Charger Dilemma while Traveling

Travel Tips:

The goal was to return home with all our chargers still in our possession. We have left various chargers at different locations in previous travels and we knew it would be an added hassle to replace them while on the road. My goal was to create a system that took care of the charger chaos but at the same time prevented us from leaving them behind.

Here is my solution and it worked beautifully.

Understand, we were traveling with 2 computers, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones and 2 Kindles and on the road for 2 months. I knew many motel and B&B rooms just wouldn't have enough outlets for us. We tend to leave chargers when one is plug into that outlet hidden behind the bed that you can't see.  We packed 2 surge suppressors and David plugged all his chargers into one, and all mine went into the other.  I used a velcro strap to keep the heavier chargers firmly attached. We left all chargers plugged in to the surge suppressors at all times, and at each new motel room, just took out the entire surge suppressor and plugged it in. I had and extra velcro strip for when we unplugged them. All the cords got wrapped and held to the surge suppressor with the extra velcro.  It minimized tangling. 

First thing we did when moving into a new room was plug in the surge suppressors and various electronics. Each morning, we would just unplug the surge suppressors and would know all chargers were there. We had a green bag just for the all the chargers and backup hard drives. 

Worked beautifully because many motel rooms only had the two available outlets for our 8 devices, and we didn't leave a charger behind!

Interested in our cross country journey?

Here are some additional posts about this adventure. More are yet to come.

• The Great American Road Trip • 2013
• Packing for Two Months • A Modular Approach
• O, Beautiful for Spacious Skies
• For Amber Waves of Grain
• For Purple Mountains Majesty
• Above the Fruited Plain
• From Sea to Shining Sea

©2013 Ashbee Design, Marji Roy

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From Sea to Shining Sea

America the Beautiful  - Words by Katharine Lee Bates in 1913

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 

For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 

America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 

Continuing my photo essay from our cross-country road trip....

Today....

From sea to shining sea......

Pacific Ocean at Ecola State Park in Oregon.

We had several goals on this road trip across America and one was to finally reach the Pacific Ocean. We didn't on our bicycles back in 1972. After biking all those miles we flew home from Portland, Oregon without ever having seen the Pacific.  

Our first view couldn't have been more spectacular.  We had been stalling in a B&B in Portland, Oregon waiting for a major coastal storm to clear before we completed that last westward push to finally view the ocean. The storms of the previous 4 days had left the hills draped in rising mists set off against a sea shining silver. It created a beautiful first impression.

Wet piggies on Crescent Beach in Ecola State Park, Oregon

We hiked down through the coastal forest to Crescent Beach where we first touched the water.  We found the rocky outcroppings at every point along the Oregon coast to be incredibly photogenic silhouetted against the sky.

Crescent Beach in Ecola State Park, Oregon

Indian Beach at Ecola State Park in Oregon

Indian Beach at Ecola State Park in Oregon

Indian Beach at Ecola State Park in Oregon

Evening on the beach at Seaside, Oregon

We spent a few days traveling down coastal Route 101 in Oregon. We stopped at State Parks along the way. by this time the federal government had done their best to do nothing and all federal parks were closed. Luckily the states of Oregon and California have beautiful state parks.

Traveling the Oregon coast - sea, sky, and coast....

Heceta Lighthouse State Park, Oregon

Heceta Lighthouse State Park, Oregon

After the Oregon coast we spent a chuck of time in the California Redwoods, certainly a trip highlight. We then traveled onto Sonoma, and San Francisco. After several days there we again headed south, this time along the California Big Sur coastal highway. Yes, it is a beautiful drive!

Route 1 along the California Coast

Sunset on the beach, Carmel-on-the sea, California

Technically we didn't travel coast to coast because we didn't start on the Atlantic seaboard. The trip originated in Ashford, CT which is inland. This group of photos is all of one shining sea and it did shine for us.

Interested in our cross country journey?

Here are some additional posts about this adventure. More are yet to come.

