One thousand, eight hundred, fifty miles. 1,850 miles. In six days. I arrived home at 3:45pm this Thursday afternoon.
I just completed an incredible journey. The only things I would change are arriving late in Chattanooga and Savannah, because our dinner options became severely limited, but I believe I am simply feeling the absence of two other tremendous experiences rather than having had a "bad" time. I do not think that Steve and I wasted a single minute on our road trip. Travelling on state and county roads, avoiding the interstates, made driving times longer, but the landscapes, the environments, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the surprises we encountered enhanced incredibly our experience of southern roadways, communities, regions, states, individuals, cuisines and cultures.
Besides an additional five pounds, one thing that I gained on this road trip is my driving stripes. Handling the Blue Ridge Parkway while in a cloud and the Great Smokey Mountains has made me into an expert driver. I love my car now. He performed so well that I bestow upon him BBQ Road Trip MVP - Most Valuable Propulsion. Maybe I will spring for some high-test gasoline next pit stop.
Steve and I agreed that we should make an annual spring break road trip. We are already eyeing a Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois journey for next year. Or, maybe the Pacific coast of Mexico.
I will create additional posts after today as I review the several hundred photos we took. We already posted the highlights. There are some trivial events that I want to save to this blog, side stories that were tangents to the road trip or crazy conversations we had in the car while spending endless hours on the road.
I recommend trying a travel blog to anyone who goes on any type of vacation or trip. It was tough taking the extra time to make all of these posts while on the road, uploading whenever we had some extra minutes, shedding extended descriptions of things, and simply letting a photo share its thousand words, but it certainly has been worth it all, a treasure that will be preserved online for the rest of our lives.
Man, did we have fun! We enjoyed everything fully and even beyond fully! Thank you to everyone who followed the blog and, especially, to everyone who posted their own comments. They truly were a pleasure to read when we finally were able to go online at our next hotel. Thanks!
I really need to eat some vegetables now.
Mark Matluck
P.S. There is no BBQ sauce to be had! Only the average places offered such options. Sorry.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Glad you made it back safely.. You know you if you want to loose those five pounds that you gained, you could always meet with Fish in the morning. He's been looking for someone to run with him before school... Sorry to hear you weren't able to bring back any BBQ sauce. I guess I will just have to check out some of these places myself the next time we head to NC. Now get some much needed rest, school resumes in a few days. Yeppie...Joyce
Dear Sons of the Road, this was such a fun read- yum!!! Speaking as one who took an entire road trip looking for the perfect pork tenderloin sandwich- I can really appreciate the holy grail of road food- thanks - jj
Post a Comment