The Great Curiodyssey

Marc & Sarah's Road Trip Adventure

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The End of The Road

February 18, 2017 By Sarah 16 Comments

Well dear readers, we are both wistful and excited to announce that as of yesterday at 3:20 pm The Great Curiodyssey has come to it’s official end as we rolled back into Berthoud.  We parked in front of my sister’s house in precisely the same spot we pulled away from 315 days ago.

First Day – April 8, 2016
Last Day – February 17, 2017

How do you sum up one of the craziest years of our lives? At times it has ranged from refreshing to tedious, terrifying to comfortable.  We’ve both felt more like our true selves yet stretched beyond what we knew we were capable of.   The truth is, it’s impossible to condense what we’ve seen and felt and experienced into a tidy package.  Every time I try to do it, it sounds cliche and trite, so I’ll let the numbers sum it up:

The Great Curiodyssey By The Numbers:
32,279 – Miles Driven
315 – Days Travelled
88 – Blog Posts Written
138 – Blog Posts Unwritten
44 – States Visited (Including a 6 mile detour to add New Jersey to the list)
26 – National Parks Visited
3 – Canadian National Parks Visited
12 – Other NPS sites visited (National Memorials, Historic Sites, Battlefields, Seashores)
3 – Trailer Tires Replaced
1 – Broken Bone
6 – Black Bear Sightings
6 – Things we have mistaken for bears (deer, tree trunks, squirrels, a stroller, raccoons, and a marmot that we convinced 10 people on a trail that it was a bear in the distance but it was just a lot closer than it appeared).
0 – Moose Sightings.  Boo.
2 – Nights Sleeping in a Cracker Barrel Parking Lot (1 in a blizzard)
5 – Nights Sleeping in a Wal-Mart Parking Lot
11 – Old friends we got to meet up with
2 – Graduations
1 – Wedding
1 – Funeral
Too Many To Count – Laughs, Stars on Clear Nights, Breathtaking Views, Mind-blowing Revelations, Amazing People, Miles Hiked, Moments of Bliss, Awesome Park Rangers, Mysteries of the Earth.

Man, what a ride it has been, and we would like to sincerely thank you for following along with us, offering your suggestions, encouragement and inspirations. On lonely days, it truly felt like we had a crowd of people supporting us.  We are so grateful we were able to share our adventures and a bit of ourselves with you.

Happy Trails.

Filed Under: Just For Fun, Musings Tagged With: adventure, awe, camping, Colorado, inspiration, National Parks, road trip

Be Home Soon

January 12, 2017 By Marc 4 Comments

In one of our first posts on this blog, we posted this quote:

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. Adventure is worthwhile in itself.” -Amelia Earhart

At the beginning of this trip we toyed with how to measure its success. Ultimately, we concluded that the decision to do it was success enough and we should proceed without expectations, without fear, without worry of others’ perceptions.

We’ve done something most people only dream about. We dropped everything—jobs, possessions, inhibitions, anxieties—and set out on a travel adventure with few plans, no advance reservations, and the few necessities that would fit in our small camper and vehicle.

This isn’t meant to sound boastful. On the contrary, my goal is to convince you, dear reader, that this type of adventure is a possibility for anyone. As Ms. Earhart so eloquently put it, “You can do anything you decide to do.” The decision is the only hard part.

So, we have achieved success in that we made the decision to travel, seek adventure, fulfill our odyssey of curiosity.

There are many reasons, but we have decided after 9 months and 30,000+ miles that we will head back home to Colorado soon. We will spend the rest of January with Sarah’s sister’s family in San Antonio, then spend a couple weeks with her folks and another sister in Western Colorado before returning to our home in Loveland by late February.

Some reasons for deciding to return home are predictable. For instance, we’ve spent the last month indoors and have realized how much we miss modern conveniences like running water, the spray nozzle in the kitchen sink, a couch, Wi-Fi, going to the bathroom without shoes, showering without flipflops, doing laundry without quarters, a roof when it’s raining, the feel of carpet on bare feet. These are things we will never again take for granted.

Other reasons for heading home are less predictable but not all that surprising. We really miss our friends. We are in touch with a few friends periodically, and we’ve spent some time with friends we haven’t seen for a while, but our core group in Colorado has been on our minds a lot lately and we want to go see them again.

I miss my band. They’ve been playing without me this year and I’m excited to get back and play some tunes again. There’s nothing like jamming in the basement or on stage to bring people together. I’m also starting a new funk band—something I’ve dreamed about since college.

We knew this would happen sooner or later; we’re almost out of the money we budgeted for the trip. We’ll get into more details of how our money was spent in another post because some of our followers are curious about that for their own trip planning. The funds are dwindling and rather than eat away at more savings, we’re doing the responsible thing and hitting pause.

We are extremely excited for new opportunities. We have learned a lot on this adventure—a list worthy of its own post to come soon—and we are eager to apply new wisdom and philosophy to our everyday life.

New possibilities await us in Colorado and we can’t wait to get started.

