TRIPPING ACROSS AMERICA, BOTH WAYS. A Double Cross-Country Tour.

There is no certainty; there is only adventure. ~ Roberto Assagoli 

For 7 days, from September 18 through September 24, my good friend Chuck and I drove westward from his home in Maryland to Monterey, CA across the United States (US) in his Porsche Macan S. We then drove back to MD in 6 days; from September 29 through October 4. Because of the looong-distance nature of this trip, we wisely (although initially reluctantly) decided to venture in his Macan rather than his 911. After beginning our expedition we realized the wisdom of taking his Macan in terms of our comfort and contentment. Like its 911 cousin, the Macan is one fine automobile. Its 340-hp twin-turbo V-6 engine can reach 62mph in a mere 5.4 seconds, not bad for an SUV. The Macan performed flawlessly, no unexpected mechanical pit stops were required, with one minor exception in New Mexico.

Summary.  Our adventure covered 6,200 miles. We drove a total of 95 hours over 13 calendar days, with an average speed of 66 mph at 24.0 mpg. For those who like to count, that’s a little more than 250 gallons of premium fuel. We traversed 19 states, generally following Interstate 70 on the way west to California, occasionally driving on other interesting, scenic roads, as described below. The ultimate destination was near Monterey, CA where the 6th Porsche Rennsport event occurred at Laguna Seca Raceway to celebrate Porsche’s cars, especially its racing cars. After Rennsport, we headed a bit south and then east, taking Interstate 40 from California back to Maryland, with a few variants, like the famous US Route 66.

Westward.  We drove west on Interstate 68 to Morgantown, WV and afterwards connected with I-70W. After we got into the wider open spaces (beyond Dayton, OH going west, and beyond Barstow, CA heading east) we easily cruised at 100+ mph along the route for a while each day. Insurance against roadside stops by the polizia was faithfully provided by our radar detector and by Waze. The farther west we went the more 100+mph opportunities presented themselves (described below) and we took advantage of them. We and the Macan thoroughly enjoyed touring the US in style and speed.

Our first westward stop was outside Dayton, OH at the impressive National Museum of the US Air Force. Setting aside any issues connected with the rationale for or sizeable public expenditures connected with these airplanes, they are quite impressive. My favorites included the WWII F-82 Twin Mustang, which had a range of over 5000 miles! Here’s a picture of the F-82, which was the last American piston-engine fighter plane ordered by the Air Force.

From Dayton, we continued on I-70W through Indiana and Illinois to the gateway of the west, St. Louis, MO. We stayed at a hotel within 2 blocks of the Arch, which we visited when the moon was rising, as this picture shows. Pretty impressive, yes?

The next morning we continued our westward progress through most of Missouri and Kansas. We passed miles of Kansas wheat, corn and sorghum fields, and stayed in far western Kansas for the night. We also encountered Kansas’ dramatic weather – an impressive dust storm immediately followed by a wind-driven nearly horizontal-rain thunderstorm. Oh, yeah. The next morning was clear and we proceeded into Colorado. After going around Denver we departed I-70 for far more scenic US-40 that winds its way through the Rocky Mountains through gorgeous turning-yellow Aspens. We took a slight side venture to visit the C-Lazy U ranch near Granby where as a youth I enjoyed extended summertime horseback rides exploring Colorado’s mountains.  

We stayed that night in Winter Park. We continued on charming US-40 until we got Dinosaur, CO, where we stopped briefly to see the nearby Dinosaur National Monument. No, we didn’t actually spy any stray Stegosauruses. After that we headed through stunning countryside for Park City, UT to stay with my fine friends Steve and Kara. They provided great overnight hospitality. Thanks.

The next day we took I-80W to I-15 South driving down the eastern edge of the Great Basin. We left I-15 at Holden, UT and commenced our 460+ mile journey on “the loneliest highway in the US,” US Rt-50. As its name implies, there were very few vehicles travelling with us on Rt-50. The stunning high-desert landscape flew by as we passed through valleys and low mountains often at well over 1.5 mi per minute.

