Road Trip 2019: By the Numbers

2019-09-10
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: 10
• National Parks visited: 4 (3 US, 1 Canadian)
• Museums, State Parks, National Lakeshores, etc. visited: 6
• Pictures taken: 1007
• Miles hiked: 45
• Miles driven: 3294
• States/Provinces visited: 9

Once again I favored shorter stops in more places, and I got to see a fair amount of a different section of the country as well as the neighboring country.

How did this differ from my first road trip? First off, there was one small but surprisingly useful change: Apple CarPlay now supports Google Maps. What this means in practice is that the map displays on the head unit in the dash, which makes it a lot more convenient to use. It also means that I would plug my phone into the USB port so CarPlay would find it which had the side effect that I didn't forget to charge it. Small things that made a difference.

The other noticeable difference this trip was rain. Last trip it rained two days plus a couple passing showers in four weeks. This trip saw rain every day except the first. It varied from drizzle to deluge, but nary a day went by without some precipitation. I preferred the dryer weather; it means less time dealing with wet tents. At one point I felt the dichotomy of wanting the rain to stop but also looking forward to having running water and flush toilets.

I also worked out the water bladder problem. I bought a Platypus to try out, and after reading the internet I soaked both my existing and new bladders with baking soda to clean them out. I only had one hike long enough (11 miles) to warrant a bladder, and on that one it worked great. It does save some space in the internal pockets for other important gear; for example, a rain coat.

The weekend also worked better this trip as I was at a less populated park (Voyageurs is 46th most visited) rather than Yellowstone (6th) or Arches (17th). Of course Labor Day Weekend was a mess, but that's the nature of a holiday weekend.

Finally, I think I'm outgrowing this free blog site (wix). I'm going to have to figure out my next solution over the winter and transfer the posts. If someone has some suggestions, please drop me a line.

I have a few more pictures to spice up this post, and plenty more in the queue if I need them. I'll cull down and dress up my pictures and post some highlights on Facebook as well.