Tag Archives: road trip

Saguaro

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Saguaro National Park is located in Tucson, Arizona. It comprises two areas (called districts), the West District at the west suburb of the city of Tucson, and the East District at the east suburb of the city. The park gets its name from the saguaro cactus that grow abundantly in the park area. The saguaro cactus is native to the Sonoran desert, and it’s known for its large size (it can grow anywhere from 15 to 50 feet) and long life (some can live for more than 150 years). Whenever you think of the ‘wild west’ the picture wouldn’t be complete without saguaro cacti as part of the scenery.

I visited Saguaro for the first time when I was working on a project in Scottsdale, Arizona. While I was there, I did a road trip to visit the park in Tucson. You can drive your car on both the paved and gravel roads inside the park. There are also walking paths where you can walk among the tall saguaro cacti. And a trip to the Saguaro National Park wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the nearby Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a living museum that showcases the native vegetations and animals.

The photo below was taken at the West District of the Saguaro National Park on my second visit to the park, during a road trip I took with my cousins on the way to Phoenix, Arizona. We arrived in Tucson close to the sunset time, in time to catch one of those amazing moments of the day in the Southwest United States when the sky lights up as the sun sets in the west. The silhouette of the saguaro cacti added interesting details to the scenery; the cacti with their arms looked like human beings standing around.

Sunset at Saguaro National Park

Kings Canyon

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Kings Canyon National Park is another national park in the Sierra Nevada that is north of the Sequoia National Park. The two parks are contiguous and are connected by a highway. Kings Canyon National Park consists of two parts. One part is the General Grant Grove, which has a smaller concentration of giant sequoia trees compared to the area in the Sequoia National Park. The General Grant Grove includes the General Grant Tree, the largest in the the park and the second largest by volume after the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park. Another part of the Kings Canyon National Park is the backcountry area east of the General Grant Grove, which comprises 90% of the total area of the park. This includes the namesake of the park, the Kings Canyon, which at the maximum depth of 8,200 feet is one of the deepest canyons in the United States.

I visited the Kings Canyon National Park right after visiting the Sequoia National Park. We drove through the General Grant Grove area and continued eastward until we reached the end of the paved highway. It was towards the end of the day, and there were hardly any other visitor in the area, so it really felt like we’re alone in the middle of the nature. It was very quiet and peaceful out there.

The photo below was taken when we stopped at the east end of the paved highway through Kings Canyon. In the distance is the Kings Canyon and the mountain range around it. We didn’t go on any hike down the canyon, but even just from this overlook we could imagine it would be quite an experience going through the backcountry and experiencing the nature there.

Kings Canyon

Mount Rainier

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A couple of days after visiting Crater Lake, I went on a road trip with my family north from Oregon to Washington State. We spent several days sightseeing with Seattle as our base. On one of the days, we went on a day trip to Mount Rainier National Park which is located only around 60 miles away from Seattle. Mount Rainier is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States with summit elevation around 14,400 feet. It is also considered as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, given that it’s still active and its location that is close to largely populated areas. On a clear day, if you’re in Seattle-Tacoma metro area, Mount Rainier would dominate the southeastern horizon view from the city.

We spent our time in the park mostly driving around the loop road to enjoy the mountain scenery. Given that we had a large group of people (around 20 people in four cars) and varying age and level of fitness, we didn’t do any physical activity like hiking or long walks. But since most of the family members came from Indonesia, it was still a treat for them to be able to get high enough in altitude and even during the summer month they could enjoy the fresh mountain air and saw the snow-covered peaks.

The photo below was taken during the drive in the park. You could see the prominent peak of Mount Rainier in the distance.

Mount Rainier

Ben & Jerry’s Factory

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If you’re looking for suggestions for places to visit in Vermont, very likely one of the places mentioned is the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Waterbury, VT. I’m not necessarily a big ice cream fan, but I had never been to an ice cream factory, so I thought that would be a fun place to visit during my New England road trip. So Ben & Jerry’s Factory was the first destination added to my list of destinations in Vermont for the trip.

After reading travel guidebooks for New England, I learned about some other things the state of Vermont is known for. An area called the Green Mountains have some great places for skiing during the winter time and is a great place to see the fall foliage, and Vermont State Route 100 is a road that cuts through the Green Mountain area and is wonderful route to take to experience the beauty of nature and Vermont countryside. Much of Vermont is covered with farm land, and two famous products from Vermont (other than the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream) are cheese and maple syrup. Since I only had limited time during my road trip to visit places, I decided to pick three places to stop by during the drive through Vermont: the Grafton Village Cheese Company in Grafton, the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Waterbury, and the Morse Farms Maple Sugarworks in Montpelier.

