I just started the journal for my first trip of 2025, and yes, I do realize that it is almost the end of July. All of the assorted reasons for the lack of travel during the first half of the year were just normal life happenings, and none were negative. Now I’m about to drive — and float — the full length of the current US-10. The floating part is on a ferry that crosses Lake Michigan as an official part of the US highway. The picture at right is clearly not of any part of a highway. It’s of Patrick Sweany at the Rumba Cafe in Columbus, OH. I bought my ticket to the show a couple of months ago and decided, since Columbus is essentially on the path from home to the east end of US-10, to make it a bon voyage bash. The show was Saturday, I drove to Bay City, MI, on Sunday, and I’m now heading west on US-10. The journal’s first day has been posted.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.

This is just about as last minute as it is possible to get. I registered Monday night, booked my room Tuesday night, and started driving toward the conference  Wednesday morning. Trip announcement posts such as this are typically made when the first day’s journal is posted but not this time. That journal entry is not yet posted and neither is the journal for the final day of the preceding trip. Those things will eventually happen but for now, my real and cyber worlds are out of synch in a slightly different way than normal.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.

The second part of that double country crossing trip on the National Old Trails Road and the Pike’s Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway is underway. When scheduling issues led to me splitting what was originally conceived as a single outing, I planned to start and end part 1 at the Ohio-Indiana border but it didn’t quite work out that way. For the sake of convenience, I slipped about a mile into Indiana, where the National Road and the National Old Trails Road diverge to begin the eastbound portion of the trip. Not reaching the state line on the westbound portion was not convenient at all. Road debris and a flat tire ended the trip about 90 miles early. So I have spent the first day of this outing returning to the scene of the interruption, covering those 90 miles, and getting started on Indiana. California, here I come.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.

My on-again-off-again trip to the 2024 Society for Commercial Archeology conference in Nashville is definitely on and underway. Day one consisted mostly of getting there then ended in a reception at the Willie Nelson Museum near Opryland. A wonky internet connection and a full schedule delayed the posting of this and the first day’s journal and an itinerary fully packed with bus tours will undoubtedly delay the next couple of days but they will eventually get there.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.

I am sure that many readers recognize the acronyms in the title. For those that don’t know, they represent the National Old Trails Road and the Pike’s Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway. These two named auto trails cross the USA east-west not too far from each other and not too far from my home. I intend to utilize this pair in crossing the country twice. Although I originally planned to make the journey in a single outing, I am now resigned to spreading it over two trips. Part 1, which I have just started, follows the NOTR east from the Ohio-Indiana border and returns to that border on the PPOO. I will return to that spot in the fall and finish following the PPOO westward then wrap things up by driving the NOTR back to Ohio. The journal for that first day of the trip, which is largely staging, has been posted here.