California to Nebraska in a round about way ... again.

Stick Figure

Observer
Warning while the trip is over, the photos and video sorting is not. It will take me a "few days" to finish this up!

Background:

I grew up in Omaha, Ne and moved to southern California several years ago for work. After dragging all of my belonging out over several trips, plus holiday visits I had reached my limit of driving the direct route. A few years back I took a job in San Jose California, and that made this drive EVEN WORSE! Now I could literally leave the Bay Area jump on the 80, and a few (28) long hours later I would be there. Obviously we needed more adventure to make this trip bearable and so we have been taking more creative routes ever since.

This year I let my girlfriend do a lot of the planning and added a few suggestions as I found time to look at the maps. Overall it worked out well, and as usual the biggest complaint was the need to come home.

Here we go:

Day Zero:

How can you have a day zero? Simple you include a few days of prep and leave early.
DSC00255-1024x684.jpg

New for this year, the Delorme In Reach Explorer. With around 270k miles on the 4Runner at the time of departure I was starting to get a bit nervous about the inevitable issues. The truck hasn't give us any recent issues, and didn't on the trip, but it was time to be a bit safer. The tracking ability was an awesome added bonus.

DSC00307-1024x682.jpg


Fresh set of Duratracs on a spare set of Tundra wheels. My previous set was too new to get rid of, but not fresh enough to be prepared for anything.

DSC00305-1024x768.jpg


Finally a new wiper switch. I have been dealing with a non working "intermittent" and wipers that don't know where to park for several years, and for $130 and 10 min of install I have no idea why I didn't do this sooner.

DSC00301-1024x682.jpg


A change in fridges mid year from my Whynter to an ARB unit ment I needed to figure out mounting. I had previously build brackets for the Whynter to move the mounts to the bottom of the fridge, but the ARB was easier to just pull straps down from the handles themselves. I did a quick false floor out of some spare wood, and put a few 1" holes through it to allow some endless loop straps to mount through. (Same with the water and chains just not pictured). There is still more to be done, but for an afternoon of work it was a lot better than dealing with unsecured items or a tangled mess of ratchet straps.

Day-0-1024x514.jpg


We left a little ahead of schedule for once and departed San Jose around dinner time on "Day Zero" and got out to Fresno California. While this wasn't a huge distance to go it got us away from the traffic that would have been a huge hold up the next day.

Day One:

DSC00310-1024x575.jpg


A fairly clean 4Runner ready to get going in the hotel (yeah I said the H word!) parking lot on day one.

Day-1-Edit-1024x473.jpg


Day one had one of my route additions which was the cut through of the Death Valley area.

Somewhere along the way we found this quaint little house to stop for a bit lunch:
DSC02349-1024x575.jpg


DSC02348-Pano-1024x573.jpg


DSC00326-1024x575.jpg

Last minute "sandwhich shelf" addition in action!

Shortly after lunch we made our way into Death Valley.

DSC02387-1024x574.jpg


DSC02378-HDR-1024x682.jpg


DSC02393-HDR-1024x575.jpg


We didn't spend a ton of time, but you have to stop for some tourist photos. Really, we spent just enough time in Death Valley to know we need to come back and wonder why we haven't been here before.

DSC02401-2-1024x575.jpg


Dinner time snap of the 4Runner somewhere over the Nevada boarder.

DSC02406-1024x682.jpg


Final photo of the day is from the Valley of Fire State Park just north of Las Vegas, Nevada where we stopped for the night.

More Photos from day 1http://mostdesigns.com/brandon/?p=1296
 
Last edited:

Stick Figure

Observer
Day 2

Day-2-1024x580.jpg


Day two started just before sunrise at the Valley of Fire in Nevada.

DSC00378-1024x682.jpg


I have driven by the exit to this area so many times before, but never actually bothered to look it up and what a mistake.

DSC00373-Pano-1024x1020.jpg


While you aren't getting your tires too dirty here, the scenery is great.

DSC04687-1024x576.jpg


DSC02421-Edit-1024x576.jpg


And there is plenty of Petroglyphs and hiking available.



DSC00393-1024x576.jpg


DSC00401-HDR-1024x576.jpg


We spent the better part of the day in the area, before eventually headed out towards Utah.

DSC02638-1024x682.jpg


Once over the border we headed through the southern portion of Zion National Park on highway 9.

