When I posted a prelude to this trip (which I called Alaska) in the journal, I noted that I might come up with a clever name before I actually hit the road. Now you can see how that went. But, even without a clever name, I’ve completed and posted the journal for the first day of what promises to be the longest, in both time and distance, of any road trip I’ve taken. I’ve little doubt that, somewhere along the way, the route I follow will vary from the one in the map at right but what’s shown is what I intend and what I actually do should be close. The route shown is over 9,000 miles without side trips or missed turns. DeLorme estimates driving time for the shown route at about 200 hours. At the time of posting this I have no schedule but have been calling it a six week trip when asked. Two weeks to Alaska, two weeks there, and two weeks to home seems reasonable but I’ve made no commitments this side of Labor Day and only tentative ones beyond.
The journal for the trip is here. This entry is to let blog subscribers know of the trip and to provide a place for comments.
A couple of Ohio History Connection sites are reopening this weekend after pretty big makeovers. On Saturday I visited Ohio Village which moved from the 1860s to the 1890s since I last saw it. I’ll reach the Hayes Presidential Center, which reopens with new displays after a major renovation. Saturday’s journal has been posted.
Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant is the target of this trip but there will be some stops along the way. Puckett’s is in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee, which, for me, is a little beyond Nashville. I have Music City evenings planned for the Bluebird Cafe and the Grand Ol’ Opry at Ryman Theater before my evening with “America’s Route 66 Band”, The Road Crew, at Puckett’s. You know the saying, “When you come to a Road Crew in the Fork, take it.”
It has been three decades since the slogan “Wander Indiana” came and went but I’m going to do just a tiny bit of that over Christmas. The first day, with plenty of that Indiana rain, has been posted.
There are currently six US states I have not visited. Over the next week or so, I expect to cut that in half. Three of the six — Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota — are going to take a fair amount of planning and effort to reach, and I don’t know when, or even with any certainty, if that will happen. The others — Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine — are much closer to me as well as to each other, and I have just started a drive that should get me to the capitals of all three over the next several days. I have no meticulously prepared route or schedule, but I know roughly where I’m going and have a few stops in mind.
