Road Trips!

In early October 2013 I drove out of New Orleans in Louisiana on I-10 W towards Baton Rouge. I headed out across the mangrove swamps and Lake Pontchartrain to start the first of my American road trips, travelling north up Highway 61 into the Mississippi Delta towards my eventual destination, Chicago.

This website has the story of that journey – and the other road trips I have completed since. Two years later I drove south down the Pacific Coast Highway in California then swung back north to visit the Wine Country of Napa and Sonoma. I ended the journey by staying in San Jose and seeing the San Francisco 49ers play at Levi’s Stadium.

In 2016, back again in California, I first headed towards Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. The plan was to head north after driving Tioga Road out of Yosemite then come back south down the Gold Rush Trail, California Highway 49. But then sometimes not everything goes as it should when doing a road trip, does it? 🙂

In October 2017 I did my Cross Country Expedition starting in Ohio, via Nashville and other places, and ending my on-the-road element in Texas. But again I finished the trip in San Jose, flying in to watch the 49ers.

Next year, 2018, I went slightly mad. I landed in New York at JFK and just over three weeks later I flew back to the UK from San Francisco airport, having driven Coast To Coast across the United States of America. I drove 4,466 miles in 20 days…

In mid-October 2019 I finally drove Route 66 having been planning to do it for a number of years. I went all the way from Chicago to Santa Monica on what remains of the old original highway. Then I went up the coast to see the 49ers again. And I finally saw them win, at last! The pages describing that trip are now, at last, live. Goddam pandemic seemed to suck the energy out of me back home to get that trip written up! Because of Covid of course, any road trips and plans for 2020 were well and truly scuppered. 2021 also went by the wayside as America remained ‘closed’.

It never rains, but it pours…

In 2022 I started to plan another road trip for the Fall / Autumn that year. But my wife and I decided to go half way around the world to Hawaii on vacation instead! As you do. Early in 2023 I completed planning a trip for the Fall later in that year. The plan was to do the whole of the West Coast of America, on the coast roads, from Seattle to San Diego. I’d revisit all of the Pacific Coast Highway on the way. That plan fell by the wayside when Spring storms that year wiped out sections of Highway 1 in a series of massive landslides.

Caltrans are very good at coping with such events and normally get the road re-opened after the winter storms in time for summer. But not that year. The landslide at Paul’s Slide (for one) was on a devastating scale not seen in years. That one resulted in Caltrans needing to shift nearly 500,000 cubic yards of material…

Back in the USA

So in mid-2023 I postponed the Western Coastal trip and quickly created another. In Fall 2023 I did my first US road trip for 4 years, driving the Cascade Loop & Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway road trip.

A year or so on and unfortunately, at the end of July 2024, the Pacific Coast Highway was still closed in Big Sur. The Paul’s Slide section had finally re-opened earlier in July. However further up the road there had been two more landslides in March 2024, again due to bad storms. The damage caused at Regent’s Slide in particular was very severe. Caltrans was saying in mid-2024 that PCH wouldn’t fully re-open until sometime in 2025.

So the Western Coastal trip was postponed yet again. But I was back in America in September and October 2024 for another road trip, starting again from Seattle. I flew back to the UK from San Diego. I did a non-coastal route and saw lots of things that I’d had on my California to-do list for a while. Washington and Oregon states also added something to the road trip mix. This became the Western Parks & Forests road trip.

Continuing problems, yet another trip, and hope…

In 2025 the damage at Regent’s Slide, with PCH still closed there, became a real headache for the Big Sur community and Caltrans. The slope which collapsed there causing the closure of Highway 1 on February 9th 2024 was still exhibiting signs of movement in early 2025. This severely delayed the repair attempts. Caltrans were doing everything they could, working seven days a week and extended hours, but they announced in May 2025 that Highway 1 in this area will remain closed through summer 2025. It is the longest ever continued closure Highway 1 has ever experienced. The road is of course open above and below Regent’s Slide but for those like me who want to drive the whole route uninterrupted (again), I’m afraid we’re still out of luck.

But smiling in the face of adversity, I went back to the USA in September 2025 for another road trip. This involved even more bucket list places. I flew into Atlanta then home from San Francisco three weeks later. This great trip was Utah & More.

And the excellent news was that in late September Caltrans announced that Highway 1 at Regent’s Slide was expected to reopen to through traffic by the end of March 2026.

Hurray – PCH is open again!

Caltrans re-opened the portion of Highway 1 closed at Regent’s Slide at noon on January 14 2026, nearly 90 days earlier than the estimated re-opening date of March 30.  Great news, it’s the first time in almost three years that the Pacific Coast Highway has been fully open.

About me

I’m a white guy who lives in the UK and I turned 60 a few years ago.  I can’t quite believe I’ve made it this far…

I was lucky enough in my business career to travel to various countries all over the world. Much of that travel took me to the USA where I had (or manoeuvred…) the opportunity to add days on here and there and “see some of the sights” when on a business trip. Then a decade or so ago I thought I’d like to explore in more detail some of the places I’d been to before. But I also wanted to experience some of the many places I knew of in America but had not visited yet. Like Graceland and Sun Studio, for two examples. Oh, and to see some American Football (as we in the UK call it) live ‘on the field’. The thing was, having been a fan of the sport for decades, I’d only ever watched it on TV.

Hence my road trips were born. I plan and book everything myself. I use travel company itineraries as a guide, plus internet forums, TripAdvisor and news/travel websites are a great help. Google Maps is used to plot out the day to day routes.

The trips

I visited many places on all of the trips where the environment, cultural mix and day-to-day reality was very different from my everyday life. Given those differences, I describe my encounters in factual terms and, where relevant, highlight how a situation was different to my usual life.

Some of my photos aren’t brilliant, especially those where the natural light is not good. Many museums and other places however ban the use of flash, plus music clubs don’t like you to use it. If you click on the thumbnail images on a page they will display larger in a new window.

This site is not meant to be a definitive travel or tour guide. It just tells the stories and experiences I had on my particular journeys. I thought however that some of what I experienced may be of interest to anyone planning or doing similar trips, or visiting the places I did. Please leave a comment or ask a question on any of the pages if you’d like to do so.

On most of the trips I’ve done I had to miss out visiting some towns, museums, clubs etc. because I didn’t have the time to see everything. One day I thought I might return and explore these some more. Such as I did on the Ohio, Nashville & Texas trip when I returned to Clarksdale in the Mississippi Delta. Equally, and this to me is an important point for a road trip, as I travelled around I discovered many other places of interest that I didn’t know about beforehand. So I went where I went, and I found what I found.

Safe travels,

Zimbo