Blind Techie

I am home.  I arrived at 2:45am.  As soon as I can get caught up on some sleep, mail, email, laundry, and other errands, I will update you all on how the trip went.  I am sorry to everyone that I was not able to update the blog like I promised.

Now that I am in Delaware and have got a stable connection, I can write some updates.

10AM PHX Time Feb 12th

I pull out out of the house with a full trunk, and even a tripod for a friend in Joplin, MO,  and head out for a few errands around town.  I get a full tank of gas, stop for some mexican canned beans for a friend in TN, that I will stop and see on my way home.  I stop for a soda.  And My final stop before I Head out of town is to get my bioptic glasses readjusted.  I would recommend to anybody getting ready to undertake any size trip out of town, do NOT do that unless you have a couple of days to use them before hand.  I got a sore spot on my nose that would not go away till after i got to Delaware.  But I do wanna thank the Sun City office for doing the adjustment, it was needed.

By the time I got all of these errands done, it was close to Noon.  A little later then I wanted.  But I knew I have all the time in the world.  This first leg was a leg i had done once before. See my post about Winslow.  So this leg was a breeze.  I had a smooth drive up the mountain, but I was getting hungry by the time I got to Flagstaff, but I stuck it out to Winslow, knowing it was only 30ish miles away from there.

I arrived to Winslow in good time, and it was windy.  I did stop and eat Dinner, knowing my next leg was the longest planned for the whole trip out.  I had a nice dinner and it was a good chance to get out and stretch.  I have pics to come.  It took me about and hour and half for lunch and getting data written down so that I can blog about it.

Pulled out and headed east, and it was pretty smooth sailing along I40.  I did start to get a little sleepy on the east side of the Border of Arizona, not sure if this was from driving, being up since 3AM, or from just eating food about an hour or so ago. Not long after I started to get that way, I found a rest area, so i pulled over and got out and stretched, and even layed back for a few mins, bit could not fall asleep   The urge for sleep was gone by this point, so i hoped back in the car and took off again.

248 miles later, I arrive in Albuquerque after dark.  the view is gorgeous,  The stop is just before town and up on the side of the mountain, and looking out and over is nice. Time to move on.

I have a friend loaning me his XM radio, and it was so nice to have along for the ride.  the only problem I experienced so far was that the battery died about an hour after winslow, and I was not prepared for that with triple A batteries.  so i had to play with the radio to find a station that would come in.  So i picked up more batteries at this stop.  Not bad 6 hours on one set of batteries.  the last about a day from this point on.

What a trip so far.  I am having computer dificulties getting connected.  I am sitting here in St Louis, Mo and it is 12 degrees and wind is blowing.  BRRRR  I am waiting a little bit before I pull out.  Letting the roads clear out, and it has been snowing a couple of days ago, so I need to let some of the snow and ice melt.

I will be heading to Delaware today.  I will blog with pics once I get there and get my computer up and running again.  

What a trip so far.  But it has been well worth it.

Wow, what a year this has been. One of my goals after getting my drivers license was to drive home to Delaware. Well that time is fast approaching. I will be leaving the Phoenix area on Monday the 12th, and making some nice stops to see some old friends.

I will try to post as I go, It may be daily or at every stop, depending on how I feel. Below you will see a map of approximate route of travel. Ignore the Yellow boxes with stop #s in them. I pulled this map from MS Streets & Trips 2007. Wish me luck.

Below, you will see an excerpt from a friends Blog of our Road Trip to San Diego. Enjoy…

Monday, 01-15-07 12:43 PM AZMT
Well my buddy Norman and I are on the road headed for San Diego today. Norman has this cool high speed cellular internet access thing with Sprint so we’re going 65 down state highway 95 headed south from Quartsite towards Yuma, blogging live from my laptop.

Our next stop is Gray’s Well Road (BLM land) to see the old Plank road. I’ve been wanting to see this thing for years. We just found a geocache in Yuma (No Wheresville AZ).

Okay, feeling sick and I don’t want to puke in Norman’s new car. More later!
2:47 PM PST
We’re in California!

I finally made it to the plank road. It’s one of the old roads used at the beginning of the automobile era, make like a boardwalk. It’s in disrepair and it seems obvious I’m the only person in the world who wants to see it but parts were still there and I can now check it off my list of things to do. Norman and I walked to the top, got sand in our shoes, ears, noses and mouths and headed back to continue our trip to San Diego. As I write this in the car, we have 105…now 104 miles to go, according to GPS (giggle, snort).

8:47 PM PST
Checked in a few hours ago at the Travelodge, had some dinner at Pizza Bella in Old Towne and now (yawn) I’m getting ready to go to bed. Norman and I both got 3 and a half hours sleep last night. I got up with Chris 3:30 AM and went to work with him where Norman was waiting for a switch-off. And now we’re paying for that early morning. Tomorrow morning we’ll grab some tourist brochures, have some cheapo yummy breakfast at Ikea in Mission Valley and then probably head over to the aircraft carrier museum in the harbor. Been wanting to check that out for a while. Here are a few more pics to end this day:

It was really windy through the mountain passes. I noticed someone installed some windmills since the last time I went this way 4 or 5 years ago.

It was also very cold. Cold enough that there was snow on the ground at 4000 feet, just outside of San Diego.

Gas is expensive in California. We paid $2.599 a gallon on this last fillup outside of San Diego. Back in Tennessee I last paid $2.069. Fortunately Norman’s car gets up to 35 mpg.

City driving is crazy. But we were almost there.
That’s it for tonight. Night!