I added some more comments and changed a couple.

 

Thanks, I appreciate it!

Hello everyone, I made it back to the portland area from hawaii finally. This is how my flight went:

Your flight from honolulu to san Francisco will now depart at 12:30 am instead of 10:50pm, due to mechanical problems with the plane coming from san Francisco. What we're gonna do, is jerry-rig the plane coming from san fran, once here, we will board you, push the plane out into the middle of the tar mac, sit there for 20 minutes before we decide to see if it can make the flight, we will then push you back to the gate for the next few hours while we try to fix it. And at 3am, your flight is now canceled!

Stayed in a best western, got a few hours of sleep in. They re-scheduled me for a flight at 12:40pm, lost my first class upgrade. Get to san fran around 9pm. I go up to the gate where my connecting flight is, stand there, waiting for the representative, she refuses to acknowledge my existence for atleast 5 mnutes, walks away, comes back, and goes...
"what do you need?"
Me: "My flight from honolulu to san fran was canceled last night, they now have me on this connecting flight going to portland instead, I need to know what time it lands in portland so I can let my ride know"
Stupid bitch: "I am working a flight to newark right now!"
(keep in mind we are at the gate for my connecting flight to portland here)
Stupid bitch: "Where are you going to?"
Me: "Portland"
Stupid bitch: "flight 522 to protland, departs at 10:50, lands at 12:30am, what did you need to know?"

Stupid bitch, I wanted to chuck norris kick her face off!

I didn't even bother asking about my free potential first class upgrade until another guy came over to work the gate, I asked him about it, he kindly put me in for first class, so I got to fly back the rest of the way, stress free finally, had a few jack & cokes, and relaxed.

 

Hey guys, bit of an update.

Left portland AGAIN on sunday night, stopped by my buddies place for a while in eugene, then I drove up to crater lake later that night! The drive up there was wild, way out in the middle of no where, thick fog, snow on the road, hundreds of tiny control burn fires going on right next to the road, with all the smoke, and fog, could hardly see 20 feet in front of the van.

I got to crater lake around 11 at night, it was a full moon,plenty of stars, not a loud in the sky. Drove up top to the crater, it looked amazing, everything was lit up so good because of the moon and the light reflecting off of the snow.

They didn't have the rim drive open, or much of any of the other roads. I slept up top, had two blankets layed down, then my outdoor sleeping bag, another blanket on top of that, slept in flannel pajamas, a hoodie, two pairs of socks, and it was so cold I could hardly sleep. I woke up early, caught the sunrise, was amazing seeing it come up over the crater, the cloud level was low so when you looked over the edge toward the mountains, the peaks were sicking up out of the clouds. I think that crater lake looked better under the full moon but everything was just awesome. It was so cold up there that my camera would hardly work, I had to put it over my defroster vent for a few minutes, and my hands would go numb after about 30 seconds of being outside.

After that, I drove to redwoods park, it was awesome driving through all the tall trees, there was one that the base was only a few feet shorter than the whole length of my van.

After that, I started driving over to lake tahoe, I was going up I80 and hit the now line around 3000 feet, I turned around about 40 miles from tahoe since I can't mountain bike in the snow (and biking has been the main focus of the trip) I drove over to yosemite park, got there at about 5:30 am, slept for an hour, then drove all around the park, they had a lot of the roads closed due to snow. That place is awesome, I want to go back another time and really explore it, when there's no snow.

I went over to sequoia park after that, didn't get to see a whole lot because of snow again, they require chains past a certain point so I couldn't go past there. I rode my bike through the snow, down one of the closed roads or a few miles just checking things out, then cruised down into los angeles after I left the park.

I did all ths over two days, I only slept or maybe a total of two hours, I was outta my mind tired, seein purple spots and stuff driving to yosemite. I stayed at my buddies place here in la, and finally got a good nights rest. I'll upload the pics later today!

 

Ok, heres the pictures from Hawaii, and then crater lake, redwoods, yosemite, and sequoia, you'll see some of the crater lake pictures are blurry cause my camera was too cold to work right but after I put it on the defroster vent or a few minutes you can clearly see the difference!

Hawaii
Hawaii pictures by keyul87 - Photobucket

Crater lake, redwoods, yosemite, sequoia
Crater lake redwoods yossemite sequoia pictures by keyul87 - Photobucket

 

Awesome pictures of Hawaii, my birthplace in 1960 (military brat).

