Cross Country-Trek

(By John)

After spending a few short days in both Cleveland and Cincinnati, the moving van was packed up, and I set off West for San Diego. 2,200 miles, give or take.

DAY 1, 600 Miles, Cincinnati, Ohio to Springfield, Missouri, 11-plus hours

Passing first through the Blue Grass state, the Kentuck River, seen below indeed caught my eye, and was very "Kentucky-ish"

BTW--being camera-less for the time being means I googled all of these photos, but seriously, I saw stuff like this.













From Kenutcky, I crossed over Indiana and Illinois. While fine states in-and-of-themselves, nothing much very noteworthy happened in my trek across these two states other than experiencing the SLOW passage of time (my apologies to any Hoosiers or Illini reading this...)

Upon crossing into Missouri, and seeing the St Louis arch, I finally felt I was getting somewhere.













Unfortunately, I still had 2/3 of the state to traverse before reaching Springfield for my first night's stay. Luckily, I took in beautiful views of the thickly forested, rolling hills of the Ozark Mountains...
















DAY 2, 841 Miles, Springfield, Missouri to Albuquerque, New Mexico, 14.5 hours

Yep that is right, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and then New Mexico!

I was struck by the rolling hills of Oklahoma. I expected it to be much flatter.













Also striking were the wind farms (and the wind these machines were harvesting that continually tried to blow me from the road). I was frankly somewhat startled when I first saw them, hulking in the distance with their methodical, relatively slow movements. I had never seen them before and was struck by how organic they looked and moved.


















In addition to fighting the strong winds blowing across Oklahoma, Northern Texas and New Mexico, I also fought being distracted by the many interesting attractions along historic Route 66 such as the Cadillac Ranch pictured below outside Amarillo, Texas.














Besides the historic Route 66, it was difficult not to be awestruck by the amazing landscape of New Mexico.














Its mesas were otherworldly.



















Being so flat, the landscape enables one to really have amazing views of thunderstorms and weather in-action... I saw a storm like this outside of Albuquerque.














DAY 3, 650 Miles, Albuquerque, New Mexico to Yuma, Arizona, 10.5 hours

The remaining miles of New Mexico did not disapoint. Nor did the distance covered in Arizona. I was amazed by the diversity of environments such as the amazing rock formations and various vantage points from which one can enjoy them.


















One the final stretch before coming to Yuma, where I am spending the night, I passed through the Sonora desert. Even though it was REALLY HOT and DRY, the landscape was rich with different cacti and other plant/tree-like things.