Most of my day was spent driving from Superior, Wisconsin to Bemidji, Minnesota. I found an awesome junkyard along the way, and a friendly guy working there welcomed me in and showed me a car with a tree trunk growing right through the grill. I spent the better part of two hours shooting pictures there — yes, I am a nut. But I swear, the midwest has the best old junk cars! Packards and Nashes and Studebakers, oh my!

A few junkyard shots:

Along the way, I also stopped a few times to capture some interesting little scenes from the highway, like this:

In the evening, I arrived at Bemidji and stayed at the KOA there. My site was right next to the cookhouse (oops, or is that Kookhouse), where they were having a weekly hot dog cookout benefit for a local kids with cancer fund. Yay for cheap dinner, especially in the name of a good cause! I got to check out Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox while in town, too.

I departed Munising, MI, and headed west into Wisconsin. Along the way, I encountered an unexpected sight. A dinosaur, grinning happily and holding a fishing rod and a very large silver fish, over a pond alongside the road. I had discovered Lakenenland. A sign greeted me:

Welcome
See 60+ sculptures I’ve made from Scrap Iron along a trail through the woods. That’s it!

Walk or Drive thru open 24/7 and it’s Free. Have fun! Thanks Tom

Well, you don’t have to invite me twice. I took the loop drive through the sculpture park, and must admit, it’s pretty impressive if only for the sheer volume of work. And clearly the artist/metalworker has skills. Apparently, there are forces in the local township who do not appreciate Lakenenland, so many of the figures scattered along the trails have speech bubbles that say various things about the “township man.” For instance, the large green alligator constructed from rebar says, “I want that township man for lunch! Yum Yum.” I took photos of many of the pieces in the park, so I’ll be sure to add some to my Flickr pages.

I then continued along Rt 2 and encountered the aptly named Da Yoopers Tourist Trap. I wandered around a little bit, but the thing that sticks with me most was the overheard encounter between a 30-something mom and her daughter, a tiny blond doll-faced girl who could not have been older than three:

Mom: Ooh, look at that big rifle! What do you think she’s called? Or he. Because I guess guns are all boys.
Girl: But guns don’t have penises or vaginas, so they can’t be a boy or a girl.

Ah, out of the mouths of babes.

So anyway, back on the road, I thought I might visit the Apostle Islands, but I would have gotten there too late in the day to take one of the boat tours, which I believe is the best way to experience the area, so I continued on to Superior, WI, where I planned to spend the night. Just one problem: I got turned around in some highway construction and ended up in Duluth, just across the river, where for some strange reason the most appealing hotel I found was sold out. So back across the river I went to Superior and checked myself into a Days Inn for my first non-camper night of the trip. By that point, it was late and I was tired, so I ordered some Chinese food and crashed for the night.

In my previous post, I mentioned the challenge of whittling down the list of destinations for this trip. Well, I did a good bit of editing, but this is still pretty ambitious. Here’s the overview of my plan:

Leave home (near Annapolis, Maryland) and head west through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and north toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After visiting several destinations in that area (Sleeping Bear Dunes, Pictured Rocks), I’ll continue west through a bit of Wisconsin and Minnesota and into North Dakota, where I’ll visit Roosevelt National Park, and then south into South Dakota, where I’ll get my long-awaited first glimpse of Badlands National Park and the surrounding areas. From there, I’ll continue into Wyoming, to see some of the area east of Yellowstone that I missed on last year’s trip, and then up into Montana. Way up, to Glacier National Park.

From Glacier, I’ll dip back down south through the Idaho panhandle into Washington, where I’m hoping to explore the Palouse region, and then head further south into Oregon. From all I’ve seen and read, I could pretty much make an entire trip out of the state of Oregon, but I’m figuring out how much I can actually see of the central part of the state before heading to the coast, where I’ll meet up with my husband for a few days. After all, this is a long time to be apart!

After visiting the Oregon coast, I’ll head east to Crater Lake National Park, and then southwest toward the California coast and Redwoods National Park. Then it will be time to head east again toward Yosemite and the northern Sierra Nevada mountain area. A visit to Lake Tahoe is on the agenda, and a drive across the “Loneliest Highway” through Nevada to Great Basin National Park. From there I’ll head toward the only national park in Utah I have not yet visited – Canyonlands.

