The Beginning - who left that gate open?

April 8 San Antonio

I left Jacksonville late on Thursday the 5^th and after a quick night stop at a Tallahassee Wal-Mart and a visit with my daughter and her boyfriend James then another full night at a Crowley, LA Wal-Mart sleeping on the new foam mattress on the Futon and  I’m in San Antonio and so Dave’s Dreaming of the Trip has evolved to Dave’s now living the Dream Trip 2012.  The Gate was open and I have escaped the expected. I can now attempt to live life a different way for an extended period of time. This dream has its roots in about 1976 when a friend of mine agreed to do a month long camping trip to the west coast. But then he went and fell in love and got married and the trip became just a dream.

A few years later it was my turn to fall in love and get married and in the process broke up a great backpacking / canoeing team.  Fast forward 36 years and I’ve just awaken from the dreaming to the living of the trip. So this post is a thank you to my wife and close friends who have put up with my talk of my dream for a long time. The biggest thank you is to my wife for her support and understanding of my need to do this trip.  I’m confident she understands how important this trip is to me. It’s a major item on my Bucket list and I hope it proves to be as important to her by the time we’re done. Can you have a mid-life crisis that’s been in the planning for over 20 years? I'd rather think of this trip as an excellent result of a long term plan.

My dream has changed some over many years but essentially it has always been a tour of the west theme focusing on the outdoors via National Parks, National Monuments and National Forests.  I enjoy photography and intend to make it a big part of the trip so expect lots of photos.

I’m visiting some family while in San Antonio and I’m playing tourist at the typical places, the Alamo and River Walk and I'll post some photos from there later. So I've logged a 1000 miles of what I expect to be 15000 + by the time I'm back home. I've been noticing very few RV's on I-10 going either way. I'm used to seeing quite a few in Florida but the amount out here gives me the impression it's a reflection of the economy and price of gas. Speaking of gas I paid prices ranging from  $3.69 to $3.99 today and most populated areas were cheaper than Florida. For any fellow trailer haulers I managed to get a daily average of 11 mpg yesterday by setting the cruise on 64 and today I got 12 mpg due to the slower speeds thru Houston. Small numbers but that little bit is a big deal. I'm also fortunate that my trailer tires took the high speed for extended periods of time. It helps to keep the speed at 65 or less since ST tires are only rated to 65 mph.

Next stop is Big Bend National Park via Route 90 to west Texas and saying no to
I-10. Then camping in the Chisos Mountains where it should be cool at night, 30's to 40's. I’m expecting some great scenery with modest hiking but this will be the first test to see how my hiking is. I’ve rode about 900 miles in the past year on my bicycle in part to prepare for this trip. I would like to think I may reach hiking 200 miles by the time this trip is over. I may also get lucky with some wifi access in one of the Parks Lodges.

Click on “Follow” near the top of the page to the left if you want to follow my adventures.

The slogan of the trip is courtesy my high school buddy who lives on the Big Island of Hawaii. He sent me a Bday card with a picture of a Dog running wild and free in a field with the saying “Celebrate like someone forgot to lock the Gate”.  I opened the Gate on Thursday and have been running free since.The name of my trip is credited to an old friend who lives in New Port Richey, Florida when he asked me one day last year when was I going to take my Dream Trip.