Coast to Coast

In three weeks, for the purpose of my parent’s Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary and to play a few gigs, Audra and I will be getting in our trusty rental car and heading East until we are in the land of white hots and lilacs; of digital lakes, rolling wine country and the best supermarket chain on the planet: Canandaigua, New York.

Drive?

Are we insane?

Okay, that was a trick question, but in any case, there are reasons we are driving cross-country instead of flying. Because of said gigs in the Rochester/Canandaigua area, I need to bring along some gear that I couldn’t get on a flight.

Alas, like all reasons there’s a good one and there’s the ‘real’ one…

ROAD TRIP!

This will not be my first trek from one coast to the other without leaving the ground, not counting my time on the road as a musician, this will be number sixteen.

When I took my, then future, bride back home to see serious snow for the first time in her life we missed our first flight home due to an illness. A couple days later on our next flight there were problems with the flight and at one point we looked at each other and said, screw it; let’s rent a car and take a few days and just drive home.

We ended up with a convertible—real handy in January—and gave our relatively new relationship the acid test of spending three days in a car together.

We only had one fight. Can I help it if Easterners are naturally superior?

Since then we’ve made the whole round trip two more times together, once more by car and once by train. The first time together was a challenging but magical trip that I will never forget. I still carry part of my love for my wife that was born on that journey.

I’ve made the journey by myself a number of times which is something I think everyone should experience at least once.

It’s been a long time since Audra and I had a serious road trip. We’ve developed a serious 'jones' to hit the highway for a long time now. We even made an attempt at a mini-road trip earlier this year but it was thwarted by something or another.

I won’t kid you, driving twenty-six hundred miles over three or four days is no picnic, but if you do it right… no, if you look at it right, it can be a lot of fun.

There are the ingredients for a good road trip as I see it. A reliable mode of transit and a wad of cash can be handy but no, these are not the essentials. I’ve done it more than once without either.

A Playlist (what used to be mix tapes)
With one exception listed below, stay away the radio. It’s nearly as much fun to sit fun and program the soundtrack to your adventure as it is to cruise along listening to it. It’s a serious endeavor that deserves much consideration. If you have no time to make your own, maybe you can get someone to make some CDs for you. It helps if they have a crush on you.

Diners
Eat at least one real diner. You know what I’m talking about, where the waitress calls you ‘hun’. And there are at least two calendars on the wall from local hardware or feed supply stores and a picture of the little league team they sponsor. Because of our budget we are limiting our eating out to once a day but I guarantee you, one of those meals will be at an authentic American diner. By-the-way if you find one of those stylized idyllic diners with the chrome and neon keep going, it's not a real diner but a hipster stronghold in disguise. Chances are, a real diner won't even say "Diner" on the sign.

And no I will not apologize for using the term waitress, we’re not at frickin; Denny’s, she’s not wearing any ‘flare’. It’s a diner, diners have “waitresses”.

Silence
There’s one song you can’t forget to put on your play list: “the road”. Allow yourself to hear the music of travel for some good stretches. Drive with the windows open, just for a little while if it’s not too hot or cold.

No Hotel Reservations
Drive till you’re tired and uncover the mystery of what town you’ll sleep in tonight. Technology makes this a lot easier these days and national hotel franchises make it less iffy. Having the pressure of mileage or distance goals each day kills the spirit of road travel.

Blue Highways
Take a ‘blue highway’ as author William Least Heat Moon calls them. If I had the time (it would take a week or more) I would travel from coast to coast using only two-lane county and state routes. In the real world we’ll probably only be able to spend part of a day on a non-interstate route but we’ll do it.

 A photo Audra took during a cross-country road trip we took in 2003. To be honest, this is Interstate 15 between Las Vegas and Arizona. Great image though huh?

Country Music
Tune in to a country radio station. You don’t like country you say? Hate it even? Trust me; when you’re on the highway, especially AM late at night, a good station playing oldies country is part of sound track to your movie right now. Don’t worry no one will ever know.

Don’t listen to syndicated or network talk radio while traveling… EVER!

A Map
You’ll need a map; not for finding your way but for finding your way back when getting yourself deliberately lost on the state route I mentioned above. I’m not talking about GPS either. Both of our phones have that capability, but you’re not really traveling if you don’t have a good Rand McNally US highway atlas you can spread out on the hood of you car at a rest stop or dusty diner parking lot.

Expect the Unexpected
Travel has its trying moments; breakdowns, road construction, finding yourself deep in gangland Tulsa after taking that wrong exit. Take it all in stride as part of the adventure. If nothing bad happens at all, what stories will you have to tell? You might as well have taken a flight so you could complain about how there are not enough peanuts in the bag and how your LCD screen would flicker sometimes during the movie.

Company
Take someone to share it with. Just like everyone should travel alone once for the Zen of it, one should also go coast to with a friend for the fellowship of it. Even though it might get kind of crowded in the car with Audra and I, I would like to take you along as well by way of this blog and plenty of pictures. I will update the blog daily while we’re on the road.

Our departure date is August 11th.