After almost three months exploring the various islands of the Bahamas 🇧🇸, I am back in the United States of America. 🇺🇸 Travel, as always, has shifted my perspective on many things and given me a fresh insight into old issues. However, I’ll save those thoughts for future posts.
I thought it would be fun to share what’s next… or what I suppose will happen next, because I’ve learned that things never quite go according to plan, especially when the plan is only loosely held together by a few ideas, optimism and good intentions.
We arrived back in Fort Pierce, Florida on the evening of April 4th, anchoring out in the harbor for the evening. The mast on the S/V Kya Anne is 64.5 feet tall, making fixed bridge passages a matter of timing. There is a fixed bridge between us and the marina. The first low tide was around 3:00 am this morning, and the next low tide was around 3:15 pm. While we waited, we dropped the dinghy, went into town to go to the Fort Pierce airport to get cleared by customs & immigration, then returned to the boat. We waited a few hours for low tide so we could make it under the bridge and arrived back into the Fort Pierce City Marina by mid-afternoon.
We had a lovely afternoon reconnecting with Bry & Stu, who arrived about a week or so before us, as well as several other familiar faces on A Dock.
I was even able to attend a Wednesday evening bible study with my Common Ground Church community. I have a week left in Fort Pierce, then I fly back to Spokane for about a week, where I’ll take care of some adult responsibilities (e.g. getting my taxes done and going through a backlog of mail), then pack up the Tahoe and start a cross-country trek to Atlanta, GA.
This will be my first time driving a long-distance road trip of more than a few hundred miles, and I’m doing it alone. 😳 I’m not quite 50, but it does feel a bit ludicrous that it’s taken me this long for something as adventurous as a cross-country road trip. Nevertheless, better late than never.
For those who want to follow along on my adventures, and perhaps make recommendations for stops along the way, here’s my planned route as I depart Cheney, WA (courtesy of google maps):
- Spokane WA
- Coeur d’ Alene, ID
- Kellogg, ID
- Missoula, MT
- Butte, MT
- Bozeman, MT
- Billings, MT
- Rapid City, SD
- Sioux Falls, SD
- Sioux City, IA
- Omaha, NE
- Kansas City, MO
- Columbia, MO
- St. Louis, MO
- Nashville, TN
- Atlanta, GA
Of course, I will be stopping along the way at various labyrinths in those cities.
And I’m hoping that friends along the way will be free for a visit, a shared meal, and maybe even a guest room to overnight in? 🛏😬
I’ll confess in advance that I won’t get to linger as long as I would like with anyone I visit because Google estimates that it will be about 2,400 miles and about 37 hours of driving time.
My plan (feel free to interject your suggestions) is to drive an average of 6-7 hours a day, depending on the stops I make along the way).
I estimate that it will take about a week to get there.
And that is about as much as I have figured out….
So jump in with your good advice, lessons learned, and all the things you wish people had told you before your first road trip. I’m listening…
As always, thank you for reaching this far!
