I used GPS the entire way, running off of a custom map of pins we had created for the trip.

I’m continually amazed at how much easier and less stressful it is to drive in unfamiliar areas using GPS than before—especially navigating crowded city centers, areas with only one-way roads, and spaghetti freeway intersections.

There’s nothing like avoiding an hour-long backup by getting a notice of it early enough that you can take a far better alternative. And it’s nice to know about road hazards and speed traps in advance, too. And getting a heads up as to which lane to be in for your turn is quite handy. And it’s especially great when it recalculates a new route if you miss your turn. Or remind you what the speed limit is on that rural highway that doesn’t seem to have a sign.

GPS can be an absolutely amazing tool for roadtrips.

Unfortunately, as GPS moves you through the streets of an unknown city with ease, it does so in a dis-orienting way. You don’t get the same sense of the geography when you’re simply following an arrow on the map. That’s especially true when that map remains, nearly always, intently zoomed into just the block or two you’re currently traversing—never pausing to lift its head up and look further afield.

As a result, you rarely get to orient yourself to the shape or layout of a city in the same way you naturally would if looking at a paper map. It’s hard to know which way is north, or what you’re bypassing by taking this particular route.

When someone asks me where I visited in a city—was that brewery on the east side of town, or the southwest? I might struggle because I’m not sure; I just followed the turns the GPS told me to, got in the correct lanes when it said to, and followed the blue line on the map. I don’t really know where I went.

I routinely drive through many small towns on my trips. Too often I find that I’m routed around historic downtowns or otherwise interesting neighborhoods—sometimes without even realizing it—simply for efficiency’s sake. I’ll be directed to turn right three blocks before the historic old courthouse to miss the only stoplight in town, cutting a corner off to save a minute or two, but also missing the only thing I’d find interesting about the place. This ruthless efficiency is great for your daily commute. But it’s less than ideal when the point is exploring along your route.

That relentless optimization is the biggest downside for me. There’s simply no way to prioritize a scenic or interesting route—just the most efficient one. So I’m routinely forced to add otherwise meaningless waypoints along the route I want to take, just to ensure that it will be offered as a choice to select.

And since these apps often “find a faster route” and automatically override your current route unless you opt out in time, these waypoints become critical for taking the slightly longer but far more enjoyable route.

Like I said, GPS can be an absolutely terrible tool for roadtrips.

The post Why GPS sucks for roadtrips, and why I’ll still never drive without it appeared first on rscottjones.

Along the way, we stopped at the Blythe Intaglios, a series of rock geoglyphs near the Colorado River. Because it had rained just before we left Arizona, some roads in Mojave were a bit rough and the park ranger suggested we stick to just a few parts of the park. We spent some time at the Kelso Depot and Kelso Dunes, and camped and hiked near Hole-in-the-Wall. We also managed a tour of Mitchell Caverns within the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area. When it was time to head home, we traveled along historic Route 66 and stopped off at Joshua Tree National Park for half a day before finishing the drive home.

It was a short trip, but we managed to see quite a bit. I’ve finally posted the photos from the trip, so please feel free to take a look and leave a comment or two.

• Blythe Intaglios
• Mojave National Preserve
• Mitchell Caverns
• Along the way—Route 66/Amboy
• Joshua Tree National Park

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We’ve stopped in Van Horn, Texas on a few occasions before. Each time, we managed to hear or read about the local Chuy’s restaurant, which is rather infamous. Apparently, the restaurant attracted the attention of John Madden years ago, who has said it’s his favorite place to eat. And Chuy’s has naturally exploited the hell outta it. For his part, Madden seems to have played along, at least initially.

How he ever decided to stop and eat there, we’ll never know.

Chuy’s is the name of a chain restaurant that Kim and I used to eat at nearly weekly for 2 years. We had received a set of 24 one-free-meal-a-month coupons for each of three windshields replaced in a 6-month time span. [Thanks Empire Glass!] And with all those free coupons, we made the most of it as we could. I never did really enjoy the food there. Well, ok, I guess I did like the chili – I’ve actually returned as a paying customer in the last few months to order it.

So as we were in need of dinner about the time we’d be in Van Horn, we figured we should give it a try. Besides, I was craving some of that chili. Of course, the Chuy’s isn’t the one we’re thinking of; it’s just an independent, family-owned Mexican restaurant. That’s ok, so we enter.

