Road Trip!

Well if its the second week of September you can catch Eric's Trip touring the east coast. The old cemetary in Halifax is much cooler then the St James one where the Titanic victums are. Sackville, NB (last Tim Horton's before Nova Scotia) has some nice big red buildings that pass for a university and two really good vegan and maltshop stores. Cabot Trail is beautiful, and the Confederation bridge is freaky big N long. The Valley is nice and homely, even if Wolfville sucks. And I always found the "No Honey Bees" sign as you drive past Aulac to be kinda silly. Scallops must bow down in the seafood chain to lobster.

I am working my ass off. Every July I am chained to my desk for a solid month, and don't see the paycheck for it until September. This year I am doing a little better, can afford to take a trip, and want to go somewhere in late August, maybe early September.

Never been to Chicago, never been to Seattle, never been to Toronto or Vancouver. Been to NYC but only briefly, been to the Bay Area lots and love it to death, been to Boston a few times.

Recommend me something.

I can also recommend driving down the Oregon coast, lazily, eating fresh seafood and stopping in all the bookstores, as we did one August after I quit my real job and before I started consulting.

Some trip objectives:
- Meet some ILXors
- Drink some good beers, eat some good foods
- Maybe see some baseball games
- Possibly do some book and music shopping
- Relax

I wonder what it would cost to fly in to the Bay Area, drive up the coast, and fly home from Seattle?

And - Oregon has no sales tax.

Any other suggestions?

Boston, Berkshires, Hudson Valley, NYC, New Haven/New Bedford/Mystic/Newport, Cape Cod

NYC, Jersey Shore, Eastern Shore of Maryland, Assateague, Williamsburg, Charlottesville, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia

a) From S.F., swing down to L.A. while you're at it and then cross back east through Arizona and New Mexico via I-40, which is something everyone has to do once in his/her life.

b) swing east on the north edge through the Rockies, which is also something everyone has to do once in his/her life.. visit Minneapolis, Chicago, then swing south.

c) both a and b

Mostly just looking at Google maps for the route - US60, US63, US65, US44, MO13, MO7 I think?

That thread! WWI museum/bbq/oh man can't wait.

I've never taken that route, because I usually drive this way in the winter, and that route goes over the top of the Ozarks. My guess is it'll be super pretty & super slow (maybe twice as slow as google says, given that it's going to be slow driving on those mountain roads---I think!). We usually go through Little Rock & turn north at Fort Smith on I-540 through Fayetteville & Joplin & then onto US-71, which is built to be interstate (so speed limit 70) into KC. If you go that way, the Catfish Hole is terrific: great fish & chicken, & most of all hush puppies that they keep bringing out like nachos in a Mexican restaurant. There's one in Fayetteville & one in Alma (east of Fort Smith).

That's good to know - not sure if we want to meander through the Ozarks, probably not. We'll probably decide once we're in Memphis. Disappointing as it is to not be taking the train, this trip will be all kinds of fun.

Train is dangerous!

Def. erratic (car might be more danger-prone?), but I have this 1940s noir film train trip fantasy/daydream w/ the sleeper car and the dining car and all that so was really looking forward to it. Maybe next year though - train from Seattle to Glacier National Park.

i did wolf pt MT to seattle and it was exquisite. dining car as the sun's going down, climbing into glacier NP--hell yes.

your trip sounds awesome jaq. so so much to see

Oh man, the Walker just opened an exhibit curated by John Waters! Can we get there by Thursday afternoon? (Free on Thursday and open until 9 pm)

carstens, that does sound excellent.

How much flexibility do you guys have in your schedule? re: expected meetups, extending the trip if you feel like it, etc.

Can't really extend, and want to get to Indy by 7/2 for several reasons (stepmom's exhibit opening, mom's birthday, old hometown 4th). I'm actually supposed to work remotely for several days (don't have enough vacation built up), but idk if that's gonna happen. Hoping for a Nashville meetup featuring smoked meats, and meeting up w/ your crew in Memphis, but otherwise no real agenda. We'd like to get home on Saturday, to have a day to decompress and do all the laundry b4 back to work on Monday. But we could get home on Sunday and still be alright, so could eke out 1 additional road day.

