Road Trippin'

I was planning my yearly trip to San Diego Comic-Con. I already had my hotel; I booked it last year. My pro registration was sent in. Random House took care of the Eisner nomination stuff for Postcards; I was getting the groundwork laid out for some new books. The only thing I didn’t do was book my flight.

And I said, “Hey – I should drive to San Diego this year.”

There are practical reasons behind driving out there. My main character in The Know It All takes a cross-country trip, for instance, and seeing the route he would take is probably a bit of a necessity. I can also stop in Memphis and soak in some soul music; it’ll only help with the Sam Cooke book. Those two reasons, combined with the fact that I’m going to San Diego for Comic-Con, makes this trip a nice, fat tax deduction.

So, like I said, practical.

And then there are the real reasons.

For starters, I’ve simply never done anything like this. I went from high school to college working every summer, never really took a spring break excursion, and started working the week after I graduated. I’ve taken vacations, of course, but those were always so structured. Get on the plane, fly somewhere, see the sites, fly home and go back to work. I’ve taken road trips, I guess, but the furthest I’ve ever traveled by car as an adult was 7 hours and that was all on I-95. As a kid I took trips down to Florida with the family.

But this is different. I’m going solo. There’s something about pulling that safety net out from under you. On all my other trips I had the comfort of home by my side at all times – I didn’t have to pay attention to my surroundings if I didn’t want to. On this trip, however, I’m forced to mingle with the locals and other travelers or else I’m going to have a very lonely 8 days on the road. And I like that.

There’s also that romantic idea behind centering yourself. Let’s be honest, this time one year ago I was on top of the world. I recently proposed to Robin and Postcards was turned into the printer – I had the galleys in my hand. One year later and I feel like I’ve taken two steps backwards. Is that a bad thing? Not really – it didn’t turn out the way I wanted the first time so I’ll just have to try it again. But does it still bug me a bit? Of course it does. And centering at a time like this is always a good idea and nothing centers a person like 3,000 miles of road.

So I’ve heard, at least.

So I’m going. I rented a car. I took the time off of work. I plotted a route and have tentative stops:

• Tuesday, July 15th – Knoxville, TN
• Wednesday, July 16th – Memphis, TN
• Thursday, July 17th – Memphis, TN
• Friday, July 18th – Oklahoma City, OK
• Saturday, July 19th – Santa Fe, NM
• Sunday, July 20th – Albuquerque, NM
• Monday, July 21st – Flagstaff, AZ
• Tuesday, July 22nd – La Quinta, CA

I plotted those stops on Google Maps along with road side attractions I should keep my eyes open for:


View Larger Map

I even started making my rules for the trip…

1) Photograph everything
2) Video tape as much as you can
3) Use the voice record constantly
4) Write everything in a journal
5) Talk to someone everywhere you stop

There will be more, I’m sure.

I have a shopping list. I need a good tripod. A cooler that I wouldn’t mind leaving behind in San Diego. Postcard stamps. I need to get some audio books from the library.

I looked up AAA approved hotels along the way, just in case.

I have goals. I’ll update Twitter constantly. I’ll try and update Flickr and this blog every night. I’ll edit a video journal when I get back.

I still have more planning to do. More stuff to buy and more ideas for the road to come up with. But I’m doing this. And I’m very excited.

This just feels right.

Labels: roadtrip, travel

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