Vanabout 2017 Day 1: Denver to Dubois

Click the picture to see all the pictures.

Walkabout 2014 Days 5 & 6

One final beer at the beer fest and then it was back to the dorf for laundry and schnitzel.

Getting Ready for Walkabout 2012

Whelp, we are now exactly one month away from that time of year again where I travel to exotic locales in order to find myself*. 

Five years ago I embarked on my first Walkabout.  In this inaugural Walkabout I drove from Dallas to Seattle and back; stopping off at as many National Parks as I could.  Why it seems like just yesterday in which I battled the elements while lost in Sequoia National Park and battled the horrible food of the Village Inn.

For Walkabout 2012:  Yet Another Return to Seattle, This Time It’s Personal, I will again be traveling by automobile again to Seattle, but taking a much different route.  The currently planned schedule is the following:

Date		Destination
Friday Sep 14		Amarillo
Saturday Sep 15		Grand Junction CO
Sunday Sep 16		Arches NP
Monday Sep 17		Salt Lake City
Tuesday Sep 18		Boise
Wednesday Sep 19		Bend OR
Thursday Sep 20		McMinnville OR
Friday Sep 21		Portland
Saturday Sep 22		Seattle
Sunday Sep 23		Seattle
Monday Sep 24		Spokane
Tuesday Sep 25		Glacier NP
Wednesday Sep 26		Glacier NP
Thursday Sep 27		Bozeman
Friday Sep 28		Yellowstone NP
Saturday Sep 29		Yellowstone NP
Sunday Sep 30		Jackson
Monday Oct 01		Casper
Tuesday Oct 02		Mount Rushmore
Wednesday Oct 03		Colorado Springs
Thursday Oct 04		Amarillo
Friday Oct 05		Dallas

 

So I know what you must be thinking.  “Those are some kick-ass places to visit.  I sure wish I could join Steve and bask in not only his beauty but also that of our American wilderness.”

Well, you can.  If there is a portion of this trip that intrigues you and you just gotta see** then leave a comment or email me or call me or text me or message me on Twitter or leave a note on my car and let me know. 

And if you don’t want to join me, but know of a “oh shit man, you need to check this place out” spot on my route, please also let me know of that as well.

 

 

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* By “find myself”, I mean stuff delicious foods and beverages into my delicious foods and beverages hole.
** Seriously, who doesn’t want to see Amarillo?

Walkabout 2011: Day 12—Last Full Day in Euroland

They let you sleep anywhere in Paris.

One last Bröchten at Schweine Janes.

And the Schmutziger Führer is born.  (a joke for one).

Walkabout 2011: Day 11—A Farewell to Wallet (and Toenail)

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Walkabout 2011: Day 9–More Mozel and Federweißer

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Walkabout 2011: Day 8—Biking (and Drinking) Down the Mozel

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We actually started in Cochem, but I didn’t turn on my biking app on my iPhone until Valwig for a 40 mile bike ride.

Walkabout 2011: Day 6—A Day in the ‘Dorf

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This was pretty much a rest day. I just walk around the 'Dorf and got lost a few times. Luckily I found my way back to JT's where we were off for more Alt Bier and Italian food.

Walkabout 2011: Day 5—Final Day in Brussels

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Walkabout 2011: Day 4–More Belgian Beerfest Fun

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Walkabout 2011: Day 3–Finally in Belgium

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Walkabout 2011: Day 2–Gandering in Gander

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Walkabout 2011: Day 1–What Could Go Wrong?

Everything looks ok out there.

And inside as well.  OOOoooh Duty Free smokes!!

WTF.  Canada.  Oh great.

Well, at least the bar is open.

I’m sure we’ll only be here a few more hours.  It’s not even 3am local.  And what’s with the whacky time zone??

The least comfortable international terminal in all of North America.  Although the Socialist Workers Mural was fantastic.

In Case You Were Worried, I Did Make It to the Belgian Beer Festival

Live Blogging Flying to Germany

• Thanks, mom for the ride to the airport

• For a quick paleo meal at the airport, you could do a lot worse than Cousins BBQ. Brisket is good, the sausage is meh.

• 20€ for in flight internets. Expensive but I'm not dropping out streaming The Hardline unlike Virgin America.

• Upon getting served a red wine, one or two sips later and the steward was going down the aisle to top off wine. So of course, I slammed mine to get a refill.

• Euro travel is fantastic. After dinner question, "Bailey's or cognac?". Cognac, of course.

• Sonofabitch. Netflix thinks I'm already in Germany and won't stream to me.

• Turning around over the Atlantic for "emergency" landing in Canada. The emergency is a strong chemical smell in the crew quarters. Great, some cut a nocturnal fart and we have to turn around.

• In Gander Newfoundland until the find out who fährted.

• Eavesdropping on people wondering why the clock in the terminal appears to be off by 30 minutes. Geegle. Stupid Americans.

