america: the last great adventure
1 April 2008
One of the good things about my job – and believe it or not, there are several – is that I get a lot of vacation days. One of the good things about my job this year is that because I didn’t use all my vacation days last year, I have a shitload of them this year (30, to be exact). Faced with the mandate that I must use all of these days, and being unable to afford a European vacation, unwilling to go on a tropical/beach vacation that requires shirtlessness, and not allowed to make every week a four-day work week (I asked), I’ve been contemplating for some time what to do with this time off. And recently I’ve figured it out: Great American Road Trip (With Family!).
Two or three years ago, I drove from Seattle to LA (you can find more about this somewhere in the archives). At the time, I was on a leave of absence from work, a time which involved me spending ridiculous sums of money and destroying most of the relationships that I held dear. I was in Seattle, drunk, and planning on flying to LA the next day, when on a whim I said “Fuck it,” canceled my flight, and booked a rental car. In a related story, I kissed a dude that night. Whatever. You only live once.
This experience (the drive, not the dude kissing) was alternatively terrifying and exhilarating (actually, this describes both the drive and the dude kissing). Driving a minivan hungover through the mountains of Oregon in the dark, hopped up on diet coke and Lunchables: terrifying. Getting a minivan over 100mph on the barren stretches of I-5 in Northern California on a cloudless blue sky day: exhilarating. Pulling into random cheap motels in random towns like you’re a goddamn serial killer: exhilarating. Being unable to sleep in said random cheap motels because you think a serial killer is in the next room over: terrifying. Pulling over to the side of the road to beat off: always the right move. Always.
All things considered, even the thing about how Enterprise essentially extorted me out of about $1000 because they never told me I had to bring the rental car back to Seattle, the decision to make the drive was one of the best I’ve ever made. As a city boy, I saw a lot of our beautiful country, landscapes that I was only vaguely aware of from movies and specials about meth. And I learned a lot about myself and my life, like, for example, how to spend the next year-plus making mistake after mistake, financially, emotionally and personally. These are important things to learn. I guess.
Since then, I’ve been itching to get back on the road, to take a nice long stretch of time and see more of the country (like I did last time) and possibly engage in some consequence-free sexual escapades (unlike I did last time; I’m not a judge, but I don’t think hepatitis falls under the “consequence-free” category). I think I could be successful in only a few things in life, most of which have to do with making and/or eating onion rings, but I think I could be one of the top vagabonds in America. So take that to the bank, why don’t you.
A few months ago, my dad and brother traveled through North Carolina, Virginia and DC looking at law schools. After that, my dad, who’s out of work because of an injury, told me that his dream would be to buy an RV, take a few rifles and fishing poles, and drive around the country (I’m assuming he forgot to include 150,000 cigarettes on his list of things to bring).* It was about this time that the lightbulb went off. I have a lot of vacation days and want to drive across the country. My dad has all the vacation time in the world and wants to drive around the country. My brother, I’m not sure about his vacation days or desire to drive across this great land, but he’s going to law school soon and likes to travel. Yes, it might be fitting that the Mulgrew Men Go West.
And so in what surely will become the greatest adventure, the worst mistake, or just a low-budget/high-grossing movie, me, my dad and my brother are going to drive cross-country. We’ve yet to figure out the plot, but here are the characters:
DAD, early-50’s, mustachioed and tattooed; former stabee with a heart of gold; possessor old-school Irish Catholic values; likes Marlboro Reds and handguns.
JASON, late-20’s, effete and effeminate but aggressively seeking boobies; prone to lavish spending and fits of rage; likes boobies and thinking about, talking about or looking at himself. And boobies. Again.
DENNIS, mid-20’s, quiet and mysterious. Seriously, I barely know him. I think he has brown hair.
The planning for this trip is only in its incipient stages. For example, we’re not sure when we’re going to go (sometime before the fall though). We’re not sure what we’re going to drive (my dad’s truck? a rental car? an RV?). And, aside from driving from Philly to LA, are not sure where we’re going to stop (we were thinking about Philly to San Fran, but I’ve never been to San Fran and I feel like that route might be more mountainous; those mountains in Oregon seriously scared and scarred the shit out of me).
