(Editor’s note: Former Daily Press reporter John Wood spent six weeks this past spring driving across the United States. Below is a short report on his trip.) The only way to really get to know this vast country is to meet it on the road.
At least that’s what we were told before leaving Santa Monica on a cross-country trip that spanned nearly 7,500 miles and 25 states. The advice proved true.
Our staples during six weeks of traveling were Velveeta shells and cheese dinners, red wine and Glenlivet single-malt whiskey, and we spent our nights in campgrounds or in the homes of friends and family. Our carriage was a four-wheel-drive pickup with a pallet for a roof rack and a truck bed lined with pillows and sleeping bags.
Along the way we tracked moose and bald eagles in a near-deserted Yellowstone Park, took a $16.50 ride in a sputtering helicopter over the desolate Badlands of South Dakota, hollered and swallered with cowboys in the honky-tonk bars of Nashville, and got lost among them back hollers in west Pennsylvania.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 2, 2005. Read the original PDF.