Chris Van Veen Marketing Communications

3,118 Miles

In May of 2009 my son and I drove from San Mateo, California to Brookline, New Hampshire...3,118 miles. James lived in California for a couple years, but the weak economy prompted him to return home. Heading west two years earlier, he made the drive with his friend and roommate. But this was going to be a first for me.  Having flown from sea to shining sea numerous times, I was looking forward to the drive.

I arrived in San Francisco at around noon on Friday the 15th. Saturday was spent cleaning and packing, and we pushed off early Sunday morning.

Months beforehand, I planned this trip with a focus on safety and sensibility. I wanted to make sure we reached our destinations before dark each day. Using all sorts of on-line planning tools such as Orbitz, Travelocity, and Google Maps, I came up with this itinerary:

May 17: San Mateo to Wendover, UT (632 miles)

May 18: Wendover, UT to Ogallala, NE (726 miles)

May 19: Ogallala, NE to Davenport, IA (628 miles)

May 20: Davenport, IA to Girard, OH (550 miles)

May 21: Girard, OH to Brookline, NH (593 miles)

Following Route 80 from California, a map of our journey is shown below, covering  14 states:

Day 1: San Mateo, California to Wendover, Utah

We left on a cloudless Sunday morning and made excellent time through California and Nevada, passing easily through Sacramento and Reno. We had two excellent high-tech companions with us. The first was a Garmin Nuvi GPS, which allowed us to monitor upcoming gas stops as well as our ETA each evening.

The second was a marvelous little media player by SanDisk called the Sansa® Clip. Smaller than even the newest iPod, the Sansa Clip handles WMA (Windows Media Audio) files in addition to the larger MP3s. It even has a digital FM tuner. WMA is the format for downloadable audio books, which I can get for free from my public library. Since the files are smaller and more compressed, several entire books can be loaded onto the Sansa Clip. My son and I listened to four books during the drive.  It was a great companion, because heightened concentration on the next plot twist or chapter kept us alert along those long, straight stretches of highway!

The scenery through the Sierra Nevada range in California was breathtaking. It took us about ten hours (with stops) to finally reach Wendover, UT, a little town that sits just west of the Bonneville Salt Flats. Wendover actually straddles the Utah-Nevada line, with West Wendover being in Nevada. Our hotel was at the eastern edge of town, in Utah.

Day 2: Wendover, Utah to Ogallala, Nebraska

This was going to be our longest day, so we set out early. We crossed the great expanse of the Bonneville Salt Flats, sailed through Salt Lake, and proceeded eastward into beautiful Wyoming. Of all 14 states we touched, Wyoming was by far the most memorable. It helped that we had another cloudless day. We reached our Ogallala, Nebraska destination shortly before dusk. Ogallala is located near the northeast corner of Colorado.

Have you ever flown over the middle of the country and looked down at all those crop circles? I have, and we saw many of them along I-80. Wheeled contraptions called center-pivot irrigators make those circular patterns possible. Now you know.

Wind power is also quite common throughout the heartland, with turbines stretching for miles along 'wind alleys.' It certainly made for an impressive sight, mostly because such 'farms' are far less common here in the northeast. Curiously, for every turbine doing real 'work' there were 10-20 sitting idle. Here's a typical view of a wind farm along I-80, near Laramie, WY:

Day 3: Ogallala, Nebraska to Davenport, Iowa

When you're driving in the same direction as the weather, you either cheer or curse. We cheered. Day three saw yet another cloudless, sunny day. We left the Nebraska panhandle and proceeded east through the Cornhusker State. We made a couple detours, including one at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. The Nebraska football stadium is a storied venue, and we were able to view the National Championship trophies as well as tour the inside of the stadium itself.

Once we passed from Nebraska into Iowa we spent a little bit of time in Walcott, Iowa, at the Iowa-80 truck stop, which is billed as The World's Largest. This place certainly lives up to its name; it's a real Disneyworld for truckers and tourists alike. Even with these two sightseeing detours, we made Davenport shortly before dusk.

Day 4: Davenport, Iowa to Girard, Ohio

Today was an almost leisurely day, with 'only' 550 over-the-road miles. We recognized that while the weather was beautiful, the scenery started to become less so. I'd say that once we passed Omaha we started to see more traffic and more 'infrastructure.' We started to encounter a very alien contraption called a 'Toll Booth,' which are foreign to citizens living west of the Mississippi. We also saw our average speed plummet to a rather pedestrian 60 miles per hour. Wyoming west, the posted speed is 75 MPH.

Meals during each day of driving: One. We brought along fruit, granola bars, and Crystal Light iced tea in a large one-gallon pitcher. Every time we stopped for gas, we changed drivers. We had a nice meal stop at the colorful Red Robin in Mishawaka, Indiana.

Day 5: Girard, Ohio to Brookline, New Hampshire

This was our final day on the road. The truck was a real trooper the whole way, behaving happily no matter the terrain. We filled the truck to the brim with Jimmy's stuff, but we cubed out the volume so that there was a proper place for everything. Whatever we needed access to during the five-day journey was packed within easy reach.

I'd like to say that there wasn't much worth photographing during this last day of driving. While that would be true, the real story is that my camera broke at the end of Day 4 soon after we entered Ohio. No camera, no pictures. But trust me: you're not missing a whole lot of 'must-see' stuff.

The run from Girard, Ohio to Brookline was our second shortest day of driving. We passed through Pennsylvania and up through Wilkes-Barre & Scranton before stopping for lunch at a favorite place in Milford, PA called the Apple Valley Family Restaurant. Milford is close to the NY border and the restaurant is a couple miles off I-84, but it's a wonderful place for a meal. Great food & service. After lunch we passed through a bit of lower New York and then into Connecticut. Having gone from one side of the country to the other, traffic was actually at its worst here. We were quite glad to be on the home stretch.

We pulled into Brookline at around 6:30pm on the 21st of May, glad to finally be home but with a marvelous collection of memories and photographs.