While in the desert southwest, I’d love to revisit some of northern New Mexico,  and the Bisti Badlands have been on my destination list for a while. Then it will be time to head north into Colorado to capture some autumn color in the mountains. Of course, Rocky Mountain National Park is on the agenda. From there, I’ll head east through Kansas and follow a bit of old Route 66 through Oklahoma and Missouri. In Kentucky, I’ll head to Mammoth Cave National Park, and then it’s a quick trip through West Virginia back to Maryland.

Just a little road trip, right?

It looks so easy. At first.

I’m sitting at my dining table with the National Geographic Adventure Edition Road Atlas spread in front of me, opened to the spread of the entire USA. After all, it’s only 20″ wide. Veins of interstate highways snake their way across the country, making it incredibly easy to travel at high speed from one metropolitan area to another. For instance, I find it pretty impressive that you can drive from Baltimore to San Diego, changing roads only once. People have made that drive of 2724 miles in less than four days.

But that’s not my plan. Speed is not the goal. If I were in a hurry to get to the other side of the country, I’d hop on a plane.  My goal is to see parts of the country I have not yet visited. Over the years, I’ve collected lists of destinations that intrigue me. I’ve torn pages from magazines, bookmarked blogs and websites, and faved photos on Flickr, all in preparation for my travels. This trip is a great opportunity to cross a bunch of destinations off my list, so I found myself marking dozens of spots on the pages of my road atlas, only to realize that if I went to all the places I want to see in this one trip, I’d be gone for two years, not two months. And so comes the process of editing and prioritizing.

When I tell people what I’m up to, I tend to get one of two reactions: either they think I’m crazy, or they wish they were going. I would say the latter group outnumbers the first one by a factor of 10:1. Such is the mystique of the great American road trip.

For me, the fascination took hold 15 years ago, the first time I traveled to the western part of the USA. Until that point, I’d never been further west than Milwaukee. I flew to Los Angeles for a friend’s wedding and afterward, I rented a car and embarked on a solo, two-week loop through the desert southwest.

On that trip, I got an amazing introduction to the National Parks of the west: Joshua Tree, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Arches, Capitol Reef, Mesa Verde, Petrified Forest. I visited Santa Fe, Taos, and Sedona. I drove part of old Route 66 through California and Arizona. I had the surreal experience of being greeted by the neon and noise of Las Vegas on the fourth of July after two weeks spent mostly in the wilderness.

I was hooked. On the desert, on travel, and on road trips. Almost as soon as I returned home, I was ready to plan another adventure. I’ve visited the desert southwest several times since then, and it remains one of my favorite destinations in the world, but I’m almost always thinking about my next trip, whether it’s here in the US or elsewhere.

However, in my travels to date, I’ve never driven coast to coast. I decided this year that I didn’t want to put it off any longer.

First of all, welcome! I started this blog to document my two-month road trip across the United States, driving my Toyota Prius, pulling along a very small teardrop trailer. Here’s a picture:

The trailer is made by a company called Little Guy, and the model, known as the Rascal, is pretty much the smallest tear available, as far as I can tell. It’s so small that people regularly ask if I truly intend to sleep in it. Lots of people seem to think it’s for our dogs.

But no, it’s for me. Basically, it’s little more than a tent on wheels, plus a little bit of storage space. I figure if the Rascal is small and light enough to be pulled by a motorcycle, my Prius can handle it. On my test drives, I can barely tell there’s a trailer back there. This setup allows me to drive my own car (it’s hard to beat 45 mpg!) and camp without having to pitch a tent or find a motel every night.

My plan is to drive across the country, from the east coast to the west coast and then back again, taking photographs along the way. I’ll concentrate on National Parks and other scenic places, via backroads and byways, and capture glimpses of small-town (and sometimes ghost-town) America. If you’ve checked out my website, you can tell I have a fascination with not only the natural world, but the world of abandoned and decaying manmade things. Along the way, I’ll use this site to share some stories and, of course, photos. Stay tuned!