Probably D. C./Charlotte in 2015. Picked up 3 new states.
As of late, this one last year:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17644.0
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on May 04, 2017, 07:15:43 PM
As of late, this one last year:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=17644.0
Wow, I'm jealous :-(.
Thinking back, mine may be the first overnight trip I took solely for the purpose of roadgeeking, back in 2000. I drove the route that most closely parallels the routing of Corridor H, which at that time ended before Elkins, WV. I visited Elkins for only the second time in my life, then took US 219, WV 32, WV 93, WV 42, US 220 and WV/VA 55 to Strasburg, Va., then south on US 11 to spend the night in Harrisonburg, Va. The next day I returned home via US 33, US 220, US 250, WV 28/WV 92, WV 66, US 219, WV 150, WV 39 and US 60 to Charleston, then back home.
Since then I have obviously been on many others, but that first one solely for roadgeeking purposes stands out.
I've been on a few random ones last year; haven't been able to do as many now that I don't have weekends off anymore :(
One where I had some fun was in February of this year. I left the Utah Valley area and went the back way through Tooele, and had dinner at the truck stop diner at the TA there (it's meh). Got on I-80 and went west with no particular destination. Spent the night in Elko.
Next day...more I-80 west. Got off at US 395 in Reno and went north after not wanting to take I-80 any longer. I went up through Susanville and met up with I-5 south of Yreka; ran into some snow which was kinda neat, and I stopped for gas and overheard someone say "hella" in a conversation, which verified that I was indeed in Northern California. Kept going up I-5 into Oregon and over Siskiyou Pass (which wasn't *that* dicey), and kept going north, unsure of where I was going to end up spending the night, or turning off the freeway, knowing I was probably stuck having to go over the snowy Cascades eventually. I stopped in Roseburg and spent the night.
I left Roseburg the next morning and picked up some tire chains because I decided to start going back East by crossing over Santiam. Stopped in Eugene for food and to wander by the UO campus. Started going up over Santiam and it starts snowing around 2800', so I get out of my car and try to put on chains. I've never done it before, and I sat there for about 30 minutes trying to figure out how the stupid things work before I just gave up and kept going. Made it over the pass! But then I had to get back to Utah and it was like 2:00 PM when I went through Bend with a long way to go, so I booked it across US 20, stopped in Ontario to get food, and booked it down 84 to 15 back home.
That was fun. I love little random weekenders like that. I'm surprised I made it over Santiam without chains, but I was well prepared to plead my case to any cops who tried to stop me. I'm taking off two weeks to drive the AlCan in June, so I'm excited for that :)
Mine has to be that April 2011 trip to drop off my dad's truck to my son at Flt Bliss. 5 days (4 travel days) there and back. I drove my F150 and my wife drove dads Tacoma so we had a 2 truck convoy westbound. I intentionally took a longer way back so I could get more of I-40 in, and I wanted to add New Mexico and Oklahoma to my list of "visited states".
If you click on my counties visited map in my sig you can kinda see the thin loop west of central Tennessee,that was all part of that one trip.
It was the only time in my life I had left the greenish countryside (grass/trees etc) of the eastern half of the country and viewed the brownish side of the country with my own eyes.
With family, my Great Plains/Rockies RV trip in the summer of 2009 from St. Louis westward with my dad and two brothers. I got new states in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah and Colorado.
On my own, my day trip from my dad's house near Baltimore out to Youngstown, Ohio last December. The whole trip took about 11 hours. I clinched the mainline Pennsylvania Turnpike that day.
Mine would have to be my road trip to Branson, MO (called the "Lower Midwest and Ozarks Trip (2015)" on my mob-rule map). It was the first trip where I was the main planner, which ended up being a lot of fun. It was also just my Mom and I, which I thought would be strange, but it actually turned out great. We are both keeners who don't mind waking up at a reasonable time to get the most out of our trips (unlike my older brother who would rather sleep in :-D), so we didn't have any of the stress of trying to get everyone up on time.
