By 4:30 pm we had passed Lancaster and were almost to the Tehachapi Wind Farm near Mojave, California (below). When Boise State University moved all classes online for the remainder of the 2020 spring semester, there was no way we were putting Noah on an airplane to get him home.

We had already self-quarantined the rest of the family, so on Sunday, March 15 at 2 pm Isaiah and I decided to drive to Boise, Idaho from Santa Clarita, California, and continue the self-quarantine in our Ford Excursion. We took the third-row seat out and put a mattress in the back, packed up some food and hit the road by 3:10 pm.

Isaiah drove for large portions of the trip, so I was gifted the chance to snap some photos. All of the photos in this blog post were taken somewhere near 70 MPH from the passenger seat. There was no way to have a steady hand, so that meant fast shutter speeds. Most of these are at 1/2500 of a second or faster. In some light, like above in Red Rock Canyon, this was not an issue, but take my word for it… there were a lot of really bad shots.

We pulled into Winnemucca, Nevada at 12:15 am and slept in the parking lot of a Super Walmart. I woke up at 4:15 am and we headed toward Boise. By 10 am, we had Noah all packed up and headed back to Santa Clarita. We landed back home at 11:38 pm on Monday, March 16. If you’re keeping score, that’s two 13-hour trips (1630 miles) in about 32 hours.

The reward was some amazing alone time with two of my sons, a great story, and a few photos of the amazing scenery along the way. I’ll post some of the shots I took while pulled over on the side of the road in the coming days.

Thanks, Isaiah, for making this a fun trip. You were awesome.

Jeff Turner

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