My 10,000 Mile Journey, or A Cross Country Trip in Selfies - Part 3

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Day 11 - Friday June 9th: I left Washington (on the Idaho border) in the morning and headed southwest towards Oregon. It was kind of surprising to me when it started to turn into a desert kind of landscape, not what I envisioned for Oregon. It really is a diverse state, everything from the desert to the mountains to the coast can be found there, and I got to see a lot of it. I made it to Madras a few hours before sunset and headed to a nearby park called The Cove Palisades. I loved this park because it was beautiful, in the bottom of a canyon, and I only saw a handful of people the whole time I was there. I found a nice spot on the water and just hung out there with my camera waiting for sunset. I don't know if it was the most beautiful sunset of this trip, but probably the most peaceful one. I headed back in to town when it was getting dark and spent the night there in Madras.
 

The Cove Palisades.

Also The Cove Palisades, but with some rocks in the water.

Setting up for sunset.

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Day 12 - Saturday June 10th: I had started noticing a small exhaust leak that I had in my car getting bigger, and much louder. It started getting really bad the night before when I was in the park, so I figured it would be smart to get it taken care of now before I went too much farther. I was planning on staying a day in Bend Oregon and being it was one of the larger towns in the area I decided to try to find a place there to get it fixed, if it was going to take a while I could walk around the town or something. Unfortunately by the time I got there (around noon on a Saturday) almost every shop was closed. I finally found a Midas that was able to take a look at it, and they told me it was a crack in a forged piece which meant they couldn't weld it. They called for the part and found out that the closest one was on the other side of the country - I think they even said Long Island where I came from, which I thought was kind of funny. So I was going to get the pleasure of enjoying Oregon for a few more days than I planned. I had pretty good spirits about it, a little inconvenient but it could have been worse, and it definitely could have happened in a worse spot. I think my resolve to be okay with everything was being tested because then I couldn't get a rental car (it was now 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday and everything was closing), so I took an Uber to a hotel and figured I'd just relax for the rest of the day. Of course the thrifty hotel I chose because I was trying to save as much money as I could was very depressing. I was fine all day with everything that was going on until I got into that dungeon feeling hotel that smelled way too much of cleaners. So I got another Uber and decided to be a big spender at the Quality Inn instead.
 

I didn't take a selfie this day, kind of weird because I think I took one every day of the trip up to now. But I did have a nice view of the sunset from my much nicer room at the Quality Inn (I realized later that you could also see The Sisters from my window which was pretty cool.)

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Day 13 - Sunday June 11th: I didn't want to waste the day today, but I did sleep in a bit. Then I got a rental car and headed into the mountains. I drove through Sisters and into Willamette National Forest where I stopped by Clear Lake and Sahalie Falls. This is a very beautiful area, the colors in the water are just awesome, I was there on a somewhat overcast day so clear lake mostly looked like a lake to me (apparently when it's clear you can see a flooded forest below the water, I could make out a few trees but it was pretty cloudy at the time). Then I went back into Sisters to walk around a bit, and found a really good view of the Sisters (the three mountains that the town is named after). I headed back to Bend around sunset and called it a night.
 

Not Sahalie Falls (it was one of the other falls in the area but I couldn't remember which one)

A kind of creepy formation in a dead tree.

McKenzie River.

Sahalie Falls with pretty bad foreground light.

I'm at clear lake and I thought I needed a close up of what may or may not pass as a beard.

Clear Lake, not as clear as I envisioned but in retrospect I should have actually gone out on the boardwalk that was there to see it better, it was a little overcast at the time though.

The Sisters :)

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Day 14 - Monday June 12th: I decided to go see the painted hills today. It's something that I've wanted to see for a while but actually hadn't planned on going to on this trip, so breaking down in Oregon helped me get there. It was about 2 hours from Bend so I left in the mid morning and got there in the late morning. It really was one of the coolest areas I had seen so far, the reds and yellows in the clay on the mountains is so vibrant it looks a little unreal. I was wearing polarized sunglasses so that probably added to the effect, but either way they were really cool. I walked down a few paths around the park taking a few overlook shots (including the one in the top of this post). Then I left and headed back towards Sisters and Clear Lake because it was only the mid afternoon and the sky was clear, so I was hoping I'd be able to see the forest underneath Clear Lake. By the time I got there it was lightly raining and foggy, so I again wasn't able to see the underwater forest. I drove back to Bend and by the time I got over the mountains it was clear again.

