Ever since I was a teenager, road trips have held a special place in my heart. In some ways that’s kinda surprising, given my first exposure to this great travel tradition was half a dozen family members crammed into a Toyota van for our annual holiday pilgrimage.
Yup, for at least seven excruciating hours each way that bloody van rocked,
Despite that early introduction, for many years a mate and I had talked about doing The Great American Road Trip. We didn’t really know what that was, exactly, but we knew we wanted to do it. Somewhere along the line one of us picked up a copy of Road Trip USA, a guide to touring the US away from the Interstates, and it became a sort of talisman for the next few years.
We’d talked about doing the old Route 66 forever, but for reasons that escape me now we eventually decided that Route 101 would be a better choice.
It totally was.
Now the thing with a trip like this — at least as far as my mate and I were concerned — is that it was all about the clichés. When you’ve been watching road trip movies and US television as long as we had, well, there were a lot of classic moments that we had to recreate.
For that reason, we’d originally planned to buy a classic car from the
After looking at the prices, discovering the insurance hassles, and knowing we’d need to sell it in just a day or two at the end, we realised it’d be about the same money, and a lot less grief, to just hire a new Mustang convertible instead.
Once we
Washington
In the spirit of all great road trips, our preparation was awesomely inadequate. We had guidebooks for half of the states we wanted to cover, and a couple of basic driving maps that didn’t even include Arizona.
We’d mapped out a few of the major highlights we wanted to see, and that was the extent of it. Perfect planning, in other words, for three weeks and 3500 miles of driving a rental car in a foreign country on the wrong side of the road.
We picked up the car at Seattle Airport. After a couple of laps around the parking lot trying not to run into other vehicles, and cuing up the first cliche of the trip (“Born in the USA” on the car stereo), it was time to hit the road north.
North, you say? No, we weren’t lost after the first turn — we’d just decided to take a tour of the Boeing Factory in Everett before we headed off. There’s only one word to describe this place: HUGE. Seriously huge. It’s the largest building in the world by volume, and it shows. I’m not a plane geek at all, but it was a seriously impressive tour.
The following day we started the trip for real in a typical Seattle drizzle, quickly clearing traffic on the I-5 en-route to our first stop. Mount St Helens had been threatening to erupt for several days but the visitor centre was still open at that point, so we had to take the detour to check it out.
With all the mist and smoke in the area, plus scarred landscape from the massive eruption in 1980, it was an eerie countryside to drive through. Not eerie enough to prevent a local cop from emerging from the bushes to give us our first (and last) speeding ticket of the trip, however. Four miles an hour over the speed limit, with nobody else in sight. Hmm.
Oregon
We crossed state lines and joined Highway 101 for the first time, staying that night in a little town called Seaside. It was indeed beside the sea, which was far and
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The next day we continued south, and other than a stop in Tillamook to take a tour of the cheese factory (yeah, seriously…), we seemed to spend a lot of time looking at wood. As it were.
There are lots of trees in Oregon, apparently, and most of them seemed to be on the backs of the trucks in front of us. There was a brief comedy interlude, however, as we debated whether to stop at one of the tiny townships along the route. After all, it was pretty tempting to say that we’d spent the night in Beaver.
After a long day staring at logs and a short night being stared at by locals, we decided perhaps a change of scene was called for. In other words, we were both keen to find somewhere to go for a beer that didn’t resemble a scene from Deliverance.
Rather than stopping at Newport, then, with a hasty look at the map we turned inland and continued on to Eugene, a university town with a funny name.
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It was mid-week, and as we wandered from one empty pub to another that evening, we wondered if we’d taken a couple of hundred mile detour for no good reason. With the infamous call of ‘we’ll just try one more place and call it a night’, however, we finally discovered the bar where every student in the town was hanging out.
It was packed. The music was pumping. The beer was flowing. It was a fantastic place to end the evening. And … I totally can’t remember the name of it. Sorry about that.
We stayed on the I-5 the following day, with a leisurely top-down cruise through the mountains to Grants Pass, a surprisingly bustling little place. The weather was lovely, the views were equally as good, and it just generally seemed to be a really nice town to stop for the day. And so we did.
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It was an early one that night, since there was a lot of driving to be done the next day, but I didn’t mind a bit. We were heading for California, baby, and the first stop would be the Redwood Forests. Exciting!
