Please Don't Hit Our Road Workers, 10,000$ Fine

Preface: 

While I told most people I was going to the US to drive Route 66 there isn't actually a single road running from Chicago to Los Angeles labelled as such. Route 66 is the equivalent to English B roads that run through small towns and was largely supplanted by the interstate system in the 1960s and 70s. I chose to take several detours to go to several places off the official route and then as you will probably notice Google maps does not have a pre-programmed Route 66 option. 

I am not *that* bad at geography. 

State sum ups:

Illinois: "Remember to drive on the right side, remember to drive on the right" 

Indiana: Terrible roads, truly just awful. 

Ohio: Amish country is kinda cool

Kentucky: Bluegrass country is surprisingly pretty¹

Tennessee: Apparently produces wine as well as whiskey 

Arkansas: I too would become a child murdering satanist to get out of Arkansas². 

Oklahoma: The horizon is the major geological feature 

Texas: Why do all the gas stations keep asking for my zip code³? 

New Mexico: Has mesas 

Arizona: Has mesas worth visiting 

Utah: Has a roundabout in it and I appreciate that.

Nevada: kinda looks like Mars but with more shrubbery⁴

California: it seems to be mainly orange orchards 

Week the first:

The day started well, heading to pick up the car from the airport and having to navigate the Chicago subway system where I ran into something that I have only ever seen in the US. The subway ticket machine asked for my zipcode. 

Now coming from the UK I do not have a zip code. I have a postcode, but no zip code. Thankfully the kind, and likely criminally underpaid, lady who guides the poor baffled tourists like me through conundrums like this knew how it was and which buttons to press to appease the computer gods. 

So there I was keys in hand to my cherry red Mazda SUV (which was not the silver Toyota corolla I'd ordered) heading the wrong way for route 66 on my way to visit what I've read is a fascinating Native American site called Serpent Mount about a days drive south east in Ohio. It's an earth mound works in alignment with the solstices built by the upper Mississippi cultural group pre-european contact.

And I will need to continue to read about how fascinating it is because it was closed the day I got there. Oops. 

I probably should have viewed the previous 24 hours as somewhat of an omen. 

Despite Serpent Mount being closed, my little sojourn through Ohio was interesting. It took me through lots of small town America you'd never normally see. I had breakfast in this cute little diner on the first morning in a place called Mama's Diner in Winchester, Ohio. Which smelt amazing because when I walked in a man (I was later informed was "Papa'') said:

"We've just pulled some Cinnabons out the oven, come upstairs and have a look at them cooling before we ice them",

All while his long suffering kitchen staff looked on as he brought me through the kitchen up a flight of stairs and into the bakery. 

So that was breakfast chosen. I munched on and worked on one of my other blog posts but I decided to quietly slip out when I heard the owners start a family meeting about how they were struggling to find appropriate carers for a relative because Southern Ohio is a Healthcare desert.

From there I headed south through Kentucky to Nashville in Tennessee. This was the day of the Louisville shooting at the bank. I'd stopped at another small town off the highway to get lunch about an hour outside of Louisville when I got the news alert that 11 people had been shot because someone had been fired. 

I spent most of the meal flip flopping about whether or not to message home to let everyone know I was OK even though most people didn't even know I was anywhere near Kentucky. Ultimately I remembered the chewing out I got after not checking after the Borough Market attack in London back in 2017 and decided that checking in wouldn't cause any harm.  

About three people got back to me saying that I clearly wasn't alright because I was in Kentucky of all places! But they were glad I was safe. 

Kentucky was actually surprisingly beautiful to drive through, particularly the Bluegrass region where they grow the Kentucky Derby horses.

Nonetheless I was pleased to get to Nashville that evening where they were holding a gun control protest after a school shooting that had happened two weeks prior (the day after I'd arrived in the US) where 6 people had been killed, including three children⁵. The protests were coinciding with some very juicy state politics where two, young, black, Democratic democratic male state representatives were kicked out office a few days prior for protesting about gun control I'm the wake of this school shooting but the older, white, female, also Democratic representative who had been protesting with them was not by the white male majority republican state representatives⁶. Watching Cameron Sexton, the Speaker of the Tennessee State House (yes that is his real name), try to justify what he did without using the words "uppity", "know their place", or "I'm not a racist but" was spectacular.

