My Great American Road Trip
4 people, 7 days, 3123 miles!
We finally did it! We drove from Baltimore to Las Vegas this Christmas break. Yeah! I know! Las Vegas is not really the other "coast"! But it is across the "country" all the same! So I think I can get away with calling it a "cross country road trip"! :D We started driving on 12/24/2009. A day by day account of the trip follows:
Day 1
Start: BWI
End: Morristown, TN
Miles covered: 479
We picked up our rental at 12.30 from BWI. It was a standard SUV. A Mitsubishi Endeavor. Then after lunch at home and a stop at Patel brothers for some "essential" groceries, we hit the Beltway at about 3.00 pm. I was driving the first shift. Our goal was to get to New Orleans by the end of Christmas day! Being Christmas eve I was expecting the roads to be pretty busy. But surprisingly enough we got out of the city without experiencing much traffic. I was driving at 50-60 almost all the way to the outskirts of the city. (After that the speeds obviously rose up to about 80 mph). After dinner at Salem, VA in a Chinese restaurant called Schezuan, we called it a night at around 11.00 pm in Morristown, TN.
Day 2
Start: Morristown, TN
End: Slidell, LA
Miles covered: 614
After breakfast at the hotel, we hit the road at about 10.00 am. Ragini drove for most part of the day. Our first stop today was Chattanooga, TN for lunch. This was a nice little town with a river front and a couple of bridges. Being Christmas day, the only place that could possibly be open was something asian. So we had a Thai lunch which was surprisingly pretty good. The next stop was Birmingham, AL. The town was CLOSED. There was not a SINGLE soul on the city streets. We gave up! Finally after driving a little outside the city, we stopped for gas. Gas mileage on our SUV was HORRIBLE! We would be lucky if we got anywhere near 18 miles to a gallon. Having another 2500 odd miles to go from here we were already feeling the big hole in our pockets (and the ozone layer?) Amogh took over the driving from here. At around 8.00 pm (Central time) we stopped at Slidell, LA just before New Orleans (30 miles) and had dinner at Waffle house. This place was proud to serve on Xmas day. Apparently it was part of the Xmas celebration to have dinner here or so they claimed. That was the first true blood white american person we interacted with in the two days since we left DC.
Day 3
Start: Slidell, LA
End: New Orleans, LA
Miles covered: 32
Started from Slidell, La and drove through the twin span bridge. Beautiful! My bridge count was now up by one. In 45 minutes or so, we reached New Orleans and walked for a good 4 or 5 hours from then. We saw the french quarter, visited the river front, saw the HUGE discouraging line outside Cafe dumonde and had a croissant with grilled veggies for lunch (Being a veggie sucked in New Orleans. I really wanted to have the cajun red beans with rice but it comes with the meat in it!) New Orleans was a fun town with a lot of French architecture, shops selling funny paintings, t-shirts and so on! The French market here sort of reminded me of Sarojini Nagar market in Delhi. Subsequently we went wine tasting at this place called WINO. They had an interesting way of tasting wines. It pumped wine out of the bottle into the glass at the touch of a button (measured 1/2/4 oz and poured into the glass). Then after a middle eastern dinner, we went to a Blues bar and a Jazz bar. Blues was awesome but Jazz was kinda boring. But the Jazz guy started using a funnel shaped device covering the mouth of the trumpet. Some interesting sounds and some nerdy remarks and conversations followed (on how the funnel shape was influencing the sound waves coming out of the trumpet)
Day 4
Start: New Orleans, LA
End: Denton, TX
Miles covered: 582
It was finally my turn to drive again. After breakfast in uptown New Orleans with Ragini's friend we drove through a quite up class neighborhood of New Orleans before heading out. On our way out we drove through the longest bridge in the world which is fully on water. The pontchartrain causeway. At a length of 26 miles it was just an endless waterbody. The water rose right upto the horizon. It took us a good 25 minutes or so to get past the bridge. Initially it was beautiful and exciting to see so much water but it quickly became boring and monotonous. From here on, I drove a straight 8 hours or so to Dallas with a 10 minute gas break. The traffic was pretty heavy. So I had to find the "rebellious" drivers who would "show me the way". It was interesting how they sped away from me as soon as they realized I was following them. My first catch was a pair of Ford trucks who were cruising along at 85 mph and then sped away at about 100 mph as soon as they realized I was following their lead. Then I realized that I had to keep the illusion going that I am not really "following" the next rebellious drivers. With some lane change moves, I was finally able to convince this Mitsubishi Eclipse to lead me for a while at 90 mph. Finally after an Indian dinner at Dallas, TX, we called it a night at Denton, TX.
Day 5
Start: Denton, TX
End: Santa Fe, NM
Miles covered: 702
Starting at 10.00 am, we stopped for a Mexican lunch at Oklahoma City at about 12.45 today. Thanks to empty roads with 70 mph speed limits (where Vivek and Ragini mostly drove at 90-100), time zone change to gain an hour and our lack of desire for drinking water, we made it to Santa Fe, NM which was 700 miles away from where we started, by dinner time. The horizon during the drive was all farm lands for a long time (I realized that the FM highway numbers in Texas mean "Farm to Market"). Subsequently it changed to desert and mountains in New Mexico for the last 200 miles or so till Santa Fe. Santa Fe was a promising looking town where we were able to find an awesome Italian restaurant called Andiamo for dinner. This was among the better Italian foods I have had. Good stuff!
Day 6
Start: Santa Fe, NM
End: Flagstaff, AZ
Miles covered: 383
We started the day by visiting the Cross of the Martyrs which is a point on the top of a small hill. The trail to the top was covered with snow which made the hike up interesting. Subsequently visited two churches and the plaza at Santa Fe. The indians at Santa Fe had some very exciting talent to showcase. Clay sculptures, bracelets and necklaces made of shells, corn and so many other fascinating works of art made the whole city tour quite worthwhile. Subsequently went to the Railyard which was the one thing I was really looking forward to. But that was disappointing because there was nothing much to do over there. Subsequently got to check out the photographs of Lisa Kristine which seemed extremely impressive. She seemed to have spent a lot of time capturing some very interesting shots in India/Nepal/China etc. Finally ended Santa Fe, NM at 3.00 pm after lunch at Tia Sophia. They had really good food and they had this bread called Sopaipilla which was exactly like the Bhature. Amogh then got us to Flagstaff, AZ by 8 in the night. This was another interesting town where we found a pretty good brewery for dinner.
Day 7
Start: Flagstaff, AZ
End: Las Vegas, NV
Miles covered: 362
After a good breakfast at the motel, we started driving towards grand canyon at 10 am. It was again my turn to drive. It was snowing big time all the way there. We couldn't get to any "views" there so drove out of there and decided to go to hoover dam and spend some time there. On our way there, we got stuck in big time traffic which took us about 2 and half hours to get past an 8 mile stretch through Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam looked like a very interesting place. But it was already pretty late in the night. So we decided to come back here to check it out on the 1st (which we did) Finally at 8 pm Pacific time, our cross country trip came to its end in Las Vegas, NV on 30th December 2009. One day before planned.
Interestingly enough, at the end of the trip, NONE of us were tired of driving.....
