1989 Mother Tour – DC to TN

This summer was non-stop traveling for me, but my favorite bit was the 15 days I spent on the road with my Mom.

I was planning a move of my car (and most of my possessions) from D.C. to Oregon in preparation for my move to South Korea and I was in desperate need of a co-pilot.

Nothing could have surprised me more than my mother offering to drive with me. She is not a road tripper, a camper, a spelunker,nor a night-life-er….but in spite of it all, she was stoked to come along! Honestly, there’s no one that deserved to be my co-pilot more. She has spent over half her life raising three kids, which means she basically hasn’t had a real vacation in about thirty years. So my brilliant plan was to reignite her artistic passion, as well as open her eyes to the beauty and wonder of road trips as she enters the wonderful era of retirement.

My mother is an incredible painter, but due to life, kids, marriage, etc., she stopped. I’ve written her notes (many many notes) with tiny assignments for each day we travel, and a travel paint set. Each day we will paint whatever inspires us on the road. – I posted our art on my tumblr, where you can see the color versions.

Given the fact that this trip covers a two week period, I’ll be splitting it up by State. Otherwise, this post would take two weeks to read. Why 1989? Well, Miss Swift’s 1989 album was pretty much our jam the whole trip….

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DAY ONE

As you know, road trips are never short of snags along the way, luckily mine tend to happen in the beginning. My mom’s flight got delayed, rerouted, and delayed again. Finally, after nearly a full 24 hours of flying, she arrived at Ronald Reagan-Washington National Airport and straight into my very eager arms for a long overdue hug.

I would’ve loved to show her around the city I had grown to like-a-lot-but-I-wouldn’t-say-love, but I wanted to spend our wiggle room in California with my sister and nephew, which meant, staying on schedule until then. (i hate schedules)

My poor mother didn’t know what she signed up for when I said I’d show her my favorite spots. You see, you walk everywhere in D.C. It wasn’t until she was roasting hot and nearly panting that I realized that I’d made her walk over 20 blocks before lunch. She wasn’t complaining though, she loves architecture and bookshops as much as I do. I might have suggested tennis shoes though…

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Day Two – We left bright and early, drove through Virginia, and ended up in Friendsville, Tennessee (just outside of Knoxville).

If you’ve read past posts, you may remember me mentioning this Tennessee location.
I stopped here on my way up from Florida, Fall 2013.If there is a more relaxing and tranquil place in North America, I doubt it compares to this. We considered scrapping the whole trip and moving in. You know you’ve found a great friend when you can nap on the couch, even though you haven’t seen each other in two years.

Three days in, I already had my first injury. Turns out being pushed into the lake isn’t all fun and games, but meh, it wasn’t my driving foot!

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Day Three–Reluctantly, we set off  from our  haven of bliss with our gracious hosts.
We stopped in Nashville for lunch and a little sight-seeing. I bet you didn’t know Nashville has the only full-scale replica of The Parthenon in Athens…It functions as an art museum now, but it began as an exhibit as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exhibition. It was a nice break from the hot day in the car.

We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe (we were getting my dad shirts from every one we passed on the trip) and walked around downtown listening to live musicians while wishing we could afford the amazing boots.

We ended the day in Memphis, staying in our very first AirBnb.
-side note- The whole business of renting your room/house/condo out to a complete stranger sounds insane to me. Thankfully, they weren’t ax murderers and we weren’t planning to rob them blind. They were incredibly nice! They even typed out a full list of restaurants, music clubs, etc. in their area for us. However, there is a huge amount of mutual trust involved when using AirBnb, especially since no information is required besides a Facebook account. So, while I do highly recommend the adventure and convenience of AirBnb, be smart and make sure the people you are going to stay with are real people. 

We had grand plans to go out that night and listen to live music on the Mississippi, but…I was lame. I had been driving all day and could barely keep my eyes open. My wonderful mother understood and said we could stay in and watch Netflix. It would’ve been the perfect stay had I not made the mistake of getting late night sushi.
Never again.

Me – 14 hours logged
Mom- 0

Read the next post for New Orleans!!

Brothers, Badlands & The Black Keys

Planning a cross-country road trip is like planning a two-year old’s birthday party. It’s pretty much pointless. No amount of forethought and effort can stop the beautiful chaos about to begin, so you might as well embrace it.

Sure, you need to have a starting point and an ultimate destination, but everything in between? Let it happen. Don’t make fifteen different hotel reservations. Don’t map out ‘photo op’ moments. Get in your car, and just drive.

The only thing that warrants careful and precise planning is a decent Road Mix. If you don’t have good music, you’re going to go insane.

