1:23 pm
Barrington, Rhode Island

It’s been a rough morning. Nothing went right from the moment we pulled out of my Uncle’s driveway. After trying and failing to find my aunt and uncle’s house in Middletown, the tourists in Newport on foot were so thick the streets were choking with them. Parking was tight and expensive, the roads were narrow enough that we had near miss after near miss with other vehicles parked on the roadside, or mailboxes dinging our side mirror. It was beautiful, of course, but I couldn’t wait to get back out to have some breathing room. That’s a city I’ll return to when I’m on foot.

4:37 pm
New York-Massachusetts border

Hitting a hard sun shower coming into the Adirondacks, rising up over the highway. We’ll just barely make camp tonight in time for the desk to close, but with enough time to relax and regroup a little before bed. Ryan’s in the backseat with the now very well worn atlas, monitoring our route. I finally started outlining the book’s table of contents.

5:49 pm
Halfmoon, New York

Given how little things have a habit of adding up to bigger things than the big things do — I think toll booths will end up being the death of our budget.

10:20 pm
Lake Placid area, NY

Gorgeous area. Definitely on our list of “we could live here someday” places. Maybe after San Antonio?

We slipped in minutes before close, in the dark, it was hard to select a campsite, but we got it set up and then went in search of a late dinner. A small, ambient cabin restaurant was open along the roadside.. we had a nice quiet evening there, then headed back to camp to finish up and crawl in bed.

The rain started just before we pulled in, and continued in deluge while we pulled our sleeping bags and pillows and various things from the van. I was soaked, head to toe, and because the tent got a little wet inside too I didn’t want to change and get even more clothes wet and muddy, so I sucked it up and slept in the ones I had, wet and grimy and all.

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12:09 pm
Falls Lake, North Carolina

Woke up bright and early this morning at camp, the fog drifting across the top of our tent, a twiggy lake beach just through the trees on both sides. After a quick breakfast at the picnic table, I took the kids down to the shore for a swim (and a bath) and Shane joined us a few minutes later with the dogs.

Despite the fact that we got such an early start, we still didn’t make it out of Raleigh-Durham until after 11am.

For those of you who’ve said you’ll be using our trip to have some fun with history and geography with your kids, I’ve mapped out our route so far. The green line is where we’ve been, the yellow flags: where we’ve stayed. Click here.

2:51 pm
Just out of the gas station for snacks and drinks

I keep not having time to put up the photo essays. We’ve got some fantastic images so far, and I’m anxious to share them, but we need to work on the framework and get things uploaded on our slow connection(s).

I promise I’ll have something up by the end of the weekend.

4:05 pm
Close to the North Carolina shoreline

I can smell the Atlantic, I recognize the landscape. Coming up on the coast, I was trying to identify the warm feeling and reaction.

Familiarity. I grew up in various coastal or near-coastal towns along the northeastern seaboard, and I was recognizing the colors, the high sea grasses, the skies and the smell of the air. The way the lands runs out in front of me. Memories were coming, of playing in mucky marine creeks and getting lost in the tall reeds. I might not have felt like I connected much with it when I was growing up, and now, I’m not sure I could live here again. But my sense of place was stronger than I’d expected.

(We just had to slow down for a turtle crossing the highway)

At 4:24 pm, Ryan and I get our first glimpse of the Atlantic in 10 years. And Shane and Sarah - their first ever.

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11:20 am
Pigeon Forge, TN

Ok, from now on - wakeup call at 8am every time we stay in a hotel.

12:30 pm
Deep in the Smoky Mountains

Driving through the Smokies it becomes pretty clear how they came by their name. The air is so moist and rich it hangs in mists and hazes over the slopes, resembling campfire smoke.

To my surprise, we passed through Cherokee country again as we crossed from the Smoky Mountains into the Blue Ridge range, and stopped at a tiny hilltown store for ice, cheese and butter, and something for Ken and Stefan, as promised, for getting highest scores on the three quizzes.

5:41 pm
Somewhere in backwater North Carolina

The dogs have turned out to be such great road trip dogs. We were curious how that would go, as they’re both usually very excitable and mischievous, and we expected to spend much of our time calming them down and reigning them in. But they’ve been chill and relaxed most of the time, Kenya having found her own permanent perch on one of the rear captain’s chairs and Nanook lounging in the spaces between the seats, or up at the helm, checking out what’s going on.

Will be interesting to see how they do at camp tonight, our first since the trip started.

10:12 pm
Lakeside, in upper North Carolina

The campsite in Falls Lake is nice, spacious, we got here just after dusk. I’m typing by the glowing white water jug with the flashlight behind it that’s serving as our lantern in place of 1) the small one who’s batteries have gone out already, and 2) the big one we forgot to pick up before we left. Oops.

The dogs are doing fine, kids are having a good time. Big eyed, of course, over the idea that the Carolinas and Virginia are rumored to be the ‘most haunted states’ in the U.S., a detail I couldn’t resist mentioning once it got dark.

Living in the desert for so many years, a person forgets how vocal the rest of the world is. You can walk out our front door at home and hear nothing for miles around, for hours and hours. Here the noise is everywhere. Bugs. Branches. Leaves. Various creatures. The fire crackling. The whole world is wide awake and alive.

Me, I need sleep.

