The Top 9 Longest In-State Drives

I was discussing the three-day drive across Texas we’ve taken in the past and wondered how that stretch compares to other states.  I decided to let Google Maps be my guide as I looked throughout the country for similar treks for the nine longest in-state drives.

I created a few ground rules, such as any route candidate for my list being calculated as the shortest drive between two cities or towns. This means that there may be longer routes to or from unincorporated towns not showing on Google Maps.  I can’t do much about that.  I only utilized routes that stayed within the state being researched.  A few shorter routes may have existed through neighboring states.  Also, traffic, season and weather don’t affect distance, so I kept to miles instead of hours.

One last point – I didn’t research all 50 states.  Obviously, states like Hawaii, Rhode Island and Delaware won’t be on any longest drive list.  But as I calculated the most extensive drives in states like Pennsylvania, Maine, Virginia and North Carolina, it became clear that most candidates were less than 400 miles.  With the 9^th largest stretching 629 miles, I could visually rule out dozens of states.

Here’s the list, ranked shortest to longest:

9.  Oklahoma-  Kenton to Tom- 629 miles

Many of the states on this list are of medium size compared to the rest of the country but have irregular shapes that provide longer routes.  This is true of Oklahoma, where we start at the edge of the panhandle and drive cattycorner to the bottom of the pan, covering over 600 miles.  The route only utilizes a few dozen miles on an interstate (I-40) and flows through Oklahoma City smack dab in the middle of the Sooner State.

8.  Michigan-  Copper Harbor to Erie Township- 631 miles

Situated at the northern tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, or U.P., is Copper Harbor on Lake Superior, and it’s now on my bucket list to visit.  On the other end of the drive is a small town near Ohio on Lake Erie.  In between, the Mitten State will provide a variety of sights and views of three of the Great Lakes.

7.  Nevada-  Laughlin to Denio- 698 miles

It was surprising to see Nevada on this list.  Laughlin is found near the state junction points of Nevada, California and Arizona in the far south of the Silver State. Almost 700 miles north is Denio, a small town at the Oregon border.  Along the way, you’ll see some of the state’s desert and scablands, Las Vegas and other gambling meccas, and many miles of secluded highway. 

6.  Montana-  Troy to Ridge- 721 miles

I did expect to see the Big Sky Country in the Top 9, but the surprise was that it wasn’t longer than a few others on the list.  Troy is in the northeast corner near the Idaho border, sitting in the middle of the Kootenai National Forest.  Over 700 miles southeast is Ridge in the opposite corner.  The two towns show a stark contrast in environments, with Troy in the midst of fabulous forested mountains and Ridge reminding more of the barren hills of the Dakotas. 

5.  Idaho-  Good Grief to Fish Haven- 827 miles

Another panhandle, another long drive.  At the far northern edge of the Gem State is the best city name on this list, Good Grief.  Because the most direct route takes you through Montana, we had to calculate traveling through Boise to stay in Idaho to reach the southeast corner of the state at Fish Haven.  This takes you along several mountain ranges and forests until you reach the capital city, then the scenery becomes more scrub-like. 

4.  Florida-  Muscogee to Key West- 840 miles

Let’s face it, panhandles give states an edge to get on this list, and the Sunshine State is no exception.  Like Oklahoma, we begin on the far eastern edge of the panhandle in the town of Muscogee, then head west to the body of Florida before driving south, all the way to the Keys.  The distance between the two is so far that Google shows the direct flying time to be almost four hours.  The inland drive will repeat the same scenery for much of the trip, except for the time you are near the ocean.  On this jaunt, south is best, as it includes West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, the Everglades and Key West, many of which are on most people’s bucket lists.

3.  Texas-  El Paso to Orange- 858 miles

Now we see the state that started it all, Texas, and its 3-day straight shot east from El Paso, all on I-10.  The Lone Star State is vast and mostly barren, though green by comparison to much of the southwest.  Hundreds of miles after leaving El Paso, you’ll finally reach San Antonio, the 7^th largest city in the country, and about 3 hours later, Houston, the 4^th largest.  Orange is just across the state line from Lake Charles, LA, and is hurricane susceptible.

