A Drive Across America

I didn't have access to a car at will when growing up. I never had the same relationship American teenagers have with their cars - for them its a rite of passage to have a first car and go places, and experience the freedom it provides.  Driving with the windows down and loud music is a pretty good feeling that I've wanted to always enjoy, and from the time I got my first car, I've loved it. I got my first car in America, so driving on US roads has some sentimental connections for me. Driving on these roads in areas with beautiful scenery for me has always been a very meditative experience and never failed to cheer me up on a bad day. This combined with all the classic road trip movies I've seen made me realize that I've always wanted to drive and enjoy the beautiful and diverse landscape of America.

Combined with my significant other, we have lived in the US for about 20 years but realized that we really haven't seen much of America - so we decided that 'now' is a good as time as any, and there is no sense in waiting for the 'right' time, as life just happens to throw curveballs all the time. So in the summer of 2012, we embarked on a 3 week road trip from NY to San Francisco, and then drove up the pacific coast highway all the way to Seattle. By the time trip was finished, we logged 8,168 miles!

The Trip

When I planned this trip, I planned it day by day. But since then, when going through the photos, I picked out the ones I enjoyed the best. I realize though, that I did myself a disservice, because the other days had little events and details that I just didn't choose to capture. So, while organizing this site, I decided to re-live the trip and start logging a day-by-day article. I've started here with the highlights - expect this to grow into a day-by-day log.

 

Resources

There was no way we were going to see all the iconic places in the US, and drive all the iconic roads. There are a few places that I really wants to go to, such Tony Packers Chili Dog a favorite place to eat for one of the characters from MASH, and Mark Twain's hometown, the basis for the fictitious hometown of Tom Sawyer. We decided to plot all the different places on the map, and then connect the dots to make the route - and then go over each day's route for interesting spots around that area. It took roughly two months to plan everything, but at the end, I had a compendium of all the places, the maps, and routes. It has all been logged in a ledger and google maps. Technology helped a lot on this trip, and so everything ended up being saved. If anybody wants to go on a similar trip, contact me - I can hook you up.

The Maps

These are the maps I saved on google - and then eventually imported into my GPS. Use these as guidelines and not the exact routes, because I veered off the routes many times. I did come back to the main route, but not before being 2 hours late.