The Painted Hills (It looks a lot more washed out in this photo than it really was)

Red Rock in the Painted Hills.

"The Bridge To The Hills" I just really liked this perspective, it was near the Red Rock. 

Back at Clear Lake, and on the boardwalk, but on a much more overcast day.

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Day 15 - Tuesday June 13th: I was supposed to get my car back either today or tomorrow, but I really didn't want to waste the day. If I stayed around Bend for another day I would probably have to cut some of the things I wanted to see out of my trip (I was picking up my Dad in Denver in a few days). I headed south to Crater Lake, which was really awesome to see. At the time there was some pretty deep snow covering the paths at the top, it definitely felt weird walking through that much snow in June. It's a gorgeous lake with a really unique blue color sitting in the vent of an extinct volcano. I was going to just see this and head back to Bend, but I really wanted to see the Redwoods and if I didn't go today I would probably have to cut it out of my trip. So I drove another 4 hours south into northern California to see them. I honestly never really thought that much of seeing them, I figured it would be cool to see and to say I was there but really thought they would just be big trees. When I finally got there it was a surreal experience, it felt like walking through an ancient forest (which I guess it was) and just looking at this gigantic trees that have been sitting here for hundreds or even thousands of years was such a weird feeling. I headed out towards Crescent City to try to make it to the coast before sunset, I made it with an hour to spare and touched the Pacific Ocean. I didn't realize how much that would mean to me, I knew I wanted to make it to the the coast but the feeling of completion when I knew I had driven across the entire continent was much more than I thought it would be. After watching the sunset and talking a few photos I headed back into Oregon along the coast and spent the night in Coos Bay.
 

Crater Lake

The Redwoods

A better perspective (I blend in a little bit, but I'm in there).

Setting up my camera for the previous image.

The Pacific Coast at sunset.

Touching the Pacific Ocean :)

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My Route: About 1,200 Miles

My 10,000 Mile Journey, or A Cross Country Trip in Selfies - Part 2

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Day 6 - Sunday June 4th: I left Buffalo Wyoming in the morning and headed towards Yellowstone. It was about a 3-4 hour drive (depending on whether you count the entrance or the first spot I pulled over, it is a pretty massive park). I checked into my campsite, which was about a half hour north of the main village area, and went to set up my camp. When I got there it had about 4-5 inches of snow in a pretty tight area, so I changed my mind and decided to get as much out of the day as I could and just sleep in my car. I was in the Canyon Village section of the park which is right next to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, so I spent the late afternoon going to the different overlooks around that. Then I spent the rest of the day until sunset going around to some of the springs and the Yellowstone River.

Powder Pass in Wyoming on my way to Yellowstone.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, it was starting to rain.

Sulphur Cauldron, it had stopped raining, and it smelled like sulpher.

Mud Volcano, apparently it used to shoot mud up in the air and now it just bubbles.

Yellowstone River, here's where I took the picture that's at the top of this post.

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Day 7 - Monday June 5th: I got up around sunrise this day (not before but close enough that the light was still golden when I headed out). I decided to spend this day driving to see some of the more well known sites in Yellowstone like the Prismatic Springs and Old Faithful. I saw a lot of bison along the way (I saw one chasing a truck in kind of the same manner a dog chases a car) and ended up getting in all that I had planned by the early afternoon so I headed south towards the Grand Tetons. I spent some time at a few points along the way just taking in the awesome view of the Tetons, but I was honestly pretty tired today, and a little sun burned, so I didn't stay too late. I drove the rest of the way through the Tetons and out into Idaho where I spent the night in Rexburg.

A bison, I got out to take some photos of him and he started to wander over.After seeing how fast they can run when they want to I decided to get behind my car.