DSC02594-1024x682.jpg


DSC00512-1024x575.jpg


Plenty of wildlife around in Zion, but we didn't spend much time exploring here.

DSC02648-HDR-1024x1024.jpg


Last shot of the day before putting the cameras away and heading towards Moab. Sadly we did not stop in to check out the Ho-Made Pies.

more photos from day 2http://mostdesigns.com/brandon/?p=1359
 

Stick Figure

Observer
Day 3

Day-3.jpg


Day 3 Started off in Moab Utah, and was one of my additions to the itinerary.

DSC00514-1024x575.jpg


This wasn't our first time in the area, but it was the first time here with out a ton of snow.

DSC02691-Pano-1024x667.jpg


Snow has never really scared me by itself, but covering an unknown trail and traveling alone means we have always taken the "better safe than sorry" approach.

DSC04724-1024x575.jpg


This year we couldn't have asked for better winter weather.

DSC00524-1024x575.jpg


Temps in the mid 60's (guessing) and no rain or snow meant we could finally enjoy this great area.

DSC02658-HDR-Edit-1024x576.jpg


We spent the morning taking in all of the views on the easy rated "Chicken Corner" trail.

DSC02666-1024x576.jpg


Simply amazing views, and a very minimal number of people to share them with.

DSC00528-1024x682.jpg


For the afternoon we headed off to the "Gemini Bridges" trail.

[video]https://youtu.be/jGERT5BV4uM[/video]

One of the additions I made prior to this trip was picking up a dash cam. In previous years we've taken a bit of video, but honestly never focused on it. This means we had a lot of boring clips and a few "I wish I would have been recording that" moments. I pieced the above video together from a mix of both, and then threw in a couple of the stills just to mix things up. Don't be too harsh, this was my first video editing exercise! lol

DSC02729-HDR.jpg


The drive to the bridges themselves wasn't a difficult trail by any means, but this was more about seeing something new and taking in some amazing scenery.

DSC02741-1024x575.jpg


And in that aspect it did not disappoint.

DSC00569-Pano-1024x575.jpg


More from day 3 http://mostdesigns.com/brandon/?p=1391
 

Stick Figure

Observer
Day 4

Day-4-1024x636.jpg


Day 4 had a very chilly start just before dawn standing in front of a dark arch at Arches National Park in Utah.

DSC02806-1024x576.jpg


The tripods were set up and we paced back and forth in the 17 degree weather waiting for the sun.

DSC02816-1024x671.jpg


The sun eventually came up but mostly just to show us that whatever site we had gotten out info from it was either wrong, or we did something wrong. The magical morning was turning bland rather quickly.

DSC02820-HDR-Edit-1024x576.jpg

We snapped what we could and moved on. First to Turret Arch (above) which is really right next to the North and South windows that we started at. While the sun did light it up nicely, if I want to be honest the clouds are 100% fake. Well not fake, they are real clouds, they just weren't actually there then that day.

DSC00581-Edit-1024x682.jpg


Just down the road from here is the Double Arch. To really get up to it, you are in for a bit of a walk, but nothing strenuous.

DSC00589-1024x682.jpg


Our next arch to bag was Delicate Arch. This is probably the most famous and probably where were should have started our day. Of course its easy to say that now. From the main parking area this arch is 1.5 miles and 480 ft (up) away from your vehicle. I missed the turn and went a bit down the road to what was suppose to be a scenic view point of this arch. I assumed by scenic view point it would be a good view from the car or remotely close to the car, and thought it might be a good place to start. I grabbed my A6000 with 32mm Ziess lens and started down the path to see what you could see. It turns out this is a longer walk than I thought it would be. At half a mile its not crazy, but it is fairly steep, and to be honest really wasn't worth the walk. If you have to do it, take a lens with a bit of magnification. Had I grabbed my 400mm, there might be a photo here.

DSC00608-HDR-1024x576.jpg

We headed back to the main parking lot for Delicate Arch, but it was apparent that this is where everyone in the park was at. We skipped it. Our next stop was the Fiery Furnace view point for some brunch. This area is something that you can actually see from the parking lot! I'm sure its better up close, but if you want to see that then there is a "Ranger Guided Tour" in your future.

DSC02868-Pano-1024x1024.jpg

The Sand Dune Arch was easily my favorite arch of the trip.

DSC02876-HDR-1024x576.jpg

Honestly my only regret was not bringing out the Lego Storm Troopers to recreate a droid search scene or two!

