Day 2: The long and necessary haul from “New Madrid” to “Lawrence, Kansas”

Penny, a basset hound, stands in front of a sign directing traffic at a rest stop.

THE DRIVE

Centerville, Tennessee to Omaha, Nebraska

780 miles; 11 hours, 40 minutes

ROAD SIGNS SPOTTED FOR PLACES NAMED IN OUR PLAYLIST

New Madrid, Missouri

Lawrence, Kansas

THE FOOD

Breakfast: Quality Inn breakfast buffet (yeah, waffle maker!)

Lunch: Qdoba burrito (Jeff) and burrito bowl (Betsy)

Dinner: So many snacks — cashews and apples and oranges and crackers with hummus (Jeff) and still more Prodigal Farms cheese (Betsy)

THE SOUNDTRACK

Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard

What Happened When with Tony Schiavone

And the Road Trip to the West! playlist continues to be a work in progress. Today’s additions include: “Tennessee” (Arrested Development), “On the Road Again” (Willie Nelson), “Go Your Own Way” (Lissie), “Pancho and Lefty” (Willie Nelson), “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (Iron Butterfly), “Crossroads” (Cream), “Drive” (R.E.M.), “Man on the Moon” (R.E.M.), “Drive Slow” (Kanye West), “I’ve Been Everywhere” (Johnny Cash), “Jackson” (Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash), “Wichita Lineman” (Little Big Town with Jimmy Webb, but I like the R.E.M. cover better), “Atlantic City” (The Band), “Hard Travelin’” (Mandelin Orange), “One Nation Under a Groove” (Parliament Funkadelic), “Flashlight” (Parliament), “Cups” (Anna Kendrick)

READING LIST

Many articles about mortgage rates (Wall Street Journal and Washington Post)

“How Same Sex Couples Divide Chores, and What It Reveals About Modern Parenting” (Claire Cain Miller/New York Times)

Roadside America’s entry on the Tina Turner Museum (surprisingly awesome)

The Cecilia and Kate Novels: Sorcery and Cecilia, The Grand Tour and The Mislaid Magician (Patricia C. Wrede and Carolina Stevermer)

THE HIGHLIGHTS

Betsy: “Stopping in Humboldt, Tennessee, to see my Uncle Lee and talk about modular/city-in-a-box design for disaster relief and U.N. interventions. (Here’s a 2011 article about the kind of work he does.)”

Jeff: “Seeing that there is a one-room schoolhouse that houses a museum dedicated to Tina Turner behind a Dairy Queen in Brownsville, Tennessee.”

THE RECAP

Jeff: “My actual favorite part of the day was tag-teaming additional playlist songs with Betsy. It was a fun way to break up a day of driving. Plus, you know you have a great wife when she suggests you listen to five hours of wrestling podcasts. And I met Betsy’s Uncle Lee for the first time, learned that it’s not surprising to see multiple random people grilling out of the backs of their pick-up trucks in a motel parking lot, and we drove across two full states and into a new time zone. I regret not being able to drive through Memphis, hoping for a chance encounter with Jerry Lawler.”

Betsy: “Total road-warrior day, but we woke up feeling rested (yay, not sleeping on an air mattress!) and feisty, so after we stopped to see my uncle, we decided to try to blast past our planned stopping point in Kansas City and get to Omaha tonight, so we could have a full day with my family. Jeff continues to refuse to let me drive, which is good (yay, faffing around on the Internet) and bad (boo, he’s got to be so bored and tired). I also landed a marital sacrifice throw: suggesting that Jeff listen to five hours of professional wrestling podcasts so that I could guiltlessly read a couple of novels. It’s nice when you get brownie points for doing the thing you wanted to do. Also, dudes, I cannot wait to get to Bellingham and start eating like a healthy adult again. And if you know me at all, you know that we have really been eating junk food for a while if even I am over it.”

Day 1: Our first date in Durham was a Joe Van Gogh coffee. And so was our last one.

