It is the end of another month and time to recap this month’s posts on organizing your car and driving and highlight some of my favorite comments.

You generously joined me for a road trip across the U.S.–from Virginia to Tennessee, Tennessee to New Mexico, New Mexico to Utah and Utah back to Virginia.

Whenever we mentioned our trip to people as we were traveling across the United States, the number one comment we got was, “How are your kids handling that trip?” usually followed by a horror story about how the person spent hours in a car with a screaming child. Both my husband and I think our kids did great on our trip! There were occasional meltdowns but they were short-lived. We made sure to get out of the car every 3 hours and see something and we generally averaged no more than about 450 to 500 miles a day. Toward the end of our trip we had to pick up the miles and do closer to 600 a day and that may have contributed to the fatigue we felt.

There is no magic trick for how to entertain children on a long road trip. Having a positive attitude helps. Adults don’t tend to give children enough credit for how flexible and adaptable they are. Sometimes children are far better travelers than adults! Children are much better at living in the moment and appreciating little things like swingsets or dandelions in what an adult might see as an uninteresting spot.

On our trip, I used many of the car entertainment suggestions I highlighted in this post.  The bingo cards from Mom’s Minivan were a big hit. We didn’t use them for bingo but rather to help our 4-year old inventory the highway. We counted up how many motorcycles we saw, pickup trucks, buses, etc. We even added in our own items like boats, trains, birds and flatbed trucks. Another great entertainer for our kids was crayons and coloring books. A map of the United States (that we got free in the junk mail from the Sierra Club) gave our 4-year old some concept of geography and movement. We put a sticker on each city that we visited as we went. My 4-year old also liked to borrow the camera and take pictures of things inside and outside the car. Some of her creative shots actually came out really well!

We didn’t use videos. We brought along the laptop and some videos in case we needed them but the one time we brought out the laptop to watch videos our 4-year old’s behavior escalated from good to horrible in seconds. We put all the videos away and never brought them out again. It takes a little more energy to actively entertain children with games and songs but it is also part of the bonding experience.

My husband did ALL the driving on our trip and I was the backseat entertainer. When Ruth and I were chatting about this in Vegas she said that she and her husband do the same and that she thought the backseat role was a lot harder than driving. Sometimes it was tiring but I got used to it and it seems so did our children.

We discussed Tom Vanderbilt’s book, “Traffic.” During our road trip, we experienced some of the concepts he mentions like the “treadmill effect.”

Lou commented:

In our household we designate the front passenger seat as the one for the
“NAG – rivator” — the one who is well-meaning in giving driving instructions, but not really a navigator. I like to think it works like the “girlfriend effect” — and makes better drivers of us all!

I gave a basic tutorial on Google Maps. On our road trip we ended up using a variety of navigation tools. When my husband and I did a road trip 13 years ago for our honeymoon, all we had with us was a paper road atlas of the United States. 13 years later, we had his Garmin navigator, a printout from Google Maps and an iPhone to guide us. It’s a little easier to have step-by-step directions but we also learned that technology can fail you in a surprising number of ways! Sometimes the destination was not in the Garmin and in very rural areas (like the Kansas farm roads) the Garmin was completely wrong. We reverted to the pre-printed Google Maps instructions a few times. In a pinch, we would also use the iPhone to look something up on Google Maps as we were driving. This was the least reliable method, however, since cell phone signals were often nonexistent on many sections of the highway.

Another great navigation tool is tripadvisor.com.  This website has traveler-provided reviews of hotels, restaurants and places of interest.  We used it to great effect in many of the small towns we visited.  Often we would drive into a relatively uninteresting town but thanks to a suggestion from tripadvisor, we were guided to great hole-in-the-wall sorts of places that we never would have discovered on our own.  I recommend you use it to look up your own hometown.  You might find something surprising, or, do us all a favor and add in your own recommendations!

I shared with you my car accident worksheet and tips for handling car accidents. Fortunately, we never needed this on our trip!

I shared some tips for organizing the car. On a long road trip in a car packed with stuff, you have to constantly give some thought to cleaning up the car. We tried to empty out all trash each time we filled up for gas and clean out each night. Some days we were more successful than others! One other good tip was that we also cleaned the windows at each gas stop. This is critical when you are trying to do photography on the road since sometimes it is not possible to roll down the windows.

I let you in on some of my car cleaning secrets to get a new car look. I will be using them this weekend to overhaul our minivan.

We also discussed MADD’s efforts to prevent drunk driving and encouraged U.S. readers to contact their Congressional representatives to support ignition interlocks for convicted drunk drivers. You may see this type of legislation coming to a state near you. It recently passed in New York and takes effect August 15.

Ruly Ruth discussed what your car says about you. There were some great comments on this post.

diadia wrote:

Too cool Grand Mama tools about in an 02 Dodge Stratus (now extinct) in a
deep true red 4-dr sedan. Eat your heart out. It’s paid for.

A paid for car boosts its cool factor by 10 in my book! Thanks for the reminder!

Mac wrote:

. . . Finally succumbed to the mini-van, Toyota Siena. Thank goodness for the commercials that attempt to instill coolness with their “swagger wagon” advertising. Every now and then, I just HAVE to drive a vehicle that doesn’t have carseat in it…and when that happens, I take Evan’s Prius out for a spin! For some reason or another, it makes me feel younger!

I love the honesty in this comment. Some people incorporate their cars into their persona–like a large fashion accessory. While it is fun to drive in a fun car, I don’t wrap myself up in my car all that much and see it primarily as just a way to get around.

Also, since we don’t watch a lot of TV, I had to look up the “swagger wagon” reference. While they are funny commercials, they perpetuate stereotypes that minivan families are completely dweeby, self-absorbed people and watching them made me feel worse about being a minivan driver! I resign myself to driving the most “uncool” car in the world.

Finally, there were a few important lessons I learned about the benefits of taking a long vacation once in a while. It requires a lot more work to go on a long vacation than a short weekend trip (both in terms of pre-trip preparation and post-trip cleanup) but getting away from your everyday surroundings for a long period and seeing something completely new on a day-to-day basis really frees up your mind. It challenges the patterns you have developed and invites you to look at the world in a new way. Upon returning from my vacation, I view my own home differently and have been re-energized to work on more organizational projects.

We found out our vacation limit on this trip. It is about 14 days (for travel where we are in a new city every day). After 14 days, we tend to want to come back to home base to recharge for a bit. If we had longer stops on our route where we got to stay in a city for more than one or two days we might have been able to extend further. I wonder how many people have ever discovered what their vacation limit is. Too often, we are cramming vacation into the meager holiday weekends and going to visit the same people and places over and over.

I was surprised to read several new stories about the realities of “post-vacation letdown.”  This one in Newsweek says that research suggests we are happiest anticipating a vacation but not necessarily on the vacation itself.  It is written by someone who clearly does not enjoy family vacations and gives a bit of a grouchy perspective.  Sue Shellenbarger of The Wall Street Journal’s Juggle column reports that some families are opting not to travel as a pack but rather having dad take off with friends for a “mancation” and mom with her girlfriends for a girls weekend.

Also, getting out and traveling gives you better insight on the news you read. If you do nothing but sit in your own home and read the headlines, you can become easily depressed and worried that the world is a dangerous place and that we are all about to become financially destitute. Out on the road, experiencing the U.S. for ourselves, we gained a new confidence and faith in this country. It’s sheer size, the diversity of the people who live here, its farms, industry and the potential for opportunity are incredible! While it is somewhat amazing that we all manage to cohere as a nation given the differences between states, the American flag flies proudly in every state. It was very inspiring to see and we are fortunate indeed to live in such a nation.

Flag in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Flag in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Flag in Huntington, West Virginia.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Back on Monday when we start a new month and a new theme!

Vroom Vrooom!! The hours spent on the carpet playing Matchbox cars with my son…and how we all grow up eventually and want….A CAR! Cars can be magical, practical, necessary, beautiful, sexy, huge, over-the-top crazy…..all sorts. And they can be multipurpose: show cars, race cars, minivans, trucks.