• The Great American Road Trip • 2013
• Packing for Two Months • A Modular Approach
• O, Beautiful for Spacious Skies
• For Amber Waves of Grain
• For Purple Mountains Majesty
• Above the Fruited Plain

©2013 Ashbee Design, Marji Roy

Above the fruited Plain....

America the Beautiful  - Words by Katharine Lee Bates in 1913

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 

For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 

America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 

Continuing my photo essay from our cross-country road trip....

Today....

Above the fruited plain......

Crossing South Dakota in the fall.

The patterned fields captured our eye over and over again.  America is a vast land rich in what is produces. I found it beautiful. And took many photographs!

Washington State

Pike's Place, Seattle

Sonoma, California

Benziger Vineyards, Sonoma, California

Benziger Vineyards, Sonoma, California

Cornerstone Garden, Sonoma, California

Kansas!

Kansas

Missouri

Pennsylvania

Interested in our cross country journey?

Here are some additional posts about this adventure. More are yet to come.

• The Great American Road Trip • 2013
• Packing for Two Months • A Modular Approach
• O, Beautiful for Spacious Skies
• For Amber Waves of Grain
• For Purple Mountains Majesty

©2013 Ashbee Design, Marji Roy

For Purple Mountains Majesty

America the Beautiful  - Words by Katharine Lee Bates in 1913

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 

For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 

America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 

Continuing my photo essay from our cross-country road trip....

Today....

For purple mountains majesty

The La Sal Mountains of Utah as viewed from Arches National Park at sunset

Few of the mountain ranges we saw or traversed were actually purple but all were majestic. The view below is the road winding its way out of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. The drive between Sheridan and Greybull was a beautiful one.

Leaving the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming.

But the road on straightened out and we headed onto Cody, Wyoming. When the views were as expansive as this one, we often had mountains in the distance.

Heading into Cody, Wyoming. Yes, those would be the Rockies and Yellowstone ahead.

Snow was visible on many peaks as we headed into the Rockies in late September.  This is the east entrance into Yellowstone National Park and the pine trees have been ravaged by beetle kill. That combined with fire damage made the east entrance noteworthy. Other areas of the park showed amazing new growth from earlier forest fires. Especially beautiful was the growth in the area of the huge 1988 fire.

Mountain view on the road to Yellowstone East Gate.

Yellowstone is such a collection of amazing and different landscapes, some definitely other worldly and some just simply stunning. Here is a beautiful view south toward the Tetons across Yellowstone Lake.

The Tetons as viewed from Yellowstone Lake.

We crossed Washington State and into Seattle through clearing storms. The pass through the Cascades was dramatic with lifting clouds.

A huge mountain standing alone is an impressive sight. This was the view from our hotel in Tacoma Washington. We got to watch the sunset on the face of Mt. Rainier. We didn't get to see either Mt. Hood or Mt St. Helen because of storm clouds.

Mt. Rainier as viewed from our hotel room in Tacoma Washington

After Washington State, we headed south along the coasts of Oregon and California swinging back toward the mountains (and home) through Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

Crossing Utah

You can see why we didn't tire of driving. The views like this were constantly changing but always beautiful. The engineering of the roads through the mountains was amazing. The curves were banked and you could just glide right into them, climbing for miles and then descending as you would weave through the ridges on the other side.

Crossing Utah

We thought I-15 and I-70 through Utah should be a National Park Corridor.  The views were endlessly beautiful. As I said earlier, we took 6000 photos. And many are from the state of Utah!

Crossing Utah

The mountains served as a beautiful backdrop to many of our photos in Arches National Park.

LaSal Mountains from Arches National Park, Utah

After Arches National Park, we continued east on I-70 into Colorado and were greeted by the western front range of the Rockies at Grand Junction. They looked white in the late day sun.

Heading into Grand Junction, CO.

And then we unsuccessfully tried to out run snow in the Rockies. Our views through Glenwood Canyon were limited. Spectacular mountain canyons but no peaks.

Luckily the temperatures rose as we climbed up into Vail and although it was still snowing, the roads were only wet and we were able to clear the passes with little problem.

Vail, Colorado during a fall snow storm.