We reached our stopping point in the early evening – Cold Springs Station Resort – near Fallon, NV. It was the most interesting place we stopped at on our cross-country adventure. Cold Springs Station began in 1860 as a Pony Express stop. It’s now a motel and RV park, along with a restaurant. Here’s a picture inside the resort’s down-home restaurant. Make note of the several mounted trophies displayed above the rifles used to kill the beasts. The TV is showing professional cowboys riding bucking bulls in a rodeo; what could be more appropriate? The proprietors and staff were utterly welcoming. Our motel room was pre-fabricated. The following morning we discovered the sizeable photovoltaic panel array behind the RVs that provides most of the power for Cold Springs Station. The second picture is looking across Rt-50, and shows how truly wide open this part of western Nevada is.

The next day we drove over the Sierra at Donner Pass, stopped in Auburn where Chuck enjoyed his very first In N Out burger (yum), and arrived in Berkeley. After relaxing for a day at our home, Chuck and I completed the first half of our cross-country tour with the short trip south to Monterey.

Rennsport.  Our Porsche pleasure began as Rennsport VI started on September 27. Because 2018 is the 70th anniversary of Porsche’s building sports cars, this Rennsport was special. Porsche flew over from Stuttgart its very first sports car, the 1948 Gmund coupe, among other classics from its museum. Rennsport is a triennial festival of all things Porsche held at Laguna Seca Raceway, this year it featured over 350 vintage Porsche race cars. The picture below shows several. Other racers included everything from 356s, 550s, 904s, 911s and 935s to the awesome Porsche 919 Evo. The Evo is a 900hp electric-gas hybrid supercar that won the 2017 24-hour Le Mans race. It broke the lap record at the famed Nurburgring track in June, where it exceeded 229mph going down the track’s longest straightaway. For good measure, the Evo broke Leguna Seca’s lap record as well.

Our fun continued when we successfully adopted a Wedding Crashers strategy for attending the festival’s VIP dinner on Thursday night. After crashing the party (not our car) and enjoying pre-dinner drinks and discussions with fellow attendees we sat down. I ended up next to Neel Jani, the lead driver of the 919 Evo. As the picture above shows, my new friend Neel and I had a wonderful time talking about his Olympic-level car racing, his life as a pro racer and my much, much more limited but enjoyable experiences as a Porsche owner and Berkeley resident. The second picture is from CEO Magazine, which wrote a story about Rennsport and took pictures of important people who attended festival dinner, including Chuck and I, on the right. We’re no doubt discussing various Porsche racing strategies with others at the table including the head of Porsche’s North America racing. Chuck is on my right; on my left is my buddy Neel. It was quite a meal.

Eastward.  After enjoying more than our fill of Porsches at Rennsport, we began our trip back east to Chuck’s home. On the way back we took the southern route, mostly driving on Interstate 40. We arrived in Maryland after 6 days going through Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. We made several side trips. One to Winslow, AZ on Rt-66, made famous by Jackson Brown’s celebrated “Take it easy” song, sung by the Eagles. Here we are standin’ on that celebrated corner looking for a flatbed Ford, which didn’t show up.

We next made a brief stop at the Petrified Forest National Park near Adamana, AZ where we saw some very old, colorful and perfectly preserved trees from way long ago. Continuing our drive on I-40E we arrived in Gallup, NM where we stayed for the night at a motel that also had a Zuni jewelry shop. The next morning Chuck noticed that the pressure of one of the Macan’s tires was 7 lb. below normal. We had a going-flat tire. The tire fates were smiling on us and we found a tire shop within several blocks of our motel and they quickly patched the tire. You get bonus points for successfully guessing how much it cost us to have that tire fixed in downtown Gallup.[1] We arrived next in Albuquerque, where public officials and the citizenry have worked to produce impressively designed bridges that are as much public art as thoroughfares. See my Awards section below for more details.