As the show Top Gear has become a favorite, we are in love with all things cars! And with shows showcasing how cars are made, specialized factory parts to accessorize our cars (I once only thought of accessories in the clothing sense), we are obsessed with all things car!!

And with this obsession, the new trend is going GREEN. Even on Top Gear, where opulence in cars is the thing, they even showed an over-the-top expensive V8 that was a 4-door sedan. It went FAST! But, as the host mentioned, cars like that are a dying breed with our modern-day obsession with fuel economy. 20 years ago that wasn’t really even a consideration.

Europe has been fuel-conscious for years and years now–the price of petrol being sold by the liter at almost double what we pay per gallon. Only now are we catching the mindset of going farther on less fuel. It’s probably about time….

So now we have the car basics down…..what kind of car do you drive? How did you choose it? And what does that say about YOU?

"Nissan Girls." (in the Nissan Murano). Photo by ronniellew. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Flex at the Rennisance Faire with some Faires." Photo by daveiam. From the Flickr Creative Commons.
"New Vue" (Saturn Vue). Photo by R Berteig. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Gary Fong photographing Richard Geiger and his new Honda Pilot near Red's Java Hut, San Francisco." Photo by mk94577. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

I am the “soccer mom” people try to advertise to for the most part. My husband is not a fan of the minivan although we both acknowledge the great benefit–plenty of room, mainly! So instead I am one of the masses driving the crossover SUV–we love the look of the big SUVs, but don’t want the minimal gas mileage nor the massive car payment. they come with. So I would say that I’m trying to be trendy yet run on the cheaper side.

Anne and her husband, for their first new car, purchased the redone VW Bug about 11 years ago. It was black and so adorable! Complete with flower vase, for which my sister found the cutest fake flower to fill it with. Can we say super cute Yuppie car??

Catherine and Mark, excellent friends of ours from the UK, were doing a 4-year transfer stint in Maryland. I won’t say what cars they ended up with since they are cars of practicality–but will instead mention what they told me they should have splurged on–a vintage convertible Cadillac! They said only in the states could they have afforded the gas mileage of one of those–and Mark is brilliant with car maintenance, so he could have done most of that himself. I can SO SEE these two toodling around highways–I picture Catherine with some chic scarf around her neck blowing in the wind with large sunglasses on! To cool for school these two are!

"68' Chrysler Newport Convertible." Photo by Flat-Black 66. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

"Garret likes the convertibles." Photo by Tatiana12. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

My husband and about 8 others on our street drive a pickup truck. They say more millionaires drive pickup trucks than any other car–apparently because you can haul your own stuff and work on your house, cars, etc. And some millionaires obviously use their pickups in their daily business….such as pest control and construction-based businesses.

"The new truck II." Photo by Robbie1. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Day 167: Get some rest, old friend." Photo by madmolecule. From the Flickr Creative Commons. (Click through to read a great photo caption about the bond between a man and his truck.)
"s'up wind?" Photo by Vanessa Yvonne. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Steve's New Truck." Photo by puliarf. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Then there will always be my friends who love fancy imports! Bring on the Audis, Lexuses (or is it Lexi?), BMWs, high-end Caddies and even Acuras.

"New BMW." Photo by mando2003us. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Audi A3." Photo by mK B. From the Flickr Creative Commons.
"Vladimir and his Lexus." Photo by Leonid Mamchenkov. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Chill and his new Beemah." Photo by Elsie esq. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

The only thing that comes to mind after owning two import cars is HIGH MAINTENANCE COSTS! And a pain to get parts at times—for now, until I move to a big, big city with easy access to the above, it’s not even a consideration for me! These are the friends who will easily drive 2+ hours to have work done on their car…..no thanks! The Ford dealership down the street works great for me! And I can run across the street to the local museum to buy some hand-crafted jewelry and McDonalds for a yummy McCafe drink. (Saving money on maintenance is a relative term in my book!) Although these cars will always be loved, look great, and truly have a panache–which is what they were bought for in the first place.

On the import note, my aunt and I own Subarus–and I will say they drive like a dream! But we did get the odd comment that we were the Yuppie Californians driving the Subaru to Mammoth for ski vacations–which at the time was true–we never saw ourselves as such though. Our car was 10 years old at the time–the person who made the comment said that didn’t matter. Which begs me to ask myself if I realize truly what my car says about me……

So now in the comments it’s your turn–what do you drive and what does that say about you????

Bear with me today, dear readers! We are going to cover nine states and seven days to finish out this road trip adventure.  If you are overwhelmed by the text, take a break halfway through and come back to finish.  :) Ready?

Days Ten through Twelve:  Salt Lake City, Utah

We spent about three days in Salt Lake visiting family.  It was the typical whirlwind of social events, including a special birthday celebration for my two year old and her three year old cousin.  Our girls are very lucky to have many cousins very close in age on both sides of the family.  When they all get together they click immediately and have a great time.

One of the great luxuries of living near grandparents is the availability of babysitters!  My husband and I stole a day to ourselves while my wonderful mom watched our daughters.  We went to Park City for a relaxing lunch on Main Street and a walk in the mountains.

To thank our fabulous babysitter, we stopped at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory where the display cases of desserts were picture perfect: dipped apples, dipped marshmallows, handmade toffees and fudges.  Dessert is legendary in Utah.  While best known for its consumption of Jell-O, sources indicate that Utahns consume the most candy and ice cream of any American state.

We bought some of the dark chocolate sea foam chocolates and when my mother shared a taste with us, we discovered it was the best sea foam we had ever tasted!

Day Thirteen: Salt Lake City to Boulder, Colorado

After a wonderful visit in Salt Lake City, we bade farewell to our families and packed the car for our journey home.  As always, we were carrying a bit more weight going back, heavily laden with presents.  Thankfully, however, we had a clean supply of clothes thanks to the washing efforts of my father-in-law.

We drove from Utah into Wyoming.  The land becomes flatter but the elevations are higher.  Wyoming is known for its very strong winds and there are wind farms throughout the state that we found quite beautiful.

Another unusual characteristic of Wyoming driving is that the left lane of the highway is studded with rumble strips that are exactly the width of semi-truck tires.  When you drive along the strip you feel an uncomfortable bumping.  We are not quite sure what the purpose of these strips was (Keep drivers awake?  Keep drivers out of the left lane? Traction in severe weather? Prevent texting while driving?) but the highway department was busily installing more of them all along the highway.  The traffic on this stretch of highway seemed to be 80% semi trucks, 10% motorcycles and 10% cars.

Wyoming road crew.

Highway sign forbidding texting while driving.

Wyoming is kind of flat and dry and is a little like Texas with big, open skyscapes and cattle farms but there are occasional mountains and streams as well.  Wyoming caters to a lot of outdoorsmen and signs directing you to “sweetwater” lakes are prevalent.

Wyoming cattle ranch.

Wyoming mountains.

We stopped for lunch at an ice cream parlor in downtown Rawlins, Wyoming, a very small town. We had delicious sandwiches and ice cream and even put a pin on the map they had on display to indicate our home state of Virginia. The map was quite a pincushion of people from all over the world!  The restaurant had a good tip for additional sales revenue.  A small bookcase was set up with used books for sale.  The ice cream parlor was the perfect place for having a few moments to relax and peruse the selection and the used books were not as delicate as new items and could withstand the occasional ice cream drip.

Downtown Rawlins, Wyoming.

Used book sale at the ice cream parlor in Rawlins.

We crossed into Colorado where instantly the landscape became more green and mountainous and then a few minutes later was back to flat.

Colorado welcome sign.

Colorado mountains and farmland.

We drove on through winding mountain roads to Rocky Mountain National Park.  This was the only instance of car sickness on the journey where our littlest one’s tummy could not keep up with all of the twisting and turning in a rear-facing car seat.

The scenery became more and more beautiful as we climbed into the mountains.

