Day 322: Johannesburg, MI
Cloudy and cold.
I spent a lot of time in review during our seclusion in Bokeelia. A “Best/Worst Of” discussion follows. Today, we are focusing on the drives that we took on our trip.
Best of the Trip: Drives
Icefields Parkway from Banff to Jasper – stunning misty mountain views, glaciers and glacier-fed lakes of vivid blues and greens

Haines Highway – beginning at Haines Junction, Yukon, in tundra, goes through mountain hemlock zone and ends at sea level zone in Haines, AK

Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park – not for the faint of heart or anything bigger than Arvi, once you get to the mountain pass views you realize why a big deal is made of this drive

Highway 20 in Washington – through the jagged Cascades with a surprising turnoff at the Washington Pass

Highway 101, the Oregon Coast – is mostly accessible state parks and turnoffs, and where we happened upon Cape Perpetua, with dramatic ocean wave action and sweeping coastal views from atop the cliffs

Highway 1 – the California Coast from Monterey to Morro Bay is both stunning and exhilarating with precarious cliff turnoffs where you can view the ocean far, and straight, below, and the road is closed occasionally when a landslide covered it or took it away


Of course, there were many, many amazing drives on our trip. Some took us through history, some took us through tidal marsh areas, some took us by oil rigs on the gulf. I found them all fascinating. The dramatic rises and drops in the terrain found in the drives listed here kept our hearts pounding and our mouths agape.
Worst Drives:
Terror on Ice – a beautiful sunny afternoon drive to the campground at Hyde Memorial State Park in Santa Fe turned into an hour of terror when we were stopped on an icy uphill slope and could neither move forward or backward

A Sobering Event – driving south to the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas to stay away from snowy elevations, we learned of the ferocity of western winds, when we rounded a curve and found a fifth wheel that had just blown over

Beautiful!!
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