Although my certifiably is a separate thing, I was happy to wake up to this in my email. I had some trouble with paperwork, but everything worked out. It was fun to hear from my friend Andrea in Cleveland that she knew the parlor in the UP… small world!

Here's a rough map of the overall route: 7,183 miles over two weeks; something like 180 new counties collected (I only just added the 2021 road trip counties to the map, so I may have misattributed the year on a few). The overall county map is kinda cool but also eye-opening about how little coverage of the country I've done. It also d...

Since I was in West Virginia near the Ohio border, I decided to stretch the ride out a bit and ride on Ohio's state route 555, the "Triple Nickel", which was ranked #1 in a Car and Driver listicle about the Best American Driving roads. On my way from the hotel to its southern terminus, I stopped for some donuts and asked the clerk what...

I started out the morning in Raleigh with a quick coffee meeting with Kelly, another former co-worker, and one of my Simon Business School buddies. She was tightly scheduled in between meetings and we didn't get a long visit, but it was still nice to catch up. I also got a nice reward because the hostess at the restaurant complimented ...

After my late checkin Tuesday night, I let myself sleep in a little on Wednesday. It didn't do much good; I might have gotten an extra half hour, but it wasn't what I needed. On the up-side, I figured out (maybe) why I wanted to visit Albany. Ray Charles is from there, and they put together a nice park and statue for him (with his musi...

Tuesday was a much longer day than I expected. I needed to get an oil change (indicator turned on in Miami) and new tires — and I planned for it and tried to make an advance appointment, but the shop still worked on a first-come, first-serve basis. I was #2 at 9:00, and they forecast that I’d be ready by 3pm. I was surprised, and they ...

Ooops: I just noticed that I sent Day 9's update with the wrong date. I did a much better job of keeping up with things last year! I headed out of Tallahassee (after replacing my headlamp) back to US 98 and sometimes US 27 to go through Central Florida. I've driven the outer coast before and wanted to see the inland stretches. I was ge...

I tried to take a scenic route out of Atlanta rather than just hanging out on the expressway. I went through Atlanta's Little Five Points, which was a super cool looking neighborhood with lots of street art and a nightclub with a huge skull for its door. I passed a small burg with a lot of signage related to filming The Walking Dead th...

This was a short ride day -- my main goal was getting over to Atlanta to visit my former co-worker, Daphne. I did something unusual for me, especially in a state I don't know: I started the trip out with no GPS running! I knew where my first stop would be: Buc-ee's gas station. I've written about Buc-ee's before: it's got a forest of p...

The motel offered breakfast, but it didn’t really call out to me, so I headed out of town and grabbed a donut and kolache. I love these things: they’re a sweet dough baked around some kind of meat (spicy sausage is common). A lady asked me if the bugs bothered me. I was naive to them and she said they were a seasonal flying bug that se...

My Hot Springs motel was a cute 1950s? era motel that had been updated. They had a couple campers in back (one was used for storage) and some cats that ran the grounds. The room was fine for one but would have been snug for two, and there wasn’t much counter space and no closet. Modern design! I walked back into town for some breakfast...

On Wednesday, I enjoyed some pastries at a bakery on Belleville, IL’s main street, which was really cute. There was a movie theater across the street and even a cuckoo clock repair shop. On the way to Hot Springs, I was running low on gas, and I was initially excited to see this cool old service station, but then I saw that it was clos...

Last year, I tried to go to a St. Louis Cardinals game on September 10. I messed up my planning, didn’t buy my ticket in advance, missed my train into town, and spent the last few innings stuck outside the stadium with no ticket windows open. My only real objective for Tuesday: don’t mess this up again! I even made it easy (?) on mysel...

Continuing my discussion of Minnesota, on the way out of town, I tried to stop at a donut store. It wasn’t open, but on the way to/from it, I ended up near some pretty green space near a train yard and the river. It was pretty astonishing to me that it was still used like that! I took a recreational ride through Iowa. I found some inte...

At some point in my thinking about this trip, I came across some architectural reading that reminded me of the movie Columbus, and that led me to noticing that Eliel (father) and Eero (son) Saarinen designed a Lutheran church in Minneapolis. The church is a designated National Historic Place. They give architectural tours on the second...

