Setting the stage(coach)...starting a traveblog.

So let’s set the stage. My father took me on a two-week trip when I was about Connor’s age, touring in a small RV around Colorado, Arizona and Utah. It was an amazing experience that is still with me today. The trip made real what books in school had taught me about America’s geography, topography, culture and history.

We rolled south from Colorado Springs through Canon City and Royal Gorge, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, Four Corners, the wide flat desert Indian Reservations of Northern Arizona, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, and Arches National Park in Utah, and up back through the Rocky Mountains to Allenspark, CO. 

We hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon along the Bright Angel Trail across the South Kaibab desert in the 120 degree heat of August. We slept under the falling stars and full moon listening to the rush of the Colorado River. We hiked out under that full moon starting at 3 in the morning, arriving back at the South Rim before noon. 

We took what my father now describes as a cheesy, touristy ten-minute helicopter ride over Canyonlands, or maybe Arches National Park, that was monumental to me at that time, and still is in memory.

We fished in the Rocky Mountains above Allenspark, CO in the clearest lake I’ve ever seen – so clear, the fish stared at you wondering why you thought you were so clever with your rod and lure.

It was amazing. And I vowed I would grant my son a similar experience. As he neared 16, began to think I’d better make it happen now before he was not interested in doing anything at all with Dad, and before he was off to college. But I worried about imposing on him my own interest and expectations. So I told him we would take a two week trip, just the two of us, father and son, to anyplace he wished to visit. He responded to me as a teenaged boy – “uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

So I told him I would throw and idea out there and he could veto it. We live about a quarter mile away from US Route 50, the last road in America on which you can drive non-stop coast to coast, starting in Ocean City, MD all the way clear to California. Some time ago, the last stretch from Sacramento to San Francisco was merged with an interstate and renamed I-80. It was my idea to pick up 50 near our home and drive across the country with him, intentionally staying on 50 all the way. By staying off the interstate, it might take longer but we would see America. Small town America. Real America, not Interstate Tourist America. We would eat at roadside stands and get local flavor.

Once across, if we timed it right, we could then drive south to San Diego for ComicCon. I’m a sucker for the super hero movies and the studios like to make major announcements about upcoming films there. Connor is a sucker for all things Star Wars. We’re both a little embarrassingly intrigued by the whole cosplay thing.

Then we could drive back east any way the wind blew. Perhaps I could take my son on the same hike down into the Grand Canyon, though he has not had the backpacking experience I’d already had by the time I went with my dad.

I told him that was my idea. He could opt for something different, maybe a theatre-focused trip to New York City.

I am so thankful he did not veto the cross-country drive, and instead, maybe somewhat surprisingly to me, took to the idea. I think maybe to begin with the idea of doing ComicCon was what grabbed him. I could hope the journey itself, rather than the destination, would sneak in there as the actual lasting memory for him as it did for me.

And so we began to plan. Plot the route. 6,000 miles there and back. And this blog will serve as a travel log for us and for you.  A traveblog, perhaps.

Come along.