Five National Parks in Five Days (Day Five)
Isle Royale National Park is an island on Lake Superior about 20 miles from the Canadian Border. It’s only accessible by airplane or boat. I drove all night from South Dakota aware that I was not only working against distance–approximately 1050 miles to Copper Harbor, Michigan, but time since I would lose two hours going from Mountain Daylight to Eastern Daylight Time in Michigan. The boat was scheduled to launch from Copper Harbor at 8 a.m. My one advantage was that 400 miles of the drive was on I-90 with a speed limit of 80-miles-per-hour. I reached the boat at 7:56 a.m.!! There were basically two groups of passengers on board–those who would stay on the island at least one night and those (including me) who were there for the day. The trip took approximately 3.5 hours each way with about 2.5 hours at the park’s visitor area. The day…
Five National Parks in Five Days (Day Two)
I was up three hours before the Mesa Verde National Park‘s visitor center was scheduled to open, so I watched the sun rise and awaken the park. The center had only been open a few minutes when I arrived, but the ranger on desk duty was already busy speaking with other visitors. He confirmed for me that, as had been indicated on the website’s map, there was extensive scenic roadways in the park. After looking at the center’s exhibits about the Pueblo Native Americans who had inhabited the region, I readied myself for the day of driving in the park. As I mentioned in earlier posts, it is a great idea to enter national parks with a full tank of gas because, even if the park does offer gas for sale, the prices tend to be considerably higher. Since I had stocked before entering the park, I was ready for…
Five National Parks in Five Days (Day One)
I have been planning to visit the three national parks I hadn’t visited in Colorado since my last trip to the southwestern United States in 2022. Since there are only about 650 miles from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Great Sand Dunes National Park–the closest I am likely to come in the foreseeable future, I decided that the opportunity should not be passed up. This would, of course, mean adding it and the other two parks in Colorado to my trip. Then, I had the chance to finally get to Isle Royale in Michigan and to Wind Cave national, which I didn’t know existed when I visited Hot Springs, South Dakota, in 2018. The boat trip to Isle Royale had to be scheduled in advance, so I would have to go from Tulsa to Copper Harbor, Michigan (Mapquest mapped that as 2,670 miles) in five days. Could I pull it off? Day…
Seein’ the DMV: Ocean City and Assateague Island
Ocean City and Assateague Island I left home at 1:30 a.m. in order to give myself more than adequate time to reach my scheduled boat tour in Ocean City, Maryland. This was an impulse trip just because I hadn’t been to OC yet and had the opportunity for a relatively inexpensive trip that included about a 4.5-hour drive each way. The weather forecast a partly cloudy day with temps reaching the mid-60s. I dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and knee-length sweatpants, then opted for a hooded sweater instead of my jean jacket (BIG mistake). As I drove out, I wondered why Waze directed me on a circuitous route through Baltimore rather than the more direct route over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge until I remembered that it was using my normal–avoid toll roads–criteria. This was one of those occasions where paying $2.50 to cross the bridge would have been cheaper than…
Two Major Backtracks–New York and Porgy and Bess Plus Grotto of the Redemption in Iowa (2012)
While looking for the blog post describing my 2012 trip to New York City to see the musical adaptation of Porgy and Bess before it left Broadway, I discovered that I hadn’t actually written a post. Then, I realized that I was also missing a post for the visit my dearly departed Momma and I made to the Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa. At this point–nearly thirteen years later–my recollection is incomplete, but I’ll try as best as I can to explain what led to the pictures I captured. Unfortunately, the camera I used for the photos did not record GPS locations, so I found general GPS locations and added that information so that maps could be generated on my Piwigo pages. The Grotto of the Redemption, June 30 My mother, Cora Jones, flew out to Iowa for her second visit in June of…
Seein’ the DMV: Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center
I woke up unusually early Sunday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. After watching the sun rise, I realized that I wanted to get out and enjoy what looked to be a sunny–if not particularly warm–day somewhere other than home. After searching on my cellphone for scenic drives in Maryland, I decided to connect with my return to researching spirituals by taking the Harriet Tubman Byway, what was described as “a self-guided driving tour that winds for more than 125 miles through the beautiful landscapes and Maryland’s Eastern Shore,” as well as into Delaware. Mistake number one was not making sure that the full route was downloaded to my phone. As it worked out, Wifi access in that part of the state is spotty at best. Secondly, I underestimated the scope of the trip, thinking I could do most, if not all, in a few hours. It clearly needed…
Hawaiian Cruise: Maui and Two Days on the Big Island (Day 6-Day 8)
WARNING: the theme of the first three paragraphs of this post is “a little–well, a lot–of disappointment goes a long way.” Bypass them as you wish. My travel agent had strongly encouraged me to select off-ship excursions through the cruise line because the line would then be responsible for any incidents related to those excursions. I followed her advice except for two activities. The one that applied here I scheduled through an outside vendor because they advertised that they could accommodate those with accessibility needs for a sunrise visit to Haleakalā National Park. The cruise line specifically indicated that they could not provide accommodations, so that choice was my only option. I will not use space here to describe what happened, but the result was that I was unable to make the trip and, thus, missed the national park. The only positive from the situation was that I got a…
Something Old, Something New–A Quickie Trip to West Virginia
It was less than two weeks before I was scheduled to leave for Hawaii, but I decided to get out of the DMV for a couple of days. I packed up the Silver Bullet and headed to West Virginia. New River Gorge National Park was only about a five-hour drive away and could have been a stop between Shenandoah and points south (in fact, I drove past that national park at two different exits heading to New River), but I was concerned about being in Florida on time. As I drove along, I saw a highway sign approaching Staunton, Virginia, indicating that the exit for the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum was upcoming. I didn’t know there was a presidential library for a president earlier than Herbert Hoover’s, so I had to check it out. The downside to this decision was that I didn’t have time to do an…
More Southern Exposure–Three New National Parks
As many times as I have driven from my hometown in North Carolina to Florida State University in Tallahassee during my years as a music graduate student and then as a music cataloger for the university’s libraries, I thought I knew the route like the back of my hand, as they say. However, most of this drive from Atlanta to Tallytown reflected the creation of shorter, faster routes on interstates. I didn’t exit onto US-319 until just north of Tallahassee. It was much too late to catch former colleagues on campus when I arrived at nearly midnight, so I checked into a local motel with the plan to get an early enough start to hunt for the elusive parking spot near the music buildings. My start was later than I planned because an incident at the motel caused the electricity to be turned off. I didn’t learn what happened until…
More Southern Exposure–Shenandoah and Carter Presidential Library
This was my second visit to Shenandoah National Park. On my first trip in February 2024, I drove to the park’s southernmost entry and headed north on Skyline Drive. This time, I entered from the northernmost point at Point Royal and took the drive south. It was October 29th, late in the fall foliage season but still beautiful and yet less crowded than earlier in the month. As usual, I stopped at the visitors center and got the latest from the rangers on duty, plus the center had quite a scenic view of the park, too. Additionally, I had found and downloaded an audio description of scenes and historical information about the park and the native tribes that had once inhabited the area. Since much of the park is not WiFi accessible, the tracks didn’t always keep up with my location, but it was interesting anyway. I look my time…