Getting started

Driving around the United States is a long-held ambition, but now it's down to the short strokes of planning (and worrying).

For several weeks, I've been studying the AAA maps of each state, and the excellent travel books/guides AAA provides each member. Because I plan to start my drive around the US on May 26 (2007), and because I want to take only state and county roads (no expressways, no superhighways), I had to plot the stops along the way in each state.

Took me a lot longer than I thought. Most of the small towns I hadn't heard of, but Triple A told me I had to pinpoint each town so that they could plot special maps (called TripTiks, for those who haven't used this excellent, comes-with-membership service). I also wanted the mileage between each destination I'd picked, and the estimated travel time. (I want to make about 125 - 150 miles a day. I don't want to hurry. I want to stop and talk with as many people along the way as possible.)

Last Saturday, I visited the Triple A office here in New York City, spoke with a helpful, pretty, reserved young woman who will help me plan each leg of my impending journey, and gave her yellow sheets full of the stops I planned to make in New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. That's as far as my several weeks of map-studying took me. This week, I have to complete the stops I want to make in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and back to the Big Apple. (Turns out the young woman at Triple A is a writer, as I am, and has self-published a couple of novels and is working on others. When I asked her the names of the novels, she demurred. "I don't tell people the names of books I've written, and I always use a pen name." Wants to stay anonymous, I guess. Most writers write because they can't not write, but I don't know many who also don't want to be recognized for their work.)

Lot of work ahead in the three weeks before I leave. But that's where I am right now.

I'd welcome suggestions for places to stop, diners to visit, people to talk with, parks to see and views to gasp over in the states I've mentioned.  Thanks in advance for any advice you have.