This is where you come in. No, I’m not coming to your house. Believe me, that would not be a good idea for either of us, especially if you have any animals that have a tendency to look like a pretty woman after a few drinks. I’ve done some web searching, but have found surprisingly little condensed and useful information about driving cross-country. Therefore, I’m open to any suggestions from those of you who’ve done the drive before. I can tell you this much:
- We’re planning on doing the drive in a little over a week, leaving Philly on a Saturday morning and arriving on the west coast on the next Sunday. So it’ll be at a reasonable pace, especially with three drivers, but we’re not looking to stop for a night every 250 miles.
- The only city that I want to stop at for sure is Nashville. I am dying to go to Nashville. I also took a business trip to San Antonio and had a ball there, so I wouldn’t mind seeing something cool in Texas. Basically, I’m a Northeast boy, just like my brother and my dad. Anything different from Philly, New York, Boston, etc would be sweet. Otherwise, I’m/we’re open to any cities. But since we’re stopping in Nashville and ending in LA, we’re not going completely out of way to, say, Minneapolis. We’ll stick mostly to that I-40 corridor, methinks.
(Another city I desperately want to visit: Montreal. I think I could do well there, for no other reason than a hunch. But Montreal is for another trip.)
- We are not an outdoorsy family, save for my brother. I spoke to a buddy last night who’s done the trip twice and he started talking about hiking and trails and stuff and I immediately stopped listening and was drinking a milkshake in under five minutes. The only outdoors stuff we’ll be doing is walking from the car to the hotel, to the restaurant, to the bar and to the bathroom. You can see and experience a lot of the country from 65mph or through the smoke and empty beers of your local watering hole. This is my kind of road trip, not a week spent sitting shotgun with a third-degree sunburn and scratching my mosquito-bitten legs. So when I say that I’m looking for suggestions about cool things to do, if your recommendation involves an action verb – running, skiing, hiking, walking, swimming, etc – please rethink it.
So while you chime in with any suggestions or hints, I’m going to get to work on the plot. Since already my dad has been adamant about bringing a gun on the trip – this is a man who carries a .22 when he walks the dog and probably to the bathroom and recently told me “I seen too many movies not a to bring something [a gun] on a drive across the country” – I’m guessing a major plot point will occur when the gun “just [goes] off.” So right now, we’re looking at something like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” crossed with “Easy Rider” with maybe a little “Deliverance” thrown in.
(So right now of the three, “worst mistake” probably has a slight edge.)
Two or three years ago, I drove from Seattle to LA (you can find more about this somewhere in the archives). At the time, I was on a leave of absence from work, a time which involved me spending ridiculous sums of money and destroying most of the relationships that I held dear. I was in Seattle, drunk, and planning on flying to LA the next day, when on a whim I said “Fuck it,” canceled my flight, and booked a rental car. In a related story, I kissed a dude that night. Whatever. You only live once.
This experience (the drive, not the dude kissing) was alternatively terrifying and exhilarating (actually, this describes both the drive and the dude kissing). Driving a minivan hungover through the mountains of Oregon in the dark, hopped up on diet coke and Lunchables: terrifying. Getting a minivan over 100mph on the barren stretches of I-5 in Northern California on a cloudless blue sky day: exhilarating. Pulling into random cheap motels in random towns like you’re a goddamn serial killer: exhilarating. Being unable to sleep in said random cheap motels because you think a serial killer is in the next room over: terrifying. Pulling over to the side of the road to beat off: always the right move. Always.
All things considered, even the thing about how Enterprise essentially extorted me out of about $1000 because they never told me I had to bring the rental car back to Seattle, the decision to make the drive was one of the best I’ve ever made. As a city boy, I saw a lot of our beautiful country, landscapes that I was only vaguely aware of from movies and specials about meth. And I learned a lot about myself and my life, like, for example, how to spend the next year-plus making mistake after mistake, financially, emotionally and personally. These are important things to learn. I guess.
Since then, I’ve been itching to get back on the road, to take a nice long stretch of time and see more of the country (like I did last time) and possibly engage in some consequence-free sexual escapades (unlike I did last time; I’m not a judge, but I don’t think hepatitis falls under the “consequence-free” category). I think I could be successful in only a few things in life, most of which have to do with making and/or eating onion rings, but I think I could be one of the top vagabonds in America. So take that to the bank, why don’t you.