We ate dinner at The Baldpate Inn, a beautiful historic wooden cabin building.  There were many great ideas to share at the Baldpate.  First, the menu was kept very simple–just a serve-yourself soup and salad bar.  The salad bar was creatively staged in an old bathtub with salad fixings on ice in Mason jars.   Where the restaurant earned its reputation, however, was in the small details of the food.  Each day they made two fresh soups and two new types of bread in addition to their delicious sweet cornbread.  It made for an elegant meal.  The other great tip was with regard to the kids menu.  Rather than provide a handful of crayons and a paper menu to color, they pasted the kids menu inside Little Golden Books!  Our children enjoyed reading the stories while we ate our meal.

Bathtub salad bar at the Baldpate Inn.

Kids menus at the Baldpate Inn.

The Baldpate has a terrific wooden deck with rocking chairs to relax in while taking in the scenery or observing the activity at their numerous hummingbird feeders.

The Baldpate is also steps away from Lily Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.  It made for the perfect after-dinner walk and literally felt like walking through paradise.  Our children loved it so much they wanted to go around twice.  To our delight, they tired themselves out and slept soundly all the way to Boulder.

Day Fourteen: Boulder, Colorado to Colby, Kansas

The next morning, we awoke early in part due to the high and bright Colorado sun.  At 5:45 a.m. the sun was blaring so brightly through the curtains I awoke in a panic concerned we overslept.  We slept in for a few more precious hours and ate delicious fruit-filled Polish pierogis for breakfast at the Eggcredible restaurant in the hotel. We drove out of Boulder, which has to be one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the country.  The road signs indicate when cars have to merge into a single lane so that bicyclists can have a lane to themselves!

Breakfast Pierogis.

Boulder bicyclists.

We drove into Denver to visit our beloved Auntie!  It was a hot day and our girls found the best spot to be was the natural “treehouse” created beneath the Colorado blue spruce in Auntie’s backyard.  After a wonderful afternoon visiting and picnicking, we loaded back into the car.

Treehouse entrance.

More treehouse time.

We drove through eastern Colorado which is largely farmland.

Colorado farmland.

More Colorado farmland.

Right before we hit the Kansas border, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky and we drove “over the rainbow” into the state—which could not have been more perfect.

We expected Kansas to be flat and full of corn.  We were not wrong in this regard but we weren’t expecting to find it beautiful.

Kansas cornfield.

Kansas wheatfield.

We stopped for the night in Colby, Kansas, a small town on the western end of the state.  We ate dinner at the local “Taco John” where we saw some locals dressed in overalls and John Deere hats.  Our hotel was a pleasant surprise with nicely furnished rooms including granite countertops and elegant bedding.  This hotel also gets our award for best hotel pool policy.  The pool is open 24 hours!  This was the only hotel we encountered on our journey with such a policy.  It makes perfect sense.  The pool is indoor and has no lifeguard (as most hotel pools) so the hotel does not have any restrictions on when you can use it.  After arriving half an hour too late for the pool at almost ever hotel we visited on our journey we were elated.  Our girls had a great time swimming.

Kansans are very sweet people.  When my husband dragged our 4-year old out of the pool and she began kicking and screaming all the way down the hall to our hotel room, a grandmother popped open her hotel door to make sure my husband was not mistreating her.  She only closed it when my daughter called out “Mama” and the woman saw me walking down the hall.  If only we were all so attentive!

Day Fifteen: Colby, Kansas to Kansas, City, Missouri

We awoke the next morning in time for the hotel’s free breakfast.  The buffet included my favorite waffle-making device and I was able to replace the pictures from Knoxville lost in my iPhone accident.  The magical device in question is “Carbon’s Golden Malted Waffle Baker.”  It is a wonderful machine where you pour in some liquid waffle mix (no greasing required!), close the lid, use the handles to flip the griddles 180 degrees and a timer counts down for you.  When the timer goes off, the waffle is perfectly done, fluffy and delicious!  We saw these machines in use all over the country from Knoxville, Tennessee to the breakfast buffet in Las Vegas.  The built-in timer is so handy.  I want to find one for my home!

The Golden Malted Waffle Baker.

Perfect waffles!

As we feasted on cereal, waffles, sausage, biscuits and gravy, we listened to the morning television in the dining area.  Commercials for “100% pro life” and “A Grade from the National Rifle Association” politicians were interspersed with commercials for large farm equipment.  It is a very different world from Washington.

After breakfast, we headed on to Grinnell, Kansas where we were in search of Monument Rocks, an interesting geologic formation.  After you leave the highway in Kansas, you might find a brief patch of paved road near strip malls or other business areas but most of the state roads are unpaved.  Monument Rocks was about 7 miles down an unpaved road in the middle of farmland.  But it was worth the trip!

The rocks jut out in the middle of the surrounding farmland.  They are elegant and sculptural.  The rock is very soft to the touch and crumbles easily, sort of like talc.  The other name for this formation is the “chalk pyramids” and the monument does smell of chalk.

When we left the monument, my husband decided to rely on the GPS navigation in the car rather than retracing our steps back to the interstate.  The GPS had some wild inaccuracies and we ended up on a miles-long tour of Kansas farm roads.  These roads are actually quite dangerous.  Cars and trucks driving along the road kick up enormous amounts of dust rendering white-out conditions.  You have to give lots of room between your car and the car in front.  If you see nothing but a dust cloud on the horizon, you have to learn to assume that it is a truck or maybe a farmer tilling his field.  We had a few close calls.

Typical visibility on a Kansas farm road.

Kansas farmer tilling the soil.

Along one road, we saw a strange vehicle coming down the road.  It seemed large but we couldn’t quite tell.  As it drove closer, we realized it was an enormous piece of farm equipment and there was no way both of our vehicles could share the road.  We pulled off into a driveway and waited for it to pass.

No way to share the road with this truck.

Huge!

Driving through the farms, we gained a new respect for both the danger and the sophistication involved in running a farm.

We pressed on to Hays, Kansas where we ate at wonderful Gella’s diner.  Downtown Hays was quite small and we were surprised when we opened the door to Gella’s to find a contemporary restaurant with inviting menu items.  Gella’s brewery has won several awards for its beers and its homebrewed root beer was creamy and delicious.  The fish tacos special was delicious. Kids meals were served in a paper vintage car which delighted our girls.

Interior of Gella's Diner.

Gella's kids meals served in a car!

After lunch we visited the Sternberg museum which has the best dinosaur exhibit I have ever seen!  While the collection of dinosaurs is not large, the way they are displayed is as close to Jurassic Park as one can get.  Through subtle tricks of lighting, sound, color and creatively staged models, you feel like you are swimming underwater with large shark-like dinosaurs and then you climb a subtle incline to feel like you have walked out of the water onto a beach where plant-eating dinosaurs roam, pterodactyls fly overhead and the mechanical T-Rex actually moves and roars and looks right at you!

Again, we experienced Kansas hospitality when some cute grandparents went out of their way to warn us that the T-Rex moves and that it terrifies their 2-year old grandson and also to check out the discovery area in the back of the museum.

We drove on through Kansas farmland.  Kansas has a lot of signs along its highways, some are official signs for businesses or highway signs but some are more home grown.  It made for some entertaining “reading.”  For example, a sign for a “XXX Adult Supperstore” was followed by a religious sign indicating that pornography is a terrible addiction and encouraging people to follow Jesus instead.

We arrived in Topeka for dinner where we ate at the award-winning “Boss Hawg’s” barbecue.  We sampled a bit of everything in their “Beast Feast.”  Our favorite was a dish called “Burnt Ends” which is specially cooked beef brisket, but the shredded pork was also incredible and our children gobbled up the barbecue chicken.

Downtown Topeka.

"Beast Feast" at Boss Hawg's.

We drove on that night into Kansas City, Missouri.  We were too tired to go out to walk around the nightlife area and instead relaxed in our stylish hotel, the Q Hotel.  The Q had great style with round, ball-like throw pillows on the beds and beaded curtains in the closet area.  The hotel is dedicated to being environmentally friendly.  One of their eco-friendly innovations is to put all the soap, lotion and conditioner in a large reusable dispenser in the shower area.  No little bottles to throw away!

