Day One: June 18, 2016 Oceanside CA to Flagstaff AZ

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On the road again.   The further adventures of Patti and Dick.  Some of you have followed us on a number of our legendary roadtrips in the past: to Alaska, to Key West and Cape Cod, to Washington and Oregon.  Some of you might we asking, “What, are they crazy?  Driving to all of those places from San Diego?  And you might be all asking, “What now?”

Tune in during the next 49 days to the semi-regular postings of our travel blog, filled with just a few of the many thousand photos that we plan to take, and some of our travel musings as we drive from San Diego, through the middle of the US with stops in New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas with a week’s stop in Minnesota, then up over the Great Lakes through Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City to get to the Canadian Maritimes.  As some of you might know, this includes visits to Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.  Then we head back down into the U.S. with stops in Maine, Boston, Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Arizona and back home.

Sound fun?  Sound exhausting?  Either way, you can come along with us by look at our blog at   www.PattiDicksGrandAdventure.blogspot.com    We are not promising every day will have new things, because sometimes you just have to take some time out to play, rest and see things, but we will write and post when we are able.  Come along and join us!

Okay, so what does it take to clear your schedule and take off on the road for 50 days?  You have to work your hind end off until the last minute.  Someone asked Patti if to do a trip like this you just got in your car and started driving.  Not really.

These past months has given us time to plan, create Excel spreadsheets with the routes, places to stay, timing, etc. (more on this another day).   Dick creates routes and figures out dates and then Patti springs into action of exploring and making reservations at hotels and Air BnB’s (more and these later, too).  There are also contacts with a number of friends and family to let them know when we are able to be in their area and to see if we can get together and/or stay with them.

There are things to buy, and things to find, and sometimes things to build (again, more on Dick’s plate.)  This time, he built a new version of his famous shelf to fit in the back of our new minivan.  We used to sleep many nights in our old minivan on these types of trips, but decided that our sleeping in the van days are over.  However, this shelf allows us to pack up everything we need for 7 weeks, plus be able with have space for a single mattress on the side that we can take turns taking naps on while we drive.  This is a very slick deal, and allows us to bring a lot of stuff while still being able to go off duty and stretch out.  Ahhh!

Having cleared it with our jobs (with lots of things that needed taking care of until the very end), and talking with our neighbors who keep an eye out on our house, stopping delivery on the mail and the newspaper, and making sure our plants will get watering and TLC while we are gone….we are finally “off”.

We pulled out of the driveway at 10:21am, and headed down the road.  One of the activities on the first day is always coming up with items that we left behind.  This time:  the pocket knife that has the wine opener, a printout of car license plates for the license plate game, a small cutting board to use when cutting cheese or making sandwiches….nothing that we cannot replace.  One year Dick forgot the battery charger for his camera.  THAT one was tricky, and required ordering on Amazon twice before getting one that would work.  Just par for the course.

Dick, as usual did most of the driving, with Patti spelling him in the middle of the afternoon so he could take a well-deserved nap. 

The landscape changes when you drive 500 miles in one day:  from Southern California cities, to desert landscapes, mountains, and climbing up into the juniper trees.  Huge sections of the road go by without any cross streets or roads.  Lots of trucks and people on the move, including us.

As it happens, a heat wave has moved across the country, so we are so grateful to have good air conditioning.  And our hotel in Flagstaff has a swimming pool which we thought we had arrived at soon enough that we could take a dip before a nice long night’s rest.

However, in the spirit of adventure, Patti found a place to go check out on her roadside attractions app:  The Lowell Observatory.  This was built by a millionaire in 1898 because he wanted a great telescope where he could see the supposed canals on the surface of Mars.  Plus, he was hopeful to be able to see some Martians or other aliens.

This sounded like a cool quirky place to go….as it turns out, not just quirky, but high quality and highly popular with literally hundreds of people gathering after dark to see plants and stars through the big telescopes, plus see other shown by amateur astronomers.  We had an amazing time standing in a long line in order to see Mars.  A tourist and his 5^th grade son had been on an afternoon tour earlier and gave us the mini tour while we waited;  the most notable things about this observatory was that this was where the planet Pluto was “discovered” and the fact the universe is expanding.  We were reminded that Pluto has been classified as the largest of the known dwarf planets.

We also learned that this millionaire guy had the telescope built in Flagstaff, didn’t like the weather and had it disassembled and moved to Mexico City for one month.  There he decided he liked it better in Flagstaff so had it taken apart and moved back.  If you have enough money, anything is possible.

Dick was so pleased with the capability of his new camera.  He could take some amazing pictures in the dark of the telescopes, plus got quite amazing photos of the moon.  Wow!  A stunning way to end day one.

And so it begins….