Interested in our cross country journey?

Here are some additional posts about this adventure. More are yet to come.

• The Great American Road Trip • 2013
• Packing for Two Months • A Modular Approach
• O, Beautiful for Spacious Skies
• For Amber Waves of Grain

©2013 Ashbee Design, Marji Roy

For Amber Waves of Grain

America the Beautiful  - Words by Katharine Lee Bates in 1913

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 

For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 

America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 

Continuing my photo essay from our cross-country road trip....

Although I didn't plan to illustrate America, the Beautiful, I realized I had. Yesterday was Spacious Skies. Today....

For amber waves of grain.

Our travels occurred throughout September and October and the fields of America were golden. We were captivated by the gold and blue combinations that passed by our car window. 

The simplicity of the endless fields and the empty horizon were, to me, breathless. And so different from my native New England. The combination of rich textures and simple lines grabbed the attention of my camera lens over and over.

The farms would jump into view and add to the the image.

The richness of the blue against the amber prairie as the sun would start setting was amazing.

Even up close the fields drew our cameras.

Hay bales were worth a photo essay of their own.

And it wasn't all sunshine. The fog added some drama.

As did the snow!

Interested in our cross country journey?

Here are some additional posts about this adventure. More are yet to come.

• The Great American Road Trip • 2013
• Packing for Two Months • A Modular Approach
• O, Beautiful for Spacious Skies

©2013 Ashbee Design, Marji Roy

O Beautiful, For Spacious Skies…...

On September 5th David and I packed the car and headed off for 7 weeks of unscripted travel around America. (I shared the back story here and my packing technique here.) Our travels had a variety of themes one of which was photography. We each had a Canon Rebel DSLR and had planned to take photos across America. When we biked across in 1972 we had a Kodak Instamatic camera and very little money for film. We have very few photos of that remarkable experience and we weren't going to make the same mistake on this adventure.

We have returned home with close to 6000 photos.  I have been pondering how best to share a part of the collection with you.  It was the photos of the fields (amber waves of grain) that led to my approach.

Road and Sky - Crossing America

America IS beautiful! I will be sharing a few of the many photos organized by the lyrics of America the Beautiful  - Words by Katharine Lee Bates in 1913

O beautiful for spacious skies, 

For amber waves of grain, 

For purple mountain majesties 

Above the fruited plain! 

America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 

And crown thy good with brotherhood 

From sea to shining sea! 

Today, are photos to illustrate the first line - O beautiful for spacious skies……

Crossing Ohio

David and I each had a camera and both took many photos everyday. At this point we can no longer identify which photos are mine and which are his.  I watermarked them all AshbeeDesign and some are mine, but some are also his.  I guess we give photo credit to the Roy Team.

While we took many images at the various sites we visited, we were visually stunned by the passing roadside.  We learned to shoot out the window as we drove, always marveling at the simple beauty of the landscape. We would bump up the speed of the camera to over 1/1250 to still the motion of the moving car.

South Dakota, Badlands National Park

We come from heavily forested New England and big sky is not what we see.  We loved watching the clouds and the storms as we crossed the plains states.

Northeastern Wyoming

Devil's Tower National Monument - before the hail!

We saw impressive and majestic wind farms outlined against the skies in many states.

Washington State Windfarm

And were awed by the combination of sea and sky as we reached the Pacific…..

Waiting for Sunset, Seaside, Oregon

Traveling Route 101 South along the Oregon Coast

The glorious blue along with white clouds made the incredible red rock formations in Arches National Park all the more stunning. We were lucky to be there for a sunset and captured beautiful light. (We were lucky to be there at all. Thank you Utah for opening the parks!)

Arches National Park, Utah

And, after turning back east the skies over the Rockies became angry and stormy. We didn't see much of the mountains as we climbed the pass on I-70 through Vail.

Entering the Rockies from Grand Junction, CO. along with snow.

Come back for more… Amber waves of grain next.

Update:
For Amber Waves of Grain here.
Modular Packing here.
The Story behind out trip here.

©2013 Ashbee Design, Marji Roy