2.  California.- Smith River to Winterhaven- 1008 miles

Not far from the Oregon coast is Smith River, California, a continuation of the fabulous northwest coastline.  This path takes you south along the coast until you reach San Francisco, then it heads inland through wine country and the Big Valley, before hitting the Los Angeles metropolitan area.  From there you travel east, then south towards Mexico, ending up in Winterhaven, next to Yuma, AZ.  You’ll see a wide range of panoramic views of ocean, coastline, vineyards, agriculture, historic cities, theme parks, and southwestern deserts.  It’s never a bad time to take in a thousand miles of the Golden State.

1.  Alaska-  Homer to Prudhoe Bay- 1074 miles

As we all expected, the Last Frontier takes the top spot for providing the longest in-state drive.  Interestingly, the longest route I could locate included just the main body of the state, since so much of Alaska is inaccessible by car, even in the summer.  Speaking of summer, that’s the only season most of this route is safe.  But, the views!  Prudhoe Bay is on the Arctic Ocean and was built atop the tundra.  This route is almost 1,100 miles in length and just about every mile has dramatic views.  Like many awe-inspiring landscapes, photographs along this byway simply can’t do them justice. 

Honorable Mention-  Missouri- Watson to Cottonwood Point- 560 miles

At nearly 600 miles long, the Show-Me State was just out of the Top 9, but the odd-shaped state still deserves a mention.   In the far northwest corner, Watson is more like Nebraska than Missouri.  The lack of a direct route to the southeastern notch forces the route to take a bit of a zig zag, traveling south along the Nebraska and Kansas state lines, hanging a left in Kansas City and a right at St. Louis, then south along the Illinois line and the mighty Mississippi River.  This would definitely be an interesting drive.

Now, then, these are the longest drives in the country that don’t cross state lines.  Many of these are now on my future to-do list, if not my bucket list.  I trust you have the same interest.

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An Emerald Delight

“An Emerald Delight”
Photo of the Week #9, selected in July, 2019

A few miles north of Crested Butte, Colorado, nestled in the Elk Mountains between Mount Baldy and Mount Bellview, is a lake with a beautiful hue. Crested Butte has some of the most beautiful sights to explore and Emerald Lake is certainly no exception. The alpine lake sits above 11,000 feet and is one of two so-named lakes in Colorado, the other being in the greater Rocky Mountain National Park.

Shortly after taking this photo, we had it printed to canvas and framed for our (then) living room wall — the centerpiece of the room’s decor! The sun, clouds, shadows and pines made the canvas print appear as a painting, especially when the sun shone on it from the nearby living room window. The color print is now one of four prominent photos in our fifth wheel’s living room.

As always, please click on the link to view the clear, full-color image:

https://www.imagekind.com/-an-emerald-delightdsc_art?IMID=2abf7900-4060-47a0-a672-c4d9225afedd

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Travel Recipe- Huberville Trail Mix

For the past several years, I’ve been watching my calorie intake and managed, at least until my retirement, to lose several dozen pounds. One problem when dieting, even when it’s a permanent lifestyle change, is what to do when you are hungry but limited in food intake.

A decade ago, as I closed in on my target weight and the one year mark since I began limiting calories, I thought about my go-to snacks, such as frozen lemonade, low-cal pumpkin bread, slow-churned vanilla ice cream and trail mix. Trail mix, in particular, seems to be nature’s perfect concoction. Peanuts and mixed nuts, raisins and M&M’s give both the salt and sweet I crave, seemingly without adding a single pound to my weight. At least, that’s the way it feels.

When I searched the Internet for trail mix articles, I found that some strongly railed against both M&M’s and craisins in trail mixes as unreasonable sources of sugar. My own results seem to contradict these reports. Sometimes a little sugar keeps me from eating a lot of sugar. Finding go-to, low-calorie snacks is vital to a successful weight-loss program. As a thoroughly non-professional in nutrition and dietary matters, I highly recommend this perfect food.

So, I began using Mountain Trail Mix as my go-to munchie and found that my weight changed very little due to this incredible snack mix. One day I thought that the mix could use more cashews and started adding them to the pre-packaged mix, then some craisins, and finally decided I might as well make my own trail mix from scratch. I don’t think it’s any cheaper this way, but I get exactly what I want in the mix. I’ll include costs so you can judge for yourself.

