California-Oregon NPs-Gettin’ There-April 17-20, 2026
Departure day finally arrived on Friday, April 17th, but I wasn’t ready. While I had worked on prepping equipment and information for the trip to California, I hadn’t packed anything. This is not much of a problem when I am driving SB for the duration, but when I am reliant upon mass transit (Amtrak in this case), I have to operate under their schedule. I managed to finish laundry and gather things, but I accidentally left four important items: my tablet–which contains several downloaded files about my anticipated stops–and its peripherals, my handicap parking tag, my print 2027 atlas, plus the dash camera I wanted to use to video some of the scenic routes I would drive in my rental car. More about the impacts of these missing items in later posts. My youngest brother got Debra, my eldest sister, and me to Washington Union Station in time to catch…
More Updates for California and Oregon NPs
From the Beginning As I am prepping for the trip to California and Oregon, I’ve tried to remember which national park I visited first. Eventually, I realized that my first park was Rocky Mountain National Park, which I visited with my mother in 2013. We followed that a couple of days later with Zion National Park, then added a tour of Grand Canyon National Park shortly afterwards. We also passed close to Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains NPs. However, visiting the parks as a project wasn’t in my game plan at the time, so we didn’t stop. So much has changed about what I want to experience when I visit parks that I want to revisit them, both Zion and Grand Canyon, later this year. The other parks are also in the plan. In the meantime, prep work continues. Presently, I’m fleshing out non-national park sites I would be interested…
Countdown for California & Oregon, Plus Two DC Productions
The Final Frontier There are a lot of not-so-good things going on as I write this, but one of the few exceptions is the launch of NASA’s Artemis II. As of Day 7 of its mission, it had taken its four crew members around Earth’s moon to a point further than humans have traveled to date. They have generated lots of pictures, but my favorite is this one. As one poster commented, I’m pictured there on Earth, you just can’t see me. Trip Prep My preparations for the train trip and extended drive to California and Oregon are progressing. As much as I am aware that I can’t take a lot of stuff, even if I expect the trip to take a couple of weeks to complete, I know I will have to do at least one weeding before departure time arrives. One significant change in plans. My eldest sister…