• Been here three hours. No word as to when (if) we are going to leave. Luckily Netflix is allowed in Canada.

• The pilot just announced that per regulation, a lufthansa mechanic must sign off that there is no problem. It will take at least 12 hours to get a mechanic here. We are being put up in hotels and best case scenario we will land in Frankfurt at 4 am.
• The funniest moment of the night (now early morning) came when an older Jewish sounding complaining to one of the local workers helping us who doubted that nothing else could be done about our situation said, “This sounds very German.  We’re just following orders.”
• Finally made it to a hotel around 10am local crazy Newfie time.  Time to nap.
• Woke up around 2pm.  Not the best nap ever.  Best case scenario, we leave before 8pm.  In the mean time I’ve got a $140 food voucher to burn through.
• Was going to get room service at 4pm but they don’t serve between 2 and 5.  So, I hope the restaurant has a pants optional policy, cause i was looking forward to eating prime rib pantless
• Buses to pick us up at the hotel and take us back to the airport at 6:30. 

• 11pm. Have been at the airport since 730. The crew showed up at 945. No word as to when we will start queuing up.

• Midnight. We should start boarding within the next 30 minutes. But I'm not holding my breath.

• I blogged too soon. As soon as I posted the previous entry, they announced pre-boarding.


-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Lufthansa Flight 439

Walkabout 2011 Starts Today

And don’t tell me what I can’t do.

Walkabout 2008: Day 1

Walkabout plans are often nebulous. It's the nature of the Walkabout. The Walkabout tells you where to go and how to get there. You don't tell the Walkabout how to go about it's bidness.

So, as you may have guessed, my plans went out the window right here on day 1. Originally I had planned to take a leisurely drive from Dallas to Nashville. If time permitted, maybe try to make it to Knoxville. And, in fact, the first couple of hours resembled first half of day 1 last year.

I had to bring my Aunt in New Jersey a case of Ranch Style Beans. And what better place to purchase said case than at a Piggly Wiggly in Sulphur Spings?




Sulphur Springs is also a county seat, so that requires a picture.


There you go, Margaret. This is easily the tiniest County Courthouse I've ever seen.

After seeing and photoging my requisite courthouse I journeyed on the side roads to Texarkana. But the problem is that there was nothing interesting. No more courthouse or quaint downtown areas.

After Texarkana, my plan was to stop by Hope and take some pix of the Clinton birthplace. It seemed like the thing to do. Except that 1) Hope is crazy congested with equally crazy constructed and 2) the signage for the Clinton stuff was so poor I gave up looking for it and headed on to Memphis where I took these pix.



I40 Bridge over the Mississippi.

A Duck.

Again I had a plan. I was supposed to have Memphis BBQ at Leonard's. But I got there at 3pm and the dinner buffet doesn't start until 4:30. I didn't want to wait and my laptop battery was inexplicably dead. So I couldn't find an alternative.

It was then I decided to go all-in and try to get to Roanoke by the end of night 1 instead of night 2. I figured with only the necessary stops, I could get there by 2am (1am by my body clock).

But what I didn't consider was that once I got there ALL of the hotels would be full up with VTech alums or somesuch. There was no place to stay and I had few options at this time of night to find a place.

So I drove straight through the night to Washington DC.

But that's for Day 2.

Walkabout Day 6: Pictures

Walkabout Day 6: Summary

I hope I haven't frightened anyone with my not posting last night. I got into the hotel in Oakhurst late and I was very tired after a long day.

Today's journey took me from Fresno to Oakhurst with a visit to Kings Canyon National Park and a return visit to Sequoia. I wanted to see if I could successfully complete a trip there without getting myself lost.

Day 6 Quick Hits

• What an interesting smell this morning in Fresno. It's reminiscent of growing up in Ft. Worth and the wind would shift and the stench of the stockyards (back when there was actual stock there) would fill the city.
  
• With all this mountain driving I've been doing, I've have opportunity to use my extensive "Hot Brakes Fail" training. That was pretty much a joke for one reader.
  
• I'm sure you're asking how I could possibly afford all the entry fees to all the parks I've been to. I must be filthy rich. Well, yes I am. And thank you for asking. But the parks service has, for just $80 an annual pass that gets you into all the Nation Parks/Forests/Monuments and the like. Had I not had the pass, I would have already spent over $100. The Grand Canyon alone was $25. And I still have 3 or 4 more parks to go to.
  
• For some reason, every third car I see at Sequoia/Kings is a PT Cruiser.
  
• The Germans have moved from the Grand Canyon and have invaded Sequoia. Shouldn't they be home getting ready for Oktoberfest?
  

