All about an extraordinary road trip from New Jersey to San Antonio, and back again.

Archive for the ‘Preparations’ Category

Route Tweaking

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

compass.jpgRather than run the risk of spreading our time too thinly, we’ve decided to focus more on visiting places further from home, and less on those places that are within easy reach most of the time. As such, we’ll be traveling farther and faster the first couple of days in order to enjoy a longer stay when we finally reach San Antonio.

We’ve been advised to allow a good four days to take in the Alamo and other sights, so that’s what we’re intending, and probably sacrificing the visit to Washington, D.C., or at least postponing it until we’re on the way back.

Our first bona-fide vacationy spot will probably be Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas.

On the return trip, other revisions have us skimming along the Gulf Coast’s Creole Nature Trail, where Ollie and I look forward to wrestling alligators in the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. After a festive St. Patrick’s day in New Orleans, we’ll head up through Mississippi and catch the Natchez Trace Parkway, taking in the scenery and cultural experience until we re-emerge upon civilization* near Nashville.

*Any area within a 3 mile radius of a Starbucks.

The Map

Monday, January 28th, 2008

themap.jpgWhen I came across a geo-mashup plugin for WordPress, I knew it was just the thing for our travel blog. The plugin interfaces with Google Maps and lets us specify a location for each post.

If you take a look at our map page, you can see it in action.

If you switch to the satellite view and zoom in really close, you *may* be able to see our car. If not, we might have already moved on… look down the road a piece.

The Tickets

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

747.jpgGot ’em! Now I’m committed 😉

The Plan

Thursday, January 17th, 2008

route.jpgAlthough there will be a lot of fine-tuning, I think there’s a route finally taking shape. Armed with Microsoft’s Streets & Trips and with the aid of such sites as byways.org, roadsideamerica.com and roadtripamerica.com, our great “there and back again” is turning into a thing of great promise…
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The Mission

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

the-alamo-1.jpg

In March 2008, Dave and Ollie will depart for a cross-country extravaganza; a road trip of mind-boggling proportion that will take them from the dark heart of Newark, New Jersey, across the American Heartland to beautiful downtown San Antonio, Texas, where they will appreciate first hand the historic and revered Alamo Mission.

With great anticipation of this bold excursion, this travel blog has been created to keep a diary of their life on the road, and to track their progress toward this lofty and inspiring goal.