit to my cousins in New Jersey was the same trip as this. They were my first night out of Boston in New Jersey as I headed south eleven weeks ago.

My plan was to leave New Orleans a week ago which was the Friday before Fat Tuesday. The Universe had other ideas.

The pickup truck attempted to get through the yellow light. He didn’t make it. And he ended up driving away at the end of the evening.

Plans for after New Orleans before the incident.

Actual plans.

I needed to stay in New Orleans until the insurance adjuster took a look at things. At that point I’d be able to make some decisions. I was here an extra week and had to remove the planned drive taking me further out west to the edge of Texas.

I did, however, end up getting stranded in New Orleans through Mardi Gras. I reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen in 30 years and got to see a small glimpse as to how some of my life may have been if I decided to stay in New Orleans all those years ago. It was really special.

This is Tommy. A friend from 30 years ago… and still a friend today!	This is basket 14 at City Park Disc Golf Course in New Orleans that I had the opportunity to play.
These are friends from Boston that were down in New Orleans on Krewe of Tuck.	And these are my friend from Boston throwing beads at the Krewe of Tuck parade.

And although the car is totaled and I missed out on seeing some new places and visiting some owners I was looking forward to seeing, the silver linings continued to show themselves.

It’s time to finally head out. I leave tomorrow and decided to stop at a local bar for a cold beer on my last night. It was a bar around the corner that I had visited on one of my first nights here. I sat outside again. It was very peaceful. I thought about the past week… and the past eleven weeks.

As I finished my drink and went to leave, the bartender asked how I was doing. I told her everything was really good. My car is totaled and everything is really good.

I am feeling very grateful.

So I’m a good way into this trip that started when my folks rented a place in Orlando for a week. This was my map of red dots before I left.

A week traveling to Orlando and then 6 and a half weeks of exploring Florida, this is what my map looks like now.

The density of the dots has increased in the center of Virginia due to my visit to Raleigh and I’ve created an anchor on the end of Florida.

Here are some close ups of my new red dots …..

The first thing I did this morning was to get a Covid self test and take it. I am heading to see my family and I wanted to ensure I wasn’t bringing Covid along with me. I grabbed a cup of coffee and took the test while sitting in my car. I swabbed my nose as it says to do (and as we’ve all had done so many times in the past two years), dipped the swab into the little vial of solution and waited. When the ten minutes had passed, I checked, and low and behold… it says positive and I had Covid! Crap!!! I’m going to have to quarantine for 10 days which puts me on the last day of my stay in Orlando!

I wanted to make sure so I did it again…. and again… it was positive. I’ve heard these tests can be inaccurate so decided to get this professionally done to make sure. I found a clinic in Richmond that could see me and made an appointment. I went in early in the afternoon and the first thing they did was give me an instant test. That test came back negative!! NICE!! Due to the mixed results, they sent a sample away to get, what they called the gold standard test, a PCR test.

I was supposed to stay with my older cousin that night and even though I did not have a fever and had no symptoms, I didn’t feel comfortable staying there that night. So it looked like I was going to quarantine in my van until the test results came back.

I did do some exploring of Richmond anyway and just made sure I didn’t go inside anywhere, masked up and I avoided people. I enjoy seeing capitals so headed towards the downtown area of Richmond where the capitol building is located. The area around the capital building was fenced off with some kind of stands set up and areas under construction so I couldn’t really see much. There were some cool statues which I enjoyed reading about.

A day later, my test came back negative! The trip continued on.

Friday – Boston, MA to Summit, NJ

Saturday – Summit, NJ to Richmond, VA

Visiting cousins in Summit, NJ

I left Boston after work on Friday and arrived at my cousins in Summit, NJ later in the night. It was really great seeing them as it has been years since we’ve spent any time together. We had a nice dinner and caught up on out lives. In the morning I sat at their kitchen table talking some more and, although it was Saturday, logged into their wi-fi and checked in on work. I headed out in the late afternoon with plans to come back and visit again soon. They are close enough that I can go down for a week specifically to see them and not just a stop on a longer trip.

Pottsille, PA

The day before I Ieft on this trip, I received a picture of a store in my hometown with its sign being removed. Just over 90 years ago, my grandfather started the Yorkville Drug Store in Pottsville, PA. When my dad finished college, he came back to Pottsville and worked the store with my grandfather. It seems, after 92 years, that store is closing and the building may be torn down. I’m a very sentimental guy and this news was very sad to me. My grandparents lived above the store and I have such fond memories of being there. Since Pottsville was just a few miles out of my way, I decided to stop in. I drove by the store as well as the house I was raised in, which is just a few blocks away. Since I was in town, I had to stop for a Coney dog. I do love my Coney dogs!

Coyote Hills Disc Golf, Carlisle, PA

This course has been on my radar for some time since it has some really great reviews online. Discgolfscene.com has it listed as number 4 in Pennsylvania and UDisc has a 4.4 rating with almost 1000 reviews. I’ve driven by here close to a dozen times, however, it was either to late in the day, raining or I had somewhere else to be. Today I was able to play and I was not disappointed. I found the course to be well maintained with some beautiful views and a nice hike through the woods.

The course is very challenging with many of the baskets playing through tight tree lines. Although most were through trees, I though it had a nice mix with some nice elevation changes, some very long open shots and a few possible ace tees. The distances range from about 150 feet to about 700 feet. As I was playing the course, I was thinking how there are definitely ace potentials (like 7 where I hit the basket on my drive) but also double bogey potentials if you hit a tree at the wrong time.

I finished at plus 5 and I was happy with that. For me, it was a tale of two courses. I shot two under on the front nine and seven over on the back nine.

