The USA in 30 Days (travel time, not blog time)

I often travel with my sister, Linda, who is always game for an adventure. Like the sisters in my mystery (Beebee Sharpe and Connie Parker), Linda and I have pulled a trailer on vacation. But unlike Beebee and Connie, we’ve never found a dead body. I hope never to have that experience outside my books!

I mention this because I plan to depart from “traveling sisters” for a while, to blog about a road trip my husband and I made. We live in California, so “across the country” means ALL the way across—and back. We didn’t hit every state, but we got a lot of them.

A Little Background

Greg retired a few years ago, but I worked full time up until mid January 2011, when the funding for my project ran out. I suddenly found myself with oodles of time—a taste of retirement—and I did a lot of things that I been putting off, like knuckling down to finish my book, THE BODY AT BATTLE MOUNTAIN (www.beebeesharpe.com). In April, I planned a short trip to Nevada (where my mystery is set) to do some research. My only constraint was a gold mine tour offered on the second Tuesday of the month. Easy to plan—not so easy to carry out. Unseasonably late snow and freezing weather in the area that week gave us pause. Why slog through snow when we could go next month? We canceled our plans at the last minute.

In May, I learned our new funding would start in September, and I could go back to work. Good for the bank account, not so good for free time. So, I thought, why not take a longer trip while we still had the opportunity? I could do the research and mine tour on the way to somewhere else.

Back in December of 2010, I had flown to New Hampshire to visit my son’s family. Greg doesn’t like to fly—ergo, my trip without him. While I was there, my 17-year old grandson, Josh, intimated that he really wanted Grandpa Greg to come out for high school graduation in June. So when the idea to do some serious traveling came up later, I naturally thought of getting to the other side of the country. But no flying, remember? Also remember that this was all my idea. Greg’s contribution was mostly grumbling.

Preparing for the big trip

Traveling with my husband is different from traveling with my sister. “Adventure” is not a favored word in Greg’s vocabulary. “Worry” however, is.

Me:    C’mon, it’ll be fun.

Greg: Breaking down in the middle of nowhere will not be fun.

Me:    We have cell phones.

Greg: There’s a lot of country without cell towers. That’s where we’ll get stuck.

Me:    Uhng!

I started planning. Eventually, his interest would pick up. That’s what usually happens. This time he remained recalcitrant, and refused to get involved.

My dream vacation was to rent a truck and trailer, but that was too expensive. No trailer on this trip. Mostly motels, although we did pitch a tent (literally, once—had to buy a new one) and maneuvered our creaky bones into sleeping bags a few times.

My second plan was to take Amtrak. Six relaxing days over and back, with eight days in between for visiting, graduation, and touring the east coast—two weeks, total. That had the advantage of piquing Greg’s interest. He likes train travel, and a few days over and back didn’t seem too bad. It all fell through when we couldn’t get a sleeper car. If I had to pay that much to get across the country by rail, I wasn’t going to sit up all night for six nights.

Plan number three—we would travel by car, with graduation defining our east coast arrival date. I started Googling directions and distances, and scouting out sights along the way. I’ve already seen many of our nation’s great offerings, but Greg has not, and I was more than willing to return to places I’d seen to share the experience with him. Bryce Canyon, for instance. He loved the red rock of Sedona, Arizona when we were there years ago, but has never seen Bryce Canyon. In spite of my enthusiasm, he would discuss our plans only minimally, implying that he really didn’t really want to go and stating flat out that he didn’t care what we saw on the way. Uhnnnng!

Me:     Isn’t there anyplace you’d like to see?

Greg:  No.

Me:     If there were no restrictions—no fear of flying, no car troubles, unlimited money—where would you go? Germany? China?

Greg:  Someplace where the ocean is that turquoise blue color. I’d like to see that. And a Blackbird.

Me:     A blackbird?

Greg: You know, one of those surveillance/reconnaissance planes.

Aha! The challenge had been set. I just had to route us south to Edwards Air Force Base for the Blackbird, and then to Baja California to see pretty water, before heading across the country. But, what about my missed Nevada trip and gold mine tour? We couldn’t get back from New Hampshire in time for the last tour of the year, and if we went south first, we’d miss Nevada on the outbound trip.

After numbing hours of planning and plotting (northern route going and southern back, or vice-versa), compromise (separate trip for Baja and Blackbird), and manipulating schedules to accommodate two graduations four days apart (little sister graduating from grammar school), I finally came up with a detailed plan. When I showed it to Greg, he said:

We're not going to Bryce Canyon?

Me: Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!

Join me next Saturday, when we will finally hit road! And yes, Greg is still among the living.