**** I set off from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in July 2011...and ended up in Aspen, Colorado, in February 2012. Along the way, I visited 28 states, three countries, dozens of national parks, hundreds of cities and towns, and countless friends and strangers. Why? Why not? In fact, I lost my job of seven years when Berkshire Living, the regional magazine I helped launch, folded. Then my apartment building burned down while I was in Miami for the weekend. A breakup and a stolen bicycle figured in shortly thereafter. Wouldn't you hit the road, too? Enjoy my virtual scrapbook of anecdotes and eye candy from a freewheeling, cross-country, cross-cultural odyssey--past, present, and future.Amanda Rae Busch
amandaraewashere@gmail.com
![Miles to go before I sleep.
Perhaps it was a bit, uh, ambitious, to map this route to follow a few days spent in Las Vegas—for a professional conference, sure, but I did manage to squeeze in fun with old friends, natch—however, I am determined to hit those national parks in Utah on the return trip, as my annual pass expires in June.
The good news: my journey home thus far has presented itself as the polar opposite of the cold, gray, solitary trek through Colorado and Utah last Friday: temps in Nevada today topped 101 degrees, with eye-scorching sunshine, and, not so great but a little less lonely: the highway was clogged with long trails of truck traffic.
Oh, and I found an elusive Nevada state sign while crossing the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge on foot to view the Hoover Dam.
XO, The Accidental Wardrobe Stylist (Again…)
[Hoover Dam, Boulder City, Nevada, May 23, 2012]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4ieooRr251qloi1ho1_r1_1280.png)
Miles to go before I sleep.
Perhaps it was a bit, uh, ambitious, to map this route to follow a few days spent in Las Vegas—for a professional conference, sure, but I did manage to squeeze in fun with old friends, natch—however, I am determined to hit those national parks in Utah on the return trip, as my annual pass expires in June.
The good news: my journey home thus far has presented itself as the polar opposite of the cold, gray, solitary trek through Colorado and Utah last Friday: temps in Nevada today topped 101 degrees, with eye-scorching sunshine, and, not so great but a little less lonely: the highway was clogged with long trails of truck traffic.
Oh, and I found an elusive Nevada state sign while crossing the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge on foot to view the Hoover Dam.
XO, The Accidental Wardrobe Stylist (Again…)
[Hoover Dam, Boulder City, Nevada, May 23, 2012]
![I’m sitting in a coffeeshop in Sedona, minding my own business and furiously click-clacking away on my laptop, when an older guy sits down at the table to split a bran muffin with his wife. When I pause to look up, he turns to me.
“Are you writing a book?” he asks.
“Not right this minute,” I reply, sort of caught off guard, “but maybe soon.”
“About your travels?”
“Yeah, actually. How can you tell?”
We talked about the Grand Canyon for a moment, and then I went back to my work.
Twenty minutes later, the couple gets up to leave, and the guy places this napkin on my keyboard.
“Enjoy Arizona,” he said. “It’s a special place.”
[Sedona, Arizona, January 22, 2012]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly9tavuL6g1qloi1ho1_500.jpg)
I’m sitting in a coffeeshop in Sedona, minding my own business and furiously click-clacking away on my laptop, when an older guy sits down at the table to split a bran muffin with his wife. When I pause to look up, he turns to me.
“Are you writing a book?” he asks.
“Not right this minute,” I reply, sort of caught off guard, “but maybe soon.”
“About your travels?”
“Yeah, actually. How can you tell?”
We talked about the Grand Canyon for a moment, and then I went back to my work.
Twenty minutes later, the couple gets up to leave, and the guy places this napkin on my keyboard.
“Enjoy Arizona,” he said. “It’s a special place.”
[Sedona, Arizona, January 22, 2012]
Jackson, Wyoming: Following orders.
Exhibit A: Long list (with updates, in black) of must-dos from former resident of three years (thanks, girrrllll!)
Exhibit B: Hand-drawn map of the fastest route between Salt Lake City and Jackson by Pat Ford of Beehive Cheese Co. I visited the artisan producers on my way out of town on Friday and got a tour, samples, and good advice; they also gifted me a wedge of their latest release (as of that week), rubbed in tea, for the road
I’ve tried to steer my journey according to insider tips and suggestions. So far, it’s all working brilliantly. Keep ‘em coming….
Middle of the Road
As I drove on I-90 west across the prairie of South Dakota on Saturday, I wondered: have I crossed some sort of physical midpoint to my journey?
I soon learned that the geographical center of the contiguous United States is Lebanon, Kansas (bottom marker).
I just so happened to be in the hometown of the world-famous Corn Palace— Mitchell, South Dakota (top marker)—which, as it turns out, is about 325 miles almost straight north from Lebanon.
Voila, I have officially entered the west.
Trivial Pursuit
I’m learning so much simply by flipping through the Rand McNally 2011 Road Atlas, which supplements my dashboard Garmin and iPhone GPS navigation. There’s just something about charting a journey from a paper map, tracing a finger along a route and flipping back to the atlas key to determine whether it’s a toll road or an historic highway, and tabulating the mileage between the tiny dots. I especially enjoy discovering quirky scenic landmarks, bridges, parks, and other topographic oddities, and I’ve been jotting these down in my first-draft itinerary as I plot the initial leg of my course, heading westward from Cape May, New Jersey, where I’ll be meeting up with old Syracuse pals for Fourth of July beach fun. (Independence Day: seems fitting, right?)
At the same time, I’m sure that the convenience of scouting a roadside diner on the fly or finding reassurance that a gas station really does lie eleven miles up the eerily deserted road will be priceless.
But the point of this wasn’t to glorify either method. (If anything, it was to remind myself that while Massachusetts may be a cute little fingerhook of land tucked neatly into New England, the rest of the lower 48 is, uh, enormous.) The point was to share a few facts found on another map I picked up, to decorate the cover of my scrapbook. Because I do love me some trivia!
UNITED STATES GEOGRAPHIC FACTS (abridged):
- Geographic center: Belle Fourche, in Butte County, South Dakota (French for “beautiful fork”)
- Deepest lake: Crater Lake, Oregon, with a greatest depth of 1,943 ft
- Windiest city: It’s not Chicago! Amarillo, Texas, takes the prize, with an average wind speed of 13.5 mph
And not surprisingly, Death Valley, California, earned three mentions, for lowest point (282 feet below sea level), highest temperature ever recorded (134° F), and driest place (Average annual rainfall? A mere 1.6 inches.)
Guess which place I’ll bypass?