A snapshot of Betsy, Jeff and Penny the Honeyhound in their massively overpacked car, smiling.
    THE DRIVE

Durham, North Carolina to Centerville, Tennessee
573 miles/9 hours, 4 minutes

    THE FOOD

Breakfast: Joe Van Gogh on Broad Street in Durham
Lunch: 9 Mile cafe in Asheville with Sierra Club press secretary Melissa Williams
Dinner: Last fridge leftovers (ma po tofu, kung pao lotus and brown rice for Jeff; black-eyed peas, a biscuit from breakfast and some Prodigal Farms Vache cheese for Betsy), picnic-style

    THE PLAYLIST

Road Trip to The West!

    THE READING MATERIAL

“The 7 Principles to Making Marriage Work” by John Gottman and Nan Silver

Helpful video summary:

JEFF’S SUMMARY OF THE DAY

“Early morning. Efficient packing. Long driving, broken up by great jiujitsu training at Open Source BJJ and lunch with Melissa. Playlist construction and relationship maintenance exercises.”

BETSY’S SUMMARY OF THE DAY

“Jeff got up at 5 to pack the car and I didn’t hear him at all, and then we read a book about how to have a healthy marriage, which seems to suggest that I’m in some kind of a Benjamin Button-esque relationship. Also, Penny has been a total trooper about being packed into a tiny cave behind my seat. And a bunch of our friends texted us with various bits of amazing news just as we were checking into our hotel. What a good launch to this journey today has been.”

Road Trip to the West: A Playlist

A road trip needs a good playlist. Betsy and I will be on the road for 40 hours, give or take, and although I’ll be making her listen to pro wrestling podcasts for roughly half of that, I figured a mix with songs from every state we’ll drive through and local artists would be ideal for the “mean time and in between time,” as Gordon Solie would say.

It’s a work in progress, and we’ll be adding to it on the trip! You can also follow it at tinyurl.com/hamtoham if you’re inclined.

 

Road Trip Compatibility Quiz

Jeff built this website, so I wrote a quiz for our first post. #marriage

Best road trip snack?
Jeff: Bananas or Kind bars. Bananas are easily edible.
Betsy: Clementines or salt and pepper pistachios from Trader Joe’s.

Best first song for a road trip?
Jeff: “Freewheelin'” by Blue Scholars
Betsy: “Inna Gadda Da Vida” by Iron Butterfly, with “The House that Heaven Built” by Japandroids as a close second.

Best road trip game?
Jeff: “Mitch, Give Me the Ball, Mitch”
Betsy: I like collaborative playlist-making. [On our road trip from Boston to Durham, we built an alphabet-based playlist that still holds up.]

Best road trip podcast or audio book?
Jeff: “Hardcore History with Dan Carlin”
Betsy: Mystery novels, preferably Laurie King or D.L. Sayers. Or “Planet Money.”

Most important co-pilot virtue?
Jeff: Clear, simple and accurate navigation instructions.
Betsy: Excellent conversation at a reasonable volume.

Worst co-pilot sin?
Jeff: Late, urgent demands to turn. Close second: Thinking they control the music.
Betsy: Playing on a phone when they’re supposed to be keeping the driver company. Close second: Abnormally loud talking.

What are you most looking forward to about our road trip?
Jeff: Seeing family.
Betsy: Yes, family, but also daydreaming car conversations and letting Penny out for walks to smell new places. It makes her so happy.

Jeff specifically wanted to stop in Asheville, North Carolina, and in Jackson, Wyoming. What do those things have in common (besides the obvious: being on our route, being in North America, etc.)?
Jeff: Spectacular outdoor views. Great beer.
Betsy: I actually tried to come up with a data-supported answer for this and it is: About 42 percent of the population of each city is married, which is below the national average. But they’re statistically pretty different in terms of income, cost of living, industry, race, religion, education and … well, everything. Especially weather.

WITHOUT LOOKING, please tell me how many total hours of driving you expect to have on this trip:
Jeff: About 90.
Betsy: Forty
(Actual answer: Forty-nine hours.)

And how many of those hours do you expect to control the radio?
Jeff: Eighty.
Betsy: I never control the radio. I influence it for everyone’s benefit.