Setting off: Cross Country Road Trip – Southern States

We leave for our cross country road trip tomorrow. It’s pretty much the Great American road trip, going through almost 15 states. Why are we not doing the usual Route 66, driving across the middle of the country, because it’s so cold right now. It’s barely November, and a lot of places in the North have seen snow already. The winterphobic I am, I put my foot down from the very start. Heading to Florida, I am, siree. I’ve been dreaming of the gorgeous waters of Key West for a month now.

Ever since I saw this picture of the Overseas Highway, I haven’t been able to shake off the feeling that my life depends on driving this route. Those magical blue waters have been calling out my name for heaven-knows-how-long. And I can’t wait to be there.

I know the pleasure of a road trip is in the journey itself. But for once, I just want to get t omy destination. Can’t wait to go snorkeling and maybe even diving. I’m not sure whether my back is up to it yet, but heck, I’m quite enthused to give it a shot.

We set off tomorrow from San Jose, and head to Los Angeles, where we’re staying with Pratik’s school buddy, Shantanu. We’ve done the LA thing before, so we’re just doing a sleepover there. With Shantanu, we’ll explore the glamorous Palm Springs Saturday morning, and then head to Phoenix, AZ. The plan in Phoenix is to take our Couchsurfer host, Karen’s suggestions and go hiking or exploring the city in the morning. Google tells me there are quite a few spectacular hikes around the city.

We’ll head to the Airplane Boneyard in Tucson later in the day which has more than 4000 retired, or mothballed (as I understand it’s called) military aircrafts. The satellite view of the Boneyard is fascinating, to say the least. Here’s a screenshot.
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We’ll hang out the rest of the evening in Tucson, with our host Jason and his son. We plan on going to the Colossal Caves near Tucson, unless Jason suggests something funner to do. I wouldn’t really mind not going to the Colossal Caves because we are going to explore Carlsbad Caverns the day after. Carlsbad is not really in our direct route but the pictures of the caverns are deadly beautiful, and I’ve always wanted to explore caves (ever since I read an Enid Blyton where the Five explore one with stalactites and stalagmites). I am claustrophobic, but hopefully the caverns will not have more than squeezable spaces.

We’re staying with a retired couple, Peter and Cathy, at Carlsbad. Actually, Peter is retired and he’ll hopefully join us at the Caverns. Tentatively, we’ll be staying in Carlsbad two nights because Peter suggested we take a whole day to explore the caves. But in case, we’re done with the caves sooner than noon (we plan on being there when the caves open), we’ll head east to San Antonio and stay with our host, Mike, who has a home right on Canyon Lake. I’m quite inclined to sleep out on the deck, if its warm enough. I so do hope it is! I love sleeping outdoors.

With Mike’s home being a few miles beyond San Antonio, we won’t really be exploring the city too much. We’ll probably soak in the sun and swim in the lake and have a lazy morning.

That afternoon, either Nov 4 or 5, depending how long we stick around in Carlsbad, we’ll head out to Austin. We haven’t found a host yet in Austin, and I wish I could stay with more than one of the people I’ve sent out CS requests to, because all the hosts in Austin seemed to be so so cool! Hope someone confirms by tomorrow, so I can go ahead and send out requests for New Orleans and Jacksonville too.

Austin sounds like a really great city, so we’re sticking around for two days. Pratik and I are just excited about Barton Springs, but I’m sure our hosts can suggest a hundred interesting things to do every day.

From Austin, we’ll head to New Orleans, a place I haven’t explored much. I hope to meet with Wilson, and get some suggestions of the best places to visit around town. It’s not going to be a long stay in New Orleans at all, because our drive fro Austin to New Orleans, and from New Orleans to Jacksonville, FL are both 9 hour drives. I know it’s not the best way to do it, but heck, we have a plane to catch back to India.

From Jacksonville, we’ll head to Miami, do some essential sighseeing, and then to Key West, where we’ll languish on the beaches for all its worth, snorkel in the blue waters forever, and get thoroughly sunburnt. Aaah, bliss
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Here’s our rough itinerary:

Cross Country Itinerary