When I was eight, I climbed into the hatchback of my aunt’s and uncle’s Civic and rode from Raleigh, North Carolina through Tennessee to Paragould, Arkansas.  We then headed north driving through countless states until arriving to spend a week at Yellowstone National Park.  From there we took off west, driving through Utah and Nevada.  We drove end to end through Cherry County, Nevada, 100 miles of nothing going 80 miles an hour.  I dipped my toes in rivers, streams, and creeks.   I learned to skip rocks.  Eventually we headed north again via Idaho and Wyoming to Montana where I spent two weeks in Great Falls, Montana.  I saw snow in July, fed marmots and learned how to make homemade pizza dough.   It was the best summer of my childhood.

Gettysburg, PA

Last summer, August 2008, Drue and I climbed into my Pontiac Vibe and spent two weeks driving.  We left our home in Fairfax, VA and drove to Gettysburgh, PA and spent four hours walking around and learning about the Civil War.  From there, we drove to Cleveland, Ohio and ate lunch at Notre Dame.  We visited their museum and then drove to Chicago.  That night we went to the top of the Sears Tower and ate Chicago-style pizza at the famous Giodanos. During dinner, Drue met her first “Russian mobster”.   He winked at her and told her she was cute in this heavy Ukrainian accent before heading into the back room.   Drue hated the pizza but thought her brush with the Chicago underworld was “cool”.

Drue eating Chicago-style pizza at Giodanos

We left Chicago and spent the night in Joilet, Illinios.   The next day we drove from Joilet, Illinios to to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  We saw a lot of corn and grain in Wisconsin and in southern Minnesota.  We crossed the Mississippi.   I taught her how to skip rocks on the east side of the river and we ate lunch on the west side.  We dipped our toes into the river as we ate.     We spent the night in Sioux Falls and drove through South Dakota over the next few days.  We went to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s homestead, we drove through the Badlands and camped out.  We drove to Mt. Rushmore and saw the monument light up at night.  We stopped at every cool place we wanted to see along our route including the Porter Sculpture Garden, the Reptile Gardens, Bear County USA and Mammoth Hot Springs.  We drove to Yellowstone and spent three days camping out and seeing nature in all her wild, eruptive glory.   We saw bears and buffalo and prairie dogs and jack rabbits and rattlesnakes.    Drue pronounced those two weeks the “coolest, bestest time ever”.   We had time to dip our toes in creeks, rivers and streams.  We counted stars, never making it past 120 before we fell asleep.  Drue had never seen that many stars before in her life.  It was a good time.

Geothermals at Yellowstone

We drove home via Nebraska.  We saw a lot of corn fields.  We also saw our first tornado.  It formed in a field next to the highway and traveled along with us for five miles before dissipating.   We experienced our first hail storm, getting pummeled by golf ball sized hail.   We watched lightning chase itself across the flat plains.   And when the storm front moved north into South Dakota, we whooped and yelled in relief and excitement and then crashed hard in a hotel in Lincoln where we slept off our surplus adrenaline.  The next day was a quick drive through Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.    Drue was so over the corn and grain field gazing so she settled in with a good book or two.  We sang Mamma Mia and listened to LOTR soundtracks and jazz.   We talked about everything and nothing.  She napped.  I drove.  We spent the night in South Bend. The next day we left South Bend and drove through the rest of Indiana, through Ohio and into Pennsylvania.  We got home at 8 PM that night, weary and ready to be home but thrilled that our trip was such a success.  The only reason we rushed back was because of the demands of my job, demands I no longer have.

Drue in front of Yellowstone Lake

I want to create that perfect summer from my childhood over and over.   We were able to find it for two weeks in August of 2008.  I want it to become a yearly tradition for my daughter and me.   Each summer, she and I will take a month or more and explore the fifty states that make up this great nation.   We will also find the time to explore the areas we go to visit.   We start this December with ten days in California.   We land in San Francisco on December 26th and head straight for Monterey.  After two or three days there we will take a few days to explore San Francisco, see friends, go snowboarding in Tahoe and visit the Old Faithful of Marin County.   That won’t mark California off the map though in our quest to explore all fifty states.   It’s a nice start to our California explorations but we’re skipping huge chunks of SoCal and NoCal and a lot of desert in between and all around.   So needless to say, we’ll head back to California soon!

Rutting bulls - Wind Cave Reservation

A few other fun trips include heading back to Yellowstone (same trip, less rush this time), a memory lane trip with Drue (Raleigh, NC – Dallas, Texas via Hickory, NC, Asheville, NC, Knoxville, TN, Nashville, TN, Memphis, TN, Paragould, AK, Little Rock, AK, and Hot Springs, AK.   Then if we’re in Texas, we might as well see Wichita Falls, Lubbock, Austin, San Antonio, Padre Island, Houston, and Sam Houston National Forest before we go home via Memphis, Bowling Green and Lexington, KY and then a short jaunt through West Virginia and the Shenandoah back to Fairfax.   I’d also love to the the I-40 route from Wilmington, North Carolina to Los Angeles, California, as well as drive Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles.   And to complete this fifty state excursion, we’d need to drive up to Maine and hit all the eastern states in between.  I wish Drue got a fall break from school since that is the time to really see and experience New England!    Visits to the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii and Alaska are necessary as well.  Will I be able to take her on all of my travels?    I don’t know.  I hope so.   But we’ll have to see since I only have 1001 days to take in all 101 states.   But I’m determined that we have our summers.    This year, thanks to work and careful budgeting to ensure I could survive losing my job, I was not able to take her on a big excursion.   But you’d better believe we won’t be missing our trips any other summers to come.

To read more about my travels and planned road trips, please visit my 101 things in 1001 days list.  To see more pictures of Drue and my excellent adventures out west, please visit my Flickr page.