My second trek across the US of A had a snag in it even before we got in the car. Due to annoyances with the DMV, we were set back a day and a half. Gotta plan for it guys. And who was my co-pilot this time? My older brother. Well, he’s my only brother. But, if he insists on referring to me as his ‘little’ sister (even into my mid twenties?!), he’s gets to be old.

It just so happened that as I was planning to move to Florida, he was relocating to Tennessee for his job. “Tag along, partner?” I said. “Don’t mind if I do.” he said. (yes we are cowboys) –Can we take a minute to admire my Tetris-perfect packing job? My brother was allowed the big suitcase on the right, and his guitar. That’s because I’m so nice.

So we said ‘So Long’ to the parents in Oregon and drove off into the sunset.  – I told you, we were behind schedule.  It started out great. Windows down, blasting Ventura Highway (America) and Movin’ Out (Billy Joel) just to get the groove going. Well, guys, Oregon has badlands. That’s right. They are actually named The Badlands. And they go on forever.

The most excitement that first day was almost hitting an owl. No, let me rephrase that. The owl was flying directly at us. So he almost hit us. Jerk.
We decided to drive until we couldn’t anymore. That, my friends, is a bad idea.

(it needs to be said, that you, Idaho, were by far the most grotesquely smelling state we drove through, so thanks for that)
We dodged many a deer, goat, and cow (yes, wild cows) on the curviest, cliff roads ever. Not the best. The clouds were pretty though.

Our bodies lasted until 6am the next morning which turned out to be about thirteen hours of driving. I checked us into a skeezy hotel (I had to wake up the manager) to get a nap in. I said we’d check out in four hours, so he only charged me forty, which I thought was fair. I wanted to sleep; he could’ve said anything.

Sleeping Beauty here slept like a rock. I on the other hand slept maybe two hours. I was so nervous about completely passing out and sleeping way past our check out that I just couldn’t relax. Meanwhile, waking my brother takes nothing less than a blow horn and an apocalypse. But I settled for plugging his nose.

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Day two, we were excited to see new sights, explore the great open spaces of America, starting with its charming rest stops.

I always document how I look at the beginning of a trip, because as the days go by, my ‘style’ looks more like a 90’s grunge band.
My brother has been my reluctant model for years, and my weird photo shoots were finally rubbing off on him, because this was his idea.

As we dipped into Utah for a bit and onto Montana, we played a lot of Lord of the Rings. It just fit.

It was around this time, we got on the worst road in all of the United States; I-80 East.

It is one of the most hopeless stretches I have ever had the misfortune of traveling. We were on it for eight hundred miles. Not eighty. EIGHT HUNDRED. It was horrible.
So, we made use of all the rest stops to keep Jack from turning into a dull boy.

We chose most of our stops based on what food we were craving. Little America won us over with their 99 cent ice cream cones.

And I found a friend while we were there.

We continued on through mountains…

over bridges…

Through rocky terrain that belongs in The Flintstones…

I’m telling you, it went on and on. Thank goodness for The Black Keys and Gotye.

-side note- I’ve never liked the look of these wind turbine things.They just creep me out. They look alien. I think that’s how they spy on us. yeah sure. I’ll go 75…when I’m exiting…

As the day came to a close, we were somewhere around Nebraska. As we looked for a promising exit, we saw this:

There is no way there would be a sign in Nebraska for Oregon…Hours later….We pulled into a Days Inn. First mistake.
It was 2am. Second mistake.
The check in guy was the creepier cousin of Napoleon Dynamite’s brother, Kip. And what he was doing before he came out of the back room just made it all the more disturbing. Let’s just say I made my brother go back for shampoo. After our longest day yet at 17 hours, it was time for a good 6 hour nap.

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Day three, Independence Day!! If all went well, we would reach Tennessee and my brother would ‘supposedly’ leave me to drive the rest of the way alone.

All siblings have a language, or at least a verbal shorthand and ‘isms’ that only they understand. My brother and I are so hilarious together. Trust me. We almost pee ourselves doing Ace Ventura & Nicholas Cage impressions. If anyone could have seen or heard what was going on in that packed tight Honda CRV, we would’ve been committed immediately. We both oddly have an obsession with sunglasses. We had enough to each wear two different pairs a day. I have a lot because I break/lose them almost as fast as I buy them.

Letting my brother use my camera while I drive can be an interesting experiment. I wonder sometimes if he notices his own patterns.
The Beautiful Photography of ‘OLDER BROTHER‘

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After another full day, we were finally getting somewhere.

I was ready for a hearty, American meal to celebrate the fourth, but my brother was too hangry to listen to any of my Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives suggestions. We didn’t even get to stop at the St. Louis Arch. What a butthead.

This was the best I could do.
We finally stopped in Kansas City, but everything was closed! Well, duh…National Holiday nonsense strikes again.

