June 2025 – johnboystravelblog

I-40 at North Carolina/Tennessee border

This is a rare real-time post as a heads-up to those of you thinking of taking the “recently-reduced-to-one-lane-each-way” I-40 through the western NC mountains in the next week or two. (This was originally posted June 25)

(Previous statement by JB: DON’T)

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UPDATE on 6/27/25 PERMISSION GRANTED!! The road has reopened earlier than expected. They had said it would be closed two weeks from June 18, or until July 3, but announced today that is open. Now we just have to hope they don’t get much rain, and if they do, I might consider going another way…

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Original post to explain what happened….

One week ago today, on June 18, 2025, the highway experienced another closure due to a rock/mudslide which flooded the lanes on both the east and west-bound side.

(Photo credit: ABC News)

(Photo credit: Asheville Citizen Times)

For those of you not from these parts, I-40 through the mountains is a narrow 4-lane highway with tight turns, tunnels, and LOTS of truck traffic. It is arguably the shortest distance between two points BUT is prone to many problems. Rockslides, mudslides, accident closures, icing problems and snow drifts in the winter months, etc.

This existing problem was compounded exponentially on September 27, 2024 when excessive rains from Hurricane Helene (on ground already saturated by rains from back-to-back “normal” storms the week before which, because of the mountains, often result in nature squeezing even MORE moisture than normal out of the air) caused exceptionally high water levels in the Pigeon River, which runs adjacent to the westbound lanes of I-40, causing them to collapse, literally, into the river.

Think I’m kidding?

(Photo credit: Raleigh News & Observer)

(Photo credit: WRAL TV)

The highway was closed, obviously, and traffic both ways was rerouted. No small task. This became a priority repair project and after giving the matter some thought, NC Department of Transportation announced plans to have the highway reopened by New Year’s Day.

FAIL (but not their fault)

On December 20 (and I don’t know if they were on schedule or not but that is now moot) parts of the westbound lanes collapsed AGAIN.

So now the priority became changing the eastbound lanes to one-lane each direction, at 35mph, big rigs allowed but NO WIDE LOADS!! That idea finally became a reality on March 20, 2025, and worked quite well until last week.

A subsidiary problem which has developed is that truckers, who are notoriously on a tight schedule and are always trying to find a new way to skin a cat (sorry, PETA, just using a common phrase. No ill-intent here…) are taking shortcuts on small mountain roads not designed for the size or weight of such vehicles.

Helpful hint to truckers – when the police and other authorities tell you not to use small mountain roads to transport your precious cargo – DON’T.

(Photo credit: Raleigh News & Observer)

(Photo credit: CBS17)

(Photo credit: Yahoo News)

Fortunately, our hero is not going west to start his next trip. I will be heading north to Pennsylvania and Ohio next Tuesday and will be well north of this dilemma when I start working my way west to Seattle.

And as a final cautionary warning to be mindful of in similar situations – several years ago, during one of the hurricanes which passed over North Carolina (I live in Durham) and flooded long sections of I-95, a MAJOR north/south corridor (used by truckers hauling their precious cargo, parents hauling their precious cargo to/from Disney World, and drug pushers and arms dealers hauling their precious cargo to Lord knows where), when a local TV newsperson interviewed a State Trooper and asked “what’s the best advice you can give people trying to get around this mess?” the Trooper replied, “Two things – one, LISTEN to local authorities who are standing out in the elements for that reason, and two, DON’T TRUST YOUR GPS. It’s going to direct you to the next highway which runs parallel to the interstate. Well guess what, the next THREE highways are flooded, too.”

I hadn’t really thought about that before but he’s right. As I have learned over the years with my GPS units 1.o through 4.0, trust but verify.

So here’s the plan for 2025

No photo. (Already he starts with the “no photo” nonsense….)

I still plan to leave Durham July 1 – a week from tomorrow. Most of the first two weeks will be visiting friends and family in Pennsylvania and Ohio. I doubt if I will post anything during that time (well, I might sneak one or two in since I generally wake up well before anyone else when I visit people).

Once I hit the road in earnest I will be making a series of one or two night stops as I work my way to Seattle WA. I will stay there 4 nights before crossing into Canada. All those stops have already been booked, and I have a few activities and photo ops planned.

After I cross into Canada I plan to spend 8 weeks visiting the southern parts of British Columbia and Alberta provinces, and the southwestern part of Saskatchewan.

Now comes the tricky part. Wildfires. The worst wildfire in Canada this year (so far) seems to be in the upper part of Manitoba, well east of my target area. BUT. Many fires have erupted in all three provinces I plan to spend my time in and are getting more than a little close for comfort. I have booked about three of my projected 8 weeks in Canada already. That puts me near Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. After that, who knows…. I am not booking anything else until I get my boots on the ground in Canada and can assess the situation at that time. I have Plans B, C, D and E mapped out, just in case.

My original plan was to spend 8 weeks in Canada, return to Seattle, put my car in storage and fly to Alaska! I have 5 weeks available to spend up there before I must start my departure from Seattle to make my rambling trip through the western and southern US on my way back to Durham by Thanksgiving.

For anyone who might be thinking of robbing my apartment, I have cleaned out all the food from my refrigerator and freezer and have taken my clothes to Asheville and Swannanoa in WNC to help the victims of Hurricane Helene, so don’t waste your time picking the carcass apart in Durham…. not much left here! I have all the good stuff with me – my wits, phone, computer, cameras, FitBit, prescription meds, Passport, new-to-me car and, of course, my Platinum card.

I will start posting some pictures once I depart to head west (instead of north) about three weeks from now, both with road trip pics, though there will be many travel days when I just drive on the dreaded interstate, and several stops I have planned around specific activities. Once I get to Canada I will stop the hysterical historical photos and stories and focus on real time photos of The Great White North (let’s hope it’s not white quite yet).

The momentum is building….

I’ve been working on this for weeks and it is about to start! Let me whet your picture appetite with some photos from “Nawlins” taken in May 2016. That’s New Orleans if you don’t speak southern.

And more importantly, let’s see if I remember how to do this! (Come on, JohnBoy, it’s like riding a bicycle…)

You can’t start a photo array about New Orleans without beignets and chicory coffee from Cafe du Monde.

No, that’s not me… I’m a few pounds heavier…. (where are my rolling eyes emoji’s when I need them)

I won’t tell you where I found this reverse image…

And to answer your next question….

So this is the type of thing you can expect from time to time. Flashbacks from past trips I took before starting the blog. These were taken using my Android phone which took very good pictures but don’t seem to be as big as photos taken with my various iPhones. And this was well before I had any of my digital cameras, the first of which I acquired in 2017.

I have downloaded 3,749 pictures from 2015, and 13,750 pictures from 2016, to my computer. I started the blog in 2017 but I traveled throughout the eastern United States and stayed mostly in Airbnb’s during those two years and other than amusing JohnBoy stories I have shared from time to time (like the Bike Gate fiasco in Memphis) I have just been sitting on them. I know, I know, COVID was the perfect opportunity to have used my isolation to post them but I am a terrible procrastinator.

My next post will spell out “the plan” as it stands right now, at 821 EDT on June 23, 2025. My life seems to be in a constant state of flux lately so we’ll all just have to muddle through this together…..