It's Sunday and that means the beginning (or return) of Signs from the Road.  I began posting about this trip many months (years?) ago, but only the first few chapters. This time I'll be posting from beginning to end, so my apologies to several of my blog friends who have seen the introductory chapters already.

I'll be posting every Sunday, with photos. 

Here we go!

 

SIGNS FROM THE ROAD

 

The Adventures and Misadventures

Of Two Women, One Dog, &

A Covid Pandemic 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction…………………………

How to Start…………………………

Where to Stay……………………….

What to Pack………………………...

Provincetown/Cape Cod…………….

Orleans MA…………………………

Natick MA………………………….

Greenfield/Northampton MA……….

Chester VT………………………….

Philadelphia PA…………………….

Rocky Mount NC…………………...

Charleston SC……………………….

Tybee Island GA…………………….

Savannah GA……………………….

Flagler Beach FL……………………

Saint Petersburg FL…………………

Apalachicola FL…………………….

Pensacola FL……………………….

Mobile ALA………………………...

New Orleans LA……………………

Beaumont TX……………………….

Austin TX…………………………...

Columbus New Mexico…………….

Marfa TX……………………………

El Paso TX………………………….

Bisbee AZ ………………………….

Tucson AZ………………………….

Carefree AZ………………………...

Palm Springs CA……………………

San Luis Obispo CA………………...

Pismo Beach CA……………………

Cambria CA………………………...

Carpinteria CA……………………...

Topanga CA…………………………

Blythe CA……………………………

Amarillo TX…………………………

St Louis MO………………………… 

 

 

Introduction

 

It’s old news now, but in the early days of the pandemic, after returning from a nine-week cross country road trip, I was pretty sure I had Covid. At first I felt a heavy weight on my chest, and then a headache around my left temple. I waited it out for a few days before I called my local health center. The date was March 20, 2020 and this was a big scary deal. A nurse’s aide called me back, asked a half dozen questions about my symptoms, and a half hour later a clinic nurse called and asked me the same questions. Because I’d been traveling the country, she set me up for ‘the test’ the next day. I’m not a spring chicken and I’ve had pneumonia twice. I pep-talk my lungs to stay strong. But here I was, curled up, lethargic, with a headache and an on-again off-again sore chest. The window shutters in our little guest bedroom off the living room were closed shut so my surroundings were dark, and so were my thoughts. These were the early days of an unimaginable pandemic plague, with deaths and body bags piling up. I’m asking myself if I have the courage to die on a ventilator with no partner Janet and no daughter Jessica comforting me in my final moments; my poor self all too aware and all too alone. 

That was the Coronavirus in March 2020. I waited four days for my negative test result.

*****

Three thousand miles from home, when it was clear that the country was shutting down, my partner Janet and I rushed home, condensing a return trip, two-week drive from California to Provincetown to just under four days. We were determined to stay ahead of a rumor that

New York state might issue a ‘Stay-in-Place’ order in an effort to control the already rapid and consequential spread of the virus. Our rush was a wild end to a very worthy nine-week road trip. For three and a half days we rode the highways like a wild stallion, just us, our dog Mattie, pelting rain, and fourteen-wheeler trucks. Over eight weeks, we’d visited twenty-five cities, twenty states, fifteen friends and family, stayed in twenty hotels and motels, and traveled eighty-five hundred miles: one 2012 Toyota Rav, one good dog, and one damn pandemic. A pandemic, like the plague of 1812.

Chapter 1

Janet and I got the idea for a road trip on a whim. When I began researching how to plan and organize two months on the road, in a car and with a dog, I bought a few road trip books because I wanted a sense of how to think about it all--how to plan, what to bring, and where to go. We’d be gone for weeks. We’d be in all kinds of weather and temperatures. How should we pack? How far should we drive each day? We’ll need dog-friendly accommodations. Where should we stay? What should we see? I wanted a step-by-step approach to planning where and how, and I also wanted practical tips and advice. I ordered several books hoping for answers, but each one was more ‘touristy’ than either of us would be. Plus, I found only minimal help with things like how to avoid lugging suitcases in and out of every stop or how to search out interesting off-the-road places. 

We were to learn all this by trial and error. Actually, most of our trip was about trial and error, because although we had an itinerary, we often juggled our plans, and also because I made several mistakes in choosing where we stayed. We had plenty of wins: fantastic restaurants, sweet accommodations, interesting venues, unusual attractions, and best of all, back road gems. We mostly laughed about the misses, preferring to enthusiastically hit the road in our car, with our dog, with our all-weather clothes, with snacks, with promises to control frustrations and tempers, and with an unrealistic desire to plan and not plan.

            We knew at the onset that we wouldn’t concentrate on tourist attractions. We preferred to breathe in daily life along sleepy two-lane highways and winding back roads, almost haphazardly discovering American towns and cities, meeting people, many different from ourselves, and first-hand experiencing local landscapes, local foods, and local cultures. 

It turns out that road trips are a lot like life: it’s tricky to balance planning ahead and  savoring the present at the same time. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Our freewheeling preferences aside, some basic planning was unavoidable. I put about forty hours into mapping the stops, organizing the car, budgeting our time and money. I couldn’t anticipate the charming intangibles–our very human and often laughable exchanges and experiences along the way. We met a pregnant dog sprawled across two bar stools in Tybee Island, Georgia. We had ten minutes of total and misguided exhilaration thinking we won $10,000 on a Florida lottery ticket. We giggled at an electronic flashing road sign on the Sopchoppy Highway, announcing ‘This Saturday: Fish Fry for Doris!’ We sunk into six inches of thick wet mud in Topanga, California–not our car, our feet! And I can’t even remember where this gem of a sign found us: ‘Fold Your Worries Into Paper Planes and Turn Them Into Flying Fucks.’

This book is about our journey. We left our home in Provincetown Mass, on the Coast of Massachusetts, on the third week of January, and we got back home on the third week of  March. Our trip ended dramatically because of Covid, but until then, we had a blast. I can’t recommend a freewheeling road trip nearly enough. It’s a grand thing to do, and the looser, the better.  You certainly may not follow the paths we chose, but I hope this book gives you the idea and inspiration to plan your own road trip. It’s so worth it!