But it did mean that I entered Nashville, which is relatively Democratic in a deeply Republican state. In a state where concealed carry is legal where there had been a mass shooting at a school two weeks earlier, a headline making mass shooting earlier that day and I'd driven 200+ miles with ponies and traps in the morning and people going 100 mph on the freeway in the afternoon. My nerves were shot. My motel was a 20 minute drive out of town, I needed a stiff drink but wasn't going to be able to get one and drive back. So instead of line dancing the night away I curled up, made pot noodle with coffee maker and Disney+. 

Maybe next time.

The next morning before setting off to try and find Route 66 I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Because I was in Nashville gosh darnit! 

I actually had a really good morning in Nashville. The Country Music Hall of Fame was kinda interesting because I basically didn't know who any of the famous people were. 

I did like how they had the museum organised so that you could basically see how the music evolved over time. How it started in the early 1900s⁷ as folksy folk songs⁸ to what it is now which is basically narrative rock songs⁹ sung by someone with a head colds¹⁰. But it means that as you walk around you can really hear the influences and the evolution. It also means (and I've noticed this is pretty much all American museums I've been to) it's super loud. 

The elevator door open, you step out, there's 15 families, one kid having a meltdown, archival TV footage playing on a 5 minute loop to your left, 4 different songs playing on loop, and for some reason they're playing the same song twice on a slight delay in the middle of the room¹¹.

Your mission is to work out where the exhibition starts.

After Nashville I decided to head West. West is best, they've got most of the same letters, with a few notable exceptions. It also helps that Route 66 is east of Nashville so east it was. I could have gone south, but New Orleans is that way and I'd already been there. 

Much of this part of the trip was a bit of a blur. Racing across the Ozarks¹² to get to the prairies nothing really sticks out in my mind apart from the Route 66 museum in Elk City, Oklahoma. It's the main reason to go to Elk City. If you look at my original blog post I'd planned to go to Tulsa Oklahoma¹³ but given that was based on the fact that they'd had a major race riot/racially motivated coup in the 1920s I reconsidered my plans and decided to stop early in Elk City and go to the Route 66 museum instead. 

That was a fun museum. A mix of indoors and outdoors is a beautiful spring day. They started you off with a primer on the history or route 66 where I learned that on the interstate system odd numbers go north/south and even go east/west. 

The museum also has a mini town set up with original buildings from when Elk City was first founded and examples of what could be found in the shops. It's well worth a stop and I spent an enjoyable morning wandering around before setting off on my next detour.

Now having just found Route 66 I basically immediately decided to leave it. This is because I did the classic "but it's only this far on the map!". From Oklahoma I went to Roswell, New Mexico, a 6 hour journey. I'm not sure what I was expecting in Roswell¹⁴ but it was far too normal and therefore entirely a let down. 

It did have the best food I've eaten so far on this trip. Following the recommendations from the motel clerk I went to Cerritos and the waitress recommended (I had zero choices that evening, it was glorious) a Mexican dish with some beef and bacon with cheese and beans in corn tacos. It was delicious. 

Unfortunately I cannot remember what it was called. 

I did not see any UFOs although I was told by a few people that it's because I didn't believe in them that I didn't see them, but I thought it was Fairies you had to believe in to make them real.

Week the second:

Moving on I began to head north, back towards Route 66, and into the Sierra Nevada so the scenery began to get a little more interesting. I stopped off in Santa Fe¹⁵ where I had a bit of a turning point. Up until this point, because of my detours, I'd been paranoid about not making it back to LA in time to drop my car rental back in time and incur some major late fees so everyday I was spending about 3 hours in my destination in the morning then driving 4-6 hours minimum before checking into a motel. In Santa Fe I realised at the rate I was going I would arrive about 5 days early and would also incur early fees. 

Santa Fe is one of the few towns I would describe as having a "historic district". The outskirts look like another American city but the tourist district has Adobe buildings and every other shop is a "trading post" with a year of establishment marked. I know this is intentional but it is one of the few places in America where you can feel a distinct identity and the layered history from where it used to be a Spanish trading post before it became part of the Wild West and then just the West. 

I really liked Santa Fe, it's definitely one of my highlights. In fact I probably liked it a little too much and found all the shops a little too tempting and as much as I would have loved to have stayed there overnight one afternoon was enough damage to the budget and I wanted to go to Petrified Forest National Park about 3 hours away so I stayed in Grants, New Mexico overnight. The best thing that can be said about Grants is that it is closer to Petrified Forest National Park than Santa Fe.

Petrified Forest National Park is beautiful.  

