Photo: My MX-5 transcontinental roadtrip enabler.
So I’m planning a little roadtrip…from the East Coast to the West Coast, and back again. My journey will literally commence on the beach, here in MA, and finish on another beach, over in California.
I’ve been meaning to do this trip for quite some time, and seriously intending to do it ever since I bought a vehicle suited to the task. For many, this is some kind of post-highschool young adult right of passage, a quintessential US roadtrip, and one that I never had the chance to fully experience when I was younger. And it’s something I must do.
Currently, I’m in the planning stages. I will take a northern routing across on my outbound trip (passing through Chicago, and continuing straight until I hit California…detouring for some climbing/hiking), and a southern routing on my return (ending up in an office in Raleigh, NC, for a few days before driving back up the East Coast). And although it’s not quite a problem suited to optimal routing analysis types (no offense intended, especially you, Matthew…sorry!), I need some little planning this time around, mostly in order to ensure:
* The trip must be bounded by a maximum time.
* The trip must include coffee with as many friends, in as many cities, in as many States, as is possible.
The latter is the main reason that I’m mentioning this now, and starting to talk about it some more – I need your help as a reader of my blog. If I’m likely to pass through your town on such a trip, please send me an email, or otherwise drop me a line soon. We should make that happen.
Right now, I am considering doing this over Christmas – one of the worst possible times to engage in such an activity, but also one of the times when I have at least one week off, with nothing planned yet. I estimate (based on imperical data from another who recently completed such a trip) that I can complete this frivolity in under 2 weeks all in. If I do decide to do it over the Christmas period, I will likely time activities going into the New Year, seeing in January 1 from a Californian beach.
Jon.