A Cross-Country Drive

Truckee, California to Seville, Ohio and Return
April 28 to May 12, 2001

Lehman Caves

The Start of the Cross-Country Drive
Truckee, California to Cedar City, Utah

Day #1. For my two week vacation, I decided to drive across the country to visit relatives in Kentucky and Ohio and see some attractions on the way. My first day did not offer much in the way of attractions. My only stop was at Great Basin National Park to tour Lehman Caves. Unfortunately, on my tour was a troop of boy scouts with two scout leaders. The scouts were rowdy and loud, and the scout leaders did not nothing to curb their rowdiness. For myself and the other non-scout participants of the tour, it was not an enjoyable visit.

Where you see a day with italics text, that text is from a postcard that I sent while on the road to chronicle my trip. Like a postcard, it is short and to the point.

A Day of Travels

Mississippi and Tennessee
March 17, 2010

I wanted to title this post as "A Typical Day of Duane's Travels." But nowadays there really isn't a typical day for me, and that's the thrill of traveling without an agenda. Today was a day that did have many of the elements I go through as I travel across the country, and I wanted to share a full day of travels with you.

My day started in Columbus, Mississippi, a town at the junction of highways where I ended up when it got dark and I got tired the evening before. I only had one goal at the beginning of the day: to find Elvis Presley at the start and the end of his life. At 7:00 a.m. I headed north and in an hour I was in Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis. I was early though and thought I would notch another national park site on my travel resume. The Tupelo National Battlefield is a small remnant of the battlefield of 1864. It encompasses only one acre and resembles a neighborhood park more than a national park. The only facilities are a couple of historic monuments typically seen in Civil War battlefields and two informational boards explaining the battle. It is definitely on the bottom of the list of national park sites to visit.