After leaving my previous stop in New York City very early in the morning (around 3 am), I managed to enter the state of Vermont by around 7:30 am. Why so early? Well, I had a very ambitious plan for the day: spend the morning driving through and stopping at the places mentioned above in Vermont, then continuing in the afternoon to the White Mountains area in New Hampshire, and continuing the drive at night to my destination, Bar Harbor in Maine. In hindsight, that was pretty crazy, but it did make a fun-filled day..

The first stop, Grafton, is located on the scenic State Route 100. The drive was wonderful; fall foliage definitely was around the peak time, and it was nice to drive through the Vermont countryside. The only problem was that scenic drive meant slower drive. I did find the Grafton Village Cheese Company, but they were still closed at the time I arrived there around 8 am. So I decided to continue on to Waterbury since I knew that Ben & Jerry’s Factory would already be open by the time I got there. I abandoned the initial plan of driving through State Route 100 after experiencing the lower (and safer) speed limit on this country road. Instead I drove back to the Interstate Highway and took it most of the way to Waterbury.

The Ben & Jerry’s Factory is definitely a fun place to visit in Vermont, especially if you come with family / children. For a small fee of $3.00, you get to watch a Moovie presentation about Ben & Jerry’s history and their integral place within the state of Vermont, view the ice cream factory from an observation deck, and taste the ice cream to finish it off. There is also the Flavor Graveyard in the back of the factory where you can find headstones remembering some Ben & Jerry flavors that didn’t quite make it well in the market. And of course there is an ice cream shop if you didn’t get enough from the tour. For me, the little cup of ice cream was enough. I still had a long journey for the day — didn’t want to have stomach problem from having too much dairy products.

My last stop in Vermont, the Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks, is a great place to find maple products and other local food products that Vermont is known for. Since I was watching my timing closely as I wanted to get to Mount Washington Auto Road before it closes at 3 pm, I only stopped at Morse Farm to get some souvenirs to take home. It’s only a short stop, but tasting the real maple syrup (that tastes much better than the artificially flavored syrup you often get at the grocery store) got me hooked. Since I got back from this trip, I also learned that maple syrup is actually a healthier alternative to processed sugar to use as sweetener. And you can actually get the pure maple syrup at the local grocery stores (typically they’re from either Vermont or Quebec, Canada).

After the stop at Morse Farm, I continued my trip to New Hampshire. The few hours drive through and brief stops gave me a little taste of Vermont, leaving more to experience in future visits. As for the rest of the ambitious travel day, you can read about them on my posts about White Mountains and Asticou Azalea and Thuya Gardens.

The photo below was taken right outside the Ben & Jerry’s Factory. It was a nice autumn morning, and I saw this group of visitors enjoying their ice cream with the wonderful fall foliage in the background. It’s a little cool outside, but I don’t think it mattered when you have the tasty ice cream to enjoy.

Ice cream in the fall

Mount Desert Island

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When most visitors come to Mount Desert Island, the primary destinations are usually the Acadia National Park, which occupies a large portion of the island, and Bar Harbor, a town closest to the park where you find accommodations during the visit to the area. The island is actually more than just these two places; if you have a car (or a bike), you can also tour the island and visit many little towns there. In the last few posts, I mentioned about a couple of those places, Northeast Harbor with its beautiful Asticou Azalea and Thuya Gardens, and Bass Harbor with its famous light house. There are other towns around that may not necessarily have any particular landmark to visit, but are good representations of small Maine / New England coastal villages.

And not to be missed when you’re in Maine is a visit to one of the local lobster pounds where you could get the local product fresh from the fishing boat and at very reasonable price. These places may not have the nice decor as some fancy restaurants you find in Bar Harbor, but if you’re looking for lobster, I think this is the best way to get it. I went to Thurston Lobster Pound in Bernard, and had a wonderful feast of lobsters with side dishes and desert that was pretty easy on my budget but also very memorable experience.

The photo below was taken in a little town called Somesville. It’s located right in the middle of the island; you would pass it if you drive around the island between some of its harbor towns. There was a beautiful footbridge over a pond there that is very picturesque, especially in the autumn. I stopped there to take photos of the footbridge and the pond, but as I turned around, I saw this wonderful scenery of a home near the inlet with a gorgeous tree next to it. This is an example of one of good photography lessons I learned — be aware of your surroundings when looking for interesting scenery to photograph; sometimes you can find more interesting subjects beyond your initial one by simply turning around and look what is behind you. You can find more sights on Mount Desert Island in my flickr photo album.

Fall morning in Somesville, ME