Category: Day 0 trip
-
Day 667 – Donegal, Ireland – Home of my ancestors
I grew up wandering the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in western West Virginia, the most ancient mountain range in the United States, formed 480 million years ago, once as tall as the Alps, worn naturally over the millennia slowly down into a vast system of hills with low peaks. The land is so ancient…
-
Day 659 – Dublin, Ireland – Pubs and pints and potatoes.
Admittedly, we chose a strange time to visit Dublin. First in after covid restrictions lifted, so the crowds were less, but the city had not adjusted back to the usual party pub Dublin. The first half of our stay, there was no indoor dining or drinking. The city had adapted to outdoor seating and…
-
Day 657 – Sintra, Portugal – Palatial wonderland of the Lisbon aristocracy.
In the forests amongst the steep craggy mountains that are enshrined in a near constant mist and fog, lives a town as old as Lisbon. A cool retreat from the hot weather of the larger coastal city about 40 minutes away. A superb vantage point and secure location, this region has been populated from Neolithic…
-
Day 637 – Lisbon, Portugal – An ancient magical place.
Lisbon is an old soul looking back on her past with sadness. It permeates the ancient streets, a palpable melancholy. There’s a sadness and longing to the local music, called fado. Embodied in the untranslatable word saudade, a nostalgic longing for the past. Once a world power, the richest city in the world, fallen,…
-
Returning to travel after covid.
Last year when we were racing through Italy and Spain to outrun the coronavirus I think I was quicker than Katy to see the urgency and need to rethink our plans. Not paranoid but I have a pretty good sense for how things are going to pivot. And after Trump announced the border closures,…
-
Day 547 – Eugene, Oregon – Native homeland of the PNW hippy.
I first visited Eugene (pronounced /yoo-JEEN/) in 1997 while driving around the country, I’ve told that story before in my post about the Oregon Country Fair. But the short version is that we happened to be driving through Eugene on the Friday of the fair, which I had never heard of, and followed a…
-
Day 546 – West Coast Road Trip – Southern Oregon Coast
Driving Highway 101 up the southern Oregon coast. 201 miles From Klamath, CA to Florence, OR. For the third part of our west coast road trip we continued north along 101 along the southern Oregon coast. It’s similar to the northern California coast but with even more spectacular haystacks and rugged PNW shoreline. We…
-
Day 540 – West Coast Road Trip – Northern California Redwoods
Driving Highway 101 north through The Avenue of the Giants and Redwood National Park. 153 miles From Leggett to Klamath, CA. After the first leg of our west coast road trip up highway 1 from San Francisco, we connected with highway 101 and continued north through the redwood forests of northern California for our…
-
Day 538 – West Coast Roadtrip – Northern California Coast
Driving Highway 1 from San Francisco to its northern terminus. 204 miles From Muir Beach to Leggett, CA. From Visalia we drove to Petaluma just north of San Francisco and camped at another KOA. Coming down towards the coast out of the arid west after months of dryness was like taking a deep breath…
-
Day 529 – Death Valley National Park
From Page, AZ, we drove back down through Las Vegas and up 95 to Amargosa Valley, turning left towards a Casino/Hotel/RV Park a few yards from the Nevada/California border. Home base for our visit to Death Valley for a few days. From there it was only a short drive to 190 at Death Valley…