Packing up! bought a ridiculous amount of stuff at Trader Joe's today - how many kinds of trail mix do you need for a 5000 mile drive? Time will tell.

I'd like to meet up with you guys in Nashville possibly! This might be my chance at some Prince's Hot Chicken.

Awesome! There are so so many places I want to eat on this trip (and no, not Sonic. Really!)

(well, maybe once or twice)

ILXmail me your cell # and I'll send mine

omg 17 hours of driving yesterday b/c when we got to Bismarck there was not a hotel room to be had anywhere so we continued to Fargo. protip: if the reason you're driving is b/c your train was cancelled due to floods, evacuated people will probably be using all the local hotel rooms and don't be surprised if there is water on the interstate (like, a lot).

summary of trip so far -
Idaho: v.v. pretty, no rest stops in the skinny part, hang on until Montana
Montana: v.v. pretty, 3x as wide as any normal western state, appears to be one long upward slope west to east
North Dakota: uses "scenic" too often on road signs, is into giant metal statues (cows, ducks, etc)
Minnesota: v.v. pretty in a rolling green well-treed, tidy farm way, all rest stops are closed (cost saving?)

Dinner tonight with awesome ILXor Sara R-C was great fun! Tomorrow, heading toward Chicago via Wisconsin.

yay!
have an awesome trip, jaq <3

5000 miles! we only managed 2775 on our 2 week trip. i would TOTALLY do another roadtrip - by far the best (and least stressful) vacation i've ever had. no schedules, no worries about being late for planes/trains/buses, detours at-will, lots of surprising sights, lots of good conversation.

thanks tza! just1n3, there are a few places we've had to pass up due to needing to get to some place tomorrow - it would be better w/o that pressure. The drive back might be more relaxed.

protip: if you are taking a long driving trip, it's good to have a smartphone. It's better to also have a car charger for that phone!

hey i met jaq today!

first official music stop of our trip - great to meet you and see your shop!

Things learned today -
We must somehow get to the Corn Palace.
St. Paul is surprisingly close to Wisconsin.
The Mississippi is a big-ass river, even up at the top.
Wisconsin is a more unkempt and disheveled version of Minnesota, with cheese shops at every little town along the way.
I-90 tolls appear to be spent on mile markers (every 1/4 mile! Seems excessive!).

It was so great to meet Jaq the other day and I'm glad she was able to find you, John!

Rest stops closed in Minnesota = our state government is shut down now, so that's probably the reason. We do know how to party here. Or at least how to pee at the side of the road...

We've got a few more days in Indiana until we head down to Nashville/Memphis and try to sort out the route back toward home. Walked around downtown and stumbled upon the new Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library (free and a pleasant space housing artwork and a small collection of books and memorabilia). Currently camped out on the 5th floor of the central library (where they keep a huge collection of music stuff).

Protip: Bob Evans has better food than Perkins.

These are for DJP:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6038/5905519303_913202df42.jpghttp://farm6.static.flickr.com/5036/5906074532_c01647e4d3.jpg

The collection of scores.

Excellent beer+hot chicken meet up with WmC/Rock Hardy last night! Nashville is a sweet town - found a great place for breakfast (417 Union), had some okay BBQ, and spent a day at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Now on to Memphis for Stax, Sun Records, and Rock & Soul Museum.

yay!

Stax Museum is great, almost too much stuff and so much music to process. Tomorrow is Sun Records, Rock & Soul museum, Civil Rights museum.

We're changing our route out of Memphis to go to St. Louis then Kansas City then Des Moines then Sioux Falls, due to flooding.

3300 miles so far, 2000+ still to go.

btw, seeing the Isaac Hayes gold plated Cadillac was worth the price of admission to Stax:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu-lO-Mlbds

More OTT than Elvis's one in the Country Music Hall of Fame and has the TV in the front seat on the floor boards where it belongs instead of in the back. The other car at CMHofF was Webb Pierce's silver dollar lined convertible, which has pistols for door handles and rifles for side rub strips and trunk trim. Also, all the interior upholstery (that wasn't covered up in silver dollars) was hand tooled latigo leather. And, it had silver tipped longhorn horns mounted to the front bumper.

I want/need to go somewhere in July/early August before I go completely batshit with cabin fever.