 

Love being out there in Hawaii! I am going to be back there in January!

 

Well guys, my trip is over, made it back home after 4 months. Had to cut it a bit short, pretty much ran out of money! I'll get the rest of my pictures and stuff up later, as well as the basic facts about the trip. Also have to put the van up for sale immediately, I am returning to hawaii in january and cannot take it with me!

After I left LA, I went down to san diego to visit my friend, she is also from Hawaii, we also met up with out other friend from hawaii out there whos boat was returning to sea in a few days, they were having a private party at a bar so we got to have a Hawaii reunion out there which was awesome!

The next day, me and my friend, met up with an old high school buddy who s also now in the san diego area, it was cool to introduce her to him, I always like networking people together.

Cruised to joshua tree park after that, thats a pretty neat place, climbed around on the boulders and explored all around.

Cruised right on over to arizona for some mountain biking later. Did my first arizona ride right in phoenix, t was the most technical trail that I have ever rode in my life. People were amazed to see me gong up and down the trail there.

My nest ride was in Scottsdale, a nice tough out and back route over the mountain, followed up by riding for a day in sedona. I was going to spend a few days in sedona, as there was a lot of trails, but once I got a map from the local bike shop, I saw that they were all linked together so we planned a route for me and I rode every single one of them that day.

I went up to flagstaff after that, but unfortunately, the trail I was going to ride, starts off up at 8,500' and was already covered in ice and snow so I'll have to do that another time.

I then went down to tucson, an did a desert ride there, and then after that, I had to start heading home because I was pretty much out of money.

Getting home these past few days has been horrendous. I first drove non stop from tucson to knoxville tn on a half hour of sleep. And I only stopped in knoxville because my vans cv axle cooked itself on the highway at 4am sunday morning the morning. Van was hopping ll over the place in the rear, vibrating like crazy, pulled over and the axle was smoking! I had AAA take me to autozone, slept in the parking lot for a few hours, woke up, went to see if they had an axle available, nothing until tuesday, advance had one available for monday morning so I ordered it.

I spent my night in a hotel, a first for this trip. In the morning, I went to go drive the van back to advance auto so I can change the cv axle in their parking lot, which s a .4mile drive, the thing totally blew,ripped in half, stranded on the road, pushed the van into a parking lot. Walk to advance, get the axle, go back to the van, crawl under, start changing it, half way done taking it out, it starts pissing rain, im laying there under the van in a flowing river of water coming across the parking lot, cold, wet, miserable, frustrated, over tired, pissed off. I got the axle out, then proceeded to walk a block over to a service station, walked in the door dripping like a wet sponge, asked the guy if i could work on my van under his overhang, he said no problem.

I pushed the van another block to the service station, got it under the over hang, finished the job. drove back to the parts store, got a torque wrench, crawled back under the van in the pouring rain, torqued the bolts, then got into some dry clothes and drove another 13 hours non stop back to connecticut, got home at 5:30 am this morning!

Wow, these last few days have been brutal but it is good to be home!

 

Wow what a trip home, that van was determined to be a PIA to you! Damn VW! lol

 

Well here's some basic facts about the trip!

Length: 4 Months
Miles: 18,969
Gas: 995.95 Gallons
AVG MPG: 19.04
Bike: 500 brutal miles
Number of states: 29 + hawaii & BC, Canada
National parks Visited: 17
Times pulled over: 0
Times broken down: Too many to count and more than I care to remember

Met some awesome people, saw a lot of old friends, saw a lot of places and experienced a lot of things, some of the best, and worst times of my life, there's still so much more left to see and do, I'll get another trip going when I have the chance again!

Thanks for following along, here are the last bit of pictures I have, from Joshua tree, and my travels through Arizona. Hopefully this has inspired you to all go out and see the world a bit!

Joshua Tree Arizona pictures by keyul87 - Photobucket

 

Kyle,

I just came across this thread again. That was quite a trip! Some of the best trips you ever take are those that aren't "planned". That's the way some of the trips I have been on have unfolded. There is a base direction to it but the rest plays out all its own. I've never taken on such a huge adventure, but I would like to. I'd like to hike the appalachian trail, drive around the country and take my time seeing the sights as you did, and one trip I would really like to do is to drive to Alaska - somewhere up as far north as I can get (no "roads" go to barrow, but that would be a cool destination).

Thanks for sharing your adventure and keep those dreams alive!