Also, since I was the one who planned most of it, not surprisingly it was geared the way I wanted it to be. Instead of spending most of the time in one place and then driving the direct way there and back, I made sure to take different routes each way and to spend time in various cities along the way to break up the driving. The main highlights included the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, watching live shows in Branson, visiting the cool town of Eureka Springs, AR, hiking at Lake of the Ozarks, visiting the arch and basilica in St. Louis, and seeing Lincoln's home in Springfield, IL.
I also made sure we took the Indiana Tollway/Ohio Turnpike on the way back from Springfield just for the counties (my Mom didn't know that it added 20 minutes to our drive, and that the faster way home doesn't have tolls :evilgrin:).
After that trip, my Mom said she would travel with me anywhere, and I think she was really impressed with the things we managed to find on our trip, as well as my lack of needing a GPS :)
I've been lucky to have had opportunities for a lot of great road trips, but it's hard to top the Alaska Highway.
http://www.teresco.org/pics/alaska-20010606-30/ (http://www.teresco.org/pics/alaska-20010606-30/)
Of all the road trips I've taken since 1990, I'd say my favorite was a nearly three-week trip I took in 2003. First leg Wakefield (MA) to Wilkes Barre - spent time in Scranton at Steamtown. Second leg Wilkes Barre to Strasburg - spent time at the Strasburg Railroad, RR Museum of PA, and Train Collector's Museum. Third leg was from Strasburg to Savoy, IL (my sister's house) with an overnight stop in Washington, PA. After spending time with family in Savoy, the fifth leg was from Savoy to Greensboro (my brother's house), with an overnight stop in Parkersburg, WV. Spent time in the Greensboro area visiting with family, with side trips to the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer and the VA Transportation Museum in Roanoke. Then went from Greensboro up to Altoona - spent a few days in Altoona and area railfanning Horseshoe Curve, Cresson, and environs, with a side trip to Johnstown to the flood museum and the NPS site at the former South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. I then finished up the trip by going from Altoona back to Wakefield.
One unexpected surprise on this trip was when I stopped at a rest area on I-77 south of Pleasant City, OH for a bathroom break (I refuse to travel through Kentucky due to their absolutely draconian laws against mobile police scanners - they even refuse to acknowledge the Federally-granted exceptions for ham radio operators). Walking back to the car, I found a historical marker denoting the wreck of the Navy airship Shenandoah, which occurred just south of Pleasant City.
Quote from: roadman on May 11, 2017, 01:49:29 PM(I refuse to travel through Kentucky due to their absolutely draconian laws against mobile police scanners - they even refuse to acknowledge the Federally-granted exceptions for ham radio operators).
Start a blog and declare yourself a journalist. There's an exception for journalists in Kentucky state law.
I thought scanners were only illegal in Virginia? Or are they different from radar detectors?
To add to the conversation, my favorite road trip was from West Lafayette, IN, to Ithaca, NY, last fall to visit my brother. Upstate New York is absolutely stunning while the leaves were changing. Did my first Adirondack hike in 50 degree weather and I've been wanting to go back ever since! In fact I think I am going back to New York State this autumn to do more hiking and probably see Niagara Falls.
Favorite one is tough. My initial inclination is to cite a family vacation in 1982 to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick (northbound via the Bluenose ferry from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, southbound through New Brunswick, crossing back into the USA at Lubec). But that was also a very long time ago when I was nine years old, so obviously I did no driving even though I knew where we were and where the roads went.
I might instead pick my 2008 trip back to Nova Scotia with my now-wife. We didn't get as far as Newfoundland and we took the Cat Ferry both ways from Portland instead of driving through New Brunswick in order to focus more on Nova Scotia. I found the trip interesting because of how some places had not changed and looked just like they had in 1982. I think I appreciated the Cabot Trail more as the driver in a car than I did as a kid riding as a passenger in a rented RV.
