2017 Adler San Diego Roadtrip

Starting mileage:  1448 Starting time: 7:30 am Ending mileage: 2030 Ending time: 4:30 pm Travel mileage:  582 Travel time: 9:00 hours After two days of hot and sunny weather, we woke up to light rain and cooler temperatures this morning. It varied from 58 to 64 degrees - I should have checked the temperature before putting on shorts and a t-shirt.😃 The commentators on Fox News were bemoaning the failure of the GOP health care bill - we were relieved although the GOP may still try to kill ObamaCare without a replacement. The drive from Tulsa to Oklahoma City was pretty bad. It was "white knuckle" driving with heavy rain and poor visibility due to all the truck traffic splashing up water with the traffic moving along at 70 mph. After Oklahoma City the rain subsided and the driving wasn't too bad. After deciding yesterday to visit Carlsbad caverns, we looked at the map and seeing Roswell, NM not far away, we decide to stay there for the night. As we traveled fro...

Starting mileage:  1033 Starting time: 9:00 am Ending mileage: 1448 Ending time: 4:00 pm Travel mileage:  415 Travel time: 7:00 hours This morning at the hotel breakfast buffet, Fox News was on the TV, a bit different perspective from what we are accustomed to. The woman at the front desk said that rush-hour traffic around St. Louis was pretty bad so we didn't leave until 9am since we had plenty of time to get to Tulsa. Even so, due to construction, traffic was very slow getting around St. Louis. The terrain changed very quickly after crossing the Mississippi. It was no longer agricultural but mainly rolling hills and forest, with oak trees and shrubby cedar trees. The area of southern Missouri and northern Oklahoma is considered to be the Ozarks. The geology is mainly limestone, with many outcroppings and sheer cliffs. There are also quite a few caverns in this area. After doing Google searches of caverns, we decided to change our route and visit the Carlsbad cavern...

Starting mileage:  356 Starting time: 8:00 am Ending mileage: 1033 Ending time: 6:00 pm (time change to CDT) Travel mileage:  677 Travel time: 11:00 hours We had a fairly long travel day as we wanted to get to Tulsa early enough on Tuesday to check in to our hotel and relaxing before meeting Roger Collins . Ironically, tonight we are staying in Collins ville.😃 Traveling through Pennsylvania and a very short section of West Virginia, the terrain was wooded and hilly with beautiful bright yellow goldenrod and purple asters blooming in the median and along the side of the road. Once we entered Ohio, it became fairly flat and much of the way through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois there were fields of corn, oats and soybeans as far as the eye could see. We were very surprised to twice see dead wild boar along the side of the road. Apparently wild boar are a serious invasive pest that eat food needed by native animals and they also cause damage to agriculture and residential ga...

Starting mileage:  0 Starting time: 9:30 am Ending mileage: 356 Ending time: 6:30 pm Travel mileage:  356 Travel time: 6:30 hours Today we are starting our road trip to San Diego, bringing the things that Amy couldn't take in suitcases when she flew out. The Thule pod on top of the car is stuffed full, a portable air conditioner and other boxes of her things in the back of the car with just enough room for our small suitcases, plug-in cooler and some extra food. It was a warm and muggy morning as we finished loading up. As usual on Sunday morning, we went to church and Carmen was teaching Sunday School. We finished up our church tasks and left just afternoon, stopping at the Ramapo rest area on the Thruway to eat the lunch that we had brought. The traffic coming down the Thruway was very heavy and regularly slowed down to 20-30 mph for no particular other than too many cars. The trip through NJ and PA was uneventful other than it was in the 90s almost all the way ...