Q Hotel Beaded Curtain

Q Hotel Beds.

Q Hotel Soap Dispenser.

Day Sixteen: Kansas City, Missouri to Lexington, Kentucky

In the morning, we did a quick drive through Kansas City.  It is very hard to understand the character of a city when you drive through at night.   We were delighted to find many signs of creativity in St. Louis.  There was an art museum with oversized shuttlecocks on the front lawn, a luxurious “country club” shopping area, fountains and public parks.  It looked quite lovely.

Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.	The "Country Club" strip
More of the Country Club Shops.	More of Downtown Kansas City.

We had a lot of miles to cover that day so we got back onto the interstate and headed toward St. Louis.   We ate lunch at a lovely art deco-inspired restaurant, The Fountain on Locust.  The interior is fantastic with black and white tiles on the floor and large murals with ladies doing gymnastic feats with the sconce lights or painted moons.  The bathroom is equally impressive and has been nominated as one of the best restrooms in the entire United States!  The food was fresh and good and the ice cream was excellent too!

Art deco interior of the Fountain on Locust.

Chocolate case at the Fountain on Locust

We took a quick drive to see the St. Louis arch and peek at the Mississippi riverfront before we drove across the bridge into Illinois.

The stretch of highway across Illinois and Indiana wasn’t particularly memorable.  We had seen so many farms and open spaces by this point that we were a little hard to impress.

Illinois farmland	More Illinois farmland.
Indiana Farmland	More Indiana farmland.

We thought it might be fun to stop for dinner in Santa  Claus, Indiana.  We visited a few small attractions and were a little disappointed.  If you have ever been to a wonderful Christmas store with elegant and surprising decorations, you will not find that here.   The stores were very simple and a bit ordinary selling inexpensive goods from China.  It was commercialized Christmas without any of the art and magic you might want in a Christmas-themed town.  The main attraction was Holiday World, a huge amusement park which we didn’t have time to see.  The parking lot for Holiday World was packed, though.  Perhaps Holiday World is the type of amazing experience we were looking for but it didn’t appear to be so.

Unfortunately on a long road trip, a disappointing stop really sucks the energy out of you.  It was the end of a long day of driving and we really wanted to end on a high note.  We pressed on to Louisville, Kentucky and then to our hotel in Lexington where the only place open for dinner was Wendy’s.  We decided to just tuck into bed and hope for a better day the next day.

Day Seventeen: Lexington, Kentucky to Fredericksburg, Virginia

We started the morning with another generous hotel breakfast including biscuits and gravy.  We hit the road.  We decided we were done with road tripping and ready to get home.  When this rig drove by, we thought, “Our sentiments exactly!”

This patch of Kentucky didn’t have anything particularly noteworthy to grab our attention.  There was lots of green farmland.

Kentucky highway.

More Kentucky Highway.

We drove into Huntington, West Virginia.  At first we saw an economically depressed downtown.  We decided to explore the two points of interest I researched in advance.  We stopped briefly at the Ohio riverfront, which was beautiful.  Elegantly dressed people were walking in for Sunday brunch at Schooner’s.

We also drove up a hilly part of town through a rather nice neighborhood to an interesting looking art museum.  We had planned to walk one of the trails through the woods near the museum where art objects were placed among the trees but a torrential downpour of rain derailed those plans.  We were a bit too tired to supervise two wiggly children inside the museum so we headed on to our next stop in Fayetteville, West Virginia.

West Virginia is a very beautiful state in terms of geography.  It is green, mountainous and has many rivers and bridges.  It finally stopped raining by the time we reached Fayetteville.  We stopped at the visitors center for New River Gorge National Park.  The park was having an interesting exhibit of quilts used in the underground railroad.  We walked to many overlook points and took in the engineering marvel that is the New River Gorge Bridge.

Underground Railroad Quilts

Wooden step path at New River Gorge.

We drove down the road for the old bridge as well, a one-lane twisting road that would be completely impassable for today’s semi-trucks.  It gave us another view of the bridge from below.

We had an early dinner at Pies and Pints, a terrific restaurant with excellent food and a fenced patio with playground for kids.  While our girls played on the swings, we feasted on the world’s best spinach salad and a Cuban Pork pizza with pineapple, jalapenos and crème fraiche.

The world's best spinach salad!

Downtown Fayetteville.

It was a nice moment to reflect on our trip.  While we were tired and ready to be home where at a minimum, we could stop packing and unpacking suitcases, refresh our wardrobes with more than just the 8 outfits we had been wearing the past two weeks and sleep in our own bed.

The end of the journey also made me a bit teary.  It will always be a grand memory for me of my husband and very young children.  I will remember fondly the “tickle spider” my husband invented to keep our 4-year old entertained in the car, the bonding moments playing in the pool, discovering natural wonders, dinosaurs and fireworks and, best of all, uninterrupted time together.

We drove on into Virginia and to our home where our girls bounded out of the car a bit surprised to remember their home.  After a few minutes readjusting, they decided to inventory the beloved toys they left behind.  We appreciated everything about our home– its size, its smell, its layout.  It just felt right.  It felt like us.

We are still coming down from our vacation high and realizing how busy and full our lives are on a day to day basis.  My husband put in a 60-hour workweek his first week back and didn’t get home each night until very late in the evening.  It was a shocking transition from vacation.  We all carry fond memories of our time on the road and are still trying to learn how to capture some of that vacation spirit into our everyday lives.

Thank you for coming along with us on our road trip!  We were happy to share it with you and hope you learned something new about our wonderful and diverse country.

Back on Wednesday with Ruly Ruth!

Thanks for all the great comments on the road trip! Glad you are enjoying it too! Picking up where we left off in Albuquerque. . .

Day Five: Albuquerque, New Mexico to Tusayan, Arizona

We woke up in Albuquerque and I wanted to spend just a bit more time there before we headed off out of town. We went back to Old Town in the daylight to shoot a few pictures of the historic Catholic church in the square. The orange adobe contrasted with the bright blue sky was so striking.

Historic Church in Albuquerque.

Church spire against the blue sky.

We stopped briefly at Boca Negra Canyon in Petroglyph National Monument, a national park just outside the city. We hiked up a small mesa studded with black rocks, admiring the artwork chipped into the volcanic rocks by Native Americans thousands of years ago. Our favorite was finding the dragonfly.

Dragonfly Petroglyph.

Animal Petroglyph.

A short trail leads to the mesa top where the hiker is rewarded with a beautiful view of the city. Albuquerque is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. The adobe houses match the landscape so perfectly they look like they naturally grew out of the ground. Albuquerque seems to prize individuality and artistic expression. Even the highway overpass incorporated art. It is not hard to see why this area inspired artists like Georgia O’Keefe.

Reluctantly, we drove on out of Albuquerque into Arizona.

We stopped for gas at a small town near the Arizona border. We were surprised to see how much the population had changed at this point in our journey. Nearly all the people were of Native American or Hispanic descent. My historian husband explained to me that drawing the line between “Native American” and “Mexican” in this part of the country is not very easy to do and that both groups have an extensive history in the area. This gave us new insight into the current Arizona immigration law debate. With such a diverse population it is easy to see why people are concerned about being unfairly targeted.

We stopped at Petrified Forest National Park, which claims to be the largest collection of petrified wood in the world. What is petrified wood? Fossilized trees from millions of years ago. The “wood” is now rock and often contains gemstones. As you can imagine, the wood is a target for looters and the park has officers stationed at the entrance and exit points to make sure visitors are not leaving with any “souvenirs.” The park is in a beautiful desert area and the landscape changes around nearly every corner.

Black hills in the Petrified Forest.	White sandstone.
Red Hills.	"Teepee" formations

Native Americans inhabited this area thousands of years ago leaving behind “Newspaper Rock” covered with petroglyphs.