The menu’s pretty plain but was sure to make mention of Madden. The  food wasn’t any better, and the service was lacking. The restaurant has an area reserved for John Madden, but we were seated on the other wing of the place so we couldn’t even ogle the shrine. Besides the photo of the sign and the roadtrip memory (“Hey, remember that time we ate at that ridiculously indescript Mexican restaurant that John Madden loved?”), the stop was definitely a disappointment.

So I’m here to confirm the obvious: John Madden has terrible taste.

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Last year, we took advantage of the planning freedom afforded us by a sub-par season to hit as any of the Texas National Park units as possible. We nearly completed them all, had I not managed to get sick and delay our departure.

This year, we’ll build on what we accomplished last winter and the summer prior to that by finishing off a good chunk of the South. In particular, we’ll finish up the states of Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

Not necessarily the places you’d think of, well, vacationing in, but it’ll get done an important chunk in our quest to visit all 392 units of the National Park Service. And we always enjoy our roadtrips, no matter where we end up. As we plan and get started, I’ll post additional information. For now, here’s our expected itinerary:

• Big Thicket National Preserve
• Jean Lafitte National Historical Park & Preserve
• New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
• Gulf Islands National Seashore
• Natchez National Historical Park
• Vicksburg National Military Park
• Poverty Point National Monument
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park

We’ll also try to spend some time in the city of New Orleans, tour an old plantation, and maybe even mark Fort Bowie National Historic Site (Arizona) and/or Chickasaw National Recreation Area (Oklahoma) off the list, too.

The post Our winter National Parks roadtrip: LA, MS, AL appeared first on rscottjones.

We stayed in a cheap Motel 6 just a block off the Vegas Strip, next to the MGM Grand, and spent the first night wandering up and down the Strip looking at the spectacle that is Las Vegas. Since we’re not drinkers or clubbers, and didn’t have any money to waste on slot machines, we simply took in the sights. The next morning, we headed out to a part of Vegas that far fewer see. We drove up to Charleston, turned west, and drove until we found Red Rock Canyon NCA. Red Rocks has some interesting resources and we found ourselves spending much of that day exploring the Calico Hills area. I still remember taking the a much-treasured picture of Kim curled up in an alcove.

After some time exploring that area, we continued along the loop drive, stopping at each turnout to read the signs and snap some more photos. We took a few short hikes before completing the loop drive and heading back to the bright lights of the city for dinner.

While Red Rock Canyon didn’t quickly vault to the top of our must-see-again list, we had a surprisingly good time there. We hadn’t expected to do much hiking at all on the trip, but the visit to RRCNCA and nearby Valley of Fire State Park made the trip uniquely special to me. Not only was it the first time we had ventured out the state together, but we did it on our own terms and managed to stumble upon some really cool places – foreshadowing, I suppose, the wandering National Park roadtrips we’re now known for.

So it was great to stop by and visit – even for a short time and by myself – and reflect on the importance of the site to the last decade of my life. And this time, I won’t let another decade go by before I return.

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• It’s great to get back a day early, so you have time to unpack, unwind, collect yourself, and get ready for the shock of going back to work. It feels great to arrive home early enough to unload the car, unpack our bags, get laundry started, and start to get things back to order.
• Nobody goes to Texas. It was incredible how few out of state license plates we saw on the trip. Usually at national park sites, many if not most, are out of state, plus some Canadian plates mixed in. But not in Texas – only Texans go to Texas parks. I guess that’s not too surprising, as Texas plates are always underrepresented at other national parks.
• The Alamo is worth a quick stop, but don’t arrive with high hopes and don’t waste your time standing in line. It’s small, surrounded by tourist trap attractions, and let’s face it, only Texans care about this place. It’s a cool place for a photo or two, though, to help alleviate that burning childhood desire to see an inflated icon of the West, and to mark it off the life list.
• Texas is windy as hell, and it’ll affect how much fun you’ll have at several sites – Fort Davis, Guadalupe Mountains, and Padre Island to name a few. Wind blows.
• The iPhone 3G is quite possibly the best piece of roadtrip gear ever. We used it to listen to music and audiobooks during the drive, and even streamed an NFL game from a NY radio station. We used the Maps app to calculate driving directions, find restaurants, and even used Street View to preview a site. We typed draft blog posts on its WordPress app, used the clock feature as our morning alarm clock, and updated friends and family using the Twitter and Facebook apps. The camera and a couple of camera apps allowed some quick shots when the camera wasn’t handy. I checked and replied to email, kept up to date on my Reader items, and checked wikipedia for additional information on some of the places we visited. We searched hotel listings and prices, checked photos, and reserved online hotel deals every night – and looked up rewards account numbers. I added tasks to my to do list, blog article ideas to Evernote, and checked the next day’s weather. We kept up to speed on bowl game scores and NFL stats. I even used an app to locate free wifi networks for my MacBook Pro and consulted an app on Texas speed traps. And of course, we used Safari to hit a bunch of other websites. We did all of this on a small, elegant device that fits into my pocket – wow, what a great roadtrip device.

