Labor Day 2004 – Day 1

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline Wise and John Wise leaving Phoenix, Arizona

It’s Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. when we head out for our Labor Day celebration that is taking us on a crazy journey all the way to South Dakota and back by Monday night. Over the course of this out-and-back marathon, we’ll travel more than 2,700 miles or 4,300km.

Montezuma Castle off-ramp on the 17 Freeway in Arizona

We know this road well but feel the need to snap a photo along the way from time to time, so if in the future we no longer have the capacity to travel as we do, we’ll have these visual and written reminders of thousands of random spots along our path.

Interstate 40 traveling east in Arizona

By 6:00, we passed through Flagstaff. By 7:00, we stopped in Winslow for coffee, but the one shop that sells the stuff was already closed, and we don’t do gas station coffee. From time to time, in the distance, we see flashes of lightning, but we never find ourselves in the thick of it. Shortly before midnight in New Mexico and on the other side of Albuquerque we pull into the Sunset Motel in Moriarty for a night of sleep.

Dream Note: I wake just after 5:00 from a dream featuring guidance from God to stop traveling with fear. It told me that my afterlife would be a composite of places seen, dreamt of, explored, and feared. I had input into what could be my version of hell if I allowed fear and anxiety to be drivers over the course of my life. To some degree, this reminds me of the story from the Robin Williams film What Dreams May Come that I watched six years ago. In the dream, I’m an infant learning to navigate an infinite space that doesn’t conform to the physics of our world. I’m being encouraged not to give in to fear as I fly, levitate, and careen wildly through my universe.

I’d like to add that this dream happened three years before I started sleep therapy using a CPAP. During these days of such fitful sleep, I was often startled by the vivid, nearly lucid nature of my dreams that were often happening near the edge of my waking state from not breathing and my body’s desperate desire to fall into a deep sleep as soon as I rested my head.

Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Caroline saving a turtle from becoming road kill in New Mexico on the way to South Dakota

Labor Day weekend our objective is South Dakota. Ever the road trippers to try new roads, we skirt into the most western corner of Oklahoma for a few miles before turning north to travel the easternmost roads of Colorado out on the Great Plains. In Nebraska, we pass fields of sunflowers under cloudy skies. South Dakota welcomes us with a visit to Wall Drug which was far more interesting than the Crazy Horse Monument. Our visit to the Badlands National Park was marred by bad weather, which demanded we make a return visit. We stay out on the Plains across Wyoming, making our way back across Colorado into Utah, where we visit the world’s ugliest Donkey at Hole in the Rock.

Santa Barbara, California – Day 3

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Up the San Marcos Pass Road looking out to the Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara, California

This is the San Marcos Pass Road – Route 154 heading out of Santa Barbara into the Los Padres National Forest. We come up this way occasionally to eat breakfast at Cold Spring Tavern, just as we did this morning. To change things up a bit, we drove the much more narrow and steep Old San Marcos Road back into Santa Barbara with my Aunt and Uncle Burns.

288 Placer Drive Goleta, California

Dropping a few photos of the inside of our aunt and uncle’s home so we never forget the old familiar site of staying at 288 Placer Drive in Goleta, California.

Woody Burns at 288 Placer Drive Goleta, California

Uncle Woody in his dining room that’s barely changed in 35 years.

288 Placer Drive Goleta, California

The TV changed, but everything else is just the way I remember it when I first visited in 1970 or so.

Visiting a beach in Santa Barbara, California

After another short visit to the Santa Barbara area, it was time to stop at the beach.

Estuary in Santa Barbara, California

The beach and a nearby estuary.

Caroline Wise on a beach in Santa Barbara, California

And maybe some more beach so we can capture the Channel Islands behind Caroline, as this is a spectacularly clear day.

Highway 101 out of Santa Barbara, California

When I was a kid, Highway 101 was a single lane in each direction. We are going home.

Following a Thing on the freeway in Los Angeles, California

Wow, neither of us has seen a VW Thing in a long time. We are passing through downtown Los Angeles, driving east.

Caroline Wise and John Wise at Ten Ren in Los Angeles, California

We have options regarding the roads we can take through L.A. on our way to Arizona, and today it was Interstate 60, so Caroline could do some shopping in a small Asian plaza we love and grab a couple of green-tea-with-green-apple-and-boba teas at Ten Ren’s Tea Time, a big time favorite!

Santa Barbara, California – Day 2

JWise Photo of the Day, Travels

Woody Burns at home in Goleta, California

Good morning, Uncle Woody.

Sophie the German Shepard

You might have called this a dog day. Sure, we hit all the important favorites like Cajun Kitchen, Costco, Vons, and maybe even McDonald’s for a coffee, but it was more about taking Sophie out for walks and just hanging out at the house and chatting the day away. Sophie was my uncle Woody’s shepherd that was given to him after his Rottweiler Sarge passed away.