The other road trip that comes to mind was our trip to New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona in 2015. I'm sure some people here would quibble with our flying out and flying back, but I don't care because otherwise we could not have gone. It was all new territory for me and the scenery was spectacular and unlike anything you see on the East Coast, except perhaps for the northern end of I-17 that felt like part of the Northway in New York. I really want to go back and see more of Utah. We only scraped the southeast corner, crossed in via Colorado coming from Four Corners, spent the night at a B&B in the Valley of the Gods (I highly recommend that B&B), and after driving the Moki Dugway we headed to Arizona via Monument Valley.
One of my favorites is my first long-distance road trip as an adult. Three friends and I drove from Ann Arbor, Michigan to the Florida Keys in March, 1973.
The trip started out fine. We stuffed our camping gear into my friend's '68 Mustang (with a cartop carrier), and left AA on a Friday afternoon, planning on driving straight through. It didn't work out that way. At the first gas stop near Troy, Ohio, the started died. We spent the night in a fleabag roadside hotel and got the starter fixed the next morning.
As we were ascending the hill on I-75 after crossing the Ohio River later that day, the radiator sprung a leak. We actually managed to find a service station in Covington on a Saturday morning that patched it. The mechanic told us that the fix probably wouldn't last the trip and that the radiator should be replaced, but we managed the rest of the trip without any more car trouble.
I-75 was not yet complete in a few places, around Lake City, TN (we got to drive over Norris Dam on US-441), a couple of longer sections between Knoxville and Chattanooga, and north of Marietta, GA over Kennesaw Mountain.
We drove through Lenoir City, TN at dusk. It was like being dropped into the 1950s, with cars cruising up and down the main drag celebrating Saturday night. It seemed like it took forever to get through Georgia. The sun was rising on Sunday morning as we got onto the Turnpike in Florida. We finally made it to our campground on Big Pine Key sometime in the late afternoon. We spent a couple of days there, checking out Key West and snorkeling at Bahia Honda State Park.
We then started heading back, with the intent of stopping for a day or two in Daytona Beach. We took most of a day driving up US-1 and A1A, staying off the freeways. We set up camp in a park in Ormand Beach and got to drive on the beach at Daytona and check out the spring break action.
Our last night there, it decided to rain buckets and our campsite got flooded out. We spent the next morning at a laundromat drying out our clothes and sleeping bags before we left for home. The trip home was uneventful.
We ran short on cash (due to the car repairs), we ate poorly, drank too much, got sunburned to a fare-thee-well, had our campsite washed out, and we were all dog-tired when we got home. No cell phones, no ATMs, no fast food joints at every freeway exit, not a credit card among the four of us. Great times! Best part of all, I'm still friends with the other 3 guys all these years later.
Seattle to Yellowknife and back in May-June 2012. Bears and bison and the cutest little car ferry over the Mackenzie River, stunning canyons with beautiful campgrounds by them, and miles and miles km and km of high-quality blacktop with no traffic.
Being an east-coaster, my two West Coast Trips were phenomenal... US 101 from Astoria OR to San Francisco (one-way), and a round trip from San Fran to Yosemite, down to/through Kings Canyon/Sequoia, west to PCH, and then back up PCH to San Fran...were both absolutely incredible.
I've driven about 100 miles of the Blue Ridge Pkwy plus all of Skyline Drive...but need to drive the entire thing.
That is a tough pick for me as my most favorite. I have been on some great ones both by car and motorcycle.
As my all time most memorable and probably favorite road trip I would have to rate the first long distance road trip I drove without my parents.
I was attending college in Munich, Germany, a buddy and I drove my VW Beetle from Munich to Athens via what was then Yugoslavia. On August 21, 1968 we were in Belgrade trying to sell some liquor on the black market. Not a good day for a lesson in international business transactions. This is the day the USSR rolled the tanks into Prague, Czechoslovakia. The local my buddy was talking to informed us of the USSR action. He was pissed because the US did not help Czechoslovakia. We looked at each other in disbelief. We agreed we were this far into our trip so no turning back. The Parthenon was our destination. No invasion was going to stop us.
