Desk Drawer

Borrowing a framework from Boston's laziest sportswriter, here is my post cleaning out the desk drawer of thoughts during the roadtrip:

We found a lot less four lane highway than I expected.  Plans for the drive included a lot of Route 40 and other Interstates.  I feared two weeks of the NJ Turnpike.  We did not hit anything other than one or two lane road from the DC Beltway to Route 80 just east of Sacremento.  A lot of nice driving with some good scenery.

Having the truck w/o the DVD player was a good thing.  Kids looked out the windows and driver did not have to listen to movie soundtrack.

Our coastal ignorance showed in our assumption of active cell service across the whole trip.  Once we left Nashville service was tough to find outside cities, even along the Interstate roads.

Santa Fe was interesting, but odd.  It was like a twilight zone episode where all the children had been removed from society.  We were there 36 hours or so and saw maybe two other families.  We did not even see local children.  The population is either recent college grads working in hospitality industry, older tourists, ladies on girls weekends or retirees who have become locals.  Not sure Santa Fe High would have enough kids to field a baseball team...

Our national park service pass is a good deal.  $80 for an annual pass gets your carload into the park.  For us this trip that is Shenandoah, Grand Canyon, Zion, Painted Desert, Lake Powell, Crater Lake, Yellowstone, Redwood National, Badlands and probably more, all for less than the cost of our family going to one museum.

We crossed a line somewhere around Oklahoma where we became a novelty.  It was interesting to see how people reacted to our MA plates.  At Lake Tahoe strangers came up to us asking if we really were from Massachusetts.  I guess few people are foolish enough to try to drive from home to here.

Do not stay at Best Westerns.  They are run by evil criminals who probably give all their profits to Al Qaeda.  At least the one in Mammoth Lakes, CA...

To paraphrase my Dad, 'If the Lord was going to give the world an enema, He would stick the tube in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.'

Not every wife would want to do this.  I am lucky to have Jane.  She had a great attitude during this adventure.

If you go to Zion, make sure you see the portion east of the tunnel.  It is not to be believed.

The people at GM get a lot of flack, but they make a heck of an engine.  I was surprised to find the hood of our truck not even hot after all day drives.  Darn solid for a 9 year old truck with 100k miles... I hope it holds for ride home.

Use TripAdvisor if you are planning to travel to an unfamiliar area.  The service was really valuable as we were trying to plan this journey.

Another good deal was the AAA membership we bought at last minute.  It cost about $75 and has already saved us about double that at hotels and museums.

The Mid-South seems to be struggling.  The cities we visited that felt down on their luck were in Kentucky and Tennessee.  

The staff at Basecamp Lake Tahoe made the trip.  Our kids will remember them forever.


I saw more empty billboards than I expected.  Even in Vegas.  Not a great sign for the economy...

I miss my dog.

People are pretty great  (except the manager at that Best Western).  A large number of friends and strangers have offered guidance and suggestions that allowed us to have a great first leg of the trip.  Thanks to all of you.  Hopefully the notes from this blog allow us to pay that forward so our travels guide others...

JMM