Cross Country Adventure - Day 15 - Joshua Tree to Los Angeles

 Day 15. We'd driven more than 4,000 miles through 14 states and had just one more National Park to visit and 132 miles to drive before we would arrive at our final destination in Los Angeles. Apart from a tornado scare on the second day, the trip had gone without a hitch. Unfortunately, our luck didn't quite hold.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 14 - Flagstaff, AZ to Joshua Tree, California

 Day 14 was to be our last full day on the road before we reached Los Angeles, a day of driving through the desert, across miles and miles of uninhabited countryside. We'd planned a couple of rest stops but weren't expecting too much in the way of sights along the way, until on a whim, we decided to change our route for the latter part of the journey. With additional stop-offs the six-hour drive took us eleven hours to complete but it was well worth it.

Our first stop was only an hour out of Flagstaff in Seligman, Arizona.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 13 - The Grand Canyon

Day 13 started very early with a ninety minute drive from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. Our hope was that we could spend several hours at the South Rim before the worst of the heat of the day. An extra benefit of our plan was that while there were other people who had the same idea, there weren't the crowds that we had been warned about.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 12 - Moab to Flagstaff, AZ

Day 12 was another day on the road, driving from Moab, Utah to Flagstaff, Arizona. Fortunately, there was plenty to see on the way to give us an excuse to get out of the car at regular intervals.

First stop was just south of Moab for a quick photo opportunity at Wilson Arch which looms over the west side of US Route 191 and which we thought rivaled many of the arches in Arches National Park.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 11 (Part 2) - Canyonlands, Utah

Having spent the afternoon recuperating from the morning’s exertions in Arches National Park, we decided on the spur of the moment to visit nearby Canyonlands and try and catch the sunset.

Canyonlands is at the heart of the Colorado Plateau, the canyons carved by the Green and Colorado Rivers.

To our surprise, the park was almost empty. We must have come across no more than about 20 people in total during our visit. Perhaps that made it even more special as we could enjoy the grandeur without the crowds.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 11 - Arches National Park

Our plan to spend a full day in Arches National Park had to be quickly revised when we discovered how hot it was in Moab. With temperatures heading towards 100°F, we decided instead to start early and be out of the park by early afternoon.

The towers of Park Avenue

It turned out to be a good decision because it meant we were able to do a 2 mile hike through the canyon from the Park Avenue Viewpoint and Trailhead (so called because it was thought to resemble the buildings along Park Avenue in Manhattan) to Courthouse Towers and back before it got too unbearable.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 10 - Evergreen CO to Moab, Utah

The main street in Evergreen

In the thirty-six hours or so that we had been in Evergreen we hadn’t actually made it in to the town center. Many years ago (and I mean many) I had been through Evergreen on a bus tour and thought it a charming small town with its wooden boardwalks and western feel. I wanted to see if it had changed at all so we made it our first stop of the day. To my surprise, it looked much as I remembered it.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 9 - Evergreen, Colorado

Without the pressure of having to drive to the next night’s accommodation, we’d originally thought we would spend the day exploring Denver, but after driving through the city the previous day that idea no longer appealed. Our host Celia suggested that instead she would take us to MountEvans, the highest auto-accessible point in the country, an offer we eagerly accepted.

Mount Evans is a national park and is only 19 miles from where we were staying in Evergreen, but the trip is mostly on narrow roads winding up to the entrance of the park, a road so popular with cyclists that the journey cannot be hurried. One of the benefits of slow driving, however, is the opportunity to spot wildlife among the trees.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 8 - Raton to Evergreen, Colorado

Raton, New Mexico is so close to the southern border of Colorado that within ten minutes of leaving our motel, we had crossed into Colorado. The scenery ahead changed dramatically with rocky crags and mountain ranges looming large in the distance. 

A three hour drive north on I-25 brought us to the town of Pueblo at an elevation of 4,695 ft. We found a parking lot which must rate as one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen.  

Cross Country Adventure - Day 7 - Elk City, OK to Raton, New Mexico

Ackley Park, Elk City, OK

Day 7 started with a breakfast picnic in a pretty Park opposite our motel followed by a visit to The Old Town Museum which was conveniently located about a block away.

The museum is actually three in one, it has an old town set up with buildings circa 1800’s to mid-1900’s, a farm and ranch museum and a small Route 66 museum.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 4 - Nashville to Memphis TN

 Day 4 of our adventure started with enormous cinnamon buns for breakfast at Barista Parlor in East Nashville, an eclectic cafe complete with motor bikes and vintage cars.

Then it was back on the road again, this time for the relatively short drive to Memphis, Tennessee.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 2 - West Virginia to Nashville, TN

Day 2 of our trip began in a much more leisurely manner than Day 1. It started with a hearty breakfast provided by our hosts, Angela and John, during which we met our fellow guests and exchanged travel stories, followed by a stroll along a quiet lane near the farm. Along the way we watched as a long line of ducks waddled to a nearby stream, and we got a friendly wave from a passing tractor driver. New York seemed like a million miles away.

Cross Country Adventure - Day 1 - NY to Clendenin, WV

Day one of our cross country road trip from NY to LA started off bright and sunny. And early. This would be our longest day of driving, a deliberate decision given that much of the start of the journey would be along a route familiar to us - through New York, New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.  We made good time at first, managing to avoid the rush hour traffic (another benefit of the early start) and, once past Newark, NJ, enjoyed the tree-lined open road.