Day 1 Driving across the USA, CA to FL

Before I get too far into this trip, I should probably tell you a bit about my situation. I had been traveling back and forth to Florida for 2 years by plane. By back and forth, I mean a trip a month. I used to kind of like flying, but only because I rarely did so...because I despise it now. (I am an aviation buff...just not a fan of commercial aviation) The idea was to move out there, and it just took some time setting up, but finally was time to make the trek.

I have owned many bikes over the years, and had 2 just prior to finally taking this trip. I had been living in CA, and was moving to Florida, so I wanted to "pack" as lightly as possible. So getting rid of the bikes was part of the plan, temporarily.

So this is technically a car trip, where I just had to move all my stuff from one timezone to another. But what fun would a point-A to point-B trip be? I had always wanted to travel across the country, and if I was going to do it, I wanted to actually SEE some things. My sister had wanted me to rush-drive her moving van to Boston for her years ago, but she wanted to drive in shifts straight through, stopping only for gas and gas-station snacks. No thanks. This country is too purdy to drive past all those things I've grown up wanting to see without even stopping to take a picture. Luckily, she found a friend to do it, and they hated it. We were going to take our time and SEE America.

We didn't want to plan too much, so our trip atlas before we left looked like this in it's entirety:

WSMC Races,
Grand Canyon
4 corners?
Albequirky at friend's
Cadillac Ranch
Dallas at friend's
French Quarter
Gulfport at friend's
St. Petersburg before following Monday.

I punched those points into Streets & Trips, so we knew basically where we were going. Otherwise, just make sure the dash compass said "E", and we should get there eventually! Had we made the list right after the trip, the list would be 3-4 times as long.



(This trip also occurred before I found ADV, so I didn't know to take pictures of every meal we had on the way, though by force of nature, I did get some, anyway. I don't believe I have any ADV salute pics, though. My ladyfriend Maria was usually taking the pics and traveling with me, and it would have made no sense without a bike. Oh yeah, and she is a much better photographer than I am)

It seems the weekend we had picked to make the move was then when everyone else decided on plans, as well. We had debated going to go watch the AMA season finale races at Laguna-Seca before heading out. Then my sister told me she was coming down that week from Washington. And we had to go to a close friend's wedding that Saturday (so now Laguna-Seca was for sure a no-go). Since we can't leave until Sunday now, we may as well stay and watch the Toyota 200 roadrace at Willow Springs on Sunday, and just leave from there on Sunday evening. I'd been going there for years to watch that one, and had several friends I likely wouldn't be seeing too often again after the move.

The racing was good out at Willow Springs (except for the guy with the slight smoking problem...), and I got to see a lot of friends I hadn't seen in a while, as I hadn't made it up there for a few months prior to this trip, as I got things prepared. But now we could get our much-anticipated adventure underway!







We headed North up to Mojave, and cut across the desert Sunday evening. So much history out here. The early space program...Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier...Burt Rutan's countless experiments...The Right Stuff, indeed. I wish we had time this trip...oh well, another day.





We made sure we watched what could be my last California desert sunset for a while, otherwise we were just hoping to cross the desert as part of the drive-thru, and get someplace closer to the Grand Canyon tonight. The desert really is a great place to watch the sky get painted all kinds of different colors each night. The colors and hues change so rapidly in that sweet spot of about 4 minutes, where every conceivable shade of red, yellow and orange is splashed across the sky as if being tested to be certain they still "work", since you can find them nowhere else in nature.







We only stopped to get gas in Needles, and otherwise crossed into Arizona late in the evening without any fanfare, and stopped to get some sleep in Kingman, AZ. I know we were missing a lot of gorgeous views by driving at night, but we wanted to make SOME progress, and get to the even better stuff.

We would definitely be rewarded the next day...


We only made it 321 miles this first day, but we didn't even leave the track until 6:20pm or so.

Oh wait, I found a food pic! :D