USA (California-Nevada-Arizona-Utah) roadtrip 2012

Tomorrow (June 3rd) the plane lifts from Linköping airport to take me, torado and Swerker to Amsterdam, Schiphol, and from there over the Atlantic Ocean and all of the USA to Californa, and Los Angeles. That is the start for a two week road trip to do some serious geoCaching! We will be in USA from June 3rd up to June 18th, and be back home (after flying LA-NY-Amsterdam-Linköping) late afternoon June 19th.

The plan

• June 3rd, we start the trip in Barstow, right between LA and the border to Nevada, with a small PowerTrail (PT). Our first night in USA will be spent in Barstow.
• June 4th-5th, head to Las Vegas, where we will be chasing some "ghosts", that is virtuals, and do some sightseeing.
• June 6th, gonna be a long day as we will take a trip to Grand Canyon in Arizona, and then head up to Zion park in Utah.
• June 7th, Cedar City in Utah for another PT.
• June 8th-13th (maybe) Alamo in Nevada, here is the major goal of this trip as it is where the big ET PT is placed. It will take a couple of days. During this period there is also an event in Rachel and there is rumour that 500 caches (to extend the PT) will be released during this event.
• June 14th-18th is spent in California, north of LA. We start with Ventura by the Pacific ocean. Possibly we will be visting the Sequoia National park as well.

So, a lot to do, with many trads to be found. But there will be a bunch of virtuals and earthcaches as well, and possibly a few letterboxes. Might be just one mystery and one multi, but we have not concentrated on them. Usually one go for the trads when travelling abroad and do the serious stuff back home...

Quite a trip.  I will be bringing a netbook so maybe I will write some blog entries during the trip. If not I am sure to write some when I get back.  

What about challenges?

Wont be much of that in the US. Did find one challenge where you could log if you have logged any with "The" in the title!  () But there are some challenges or achivements that I expect to accomplish during this trip:

• I will of course pass 3000 found (as I have less than 100 left for that), for sure even 5000, and possibly even 6000. The Black Belt has 3000 as its first requirement but I am still lack some.
• Have 300 meter as my top height before. This trip has a whole PT (ET) with caches over 1000 meter. There is even one nearby at 3000 meter! But still not enough for Black Belt.
• Two continents in one day. Before I leave to the airport I will log a cache nearby home, and later the same day I will log at least on in California. So, that will take care of that challenge.
• I will likely double my finds and the majority of them will all be more than 8000 km from home! My previous record was just under 4000 km (Egypt). Of course, I will get a new Westernmost cache, probably near Ventura, California.

To sum it up

This will be quite an effort. Both due to the sheer amount of caches, but also due to the weather. 

Here it has been just around, or even below, 10 degrees Celsius.  In Nevada it seems to be more in the line of 40 degrees Celsius and no rain. So, sun blocker and lots of water to drink....

Here the worst you can encounter is a tick. In Nevada you can find rattle snakes, black widows, ... So I will try not to put my hand into any black hole looking for geoCaches ;-)

Anway, this will include a lot of geoCaching. This might be, as Swerker said, THE geoCaching trip of our life!  Even so I hope to see a lot of sights and get a feeling on how it is to live in that part of the world. I wont be moving there, but it is always interesting to get to new places to get a feel for how the people there work.