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We're chronicling our travels around the states on this blog. Check it out, if you're bored and sitting on an apple box (you can also check it out from home or the office).

Filtering by Category: Drive

From the Redwood Forest (or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the road)

June 01, 2014Whitney Lea

After leaving Orr, we prepared ourselves for another stint with nature and the National Parks. This time we were heading up to the Pacific Northwest to see the Redwood Forest. More passport stamps!

This also marked a bit of a transition in our road tripping style. Until now, everything was very tightly planned. We knew where we were going to sleep months in advance for 90% of the nights. We had people we wanted to meet up with and places we had to be. Suddenly we were looking at two nights without a sleeping place booked and had plans to visit two national parks without knowing what we wanted to see or do there. I spent so much time knowing every detail of the first month and a half that it was a bit strange to look in the roadtrip binder and not have several options for activities listed along with their prices and estimated times. The page on May 14 just listed the drive time and destination with a suggestion for where to camp. My type A planning skills had petered out a bit and rather than feel increasingly concerned, I was feeling open and relaxed. Maybe it was the spring water?

We left the springs a little later than we should have with our sights set on a campground in the Redwood State and National forests. We drove through increasingly scenic stretches of the 101 (we didn't have time to take route 1) in hopes of making it to the campground before sunset. The redwoods were soon looming above us and the need to stop for photos increased. I knew we were racing the sun, but I also realized that we were supposed to spend the day enjoying the redwoods. What good would it be if we drove past them without Sam getting even one (hundred) picture(s)? We may never be there again. We needed to find a balance between soaking in the nature and taking care of business.

This, of course was only the beginning. Around 4 PM or so I saw a highway sign for the Drive-Thru Tree Park (tripadvisor!) and told Sam we had to hop off the highway and go. He had no idea why or what the drive-thru tree was, but I sure did. It was a classic roadtrip pit stop, like the giant ball of twine. If you're on a roadtrip and drive by a sign for it, it's kind of a crime not to stop. We had already driven past tons of signs for The Thing (cue wavy, creepy lettering here) in Arizona and we had opted out of a visit to Rock City. The Drive-Thru Tree was a chance for roadtrip redemption. $5 later, here we were.

So now Omi can proudly tell people that car has driven through a tree!

The people we meet at this pit stop were by far the friendliest people we have chatted up so far on the trip. There was the biker who was showing his girlfriend around the redwoods and then taking her to Yosemite; the lady from Utah who had just visited Yosemite with her family (sitting quietly next to her) and felt strongly that it was far prettier than Yellowstone; and the woman from Vancouver, Washington who had done a cross country roadtrip with her husband and serval children in an RV from craigslist (I would have loved to get tips from her, but she was headed out, as were we). I got back in the car smiling even though I knew we would be pitching the tent as the sun went down.

We started discussing an alternate camping place once we saw signs for the Avenue of the Giants scenic byway. The biker had mentioned that he planned to take his girlfriend on that route, so we figured it would be good. And as it was a byway, it wouldn't take toooo much longer.

By the time we were back on the 101 we knew where we were going to try to camp and hoped the pricetag would be lower than the $35 fee being charged in the National Forest campground. We gassed up and soon saw Trees of Mystery -- another roadtrip hot spot that we had heard about from an episode of This American Life (#506). The kitsch of an enormous Paul Bunyan was more than I could bear. You know I love kitsch! We had to stop! We popped out of the car just long enough to snag some pictures of the great American lumberjack, Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe.

When we got to the park we planned to camp in we saw they would also charge $35 to camp for one night. Sunset wasn't far off now and we realized if we were willing to pay $35 to sleep somewhere that wasn't a part of the plan then we would be much better off paying $15 more for a room with electricity and WiFi in the next town. This decision sounds like it was made because we didn't want to deal with camping or wanted a fancy bed. You're only a little right. The idea of having WiFi and a night to dedicate to catching up on the blog and watching the German national soccer team play a friendly match against Poland was really what sold us. It turned out to be a very productive night in that regard.

