Driving cross-country, the hard way, is a totally different animal to floating from town to town in an RV. It’s trucker life: seven hours per day behind the wheel with another three spent taking the necessary breaks, like showering at truck stops. One starts seeing the same people at different stops along the way, separated by hundreds of miles. I spent nights in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff. The whole shebang stretched almost entirely on I40 West. Between Indianapolis and Albuquerque, one day, I put on 1,265 miles, and emptied three full tanks of gas, at 35 gallons each.
There’s a reason there is a song called Six Days on the Road: it’s what time it takes to get from one side of the country to the other.
After the final night, Flagstaff, I turned in to see the Grand Canyon, before pushing another 9 hours to the California coast - home - arriving at 9pm, having fired up the engine at 5am. My interaction with the spectacular panorama of the national park was exactly as seen in National Lampoon's Vacation (1983): ok, “snap”, let’s go!
The most spectacular thing about it, actually, wasn't the Grand Canyon, but rather, a Jayco Class C plodding along at 45 pulling a four-door Jeep. The car between me and that long, slithering motor-snail was able to pass it, but, I lacked the power to get around going up a hill. My window partly down, I could hear this evil wail. It sounded like a chipping mill or an industrial wood planer, or maybe loggers with chainsaws. Anyway, it was so persistent, so loud and so unhealthy, I couldn't believe it could be coming from a vehicle - it must have something to do with cutting down these tress, I figured. But I kept hearing it. And I kept waiting for it to pass or dissipate into the distance but it never did, and, just at the precise moment I accepted it must be coming from the RV before me: “kaboom”.
The sound of a million forks, spoons and bottles, all crashing to the ground at once burst through the air. One mental freeze-frame - a snapshot taken by the mind - I will never forget: the distinct image of a connecting rod flying out from underneath the Jeep and bouncing off the tarmac, rebounding so high it almost to hit my grille, before it flew sideways out of my path. Just behind that metal object was a deep, concentrated explosion of vape-white smoke. This leak, then, immediately feathered, puffing out into an all-enveloping billow of gray soot coming from the entire back end of the motor coach. Its engine had - literally - exploded.
Forget about global warming (which, as a right winger, I nonetheless believe in), let’s talk about global windage. Holy shit there was a 60-70 mile per hour cross-wind the entire stretch of America. From Pittsburgh to San Luis Obispo I was fighting winds strong enough to shift the paths of tractor trailers 18 to 24 inches. Entering Albuquerque I was enveloped by some sort of dessert monsoon. Blinding, blackening, flooding rain forced everything to the side of the road. I pulled over, too, the van feeling like it was tilting up on two wheels. But, I figured sitting stationary was only a little safer than plodding along at 25 MPH, so I put the flood lights on, dropped it into first gear and crawled ahead: “If you’re going through Hell, keep going…” About 30 minutes later, being the only thing in motion on the highway, I exited the squall to find rainbows and sunshine glistening on slick, empty road. I pushed another hour-and-a-half to a truck stop where I spent the night without seeing a single car going either way.
There’s a rhythm to truck stops. Showers are packed - hour wait - at breakfast and dinner. Parking lots are full 10pm to 2am. The cheat code: wake early, 4am, and fill up first, then hit the road. Take a break after midday and shower while you fill up again. Pull over 2 hours before dusk, while there is still parking, and get the hot dogs for dinner. The other crispy shit on the rollers tastes just as bad as it looks good. You’re allowed one chocolate candy for dessert because no one likes a grown ass man who eats gummy, colorful shit. Love’s is, hands down, the best for pedestrians pretending to be truckers: showers, dog park, Subway, and they don’t care, whatsoever, if you sleep in the lot.
Home, where, like New Hampshire, the hippies have guns and where the cute college girls drive like they are looking at Snapchat (because they are).
Two weeks normality was all I could handle. So, then, it was back on the road. That and, well, I wanted to hit the road before I saw Trent at the gym.
Things decline as one heads North. San Luis Obispo is the best of California. Carmel is nicer with worse weather and more (too much) wealth. Santa Cruz - the water so polluted one cannot swim at the beach - is not as nice, just as rich, and full of homeless, but still awesome. San Francisco, where I sit now, is the wealthiest town in America, packed with start-up bros, and overrun with crime and bums. Reminder: this is the future, a town built by soon-to-be presidential candidate Governor Newsom. And then there is the weather: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”
Filling my Hunter S. Thompson dance card, I booked tickets to see NASCAR at Watkins Glen on August 7.
✅ drive through Barstow, at the edge of the dessert, to Vegas
✅ drugs (not anymore, but been there, done that)
✅ fearsome “attorney” in tow (Mike)
✅ car race
Next stop: Seattle to see The Melvins because two fucking drummers.
Last stop Burning Man, August 24, because it’s the cliche thing to do living in a van.
What's up with the fedora, you fronting a Cherry Poppin' Daddies cover band?