Where did I go?
As I traveled in July and August, and blogged about it, I had the occasional request to let people see, on a map, where I had been. It took a while, but I bought the largest paper US highway map I could find in town and I spent some time this afternoon drawing on it. Because there are three “expeditions” included, I’ll go one by one and ‘splain each:
Summer Expedition – 2014
This shows my “expedition” from last summer, when I drove my truck about 8300 miles (and rode the Honda an additional 600 or so). The idea was to reconnect with friends and family (both mine and Toni’s) – especially the ones who hadn’t been able to come to either of Toni’s Life Celebrations – and in this I largely succeeded. I was unable to visit one college buddy due to his illness, but we got together this past spring at a reunion, so that’s all good. I also wasn’t able to spend *as much* time with everyone as I wanted, but that’s part of life. It gives me an incentive to go visit them again. On this trip I touched 24 states: AZ, NM, CO, NE, IA (although the map doesn’t show it), MO, IL, IN, OH, MI, KY, WV, PA, MD, VA, NC, TN, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, and TX.
Adding Sept 2014’s trip to the West Coast
This builds on the previous picture by including my trip to the West Coast (the red loop) in September 2014. The annual Tour DaVita charity bike ride was in Oregon last year, and my daughter Ali wanted to do some traveling for her birthday. Since they were about the same time, I drove up to Oregon for the ride and then picked Ali up at Sea-Tac Airport. We went up to Vancouver, BC, where we were able to see some of the Olympic Village, and then came back down the Pacific Coast Highway to San Diego for a visit to SeaWorld (with many other stops along the way) before coming back home. That trip was somewhere near 7000 miles, for a grand total of about 15,000 miles in three months (July – September).
Three trips: Summer 2014, Fall 2014, and Summer 2015
Finally, this one includes my 5-week, 7600-mile motorcycle ride from earlier this summer. I followed Historic Route 66 (essentially the same route as I-40, I-44, and I-55) from Holbrook to Chicago, then visited my daughter Eve and her husband Rick (where I rode some more and went to the AirVenture fly-in and air show in Oshkosh, WI), after which I took a week to get west to Sturgis (following a northerly route that took me up to International Falls, MN) for the 75th annual Motorcycle Rally. After that, I took another week to get home through Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and AZ. This year I only touched 14 states: AZ, NM, TX, OK, KS (Rte 66 went through the lower right corner, although I-44 doesn’t), MO, IL, WI, MI, MN, ND, SD, WY, and CO.
As I was doing this, I remembered Dad had a map on which he traced the routes of his and Mom’s trips. He took zillions of pictures, too – back when they were on actual 35mm FILM! He’d send the rolls off to Kodak to be developed, and when he got them back he’d painstakingly label each one in detail, then load it into a projector magazine. They took some amazing trips in the ’60s and ’70s, and proudly showed the slides to the family for years. It was part of the summer-vacation ritual. I don’t know if any of us (myself included) would have the patience to sit through the shows now, but I do remember enjoying them back then.
The Peripatetic Traveler 
Yay awesome! I might have to steal one of the pics…
Be my guest! I can send you the original if you want it.