Gus’s Bar & Grill, Richmond, VA

The Patriots were playing tonight and I wanted to watch the game. It turns out I was going to be getting into Richmond right around game time so I Googled “best sports bar in Richmond”. Google recommended Gus’s. I made it almost in time for kickoff. I did enjoy the bar. There were plenty of televisions, the staff was friendly and it wasn’t crowded. If only the Patriots didn’t play as poorly as they did.

It was a beautiful night so I walked around the area for a little while before crawling into the van for the night.

There were moments on this trip were I felt I was able to get a better understanding of different perspectives of people and why they may do the things they do. On this particular day, it was that of the stupid tourist. You know….THAT guy.

One of my pre planned stops on my way east through North Dakota was the Painted Canyon Visitors Center at Theodore Roosevelt National Park (F on the map).  I was in search of somewhere to stay while driving from Billings, MT (D) to Fargo, ND (H).  This location was almost half way and was advertised as a good place to boondock.  I had called the visitors center while still in the planning phase of the trip and they confirmed this.  It also looked to be in a location that my hotspot would work and had a one mile hike loop through the Badlands.  I often mentioned this stop when asked about my trip plans and I was very much looking forward to it. 

I arrived very late. The rest area was very dark.  There was only one little light above the restroom doors.  I quickly parked, found my way to and from the bathroom, crawled in the back and fell asleep.

I woke around 6:30 to this view. I continue to be in awe of the things I’ve been seeing.

(Click on the pictures to enlarge)

I gazed for awhile (in awe) then headed off on the mile loop. 

About half way through there was a small sign that read “overlook” and pointed up a small incline, so I walked up the slope.  I could see the path that was ahead of me and there, just across the ravine from the path, stood a bison!

Pretty amazing creature!  He was just standing there, grazing.  Just right over there!

I finished the walk and made my way back up to civilization. I stood there for awhile at the parking lot edge looking out on the BadLands.  I have been amazed by the sights I’ve gotten to see in my travels and this one was towards the top.  I was able to spot, way out in the distance, a few more bison!  I pointed them out to a few people that were also looking out and had a few conversations about the beauty of it all.  

It was time to start my day and decided to drive to the other side of the rest area where there were some picnic tables.  I could set up my stove to make some breakfast and coffee and set up a work area to settle in for a few hours.  The picnic tables were in two sided covered structures with the opening out towards the scenery and was such a peaceful place to be. I had my own little office and kitchen area!

As I drove towards the tables, passing the bathrooms, I noticed the bison. I saw it standing there on the grass between the bench, the sign and the tree…. a full sized, stuffed bison!  There have been statues of bison everywhere on the trip so far but they were typically very large and metal.

This one was different than those!

SO COOL!  I pulled into a spot, hopped out and headed towards it, phone camera in hand.  My mind was excited with what to do… how to capture this moment.  I definitely wanted to feel the tufts on its head.  I internally laughed as I thought to wrap an arm across its head and take a selfie.  I wondered what the horns felt like……

I left the Salt Lake City area pretty early expecting alot of activity for the day. My plan was to get to the Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho before the end of the day. Beginning to end it wasn’t that far, but I had numerous stops planned and its nice to have a full day to travel. You never know what I might discover.

Riverpark Disc Golf Course

Planned to get a round of disc golf in first thing. I really enjoyed this round. It started raining after I played the first basket so ended up sitting under a tree with a local golfer waiting out the storm. It only rained a few minutes and we played the round together. Nice kid who dreams of one day getting himself a van and traveling around the United States!

Corrine, UT

Corrine, UT is an historic city on the road heading north. It’s a small railroad town that was established as the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroads neared completion. Corrine is the closest city to where these two lines met and were commemorated with the Golden Spike. I stopped in town at a few memorials and dedicated historic spots.

	Travel then and travel now.

Golden Spike National Historic Park

In 1869, the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads met and the first transcontinental railway was completed. A ceremonial spike was driven to commemorate the completion of this event. I enjoyed learning about the event and these two railway companies. The more they completed, the more they would earn so they built as fast as they could, racing across the country. I stopped at numerous spots along my drive that explained how it was done.

Spiral Jetty

The Spiral Jetty was such an amazing stop that it gets its own post (Spiral Jetty post). The Jetty is located in Corrine, UT, however, you have to drive down a 14 mile long gravel to get there. It was worth it. I walked out to the edge of the Great Salt Lake and watched pink water lap onto the shore.

In my opinion… this is a must for anyone making this trip.

ATK (Northrum & Grumman) Rocket Garden

I was driving on after the Spiral Jetty when I saw this Rocket Garden so I stopped. What a cool little rocket museum. The large rocket is actually a booster for the space shuttle.

Entered Idaho

What it looks like to drive through Idaho

Lava fields at Craters of the Moon National Park

I made it to Craters of the Moon National Park right around sunset. I watched the sun go down over the lava fields and noticed how I was in such an opposite kind of place from the Bonneville Salt Flats, just a few days earlier. I never knew there were lava fields in the continental United States. It was a beautiful night. I pulled into the Lava Flow Campground and stayed up late thinking about my day and looking at the stars.

Sometimes I find myself on a different planet!

I left early in the day and headed out to see the Bonneville Salt Flats.  It was about an hour and a half drive west of Salt Lake City.  I figured that I would head out there, drive out onto the flats and then head home.  It turns out I spent over three and a half hours there.  It was fascinating! I stayed very entertained.

	Looking out at me parked on route 80

I definitely enjoyed myself while hanging out on the Flats.  As barren as it is, I found it to be a great place to take some fun pictures.  I also played my guitar for a little while and was able to get internet through my phone hotspot!

This is what it looks like if you panorama shot as a car drives by.  There was a continuous flow of cars flying by.