48stateroadtrip.com

There aren’t a whole lot of interesting, good, or even somewhat pleasant things to say about the ride down the 15 from Provo to SoCal. It gets particularly annoying after you enter Nevada and are in quasi-California traffic from Vegas on into the megalopolis. Sort of an anti-climactic final ten hours of the trip. For the sake of color, though, here’s a picture:

It was either this or the one of the gas station in Vegas.

For the sake of continued triteness, here are some numbers:

• Miles: 22,245
• Photos Taken: ca. 12,000
• Gallons of Gas: ca. 1,350
• Blog Posts: 224
• Days: 129(-ish)
• States: 48
• Waterfalls: 37
• National Parks: 19
• Lighthouses: 15
• Grad School Apps Worked On: 9
• Great Lakes Visited: 5
• Caves Explored: 4
• Bears Seen: 3
• Fish Caught: 3
• Times Snowed On: 2
• Transmissions Blown: 1
• Countries Visited: 1

Thanks for following along — it’s been fun.

bkd

Woke up late, had breakfast at the Red Hut in Stateline or whatever the Nevada part of South Lake Tahoe is called. Fantastic bacon. Really, just exceptional bacon. If I could have bacon again like that some time before I die, I’ll consider myself lucky.

Spent the afternoon at Pyramid Lake with Hal Brown’s wife and kids. It should’ve probably been more awkward than it was.

Then headed up to Lassen Volcanic National Park for camping and all that.

On the drive up to Lassen Volcanic National Park. The photo kind of reminds me of those glass birds they used to sell at state fairs, the kind that you put layers of colored sand into. Maybe it’s just me.Lassen Peak, the 10,500-foot volcano the park’s named for.

It was oddly like coming home to drive into Lassen — moving from the Sierras to the Cascades. The landscape looked more familiar and like what a mountain “should” look like (based on growing up in Washington).

bkd

My hotel was a block away from Nevada, but it still took me 48 hours to get around to crossing the border.

Wonder if they know their sign is crooked. Or maybe it’s foreshadowing the slots…

So I need to cross 48 state lines on the trip. It took me 12 days to cross the first one. At this rate, I should be done with the trip in time to enjoy the return of Halley’s Comet from Del Taco on Alicia.

bkd