Now knowing that we had a little more time, we drove up the coast, stopping at the first beach we saw to watch the sun sink below the horizon and get our feet a little sandy and wet. I had never seen the Pacific before so I had to touch it! Besides, there was no reason to rush anymore.

We arrived in Crescent City, California after dark and after splitting dinner at Denny's, we tucked into the Front Street Inn (tripadvisor!). The next morning we ate breakfast and sat by the Pacific to get a few more blog posts going and for Sam to call El Paso about his ticket and to write a letter to extend the court date (of course they told him to send it to the city prosecutor instead of the magistrate, so it wasn't the best use of his time).

Feeling very accomplished, we made a beeline for the forest. The first few visitor and information centers were closed, so we were grateful to finally find an open office to get some ideas for activities, campgrounds, and to get the coveted stamp. The ranger also showed us what Poison Oak looks like since we don't have that back east. We came away with big plans that worked out wonderfully.

First, we backtracked a ways and hopped down a trail to see the forks of the Smith River. The spot the ranger described was beautiful with the deep blue river that was cold and crystal clear.

Views: Del Norte County, CA by Samuel Herbig

The next stop was up to Stout Grove (tripadvisor!), where we knew we would see some hulking redwoods. We took our drawing supplies because it had been a really long time since we had done any art. What could be more inspiring?

We studied these ancient, enormous trees that seemed to survive so much and Sam explained that trying to understand the enormity of those trees was like trying to understand the structure of the universe. On paper you can write it down and have a rough idea, but when you really take it in, it's overwhelming because you can't see everything at once, only parts at a time. I hope I paraphrased that correctly.

We finally headed to Panther Flat campground for a lovely night of camping for only $15! So even though we spent a night in a hotel, we basically came out even on our sleeping costs in the Redwoods. Not shabby, eh?

Leaving the plan up to chance wasn't as stressful as I had imagined! We slept fairly well and the next day we were going to drive up to Oregon to see Crater Lake.

For a change, here's a Sam fun fact:

This has been the longest title of our roadtrip blog, weighing in at an astounding 64 characters! Way to go, girl!

categories Drive
tags California, Redwood, Forest, Pacific, Ocean, Camping, Beach, Smith River, Drive-Thru Tree

Mountains of Dust

May 17, 2014Samuel Herbig

A bunch of what follows will be about weather phenomena and different kinds of elevation and both were the kind of things that I'm sure seem perfectly normal to anyone living here, but were remarkable, because this was new ground to the both of us.

Smooth introduction: on our way out of San Antonio Whitney wanted to get a count of Texas and American flags. The thought had really occurred to us when Whitney was counting F-150 trucks the other day, but she couldn't keep track of two things at the same time. Anywho, we started driving and Whitney started counting flags (just as a reminder, this is our third day of driving westward . . . and we're still driving through Texas). In about 30 minutes she got:

14 Texas flags
2 Texas Logos or Objects
30 American flags

That's a pretty good display of state and national purpose by any measure. Interestingly Whitney gave up counting flags right around 10:40 and it wasn't because there were too many flags. The opposite was the case. Quite suddenly we had arrived in the Texas hill country and let me tell you: there's nothing out here. I mean sure, there are shrubs and grasses, rocks and iron ranch gates every ten or so miles but this is unmistakably the desert. Hill country is also firmly tongue in cheek, at least going by the RPM's poor Omimobile had to push to get us over those mountains.

Driving along I-10 I kept wanting to stop so that I could take pictures of the building mountains around us or to get a shot of what the desert looks like. Turns out taking a picture of the desert isn't that easy and I really wasn't satisfied with what I got. Hmmm.

As we mentioned in the post from Austin, we had set an unfortunates precedent in driving all day without eating and we followed that to a T again. We're both still shaking our heads. Anyway, we literally stopped twice on our drive to Marfa. Once so I could take pictures and a second time to get gas and switch drivers.

