Road Trip 2018 - Return Of Navel Gazing II, Reflections

This trip represented yet another step on the road of travel experience experimentation. And there were plenty of firsts for us.

 It was our first long trip within our own country. Sure we’ve gone to plenty of places in the US. Mostly we’ve gone to a specific region, locale or place to see it and then returned. On very rare occasions we made a decision to explore a particular area or route. But never for any great length of time.

It was the first time that we traveled extensively without a detailed itinerary and accommodation reservations ahead of time. (Well maybe second – on our trip to New Zealand while we had a general itinerary we were making reservations for where we would end up for the most part the night before.)

And it was the second time (New Zealand again the first), that we were in an automobile exclusively for transportation with no fixed base. (We have had numerous trips where we used a car predominately but usually were staying in one place for two, three, or four weeks).

So here are some observations and learning from the trip.

Driving is not relaxing – One reason for having selected this type of trip is we’ve been feeling the strain, the wear and tear, on our systems from the trips of the last two years where we’ve gone to a number of countries involving various trips by various non-driving transportation. We theorized that the freedom of our own vehicle (a vehicle we knew unlike a rental car) would make the process of getting around less hard on our bodies and less stressful. Wrong!

Instead what we found was that being in car so much was really hard on our bodies. And the stress was more. Yes you didn’t have to deal with all the issues of the public transportation systems. But you also never had any down time. You were either driving and having to pay attention. Or you were a passenger and often having to help keep the driver alert and helping them navigate.

Would I freak out not having any kind of plan? NO! – Hats off to Commander Spouse (inactive). It was actually great fun to have the freedom to change our itinerary and we do so numerous times based conditions (the hurricane), interests (staying in numerous towns extra time to catch all we wanted to see – adding cities once we decided getting to as many State Capitols was now a goal), changing interests (skipping things we got tired of like going into Nashville rather than spend two days seeing little towns in Tennessee), and physical condition (taking a longer time to get back so we wouldn’t have a couple of long trips).

Since we hadn’t done a whole lot of planning – at least I hadn’t, CS had done her own research – we hadn’t really discussed at all how we were actually going to execute this type of travel. So naturally we both had expectations that were not communicated leading to misunderstandings. But as the month went on we were able to observe what where the misunderstandings were, discuss them and come to some compromises and mutual understanding. Of course being the mature adults that we are, there were no loss of tempers, no one getting upset. Everything was done calmly and rationally because that’s the kind of Elder Fleet Command professionals we are.

A road trip of this nature would save money – compared to international travel, absolutely. Since we lease our vehicles (and are way below our allowed mileage) other than gas, we are already absorbing the cost of transportation without the travel. On all other expenses we were right on budget. The net result was a cost for the month that was a good 40-60% less expensive than the lowest one country trip to Europe or Asia would have been.

Amazed at the diversity in my own country – I am not talking about the stereotyped differences between regions that get bandied about. I am talking about the rich historical threads that can be found from state to state and even within states. I don’t think I will ever lump together an area – whether it be the ‘Deep South’, the ‘Midwest’, the ‘Northeast’ – again in my own mind. Now I visualize the country as this complex painting, like the Renaissance paintings I am so fond of with the multitude of stories within stories.

And we found such interesting interactions and things in such unexpected places. For example:

• Talking to the shrimp boat operators in Pass Christian Mississippi
• The guy who ran the ‘micro-museum in the Eastern Tennessee mountains whose family had been there for 150 years
• The crazy ‘English’ style mansion in Pikesville, Tennessee
• Historic Little Rock Museum where we spent three hours, didn’t get close to seeing all we wanted because we were exhausted and needed to get going, all for a cost of $1.50 each (with our Senior discount)
• The wild history Guthrie Oklahoma and evidence of a town built overnight
• CS’ cousins and family and their deep introspection related to their Native American blood that they are now aware of and how they looked at history now 

Seeing the Deep South in a whole different light – Going to this part of the country as a traveler looking for history is going ground zero of events that have had such a profound influence on modern racial relations – whether black/white or Native American/white. It is also the area where the Civil War was battled one. It was the battlefield. Remembering we were there for only a short period of time and that were tourists, not getting into depth as to actual day-to-day life, the overwhelming impression I got was of an area that was in profound reflection. Not coming to conclusions or having reached a consensus. Certainly with differences of opinion. But at least on the official level of what was being presented in museums and capitols organized by the states themselves, there was an amazing amount of candor about the past. And this is from the governments of states that are hardly classified as liberal. When we got back and I talked to a number of people who hail from what I will call the effete, arrogant coasts, I was rather shocked by a general reaction of “Oh how horrible to go to such a place. We would never go to the South.” To tell you the truth I was stunned.

In conclusion while we are going to have to make some adjustments in how we do this type of travel to reduce the wear and tear it induces, I think both Wife and I feel this is an important augmentation to our travel repertoire and are both excited to continue exploring the US as well as the world.

We are so blessed.