The Grand Prismatic Spring.

Old Faithful.

Jackson Lake, I thought it was weird seeing a half frozen lake in June.

The Grand Tetons.

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Day 8 - Tuesday June 6th: Today my plan was to more or less take it easy and get close to Glacier National Park in Montana. I got to Missoula in the early afternoon, bought myself a hat so I could stop burning my head in the higher elevation sun, had some dinner, and went for an evening hike up Mount Jumbo. It was a pretty easy hike (although I probably shouldn't have eaten a whole pizza a half hour before it). From the concrete L laying on the side of the hill (I am still confused about what the L is for) you have a great view of the city, so I just sat there watching the sun set and the lights come on while taking a few photos.

Mount Jumbo, and my new hat :)

Missoula from Mount Jumbo.

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Day 9 - Wednesday June 7th: I drove up from Missoula to Glacier National Park in the morning. It was a really beautiful drive, especially along Flathead lake for the last half of it before actually getting to the park. Once inside I got to see Lake McDonald and McDonald falls, both very beautiful with gorgeous glacial water running through them. I found a kind of beach on the lake with a bench where no one else seemed to be, and besides it being much hotter than I expected for a park named after a giant ice cube it was a perfect spot to just sit back and enjoy the landscape around me. The rest of the road through the park was closed at the time because at the higher elevations there was still a lot of snow, which was disappointing because most of the things that I was looking forward to seeing were on that road. At least I have a good reason to come back again. After a few hours around the lake I drove down into Kalispell where I spent the night.

McDonald Falls.

A happy little bench.

Lake McDonald.

This is another view of Lake McDonald, the color of the water was so cool and the front facing camera on my phone that I take all of these wonderful selfies with doesn't do great with colors, so this is still a cell phone picture but at least you can see the colors that I saw.

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Day 10 - Thursday June 8th: I left Kalispell Montana and drove to Coeur d'Alene Idaho. I actually spent the night just over the state line in Washington but I wanted to explore this town a bit. It's a very pretty area, I walked around the beach and the boardwalk (which is apparently the world's longest floating boardwalk). I went a little west to Post Falls where one of the dams on the Spokane River is (which I guess is what creates the lake), and then drove into Washington to relax at the hotel until sunset. My plan was to go back to Coeur d'Alene to take some sunset pictures over the lake and boardwalk but when I got back there it was raining. I felt I really couldn't complain because the weather on this trip had been awesome so far, and the rain wasn't so bad so I still walked around for a while and found this moose. After that I went back to my hotel in Washington before heading to Oregon the next day.

A beach on the lake in downtown Coeur d'Alene.

The world's longest floating boardwalk.

Post Falls.

Coeur d'Alene in some light rain, still pretty though.

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My Route: About 1,200 miles

My 10,000 Mile Journey, or A Cross Country Trip in Selfies - Part 1

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I quit my job about 2 months ago. There were a few reasons but the big one was I had reached a point where I wasn't sure if I was doing what I wanted to anymore. I felt like I was just keeping my career path because I was making decent money and it would be irresponsible to leave it without something else lined up. I was kind of trapped because it's hard to figure out what you want to do with your life when your working full time and there's no real motivation to find something else because you already have something that supports you. Then I realized that I have no one depending on me, and a bunch of money in my savings, and I'm a pretty smart guy so I could probably afford to take a break and figure stuff out. So I did.

For a long time (feels like most of my life but I don't know how accurate that is) I've wanted to drive across the country and back. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do that and clear my head, hopefully I'd figure out what to do with my life along the way but if nothing else I'd accomplish something I'd always wanted to. I planned an outline of my trip and figured it would take about a month to see a few things along a loop around the country.

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Day 1 - Tuesday, May 30th: The first few days were going to be mostly about driving, I felt like I had a good feel for a lot of the eastern parts of the country and really wanted to experience the west half. I left home in New York about 9AM and drove straight through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. I made it to Fort Wayne, Indiana that night to share a hotel with my sister and brother in law, they were planning on going on another trip from Nashville to the Northeast. I didn't do too much else that day, but when I got to Fort Wayne I found this kind of cool overlook of a quarry.