Looking at a map of our travels, we’ve been all around the continental United States—everywhere except the Southwest. We haven’t yet made it to Arizona, Southern California, and most of Nevada and Utah. There are a LOT of things to see in those places. Our good friend, Don, speaks so highly of the Southwest that we feel like we’re letting him down by not visiting there. All we can say is that we WILL go there someday to do more exploring. We figure we can travel the Southwest easily from our home base in Colorado eventually, when the timing is right again. We’re not cutting it out, just delaying it a bit.

Great Curiodyssey Route: Loveland, CO to San Antonio, TX (the long way). We’ll finish and publish this map upon our return home.

Sure, there are a few other states we intentionally skipped. Oklahoma and Kansas, I’m sorry, but we’ve been through you before and we didn’t feel the need to return. Rhode Island, we weren’t willing to drive through Boston from the north just to see your tiny cuteness. Hawaii, we can’t drive to you—please move closer. Alaska, we’ll meet someday when we can stay for the summer. I promise.

So, in 9 months we have seen 44 US states and 3 Canadian provinces. We have witnessed 26 US National Parks and 4 more in Canada. We have visited 20+ National Monuments, Memorials, Historic Sites, and Seashores. We have encountered more State Parks and recreation areas than we can begin to count. We have ingested a good portion of the beauty, history, and wonder of our great nation.

I call that a success.

See you back at home.

 

 

Filed Under: Musings, Where We've Been Tagged With: adventure, awe, family, friends, fun, home, inspiration, philosophy

FAQ: What are some of your favorite drives?

November 15, 2016 By Marc Leave a Comment

Before we left our friends Vickie & Daniel gave us the book National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways, a compilation of the best drives in the US as decided by National Geographic.

We’ve used this book quite a bit to help determine a more interesting way to get from point A to point B in some places. Other times we just land upon an awesome drive that we weren’t expecting at all.

I’ve been keeping a running list in my head of my favorite drives along the way. Here are the five most notable ones so far.

5. Iron Mountain, Route 16A, South Dakota
Iron Mountain Highway, South DakotaThe drive between Wind Cave National Park and Mount Rushmore takes you through Custer State Park, where you can’t miss a massive bison herd, over rolling hills, through dense forests and huge grasslands, over several high mountain overlooks, through a few picturesque tunnels, and right up to a surprisingly impressive view of 4 presidents’ faces staring out of the mountain straight ahead.

4. Blue Ridge Parkway & Skyline Drive, North Carolina & Virginia
Blue Ridge ParkwayWe drove this parkway from South (Great Smoky Mountains NP) to North (Shenandoah NP) just after peak color-changing season, but still enjoyed the incredible tunnels of orange and gold through the vast forests of the Appalachians. Many (many!) scenic overlooks provide stunning vistas of the mountains and valleys—still very impressive even to these Rocky Mountain dwellers.

3. Highway 99 from Vancouver to Lillouet, British Columbia
Highway 99 near VancouverAs soon as you leave Vancouver to the north, you’re instantly torn between views of the stunning high mountain peaks to one side and the deep inlets of the ocean fjords to the other side. British Columbia’s coast is edged with fjord after fjord, each of which is surrounded by dramatic mountains that seem to rise right out of the ocean. Along this drive you’ll pass through even more majestic mountains, roadside lakes like glass, and Western Canada’s ski mecca, Whistler.

2. Icefields Parkway, from Jasper to Banff, Alberta
Icefields ParkwayWe live right next to the most impressive mountains in the contiguous United States, but we were mezmerized by the Canadian Rockies. The mountains may not be as tall, but they have been magically carved by thousands of years of glaciers and rivers. The resulting landscape is so imposing and extraordinary that a stop along any section of this parkway to see the glaciers right up close will leave you breathless.

1. Highway 1 & 101, the Pacific Coast Highway, Northern California & Oregon
Pacific Coast HighwayStarting north of San Francisco, this mostly 2-lane highway rolls over seaside hills, across meadows with happily grazing cows, next to cliffs that drop directly into the expansive ocean below, and through the most charming little coastal towns with beautiful cottages and fishing-boat-filled marinas, all the while within view of the seemingly endless Pacific Ocean. You can stop to watch the humpback whales on the sea, take a stroll on a rocky beach, or enjoy one of the many amazing crabmeat sandwiches (or Sarah’s favorite—fresh oysters). This drive will be hard to beat!

 

Filed Under: FAQs, Where We've Been Tagged With: adventure, Alberta, awe, Banff, British Columbia, California, camper, Canada, drives, driving, FAQs, glaciers, Jasper, lakes, North Carolina, ocean, road trip, South Dakota, trees, Vancouver, views, Virginia

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32,279 Miles to Berthoud, CO

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  • The End of The Road February 18, 2017
  • Be Home Soon January 12, 2017
  • Our Holidays and New Year January 9, 2017
  • New Orleans…A City Worth Breaking the Budget December 8, 2016
  • What’s In A Name December 4, 2016
  • Florida State Parks December 1, 2016
  • Everglades National Park November 29, 2016
  • Travel Log: Day 223-227 (11/16-11/20) South Carolina and Georgia November 21, 2016
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