I've had 30 hours and 1,500 miles to think about it, and it seems to come down to: I'm not enthused about it. It's dangerously close to being work.
Teasing out why that is true is the hard part. So let me resort to a list, and maybe that will enlighten us.
1 - It's the first trip since I have retired (the second time - Jan 2020) - the first trip not to be a pleasant diversion from a pretty busy and responsible schedule. It's a diversion from a pleasant retirement.
2 - It's the first trip done in the summer, or anything close to summer, and the heat - more specifically, the sun in the windshield - is really wearying.
3 - I have a pretty good working knowledge of the US Interstate system, and on previous trips I haven't needed Google maps at all, except to get from the exit ramp to the hotel, or to someone's house. This time, of course, I've been on local roads which rarely go where I want to go, so there are lots and lots of turns. I need to keep track of the directions on the cell phone constantly - and the bracket I brought to hold the phone where I can see it broke the first day. So I've had the phone down on the console, a really dangerous place given the amount of time I'm looking at it and not at the road. Add to that the fact that I can't keep the map screen up for any real length of time - partly because I'm always touching it when I don't want to, and partly because it decides randomly that I want to see something else - and the result is a miserable experience. This is one part of the reason I'm returning to Interstates.
4 - I'm substantially older than during most of the other trips. I know that shouldn't matter, but it does. Being a septuagenarian seems to mean something to me.
5 - I have always counted on using credit card rewards programs for gift cards and free nights, so lodging has always cost nothing, or almost nothing. In the year and a half since my last (east-only) trip, these programs have become more opaque and difficult to use, partly on purpose, I presume.
6 - The other part of the reason why the rewards programs have become more difficult to use is that they are more app-based, and as I noted previously, I am not an app guy. Each day I have to find wi-fi (McDonald's, usually), fire up my laptop, and figure out how to get a room somewhere close to where I predict I'll end my day. Even then, it often requires that I use the app on my phone, or make a phone call. And every time people have made mistakes, given me the wrong information, sent me back and forth, and just disappeared from the phone (this afternoon). Some of this incompetence is me not using the app the right way. So when I look a the next week or two on the road, I see massive headaches every day. Last night, I came very close to not having any place to stay at all.
7 - This is a stupid one - and would not be a big deal normally - but the mouse I brought with me is not working right, and it takes probably twice as long as it should to publish a post. For instance, I can't bullet-point this list.
8 - No baseball. Not on any of the TVs so far.*
9 - I'm tired.
Looking back on the list, it seems that it's made up of things that would make a bad situation worse. But what makes the situation bad in the first place?
I think it's this: My idea of taking US routes through very long stretches of isolated country was fundamentally flawed. Even if I had a working bracket, too much time and attention would be spent on navigating. And finding gas at the right time, and a hotel at the right time, could easily be problematic in far north ND, MO and ID, not to mention eastern WA and OR. Just those three issues would - and already have - serve to overwhelm any meaning the trip might have.
And if I'm going to abandon the primary purpose of the trip?
We'll see. I'll stick to Interstates and decide when I'm ready to come home, and then I'll come home.
It's a plan.
* - This is true, but survivable. Just hoping to add a little levity.
My instructor is from Kansas.
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