Steve Cook is the Luckiest Man in the World

I should probably start this post with some sort of fancy literary contrivance. After all, I now have readers such as The Irishman and Roz whom I don't even know. And I know that Roz has told her friends about this blog. So the pressure is on now to deliver the goods. Those Adsense pennies will be pouring in if this post turns out to be interesting or funny. I'm sure I'll get at least a nickel from Google if it's both.

But I'm not going to bury the lead here. Although I fear I may already have. So dump all of that. Start over.

OK. Here goes. I almost died today – TWICE.

Due to ill planning on my part and road construction at the Sequoia Nation Park, I arrived rather late – about 1pm. Well, actually I got to the Museum, roughly in the middle of the park, at 1pm. It is from here that several casual hiking trails begin. So I gave the XTerra a somewhat long and borderline creepy hug goodbye and took off toward one of those trails. I chose the Sunset Rock trial to begin with. It was only 0.9 miles and, hey, it sounded so romantic. I would say that after the first .25 miles, none of the mass of people that had parked by the museum could even be heard. No one else was on the trail. But, like I said, it was an easy trail. Live a little people. But I'm glad. I hate people and like to enjoy my nature in quiet.

As is my predilection, I took a number of pictures, almost all of which can be viewed in a later posting. Not too many rock pictures were taken today, like yesterday. Instead, as Kris10 can attest, I have a penchant for the crazy looking log. It is my egret of the forest.

So, about ¾ miles into the hike, I look over to my right and think "Oh good Christ. They have the gall to put up a Papier-mâché 10 point buck on this trail just to delight the mid-American hoople-heads

But then it moved.

It is then that it sinks in that I'm 10 feet away from a real live 10 point buck with nothing to defend myself but my RAZR2 and my scathing wit. He was definitely giving me the old stink eye. I quickly took several pictures of him before he gored me. Although I'll be dead, I thought, at least my blog friends will have some kick ass pix.

I slowly walk back up the trail. I'll have to do without finding the end of the Sunset Rock Trail. He munched on some delicious vegetation. With a giant mouthful of leafy-greens in his mouth (which really is where you would expect a mouthful of anything to be), I realize I could probably pass him. I move back towards him and he drops the mouthful of greens. Ooops, I thought. But he's not making a move to me. So I continue. He backs away a little, still keeping an eye on me. I finally move past him and meet up with a couple who have also noticed him.

"Hey. Have you seen any bears?" one of them says.

"No. Why", I ask.

"Someone said they saw a mother and her cub cross this very path earlier"

"Oh wow. Good times", I reply.

I continue on to the Sunset Rock and take several pictures. There is a sign that says "Marble Bridge 2.6 miles" and points to the east. I figure I could do that. I've got plenty of time. It's only 2pm. I've got a least 4 more hours of quality sunlight left. This first trail was a easy. Why not? I had not planned on taking a longer hike. I had not brought any water, Clifbars, maps or, most importantly, my GPS device. But I'm invincible. I just stared down a buck.

The trail started out pretty easy and I was able to take some great pictures. There was a single, beautiful blue bird feather on the ground. I had to take a picture of that. I continued hiking until suddenly I could no longer find the path. I looked around and saw nothing. It had dead ended. Ok. Well, I'm not that interested in the bridge and it was too far to go anyway. So I headed back. But heading back did not look familiar. And then the path back dead ended. A little panic set in. I looked around and saw what looked to be the path above me. So I scrambled up the mountain and f no path. Again I look around and think I see the path below me. I scrambled back down the mountain barely avoiding what appeared to be poison oak and indeed found a path. The Sunset Rock was to the west, the same direction as the sun, so I followed this new path to the west. Well, that is, until it also dead ended.

I continued this nonsense of scrambling up and down the mountain for 30 minutes until I found a real, solid path. It is here that I realized that I must have missed a switchback somewhere. And others had missed it and created a path beyond the switchback.

So I had to decide which way to go. I knew that Sunset Rock was to the west. You look at the sunset there, right. So, the sun is currently west. I need to go toward the sun. So, that's the way I go – west. But the path almost immediately switches back east into the deep forest. "Well, it will switch back to the west, I'm sure", I think.

The trail becomes progressively less maintained the deeper I go. I'm starting to panic. I realize I'm may have to spend the night in the forest with mamma bear, her cub and her husband. And I'm pretty sure they don't have cable. So I'm going to miss Monday Night Football.

"OK. That's it", I think, "I'm heading back the other way." Then, the trail abruptly switches up and to the west. It's going towards the sun. It's going towards where I need to go.

A slight feeling of relief fills me as sweat pours down my face. After several minutes I lose that confidence. And then I look down and see a blue bird feather. Was this the feather I took a picture of? I continue on, now with the needle edging above E on the confidence meter. I see a freshly cut log with a crack through the center. I'm sure I saw this before. More and more things start to look familiar as more and more I believe I just might make it out of the forest in some form other than bear poo.

Eventually, I see the Sunset Rock. I've made it. I've cheated death or at least a miserable night in the forest.