We drove on to Flagstaff, Arizona. I imagined all of Arizona to be a flat desert but Flagstaff is really more of a mountain town. The air is cool and smells of pine. We ate at a fantastic pizza restaurant before driving on into the Grand Canyon area. It was evening by this point and we drove mostly in the dark, enjoying the beautiful stars.

Tusayan, Arizona is a large tourist town just outside the Grand Canyon. It is enormously popular in the summer and populated with tourists from all over the world. You can tell there is a lot of money coming into this area. Prices are quite high for everything from food to gas. It took us about half an hour to find a parking place at our hotel. The soaps in the hotel are not nondescript brands but from Bath & Body Works.

Our hotel, the Red Feather Lodge, had two interesting ideas to share. First, the hotel sold advertising space on its keys. Your key served as a coupon for a nearby restaurant, a rather clever marketing strategy. Secondly, the hotel provided a recycling can in addition to the trash can, the first and only time we saw this on our journey.

Advertising on the Hotel Key.

Recycling and trash cans at the hotel.

Day Six: Tusayan, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada

We awoke the next morning early to get an early start into the Grand Canyon. The Park Service website warns that you need to enter before 8:30 a.m. to avoid long lines. We were dreading the park visit a bit, fearing that we would be stuck behind long lines of tourists. Fortunately, this turned out not to be the case.

The Grand Canyon is a United Nations of sorts and the park offers literature in at least 5 languages. We encountered tourists from all over the world. The park makes so much from entrance fees that a large construction effort was underway to expand the visitors center. It appears that most people take the shuttle buses and get off quickly at various spots around the park. If you want to avoid crowds, walking the trails is a good bet. Once you get more than a quarter mile from a shuttle drop point, you have the park practically to yourself.

We walked along the Rim Trail which is about a 3 mile paved trail running about 5 feet from the very edge of the canyon! People are constantly wandering right to the edge to take photos and one person was even taking a nap with his legs dangling over the edge.

There were a few overlooks that made my knees wobble and we kept a close eye on our children but the experience was simply amazing.

We had lunch at the El Tovar hotel whose menu was perfectly designed for vacationing families. While there were elegant selections for adults (like Mediterranean salad and chicken with prickly pear cactus), there was an extensive kids menu complete with activity book. The tables had white tablecloths and the meals were served on beautiful “Mimbreno” china with Native American designs.

Mimbreno pottery at the El Tovar.

Porch swing at the El Tovar.

After lunch, the El Tovar offers a wonderful porch with a swing and rocking chairs to relax in the shade and enjoy the scenery. Our children loved the swing and it was a great moment to relax after a long morning walk. We continued on the trail to the Kolb Studio, an art studio built right on the edge of the canyon where we viewed a wonderful collection of black and white botanical illustrations.

By this time, we were getting tired and walked back to the car. Our children fell asleep in their stroller. There was so much more to see in the Grand Canyon but we will just have to come back again.

Condor soaring in the Grand Canyon.

Raven perched in a tree at the Grand Canyon.

One surprising thing about the Grand Canyon was the climate. I was expecting a desert-like environment with harsh, unrelenting sun, especially in July. Due to the high elevation of the area, however, the climate is really more mountain-like with cool breezes. It was hot but not nearly as hot as we expected. I still managed to get badly sunburned on my back but everyone else escaped burn-free.

We drove on toward Las Vegas stopping for dinner at a little diner. There was a great organizing tip here too. Silverware was provided in little paper sacks with a napkin, fork and knife. It was a great way to keep the napkins clean before serving and it felt like we were getting a little present to open too, which was fun. Continuing the trend of chefs with a sense of humor, this cute sign was found above the kitchen.

Paper sack for silverware.

More chef humor.

As we approached Las Vegas, my husband who had visited several times for work conventions, was preparing me for the landscape. “Is it really a desert?” I asked. Having grown up in Utah where “desert” means not sand dunes but just dry weather with some greenery and even mountains, I wasn’t sure what to expect. “Yes,” he replied. “With sand?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. As we drove on, I was surprised to see he was right. The landscape became denuded of any greenery.

Arizona desert.

Highway through the Arizona desert.

We drove past the Hoover Dam, which is a tremendous feat of engineering.

We drove into Las Vegas and checked into our hotel, the MGM Grand, where we met up with Ruly Ruth and family.

Day Seven and Eight: Las Vegas, Nevada

We awoke the next morning and Ruth took us on a tour of some of her favorite kid-friendly places on The Strip. I have never been to Vegas before and wasn’t sure what to expect. I was prepared for a Big Texan Steak Ranch type of over-the-top décor. While Vegas is definitely loud and in your face, I was surprised to see there was also an elegance to it too.

"New York" in Vegas	"Paris" in Vegas
Luxor in Vegas	The MGM Lion.
Ceiling at the Bellagio.	Gardens at the Bellagio.

The architecture of the buildings was tasteful and interesting and the interiors of the Bellagio were impressive and artful. Granted, we didn’t have time to tour the whole strip so Ruth steered us toward the higher end places.

With four children in tow, we escaped the dark and air conditioned casino space (where it perpetually feels like it is about 7:00 p.m.) into the bright, hot Vegas summer sun. How hot is Las Vegas? Hotter than anything I have ever experienced! At one point, our car thermometer read 111 degrees! It is an exhausting, dry, blast-furnace like heat. Every 10 feet on the sidewalk, someone is selling bottles of ice cold water.

You would think that a person might pass out immediately in 111 degree heat but we were surprised to find that this isn’t the case. You can function in that heat although you have to conserve your energy carefully. You will also see some of the darkest suntans on Vegas vacationers. My 4-year old thinks of Vegas as “escalator city” since there is an escalator in nearly every store and even on the sidewalks to connect to pedestrian bridges over the roads.

In Vegas heat, it is also a good idea to spend a lot of time in the pool. Amazingly, the pool was only open until about 8 p.m. In party city Las Vegas we though for sure the pool would be open 24 hours and we could look forward to using it once the intense sun went down. We were not taking into account the fact that alcohol would be sold at various places near the pool and that the lifeguards were probably concerned about intoxicated people swimming in the dark. We slathered on tons of suncreen and headed into the pool in the late afternoon. Our children LOVED the enormous pool, especially the lazy river. They literally cried when the pool closed.

Dinner was at the Rainforest Café complete with animatronic animals. We weren’t able to explore the Vegas nightlife but the hotels were packed with younger people dressed to impress.

Overall, Vegas was an interesting lesson that even in a recession, people are willing to spend money to get a little crazy and have some fun. The hotels and restaurants were packed and the city seemed to be doing just fine.

Day Nine: Las Vegas, Nevada to Salt Lake City, Utah

That morning, we had the delicious buffet at the hotel, which was an interesting lesson in organization and efficiency. We arrived just before the changeover from breakfast to lunch and watched as the buffet manager instructed the chefs to switch over their stations from pancakes to fajitas. It was amazing how seamless the transition was.

We did a little shopping and then bade farewell to Ruth and family and drove on to Salt Lake City, our hometown. Utah is an incredibly beautiful state. Southern Utah in particular is full of interesting mountains and geologic formations that are simply breathtaking.

Utah highway.

More Utah highway.

We stopped in Fillmore, Utah for a quick break for dinner at a small diner, where we encountered one of Utah’s signature cuisine items: fry sauce (a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise).

The diner had a clever tip to share. The paper liners used to line the food service trays came from the local town’s tourism commission. The liner presented information about what the primary attractions were in town, why people like coming to Fillmore and annual festivals. It was a good lesson that anyone looking to attract tourists passing through to their business, would do well to befriend local restaurants close to the highway.

We watched a beautiful sunset over the Utah farmlands and drove through an exciting rainstorm into Salt Lake City that evening.

Hope your weekend is full of adventures! Next week we will finish up the trip. Please check back for the journey east!

Things are getting a little more under control at our house.  We still miss being on vacation but are gelling back into our non-vacation roles.  The fridge is now stocked and we are almost through the laundry pile.

