Trips are often built up in our minds as an unreachable summit, something that we want to do but we think is just out of reach in our daily lives. The truth of the matter though, is that most of those trips are right in front of our noses, waiting for us to just take the plunge and go for it. Shooting the next episode of Kayak Angler’s web series Hook, Line & Paddle, I just drove cross country to go fishing with Hobie’s Morgan Promnitz, with barely any planning. That means you can take that fishing trip you’ve been dreaming of, no matter where it is. You just have to commit.
Starting out after only a few hours of sleep, (we chose to go out with friends the night before. We regretted it later), we hit the road on Saturday morning and figured we’d stop when it got dark, where ever that got us. The trip out to California is pretty much a bull run, getting out there as quickly as possible and saving the sightseeing for the return trip. So after 13 hours of driving, we called it a night somewhere in Virginia.
That night the temperatures got down just below freezing, but enough sleepings bags and extra blankets kept it just warm enough to get some sleep. My fiancee Jennie and I chose to sleep at the roadside KOA campsites that are easy to find in every state and don’t cost very much. This kept the trip on a reasonable budget and let us rest easy that there’d be a place to stay no matter where we decided to stop for the night. These campsites are all throughout the US, so if you have a car you can sleep in, you have little excuses to get out there and go on your trip.
By Monday we were spending the night in New Mexico, where we soaked up the desert sun all day in a tshirt and then froze our asses off at night in 20 degree weather. We hit the road as soon as we woke up so we could treat ourselves to McDonalds’ coffee and breakfast for a change. To keep our food budget as low as possible, we chose to eat canned soup everynight and packed sandwhiches into my Yeti Roadie 20 to get us to California. We even chose to bring my stove and coffee press so we could save as much cash as possible. But even if that’s your plan too, that doesn’t mean you should never break your own rules and enjoy a hot breakfast.
Tuesday, the final day of our trip out to Cali was by far the hardest. Even though it was the shortest leg of the trip, driving through the endless Arizona and California deserts was relentless. After seeing the desert for two hours it’s really hard to look at it again for another six. After four days of driving it’s nice to take a break for a few days and get the cameras charged up for fishing with Morgan Promnitz, of Hobie Fishing. Stay tuned for more updates from our road trip out to California and back, including some highlights from my day of fishing, and our return trip back where we’re going to see more sights and hopefully post most photos so you can follow along! Now start planning that dream trip of your own!