We got to our campground in trendy (?), hip (?) Marfa at El Cosmico, pitched our tent and...

... we checked high and low for a place to eat and there was nothing. Everything was either open Wednesday thru Sunday or open during the day until 2pm or open after 6pm. That was incredibly frustrating. There simply wasn't anything open in the middle of the day where you could go to get hot food. So we found ourselves once again in the situation of being hungry and without food. We're working on it.

Jett's Grill, a half mile into town (?) at the Paison Hotel was the place that would finally release us from our gnawing hunger. It's unclear whether the food was that good or whether we were just hungry. At any rate the plate was empty in less time than it takes most people to decide what they'd like to order. Once sated, I took a look around the courtyard at the hotel and kind of got the impression that I was in some kind of a strange world made out of festival hipsters and leather clad motorcycle adventurers. It gave me the impression of being in some exotic semi-perilous desert outpost that adventurers sought out as base camp or way point along their route while at the same time being at the out-of-sight celebrity vacation spot at the end of the earth.

We got back to El Cosmico and the wind is kicking up. For the first time we pulled out the four guylines we have for our trusty Basecamp 4 and tethered it to a nearby tree. After a little time of settling in, we turned off our water-headlamp light and cuddled in. It was getting cold.

The morning came. Carefully we poked our noses out of the top of the sleeping bags, it was that cold out. What we saw wasn't pretty: a fine earthen, clay colored dust covered the inside of our tent. At this point I'm starting to notice my dried out mouth and Whitney's showing definite signs of her allergies. Overnight, the gusty winds had kicked up the dust outside and swiftly carried it underneath the gap of the rainfly, through the mesh of the tent onto the pillows, sleeping bags and anything else not thoroughly sealed.

We were cold, dust covered and had no coffee.

I want to deviate from the storyline just for a moment, because I feel that it is important that we inform all of you, just how dusty it was. It just so happened that it was Bob's birthday (Whitney's dad who took us to Nashville and Memphis earlier in the trip). Quick thinking Whitney made the best out of the situation. With a little patience, spit and a camera she made an impromptu birthday card!

Briskly we trudged over to the main office and went inside. It was warmer in there and there's coffee. By the looks of it, we weren't the only one's trying to shake off the chills of the night. The internet was down though, so any planning we wanted to get done was a no go, so we eventually decided to pick up on a tip from George back in San Antonio and headed up to Balmorhea State Park.

Balmorhea is about an hour north of us along Texas route 17, but we had to take the detour via 90, to Alpine and then via 118 back to 17 so that we'd have a chance to refuel and get the oil changed.

Which brings me to an interesting experience I'd like to share:

Boulders strewn about as though they were flung there by a giant's hand

Do you sometimes drive along and then you see "oh look, I'm running kinda low on gas only have a quarter tank to go..."? Well, once we had started heading west from San Antonio, and certainly once we'd left the I-10 corridor both of our senses of scarcity particularly in terms of gas had kicked up. I kept thinking about gas in terms of means to get from safe haven to safe haven. Without it, we'd be pretty SOL unless someone happened to find us. Gas stations started to be over 50 miles apart at times so dropping below a quarter task was a no go.

The one cactus we found that wasn't "hanging on"

With clean oil and a tank full of lifelinesque gas we set out once again. Guess I didn't mind the detour either, because it led us from the perfectly flat desert through a small group of mountains back out into the desert a few times. Before we met up with route 17 once again at Fort Davis, we stopped so that I could take some pictures and gaze at this barren land that stretched out all around us. Some of the mountains seemed to be dropping rocks on the surrounding landscape, littering it with large boulders. Looking more closely, we could find little cacti hanging on, on the roadside.

About every 5-10 minutes a car or truck would pass us. I felt small, alone and peaceful all alone out there.

As we entered Fort Davis, Whitney saw a sign for the Limpia Creek Hats company. Since we would be out in the direct sun and I needed something to cover my noggin, we stopped in. The building was a small, three room cottage. We were greeted by John Davis.