Continuing my road trip reflections . . . . I last left us in Memphis, Tennessee.

Day Three: Memphis, Tennessee to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The next morning we slept in a bit and missed breakfast.  It was July 4^th but unfortunately we were not in the most celebratory of moods.   The previous evening, my 2-year old brought my iPhone into the bathtub and submerged it underwater!  I quickly rescued it and thought it was OK and used it that evening.  I charged it overnight and discovered in the morning that the water appeared to have fried some of the circuits and destroyed it!

After a testy morning, we hit the road for Little Rock, Arkansas.  Even though July 4^th is one of the bigger holidays of the year, the majority of cities and towns we drove through were doing little if anything to celebrate it.  The fact that July 4^th was on a Sunday this year and we were driving largely through the Bible Belt didn’t help matters any.

Downtown Little Rock was relatively quiet.  We walked along President Clinton Avenue downtown, which was surprisingly more like Oregon than a southern state.  I don’t recall hearing a single southern accent among the locals we met.  Many of the shops had signs indicating their dedication to environmentalism and holistic healing.  We ate at a vegetarian café and visited a museum called the Discovery Center which is a hands-on children’s museum focused on science, history and other educational activities.

President Clinton Avenue, the main street in downtown Little Rock

Little Rock is full of art, like this great sculpture.

We drove on through Arkansas.  It was a hot day and the afternoon sun made me a bit sleepy.  I missed quite a bit of Arkansas as a result.  I awoke when we pulled in to  Fort Smith, Arkansas, which curiously is more western than southern.  This was the first point in the country where we noticed cowboy hats and pickup trucks.  It was a little after 5 and nearly everything had closed for the evening but we wandered around the grounds of the Fort Smith National Historic Site (a historic jail and courthouse).

Downtown Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Fort Smith

On the grounds there, we were surprised to see the first of several tech-savvy signs from the National Park Service we would encounter on our journey.  This sign asked you to download an application for your iPhone to scan the barcode and have your cell phone play a recorded message.  We didn’t have time to test this out but I give credit to the park service for embracing technology!  These types of innovations will not only make historic sites come alive for more visitors but also save the expense of printing brochures and signs and allow the Park Service to update the information more frequently.

With our 4-year old craving “white rice” yet again, we found a small Thai restaurant outside of town.  The restaurant was packed with customers and the food was excellent!  Who would have thought you can find a mean Pad Thai in Arkansas!

We drove on into Oklahoma.  Oklahoma is primarily known for being the Indian territory (or at least where many Native Americans were forced to live).  As you drive along the highway, signs indicate the boundaries of various tribal areas.  The number of tribes represented was surprising.  Each tribe generally has a visitors area where they sell pottery, blankets, jewelry and other distinctive tribal art and sometimes offer a casino as well.  You could have an incredible cultural experience stopping to visit each tribe.  Unfortunately, we had to get to Oklahoma City in time for the fireworks that evening and didn’t have time to stop.

Oklahoma farmland

More Oklahoma landscape.

We pressed on to Oklahoma City where we arrived just in time to see the fireworks from the rooftop of the parking garage near our hotel.  It felt characteristically American to watch the fireworks among hundreds of families and their pickup trucks.  Our girls loved the fireworks and would ask to see them again every night for the next several days.

There was a cute moment in the elevator in the parking garage where a college-aged man with a nose ring and tattoos bonded with a 6-year old girl standing with her mother over their T-shirt choices.  Hers said, “Oklahoma Girls Rule!”  His said, “Nobody Beats Oklahoma Women.”

Our hotel, The Skirvin Hilton, is a beautiful historic building with well-appointed rooms.  One of the interesting ideas from the hotel was their choice of bedding.  Since the history of the hotel is an important part of its appeal, the hotel had special blankets printed with the story of the hotel written on them that were placed at the foot of each bed.

Bedroom at the Skirvin Hilton. The blanket at the foot of the bed has the hotel's history printed on it.

The story of the Skirvin Hilton.

Day Four: Oklahoma City to Albuquerque, New Mexico

We awoke the next day and decided to explore Oklahoma City for a bit before leaving.  Oklahoma City was quite a surprise to me.  I was expecting a very small town and Oklahoma City is really quite a big city.  There appears to be lots of business being transacted there and the downtown has large multistory buildings.

We stopped at the memorial site for the Oklahoma City bombing.  The memorial is very well done and as impressive as any I have seen in Washington.  The grounds are meticulously tended, particularly with regard to the well-clipped lawn.  The stands of empty chairs are powerful as are the hand painted tiles from children around the country.  Yet even more personal, however, are the impromptu memorials on the chain link fence just in front of the memorial.

Chairs at the Oklahoma City memorial site.

Tiles painted by children at the Oklahoma City memorial site.

Leaving Oklahoma City, we drove on to Amarillo, Texas.  This was the first portion of our journey that was primarily through flat land.  While you would think this would make for relatively uninteresting  sightseeing, we learned to appreciate the variety of skyscapes visible when you can see from one horizon to the other.

Texas farmland

Texas cloudscape.

Texas has a definite character.  This was my first visit to the state and the first impression that you get is that everything is big and exaggerated in Texas.  Here was the cross for a church.

We ate lunch at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the free 72 oz steak dinner (if you can eat it all in under an hour!).  The steakhouse is in a brightly colored blue and yellow building with an enormous cowboy boot at the front door and a cow statue perched on the roof.  Inside, the décor is over the top western!  Dinner is served at long tables with cow-print tablecloths. The heads of various animals hang on the walls. Wagon wheels are repurposed as chandeliers and all the servers are dressed in cowboy hats, jeans and cowboy boots.

Sign for the Big Texan Steak Ranch.

Oversized rocking chair at the The Big Texan Steak Ranch.

Our steaks were quite good.  (No, we did not try for the 72 oz. dinner!)  If you are still hungry, you can opt for a piece of cake the size of an entire dinner plate or some of their homemade fudge which comes in flavors such as butter pecan, cookies ‘n cream and Butterfinger.  They looked delicious but we were stuffed.

We took the obligatory photo op in their enormously oversized rocking chair.  This is a great marketing idea!  The top of the chair has their website on it so everyone who takes a vacation photo here is spreading the word about the restaurant.

You might be thinking that the Big Texan Steak Ranch is tacky or ridiculous but I will also tell you that the restaurant is enormously successful.  Every table was packed with tourists of every description.  Everyone was having a great time, smiling at the unusual experience. 

On our way out of town, we stopped briefly at the Cadillac Ranch.  What is the Cadillac Ranch?  10 Cadillac automobiles sunk nose first into the desert.  It is a sort of evolving art piece where people are invited to spray paint their own designs on the cars.  I didn’t see any fine art but there were many painters in progress writing their names on the cars.

This was one of our longest travel days of the journey so far.  We continued on into New Mexico. 

The landscape quickly became more dry and mountainous. 

New Mexico landscape.

Mountains in New Mexico.

We arrived at our hotel just in time for dinner.  We walked a short distance into the town square in Old Town which is beautifully designed with a park in the center and shops circling it.  The buildings were all in classic southwest style, with adobe, wooden beams and accents of bright turquoise. We ate on the patio at a wonderful Mexican restaurant. We knew we were getting authentic food when the chips and salsa arrived and the (presumably mild) salsa was about 10 times spicier than what they serve here in D.C.

After dinner, we took a short stroll and retired to the hotel for a good night’s rest.

Next time: Further west we go.  Please share in the comments your own favorite road trip memories or impressions of the southwestern U.S.

Happy Tuesday Ruly Readers! I just returned from a two week road trip vacation across the United States. Along with my husband and two young daughters age 4 and 2, we visited 16 states in as many days, as we traveled west to be with family. It was a wonderful experience!

