I’ve traveled a little bit, but until now I’ve never done a solo cross-country road trip. I left Charlottesville late Friday afternoon heading west in my truck packed with sleeping bags, tents, snowshoes, XC skis plus camera gear. Sunday at sunset found me 1800 miles down the road making this photograph on old route 66 in Eastern New Mexico. Along the way I paused for photographs in the Smokies (Saturday) and  Cadillac Ranch (Sunday, north Texas). I’m  now working my way through southern NM and will spend a couple of days in Santa Fe starting tomorrow doing work and washing clothes. After that my path depends on the weather and snow depth, but I hope to travel through southern Colorado and Utah visiting favorite spots like Bears Ears, Mesa Verde, Canyonlands, and Arches and possibly/eventually Yosemite National Park. My only fixed destination is Berkeley & Northern California for a week camping with Erin the last week in March.

My trip has been pretty cushy compared to past ones when I could only take a limited amount of gear by airplane. I set up my truck for traveling with an extended height cap and built sleeping platform for the back. Its a little tight on space but I’ve slept well while stealth camping at the Smokies, a couple of truck stops and BLM land. I’ve got lots of clothes, boots, binoculars, laptop, my mandolin and stoves for cooking- helped a woman and her daughter cook breakfast today (Day # 5) in White Sands National Park when they forgot theirs. I’ve also got very eclectic collection of audio books to keep me company ranging from a course in comparative religion, Bleak House, Desert Solitare and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows plus guidebooks, novels and a journal.

I’ll post more photos and a link to a Garmin mapshare site once I figure out how. Until then, here is the first verse of an old Woody Guthrie labor song that is my current theme song!

Never Tire of the Road: Woody Guthrie

I was just a small time country boy when I left that dusty town
Route 66 to the Westward when I hopped an old freight down
California, here I come!
By the side door pulling and my sunburnt thumb
They called us okees, low down bums
The police on us frowned
Never tire of the Road!
Never tire of the rolling wheels, Never tire of the ways of the world, way out yonder is calling me
And the dark road leads me onward, and the highway is my code
And that lonesome voice that I heard in my head said
“Never tire of the road!”