I am sure my parents were worried about us. No cell phones in those days and land line calls were expensive. We did send post cards. :-D
For the return trip we were to take the ferry from western Greece to Italy so we could tour Italy on the way home. There was a labor problem so no ferry ride. After killing a few days waiting on the ferry dispute to be settled we had 48 hours to get back to Munich for classes. We considered going through Albania as a shorter route. It had just opened up to US travel but the locals advised us not to go there if we valued our lives. So off we went across some extremely rugged roads in northern Greece and southern Yugoslavia. The old VW was a tough car.
We made it to Munich just in time for classes after driving non stop from Igoumenitsa, Greece.
I have had many other road trips that rank up there but I always compare them to this one.
Holy shit. I think yours takes the cake.
Mine though was the time I drove the entirety of MN-200 (and the small part of ND-200 from I-29 to the river) from the border to the eastern terminus at US-2. I thought it was pretty intense because I had to drive over a partially flooded roadway, but... that doesn't compare to tanks and the USSR.
Great story, Leroys73. Get pictures?
Quote from: leroys73 on May 26, 2017, 09:41:47 PM
That is a tough pick for me as my most favorite. I have been on some great ones both by car and motorcycle.
As my all time most memorable and probably favorite road trip I would have to rate the first long distance road trip I drove without my parents.
I was attending college in Munich, Germany, a buddy and I drove my VW Beetle from Munich to Athens via what was then Yugoslavia. On August 21, 1968 we were in Belgrade trying to sell some liquor on the black market. Not a good day for a lesson in international business transactions. This is the day the USSR rolled the tanks into Prague, Czechoslovakia. The local my buddy was talking to informed us of the USSR action. He was pissed because the US did not help Czechoslovakia. We looked at each other in disbelief. We agreed we were this far into our trip so no turning back. The Parthenon was our destination. No invasion was going to stop us.
I am sure my parents were worried about us. No cell phones in those days and land line calls were expensive. We did send post cards. :-D
For the return trip we were to take the ferry from western Greece to Italy so we could tour Italy on the way home. There was a labor problem so no ferry ride. After killing a few days waiting on the ferry dispute to be settled we had 48 hours to get back to Munich for classes. We considered going through Albania as a shorter route. It had just opened up to US travel but the locals advised us not to go there if we valued our lives. So off we went across some extremely rugged roads in northern Greece and southern Yugoslavia. The old VW was a tough car.
We made it to Munich just in time for classes after driving non stop from Igoumenitsa, Greece.
I have had many other road trips that rank up there but I always compare them to this one.
Wow. I wish I could go on that roadtrip.
Quote from: kkt on May 26, 2017, 11:02:09 PM
Great story, Leroys73. Get pictures?
Took plenty of pics on a "state of the art" :cool: camera that used roll film, no not a 35mm but maybe a 620 Kodak, but don't remember for sure the type. Remember, this was in the late 60s. I still have them. I need transfer them now that I think of it.
I was a poor college student working nights in the US Army Commissary warehouse so a better camera would have taken away from my road tripping and beer money :crazy:
After all I was in Munich where freshman orientation was at the Hofbrauhaus Keller. The challenge was to drink 5 liters of beer (25 cents per liter) that night to get a pin. No pin that night for most of us freshman. However, we did go into serious training for the Oktoberfest later. By then 5 liters was doable. Thank God there was a street car with no transfers to get us home.
Our family had cousins in Czechoslovakia in 1968. I never met them, travel was interrupted for several years after but my grandparents were very concerned for their safety.
Not surprised the US didn't intervene. It was full of Russian troops by that point and we probably wouldn't have been able to do anything. Czechoslovakia wasn't a US ally then. Besides, there had just been the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and it was clear we'd be needed a lot more troops there.
Quote from: kkt on May 27, 2017, 10:00:50 PM
Our family had cousins in Czechoslovakia in 1968. I never met them, travel was interrupted for several years after but my grandparents were very concerned for their safety.
