I don’t believe I have ever taken a birthday trip before but it seems like a pretty good reason to break away from this semi-hibernation and do a little traveling. The trip is a short one that barely gets outside of Ohio, but it is the first trip of the year and I’m really looking forward to it.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
One hundred years ago today, my great-grandparents left their home in Woodington, Ohio, and set out for Florida. This morning, I left my home near Cincinnati, Ohio, drove north to Woodington, then I too set out for Florida. I am following their path but not their schedule. They started around noon, drove a half-dozen miles to Greenville, had some work done on their Model T Ford, and spent the night with relatives. I was in and out of Woodington well before noon and my first day ended in Georgetown, Kentucky, 125 miles or so south of Greenville.
I made this trip once before in 2001 with nice August weather and no pandemic. I have a pretty good idea how traveling in November differs from traveling in August, but how the current COVID-19 pandemic will affect this trip is an open and rather large question. There is little to suggest that motels in and of themselves are particularly dangerous, and that is also mostly true for restaurants as well. But people are an entirely different story. Meeting people is easily one of the things I enjoy most about road trips. I always look forward to chatting with my neighbors at a counter or bar, but that’s really going to be at a minimum this time around. I can see eating a lot of carry-out and possibly microwaving packaged meals in my room. I’ve even tried to mentally prepare myself for aborting the trip if conditions grow worse. Starting on the 100 year anniversary was very important to me and finishing this year is pretty important, too, but I’m going to try to not be stupid.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
For the first time this year, I’m sleeping somewhere other than home. I’ve left home to travel to the far corner of Ohio and back much as I did in 2001. Outbound will be on US-42 with the return on OH-3/3C Highway. It has been so long since I’ve been on an actual road trip that I forgot to make a blog post this morning when the first day’s journal was published but I did finally remember.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
The 2019 Christmas Escape Run is another all Ohio outing with Christmas at Geneva-on-the-Lake and a couple of days leading up to it in Steubenville. The first day, which is now posted, was pretty much filled with the drive to Steubenville. The title comes from Ohio’s tourism slogan, “Find It Here”, which was also the basis for the title of an all Ohio Christmas trip in 2016.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
Recent road trip plans have been thwarted including some anticipated meandering on the outbound leg of this concert outing. But I made it to the Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso, IN, for the concert, and hope to do some meandering on the way home. The first day’s journal is up and I expect another two, three, or more days to roll by before I get home.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
This is a big reason why drives involved in the preceding trip were not very leisurely. In the early phases of planning, it seemed like a conference in early June and another in late June would leave plenty of room in between. The devil appeared and the leisure time vanished in the details. The early June conference filled the 5th through 8th. This, the late June conference, filled the 18th through 21st. That left what initially seemed like an ample nine days between the end of one and the start of the other. A two-day drive home from Wisconsin and a five-day drive to Wyoming trimmed all the ampleness from the schedule in a flash. I had time to do laundry and repack and am now on the way to Rock Springs, Wyoming, for the June 18-21 Lincoln Highway Association conference. The first day of the trip is in the books and on the web.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
I once envisioned the 2019 Society for Commercial Archeology conference being bracketed by leisurely drives to and from, but as time passed the schedule on both sides of the event filled in and squeezed out most of the leisure. The first day included just enough time to check out the freshly painted fellow in the picture. He’s not part of the conference but he is exactly the sort of thing that the SCA is all about. The conference itself is being held in Wisconsin Dells and has been given the name “Wacky Wisconsin”. It’s a four-day affair running June 5-8.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
I’m on my way to the 2019 Jefferson Highway Association Conference and I’m taking a much shorter route than I did last year. Instead of driving from Cincinnati to Winnipeg to Saint Joseph, I’m following an almost perfectly aligned southwest diagonal directly to Natchitoches, Louisiana. I was on the road for ten days before reaching the conference last year. This year it will be just three and one of them is already over and posted.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
The Outer Banks and the Wright Brothers’ first flight are firmly joined in my mind. Although I’ve no problem remembering the year (1903), the month and date weren’t as easily recalled. I quickly looked it up the instant I first started thinking of the Outer Banks as a target for this year’s Christmas Escape and was very happy to learn it was December 17; Barely a week before Christmas Day, four days before the Winter Soltice, and five days before a full moon.
I’m beginning the trip with a dash to the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk to celebrate the 115th anniversary of the flight. I’ll stay on the Outer Banks for a few days so may be in the area for those other holidays too. If not, I’ll be somewhere along the route home. That route is not yet determined although I’m leaning toward picking up US-64 at its eastern terminus and following it all the way through North Carolina. Then all I’ll have to do to get home is turn right.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
After a short break, it’s on to more rock and roll. This time it’s a Dirk Hamilton Band reunion in Stockton, California, which will be followed by driving some of the area’s Lincoln Highway. The first day, which includes the very successful reunion, is posted.
This entry is to let blog only subscribers now about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.