I'm like 90% sure that I'm doing this road trip through late April now. Atlanta, Phoenix, SF. I have a raison d'etre again. I just need to figure out what the deal is renting a car to drive across country.

Werthless may or may not find himself unemployed around that time period next year. His better half would be studying for law school finals and such too. If I could dupe him into splitting the gas and hotel costs for at least part of the journey, all the better.

Also if anyone else here thinks this sounds like a great idea and wants to come along and offset the fixed costs and be good company across deserts, feel free to speak up.

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm like 90% sure that I'm doing this road trip through late April now. Atlanta, Phoenix, SF. I have a raison d'etre again. I just need to figure out what the deal is renting a car to drive across country.

Werthless may or may not find himself unemployed around that time period next year. His better half would be studying for law school finals and such too. If I could dupe him into splitting the gas and hotel costs for at least part of the journey, all the better.

Also if anyone else here thinks this sounds like a great idea and wants to come along and offset the fixed costs and be good company across deserts, feel free to speak up.

time was when people with a car on one side of the country that they needed on the other side of the country would hire someone to drive it for them across country. It was a 'better than renting' situation, as I recall; quite a bit better.

don't know whether that sort of thing still goes on.

My dad did that. His best friend was prepping for his second tour in Vietnam and asked if he could be deployed out of San Diego or San Francisco or something. The two of them drove across the country and my dad hitch-hiked back (it was 1968/9) with a bunch of friends he made in PTK town (or maybe it was Oregon - I know Oregon played a part).

I regret not finding the opportunity myself when I had the ability to go but not the responsibility to prevent me from doing it.

Is anyone else experience a post-WS life that feels like an addict after rehab? I've been feeling a little sick the last two days and then last night I fell asleep at 10 and woke up at 10 this morning, which as any of the young parents know, is the equivalent of sleeping for 3 days straight.

i just cut my lip with an electric beard trimmer.

I got really into the planning of the cross country trip last night. Opened up a spreadsheet to put in driving distances between preferred stops. Emailed a friend in New Mexico about staying with him. Looked into flights back to Philly from San Francisco.

cleaning is done

now I just need to buy the ice, hand soap, rolls, maraschino cherries and tonic and I can par-tay!

i wonder if people think the chess thread is worse than the wrestling thread

btw jerz, that road trip sounds AWESOME and i am very jealous

jerseyhoya wrote:I got really into the planning of the cross country trip last night. Opened up a spreadsheet to put in driving distances between preferred stops. Emailed a friend in New Mexico about staying with him. Looked into flights back to Philly from San Francisco.

If you retace the Smokey and the Bandit route from Atlanta to Texarkana (though of course Burt Reynolds went in the other direction) you'll pass very close to my house. If you take I-20 west from Atlanta to Dallas, you'll be about an hour from the house, but since you can then shoot out on 82 and hit I-30 in Texarkana you don't go that much out of your way.

On the other hand, if you dive South out of Atlanta on I-65 to catch I-10 to New Orleans (which is how I would go) you won't be all that close.

Between Atlanta and Dallas, I'd consider avoiding interstates. The US highways will generally be 60-70 mph and there are more interesting stops. Interstates will be much faster, but less interesting. West of Dallas, until you hit the mountains, it's all pretty boring.

td11 wrote:i wonder if people think the chess thread is worse than the wrestling thread

chess is real

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I got really into the planning of the cross country trip last night. Opened up a spreadsheet to put in driving distances between preferred stops. Emailed a friend in New Mexico about staying with him. Looked into flights back to Philly from San Francisco.

If you retace the Smokey and the Bandit route from Atlanta to Texarkana (though of course Burt Reynolds went in the other direction) you'll pass very close to my house. If you take I-20 west from Atlanta to Dallas, you'll be about an hour from the house, but since you can then shoot out on 82 and hit I-30 in Texarkana you don't go that much out of your way.

On the other hand, if you dive South out of Atlanta on I-65 to catch I-10 to New Orleans (which is how I would go) you won't be all that close.