There's this weird thing in National parks in America where you drive from picture opportunity to picture opportunity or apply for hiking permits to go commune with the squirrels for a week in the back of beyond and absolutely nothing in-between. I am not in the condition nor carrying the kit to go and train an army of chipmunks to do my bidding in the backcountry, as fun as that would be. The only pair of trousers I bought with me were jeans, I don't have a map, I don't have a compass, and my backpack is currently occupied with all my travel gear.

All that to say if the path doesn't have pavement or a sign in/sign out book I'm not doing the hiking trail. 

Even so I'm not sure I'd want to hike around Petrified Forest National Park. I tried to do it justice in photos, most of these I had to edit to get the colours right because the sun was so brilliant everything was coming out washed out and overexposed. 

You enter through the Painted Desert where you are offered vistas of striped pink and orange and blue as far as the eye can see. 

I then detoured to the Blue Mesa¹⁶ which is an incredible gully, again I did my best with the pictures. But the colours were this incredible denim or blue corn colour. Layer upon layer of blue and purple strata in shades of indigo you can hardly believe. 

But the one place you absolutely cannot miss is the Rainbow Forest. When wood is fossilised it normally turns a sort of greyish yellow/brown because it's, you know turned into a rock, here it's turned into a rainbow and it is stunning. Every other rock is the remnants of a millennia old tree shot through with colour like stained glass.

In this second half I took full advantage of the national parks and amazing scenery the American West has to offer. So I set up base in Flagstaff, Arizona for a couple of days while I went to Monument Valley¹⁷, where they film all the cowboy films, and then went to my other favourite park, Sunset Crater National Park. 

It's about a 3 hour drive from Flagstaff to Monument Valley and then I screwed up the timing so I was on a hike when they closed most of the other things to do. The views were amazing but I did drive a 6 hour round trip for a one hour quite rushed and stressful hike. Which probably tainted my review of it slightly. 

The following morning I had a wobble about driving and after a somewhat tearful phone call home went to Sunset Crater National park and had a really good time. I highly recommend the park, not only because it's mostly on roads controlled by the national parks service and therefore there aren't as many maniacs on the one road that runs through it. But it is also a genuinely fascinating place to go to. Only about 30 minutes outside of Flagstaff, Arizona it is well worth the day's stop. It's split between the dormant volcano that gives it its name and pueblos left from the ancestors of the Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni peoples which were abandoned around the 13th century.

It offers a nice mix of anthropological/historical sites and interesting geology as well as stunning views. It's rare you can go straight from somewhere they tested Apollo mission gear to tour buildings last occupied during the crusades all within a 20 minute drive. I really enjoyed it and preferred it to going to Monument Valley. Although I did think the couple who decided to hike through the lava fields in sandals made a brave choice, at least they probably have very soft (and sore feet) afterwards.

Continuing West I then moved on to Williams, Arizona which is an old Route 66 town and they will not let you forget that fact. Again, it's basically the only thing the town has going for it otherwise it would die so neon lights and mother road signs it it!

The Grand Canyon which is about an hour north of Williams, Arizona. It's pretty cool. I got a really good deal because the guy at the entry gate asked me if I was planning on visiting any other national parks because I could get credit towards an annual pass which I could buy at the visitors centre. I am planning to do that so he let me in only for me to discover that the visitor centre was closed that day so I got in for free.

I had a good time at the Grand Canyon but I still preferred Sunset Crater and Petrified Forest National Parks. I spent a couple of hours walking along the rim and while it is amazing after a while you do start to get used to the grandness of the Canyon but the park does intersperse the walk with a Fair number of little displays to keep you interested¹⁸.

Next up was Las Vegas and I don't know what it was about it but I had a terrible time in Las Vegas. Actually I do, it was the site of meltdown number two, but we'll get to that. 

Driving through Las Vegas is a bit of an experience, all the flashing lights and billboards trying to entice you in while trying to navigate four lanes of traffic. I think I almost felt peer pressured to go to Las Vegas so I put it on the itinerary but by the time I got there, much like Nashville, I basically felt so drained that I spent the entire night in the hotel hot tub and went to the strip at 9am the next morning which, admittedly, probably wasn't the best time to experience it. 

While in Vegas I also went to the Mob Museum, which was very interesting and I highly recommend it but they nickel and dimed me, which was very on brand. I'd recommend going to the Mob Museum, gangsters were actually very integral in the foundation of Las Vegas because it was a good stop on bootlegging routes to California and casinos are an easy way to launder money if this is something you ever need to do.

