An often strange concept of piling your family in a car and driving great distances to do something unique and exciting and hopefully have some fun along the way. Diem and I have shuffled some vast distances and time together, but never at the breakneck speed with which it is done in America. To even drive 80 miles an hour anywhere in Vietnam would be unthinkable. Doing almost the same distance from Atlanta to Birmingham in less than 6 hours is a miracle. That same distance would take at least 15 hours to cover in Vietnam. It took Alexander of Macedon a lifetime to conquer an expanse the size of the U.S., a distance we cover in a measurement of hours—such a unique cultural experience of being American. We load our coolers, games, and snacks and hit up every place we can between here and there. The travel writer Paul Theroux once wrote, “The mixed blessing of America is that anyone with a car can go anywhere.”
The American road trip. Just the statement alone conjures images as vast as America’s open spaces. Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, John Steinback, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bill Bryson, and even Mark Twain all wrote about the American spirit’s need to go. To list all the cinema examples would take longer than I desire to expel here. Name any established actor or actress, and I’m sure they appeared on the screen in some form of a road trip. Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Robert Deniro, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Burt Reynolds, Salley Field, Chevy Chase, Miss Piggy, Tom Cruise, and the list goes on. They have all appeared, in one form or another, in the road trip genre. The road trip and being on the road are woven into the very fabric of America.
The early days of American roads
I remember being a boy and marveling at the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn—examples by Mark Twain of an early desire to set out in the American spirit. We have seen this compulsion to move shape much of America. Think wagon trains west, the railroad that brought expansion even more significant than the wagon trains. Or the adventurous spirit of traversing the mighty Mississippi. It couldn’t have been a massive surprise that America would take to the roads in earnest as the highways went up and cars became more reliable and available. With the introduction of the Eisenhower interstate system after WWII came an availability of movement never before seen in Human History.
The expanse of America became accessible to the masses, and the masses obliged. Since then, American roads have been delivering fun, adventure, joy, and maybe even a little heartbreak as we express our traveling spirit on the streets across her varied landscapes. From the swamps of Florida to the giant pine forests of Washington, every corner of the continental United States is accessible through her dizzying network of roads, streets, and superhighways. Well-maintained, accessible, and extensive, the highways of America give it a special roominess and availability that isn’t enjoyed everywhere. It’s 884 miles from my home in Georgia to New York City. An expanse that I can travel in just over 13 hours by car. A day’s ride. Whether you realize it or not, that is amazing for much of the world’s population.
My first experiences on the road
When I was a pre-teen, my father switched careers and became an over-the-road truck driver. I vividly remember spending chunks of my summer and spring breaks in the passenger seat of his old Peterbilt. From the mid-Atlantic to Miami, my early exposure to the open road and the extended region I called home. Of course, we had always taken those multi-annual trips to Birmingham to visit family, the short jaunt up to Chattanooga or Panama City Beach for vacations. But beyond those standard destinations, the week-long sprints around the southeast in the passenger seat of that old Peterbilt were some of the best.
Even as a kid climbing around the cabin and sleeper, I remember the food excursions with the most joy. I remember being 11 years old and plopping down on an upside-down bucket in a construction yard in downtown Miami while my father supervised unloading his flatbed of steel rolls. It was Christmas break, and I remember the construction workers bundled up in the lower 60s weather. In contrast, I sat there in shorts enjoying the warm reprieve from further north. I made this observation while reveling in the quiet joy of a chocolate zinger purchased at a truck stop many miles back. It was a fantastic zinger and a place I can always return to just by eating one.
Gifts of the road
Yes, I indeed look fondly on those trips. Many of my modern food tendencies and habits came from those winter, spring, and summer road trips across the southeast. I remember my first realization of cured meat as I devoured country ham in a truck stop diner in Virginia. Or the fantastic waffles at the old inn in Appalachian Carolina. The road in those early years is why I drink my coffee black, prefer my eggs over medium, and have a propensity for country ham and chocolate zingers—the allure of the road. But I digress, back to the task at hand.
We begin
There was much to do. As the paterfamilias of this rag-tag voyage, it was my sworn duty to outfit this vessel for the journey. So, a good scrub of the decks, coolers with beverages and snacks, blankets, beach chairs, chargers, cords, luggage, and the kitchen sink, and we headed south for some swashbuckling pirate sightings in America’s oldest city, St. Augustine, Florida. It was Diem and the girl’s first real American road trip. It was an inspiring proposition to me simply by proxy. What can I say? I was giddy. I love living vicariously through Diem and the girls. Everything is so exciting and new. Diem spent quite a bit of time on Facebook live, showing family and friends back home the amazing sights of Macon and Tifton, I-75 south, and the wide open road. Her first real experience on the American open road, mind you.