Not surprised the US didn't intervene. It was full of Russian troops by that point and we probably wouldn't have been able to do anything. Czechoslovakia wasn't a US ally then. Besides, there had just been the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and it was clear we'd be needed a lot more troops there.
I hope your family came out of the whole thing OK.
We certainly did have our hands full with Nam. The poor guy we talked to did not understand all of the international situations. At that time Yugoslavia was a somewhat friendly place. I enjoyed the country and the people. Titio liked it his way though. I was upset when all the fighting broke out in the 90s. A lot of good people died.
The Prague invasion was more or less viewed as an internal affair since the government was a Soviet Block country. I felt bad for the people. A similar thing happened in Hungary in 1956. If Soviet tanks would have been sent into West Berlin things would have gotten serious in a hurry.
Yes, my cousins came through pretty much okay. Not killed or arrested. They did have to take in a boarder in their house, not because they needed the money but because the Communists considered their house to be too big for an elderly couple. Their boarder did take advantage of them in a lot of little ways because they couldn't evict him, but it certainly could have been a lot worse.
Yes, both the US and USSR understood that keeping the cold war from getting hot was vital, so neither side ever sent their troops to fight the others directly, only through proxies.
My favorite road trips have all been storm chasing trips.
-- Cincinnati to St Louis via Cape Girardeau, MO, 4/10-11, 2013. Small EF-0 tornado crossed over top of the car.
-- Cincinnati to Lafayette, Indiana June 23, 2016. An EF-1 tornado hurled a tree into the side of the RAV-4. Left a dent that's still there.
-- Cincinnati to Tulsa via West Plains, MO, Last weekend (5/26 to 5/28, 2017) -- no tornado this time, but some awesome storm structures and lightning photos, and great BBQ at Missouri Hick BBQ in Cuba, MO as well as a solid steak at Freddie's in Tulsa.
Quote from: JMoses24 on May 31, 2017, 11:07:14 PM
My favorite road trips have all been storm chasing trips.
-- Cincinnati to St Louis via Cape Girardeau, MO, 4/10-11, 2013. Small EF-0 tornado crossed over top of the car.
-- Cincinnati to Lafayette, Indiana June 23, 2016. An EF-1 tornado hurled a tree into the side of the RAV-4. Left a dent that's still there.
-- Cincinnati to Tulsa via West Plains, MO, Last weekend (5/26 to 5/28, 2017) -- no tornado this time, but some awesome storm structures and lightning photos, and great BBQ at Missouri Hick BBQ in Cuba, MO as well as a solid steak at Freddie's in Tulsa.
Isn't storm chasing dangerous?
Quote from: kkt on May 29, 2017, 04:44:31 PM
Yes, my cousins came through pretty much okay. Not killed or arrested. They did have to take in a boarder in their house, not because they needed the money but because the Communists considered their house to be too big for an elderly couple. Their boarder did take advantage of them in a lot of little ways because they couldn't evict him, but it certainly could have been a lot worse.
Yes, both the US and USSR understood that keeping the cold war from getting hot was vital, so neither side ever sent their troops to fight the others directly, only through proxies.
I find your story of your relatives fascinating. So many people have no idea how it really was in those countries. I worked with a Polish lady who was 18 when her family moved to the US, or should I say escaped to the US, during the mid 60s. Her story was very interesting.
I thank God I was born in this country. As bad as some tend to think it is, I believe if they would go live in other countries for a while the US would seem pretty good. Especially if they were in one of the old Soviet controlled countries or one of today's dictatorships.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on May 31, 2017, 11:22:47 PM
Quote from: JMoses24 on May 31, 2017, 11:07:14 PM
My favorite road trips have all been storm chasing trips.
-- Cincinnati to St Louis via Cape Girardeau, MO, 4/10-11, 2013. Small EF-0 tornado crossed over top of the car.
-- Cincinnati to Lafayette, Indiana June 23, 2016. An EF-1 tornado hurled a tree into the side of the RAV-4. Left a dent that's still there.
