Auto Touring

“You all are crazy!” said the woman behind the glass window at the towing company where I was patiently waiting for my vehicle to be released. I had just told her that I had driven an automobile from Salt Lake City to Seattle. And I had half a mind to tell her she was crazier than me for charging people $125 in towing fees. You see, I parked where I shouldn’t have. The signs on the roadway were confusing to a first-time visitor to Seattle like myself. The poor rental car I was driving wound up getting carted away on a tow-truck. Anyway, there I was with a Seattleite telling me I was crazy for driving 850 miles to visit a beautiful city on the west coast. I didn’t tell her I was planning on driving down to San Francisco and then eventually back to Salt Lake. She probably would have charged me a “Stupid Fee” on top of all the other charges.
Finding out my mode of transportation was missing from where I parked it was one of the lower points of my recent road trip with my wife. Touring states and countries in an automobile is a great way to see a lot of beautiful landscapes as well as go insane. Road trips are like super-extended Sunday drives. We traveled nearly 2,700 miles over the 4th of July weekend, and let me tell you how grateful I am for the inventors of cruise control. I am extremely thankful for a device that allows me to stretch my legs out while maintaining a steady speed. Once we left the hustle and bustle of the Wasatch Front behind, I was able to set my speed at 75 mph and enjoy listening to my wife read to me as we rocketed toward Seattle. With over 40 hours of driving time total, we were easily able to read two books and play 20 Questions countless times. Not to mention ten of those hours were spent poring over a map.
I won’t bore you with the mundane touristy sightseeing expeditions we embarked on, but suffice to say, the weather was beautiful in San Francisco and all along the west coast the temperature was much cooler than Utah’s. We took a tent with us for a couple of the nights we would be traveling between cities (we wanted to save on hotel stays), and luckily we brought along extra blankets, because Oregon was a little chillier at night than I expected. California on the other hand provided a wonderful camping experience and the night temperatures were perfect for sleeping outside.
We did most of our driving after 8 pm. The highways were wide open then, and normally busy freeways were almost completely devoid of life. There were a couple of days when we drove during the afternoon, and it was nice to see the countryside and mountainous regions of Washington, Oregon and California. We crossed Nevada late Sunday night/early Monday morning on our way home, though, and didn’t see much of it. At about 9:45 pm we were blowing through Reno and by 4:15 am the bright lights of Wendover were well behind us. At the end of our auto-touring trip we simply wanted to be back home after spending so much time away from the comforts of our own home. Judging by what I’ve already seen of southern Nevada, I don’t think we missed much. In fact, the moon and stars were exceptionally bright in the pitch-black Nevadan wasteland, and I’d rather look at the night sky than the glaring heat of the bland desert.
There are only a few things that would have made my road trip better. The first thing: a better music selection. The rental car was equipped with Sirius Satellite Radio XM, and despite the technology involved, I was sorely disappointed with many of the channels, as they would often play the same music over and over and over. I can’t tell you how many times I found myself in the middle of Don McLean’s “American Pie” realizing I was singing along for the umpteenth time. The second thing: I would trade my atlases and maps for a GPS navigational system in a heartbeat. The atlas I had contained all 50 states and it only gave zoomed-in sections of the major cities. There were many times we had to guess we were headed in the right direction, because we didn’t have enough detail on our map. And the last, but not least, thing I would have wanted on my road trip: my dogs. The poor things missed out on miles and miles of open highway that would have been perfect for sticking a head out of the window and hanging out a tongue. Oh well, next time! Thanks for reliving this past weekend with me and I hope you’re able to enjoy an auto-touring adventure of your own soon!