By the Numbers

2018-09-30
PA

There are always some fun numbers after a trip like this. There are more numbers that I have filled in later, like "pictures kept" and "days spent processing pictures." Let's have fun looking at the numbers we have:

Days spent: 29
National Parks visited: 17
Museums, State Parks, Monuments, etc. visited: 7
Pictures taken: 4727
Pictures kept: 1628
Days before pictures were processed: 77
Miles hiked: 160+
Miles driven: 9784
States visited: 20
Entry Fees not paid due to $80 pass: $365

I don't have any conclusions to draw from these numbers other than it was a long trip. I wanted to see a little bit of a lot of things and I feel like I managed that pretty well. Certainly I could have done more depth at the parks and less driving and that would have been a lot of fun too.

To add some perspective, 160 miles from Exton is pretty close to New Haven, CT if you're heading north or almost to Richmond, VA if you're heading south. Of the 20 states I drove through, 10 of them I haven't been to before. Arguably I must've come through Missouri when Dad loaded up the Dodge Coronet and moved us back to Delaware, but I was four so figure I slept through it.

The southern trip probably won't go through Iowa

If I knew a month ago what I know now, would I take the trip? Yes, definitely. However, now that I've done it, I wouldn't do it exactly the same if I was touring a second time. Many of the parks such as Glacier I could visit again and see a lot more; however, there are other parks such as Gateway Arch which I feel like I have seen what it has to offer (although I admit I that I could find new pictures when the light is different.) Of course, more realistically, if I do another trip like this I would take a more southern route and visit different locations. There are 48 (of 60) National Parks and hundreds of other parks in the continental US. Or better yet head to Alaska where there are eight parks, each more difficult to get to than the last.

What worked and what didn't? I'll start with my one glaring failure. I picked up a water bladder for my backpack a few weeks before the trip. While mechanically it worked perfectly and was amazingly convenient, the water tasted like plastic. When the water didn't taste good, I simply didn't drink enough. I realized the problem after a couple days and switched back to water bottles. I probably should have soaked it or run more water through it or bought a different brand.

While the rest of my gear worked as expected, the thing that worked very well was camping in the parks. It was great to be able to get up in the park and be on the trail without a long drive, or to have a very short drive in the evening and get some sleep. So when it worked, it worked great. It didn't work very well when the weather forecast was below freezing or when it was a weekend and I couldn't get a spot.

Actually weekends were one of those things that generally worked poorly. The weekend around Seattle was pretty good, likely due to weather. But the weekends in Wyoming and Utah were crowded and difficult. I'm really not sure how to deal with these better, but it would have been nice to have been in less popular parks on the weekends.

One other gear note is about shoes. I own both "trail runners" and hiking boots. The former are running shoes that have a thicker sole so that they are better on sharp rocks. I tended to use the runners for almost all my hiking this trip. Boots have advantages in ankle support and they are waterproof. However, trail runners are lighter and the water (and sweat) can drain and dry which generally left my feet dryer over the course of the day. Waterproof is nice until water gets in and it has no way to escape, and my feet do sweat in the desert. My toes did get a lot dirtier in the runners though; the dust would work its way through the shoe and sock pretty readily. I won't say which you should wear, but you may want to try both.

To wrap up the post, here's a quick flashback with some pretty pictures. You know from the numbers above I have plenty more where these came from in case I think of anything else to say. Thanks to the folks that actually took this journey with me. I appreciate you taking the time to read about my adventures, such as they were. Hopefully I can return the favor on your odyssey.