-- Cincinnati to Tulsa via West Plains, MO, Last weekend (5/26 to 5/28, 2017) -- no tornado this time, but some awesome storm structures and lightning photos, and great BBQ at Missouri Hick BBQ in Cuba, MO as well as a solid steak at Freddie's in Tulsa.
Isn't storm chasing dangerous?
It is, but my roommate has extensive knowledge and 314 successful, safe intercepts to his credit.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on May 31, 2017, 11:22:47 PM
Isn't storm chasing dangerous?
Only if the storm ends up chasing and catching you! :-D :-D :-D
Quote from: hbelkins on June 02, 2017, 12:30:10 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on May 31, 2017, 11:22:47 PM
Isn't storm chasing dangerous?
Only if the storm ends up chasing and catching you! :-D :-D :-D
[/quote]
In Soviet Russia, the storm chases you.
My favorite would probably be the one :sleep:ril 2014. It was the year I seriously became interested in traveling.
Here was the route we took:
- I-43 from Manitowoc, WI to Milwaukee
- I-94 in Milwaukee to I-294 north of Chicago
- I-294 to I-80 to I-57 south of Chicago (this was before they built the interchange between I-294 and I-57)
- I-57 to I-24 in southern Illinois
- I-24 to KY 453/TN 49 through Land Between the Lakes
- TN 49 to Tennessee Ridge, TN
We also stopped in Metropolis, IL and at the Kentucky Dam along the way. We stayed at a B&B in Tennessee Ridge and took a couple day trips to the Mammoth Caves, Nashville, and Clarksville during our trip. On our way back we also stopped at Fort Donelson National Battlefield.
Overall I thought it was a very fun road trip and it was probably the most significant trip I ever took that didn't involve flying.
I-76 - PA Turnpike
I-76 - Ohio Turnpike
I-80/90 through Illinois
I-294 N to I-290 (western burbs of Chicago)
I-90 through Wisconsin
I-90 through MN (most boring part of trip)
I-90 through SD (stopped north of Pierre for 2.5 great days of golf)
I-90 to the Black Hills. Got to the WY state line.
3 days in the Black Hills. Mt. Rushmore, Sandhills NP, Deadwood, Sturgis, Custer State Park (lots of bison and pronghorn and big horn sheep!)
US-385 through Wind Cave NP (lots of bison!) to Alliance, NE
US-385 to US-26 (the original Oregon Trail).
I-80E to North Platte
NE-97 North thru the Sandhills to Mullen for 4 days of amazing golf
NE-2 East through the Sandhills to Grand Island.
I-80 East (with stops) to I-77 (Canton, OH) - Football Hall of Fame
I-80 East into PA.
US-322 to Harrisburg
I-76 East home.
Amazingly great!
Oh geez, pick just one....
Um.....
Atlanta, World of Coca-Cola, from my house in the Chitown suburbs. 2016.
I went on:
I-294 South
IL-394 South
Exchange Street East / 101st Avenue East (through to Indiana)
Calumet Avenue South
109th Street East
US-41 South
IN-63 South
US-41 South (through to Kentucky)
I-69 South
Future I-169 South (back then it wasn't I-169 though)
I-24 East (through to Tennessee)
I-75 South (through to Georgia)
In terms of pure enjoyment, my favorite would probably have to be a Denver --> Rocky Mountain N.P. --> Green River, UT --> Reno, NV --> San Francisco --> L.A. via PCH trip I did in the summer of 2014.
But it's hard not to keep coming back to a trip I took in the summer of 2010, when I helped a friend (now my partner) move from Northeastern Ohio to El Paso, Texas. At the time we weren't together in that way, though, and for a number of reasons it was a pretty messy situation that led to a lot of uncomfortable and unpleasant moments on that trip. And yet, it was the first significant road trip I'd undertaken as an adult, and I got to see so much of the country that I hadn't ever seen before, and something about the time of year, the nostalgia-laden infinite promise of summer, made it magical despite the choppy seas. Eventually we got our timing right and we've been together ever since, so now I can look back on that experience and honestly consider it simultaneously both the best and the worst road trip I've ever been on.