I had every intention a couple days ago with being able to give you this great end-of-year little US road trip experience. I’m headed back to NY from TX to see mom and dad for the holidays. Having made the drive numerous times, I decided to diverge a bit on the way and see some friends.

The first leg of the road trip was decided on home in Texas up to Chicago to see some friends. I gased up the truck and headed out. It has been some time since I’ve driven 16 hours straight, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it. 8 hours in and I wanted to stop and get a hotel. Putting failure from my mind, I trudged on completing the trip in 17 hours 45 minutes.

The rest point was my friend Billy’s house in Lowell, Indiana. My exhaustion was evident when I arrived. I had a beer With my host and decompressed from the drive.

This is where my loose plans went astray. I had visions of running around Chicagoland seeing old friends. This, I can say with some reservation, did not happen. I little hanging with Billy, a little bad ice on the roads, a little apathy, and the stop turned into hanging out in Lowell drinking beers. The beer drinking was happily infused with Billy working out how to ship a motorcycle to Europe so he could spend a vacation riding around Europe. This was backdropped by watching both Long Way Round, and Long Way Down. The two Ewen McGregor motorcycle documentaries.

Very good times and a quiet New Year’s Eve all around. Also laundry. Because, you need to take advantage of other people’s washing machines.

Gassing up the old girl at the start of the trip.

Me. Chillin and drinking beers.

Billy, engrossed in Long Way Down.

Documentaries confused as research.

I’ll give better reports from the road as the trip continues. Hopefully.

Get out there. Do your own adventure!

As a post script:

The whole next travel leg looked like this. The driving is getting better as it goes along.