Five Lessons Learned From My 30 Day Road Trip (Part One)
Hey Friends!
We recently completed a 30-day road trip adventure!
Yep, that's right: 30 straight days on the road… initially I was not sure about it!
A little background: we had sold our home in Iowa. We live in southwest Florida. September is a great month of the year in most places in the US. Not so much in south Florida. September of course is high hurricane season - and not a great time to be there.
After 30 years in the corporate world, it's nice to have a flexible schedule.
So my wife Adele and I said 'What the hell, let's do a road trip!'
We had a wedding to go to in Charleston in mid-September. So we focused on and around the east coast.
Here's a snapshot of our 'roadmap':
and finally, back to Naples.
During the journey, I learned a lot, met all kinds of nice people and saw the beauty of America in so many ways.
And you guessed it, I took away five lessons from the road trip!
We traveled a lot of places with many experiences. So I'm breaking this newsletter into two parts:
Part One - two lessons I learned
and Part Two (coming next month) - the last three lessons I learned
I'll also sprinkle in some travel tips along the way!
So here goes:
1. Road Trips are Good for the Soul
I hadn't done too many road trips. Time was too short. If you had a week off, fly to an island or Florida, or if you had more time, fly to Europe.
The last 'big' road trip I took was when I was six years old. My family and my aunt, uncle, and cousin drove from Iowa to our destination: Disneyland!
My Dad was a Ford car dealer and got us a new Ford 'Esquire' station wagon.
There were eight of us: my Mom and Dad, my two sisters, Aunt Neva, Uncle Stan and cousin David. David and I rode in the bench seats in the back of the wagon. The luggage stowed on the roof. Over two weeks, we traveled to Wyoming, the Rockies, Las Vegas, San Francisco, finally reaching Disneyland, and back home.
Funny, we never did that trip again?
It was kind of like Vacation. Even the station wagon was similar!
Now after our current journey, I learned that road trips can be therapeutic. There's no mandated schedule. Just, ‘where do we want go next’? If you want to stop at a fresh produce stand, or a lobster shack, or take in an ocean or mountain view, just pull over. You see so much more when you travel the countryside.
Travel tip: make your drive part of the adventure, not just a way to get from 'point A' to 'point B'.
It's a lot more fun. Running late on your schedule? Relax! No big deal!
And don't be afraid to call an 'audible' - that is change plans or directions. If one destination doesn't work out, head to another. It's all part of the adventure!
2. 'You Can Go Home Again!'
American novelist Thomas Wolfe was born and grew up in Asheville, NC. His mother bought a boarding house named 'Old Kentucky Home' where Wolfe grew up. The house is now 'The Thomas Wolfe Memorial.' Its worth visiting especially if you've read any of his novels.
Asheville is a great place. The Biltmore Estate of course is amazing.
But The Grove Park Inn is my favorite Asheville venue for three reasons:
First, its rich history.
The Inn opened in 1913 and hosted many Presidents and celebrities from days past. F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed there for two years - 1935 and 1936. He had two rooms, one for living and the other for writing. This was 10 years after Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby.
By the time he reached Asheville, Fitzgerald was 'on the skids.'
He had his two rooms above the entry to the hotel so he could see the cars pulling up and look for single women who he would meet at the bar later and have them buy him drinks (and whatever happened later).
His wife Zelda stayed at a nearby sanitarium to receive 'treatment' (electroshock). One night in 1936, after Zelda received a treatment (it was customary to strap the patients to their bed afterward), a fire destroyed the building, killing several patients along with Zelda.
My earlier newsletter on Hemingway talked about his Paris days in the 1920's when Hem hung out with Fitzgerald and other legendary writers, painters and composers. Happier days for the Fitzgerald's indeed.
Second, the Inn has a classic Robert Trent Jones course he designed in 1926.
I love RTJ courses. So much history.
This one is a gem with the rolling fairways and greens overlooking the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains.
Third, the Sunset Terrace at the Inn.
It's the best spot in Asheville to enjoy your favorite cocktail (in my case, a dry gin martini - shaken with three blue cheese olives thank you!), around 5 pm when the sun is setting over the mountains!
Travel Tip: Asheville also has several very cool rooftop bars looking over the Blue Ridge Mountains at sunset. Check them out!
So getting back to Wolfe, he wrote the novel You Can't Go Home Again.
In the book, in a nutshell, Wolfe trashed the people of Asheville. The locals were pissed, but they eventually got over it.
So can you go home again?
I tried to answer this question on our road trip, not by going back to the little town in Iowa where I grew up (see my previous newsletter), but by making sure our road trip hit some places where we previously lived.
I regret to say that I hadn't returned to Ithaca since I graduated from Cornell Law School. I was asked on several occasions to come back and speak to law students. I always seemed 'too busy' and Ithaca was not an easy place to reach by car or by commercial plane.
'Ithaca is gorges' as they say. Travel & Leisure did a recent article on Ithaca.
Ithaca and the Finger Lakes region are truly beautiful especially in September.
Travel tip: if you go to Ithaca, the best place to stay is the Inn at Taughannock Falls.
It's a few miles up Lake Cayuga.
Back in law school, we splurged occasionally and had dinner up there with our Cornell friends.
The Inn has gotten better with age (it was constructed in 1893). We stayed there over a weekend and we did the short hike to Taughannock Falls, the tallest waterfall in the North East (at 215 feet, it's 33 feet higher than Niagara Falls).
By far, it has the best breakfast (included with the room) of any of the 'B&B's' we stayed in New England - and we stayed at a lot of them!
One night at the Inn, there was an outdoor wedding with a great band. We were having dinner outside. After dinner and a bottle of wine, we said 'Let's crash the party!' The wedding couple were Cornellians and most everybody there was too - so they invited us stay and celebrate!
Also if you're interested, there's 'nudist bathing' pools in the gorges of Ithaca's Potters Falls.
They've been around for a longtime predating my law school days. For the record, I've never personally participated!
But I have inadvertently stumbled into a few nudist beaches over the years - you know trying to get from 'point A' to 'point B' walking along a beach.
In my experience, most of the 'nudist' folks I ran across were probably better off keeping their clothes on! Just say'in!
I haven't returned to my hometown of Belle Plaine since my Dad passed away many years ago.
But our longtime great friends David and David visited a couple years ago.
David Fram and I were at Cornell Law School together, served on the Cornell Law Review and roomed together in New York as summer interns. David is a well-known expert and speaker on employment law.
D&D live in New York City and Paris. Being the adventurous types that they are, they came out to visit us and go to the Iowa State Fair (something everyone should do at least once!)
After the Fair, D&D went on their own road-trip traveling around the small towns in Iowa, and stopped by the old house where I grew up.
Best selling travel writer Bill Bryson published his first book 'The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America' largely based on his traveling around Iowa visiting small towns.
I remember reading this book while we were living in Australia. I took the book with me on a trip to Tasmania over the holidays. Being a half a world away from Iowa, it made me feel nostalgic…
One day, I'll travel back to Belle Plaine and play that little golf course. Maybe we'll do a road trip!
Well friends, that's all for now. Stay tuned for Part 2 of the newsletter where I'll cover more of the 'roadmap.'
Also, if you have your own travel stories from any of the places I mention, please post them on my LinkedIn page.