As you may have gathered, I "collect Post Offices" - by that I mean I go to a town (or multiple locations in a town) and take a picture of their Post Office (or "Canada Post" up in Canada). I then upload the photo into Google Maps for that location (often mine is the ONLY non-logo/non-Google-StreetView photo). I also open My Google Maps and add the point (and photo) to my map. As time goes by, Search Engines (and People) click on the Post Office in Google Maps and see the photo - that counts as "a view", and I have over 27.5 million views. Google loves me!
A Post Office holds a community together. People go and get mail, and hang out, and chat with friends and neighbors. It is VERY DEMOCRATIC - not rich or poor, not white or black - anyone (and everyone) can get mail. It is also connected vertically/horizontally by connecting to all the other Post Offices across the country.
and, unfortunately, I have seen "communities" that have lost their Post Office - depressing, no soul, an area that seems to be just giving up. That's Bad.
LESSON LEARNED: just keep doing it, but budget an extra hour for the picture-taking.
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I have a resistance to "over-planning" (some people might say "just appropriate planning", but that's them). When I start a Road Trip, I don't make reservations for the whole trip, but only for the 1st week/10 days. This allows me to Accumulate Points from my early-stays that I can then apply later in my Trip. It works great in my Fall Trips, and I don't recall ever not getting my "1st choice".
Another aspect of this "resistance" is that now-a-days, with Google Maps on my iPhone, I no longer write-down turn-by-turn directions, but just follow the map-on-my-iPhone. This works fine UNTIL YOU DON'T HAVE ANY INTERNET - which happens to me once in a while. No problem going to a Super 8 somewhere, but when I tried to find my campsite in Bella Coola, NOTHING. Blessedly, I was able to tickle-out a signal in downtown Bella Coola, and navigate my way 20 minutes east/northeast, across a river. Life would have been a lot easier if I had done that navigation in a hotel room.
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I have a spreadsheet (well, I was a Math Major - of course I HAVE A SPREADSHEET) with time and mileage:
On some days I DID TOO MUCH DRIVING!
Last year, in 5 days in September I drove 3,407 miles from Massachusetts to California:
At that time, I drove too much - I wound up driving at least 2 hours each evening IN THE DARK, which is bad. When I drive cross-country, I WANT TO SEE THE COUNTRY! It should have been 6 days, but I wanted to get out to do my hiking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I knew I was on a tight timetable (self-imposed), so I just did it - it all worked out, but, in the future, slow it down (if you can).
This year I had thought that I had solved that problem - I was starting my trip the day after THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR! No "running out of daylight" on THIS TRIP!
This time I ran into another problem - I don't want to drive more than 11 hours in one day. If I leave the hotel at 9 AM, I want to check-in by 8 PM (don't forget about TIME ZONES). There were 6 days where I exceeded that hour-limit, and they were LONG DAYS (and in the last 8 days, the driving-in-the-dark situation happened twice). The solution is BETTER PLANNING - I just have to stick with it.
And be mindful of Time-Zone-changes:
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I think part of this "excessive driving" problem might be solved by another aspect of my trips. When I started doing this in 2013, my focus was to visit Art Museums and National Parks. I would see a museum I wanted to visit, and look "down the road" about an hour-and-a-half - so if they closed at 5 PM, I would see what town/city was 100 miles farther down the road, and stay there. Often the next day's Art Museum would be 100 miles farther, and they would open at 10 AM. That put some nice boundaries on my driving.
Unfortunately I have a slight "snob" aspect to my personality, which I'll call "Peak-bagging Persona". If I have a Mountain I want to bag, I'll plan it out and climb it, just to check it off my list, with no plans (or hopes or dreams) to ever climb it again. I subconsciously applied that thinking to Art Museums - if I saw them once, I don't need to visit them again. That is BAD THINKING in 2 respects:
1) Art Museums VERY RARELY (maybe NEVER) have every picture I want to see up and On-Display. Because Museums have more Art than Wall Space, the percentage of Collection-On-Display ranges from 30% down to 10% (or less). Art Museums rotate their collections, so they should be revisited every few years.