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11:30 am
At a truckstop east of MemphisWoke up to a warm gray rain that ended up lasting most of the morning, until it broke into misty sun just a little while ago. Behind again today, stopping to address work issues a few times a day being the biggest culprit. But we’ll try to make just a few hours short of target tonight anyway so we can make up the rest and be back on track tomorrow.

4:00 pm
Fueling up in rural Tennessee

I’m finding Tennessee friendly, pretty, in its subtle, unassuming way, and the landscape is saying “east” more and more as we push forward.

6:11 pm
Nashville, TN

We’re forgoing an official dinner in order to make time. Passing road cuts of shale lining the highway. Geek.

Very few photos, today, as I was driving most of the time so Shane could work on a proposal. Still getting used to the humidity here; I should’ve packed fewer jeans and more glorified underwear.

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8:05 am
Packing up in Clinton, Oklahoma

Score! Last night we found a nice room that takes pets and has free high speed broadband and a free, hot continental breakfast, and it was under $50. Worth the extra few miles we drove to find it.

Later, after the kids and dogs were asleep, Shane and I snuck downstairs in our bare feet and PJs and to get some air and orange sodas from the vending machine.

10:15 am
Whoops. Still in Clinton, Oklahoma

We missed the continental breakfast by 5 minutes, Shane’s power adapter broke, my laptop case zipper wouldn’t zip, Shane removed what was in all likelihood a brown recluse spider from the bathroom and Kenya had diarrhea all over my cargo pants. But despite all that, we’re in good spirits and forging forward.

12:45 pm
East of Oklahoma City

Ribbony, fencepost roads and alternating fields of green and terracotta. Silos and acres of rolled hay bales. The air is heavy and humid. You can actually see it, if you tilt your head just right.
2:30 pm
Alfred P. Murrah Building Memorial, Oklahoma City

I wanted to stop and stand here for myself. They’ve done a beautiful job.

5:00 pm
Nearing the Arkansas border

I drive listening to CS Lewis’ “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” - Sarah’s CD audio book and one of my favorite books as a kid. And everyone else sleeps, dogs included. As we pass the Muskogee cutoff I realize we won’t have time to head north into Cherokee country. Another time.

6:33 pm
Straddling the line

Another roadside picnic dinner of turkey pieces, applesauce, fruit, trail mix and V8s. It’s hot. Thick and sultry. We throw the frisbee around for a few minutes, and then I’m distracted by the cleanest, coolest rest area bathrooms I’ve ever seen. These are a tourist attraction all by themselves. I wanted to lay my sweaty, sticky self down on the delicious, pristine ice cold floor and fall asleep.

8:15 pm
Drifting toward the Ozarks

The mist and shadow of a Midwestern range in the distance, in the growing dark, is familiar. It’s the first abrupt and significant rise in land since New Mexico. Feet up on the dash, Shane’s turn to drive now. We flop back and forth between the ideas of camping… hotel… camping… hotel. With no wireless dial-up available for another couple hundred miles, and a few important emails waiting, we opt for hotel one more time. With broadband.

Goodnight.

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(transcribed from paper notes on a 6-week, 14,000-mile road trip)

10:33 am
North of Clines Corners, NM

Got a late start, by two and a half hours, but we’re doing pretty well considering I’m not sure we got enough sleep. Coyotes came around in the middle of the night to say goodbye.

12:17pm
Outside of Tucumcari, NM

In eastern central New Mexico the land gets quiet as you approach the Texas border. Sunflowers and Apache Plumes line the roadsides, and you can see to the edges of the earth in every direction. It was here that I felt our trip was beginning, in territory neither of us had crossed before.

3:30pm
Breaching the Texas border

We enter Texas without fanfare, with its long green valleys and distant cinnamon mesas. Watching Ryan doze in the backseat, it could’ve just as easily been me 16 years ago when we moved west to Northern California from New England. I remember how it felt to fall asleep with the pavement moving underneath me.

4:42 pm
Amarillo, TX

Coming into Amarillo after living in Santa Fe was a bombardment of screaming consumer culture. Towering signs everywhere. Walmart. Lowe’s. Holiday Inn. Hooters. McDonald’s. Denny’s. Shell. Ford dealers. I’ve never seen so many signs concentrated per square mile in all my life.

Here we admit some flaws in our planning, and spend another $20 fixing them with truck stop wi-fi access.

8:16 pm
Somewhere between Amarillo and the Oklahoma border

We stop roadside for a picnic: pasta salad and iced coffee. We’re fairly behind schedule after stopping to check out the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, and we’re cruising to make up time. It’s a breezy spot after a humid Texas afternoon, and Sarah initiates herself into a wilderness woman from behind a tree.

Then it’s my turn to drive, and among other things en route to Oklahoma, we pass the proclaimed largest cross in the western hemisphere, surrounded by people taking their pictures and leaving their prayers in the light of a classic midwestern sunset.

10:40 pm
Western Oklahoma

A quick stop to access some wi-fi in a truck stop parking lot, to post this for the night and be gone. It’s warm, anxious to settle somewhere for the night. Tomorrow, a shorter day, and some lessons learned. See you then.

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“Oh public road. I say I am not afraid to leave you, and yet I love you. You express me better than I can express myself.”

- Walt Whitman

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