If you look at "averages", I averaged 435 miles-per-day. That is a totally managable number, with daylight-driving each day. It is a comfortable pace, offering the opportunities to stop at "Scenic Views" and collecting Post Offices.
In this case, however, I "Drove Big" for 15 days (8,649 miles, averaging 577 miles-per-day) [leaving 6 days "Driving Little" totaled 494 miles, averaging 83 miles-per-day].
That "577 miles-per-day" was too much. I wound up driving one/two/or even three hours in the dark, which I don't like to do - one main purpose of my trips is to "see the lay of the land". Needless to say, that doesn't happen IN THE DARK!
My constraints for this trip were:
1) I didn't want to be away from home (and my Beautiful Bride) for more than 21 days, and
2) I wanted to hike 7 days in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains (well hike for 6, and day-of-rest for 1).
So, given those two factors, this trip WORKED OUT PERFECTLY! And I don't plan on doing it again.
Maybe my new motto should be "Drive Less, See More."
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Mid-Blog Break - let's see SOME BEAUTY: Jackson Pollock in Buffalo:
J.M.W. Turner at Oberlin:
Alone Out There:
California Sunset:
Heart Lake:
Kearsarge Pass:
Bristlecone Pine:
Bishop Lake:
Ruby Lake:
Upper Lamarck Lake:
Lake Tahoe:
Desolation in Nevada:
Counting Crows in Idaho:
Snake River in Idaho:
Medicine Bow Peak in Wyoming:
Maxwell, Nebraska:
Dixon, Iowa:
HOME:
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Another "Lesson Learned" is that I really like Hostels (or at least The Hostel California). They are a great place to get a communal sense, and the kids (yeah, everyone is younger than me) are all healthy, either coming off a Big Hike, or about to start one. I definitely want to keep "Hostel" on my list of places-to-stay:
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I really like the caltopo maps. I think they are better-looking than AllTrails
I'm working through coming to terms with the increasing-joy I get "hunting Post Offices" versus the lessening-joy of "visiting Art Museum". Although I love The Art that I see in the museums, it seems to be quite a hassle dealing with them (timed-entry, parking, layout problems - not to mention THE HUGE AMOUNT OF BAD ART that is taking up wallspace/floorspace).
With Post Offices, I get off The Interstate Highway unto a well-defined US Highway System that runs right through towns that The Interstate Highway System has abandoned. The Primary Highways going through the Great Plains states are I-80 and I-70, and I know what they are like. The "red box" is blown-up below, and shows 53 Post Offices - it puts a smile on my face thinking about figuring out how to zig-zag and get them all:
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And finally, it has been 2 years since I did an overnight (= camping in a tent) hike ("Glacier National Park"). I know I said that I don't want to do that again, but I've recently been reading about some really cool multi-day hikes, and just pulled out a map I made a couple of years ago, for a 3-day/2-night hike in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho
