Final Comments - Summer 2009

Final Comments

August 8: This entry is just a brief wrap-up. You can go back to July 27 to start at the beginning of this trip. I headed out almost two weeks ago in a pretty bad rainstorm. The weather was a problem off and on the whole way north and west. The way back was mostly dry and in some cases very hot. I visited 13 cities with only two repeats (Oklahoma City and Billings, MT). The total mileage was about 3,825. This wasn't my longest trip. I went from LA to Houston and back (5,000 miles total) in about as many days. Still, it was a lot more than I should have done to make it a fun trip. Next time, I will probably spend two days in every significant city. Definitely I would have liked to spend more time in Denver and also Oklahoma City. Even Selina, KS had more interesting buildings in it than I expected. If there had been enough time to relax and walk around, I might have found out more.

For next time a few things:
- order city maps online before the trip
- Look into other ways to gather and print zoning maps. Although stopping in City Halls is fun (to me), obviously, the whole thing is going online and print maps are going to go away.
- Don't go so far afield next time. Why travel 2,300 miles and just get an overview of each city.

Finally, This was my first time blogging a trip. What I didn't like was the limit on pictures (there were some formatting issues as well). I many more pictures than are put in the blog. I'm thinking of using Flickr to store my pictures and reference the streams in the blog. I'm also not sure the blog ordering really works. Most people will come across this post first and, although a link to the beginning is provided, a lot of people will read the trip in reverse order. I'm open to constructive comments and suggestions, but will decide how to proceed with this blog based primarily on my goals of recording my trips.

Thanks for looking in.

Ted Dune


PS: Although my next adventure probably won't be until next year (Christmas doesn't count), I will probably post some of my previous trips here as well. I have two trips that are fully digital. After that I have to go searching through old notebooks and scanning old fashioned photographs. Hopefully I will be able to post something new sometime in September.