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Day 2 - Wednesday, May 31st: This day was again mostly about driving. I left Fort Wayne and got pulled over for speeding about an hour later. The officer was very friendly and let me off with a warning, and I didn't get pulled over again on the entire trip. I guess I really slowed down (until I got back to New York). I drove through the rest of Indiana, Illinois straight through Chicago at lunch time - which was the last traffic I hit until the West Coast, and into Wisconsin. This is the first state on this trip that I had never been to before, so I spent some more time here. Then I drove through southern Minnesota and into Sioux Falls, South Dakota where I spent my second night.

The Islands of Lake Wisconsin in Mill Bluff State Park

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Day 3 - Thursday, June 1st: Today was less driving. I just had to get across South Dakota to meet up with some friends in Rapid City. We were going to spend the next couple of days together around the Black Hills and the Badlands. We met up in the early afternoon, explored a touristy village where you can kind of see Mount Rushmore and rode an alpine slide. Then we headed over to the Badlands and spent the rest of the day there.

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Day 4 - Friday June 2nd: Today we we went around the Black Hills to see Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore, and the Chapel in the Hills.

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Day 5 - Saturday June 3rd: Today was my last day in South Dakota. My friends left early that morning and I headed into the northern part of the Black Hills to Roughlock Falls. I took some pictures there and relaxed a bit before heading into Wyoming to see Devil's Tower. That was a really awesome experience, such a strange feature in the landscape. After that I drove to Buffalo, Wyoming where I would get off the interstate and head into Yellowstone the next morning.

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My Route: About 2,300 miles.

Southwest in March 2017

So I finally kind of finished going through my photos from my trip with my dad to the southwest this past March. It was a lot going through all of the photos I had taken and trying to find the best ones from each spot, especially because it was my first time in the region and I really fell in love with it. Besides you can never fully capture the feeling of a place with a photo, but you can try.

We flew into Las Vegas on a Thursday, which ended up being a Friday because of a Delay, and got a hotel outside of the city around 2AM local time (which was about 5AM our time). I didn’t take any pictures of the city, we drove down the strip just to see it but we were both exhausted and really just wanted to find a place to sleep. The next day I got my first glimpses of the southwest landscape, and honestly just driving through it was one of my favorite parts about this trip. Our first stop was Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam. I didn’t take too many pictures that really stood out to me here, but the one below looking over the spillway at the dam was kind of cool.

After that we spent most of the day driving through Arizona towards the main overlooks of the Grand Canyon. We spent another night near the park entrance and went in first thing the next morning. It was amazing seeing this for the first time, and really demonstrates how hard it is to capture something as impressive as that in a photo. My favorite was from near the Desert View Watchtower (I believe that’s part of Navajo Point). It’s the first image in this post.

We drove out of the Grand Canyon park and stopped at the Little Colorado River Navajo Tribal Park. I loved this spot because it was so quiet and peaceful (hardly anyone was around) and yet you still had a really spectacular view. I don’t feel like I got anything too great here, I was mostly focused on enjoying it for myself, but this is about what it looked like.

And there was this tree there that I liked.

We left sometime in the mid afternoon and headed north towards Page Arizona and Horseshoe Bend. Horseshoe Bend is something I’ve wanted to see for a long time, in fact I probably would have been happy if it was the only thing I got to see. It’s just outside of Page so we decided to get a hotel in the city and go out a little before sunset. It’s a cool place, completely free (which seems weird to me coming from New York) you just park in a dirt lot on the side of the road and walk about a half mile over a slightly hilly path to the edge of the canyon. It was drizzling on and off which will often bring out some pretty cool features in the sky, like this rainbow I saw on the way.

And then we made it to the edge. Definitely one of my favorite views, and again the picture is nothing like being there. I found a pretty good spot before the crowds started to come. It’s a popular place (probably especially being a Saturday night). I didn’t want to lose my spot before the light got just right so I ended up sitting on the edge for about an hour while my dad paced around nervously a few yards back. I just wanted a simple wide angle shot with a little atmosphere and color in the sky, and I feel like I got it. I especially loved how clear the reflections in the water were coming out.