Today (and I expect for most of the rest of the week), things are a bit un-Ruly at our house. It is always a bit of a rough adjustment coming off of a long vacation. There are work schedules and children’s activities to reacquaint ourselves with as well as a huge amount of unpacking activities like a mountain of laundry, a dirty car to clean, photos to sort, thank you’s to write and an empty fridge to fill with groceries. After two weeks of rich eating on the road, I was also rudely reminded that I have to don a swimsuit for the next two weeks in the “Mommy and Me” swim class. (Ladies, we are so vain about this! Many moms have told me that they make Dad do the “Mommy and Me” swim class to avoid appearing in public in a swimsuit!) So, please excuse me this week if the posting schedule is a bit erratic.

As both entertainment for you and post-vacation therapy for me, this week I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from my trip including some creative ideas and great organizational tips from around the country. So jump into my virtual minivan for a tour of this great (and organized!) country.

Day One: Fredericksburg, Virginia to Knoxville, Tennessee

After packing up the minivan with about 8 days worth of clothes for each person, some snacks, a double stroller and some supplies for my youngest daughter’s birthday party, we headed south on Interstate 81. We drove through miles of beautiful Virginia farmland and people watched on the freeway for others making a 4th of July road trip, like the cute little roadster below.

Virginia Farmland.

More Virginia farmland.

Antique roadster packed for vacation travel.

Both to keep the trip interesting and to accommodate the needs of restless children, we decided to get out of the car at least every 3 hours to walk around, eat and see some interesting sites.
Our first stop was in Roanoke, Virginia where we saw the Virginia Museum of Transportation. The Museum boasts “the largest collection of diesel locomotives in the South.” They have wonderful old trains in the yard out back as well as buggies and vintage automobiles. My favorite was climbing into a restored first class rail car complete with piano, dining table and sleeping compartments with beds. I was a bit jealous imagining traveling across the country in such luxurious accommodations but also grateful that we were not going by horse and buggy. Our children enjoyed the extensive model train exhibits and the playground in the rail yard.

Locomotive at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.	Restored dining car.
Antique buggy.	Packard automobile.

We piled back into the car and pressed on to Bristol, which straddles the Virginia/Tennessee border. We attended a street festival there. The line running down main street showed that you could have one foot in Virginia and one foot in Tennessee. Tennessee might be the most musical state in the country with music traditions spanning one end of the state to the other. Bristol’s claim to fame is that the first country music recording happened in Bristol, Tennessee.

The state line down Main Street, Bristol.

Fried Green Tomatoes, Funnel Cake and Ribbon Fries.

The food in Bristol was characteristically southern. I had fried green tomatoes (which I was told are best eaten with a side of ranch dressing) and other menu items included barbecue, fried oreos and sweet tea. The food vendors thanked us for our purchases with a southern, “’preciate ‘cha!”

A modern country band entertained the crowd. They introduced their song “Gravy Shake,” as “the dance craze sweeping the nation very, very . . . very slowly!”

There was tremendous fun and energy in Bristol. Two women were promoting a new preschool aimed at encouraging creative thinking. Another vendor had incredible hand-crocheted hats. The phrase “Believe in Bristol” is plastered throughout the town and we were told that the effort is run by a wonderful local woman who has the energy of 100 people. It was small town living at its best.

On the way out of town, we had to locate a Chinese restaurant, as my 4-year old informed me that she was only going to eat “white rice” that evening. The Chinese restaurant was staffed by a kind family who appeared to be first generation immigrants. The food was excellent and it was fun to see a bit of Bristol’s evolving future.

We drove on to Knoxville where we arrived late in the evening to our hotel, the Hampton Inn & Suites Knoxville North. We did not have the budget for luxury accommodations but were too concerned about bedbugs to stay in the cheapest hotels. Our hotel choices throughout the trip could be described as “luxury economy.” This hotel was meticulously clean and literally looked brand new. Our room had a mini fridge, microwave, coffee maker and even a low table suitable as a luggage rack. I lost my pictures of the room in an iPhone accident (more on this later) but the design of the room was really well thought out.

Day Two: Knoxville, Tennessee to Memphis, Tennessee

Our hotel served an incredible free breakfast with make-your-own waffles (more on this later), eggs, potatoes, a selection of cereal and pastries, juice, fresh fruit and three kinds of coffee. I highly recommend it if you are ever in Knoxville.

That morning we drove through the Tennessee countryside to Cumberland Caverns. Tennessee is also famous for having a very large number of caves. We went on the organized tour of Cumberland Caverns and were astounded at the size of the underground rooms. While we were expecting cramped, tight spaces, and found enormous, naturally-occurring, ballroom-sized rooms. They even added a large chandelier repurposed from an old New York Theater to the top of one of the cave rooms. In addition to a variety of cave tours and overnight adventures, Cumberland Caverns also hosts underground movie screenings, concerts and even weddings! This has to be one of the most creative uses of space I have ever seen!

Sadly, the dark conditions of the cave made good photography impossible for all but the expert photographer. The few recognizable shots I got are below.

Inside Cumberland Caverns.

Cumberland Caverns staircase.

From Cumberland we drove on toward Memphis. We encountered a big downpour en route, which helps to explain why Tennessee is a tremendously green state. As we would learn on our trip, there is nothing quite like the scale of an eastern rainstorm. Buckets of rain fall at a time and the rain lasts for quite a while. The storms we encountered in the west were mere sprinkles by comparison!

We stopped at Natchez Trace State Park for a short hike in the woods to stretch our legs. The trail we chose wasn’t particularly thrilling in terms of scenery but it was quiet and beautiful with tall oaks for shade. Natchez Trace has great camping support facilities with showers and even hoses to wash off your horse.

We then drove on to Memphis, Tennessee, home of the blues, where we stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn downtown which has an incredible rooftop view of the Mississippi River. It was a Saturday night in Memphis so we walked into the nightlife area and ate dinner at the Blues City Café, where my husband declared their ribs the best he had ever tasted. There was an enormous crowd of people waiting to pass through a police checkpoint to mingle on Beale Street. It was a nearly perfect weekend evening. There was a balmy breeze and it was warm and humid but not hot and sticky. There were young people and families all out enjoying themselves. Memphis is a city that knows how to throw a good weekend party.

Beale Street by day.

Beale Street at night.

Before going to bed, we spent a few minutes on the rooftop enjoying the view and the breeze. I got to chatting with a fellow hotel guest from Louisiana. We of course chatted about the BP oil spill. I told him I was surprised to see how many Memphis restaurants had “gulf coast shrimp” and other gulf coast seafood on their menus. Geographically it didn’t make a lot of sense to me as the two areas don’t seem close by. “Follow the river,” he explained, telling me that the Mississippi dumps right out in Louisiana and Memphis is one of the closest stops up the river.

Memphis was lovely and the people we met embodied Southern hospitality.

Next post: Continuing the trek west. Please come back to see where we go next and please share in the comments your thoughts on any of the cities or ideas mentioned above.

(P.S. Some have wondered how I managed to post to my blog while on vacation. Since I didn’t want to leave my readers in the lurch for two weeks, I drafted several posts before leaving on my trip and just took a few minutes to post them while on vacation. The posts also ended up being great preparation for the trip.)

"Car Wash!" Photo by Dave Parker. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera." Photo by Ed Callow. From the Flickr Creative Commons.
"Police washing car_Cuba 289." Photo by hoyasmeg. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"ms. miata gets a bath." Photo by Robert Couse-Baker. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

One of the great benefits of owing a home with a yard is that you get to wash your car yourself!  Am I weird for thinking this?  For years, we lived in a condo in the heart of Washington where the only way to get the car washed was to take it to an expensive car wash down the street, where it got a very quick trip through a machine and was quickly hand dried.  While this process got the majority of the crud off, the car never truly felt “clean.”

When we found our home in the suburbs, it was thrilling to finally have access to a hose!  I was so thrilled in fact that I decided to treat my car to a full makeover.  I went to the auto supply store and bought nice soap and wax and a protective cleaner for the interior.  Browsing the shelves, I came across two products that I picked up just to try and have never been without them since.

