Road Trip!

We are taking our first road epic road trip since we went to Glacier National Park in 1996. For this trip we are driving across the country to visit my sister who lives in Bonney Lake Washington. We leave June 1st and plan to be away the entire month of June to explore wherever the road may take us.

Of course, the first order of business to prepare for such an epic trek is to secure a trusty road atlas! (LOL)

I can’t remember the last time I saw a road atlas. Growing up in the 1970’s we had more than one road atlas, don’t ask me why…and my dad revered them like a holy text. Modern technology has made the trusty road atlas obsolete…how can it possibly compete with turn-by-turn navigation systems, which also alert you to hazards, traffic accidents, construction and police presence.

I was in Barnes & Noble this week and was delighted to see a bunch of road atlases! After looking through the different styles, I decided that I needed to have one for our trip. One reason is that technology isn’t always dependable, it would be a good idea to have paper maps with us in case we encounter areas without good Wi-Fi/satellite coverage. Second, my hubby is a “big picture” kind of guy. He likes to have sense of where he’s headed and what to be expecting along the way. It has already been helpful for him to calculate how far we’ll go in a day and which cities to begin looking for hotels to stay at each night. Thirdly, and probably the real reason I want a road atlas is purely nostalgic.

When we went on our first big road trip it was around 1992 or 19993 and we headed out to Yellowstone National Park on our Goldwing motorcycle! Yes…we were young and naive, but what an adventure it was! Every night when we stopped to camp for the night, I’d call my parents to let them know how many miles we road that day and what city we were staying in. What I didn’t know until we got back from our trip is that my dad was expectantly waiting for those phone calls each evening and he was tracking our route on his road atlas! When he showed it to me there was a yellow highlighted line that had traced our entire journey! Oh, how I wish I still had that road atlas! So…in honor of you dad, I’ll be tracking this epic road trip on my road atlas and with every highlighted line you will be held close in my heart!