In 2013, my Christmas Escape destination was a West Virginia state park and since then I’ve escaped to state parks in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Last year, I didn’t escape to anywhere as travel was seriously curtailed by the ongoing pandemic. I’m a little excited to again hit the road and quite happy to be returning to West Virginia. Before I get to Hawks Nest State Park for a Christmas Day buffet, I’ll stop at a couple of other West Virginia parks, and before that, I take note of the Winter Solstice. That’s the Winter Solstice sunrise at Fort Ancient in the photo.

This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

I just posted the journal for the first day of a trip that will take me out of Ohio heading east on US-20 and see me return on US-20 from the west. In between, I intend to get to the west coast by following the Yellowstone Trail from one end to the other. The eastern portions of the trip will be through semi-familiar territory and the two routes even overlap quite a bit. West of Illinois, the two paths separate from each other as well as from places I have been.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

I don’t believe I have ever taken a birthday trip before but it seems like a pretty good reason to break away from this semi-hibernation and do a little traveling. The trip is a short one that barely gets outside of Ohio, but it is the first trip of the year and I’m really looking forward to it.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

One hundred years ago today, my great-grandparents left their home in Woodington, Ohio, and set out for Florida. This morning, I left my home near Cincinnati, Ohio, drove north to Woodington, then I too set out for Florida. I am following their path but not their schedule. They started around noon, drove a half-dozen miles to Greenville, had some work done on their Model T Ford, and spent the night with relatives. I was in and out of Woodington well before noon and my first day ended in Georgetown, Kentucky, 125 miles or so south of Greenville.

I made this trip once before in 2001 with nice August weather and no pandemic. I have a pretty good idea how traveling in November differs from traveling in August, but how the current COVID-19 pandemic will affect this trip is an open and rather large question. There is little to suggest that motels in and of themselves are particularly dangerous, and that is also mostly true for restaurants as well. But people are an entirely different story. Meeting people is easily one of the things I enjoy most about road trips. I always look forward to chatting with my neighbors at a counter or bar, but that’s really going to be at a minimum this time around. I can see eating a lot of carry-out and possibly microwaving packaged meals in my room. I’ve even tried to mentally prepare myself for aborting the trip if conditions grow worse. Starting on the 100 year anniversary was very important to me and finishing this year is pretty important, too, but I’m going to try to not be stupid.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.

For the first time this year, I’m sleeping somewhere other than home. I’ve left home to travel to the far corner of Ohio and back much as I did in 2001. Outbound will be on US-42 with the return on OH-3/3C Highway. It has been so long since I’ve been on an actual road trip that I forgot to make a blog post this morning when the first day’s journal was published but I did finally remember.

This entry is to let blog only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.