DSC02883-1024x682.jpg


DSC02886-1024x682.jpg


DSC02893-Pano-1024x576.jpg


On the way out of the Sand Arch, you can see Broken Arch off in the distance. There is a spur trail that heads out towards this, but I'm not sure how far off it really goes. We walked a bit down that way, but didn't follow it to the end.

DSC02906-1024x576.jpg


The Devils Garden Trail head along with a 0.7 mile hike to Tunnel Arch.

DSC02918-HDR-1024x576.jpg

Followed by Pine Tree Arch.

DSC02947-HDR-Edit-1024x576.jpg


And Finished up with Landscape Arch. At Landscape we were now around 2 miles from the truck and the trail would go "Primitive" if you wanted to go farther. Had it been a bit warmer I would have pushed to see more, but as it was we decided to leave something to see in the future.

DSC02928-HDR-Edit-1024x576.jpg

We made our way back to the truck.

DSC02971-HDR-682x1024.jpg


On the way out we stopped to see some of the non arch scenery. Like the Three Gossips,

DSC02973-Edit-1024x576.jpg


Sheep rock, and the others around the Park Avenue area.

At this point we had to make a decision of where we were headed next. Due to weather in the past we have learned to over book ourselves knowing at least half of what we wanted to do would get scratched off due to rain, snow, wind, cold, or some combination of those. This years weather didn't screw us which actually screwed us anyway. Jamie had planned for Canyonlands National Park next, and I had of course changed that to the White Rim Trail. If you know that trail then you know it isn't short, and generally require two days at the minimum to make it worth while. Knowing this we reluctantly had to put this back in the future plans once again or risk being late for Christmas with the family.

We ended up in Rifle Colorado for the evening.

More Pictures: http://mostdesigns.com/brandon/?p=1431
 

Stick Figure

Observer
Map-1.jpg


Day 5 starts off in Rifle Colorado and things shift from an adventure to more of a traditional Road Trip.

DSC00617.jpg


We saw lots of scenery at speed.

DSC00618.jpg


And lots of um "scenery" still at speed.

The only real stop of the day was to finally find my Grandpas burial sight. We've asked before, but never had great directions to find it.

DSC02982-HDR.jpg


This year we had better directions, and we reached the church just as the sun was setting.

DSC02980-HDR.jpg


We had just enough time to grab a couple of photos. More importantly however after a few failed attempts and a few "I wish we had more light"s, I finally know exactly where it is making it a bit easier to stop by in the future.

Map-2-1024x652.jpg


Day 6 through 14 was spent in Omaha, some of the time with family, some of the time doing some exploring, and well some of the time eating.

Downtown Omaha:

DSC00774.jpg


Downtown Omaha is full of unique shops and vintage brick buildings.

DSC00665.jpg


We did some shopping and we did some shooting. It's a bit hard for me to be excited about this part since we have been here more than a few times before and well I grew up here, so I feel like I've seen it all before. Even if I haven't.

Hummel Park:
DSC03009.jpg




Hummel Park has a legitimate history, and if you look for it, you will probably find more myths about ghost stories and paranormal activity than anything based in facts about the park.

DSC00730.jpg


The "Morphing Stairs" for example have plenty of write ups talking about how you can never count them, but not much more about the real history. Regardless of the history real or fake, the park certainly has a spooky feel to it.

The Food:

DSC03040.jpg


Growing up in the midwest meant growing up on burgers and Nebraska BEEF in general.

DSC00639.jpg


To say California's food options don't really do it for me would be an understatement and then some.

DSC02991.jpg


The remaining photos and info from these days can be found here.
 

Cottontail

Easy Street on Mud Tires
Golly, I haven't been to a Godfathers since I moved from Iowa. Get you a Casey's Pizza and a pork tenderloin sandwich somewhere and your trip is complete!
 

EDR

Observer
It sure is hard to beat Runza. I grew up an hour south of Omaha and miss Runza and Amigos a lot. Your pictures are absolutely gorgeous and that's one good looking 4runner.
 

fortel

Adventurer
Omaha is a pretty cool town. We love to go up and visit. Nebraska overall I think is underrated. The Sandhills along with the northwest part of the state are some of my favorite places to travel.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,529
Messages
2,875,555
Members
224,922
Latest member
Randy Towles
Top