Here’s what to purchase (2020 costs):

Mixed Nuts	Great Value- 26 oz container	$8.98
Cashews- Halves and Pieces	Great Value- 24 oz container	$10.25
Craisins	​Ocean Spray- 24 oz bag	$5.88
Raisins	Great Value- 20 oz container	$2.94
Chocolate Candy	M&M®/Mars​- 24 oz bag	$4.86

These represent the brands and sizes I normally purchase for one batch of Huberville Trail Mix, and there will be leftovers from the craisins, raisins and M&M’s to use in future batches. I find that store brands work fine for the nuts and raisins but the name brands are worth springing for on the other ingredients. Feel free to use whichever brands you like.

I start by gathering my largest mixing bowl, a 2-cup measuring cup and a 1-gallon re-closable plastic storage container. I have found that the mix will last longer in a hard plastic container than in a zip-lock bag. Here is the process:

Wash your hands

Place the full contents of the mixed nuts (26 oz equals approximately 6 cups) into the mixing bowl.

Add the full contents of the cashew halves and pieces (24 oz equals approximately 6 cups) into the mixing bowl.

Measure 3 cups of craisins and add into mixing bowl

Measure 1-3/4 cups of raisins and add into mixing bowl

Measure 1-3/4 cups of M&M’s and add into mixing bowl

With clean or gloved hands, mix the contents together, repeatedly bringing the ingredients on the bottom of the bowl to the top and turning the bowl several times

Using the measuring cup, pour your trail mix into one or more storage containers

I find that this recipe makes a little over 18 cups of Huberville Trail Mix, which fills a gallon container with almost three cups left over. Go ahead, fill and store the gallon container, then pour the remaining mix into a serving bowl and enjoy the snack!

My best guess on calories would be approximately 300 per 6 tablespoons, or about a third of a cup of trail mix. That’s about how much I eat in a single sitting. Because of the sweet, salty, chocolaty and fruity aspects of the mix, I find a small handful easily tides me over until my next regular meal. I even keep a small container in my headboard for a late night snack.

The total cost of this 18-cup mixture is around $28.00, or about $1.50 per cup (again, 2020 costs), a very affordable goodie, and one that just may save you from devouring many more calories between meals.

One last thought- I will sometimes add different ingredients to change things up, such as dried bananas or fruit, semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips, chocolate-powdered or flavored almonds, and so on. I only do that on occasion… and I always come back to this recipe, unmodified. Enjoy!

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No Bucket List, but Plenty of National Park Visits

While taking some incredible photos in the Grand Tetons a couple of years ago, it occurred to me just how many National Parks we’ve had the good fortune to visit. We don’t have a bucket list or a specific goal of seeing every National Park, but we have enjoyed more than a few.

The United States has set aside just under 65 protected areas of the country (plus one shared by Canada) known as National Parks. Since Nadyne and I have been together, we have visited 29 of them, with more on the horizon. It didn’t hurt that we lived in Colorado and in proximity to Utah, but we stopped in many of the parks after we hit the road in our 5th wheel.

Our favorite so far? That’s a difficult choice. I loved Zion and Bryce, and camping on the edge of the Badlands was memorable. Acadia was a bucket list item for me that didn’t disappoint, as was Campobello for Nadyne, along with Rainier and St. Helens. We were both in awe of the sheer size of the giant redwoods, the splendor of the Rockies and, of course, the sights and sounds of the mighty glaciers in Alaska. And I didn’t even mention the Grand Canyon. No, there’s just no way to choose.

Here is the current list (as of this post) of the National Parks we’ve toured, followed by a slideshow of a few of my pics of some of those remarkable places:

• Acadia (ME)
• Arches (UT)
• Badlands (SD)
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison (CO)
• Bryce Canyon (UT)
• Campobello Int’l (ME-NB)
• Canyonlands (UT)
• Death Valley (CA-NV)
• Everglades (FL)
• Glacier Bay (AK)
• Grand Canyon (AZ)
• Grand Teton (WY)
• Great Sand Dunes (CO)
• Great Smoky Mountains (TN)
• Hot Springs (AR)

• Joshua Tree (CA)
• Lassen (CA)
• Mammoth Cave (KY)
• Mount Rainier (WA)
• Mount St. Helens (WA)
• New River Gorge (WV)
• Petrified Forest (AZ)
• Pinnacles (CA)
• Redwood (CA)
• Rocky Mountain (CO)
• Saguaro (AZ)
• Sand Dunes (CO)
• Wind Cave (SD)
• Zion (UT)

• 

  Acadia (ME)

• 

  Arches (UT)

• 

  Badlands (SD)

• 

  Black Canyon of the Gunnison (CO)

• 

  Bryce Canyon (UT)

• 

  Campobello International (ME-NB)

• 

  Canyonlands (UT)

• 

  Everglades (FL)

• 

  Glacier Bay (AK)

• 

  Grand Canyon (AZ)

• 

  Grand Teton (WY)

• 

  Great Sand Dunes (CO)

• 

  Hot Springs (AR)

• 

  Joshua Tree (CA)

• 

  Mount Rainier (WA)

• 

  Mount St. Helens (WA)

• 

  Pinnacles (CA)

• 

  Redwood (CA)

• 

  Rocky Mountain (CO)

• 

  Saguaro (AZ)

• 

  Sand Dunes (CO)

• 

  Wind Cave (SD)

• 

  Zion (UT)

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Giant Redwoods in Northern California

​Below is a 360-degree view of one spot in the middle of the Jedediah Smith State Park near Crescent City, CA.  Here we found an absolutely beautiful forest of giant redwoods.  Notice that the some of the trunks are wider than the road?

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park is a California State Park that preserves old-growth redwoods along the Smith River, approximately 9 miles east of Crescent City, in the far northwest of the state. The 10,430-acre park is named after explorer Jedediah Smith, the first American to travel by land from the Mississippi River to California, passing through the parcel that is now the State Park. It consists of 9,500 acres of redwood trees, including several groves of old growth trees. One of the groves, totaling 5,000 acres, includes the world’s largest (not tallest) coastal redwood, which measures 20 feet in diameter and 340 feet tall.

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Downsizing- More Painful than Advertised

Over several years, with our long-term plans to travel full-time underway, my wife and I read blogs and watched YouTube videos, almost ad nauseum, regarding downsizing to an RV. Sell, store or give everything away, they said. It will be hard, they said. We believed them.

Then, excitingly, it was upon us. We sold our 1,700 sq. ft. house and started downsizing in earnest to move into 340 sq. ft. It WAS hard, and it didn’t happen overnight. We took the necessary and difficult steps — selling, storing and giving away stuff — over months, and we still had to store much more than we had hoped. By “D-Day,” as in “Departure Day,” we had to be out.

While they mention the emotional pain of minimizing your possessions, what the bloggers and YouTubers don’t really tell you is that some of the pain is about the pure loss of value. Thousands of dollars’ worth of things we bought because we needed them, or wanted them, was left behind. We obviously didn’t have room for everything, so, intellectually, it made sense. However, years later, we still feel the loss of monetary value from starting our day-to-day nomadic life, especially when most of the significant downsizing happened over a relatively short period of time. Even small, unsellable items can bear a cost. If we paid $30 each for a hundred of these, they would have cost us $3,000 accumulatively.

Let’s say I want to buy a new TV or notebook and give away my old one, even if it works fine, or a wine rack is in the way and we decide to sell it to free up space. Those individual decisions are easy to live with. But, in the span of a month, we dealt away or carted to storage our living room and bedroom furniture, our guest room furniture, the dining room set, two wine racks, two big-screen TV’s, most of the house’s décor, half of my tools, three-quarters of our wardrobes, and even a car. Everything we had stored for a rainy day was gone.

​Even a few of these items can be difficult to think about, but our belongings were literally $20,000 less valuable than they were a month before leaving for the road, money we spent right out of our checkbook (we paid off all our material debt long before, thank goodness). The cash we gained in selling furniture, etc., was a pittance compared to their original values.

And then there is the emotional pain that the bloggers and Youtubers do tell you about. You can prepare for it, but it was a far more difficult experience than we expected. It was your stuff, sometimes for decades, and soon it would be left behind, perhaps never to be seen again. For most people, emotional attachments don’t dissolve easily.