The post Observations from our Texas roadtrip appeared first on rscottjones.

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The post Texas National Parks roadtrip in 2 days appeared first on rscottjones.

With those limitations – and the caveat that we want to focus on units we haven’t been to yet – it’s really down to either the Bay Area, the California desert…or Texas. It’s all about strategy in choosing.

We’ve visited all but a few NPS units in the Bay Area (Eugene O’Neill, SF Maritime, Rosie the Riveter, and Port Chicago) but love the area and could easily bunk in with family and find other non-NPS sights to visit. We could also hit Mojave and the Santa Monica Mountains, two places that we’ve passed through, but haven’t really stopped in. However, we’re planning a roadtrip to a future ASU away game (maybe Stanford on Oct 24 next year) and we could easily find ourselves in the Emerald Bowl next year as well, so we can always do those units then.

Next on the list is the California desert. This trip would include stops at Mojave, Death Valley (we’ve been there, but didn’t get to see everything we wanted to), Manzanar (we drove past without stopping back in ’99), and maybe a stop at Santa Monica Mountains and/or Lake Mead. Most of these places are places we could visit in conjunction with a Vegas Bowl trip, or technically a Rose, Holiday, or even Poinsetta Bowl trip for that matter. They’re also close enough to just hit on a short 3-4 day trip.

Finally, there’s Texas. This trip would focus on Big Bend and Fort Davis, plus any other stops we could work in. But we always figured that we’d tack Big Bend and Fort Davis onto a Sun Bowl trip. We’ve also been “saving” Guadalupe Mountains and Carlsbad Caverns for an additional Sun Bowl trip or a shorter 4-5 day trip. Of course, we’ve also planned on taking a long roadtrip to hit the rest of the South, mostly focused on the units around the Gulf Coast – so we’d probably be driving passed these Texas units on that trip.

So, what did we decide? We’re headed to Texas.

Yeah, I know, it’s Texas – a state we do our best to avoid. But here’s the rationale. We’re quickly running out of trips that we can drive to, and Texas is far enough away to make for a serious roadtrip while not making us feel bad about eliminating shorter long-weekend-type trips. And, let’s face it, it’d be great to get Texas out of the way and instead fly into New Orleans and start the Gulf Coast loop from there.

So here are the units we’re considering hitting:

• Big Bend National Park
• Fort Davis National Historic Site
• Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River
• Amistad National Recreation Area
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site
• Padre Island National Seashore
• San Antonio Missions National Historic Park
• The Alamo (not a NPS unit, but hard to pass by without stopping)
• Lyndon B Johnson National Historic Park
• Chamizal National Memorial

Other possible add-ons:

• Guadalupe Mountains National Park
• Big Thicket National Preserve
• Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument
• Fort Bowie National Historic Site (a unit on my 101 list)
• Austin – yes not a unit, but we need something to do on Jan 1 when NPS units are closed.

That trip would get most of Texas done in a little over a week, and if we were able to tack on Big Thicket and Guadalupe Mountains, then we would actually completely finish off the state. Of course, Guadalupe Mountains would get done whenever we do Carlsbad Caverns, and Big Thicket could easily be incorporated into the Gulf Coast loop, so we won’t be orphaning these units if we skip them this time around.

It’s not a particularly glamorous National Park roadtrip, with only Big Bend making on to my top 25 NPS units I still haven’t seen list. But it does get a bunch of stuff done – and hopefully for cheap, as we can camp at most of the units (or in adjacent state parks). And while Big Bend is definitely the main attraction, though I think it will be interesting to see The Alamo and some of the San Antonio Missions, and you never know when you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

We’re still planning the trip, but I’ll post the final trip plans whenever they come together.

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