At this point I was getting pretty burnt out. Not only had I been driving several hours everyday for about 10 days at that point. And thus we come to the emotional climax. It was in the Hoover dam car park that I had my second meltdown of the trip. After about an hour freeloading off a Starbucks' wifi so I could call home. I decided to head towards Ridgecrest, California where I locked myself in my room for 24 hours and watched the Marvellous Mrs Maisel. It was glorious. I'm sure Death Valley is very nice that time of year but I just really, really needed a day off. 

After a day's rest and recuperation I moved further North so I could go to visit the giant Sequoia groves in central California. 

I've always wanted to visit since I first heard of trees you could drive cars through as a little girl. 

Unfortunately I managed to pick the wettest winter California has had in many years so much of Sequoia National Park was closed due to the snowpack having not melted when I visited at the end of April but Grant's Grove which has the Grant tree in it was open and cleared of snow. 

Walking through it with the smell of pine, the sound of snow melt, you could look up at these amazing cinnamon coloured trees that only grow in this tiny ecosystem. It was really peaceful to wander around. 

With the exception of my rest day in ridge crest I've basically had a panic attack for most of the last week. In large part because of the roads there I'm generally a lot more anxious than I think most people realise. 

People often say to me that they think I'm really brave for travelling alone and maybe I am. All I can say is that I don't feel it. The dangers I face walking around a foreign city are no different than the dangers I face in a city I've lived in all my life. As you may have guessed, my major complaints about the US so far have been more about the road infrastructure than anything else. 

Driving in particular has always been something that terrifies me. I enjoy it, but catch me on the wrong day and I'm just as likely to cancel going out or be late because I've had to drive there. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do Route 66 drive to prove to myself that I could. And I have. I have. I did it very quickly and I did extra bits. Most days I've driven around 250 miles. I guess the reason why I mention this is while I absolutely recommend going to some of the places I've mentioned above. In the interest of honesty,  the next time someone tells me time brave for driving across America I know I probably won't think about the fact that I travelled alone,  because the dangers I face are more or less the same everywhere else simply because I am female and alone. Instead I'll think of the tearful phone calls home I had in Flagstaff, Arizona and the Starbucks carpark 20 minutes from Hoover dam because the last thing the staff needed was some English chick crying in the car park about the state of the road infrastructure and her lack of employment. 

Those long drives between stops have been filled with Alison Weir books on English medieval history, interesting but not engaging. It means that it's easy for me to get stuck in my head. I spend some of that time drafting posts for this blog, which is why previous posts might have seemed a little disjointed at times. Or I end up replaying conversations in my head and intrusive thoughts occur over and over again as I drift on the freeways. 

I have been trying to implement wellness practices. Meditation, deep breathing, that sort of thing but two hours into a four hour drive it is so easy to fixate on the idiot who's just cut you off right in front of a truck at 70 miles an hour.  

This was a trip of two halves. The first half was speeding across the midwest in a slightly mad panic about being behind schedule and not making it to LA before my car rental was due back. While I did relax about that by the time I got to Flagstaff, Arizona I was so emotionally drained from driving around 200-300 miles a day that I had the aforementioned meltdowns. I did enjoy my stops. The Route 66 Museum, Petrified Forest National Park, and Sunset Crater National Park were particular highlights and I wish I was in a better headspace when I was in Nashville because I had a good day there. 

The best road trips are done with friends and I did this alone. And I did learn a lot about myself in the two weeks. I'm glad I did it.

Highlights list

Petrified Forest National Park 

Sunset Crater National Park 

Santa Fe

Route 66 museum, Elk City 

Kentucky Bluegrass Country

Reading list:

Queens in the age of Chivalry by Alison Weir

Queens in the age of conquest by Alison Weir

The Dark Queens by Shelly Puhak

Three Years in Hell by Fintan O'toole 

Started but not yet finished:

Better than we know ourselves by Fintan O'toole 

Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir

Brain droppings by George Carlin

Music:

Imaginary Appalachia by Colter Wall

Evermore by Taylor Swift

Midnights by Taylor Swift 

Hurt by Johnny Cash

Pretty Boys by Caity Baser

Tennessee Whiskey by Brad Paisley feat. Alison Krauss 

Blue Ain't Your Color by Keith Urban 

Everything Sucks by Vaultboy

Blow top blues by Dinah Washington 

Geography by Tom Misch

Rivers by Leon Bridges

Good thing by Leon Bridges 

Gold digger sounds by Leon Bridges