Just as with anything we have to deal with in life, we tried to focus on the positive and look forward to many years of long-awaited travel. We have been able to visit friends and family we haven’t seen in years, or ever, and we finally were able to experience different parts of the country for more than a long weekend at a time. For most people, emotional attachments don’t dissolve easily. Indeed, on our journey, I’ve taken tens of thousands of photographs, and we have experienced 32 National Parks and 40 states.

​It took over ten years for the choice of living on the road to come to fruition. I just wish we had known how divesting most of our possessions would make us feel. In the four years since we began our journey, we have continued to downsize, with experience providing the impetus to do so. When we started, we didn’t really know what we didn’t know. As time went on, it became obvious that, even with all the stuff we left behind, we were still overstocked. The first three years, we returned to Denver each summer to off-load more items and clothing to our storage unit, then moved the all that stuff to our permanent winter base in Texas. That has eased the conflict of what to take on our travels and what to leave behind, but, if we’re not careful, we will have to go through the process again. Our space is not unlimited.

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Fishing Fleet at Rest

Fishing Fleet at Rest

“Fishing Fleet at Rest”
Photo of the Week #8, from July 2019

Sometimes it’s the lack of color, like at daybreak in a foggy harbor, that gives a photo its unusual feel.  I love the contrast in this one, the sun forcing its way to the calm water.  The San Francisco area is famous for its thick fog, but I took this while walking the docks through the fog in Newport, on Oregon’s central coast. The town claims to be the “Dungeness Crab Capital of the world,” so I’m certain this fishing fleet is nearly empty on a clear morning.

As always, please click on the link to view the clear, full-color image:

https://www.imagekind.com/-fishing-fleet-at-restdsc_art?IMID=8177bf65-944d-4c08-96d4-44d84f5d4eca

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View all of my Photos of the Week here on Imagekind:

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St. Elmo’s Rust

St. Elmo’s Rust

St. Elmo’s Rust
Photo of the Week #7, from June 2019…

St. Elmo is a tiny ghost town in Chaffee County in Central Colorado, It sits at an elevation of just over 10,000′ and has a year-round population of 3. We visited this quaint town as often as we could when we lived in the Denver area, with Salida, Nathrop and Buena Vista the closest towns of any consequence nearby. This rusty building is one of my favorite ghost town dwellings. I never tire of seeing it.

As always, please click on the link to view the clear, full-color image:

https://www.imagekind.com/-st-elmos-rustdsc_art?IMID=875c8eb1-7446-420f-9209-ccde2e204a76

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9 Reasons To Make the Move and Become an RV Full-Timer

I recently posted “9 Reasons Not to Become an RV Nomad.” More than a few responses led me to believe that people thought that we weren’t enjoying our nomadic lifestyle. Not so. Nadyne and I have been delighted to be full-timers.

I decided I should dispel the notion that everything is dreadful on the road. It isn’t all great, but most of it is. So, here are my top 9 reasons to ditch the 9-to-5 and live in an RV on the road:

9. You can visit friends and family all over the country- When we were living in Denver, how many times do you think we visited my brother in Boston or my daughter in Seattle? Two weeks of vacation per year isn’t enough time to fly across country to visit all of one’s family, especially if that family is scattered from coast to coast like ours is. We left friends behind in Buffalo, NY, when we moved to Las Vegas that we haven’t seen in many years, and that has happened after every move we’ve made since then. Seeing these folks in person is a priority to us in this new lifestyle.
   
   
10. There’s a lot less to clean- We downsized from almost 1700 square feet to just about 360. Yes, we have to clean more often, but it just doesn’t take very long.
    
    
11. You can take as long as you want to explore nature or other areas of the country- Again, because of limited vacation time, we were severely limited in the distance and duration we traveled, and we put off our Yellowstone trip twice for that very reason. When we do make it there, we may stay a month (if we want to). Also, small towns go unexplored when you have a time limit. Some of those towns are well worth visiting, and now we have the time to do that, wherever we are.
    
    
12. Enjoy tourist attractions off-season or middle of the week- Another benefit of setting your own schedule is that you can plan to visit highly-popular (read that “crowded”) parks and attractions when they will be less congested. You can skip all the Spring Break venues in March and the National Parks in July and August. Being able to do local tours midweek is a huge advantage as well.
    