A few months ago, my dad and brother traveled through North Carolina, Virginia and DC looking at law schools. After that, my dad, who’s out of work because of an injury, told me that his dream would be to buy an RV, take a few rifles and fishing poles, and drive around the country (I’m assuming he forgot to include 150,000 cigarettes on his list of things to bring).* It was about this time that the lightbulb went off. I have a lot of vacation days and want to drive across the country. My dad has all the vacation time in the world and wants to drive around the country. My brother, I’m not sure about his vacation days or desire to drive across this great land, but he’s going to law school soon and likes to travel. Yes, it might be fitting that the Mulgrew Men Go West.
And so in what surely will become the greatest adventure, the worst mistake, or just a low-budget/high-grossing movie, me, my dad and my brother are going to drive cross-country. We’ve yet to figure out the plot, but here are the characters:
DAD, early-50’s, mustachioed and tattooed; former stabee with a heart of gold; possessor old-school Irish Catholic values; likes Marlboro Reds and handguns.
JASON, late-20’s, effete and effeminate but aggressively seeking boobies; prone to lavish spending and fits of rage; likes boobies and thinking about, talking about or looking at himself. And boobies. Again.
DENNIS, mid-20’s, quiet and mysterious. Seriously, I barely know him. I think he has brown hair.
The planning for this trip is only in its incipient stages. For example, we’re not sure when we’re going to go (sometime before the fall though). We’re not sure what we’re going to drive (my dad’s truck? a rental car? an RV?). And, aside from driving from Philly to LA, are not sure where we’re going to stop (we were thinking about Philly to San Fran, but I’ve never been to San Fran and I feel like that route might be more mountainous; those mountains in Oregon seriously scared and scarred the shit out of me).
This is where you come in. No, I’m not coming to your house. Believe me, that would not be a good idea for either of us, especially if you have any animals that have a tendency to look like a pretty woman after a few drinks. I’ve done some web searching, but have found surprisingly little condensed and useful information about driving cross-country. Therefore, I’m open to any suggestions from those of you who’ve done the drive before. I can tell you this much:
- We’re planning on doing the drive in a little over a week, leaving Philly on a Saturday morning and arriving on the west coast on the next Sunday. So it’ll be at a reasonable pace, especially with three drivers, but we’re not looking to stop for a night every 250 miles.
- The only city that I want to stop at for sure is Nashville. I am dying to go to Nashville. I also took a business trip to San Antonio and had a ball there, so I wouldn’t mind seeing something cool in Texas. Basically, I’m a Northeast boy, just like my brother and my dad. Anything different from Philly, New York, Boston, etc would be sweet. Otherwise, I’m/we’re open to any cities. But since we’re stopping in Nashville and ending in LA, we’re not going completely out of way to, say, Minneapolis. We’ll stick mostly to that I-40 corridor, methinks.
(Another city I desperately want to visit: Montreal. I think I could do well there, for no other reason than a hunch. But Montreal is for another trip.)
- We are not an outdoorsy family, save for my brother. I spoke to a buddy last night who’s done the trip twice and he started talking about hiking and trails and stuff and I immediately stopped listening and was drinking a milkshake in under five minutes. The only outdoors stuff we’ll be doing is walking from the car to the hotel, to the restaurant, to the bar and to the bathroom. You can see and experience a lot of the country from 65mph or through the smoke and empty beers of your local watering hole. This is my kind of road trip, not a week spent sitting shotgun with a third-degree sunburn and scratching my mosquito-bitten legs. So when I say that I’m looking for suggestions about cool things to do, if your recommendation involves an action verb – running, skiing, hiking, walking, swimming, etc – please rethink it.
So while you chime in with any suggestions or hints, I’m going to get to work on the plot. Since already my dad has been adamant about bringing a gun on the trip – this is a man who carries a .22 when he walks the dog and probably to the bathroom and recently told me “I seen too many movies not a to bring something [a gun] on a drive across the country” – I’m guessing a major plot point will occur when the gun “just [goes] off.” So right now, we’re looking at something like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” crossed with “Easy Rider” with maybe a little “Deliverance” thrown in.
(So right now of the three, “worst mistake” probably has a slight edge.)