Between Atlanta and Dallas, I'd consider avoiding interstates. The US highways will generally be 60-70 mph and there are more interesting stops. Interstates will be much faster, but less interesting. West of Dallas, until you hit the mountains, it's all pretty boring.

Yeah, I'm serious about doing it, but clearly haven't put any thought into the specifics of it. Also I might try and plan around my cousin's Spring Break, in which case I won't be following the Phillies across the country, but would mean better company.

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I got really into the planning of the cross country trip last night. Opened up a spreadsheet to put in driving distances between preferred stops. Emailed a friend in New Mexico about staying with him. Looked into flights back to Philly from San Francisco.

If you retace the Smokey and the Bandit route from Atlanta to Texarkana (though of course Burt Reynolds went in the other direction) you'll pass very close to my house. If you take I-20 west from Atlanta to Dallas, you'll be about an hour from the house, but since you can then shoot out on 82 and hit I-30 in Texarkana you don't go that much out of your way.

On the other hand, if you dive South out of Atlanta on I-65 to catch I-10 to New Orleans (which is how I would go) you won't be all that close.

Between Atlanta and Dallas, I'd consider avoiding interstates. The US highways will generally be 60-70 mph and there are more interesting stops. Interstates will be much faster, but less interesting. West of Dallas, until you hit the mountains, it's all pretty boring.

Yeah, I'm serious about doing it, but clearly haven't put any thought into the specifics of it. Also I might try and plan around my cousin's Spring Break, in which case I won't be following the Phillies across the country, but would mean better company.

Some places worth considering for a stop, but there's probably no good way to hit all of these places) Oxford MS (University town, Faulkner stuff, but maybe not as southern Gothic as you might expect) Memphis--Elvis, Shangri-La records) Little Rock (Clinton Library, cheese sauce and hamburgers) Hot Springs (there's the springs, more Clinton stuff, mafia stuff) New Orleans (nuff said) San Antonio (a unique tex-mex city) Austin (lots of college bars, live music mecca, Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library.).

Lots of people hate Houston, but I was there once and thought it was a better city than either Dallas or Atlanta. And while this doesn't apply to you, Austin is really not much fun if you have kids. You might want to check out the George Bush library in College Station, but I can't imagine there's any other reason to go there. Fort Worth has some great and free museums.

I've been to Santa Fe, but it's a lot like New Hope in the desert. And everything is expensive. Northern New Mexico is beautiful, I don't know what it's like down around Las Cruces.

I've never been to Gulfport or Biloxi, but some people swear by the beaches there. It's known as the Redneck Riveria.

Part of the fun of a trip like this of course is to explore those anonymous parts of America. More and more, of course, this is disappearing as strip malls and chain stores characterize more and more of these places. Indeed, the only towns that will lack chains and ordinary fast food will be those too poor to have them. Lots of these towns have annual festivals during warm weather months, which means from March to October. Always worth checking out.

https://www.google.com/dashboard/

If you're anything like me, it will amuse and/or dismay you just how much of your ass that Google owns

At some point, all this lying is going to catch up with me, unless I keep lying when it does.

spin us a yarn, triple H

boobies

I guess everyone must be having a pretty poppin Saturday night cause it's dead up in here.

So, someone tried to break into my fucking apartment at 7:00 while my wife was home alone. We have this weird cat that is more like a dog, so she's sitting on the couch, and our weird cat comes flying into the living room with his tail all puffy, and keeps looking down the hall towards the bedroom. My wife starts walking towards it, but keeps hearing weird noises, so she grabs a knife and starts yelling that she has a weapon and means business. She gets into the bedroom and the window and screen are wide open, so she takes a look and there is a fucking ladder outside the window. I was at a been fest on my third flight of beer when I get the call, the bartender dropped me off at the train and i got back. the cops we here, they got some prints and everything. gotta be an inside job

That's fucked up

Probably the guy from the hospital that asked her out