What followed next was one of the single most pleasant, cordial, and professional sales consultation I've experienced in years. You see as a Yankee, buying a cowboy hat is a bit intimidating. I don't want one of those gaudy "hey look at who just got back from a real rodeo in Texas!" hats, you know? I want a practical and nice looking hat that also happens to be from Texas.

Mr. Davis provided me with just that. After picking out a Guatemalan palm leaf hat and a shape, he hand molded the hat, changed the band for me and made sure that the thing fit just so. All while addressing Whitney and myself with more "yes sir" and "mhmm, ma'am"s than I'd ever heard one person utter in the span of an hour.

I left a happy customer and would like to endorse this business right here: if you're in need of a quality hat in west Texas, visit the Limpia Creek Hats company in Fort Davis.

By the time we pulled off Texas route 17 in Balmorhea, we had an apatite so we stopped at the one (of two?) open places in town for a snack before heading to the park.

The park isn't really a park in the way you'd imagine a state park. It's more of a public pool on public land made into a state park centered around the fresh water springs of the San Salomon creek.

The weather was cool, but we were dusty and hadn't showered in a couple of days so the temperature was certainly not going to hold us back.

After testing the temperature with our toes we carefully climbed down the algea covered steps. It was very slippery, but the water was oh so refreshing and crystal clear. We'd snorkeled twice before on our trip, but I ran back to the car for the goggles soon so that we could see better what was going on underwater.

The only reason Whitney gets to be in the picture is because I can't float on my back. True story.

The whole pool is roughly in an L shape with a larger round pool at the joint. The fresh spring water flows in at the top of the L through the round pool and out the other end. Since it is a natural river it's full of the aforementioned algae but also of scores and scores of little fish swimming around and which tickled the bottoms of our feet when we sat at the edge of the pool. As the sun was shining down on us, we were sitting in an idyllic oasis in the middle of the barren Texas landscape.

I think I counted six other people while we were there in an area that could have easily accommodated a hundred or more. Everything's bigger, I guess. Clean and refreshed we headed back towards Marfa.

With all this open land around us and the huge Texas sky above us, we thought we'd be fools to miss a sunset while we were here. You see, seeing the sun rise above and fall below the horizon is the kind of thing you make you do when you want to make sure that you positively have nothing better to do. Road trips are time you spend away from (most) time constraints, so a sunrise or a sunset is a quintessential part of that experience. We passed El Cosmico and continued South (passing a Border Patrol check point, our first of many more times in the coming week) until we found a suitable place to watch the sunset about 15 minutes later. We got out and got to see a beautiful red, black, brown, yellow, orange, purple and blue sunset!

When we got chilly, we headed back to camp. We cooked a sparse dinner and settled in for the night discussing our idea to trade in our inhospitable post at El Cosmico for a taste of Big Bend National Park.

Are we going to pull it off?

categories Drive
tags Texas, Dust, Marfa, Hat, Balmorhea, El Cosmico, Desert, Swimming, Drive

Firsts & Transitions

April 21, 2014Samuel Herbig

Our drive into Florida was quick, but in that short time we realized one very hard reality that has plagued us since: Gas in Florida is expensive.

But let's rewind for a second. We got to Florida and it's really the first time either of us have been in the sunshine state (at least in the past ten years). They say a lot of things about judging books by their cover but when you're faced with something the first time you don't think in those terms. You're just jotting down your first impressions.

What I thought about walking towards the Florida Welcome Center off I-95 was: there are a lot of overweight people, kids behaving poorly and big trucks here. I realized that's very judgmental of me of course, so every time I've felt that way in the past I thought: You're missing something here. Look more closely and you'll find that there's more to what you think you're seeing here.

In the case of Florida, and I think I'm speaking for both Whitney and myself here, that moment didn't come until Miami; I'm getting ahead of myself though.

We got our complimentary orange and grapefruit juice and sat back down in the Omimobile to finish our day's trip to St. Augustine.