    
13. Lower your cost of living- Reducing debt, as we did, helps a lot, but even eliminating mortgage or rent payments is a large advantage. Meanwhile, whenever you are strapped for cash, you can boondock (i.e. dry camp or camp without fees or hookups), which makes camping nearly free. Or, you can “moochdock” by parking your rig in your friend’s or family’s driveway!
    

4. You meet like-minded people- Few people understand what life is like on the road like fellow full-timers. In the RV community, life on the road is an experience that travelers have in common, making conversation between random RVers seem effortless. How many people do you know that can relate to a build-up in the sewer hose or smells of less-than-ideal black water venting? There is much you can learn as well, such as how to get the best drone footage, troubleshooting power outages or your dual-power refrigerator, or researching what is needed to install a solar power system.
   
   
5. Find solitude often- Even in Colorado, solitude was fleeting. The Denver metro area is comprised of 2.8 million people, most of whom are in the Rocky Mountains on the weekends, as I relayed in my post, “Colorado is Both Boon and Bane.” If you are a city dweller, as the bulk of the population is, finding solitude can seem next to impossible. Being on the road, however, can be the opposite. Solitude, quiet, wide open spaces and the Milky Way are at your fingertips nearly everywhere you go.
   
   
6. Increase closeness in your relationship- Most couples who live together in an RV find that getting close is mandatory — you either become intimate or your relationship suffers, usually the former. There is no benefit to holding onto anger or resentment. You have to work it out, since you’ll be seeing a lot of each other. For most loving couples, kindness, empathy and cooperation become second nature. Alternatively, if you don’t like your partner, don’t move into a confined space together.
   
   
7. If you don’t like where you live, you can move- There are many reasons you might not like where you park — overcrowded campground or boondocking area, rowdy campers, parking lot partiers, excessive Interstate noise, approaching severe weather, and more. If you feel uncomfortable, unsafe or irritated by your surroundings, you can move. After all, you’re mobile!

The overarching theme to the nomadic lifestyle is adventure, enjoying a continuous journey to the unexpected, extraordinary and memorable. We’ve only been full-time for about four years, but prepared for a decade, and would unequivocally do it all over again.

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Colorado is Both Boon and Bane

When we decided to move from Kansas, we had a tough time deciding where to live. I had had my fill of the flat, nondescript Midwest and Nadyne wanted nothing to do with living on the Pacific coast (they have earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires and volcanos there) or the extreme heat of Arizona. We had lived in Buffalo, NY, and I was over winter and arctic temperatures. We lived for a few years in Las Vegas and the temps there are brutal, too, besides the fact that it’s the ultimate tourist town, not so great for locals.

Somehow we pared our list of possible destinations from twenty to ten, then to five. After looking at employment stats, we ended up choosing Denver, and bought a manufactured home in a northern suburb. I knew about their winters, but Colorado’s natural beauty was an exciting aspect my photographer’s eye couldn’t pass up. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, all that beauty begot crowds.

Here’s an example of a surprising hiking experience. We decided to go hiking in the mountains one summer weekend on a fairly easy trail on Guanella Pass, about two hours from home. Having heard that it’s a popular trail, we got up at 3:30 am (still dark) and left by 4 (in the morning!). We got there at 6:05 am to find the trailhead parking lot and about a half-mile of roadside in both directions completely full of vehicles of all types and sizes. When I thought about it, that meant that most of these people had gotten up and left even before we did. There are almost 3 million residents in the Denver metropolitan area, and another million in Colorado Springs region, and a lot of those people are in Colorado for the same reason we moved here. Add to that the international draw of the Rocky Mountains, several national parks, Pikes Peak, the “Fourteeners” mountain peaks and the abundance of wildlife, to be “one” with nature is nearly impossible — there’s just not much solitude to experience.

One would think that a world-famous ski region would only be crowded in the winter. Au contraire. Colorado and its nearly six million residents, along with millions of visitors, can be as crowded as an elevator in Times Square year-round.

​So went the struggle during our six years living north of Denver. I’m definitely not sorry we moved there — my photographer’s itch was relieved many times over, we met some amazing friends there, and it was where we began our RV camping lifestyle. But, even after learning when the most and least popular visitor days and times were, there were numerous weekends that found us staying home when we really wanted to be in the mountains. Luckily I’m not into winter sports or I would have a whole separate diatribe to share.

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