We then drove through the Texas panhandle, where it’s always flat and always windy. We travelled by dozens of rotating, big wind turbines. As we headed to Amarillo, we passed mile after mile of turbines that were part of the Wildorado Wind Ranch that has been generating 370 MW of electricity at peak wind speeds for over a decade.

Next up was the state of Oklahoma, 338 miles wide, that we drove through just stopping just for gas, we felt quite OK about that. We stopped for the night in unremarkable Russellville, AR. This city might not have been memorable, but the Arkansan countryside certainly was. The rolling hills countryside was rich with green plants, bushes and trees that merited a listing in my Awards.

Tennessee was our next and ante-penultimate state. In TN I found our most memorable rest stop, see the Awards. Although I’d been to the Volunteer State before, I’d never been to Nashville. The music/bar scene in Nashville is truly impressive. The city’s almost 240-year history is represented in the above picture. On the right right side is a recreation of the town’s original fort, Fort Nashborough, established in 1779 as an American outpost in Native American territory. On the left side of the Cumberland River is Nashville’s modern NFL Titan’s stadium.

Nashville’s downtown music scene was notable, especially if you’re into Country & Western. And no, I didn’t buy any cowboy boots.

We continued our trek eastward on I-70 and made our last travel day the longest and farthest one; we covered 670 miles from Nashville through scenic TN and VA countryside to Chuck’s home in Maryland. Oh, yeah.

After a day of rest, and as an apres-trip dessert, we headed to the premier Cars & Coffee event in the Washington, DC area, Katie’s Cars & Coffee in Great Falls VA. Chuck knows many of the participants. As usual, it offered an amazing display of all things motive, including this beautiful red Triumph TR-3 (that was driven from Kansas!), parked next to Chuck’s 911.

   Would I call our cross-country highway voyage successful? You bet. Do I plan on doing it again? Not likely. But traveling with Chuck and seeing at ground-level the hugely variegated beauty of our nation, an overused but completely a propos descriptor, was exquisite and delightful.

And now, here are the places we drove through that deserved special citation.

Awards.

Best buffalo. We stopped for gas in Moriarty, NM and got more than gallons. Yup, inside this “gas station” was a stuffed Buffalo (as you can see here) and much, much more. There were rooms full of tchotchke gifts. Who’d of guessed?  

Best dust storm.  The dust storm we witnessed near Quinter, KS. Wow.

Best hot-air balloon siting. After leaving the fine Rocky Mountain town of Winter Park, CO, we sited a beautiful balloon rising in the distance. When we left town it was a brisk 35˚F, so I’m betting the balloon riders had at least very hot coffee to fend off the bracing early-morning mountain air.

Best infrastructure architecture. Albuquerque’s bridges over I-40 use designs that make them and the medians stunning public art. Go here to see the bridge art.  

Best interior wall of a motel/hotel: the Amarillo, TX Embassy Suites’ “living wall” with ivy and other planted greenery in the lobby.

Best public floral display. Heber City, UT where there was mile after mile of giant hanging, flowering plants 🌺 on every street light down the town’s extended main drag. I gave up estimating how much water was being used to produce those thousands and thousands of blooms, but they sure were pretty.

Best rest stop. The Loretta Lynn – Hank Williams rest area. I kid you not; it’s on I-40 near Sugar Tree, TN. Their music wasn’t piped into the rest rooms, but it was memorable nonetheless.

Breakfast. Best: Embassy Suites in Amarillo, tastiest and widest choices, 5 stars. Worst: Days Inn in North Nashville, TN. The proprietor was friendly and volunteered helpful info about where to go to see Nashville’s vaunted music scene. But the breakfast consisted only of bread-toast, coffee and juice, strictly 1 star.

Most topologically surprising state. Arkansas’ rolling-hills countryside was impressively lush with trees and greenery. It was utterly different from the “golden” (aka, brown) California landscape I’m used to seeing in late summer. 

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[1] The Gallup tire store charged us the grand sum of $15 to remove the nail from the tire and install a patch. For their fine, prompt pit-stop service, we provided a generous tip.