It's interesting in retrospect that I didn't even think about the historical aspect of St. Augustine on the way there. I mean I know that it's the oldest Spanish settlement in North America, but to us it didn't amount to more than a waypoint on our travels south. That's in no way meant as a slight towards Florida or St. Augustine. It's just the way things worked out.

The really cool thing about our campground in Anastasia State Park was that it was near the beach. For the first time we had the opportunity to go out and swim in the ocean. The whole idea of going swimming in the Atlantic was a sort of gateway into the "summer" part of our road trip.

We didn't much exceed sticking our toes in the water that night, but to me it was the beginning of water, sunscreen, sunglasses and pavement that's too hot to walk on barefoot.

To feed ourselves in the evening we sought out a local supermarket by the roadside, just outside the Anastasia. We got fresh vegetables, a piece of fresh tuna, coals and a bag of ice. Back at the campsite we split the tasks: Whitney prepared (chopped, peeled, seasoned) the vegetables and fish while I built the fire.

Seared Tuna! Fingerling potatoes! Roasted veggies!

Now, everyone has a different idea of what "camping" is. In our mind, it involves a tent and making your own food, I guess. We're not roughing it by any means and it's certainly not about digging a scat hole and making fire with a flint. We wanted to make it manageable for us considering we would be driving for several hours on many of our camping nights. We wanted to get a great night’s sleep so we got a pretty big tent and cots instead of foam sleep pads. We have a mini kitchen in the back of our car.

Anyway, by now we had the essentials down pat: As you can see we got the tent set up and the cots put together. The whole "let's get a fire going" is something I'm still getting used to, though.

Views: St Augustine, FL by Samuel Herbig

In the end, dinner was delicious and we went to sleep under the stars (we left the rainfly off), to a live soundtrack of Dierks Bentley playing my new favorite (no joke) “How Am I Doin’”. We tweeted at him but no response :-(.

We broke camp early next morning. Our next stop was the Pelican Inn on Key Largo, so we didn't want to waste time getting there. The drive down I-95 was awfully boring though. I'm serious, it's the most dreary part of the interstate we'd encountered.

PLOT TWIST!: Julia's in Miami and she's reading our tweets. That meant a spontaneous re-routing through unchartered territory. Did we plan on going through Miami? No. Was I-95 jammed up and did we have any idea that the there are Florida State toll roads? Also, no. So we set off on a happy-go-lucky chase through Miami to meet up with Julia.

Now, remember how I said that the part I'd been missing didn't come until Miami? Well, here it is: driving through town we found ourselves so excited at seeing the colors of the buildings. We saw pink houses and blue houses. Bright green cars with outrageous rims. I swear, Miami has the corner market on custom green paint jobs. Suddenly we were in this weird land of palm trees, bright colors and bad-ass cars!

Back to the story: Julia was in town to work on a commercial and we rolled in, just as they were finishing their day to say "hello".

Aside form an enthusiastic greeting we got so much more though. You see, the woman who ran craft services on this job, Nina, was a culinary goddess. Craft Services, or Crafty, are the stay-at-home mom’s of the film industry. That sounds derogatory, but hear me out! Every stay-at-home mom I ever knew made sure there was tasty food at a moments notice so kids would be able to do homework with full brain power as well as hang out with friends after school without getting hangry (or HALT as we call it — Hungry Angry Lonely Tired).

Now keep in mind that the standard day on a film set is twelve hours with one meal break in the middle and you see why Crafty is so important. Film work is manual labor! Nina was there for her crew all day that Sunday and as they finished their day she offered up her culinary wonders to us, the weary travelers, just because we were Julia’s friends. Now there are two phenomena we could pin this on: Julia’s ability to befriend any person she has ever met; or Nina’s charisma, kindness, and culinary skill. We were so grateful we want to credit both.