Seeing people interested in peanut farms, the old southern architecture, and America’s open roads is an absolute joy. Things so simple, and let’s face it, ordinary to us, are new, fresh, and awe-inspiring to others. We lazily passed through Monticello, Gray, and popped out in Macon. We stopped off in Byron to see an old friend Selina Hall. She was kind enough to give us some Georgia-grown peaches. She runs the Welcome Center and Visitors Bureau in Byron. The welcome center has a lovely little butterfly garden to stretch your legs on a long drive. And Selina can help you with peach packing tours, Antiques, and other sights in the region. We spent a few minutes admiring the garden and catching up with Selina. It was nice to catch up with an old classmate. It always is.
The last stop before the long stretch
After visiting Selina and the Byron Welcome center, we stopped just south of Macon at Buc-ee’s. The horror of the mega gas station Buc-ee’s was a first for us all. What a place. A true palace to the long-haul commuters, road-trippers, and tourists. A place that would probably both repulse and intrigue Jack Kerouac if he stumbled across one traversing America. Diem pointed out very early on that one of the billboards on the way proclaimed the jerky bar. The Vietnamese love their beef jerky, and Diem got it all. It was a sight to see: Lemon Pepper, teriyaki, hot and spicy, and bohemian garlic.
I jumped in on the Brisket station with its piled sandwiches, tacos, and biscuits. It was not quite lunch and not quite breakfast time, so the ambiguous snacks seemed to be appropriate. There were giant coffee stations, hot sauce shelves, a bakery with cookies, donuts, cupcakes, and every snack you could imagine, and a souvenir section more extensive than an entire quick trip. It was all impressive. You don’t need it if you can’t get it at Buc-ee’s. I topped off the tank, dropped a hundred smackeroos inside, and we were back on the road for the final stretch.
Florida
Back on the highway, we plunged from Macon straight down into Florida. We stopped for a pit stop and a shot of Orange Juice to say we did. It was the first time the girls had experienced interstate travel. This was a big moment. At least it was to me. We picked up I-10 west of Jacksonville and headed due east for the coast. It had been too long since the unfamiliar air of a city foreign to me filled my nostrils. The excitement in the car became electric as Jacksonville came into view. We traversed through Diem’s second major U.S. city behind Atlanta, which we live near and have visited a handful of times.
I explained in detail what Florida was, a peninsular state that juts into the Caribbean sea. In these talks, it has occurred to me how intriguing it is to discuss things that seem rudimentary for anyone born in the southeastern United States to be so foreign as to have no general concept of Florida at all. That oranges are a thing, Alligators are as common as geckos in Vietnam, or how it houses Cubans, old people, snowbirds, and even Mickey Mouse has a place here. And what is a snowbird anyway? It’s a big deal and is impossible to quantify. It’s a punchline. Who hasn’t typed their birthday in google along with “a Florida Man”. A vacationer’s dream, a father’s vacation nightmare, it’s everything and it’s nothing.
It’s a state beyond explanation, and here I was trying to sum it up in a 10-minute conversation. I get excited thinking about what it was like for me living in Vietnam and traveling with Diem all over the country. How amazed I was at every corner. Going to the corner store or taking out the trash was always adventurous. It must be much like that for her here now. For the girls. For us all. It was across the St. Johns river in downtown Jacksonville and onto I-95 for the last short leg into St. Augustine.
Are we there yet
I was happy to see the signs for the beach as we inched closer to our destination. It was right on time as the questions started from the smallest of us, are we there yet? It was not quite check-in yet, so we headed to a local Winn Dixie to grab a few things for the rental house. Everyone was keen on a stretch, including me. It was a little before 4 when we pulled into the 130-year-old rental house. It was a quaint little neighborhood a few blocks from St. Augustine’s town square. We had been on the road for nearly 8 hours when we piled out in the drive. Finally, it was time for quick unloading and clean-up before a delicious seafood dinner. I didn’t come to St. Augustine for a burger, don’t you know.
For some of my, and Diem’s road trips worldwide, click the links below.