2) I like taking a picture of the Art I like (and its description). I started taking pictures in 2013, and they are nice. I had to get a new iPhone 11 in 2021 - it came with a NEW AWESOME CAMERA, and here are some comparison photos:
Francesco Guardi - "View up the Grand Canal toward the Rialto", c. 1785 oil (2015 versus 2024):
Pierre Auguste Renoir - "The Piazza San Marco, Venice", 1881 oil (2015 versus 2024):
P.A. Nisbet - "Beneath the Blue Moon Bench", 2012 oil (2016 versus 2024):
I keep a spreadsheet (of course) of the museums I have visited, and the artists seen during that visit. I have visited 137 museums since getting my new iPhone back in 2021, which means that I still have several hundred Art Museums to re-visit with my NEW AWESOME CAMERA. Hey, what's life without a little something to look forward to.
A Final Comment about Art Museums: It seems to me that in the 12 years that I have been doing these trips, the percentage of "Painting I Like That are On Display" has been getting smaller and smaller. Art Museums have been focusing more and more on Current Art and Artists, and less and less on Art from 100-to-150 years ago. I guess my LESSON LEARNED is to continue to visit Art Museums (maybe even up-their-percentage) before all the stuff you like is (semi-)permanently locked away in storage rooms.
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I have been asked about my Planning Process. There are a number of factors, but the two primary ones are Time Of Year and Geography I Want To Cover.
"Time Of Year" starts off with my wife Wendy. Planning for this last trip started in the Spring of 2023 when Wendy said "I'm thinking about doing a 35-day Silent Retreat next June/July - what do you think of that?". I knew she could handle it mentally and spiritually, and the Retreat House on Eastern Point in Gloucester is a perfect place, so I said "Sounds great - book it!" That NAILED the "Time Of Year" for that trip: June 22 - July 26, 2024.
Continuing with "wife requirements" - I'm allowed 3 weeks on my own. That means I make the trip 3 weeks, or I figure out how to parachute Wendy in for a week/10 days/the rest of the trip. Last year it was a 3-week-trip; next year Wendy will land in Seattle for some Pacific Northwest/Lake O'Hara adventures.
Another "Time Of Year" Best practice - don't go to National Parks in July or August - THEY ARE MOBBED! Thank You God, I'm able to travel in that wonderful sweet-spot = from just after Labor Day into October. After that you start running out of daylight, and the cold sets in (but maybe that is when I should go through The South?). My exception to that rule was this past trip, when I did day-hikes in Glacier National Park July 17 and 18. The hikes themselves were great, but the parking area at "Logan Pass Visitor Center" WAS FULL (I look forward to hiking there some September). This Rule also certainly applies to Yosemite, Yellowstone, and The Grand Canyon.
As for "Geography I Want To Cover", I start by looking to see if there are obviously any areas I want to hit. For those that are new to this blog, I have covered A LOT OF COUNTRY over the past 12 years:
I have driven all the Interstates, East/West and North/South, and they are GREAT for covering long distances. It looks to me like The Northwest is still pretty open-and-available, and that a good way to get there is west-from-Salt-Lake-City. We'll see.
A Third Factor in the Planning Process is "What did I miss Last Year?" (or any previous years). For example, last year's Road Trip was originally going to include hiking in Washignton State and Oregon, but that got cut-out because of a Memorial Service in Colorado. Which means that that area is Pretty High on my To-Do List - Olympic Nat'l Park, Mount Rainier Nat'l Park, North Cascades Nat'l Park, northeastern California, and up through the middle of Oregon.
But I'm getting ahead of myself!
(Don't worry, I'll keep you posted as it comes together next year.)
Thanks for coming along on this great 2024 Summer Road Trip Adventure!
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