When you give your car a really good clean, it truly shines.  It feels like new and you feel better driving it.  If your car could use a little TLC, today’s post shares three of the “secrets” I have discovered in my new passion for car washing.

Campbell Hausfeld PW1350 1,350 PSI, 1.3 GPM Electric Pressure Washer. At amazon.com.

1. Pressure Washer. We needed a pressure washer for some work we are doing on our patio and my husband found this one at amazon.com that had the side benefit of having a gentle enough spray to be able to be used to wash cars.  I was a bit skeptical but after seeing how quickly it works and how clean it gets the car, I am sold! Our hose pressure has never been very good and the pressure washer gives us the boost in power to wash more effectively.  A quick spray to rinse, load up the soap dispenser attachment and spray on the soap then spray to rinse.  It goes much more quickly than hand washing and it seems to use far less water too.

Tuff Stuff Interior Cleaner. At amazon.com.

2.   Tuff Stuff Interior Cleaner. I have no idea what the “stuff” is in Tuff Stuff but it works really well!  It is especially good at getting black marks out of carpeting and even on most plastic and vinyl surfaces.  Most cars get a good black coating on the driver’s side floor mat near the gas and brake pedals and black scuff marks on and near the door trims.  Tuff Stuff takes all of this out.  It works far better than any carpet cleaner or plastic/vinyl cleaner I have tried.  It is easy to use.  Just vacuum the carpeting, spray on the Tuff Stuff, mildly scrub with a wet towel and allow to dry.  Generally one application is all that is necessary.  Tuff Stuff must be a well-known secret because it was sold out at the first store I visited.  A large can costs about $4 or so.  See below for before and after pictures.

Before: Dirty Interior Carpet.	Interior Carpet After Cleaning with Tuff Stuff.
Before: Scuff Marks on Driver Door	Door After Cleaning with Tuff Stuff.

Meguiar's Hot Rims All Wheel Cleaner. At amazon.com.

3. Meguiar’s Wheel Cleaner/Tire Shine Spray. This is the grandaddy of the car cleaning secrets.  You will not believe what this will do for the chrome on the wheels of your car!  After you wash the car, get the rims a little wet, spray on the cleaner and then scrub with a tire brush (or an old toilet brush).  You will be amazed at how much road dust is coating your wheels and this cleaner  brings the chrome back to look shiny and new.  Rinse off the cleaner.  You might need to repeat if your wheels are really dirty.  When your wheels are dry, you can finish off the look with a “Tire Shine” spray that will darken the side walls of your tires to a rich black.  Whenever we do this treatment to our cars we are astounded at the results.  Just as new shoes polish off an outfit, “new” tires polish off your car.  See below for before and after pictures.

Before: Dirty Wheel

Wheel After Cleaning with Meguiar's All Wheel Cleaner and Tire Shine spray.

Do you enjoy washing your car?  What are your car cleaning tips?  Please share in the comments.

This month’s Ruly Bookshelf choice will challenge everything you know about traffic and driving. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt is a detailed research study about how the human brain processes the challenges of interacting with other road users.

It should not be too surprising to learn that humans aren’t really designed for the physical and mental challenges of driving.

“You may be wondering how it is that humans can even do things like drive cars or fly planes, moving at speeds well beyond that ever experienced in evolutionary history. . . . The short answer is that we cheat. We make the driving environment as simple as possible, with smooth, wide roads marked by enormous signs and white lines that are purposely placed far apart to trick us into thinking we are not moving as fast as we are. It is a toddler’s view of the world, a landscape of outsized, brightly colored objects and flashing lights, with harnesses and safety barriers that protect us as we exceed our own underdeveloped capabilities.”

–Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do

This book is chock-full of psychological phenomena that describe why humans aren’t very good at practically any aspect of driving. We don’t estimate our rate of speed well. We are not very good judges of the speed other vehicles approach us. We don’t relate appropriately to other people in traffic. We dehumanize drivers of other cars and don’t respect drivers of non-car vehicles, like bicyclists, motorcyclists and commercial trucks.

“Traffic messes with our heads in a strangely paradoxical way: We act too human, we do not act human enough.”

–Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do

Human behavior on the road is counterintuitive and bizarre. Traffic scientists have given these scenarios creative names. For example:

• “moth effect” – Drivers attracted by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles stopped by the side of the road end up crashing into them.
• “treadmill effect” – After driving at a high rate of speed, when you slow down to a lower speed, your brain tells you that you are driving much more slowly than you really are–much like the effect one gets after running on a treadmill and feels like one is moving backward.
• “empty lane syndrome.” – “Solo drivers sitting in a highly congested lane may look to the HOV lane next to them and think that it’s empty . . . . Many times it just seems empty because of the large headways between vehicles moving at much higher speeds. That lane may actually be achieving the same volume as the lane you are in . . . “
• “girlfriend effect” – Men drive more safely with women in their car, whether the woman is a romantic partner or not.

There are many lessons in this book about situations that increase our risk of causing an accident. For example:

• More than two seconds looking away from the roadway significantly increases your chance of accident.
• When talking on a cell phone while driving, our eyes tend to fixate on a single point right in front of our own car rather than glancing in various directions to take in all the information about our environment. The distraction of processing the voice on the other end of the line significantly increases our risk of accident, whether we are talking “hands-free” or not.
• “Drivers seated at higher eye heights but not shown a speedometer will drive faster than those at lower heights. . . . Studies have shown, perhaps not surprisingly, that SUV and pickup drivers speed more than others.”
• “There is, in theory, nothing nicer than a drive in the country, away from the ‘crazy traffic’ of the city. But there is also nothing more dangerous. . . . Rural interstate roads have a death rate more than two and a half times higher than all other roads. . . . Taking a curve on a rural, noninterstate road is more than six times as dangerous as doing so on any other road.”
• “[The pickup truck is] the most dangerous vehicle on the road: More people in the United States dies in pickups per 100 million vehicles registered than in any other kind of vehicle. Pickups also impose the most risk on drivers of other vehicles.”
• The number one cause of traffic fatalities is single-vehicle run-off road” accidents where people zone out or fall asleep at the wheel.

Mr. Vanderbilt studies traffic from a variety of angles and travels around the world to learn how other countries study their own traffic problems. After reading his description of Delhi traffic, I had to see it for myself.  I found this video on YouTube of a person crossing the street in India demonstrating the huge number of vehicles of various types, including pedestrians, motorcycles, bicycles that all mix together, often without any traffic signals!

Another concept Mr. Vanderbilt looks at is the Dutch woonerven where they have designed their residential streets to be very narrow and have children’s play areas and gardens right near the street! While this sounds crazy, apparently drivers take their visual cues to slow down because the street scene is cluttered and dangerous. Below is a video showing an example of a street in a residential neighborhood in Delft.

In contrast, the typical U.S. residential street is prone to speeding because we have large, flat roadways with perhaps only an ineffectual “25 Miles Per Hour” or “Children at Play” sign.

While Mr. Vanderbilt doesn’t offer a lot in terms of suggestions to improve our driving or risk of accident, his primary message seems to be that we all need to slow down. Roads need to be designed not to be flat and straight but with enough mental challenges like curves to keep drivers awake and focused. He also suggests our driver education program could perhaps use a boost from professional driving courses that help us understand the physics of situations like “understeer.”

This book is a bit research and science dense and takes a little effort to get through but is a fascinating read for anyone who does a lot of driving.  I think it would also make a great PBS special.

Are you surprised by any of the driving phenomena mentioned above? Have you experienced any of these situations? Please share in the comments.

"A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Passengers can get off at any place they wish along the road." (1943). Photo by Esther Bubley. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

"A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Local fares, going "down the road a piece" to visit." (1943). Photo by Esther Bubley. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The long road trip for summer family vacations is an American tradition.  Ask anyone of an older generation their memories of these trips and you will generally hear stories about how cars didn’t used to have air conditioning, memories of being squished in a seat next to brothers and sisters, and the classic road trip refrain often repeated:

“Are we there yet?”