Road Trips

Argentine Pass

First, a few words about walking. It is hard to say with great accuracy where I am on the American Discovery Trail, because Google Maps and the Trail website have a profound difference of opinion regarding the walking distance between Denver and Winfield, Colorado, but a little calculation suggests that, maybe, I am about 5 miles short of the Argentine Pass, highest point on the trail. It is in the thirties there now, at least during the warm part of the day. Cold at night.

I noticed that I forgot to mention an important milestone on the trail. This may be a bit of review of earlier posts, but there are two ways to cross the country on the American Discovery Trail. Just west of Cincinnati, the trail splits into two routes, one more northern, the other more southern. The northern fork goes through a bit of Ohio, then Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, then into Colorado, and that is the route I took. The southern route goes about one mile in Ohio, then through more southern Indiana and Illinois, then Missouri, Kansas, and into Colorado. The two forks meet in Denver, and then there is only one trail the rest of the way to the Pacific Ocean. I passed Denver about 80 miles back, so now the people who took the southern route are walking with me, probably walking past me since I am slow.

Jackie and I both like to travel, and we both enjoy road trips. It's good to be compatible, at least in some manner. Road trips are comfortable, and there is a lot to see across the country, and we have fun. It is not the most climate-friendly option; that would be something like walking or biking, but a bus or train is a good option too. Driving is better than flying though, maybe. The Internet seems a bit conflicted about that, especially for long trips.

Anyway, we're driving, to Washington for a medical appointment and Thanksgiving, to San Francisco for a bridge tournament, back to Washington, then back to New Mexico. 23 days total.

On our trips, Jackie does the driving. She does not like being in the passenger seat all day, and she gets impatient with my driving because I do not drive more than about 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. She drives faster. I, on the other hand, do not mind being a passenger and do not mind Jackie's driving. Look at me, so easygoing.

We have determined a favorite path from here to Washington and back, based on a few trips. It is not what Google Maps or our car's navigation recommends, which would be through Utah, Idaho, and Oregon. Instead, we will take Interstate 40 from Albuquerque to Barstow, California, then some smaller highway from Barstow to I-5 near Bakersfield, then I-5 all the way to Lacey, WA, so just under 1,000 miles on I-5. The reason for that route is that the more direct way, especially through Utah, involves smaller roads, getting stuck behind slow traffic and trucks trying to pass each other, and Jackie doesn't like those roads. When you are driving all day, it helps to be relaxed, and smaller roads stress her out.

A little more detail about how we split the driving: in a typical 9-hour day driving, the driving time will be split about like this:

Jackie: 9 hours

Me: Maybe a minute.

I usually drive a little because when we stop for gas, usually at a big stop like a Love's, Jackie goes inside to use the bathroom, while I pump the gas. Then I get in and move the car from the pumps to the front of the store. And that's pretty much it for my driving. Maybe a minute if we stop a few times.

I will try to take pictures.

It Isn't SAD Here

 

November in Washington had a definite dreary feel to it. In Olympia, November is the rainiest month and the beginning of the rainiest season. It also gets colder, of course. But most importantly, it gets dark. The days get really short in Washington, and the time change makes it seem worse. But beyond that, it's dark even during the day, as it is very common to have clouds all across the sky for days at a time, so that the sun never even peeks through.

According to the Internet, average rainfall in November in Olympia is almost 10 inches. In Western Washington, that much rain means that it's cloudy and rainy, then just cloudy, then cloudy and rainy again, then it's night. It's a bit depressing. The winter weather affects some people enough that they have a name for it: Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. I was never affected at anywhere near a level that would be diagnosed as SAD, but let's just say that I always liked it when we got to February, and the weather got warmer, and the days got longer.

Several people I knew in Washington only lived there part of the year and bailed out during the winter, spending a few months in places like Palm Springs or Arizona.

New Mexico is a little different. This is the type of place someone from Washington might want to stay from November to February. Here, November is the start of the dry season. Although all 12 months could be called the dry season, November is the first of eight straight months with average rainfall of less than one inch. (The other four months get less than two inches each.) The Internet says that today was only 15 minutes longer here than it was in Olympia, but by December 21, the difference will be an hour and 15 minutes. (That seems like a lot of change in a short period of time, but hey, it's the Internet - must be right.) It's warmer here too, with daily high temperatures around 70 degrees this week. But the biggest difference is that it is not overcast here. I took the picture above the other day at Cabezon Park, near my house, just to illustrate what it looks like nearly all the time. It's sunshine and little white clouds day after day after day. Nothing to be SAD about.

Next Friday, we will head back to Washington for a medical appointment for Jackie. She had a kidney stone, and they installed what amounts to a temporary fix back in September, but the stone is still there. She flew back today for a pre-procedure appointment and is flying home tomorrow. When we drive back next week, it will be for another procedure to break up the stone. Then will have Thanksgiving with the boys, then drive to San Francisco for a week for a national bridge tournament, then back to Washington for a final procedure to remove a stent (the temporary fix.) In all, it will be 23 days of travelling, and it will feel good to get that done. Since September, Jackie has had some discomfort with the stent in, so hopefully we can get back home, she will feel better, and we can begin to travel around our new state.

Changing Goals

I have not gotten tired of the balloons yet, and I take a picture or three almost every day. This one flew almost straight over the house. Yesterday and today were the first days we have seen balloons launched in the afternoon, and some of those launched from a site very near us.

For those of you who read my blog on occasion - I think that there are at least three of you based on the feedback I get occasionally - you may have noticed that I have not posted about walking much lately. I would give two reasons for that: one, I have gotten tired of trying to get 10,000 steps every day, and two, I have been moving for the last seven months, and that has consumed my energies.

Well, I am ready to declare the moving over. It isn't really, but there is always stuff to do even when we are not moving, and we have settled in enough to call it done. As for the 10,000 steps, I am scaling back, setting a new, much more modest goal, of 6,000 steps per day. The trip from Washington to Miami that I finished in 2023 was really amazing, and I can hardly believe I did it, but it is not like me to sustain my interest at that level forever. And after all, I am four years older than I was when I started that walk. Anyway, 6,000 steps is not such a bad goal.

Now that we are settled in, Arlo and I take a 4,000-step walk, more or less, each day, and the other 2,000 steps cone from normal activities. So, with that goal in mind, my current streak is - 4 days! Even that won't continue too long, because I have a bridge tournament next weekend, and it's hard to get steps in when you sit at a table and play cards all day.

Today was the first time in months that I have looked at the American Discovery Trail website to track my progress, and it turns out that they have revamped the website. The new look is much better, with more consistent and up-to-date descriptions of the trail segments, so I should have a better idea of where I am and what sites I am passing. It turns out that I am past Denver, Colorado, in the portion of the trail that crosses four passes over 12,000 feet in elevation, including Argentine Pass, the highest point of the trail at 13,107 feet, at the Continental Divide.

My next goal is to make my way west of my current location in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, and this point is still about 200 miles down the trail, somewhere west of Winfield, Colorado. Sometime next year...

Some of the walls in my neighborhood are decorated.

The Sandia Mountains from my neighborhood. The Sandias stand up to the east of Albuquerque, more than 5,000 feet over the city, which is at 5,000 feet elevation. They are not the tallest mountains in New Mexico, but around here they dominate the landscape.