Trip Peek #23
Trip #35
SB Rendezvous

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my San Bernardino Rendezvous fly-and-drive trip to the 2005 Route Festival. I flew into Phoenix then drove north through Prescott, Jerome, and Sedona to reach Historic Route 66 at Flagstaff. The photo is of the late Bob Waldmire’s 1972 VW Microbus being returned after mistakenly being towed from the authors & artists area of the festival. Bob was pretty nervous until the bus was back on the ground without damage. Following the festival, I drove through Joshua Tree National Park before picking up US-60 to the coolest named airport in the country, Phoenix’s Sky Harbor.

Trip Pic Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the trip journal it is from.

Trip Peek #22
Trip #86
Ohio NR Bus Tour

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my 2010 Ohio NR Bus Tour day trip along the western half of Ohio’s portion of the National Road. Doug Smith, coauthor of A Traveler’s Guide to the Historic National Road in Ohio, acted as guide and provided much information when we stopped at several landmarks and as we rolled by others. The pictured stop is along the Ohio River to get a look at the 1849 Wheeling Suspension Bridge.

Trip Peek #21
Trip #93
The Sailor’s Family

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my 2011 The Sailor’s Family fly & drive trip to visit my youngest son in San Diego, California. At that time, he was assigned to the USS Boxer and I timed my visit to coincide with a planned “family day” cruise aboard the ship. My son, oldest grandson, and I did that while the daughter-in-law and youngest grandson did safer things. The oldest grandson and I also worked in a day trip on US-80 while the rest of the family fulfilled their normal obligations. The picture was taken the day all four of us spent at Balboa Park. Inside the Museum of Man, my son and youngest grandson stopped in front of a pair of skeletons in a scene that looked like a x-ray mirror. Although the stop was an accident, the humor and coolness of the scene was immediately realized by even the youngest among us. I had flown to San Diego from Indianapolis and an ice storm back home forced me to stay in San Diego a couple of extra days. Worse things can happen in early February.

Trip Peek #20
Trip #53
Byway to Dublin

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from the my 2007 Byway to Dublin road trip. The purpose of the trip was to attend the big Celtic Festival in Dublin, Ohio, and I spiced the drive up just a little by using two of Ohio’s Scenic Byways to get there. The first was the state’s shortest designated byway, the ten mile Olentangy Heritage Corridor Byway, then the slightly longer twenty-seven mile Big Darby Plains Scenic Byway. I found some rather interesting sights beside both byways and the roads in between then had a great time at the festival on the second day of the trip.

Trip Peek #19
Trip #12
Jaggin’ to Georgetown

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from the my 2003 Jaggin’ to Georgetown day trip. At the time I had a GPS unit that could tell me how far away something was and in what direction but did no routing. I frequently used it to get somewhere by turning in the general direction of my destination whenever a turn was required. I called this “jagging”. While this might produce a nice stair step path on roads laid out like a checkerboard, this was seldom the case in the real world and some interesting things might pop up. On this occasion, I “jagged” my way to an antique farm machinery show in Georgetown. Ohio, where I also visited Ulysses Grant’s boyhood home and school.

Trip Peek #18
Trip #110
FOLK at NaFF

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from my 2013 FOLK at NaFF road trip for the premier of a movie (FOLK) at the Nashville Film Festival (NaFF). One of the musicians featured in the film was long time favorite Dirk Hamilton. I spent the first day of the trip driving, partly on the Dixie Highway, to Nashville and listening to some of the music on Nashville’s Broadway. On the second day, I visited nearby Dickson, on the Broadway of America, before returning to watch the film in the early evening. I next drove a new-to-me section of Dixie Highway to Indianapolis where I spent a night and a day before heading home.

Trip Peek #17
Trip #81
US 62’s West End

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from the my 2009 US 62’s West End road trip. This was my first Christmas Escape Run after retiring and only my second road trip without a schedule dictated by a need to get back to the job. Completing my coverage of US 62 by following it to El Paso Texas had been high on my to-do list for so long that it was almost an automatic pick once time permitted. My typical Christmas break had been nine days; A five day work week bracketed by two weekends. This trip consumed fifteen days including a one day “snow delay” in Altus, Oklahoma. Throwing an extra day into the middle of a trip might have been a real calamity in the past but was hardly an issue for a man no longer employed. Highlights of the trip included visits to Carlsbad Caverns and to the graves of both Buddy Holly and Geronimo. The picture was taken in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Tahlequah is the capital of the Cherokee Nation and the picture is of the words “Merry Christmas” in Cherokee.

Trip Peek #16
Trip #99
North from the Crossroads

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from the my 2011 North from the Crossroads road trip. This was a long anticipated spontaneous trip. I started to say “long planned” but that would not quite be true. It was almost entirely on the Dixie Highway which I essentially already had plotted but I certainly did not have much of a plan in place when I left home and had not considered heading north from anywhere until about a day before I did it. What I did have in place was a plan for an entirely different trip. I had a trip to the east coast all laid out when it became apparent that hurricane Irene was targeting some of the same places I was and at just about the same time, too. So I scrapped the idea of driving east and headed north instead. Taking a trip was not spontaneous but taking this trip was.

As it worked out, I covered the Dixie Highway Eastern Mainline from its intersection with the National Road in Vandalia, Ohio, to its northern terminus in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan. I even slipped across the border into Canada for a few hours. Returning south, I followed the Dixie Highway Northern Connector between Mackinaw City, Michigan, and Indianapolis, Indiana. The picture is of the Mackinac Bridge heading into Michigan’s upper peninsula. I also visited Mackinac Island for the first time.

Trip Peek #15
Trip #83
Groundhog Day 2010

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from the my 2010 Groundhog Day road trip to see Punxsutawney Phil. I guess this was something of a bucket list item I crossed off on my first February in retirement. On the way, I stopped in Columbus, Ohio, to attend a blues benefit and I worked in some National Road on the way home. In between, I sipped coffee and stamped my feet on Gobbler’s Knob in an effort to stay warm in four degrees while waiting for sunrise. The big moment came, Phil saw his shadow (though I didn’t see mine), and the 10,000+ crowd moaned in unison.

This is the second Trip Pic Peek that I’ve cheated on and did not go with a random selection. The other was Crescent City Christmas that I hand picked for Christmas 2012. When I realized that I would probably be posting something canned this week and that Sunday was actually Groundhog Day, this Trip Pic Peek just seemed right.

Trip Pic Peek # 14 — Trip #31 — OH Lincoln

Trip Peek #14
Trip #31
OH Lincoln

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Denny

This picture is from the my 2005 OH Lincoln road trip. The trip was centered around my first ever Ohio Lincoln Highway League annual meeting and marked the first time I drove Ohio’s part of the Lincoln Highway from end to end. Starting, on April 22, in East Liverpool, I spent three days getting to, and a little beyond, the Indiana border. The first day was gray, the second wet, and the third white. Clouds and rain are pretty common for late April but snow is definitely not. Day two actually started with very light and very brief flurries then day three began with snow on the ground. Intermittent flurries continued throughout the day and provided the scene captured in the photo.

Trip Pic Peek #13 — Trip #56 — Indy Sixty-Two

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