The next day we basically just relaxed in the area around Page. There’s so much nearby and you could really spend a lot more time there than we did. We drove up by Lake Powell which is where I got the picture below.

After I took this I wanted to go down into that little cove you can see in the picture, and from where we were it didn’t seem too far and the climb didn’t seem that steep. I started working my way down and quickly realized that the look of this hill was deceiving. I made it down though, and tried to take a picture to show how steep it was. It didn’t look that impressive in the pictures I was taking from the bottom but I was able to get an overview shot later on when we were looking out over the lake from the Glen Canyon Dam.

You should be able to see the road winding around near the top and a car parked, that’s where we were. I climbed straight down that in flat sneakers and only tripped once when I was already at the bottom. Now I feel better about myself. Below is the picture I went down there to take.

Now we moved on from Lake Powell and took a ride down 98 to see the area. I saw this mesa (or butte, not really sure) and had this idea for a shot. We pulled over and I set up my camera to take a series of images (with paying special attention to frame it without the fence that was right in front of me).

I stitched the photos together after I got home and the following is what I got. I was really happy with this, it’s always a good feeling when you have a vision in your head and your able to produce just that.

That night back at the hotel my dad found this balcony down the hall from our room that had a pretty awesome view of the north side of the city. It was especially awesome having the road there winding down towards the canyon. I set up my camera there around sunset and was able to get this sun-star shot with my wide angle lens.

And about a half hour later the colors in the sky really came out and I took this one with my 60mm lens.

The following day (Monday) we headed out of Page and into Utah, the main plan here was to go to Zion National Park but I wanted to see if there was anything cool to stop at along the way. I noticed about midway between Page and Zion there was the ghost town of Paria Utah and I thought that sounded pretty awesome. There’s a memorial kind of thing telling you about the town on the side of US 89 where a dirt road takes you in. We followed that and it was pretty smooth for a few miles before we turned a corner and both sides of the road seemed to just drop off. That’s where I saw the following image. This is technically part of the Grand Staircase National Monument and something about all of the colors in the mountains made me think of Dr. Seuss. I did a wide angle panorama which gives this a nearly 180 degree view (If I had to guess I’d say 160 degrees). You can see the road on the far left and just a little past the right edge is the other side of the road. By the way the actual town was a few more miles down the road, and I guess for some reason I thought there would be buildings or something down there. It was just a cemetery and a few plaques designating the site. I’m happy we went though.

The next image I really liked was this one from the northern section of Zion. We went there before going to the main section of the park because it’s a lot less crowded. This was cool because besides a few hikers every now and then we were completely alone. This is a panorama I took with my 60mm lens from off of the Hop Valley Trail. You can see Red Butte in the mid ground and Black Ridge in the background. At least I’m about 90% sure that’s what you can see, sometimes I’m bad with mountains. I love the contrast between the two very different mountains.

That was one of the last images I took on this trip. We did go down to the main part of Zion after this. After about an hour and a half of walking and bus rides we made it to the start of the trail towards the Narrows, it was closed at the time because of flooding but I wanted to see the start of it. So we went down the trail and found a cool spot so I took off my backpack to get my camera out. Unfortunately I had never put my camera back in my bag after we left the northern section. So I was more than an hour bus ride from my camera in a place I had wanted to go to for quite some time. I had my phone but it just wasn’t the same. I took that as a sign to just enjoy being there. I did use my phone for a few shots and videos just to have and we walked down the rest of the trail to the Narrows as it started to rain. I’m glad we did it, if for nothing else to say we saw it. Below is the proof :)

After that we headed back to our car and spent a night in St. George before driving back to Las Vegas in the morning for our flight home. All in all one of my favorite trips. We saw so much in a relatively short period of time and still felt like we had enough time to enjoy it all. I do want to spend some more time there in the future, but now I have a list of all the things I missed.