The Man F.A.Q. editor John M. Swartz is on a road trip from California to North Carolina. On the trip, he’ll be doing it “on the cheap,” either camping or crashing at friends’ places along the way. He’ll be showing you where to stop for free camping along Interstate 10, mostly using National Parks’ dispersed camping rules. Crashing with friends is also a great way to keep costs down and re-charge along the way. This is Mark’s second cross-country road trip, the first being an east-to-west trip about a year ago. Going with him this time will be an old friend, who flew out to California and continuing the road trip through North Carolina to Virginia. Check back here for nightly updates and intermittent Twitter posts. You’ve gotta love technology, as it’ll all be done via mobile device and with the help of Mark’s wife at home:
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Day 1: It’s 7:30 a.m., and we’re off to get the rental car. We decided to take a rental to avoid putting 6,000+ miles on one of our cars. The main purpose of our trip is to bring a dog to my parents’ house along with several hand-me-downs for my brother’s new apartment. We’ll be spending the entire day in California (big damn state), making our way south from the San Francisco area to southeast of Los Angeles. We’ll be staying the night at Joshua Tree National Park. We got to our destination after dark, but luckily I’ve set up my tent a million times by now. It went up no problem (that’s what she said.) I got the fire started on the second try, not bad for in the dark. My wife will be happy to know I used my headlamp to get camp set up. We had chili for dinner, cooked on my one-burner compact camp stove. After a few beers and a few laughs, we turned in for the night. For the most part, the dog slept between us as something of a bro-barrier.
Day 2: My friend got up to watch the desert sunrise. I slept in until about 8. After breaking down camp, we took about two hours to hike a little through Joshua Tree. I climbed a few rock faces, and we spent most of the time in a dry riverbed. We hit the road finally about 11, and made it to Phoenix for a late lunch (well, more of an early dinner). It’s another national park for our night’s sleep. Arrival again after dark. We got in way after quiet hours had begun. Since we were really just crashing, there was really no need to set up a full camp. We unloaded the back of the jeep and just slept there. A sleeping pad and several blankets were all we needed to turn in for the night. In all, we did a rather short 475 miles. But it was still a good chunk of the 3,000 before arriving in N.C.
Day 3: Early to rise, and we were headed out the front gates of the Chiricahua National Park, and ready to hit the road. “But you’ve got to go to the top,” the lady said before we could leave. So, we headed back into the park, cruising along at exactly 38 miles per hour. The only problem … the speed limit was 25. So the nice park ranger handed me my very own opportunity to donate $187 to the national parks’ general fund. Very cool. I’ll be sure to mail a check (within 30 days.) Well, we finally left the park and hit to road for real. It was 775 miles in one day, but we arrived in San Antonio in one piece. Finally, a shower (the first of the trip), and we made our way to a bar with real live Texans. A few (OK, several) Lone Star beers (and a shot of whiskey) later and the night was capped off quite well. We’re crashing at a friend of a friend’s place. There’s more Texas tomorrow.
Day 4: We didn’t get to far today, and we didn’t get much done. Guess that’s Texas for you. After a night out in San Antonio (and a night on a hardwood floor), we took a detour north to a town called Luckenbach– population of three. It’s a little west of Austin, and consists of a post office and a stage (among a few other things). Texas country music and Shiner beer led to a dinner of pulled-pork. As we pulled out into the night, the country music faded away … headed east again. Sure, we threw out the travel plans for a day. It seemed like the right thing to do. A night in Houston will mean a shorter drive to New Orleans a day later than originally planned. But we’re still a day ahead of schedule of our Thursday deadline for pulling into Clayton, NC. In all today, we went about 300 miles, bringing the tally so far to about 2,100.
Day 5: Every road trip has a start and finish, but every one deserves a highlight stop. While on this trip each stop has had its own bright spots, a night spent in New Orleans kind of trumps them all. After driving a quick 350 miles or so from our hotel in Katy, Texas, we made it to my friend’s cousin’s house in time for a home-cooked Cajun dinner. Damn good eating. After that, a night out in search of real NoLa music. At our second stop, we found a jazz foursome that featured the very same trombone player that my wife and l saw playing on the street outside Cafe Du Monde while we were on our honeymoon. After the show, I went to the guy and told him we’d seen him on our honeymoon. He immediately told me to call her, and he took the phone and sang her a solo. For that instant, my wife was right there in that New Orleans jazz bar with me. Per the trip’s details, we’re 2,500 miles in. Up next, seeing a college buddy of mine in Birmingham, Ala.
Day 6: While the road makes a road trip, it’s friends that make a road trip great. I can’t say enough about my buddy who has gone on this experience with me. From showing me around central Texas to just being there on the seeming unending highway, he’s completely changed this trip from just being the melodic thump-thump-thump of a concrete-based road into an actual adventure. But one can’t count out the friends seen along the way. Once a man gets to be my age, I surely hope he’s got friends all over the country — whether they be former college buddies or the family members of other friends you’ve met over the years. There’s nothing like planning a road trip to run through a certain town because you know you’re going to run into an old buddy. That’s basically our stop in Alabama. We met up with an old college buddy of mine. We had a dinner of ribs and stopped by a pub downtown. A few beers and a few laughs put a stellar end to our last night on the road. For tomorrow, we will finish the trip by pulling into my parents’ driveway. After about the first three hours of the nine-hour drive, we’ll cross the 3,000-mile mark — a key milestone in an American cross-country road trip.
Day 7: We made it all the way to my parents’ house intact today. We’re actually going a little further east tomorrow, but it doesn’t really count as part of the roadtrip, as we’ve unloaded the rental and gotten it fit to return tomorrow. We pulled out of Birmingham, Ala., at about 11 a.m., and made it to Clayton, N.C., by about 8:30 p.m. — we did lose an hour (timechange) along the way. The last leg was quite uneventful, although we did experience our first on-the-road rain with about an hour left in the trip. When we pulled in, my mother had two steaks waiting for us. What could be better?
Conclusion: In all, we did about 3,400 miles (mostly an I-10 straight shot with a few detours. I drove 3,100 of those miles — I wanted to say that I drove the length of the country. My friend took the wheel for our exploration day in Texas. We slept outside two nights, in friends’ houses three nights and only got a hotel one night. We used a combination of my handheld GPS, an atlas and foldout maps to navigate. More later.
- Just a shot from the road … we did the length of the U.S., from California to North Carolina.
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