Options:
- Philadelphia, SABR convention, meet up with Morbs and find out if he really is nicer in person than online.
- Take my 80-year-old mother to New England, somewhere she's always wanted to go, and eat lobsters until I pop.
- Austin/Lockhart, barbecue pilgrimage
- Michigan, National Cherry Festival
- Other? NYC, Chicago, Seattle, SF, Portland?

What does an ILXor recommend?

difficult choice! I'd pick a city - Philadelphia, NYC, Chicago - over Michigan or New England touring, myself.

One thing about the long trip we took, it was damn hot the entire time and everything in the car that could melt, did.

Ugh, I want to do all those trips. Paralyzed by indecision again.

I wonder how impossible it would be to find rooms on the fly in New England in summer, or if even the chain motels get booked up ahead of time.

meet up with Morbs and find out if he really is nicer in person than online.

This one is clearly the most unholy gamble.

and you should always do something nice for Mom

That's kind of the direction I was leaning. She's actually a pretty good traveling companion, it's something she's always wanted to do and missed out on due to my dad's indifference to the region, and she ain't getting any younger.

go with Mom, who knows if the both of you will get another chance to do that

http://www.freep.com/article/20140606/NEWS04/306060154/Warren-Arizona-Michigan-body-van

Christine Gilbert fell asleep in the front passenger seat of the conversion van and was discovered dead in Texas or Oklahoma by her boyfriend, Warren Police Detective Sgt. Stephen Mills said. She once lived in Roseville.

Ray Tomlinson, 62, told the Free Press on Wednesday that he and his 93-year-old mother decided to keep driving to get the woman’s body to the Macomb County morgue.

And in case you didn't catch part of that, that's the "Detroit Free Press" and Macomb County, Michigan, getting referenced in the second line.

If anything, click the link to see what picture they used of Ms. Gilbert.

Wow. Interesting photo choice. She was only 31 but recently had some prescriptions filled. Well.

My great-grandmother died on a vacation with her daughter and son-in-law (my grandparents.)

Somehow, they were able to get the body back from Kentucky to Tennessee without anyone's car getting impounded.

I mean, that's got to be a felony, right? Transporting a corpse across state lines without permission.

Also, the progressive age difference of everyone in that story is 31 years, the same age as the deceased.

basin and range country might be a cultural wasteland but its endless miles of paved one-laners through blm-ish wilderness sure are rad for road trips, saynoara suckers

OK, I stumbled across this thread today by happenstance. Looked at the link from the freep above and saw this photo:

http://i.imgur.com/ekSiMsn.jpg

Which made me wonder, what did they have to cover up there with their little gray thing?

The body, I guess? But here's the un-disguised version:

http://i.imgur.com/b0mzOU7.jpg

What am I missing.

http://i.imgur.com/5IHMGKD.jpg

let's clean that up a little bit

http://i.imgur.com/dDAkEMz.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VEoAHqA.jpg

looks like SOMEONE...needs to think of a pun involving a dog.

YEEEOOOOWWWW

Careful reverse imaging that though. Google's all "Oh, you looking for a corpse in a van? WE GOT THOSE."

Say from california to seattle, generalities:

On the road, are you best to book nightly accommodation in advance, motel, hotel, airbnb, would the romance of winging it lead to inevitable disaster, someone or anyone gimme their thoughts.

depends how adventurous you are?? idk, i'm not good at winging anything and would advise booking in advance. prob depends on time of year as well, and whether you're staying in bigger cities or smaller towns. if you're coming to sf, come visit me and ytth, he'd love someone to share his fancy scotch collection with! we only have a single airbed, tho, sorry :-/

should be able to plan as you go, i think.

are you going to meet up with any of the fellas from your football forum along the way?

if i start in chicago what would be the most scenic route to los angeles

or

what are the coolest cities to stop at on the way

How much of Route 66 is left? Maybe try to approximate that on modern highways.

oh good call

will look into it

i've plugged this book before, but it's invaluable as a planning tool:

https://roadtripusa.com/about-the-book/

re: Route 66 specifically:

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Trip-USA-Route-66/dp/1631210939/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492558847&sr=1-1&keywords=jamie+jensen+66