This is where we would have loved to eat, The Brick, purely for the The Oklahoma. It’s a deep-fried hot dog wrapped in bacon.
You just salivated. Gross.
We did find a cool wall though.

We stuck to munchies until we finally made it to Nashville, Tennessee, where I slept twelve straight hours without even feeling it.

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Day four, because my brother is the BEST, was a short traveling day.

Yes, he gave in to my pleading and agreed to drive to Florida with me and fly back.

Gold stars, bro.
We drove four short hours to Marietta, Georgia to stay the night with our cousins, because frankly we didn’t have a 12 hour day in us.

The next day, with only six hours to go, we figured we’d seen it all when it came to strange-rest-stop-activity. But we were wrong.

Horrific murder scene? Dirty handed, clumsy bum? Trapped souls in the walls??

Oh, and there was a horrendous, monsoon of a rainstorm, which my brother braved to fill up on gas, while I took videos of him shivering and glaring at me.

Hope was in sight as we passed our final state border.

And as promised, my brother got to see the first palm tree of the trip.

Over three thousand miles, five days, too many energy drinks and 5 hour energy shots, and two days short on underwear supply (my brother freeballed it in his swim trunks; it was nasty), we finally made it to Orlando, Florida.
It was a great trip, full of laughter, farts, real talk, and wow-that-was-too-much-information.

You were an excellent driving buddy, Bro. We should do it again sometime.
(please pack extra undies)

Riding North

The time had finally come. Miss B and I were leaving Florida, for good this time.

She had lived there five years, I, only three. We only lasted as long as we did because of the incredible people.

So we said our goodbyes, cried all our tears, and began our journey up and out. First stop: Tallahassee.

 

It didn’t feel like Florida. The humidity was gone. The trees were huge. And the bugs looked normal. (not the crazy concoctions Orlando had)

Miss B had cousins in the area, so we slept in a a old fashioned homey home, deep in the middle of the woods. Yes, we did have thoughts about whether we were being led into a creepy cabin, to never see light again.

It felt very Cabin in the Woods-y…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Next stop: Marietta, Georgia

We stayed here with my cousins for the weekend. Watched U of O be awesome. And I met my cousin’s son Gavyn for the first time. Total bug. I am such an advocate for family. I grew up knowing my cousins very little since we’re spread out all over the US. I feel so privileged to be a part of their lives now. We didn’t want to leave, and my aunt decided Miss B was part of the family now.

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Next Stop: Tennessee to a little place called Friendsville

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This state surprised me. I had no idea how beautiful it was. The image of Tennessee in my head was a flat, yellow, dusty plain. After visiting, I feel like I could live here for a year and love it completely. It has a peaceful calm about it. It welcomes you with its trees, and rollings hills, and quiet rivers.

We stayed with the gracious Marcum family. We tried our first moonshine cherries. We watched The Walking Dead outside on the patio. We drank our coffee on the grass and watched the dogs run by the water. I cannot wait to revisit this heaven.

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From here we had a choice. We could stop in Roanoke, VA (and disappear forever, c’mon history nerds) or drive the 9+ hours and reach Maryland late that evening. This would be our longest stretch of driving yet. We tried to keep our destinations close to each other to avoid that. We ended up deciding to just drive, and see what the day had planned for us.

Not even two hours passed and we were bored. So we pulled off the highway and followed signs to a pumpkin patch. Sure, it could’ve been a psycho killer’s ranch of death, but we were ready for anything more exciting than the unending road ahead.

Also– I forgot to adjust the driver’s seat to Miss B’s height. Hence, the lucky duck got to be the permanent co-pilot.

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A few hours after that, we stopped in another remote town (which eerily reminding me of Oregon) following signs to a national park in hopes for something pretty to look at, or at least a short trail to get our blood flowing in our legs again. Unfortunately it was basically a campground with massively long trails. Regardless, it was a beautiful detour.

I didn’t think I could make it the whole day. My eyes were droopy and my brain was mush. We had been listening to a grisly British man read Game of Thrones to us all day and I just couldn’t keep it together. So we stopped at a McDonald’s and wolfed down some fries and the nastiest cup of coffee I’ve ever had. That did it. We got to my sister’s in Maryland a little before eleven.

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We had one day to enjoy Washington D.C. together before Miss B continued north to her final destination in Michigan. It was a beautiful day, not only because of the sun, but because it was the very day the Government shut down ended and all the Smithsonian museums reopened.

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We say the classic D.C. sites as well. The National Monument looks a little weird because they were still repairing it from earthquake damage.

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It was a wonderful trip. I couldn’t have chosen a more laid back person to come with me. Thanks Miss B for always being there for me and accepting my crazy on a daily basis.

Until the next time….