San Diego gave us two great weeks of stargazing at Seaport Village – now it’s time for my first extended travel of the year.
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Mark your calendars! Jupiter & Venus will be side-by-side in the western sky on JUNE 8TH – 10TH. Find me back in San Diego for three nights only as clouds allow.
The Oregon Road Trip is Here!
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With clouds blocking the sky in San Diego on Sunday night, I had to forgo the 100th sidewalk astronomy session of the year…meaning the 100th will take place either in Oregon, or back in Sedona, AZ at the end of May. But the final few days were wonderful, with Coffee & Cosmos on Friday in National City, and being able to share the telescope with teens at their prom dance on Saturday.
Either way, I said farewell to San Diego until that second week of June, and drove a bit north to meet my sister for a couple days, who’s briefly in town for work.
But as you’re reading this, I’m now well on my way to Oregon. In fact, by the time this newsletter reaches you, I should be in the Sacramento region.
Over the next 15 days, I’ll reach Oregon and wind my way up the coast, across a sliver of Washington, snake my way down the middle of Oregon again, then slide back down the spine of the eastern Sierras before popping off into Arizona and hosting sidewalk astronomy in Sedona.
I’ll travel 3,400 miles on this road trip, longer than the length of the US, bringing my total for 2026 to nearly 15,000 since January 1st.
The map below is an oversimplified preview of where I’ll be, for obvious reasons. About 12 days will be spent in Oregon itself.
The Not-Fun Stuff
Yep. The extreme sudden rise in gas prices due to the United States attacking Iran and causing the Strait of Hormuz to close multiple times, thus bottlenecking the global oil supply and tanking the energy economy, has certainly been a slap in the face.
Up until the end of February, I was filling my 12-gallon van for $28.00 in Florida before the attacks began; $40.00 in Arizona after the attacks began; $57.00 when I reached California in early April; and now $62.00 in California here at the beginning of May the failing operation drags into its 10th week and 20th promise that “it’ll be over in days” (just like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was supposed to, huh?)
As someone not paying rent or utilities, the current $800/month in gas costs hurts, but it beats the $1600 + utilities rent I was paying in Florida before vanlife. And it’s only $800 right now because I did A LOT of driving in April, and May will be right up there. So having a cost of living that’s just $1,100 for a whole month? Not bad.
June will cool down for me, as I won’t be moving around too too much and will be sitting still for a bit during some travel to the east coast for family reasons.
I’ll be interested to see what happens to cost of living over the summer, as I’m planning to be in Idaho and Montana from late June until early August.
A New Season in a State I Love
Circling back around to Oregon, this is the first time I’ll ever see the state during spring! My first visit was for the August 2017 solar eclipse, summer. I returned in October 2023 for the annular solar eclipse, during the start of autumn, and again for about two weeks last November during the larger seasonal change of late autumn.
Getting to witness Oregon in the spring month will be an exciting new view of the state. I know to expect chillier temps than even here in southern California, of course, but now I’ll be just in time for several waterfalls to start rising in the first months of snow melt (following an abysmal winter across most of the west…) I have lots of waterfalls planned along my route of course, as well as visits to backroads, mountains, and Crater Lake.
Then at the end of this trip, coming down the eastern Sierras, I’ll be able to explore even more of California, a state that, until this year, I haven’t visited much of except the LA and Long Beach areas. If you’ve read my newsletters from the past three weeks, you’ve seen me in Death Valley, the southern end of the Eastern Sierra, Bakersfield, Big Sur, the middle of California near Laguna Mountain, the Pacific Coast, San Jose, Palomar, Anza-Borrego, and of course, San Diego. I also spent a good chunk of time in Joshua Tree toward the end of March.
I’ve really opened my California horizons the past few weeks, and it’s been marvelous.
For now, I’m going to release you here. I’ll pause middle of next week to provide an update newsletter, but watch my socials for posts and pictures from my travels today through May 20th, ending in Phoenix on the 21st.
And if you want to follow along live, join my Wanderlog journal.
This world is beautiful.
Alex
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