Hi everyone! Early on Saturday morning, I set off on another adventure. This should take me only halfway around the country this time: I’m going to Minneapolis, down to Houston, over to Miami, and then back to Rochester via a family visit in Northeast Ohio. I set off early Saturday morning with the plan to complete another Iron Butt “S...

Today was a pretty straightforward day: home from State College, PA. I got to go through some of the Appalachian Forest, which was fun, but more importantly, I came across a new ice cream stand that was opening up. Today was its first day. It was serving Perry's Ice Cream, which is good, but since it's from Western NY, I can generally ...

This morning I decided to change things up from my schedule a bit and went to visit Polyface Farms. This was featured in The Omnivore's Dilemma because of the farmer's creative efforts to create a sustainable farm on a site that was complicated by hills and rocks. It was fascinating to read about (putting it very simply) his whole cycl...

I basically finished the northern half or so of the Blue Ridge Parkway today. The Virginia half felt really different from the North Carolina part; there was only one tunnel. There was also a decent chunk (15 miles or so) that was closed due to road repairs. So that's kind of a bummer from my kinda-completionist (completist?) standpoin...

I went about halfway through the Blue Ridge Parkway today. It's a beautiful road and it's been fun so far. I enjoyed stopping at some of the vistas and noticing small dots of far-off towns or mansions! I like the history: construction started on September 11, 1935 (so another good 9/11 thing!), and employed a lot of folks through New D...

I spent some time this morning hoofing it around downtown Atlanta with my friend Daphne. We tried to follow this Street Art trail, which was a lot of fun. We were on the MARTA train trying to figure out the most efficient way to get to the starting point and another passenger advised us that the neighborhood for a further station wasn'...

Today's tourism was mainly civil rights-focused. I went from Selma to Montgomery on US-80. There was a stop midway, the Lowndes Interpretive Center, which was fascinating to me. I remembered history class and the Selma movie discussing the passing of the Voting Rights Act. I sure didn't remember hearing that some of the poor folks (ten...

I got up early this morning to do some tourist time around the Big Easy. My first stop was The Ruby Slipper, which (at one point) was high on Foursquare's list of best pancake places in the country, and also well-regarded as a breakfast joint. The rated location closed for renovations with two alternatives in the French Quarter availab...

I made it to the Big Easy today. In general, it was a long day with lots of time on the road. I appreciated the changes between the heavy forests on the way out of Austin, to the farmlands, to seeing the amazing Big Beau, to the bayous of Louisiana. I really dig going over bridges. I was surprised in Louisiana that (a) the bridges are ...

I did a bit of sightseeing in Texas today. I tried to get some donuts at a place with a decent Yelp review, but when I got there, they were closed for vacation. I went past what I could see from the road of the Fort Worth Water Gardens, which were shown in Logan's Run. I went to Dallas to visit Dealey Plaza. They had nice historic mark...

Well, I’m in Texas. Not really much to share. I spent the day on the road pretty much. No National Parks. I stayed at a hotel kind of close to where the Texas Rangers play ball, but I missed the shuttle and had to walk. Then I didn’t know where to find the shuttle stop, so I ended up walking back. This part of town isn’t super pedestri...

There's an old Marty Robbins song, “El Paso” (which I knew about because of the Dead), which tells a sort of cowboy/gunfighter romance. I was close enough that I went by the famous Rosa's Cantina. The area looks like it's having some kind of major work done, but the signs on the window said that they were actually closed because of sta...

I passed the halfway point of the trip a couple days ago, and today's landmark was crossing the continental divide. It doesn't feel much different so far, but it's certainly something. I'm having a hard time figuring out what time I'm in: Utah follows Daylight Saving Time (MDT), Arizona does not (so it was on West Coast time/MST), and ...

When I was leaving Holbrook, I decided to stop for breakfast at a little diner down the road. It was named “Tom and Suzie’s Diner”, and this made me wonder: was it originally just Tom’s Diner? What’s the deal with Suzie? Is she the bank? Was there a shotgun involved? Fun speculation, but the amazing hot sauce seemed to indicate that it...

Today's trip was to the Grand Canyon. I went by Lake Powell (Wahweap Bay), and that was beautiful. It is low (roughly 50 feet below where it was in July for the last two years) but at least there was still enough for people to enjoy the day with their boats! As I approached the park entrance, I stopped at a small market in Cameron, and...