So I went for a Sunday drive today to explore around my new home town. It’s surely quite different looking around here than in St. George, Utah. It’s green everywhere, nothing rocky, just some rolling hills with lakes everywhere and a lot of citrus orchards. It’s pretty good stuff.
I saw a sign that said “Howey-In-The-Hills 12.” It was on a green road sign, so I was confused. Could there really be a town called Howey-In-The-Hills? So I drove there, and sure enough, here it is!
Well here it is. The full map of the coast-to-coast. Started in Lincoln city, Oregon on November 24 and arrived in Clermont, FL on December 7. The grand total miles ended up being 3,931 miles, and we probably hit 4,000 with the little detours we went on.
It was an awesome trip. I’ll list the touristish highlights of the trip:
I may have missed some because we saw so many cool things, but that’s the general idea. It was all quite cool. The best part was that I did it all with my Dad, Bill Sr. He made the trip fun and there really wasn’t any time when either of us felt sick of driving or anything. If anything, we thought it went too quickly. We didn’t get to see the shuttle launch because it got delayed a bunch, but we did fire off a little rocket 600 feet into the air, so that was just about as good!
I’ll post more about my experience as a wakeboard coach, but right now I’ll end with the conclusion of the trip. Good stuff.
Well, we’re here in my new home, Clermont, Florida. Kind of funny stuff we are both (me and Bill Sr.) going through. Today we were talking about how it’s weird that we’re done, and it’s almost kind of a let down that we have no more distance to drive East. But today was a good day. We woke up, went to the beach. It was pretty neato, the sand was covered in countless little pieces of broken up seashells. We drove down the coastline and ate at Two Can Terry’s. Both had the flounder sandwich, good stuff.
We continued south to Cape Canaveral, where we did the NASA thing. We were hoping to catch the shuttle launch tomorrow, but it’s been postponed til Sunday. We probably won’t be able to make it. Our final stop was in Clermont. That’s where I’ll live and “work.” We’ve been wearing shorts and t-shirts all day. Oh, also, when we showed up in Clermont, the whole stinking town was gathered around this spot a few blocks away from the camp. It was a “Light Up Clermont” event. It reminded me of a town gathering on Funny Farm. Good stuff.
So here’s today’s travel.
Well, today was the last big leg of the drive. We are pretty close to the beach, but won’t see it until tomorrow. So no more 500+ mile drives, that’s nice. Today we made 2 significant stops. One in Meridian, MS to surprise a friend (Steve Monk) who is on his mission. We got his address and knocked on his door. That was a fun stop. Then we ate good BBQ food in Mobile, Alabama.
Then on through to Florida. We started in Jackson and ended in Jacksonville. Now we’re staying with my old roommate and his wife and kid. It was awesome when we showed up his 2 1/2 year old son cranked up the hyper mode. He was pulling me all over and running in circles, so I made sure we were both screaming, good stuff.
I’m tired. So here’s a quick post showing our travels from Albuquerque, NM to Jackson, MS. That’s what we knocked out Tuesday and Wednesday. We saw the Cadillac Ranch, biggest cross in the Western hemisphere, and the Oklahoma City bombing memorial.
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Here’s an update on my last 2 days of travel on the coast to coast. Sunday I drove to Vegas after packing (which was not fun, naturally, the packing that is) and picked up Bill Sr. from the airport. Yesterday we did Vegas to Albuquerque. Here’s the map of that part.
This post comes from Albuquerque, New Mexico, right next to the Rio Grande river. Lately my allergies have been annoying, and my sinuses are the first thing to go when that happens. Parts of the drive today climbed up to just over 5,000 feet of elevation. As we climbed these hills, I noticed my sinus pressure started increasing and my eyes got a little blurry from the water starting to well up. Really weird, but once we got down lower, the atmosphere must have pushed them back down to size, because I was fine, very strange.
Anyway, we took a look down at the power plant in the Hoover Dam and found a huge crater made by a meteor in North East Arizona, just East of Flagstaff. It’s pretty cool. It’s 4,000 feet across and 700 feet deep. Anyway, good drive so far. Oh, one real bad thing happened. We stayed at a friend’s place last night, and apparently today when he came home, his apartment had been broken into and his Air Jordans were stolen along with some other things. So that really sucks for him, he’s the biggest Jordan fan I’ve met.
So good trip to this point, hopefully it will keep up.
