This is the 2012 travel blog of Arjan Post and P.J. Gardner.
This blog is designed for family, close friends, and interesting (and interested) acquaintances. On August 1, 2012, Arjan and P.J took off on a two-month cross-country car trip, which also included an Alaskan cruise.
- August 1 – August 10: We took the northern route across the U.S., from Arlington, Massachusetts, to Vancouver, British Columbia, to catch the cruise (across Massachusetts, New York, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington).
- August 11 – August 18: Cruised the Inside Passage of Alaska, aboard the Holland America Line ship, the Zuiderdam (with Arjan’s father and stepmother, both in their 90s).
- August 18 – August 23: Explored Washington and Oregon (Seattle, Redmond, Olympia, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood, and the Columbia River Gorge on Historic Route 30).
- August 24 – August 28: Rented a house in Ocean Park, on Washington’s Long Beach peninsula.
- August 28 – September 9: Drove down the West Coast (Oregon Coast, Redwoods, Crater Lake, Mount Lassen, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, San Jose, Stanford, California Coastal Highway, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the San Bernardino Valley).
- September 10 – September 25: Explored Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming (Mojave Desert, Historic Route 66, Meteor Crater, Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Wolf Creek Pass, Mesa Verde, Colorado Springs, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Devils Tower).
- September 25 – October 2: Made our return trip (across South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts).
During October, after our cross-country trip was done, we spent a week in Vermont, and another week in California.
The nice thing about blog format is that you don’t have to log in, and you do not get annoying requests to become a member. You do not get inundated with update emails every time we accidentally hit Enter after posting only one word, and when you are not interested or busy, you can ignore us. But when you want to catch up on where we are– and were– you can.
This is a private web site, kept from the prying eyes of search engines, so if you get more emails offering you Viagra or breast augmentation than ever, it will certainly not be because you visited our blog.
We only posted our travel-related experiences, no interesting or not-so-interesting personal or family happenings. There might not be anything more than just where we went, because we wanted to spend most of our time visiting sites on Mother Earth, not the Internet.
Warning: Because this blog was updated as we traveled, we need more time to add photos and make refinements after the fact. You may want to review earlier postings to make sure you didn’t miss anything— especially the photo gallery pages.
If you want to make comments, we have one comments page for the entire blog instead of comments on individual posts.
You all should have our email addresses, and we can usually be reached that way for exchanges intended for limited privacy.
Enjoy and keep in touch!