Nina with Proud owner of Nina iced coffee

Here’s to the best iced coffee we have ever had—hands down, the fantastic flan Nina sent with us for our dessert in Key Largo, and her tasty cookies that got us through a few hangry moments as we drove through Florida.

Strengthened and encouraged, we set out on the road again. At this point the Keys were within our grasp and we didn't want to waste any more time on the road. That however, we'll cover in the next post!

categories Drive
tags Camping, Florida, Atlantic, Swimming, Ocean

Travel troubles

April 12, 2014Samuel Herbig

To be honest, the two or three days after Memphis were a bit rough around the edges. We really didn't work out a harmony between the two of us, and that was wearing us down.

But! Before all that we really did start out on a good note. Our breakfast on the way out of Memphis consisted of donuts. That's right, those lovely fried rings of culinary pleasure. In New York, they're all the rage and you wait in line for your cronuts. In Memphis, you just head on over to Gibson's Donuts shop (FB link!), waltz right in the door and order!

Anyway, we set out on the road towards Chattanooga. A lot of the time spent en route we tried to fit our experiences in Memphis and Nashville in words. Both of us agreed that we walked away from those couple of days musically enriched and inspired to look outside to find the unusual as it pertained to us personally.

We stopped for gas once and another time for me to get a break from the monotony of driving over flat land going 80 miles and hour. I made an ink drawing of the view from the parking lot of a small Baptist church somewhere at the end of the world Alabama. Turned out alright, I guess.

Back on the road.

It had always been the plan to get to Chattanooga and see Rock City. Problem was the weather (low cloud ceiling) as well as a lousy forecast kept us from going and put a damper on our camping plans. Overall, we found ourselves juggling a number of decisions.

We decided to sleep in a hostel/hotel and eventually went for the Crash Pad, a very cool rock climber-oriented hostel. We nixed the Rock City visit for the evening as well, and instead opted for a quieter evening on the town and then filled the night putting down our experiences in the two musical cities. It turned into a late exhausting night of haggling with technology and balancing the content of our posts (blogging is a real occupation after all!).

All along we also knew that we had to be conscious of our next stop: Columbia, SC. There we were due to visit three old friends from northern Virginia. Getting to Columbia during the week meant that we were asking them to make time for us in their schedule to accommodate our visit. To make the most of our time there, we planned to head out as early as possible.

Discussing the road ahead, we also encountered another difficulty: Whitney was getting frustrated. The past year she'd been tirelessly planning and researching the trip. As far as the prep work went, she'd been doing the lion's share of it. Now that we were on the road, it started to become burdensome, that keeping the schedule and paying attention to the budget continued to fall to her.

The problem became: Whitney wasn't having any fun.

When you want to be on a road trip, and you want to be on it for three months, you wanna do something about that. No time did this become clearer to me, then when we set out on Wednesday to find a place to do some drawings of Chattanooga before leaving town. While I'd had an, in my mind, pretty uncomplicated idea of driving up and down a street or two to find a spot to draw, Whitney felt left out. Sharing the experience of creating art together had been an integral part of planning the trip and by organizing the things I needed to do my art, without considering what Whitney needed to participate, obviously caused friction. That's friction neither of us wanted, but we had to deal with it, that much was clear.

After some discussion, neither of us drew a thing, and that's about the worst outcome for me. We got in the car and left Chattanooga. To me, it's about creating something together, and when I end up in the way of that, that's when I'm really starting to pay attention.

Thusly, we've got no pictures or drawings to show for from Chattanooga. That's not to talk any shit about it. I actually thought, it was quite a nice town. In the end we just basically treated it as a rest stop on our way. Sorry!

The road didn't have anything in particular to offer. The flat landscape had turned more hilly and the ground was noticeably sandy and we started to see more pine trees and tall grasses as we approached Columbia. I'll mention that we passed through Atlanta and that we stopped in a town called Greensboro (Georgia, not North Carolina) for lunch at Yesterday Cafe.

All in all, after a few turbulent days, we were both happy to be on the road to see some good old friends. Here, have a few road pictures: