2025 Road Trip Plans

[webny99]

A relatively short road trip this weekend, but one I haven't done in quite a while: Rochester, NY to Cleveland, OH area and back.

[ElishaGOtis]

I'm going to clinch I-10 this summer (and with a very slight possibility of also clinching I-40), somehow. It'll be a while but I think I'll get through it. I've already gotten just over half of it cleared from previous trips (El Paso to points east, and the section between I-5 and I-15).

[D-Dey65]

My next trip will include a southern Polk County railroad photography crusade, and probably another round trip on SunRail, but this time it will be from Poinciana to Longwood and back.

The thing is though, one of the locations I'm looking for is Welcome Junction in Keysville, Florida, because it's the junction between the Plant City and Valrico Subdivisions. However, in order to actually capture the junction I need to either;
A)Try to sneak onto the tracks from the railroad crossing of an active railroad line.
B)Trudge through some swampland between East Keysville Road and the Valrico Subdivision with God only knows what hiding in the tall grass.
C)Blow a butt-load of money on a drone, and the FAA License to go with it, with the risk of losing control of the thing and never getting it back.

[pderocco]

My next trip will include a southern Polk County railroad photography crusade, and probably another round trip on SunRail, but this time it will be from Poinciana to Longwood and back.

The thing is though, one of the locations I'm looking for is Welcome Junction in Keysville, Florida, because it's the junction between the Plant City and Valrico Subdivisions. However, in order to actually capture the junction I need to either;
A)Try to sneak onto the tracks from the railroad crossing of an active railroad line.
B)Trudge through some swampland between East Keysville Road and the Valrico Subdivision with God only knows what hiding in the tall grass.
C)Blow a butt-load of money on a drone, and the FAA License to go with it, with the risk of losing control of the thing and never getting it back.

It might be nice if Google starting putting "street view" cameras on trains.

[JayhawkCO]

In addition to my NYC interstate clinching day before my Africa trip, I'll also be driving from Dulles to Providence on the back end to catch my flight back to Denver. My full routing will be somewhat dependent on day-of traffic and any potential flight delays, but I hope to at least clinch I-84 and all Connecticut "counties" at a minimum.

And because my trips to Africa seem to always have something weird happen to them, I won't be making either of these road trips. I managed to contract pneumonia and so can't do my Kilimanjaro climb next week. I managed to change my plans to later in the summer, but it won't allow for the road trips.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Damn. Feel better.

[JayhawkCO]

Damn. Feel better.

Thanks. It's a bit of a rough go honestly. Caught it despite being in arguably the best shape of my life right now, which also makes this more annoying since I can't keep doing my training runs until I get this all cleared.

[Max Rockatansky]

Got some stuff coming up that is somewhat notable:

-  I'm heading to Washington State and British Columbia the next five days.  I'm not really charting any new territory for me in Seattle, but wife wants to see a concert.  Some parts of urban British Columbia will be new for me, but this is primarily a trip for my wife to see Vancouver.  I do plan on taking her to North Cascades National Park so WA 20/North Cascades Highway will be nice to visit again.  I'll probably try out WA 11 and some Old US 99 stuff around Bellingham.
-  I'll be taking my wife to Avalon on Catalina Island for her birthday shortly after Labor Day.  I'm hoping to find a dirt bike to ride some of the hillside roads above the city. 
-  In early November I'll be heading out to Kauai in Hawaii.  That will certainly include clinches of notable roads on the island.

That aside I might visit my brother in Utah and get my wife out to Capitol Reef National Park.  I do have some major local stuff planned in California that I intend to complete before November:

-  New Idira Road
-  Old Coast Road in Big Sur
-  Kaiser Pass Road, Mono Hot Springs Road and Florence Lake Road (I've only completed Kaiser).
-  Returning to Camp Nine Road to get to part I couldn't see due to PG&E infrastructure work.  I'll be knocking out a lot of notable one lane roads that I've been looking into in Amador County also.   
-  Central Camp Road above Bass Lake.

Depending on what people have in mind for me I might be at the Feather River Highway Meet.  My wife tends to want to do stuff with me which is why I haven't committed to said meet one way or another yet.
-  A dirt road-a-thon in Mariposa County which passes some undocumented bridges of interest.

[elsmere241]

We are planning on spending late July and early August on a cross-country trip.  We'd definitely go to south-central Washington state (where my wife grew up - her mother is still there) and possibly Salt Lake and/or friends and relatives from southern California to the DFW metroplex.

And we would have left last Saturday, except our minivan needed new brakes, an unexpected expense.  My wife is adventurous enough to just sleep at rest areas, but I'm not.  (At least the KOAs we couldn't afford have showers.)  So we decided she'd just fly to Pasco to see her mother who lives about an hour west.  As it turns out, she will be flying out by way of Bakersfield for a funeral.  (And she's not adventurous enough to just drive to Washington from there.)

[JayhawkCO]

As my Africa trip finally approaches, there will only be two small road trips:

Taking a shuttle from Nairobi, Kenya to Moshi, Tanzania. Did a GSV drive of the route the other day and looks like pretty good roads. I'll try to get pictures of any road signs of note if possible.

Then taking a day trip from Hargeisa, Somaliland to Laas Geel to check out the rock formations and such. Since I'm leaving city limits, I have to have a government appointed armed guard with me, so that's kind of cool.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Since I'm leaving city limits, I have to have a government appointed armed guard with me, so that's kind of cool.

You are definitely built different from most of us, lol.

[kphoger]

Since I'm leaving city limits, I have to have a government appointed armed guard with me, so that's kind of cool.

You are definitely built different from most of us, lol.

I once met a couple of Dutch cyclists who had been cycling around the world.  They told us that, when they cycled across northern Africa, they had to have a government escort the entire way.  (I imagine the escort must have gotten bored after a while.  How long does it take to cycle across Libya?)

By the way, after their trip was over, we mailed them the pictures we took of them while they were staying at our house.  They wrote back to say that, after cycling around the world, on their flight home to Europe, all their film was ruined by the airport x-ray machine.  Airport staff had told them it wouldn't ruin the film, and they trusted his word, but it did ruin it.  The pictures we mailed them were the only photos they ended up with from their whole journey.

[JayhawkCO]

Since I'm leaving city limits, I have to have a government appointed armed guard with me, so that's kind of cool.

You are definitely built different from most of us, lol.

I take that as a badge of honor.    Basically on the award ticket I'm on, I got a free stopover anywhere in Africa on the way back. I had read about Somaliland being a breakaway region of Somalia and how it's incredibly safe (especially in Hargeisa, the capital), so figured with my checklist brain, there might not be a better time to cross it off the list.

[JayhawkCO]

How long does it take to cycle across Libya?

Google Maps doesn't work for directions in Libya, but there's about 1,100 miles of coastline there. Looks like there are roads that don't go too far away from the Med, so ballpark 1,200 miles? Maybe averaging 50 miles per day, so 24 days?

[kphoger]

How long does it take to cycle across Libya?

Google Maps doesn't work for directions in Libya, but there's about 1,100 miles of coastline there. Looks like there are roads that don't go too far away from the Med, so ballpark 1,200 miles? Maybe averaging 50 miles per day, so 24 days?

The Libyan Coastal Highway is 1822 kilometers long.  This was the 1990s, but my educated guess is that they probably had a 30-day visa and therefore couldn't have taken much longer than that.

[JayhawkCO]

Kind of surprised they could get a visa under Qaddafi. Libya remains one of the five hardest visas for an American to get.

[Rothman]

Kind of surprised they could get a visa under Qaddafi. Libya remains one of the five hardest visas for an American to get.

The film being ruined triggered my "dog ate my homework* radar.