California
We entered the Golden State the following morning, and with it the road trip really felt like it had begun. Our time in Washington and Oregon had been enjoyable, but when you’re living the dream in a convertible Mustang, well, you really just have to be in California to do it.
With the top down, some rockin’ tunes disturbing the serenity, and some of the tallest trees on the planet crowding the roadside, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that we were having the time of our lives. This, my friends, is what a road trip is all about.
I couldn’t get enough of the redwoods. The namesake national park is just a stunningly beautiful place to spend a few hours walking the trails and
We found time for yet another tragically clichéd moment a little further down the road, of course, with the (in)famous drive-through tree on the equally famous Avenue of Giants. It’s a cliché of epic proportions, but at least it made for some fun photos.
To be honest it was worth stopping for the exceptional array of crap in the gift shop alone. I somehow escaped with just a few postcards, but a couple of families we saw didn’t get off anywhere near as lightly. How I’ll survive without my replica plastic drive-through tree and matching key ring, I do not know.
Time was marching on, however, and we still had a long way to go. The driving for the rest of the day was fantastic, with lots of coastal scenery and even more big trees to gaze at instead of keeping an eye on the road.
By this stage we’d decided when picking a small town to stop for the night, decent accommodation superseded anything the guidebook writer may have hallucinated about entertainment or attractions, so Fort Bragg was our destination.
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True to form, the nightlife was terrible but the beds were comfortable. Mission accomplished, I guess. The following day we were headed for our first big city since leaving Seattle, and one of the places I was seriously looking forward
We left Fort Bragg with the top up and the heater on. That famous Northern California coastal summer fog was making its presence well and truly felt. Within a few miles, though, the road dipped inland and the weather improved dramatically. The rest of the drive that day was classic road trip material, basking in the glorious sunshine as we drove through beautiful forests and attractive little towns.
San Francisco
Sadly the good weather didn’t last, and as we neared San Francisco, the fog rolled back in with a vengeance. From jackets to T-shirts and back again in the space of 150 miles. Fun. Never fear, however — bad weather was never going to be enough to stop us from cranking out the biggest cliché of the trip to date. No mean feat, I must say.
Hit play on the video below, sit back, and just imagine driving across the Golden Gate bridge with the top down and this song coming out of all six speakers. Oh yes, we really did.
There was some sort of dream being lived there alright. We’d actually already walked the length of the bridge and back by that stage and despite the fog obscuring the view of pretty much anything, it was still a worthwhile experience.
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After navigating the highs and lows of San Francisco’s streets, we tracked down our hostel, found a dubious carpark to leave the mighty Mustang, and started exploring. The YHA was very close to Union Square and its myriad attractions (including more homeless people than I’d seen in a very long time), so we explored downtown and enjoyed a few cleansing ales that night. And then a few more.
The following day was a full on tourist extravaganza — checking out China Town, riding the cable car from Market St to Fisherman’s Wharf (and cracking up at the running commentary from the conductor,) and the highlight of the day, taking the boat over to Alcatraz.
Even with the sun out I found myself shivering regularly. Whether it was the cold wind howling around the crumbling prison, or the thought of anyone spending decades in those damp, spartan cells, I don’t know. The recorded commentary was surprisingly interesting, and having the freedom to explore much of the dilapidated jail and support buildings was great.
Visitor numbers are limited by the capacity of the boats to carry them. That often means you won’t get a spot if you just show up on the day to buy a ticket, but it also meant we never felt particularly crowded anywhere on the island.
If you’d prefer a guided tour of Alcatraz (and other San Francisco highlights), you’ve got dozens of different options.
After an all too brief couple of days in San Francisco, it was yet again time to depart early the next morning. As we headed out over the Bay Bridge, I had a chance to think about my short visit to the city. I definitely liked the place, but I’d expected to love it.
With a bit more time and much better weather, I probably would have. It did seem like the kind of place that grows on you the longer you stay. Guess I’ll just have to head back and find out some day.
Yosemite National Park
The highlights were flowing thick and fast by now — we were on our way to Yosemite National Park! Like most of this trip, we decided to go there on a whim, and a great whim it was. The slog through the San Francisco suburbs was congested and unremarkable, but as soon as we left the main highway, things got much better. As usual.
I love driving on winding mountain roads at the best of times but in a convertible and with views like that? If I could have bottled that feeling and sold it, I’d be a millionaire by now.
We’d picked our accommodation solely on the basis it was the only hostel in the area, which is why I was so blown away by the awesomeness of Yosemite Bug. I’m putting it out there, this is probably the best hostel I’ve ever stayed at.
Gorgeous surroundings (it’s right on the edge of the national park), delicious food and cold beer in the cafe, immaculate dorms
The park itself lived up to its billing, from tumbling waterfalls and grassy meadows to towering sequoia groves, and a massive granite slab named El Capitan.
It would have been good to have the time and equipment to spend a week trekking around Yosemite Valley, but even a day spent on some of the shorter hikes was well worth it. Coming from New Zealand it takes a lot to impress me in a national park, but Yosemite totally managed it.
Big Sur
Another early start, another long drive, and more stunning scenery the next day. Sensing a theme yet? I know I was. We stayed the night in
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As if we hadn’t had enough visual overload during the previous few days, our route the next morning took us through Big Sur. It’s known as one of the best drives in the United States, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Hugging the coastline for around 100 miles, the road climbs from sea level to 1000+ feet countless times as it winds through the Santa Lucia mountains.
We found ourselves pulling over every few minutes for yet another photo of the crashing seas and deserted beaches far below. Blessed as we were with blue skies and bright sunshine yet again, I could happily have driven that road for days.
By this stage, though, we were around half way through our trip, and the long driving days were starting to take their toll. Lucky, then, that my mate had a cousin living in Lompoc, with an RV parked out the front of the house! We’d passed enough of the damn things in the last week or two, so it seemed only appropriate to put our feet up for a few days and stay in one.
We explored the surrounding area each
We were headed for the gleaming lights of Las Vegas – but before that, there was a whole lot of nothing. An enormous bunch of nothing, in fact. Wow, was driving through the desert dull or what? Put it this way, when a truck in front of us flicked up a rock and smashed a huge crack in our windscreen, we actually welcomed the diversion.
Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon
Vegas itself was just nuts. There’s no better way to describe it. I’m sure I wasn’t really the target market for Sin City, being a stinky backpacker on a budget with no real interest in gambling. Even so, wandering the strip, winning (occasionally) at the casinos, and just being immersed in the ridiculous neon excess of the place was an experience not to be missed.
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I swear, though, I couldn’t get Queen’s “We Will Rock You“ out of my head for months. The musical was playing in Vegas at the time and that damn song was blasted out of loudspeakers every few minutes. I still shudder at the memory.
We were blown away by the sheer scale of the Hoover Dam as we crossed into Arizona the next day. It’s one seriously impressive piece of engineering. There was no time to stop
The funny thing about it is that for a hole in the ground that can be seen from outer space, it kinda, well, sneaks up on you. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the landscape is so flat, it really does. You’re driving down the road, watching the signs count down the miles until you end up in the car park, wondering how far you need to walk from there.
Jumping out of the car, you wander forward a few paces, and all of a sudden the ground falls away in front of you and you suddenly
We hiked down a dusty trail from the South Rim to one of the rest stops and back, a trip of around two and a half hours in the heat. It would have been incredible to spend a night camping on the canyon floor, but those typically needed to be booked months in advance, well before we even knew we were doing this road trip at all. Oh well.
To make up for it we made a spur of the moment decision to catch the last helicopter ride of the day, with a discount thrown in for good measure
If the views from the trail were magnificent, flying above and deep into the canyon was a spectacle beyond words. It’s the only helicopter ride I’ve ever taken, and I can think of nowhere else I’d rather have done so. It wasn’t especially cheap even with the discount, but I figured the chances of getting back there any time soon were pretty slim. Money well spent indeed.
San Diego
After a night in nearby Williams (highlight: the world’s largest and most vile bread roll) we spent a long day on the road to San Diego as we neared the end of our journey. The YHA hostel there wasn’t the cleanest, but it was close to the beach and had a free BBQ one night. Good enough for us.
Other than a half day trip across the Mexican border to the very unpleasant tourist trap of Tijuana, we spent most of our last couple of days with sand between our toes and beer in our hands. There had been a huge amount of driving over the previous weeks, and as incredible as it had been, it was time for a well-earned rest.
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Dropping the car off at LAX a few hours before our flight home, we reflected on the most amazing road trip we’d ever done. The odometer read 3443 miles from start to finish, through rain and sun, forests and mountains, sprawling cities and deserted back country roads.
It was an experience like no
Would I drive Highway 101 again? You’d better believe it. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Only in a red convertible Mustang, of course.