Friday, February 20, 2009

Cross Country : A road trip across America!

A great philosopher once said "one's purpose of performing an activity in life is achieved to the full extent, only when one advertises it." I live by it and hence this blog.

Anyways, here's the reason for this post: After much deliberation and discussion, Kavitha and I have finally decided to do our long-awaited cross country road trip across USA. It wasn't an easy decision for two people with totally incompatible schedules.

Thankfully, Kavitha has her spring break in March and I am utilizing my yearly vacation, much earlier this year. Luckily, things actually seem to be slowly falling in place.

The plan is to start from Philadelphia and drive all the way through West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California to reach San Francisco. We would be doing this drive in about 9 days, stopping and visiting places as we go.

We have set up the whole itinerary in such a way that our daily driving limit is about 10 hours. We have a one-way SUV rental from Hertz and we will fly to Philadelphia on the way back.

We have also decided to blog our experiences on this blog daily over the 10 days of our trip. Do follow us and be a part of our experience!

The more we plan the road trip, the more we read about other people's cross country experiences and the more we learn about each state, the more our enthusiasm rises on a crescendo.

And here is a map of our planned driving route:


Other trivia: I have downloaded Microsoft Streets and Trips, which I think, is one of the coolest software Microsoft has ever developed or probably ever will. Since we are planning to carry one of our laptops, the desktop version of the software should come in handy, as I trust neither AT&T nor my Jesus with the cellular internet in remote parts. We have my Kaiser with TomTom installed for GPS and directions.

Have you ever been in a situation where you can't wait even a minute longer to do something? I'm that excited right now!

P.S: By the way, that great philosopher at the beginning of this post is me...

14 comments:

maxdavinci said...

whoa! good luck man, can't wait to read the daily log!

Confounded-Lady said...

My my! This sounds exciting indeed! Will follow definitely!

Gradwolf said...

wow this is super brilliant and I'd do it one day!

Arun B said...

Have fun guys !!

Jayaprakash said...

Enjoi Thambi

buddy said...

this sounds awesome! enjoy!

Nandini Vishwanath said...

This is so awesome! I'd love to do it someday too! :) Will ask for tips ;)

Narendra shenoy said...

This sounds totally awesome! We shall await your posts with bated breath, our nose glued to the monitor, haggard eyes gazing yearningly at our google reader page, looking for signs. God speed

Aparna said...

Wow! Waiting for the posts & photos!

Anonymous said...

kickass man! you're going to have a ball. I'm jealous :)

Arun Sundar said...

Max,
Thanks dude.

Maysree,
I'm more excited than a kid running behind a son-papdi vandi on chennai streets.

Grad,
I'm sure you would :)

Arun,
Thanks da.

JP,
Sure I will!

Buddy,
Thanks buddy (as in 'friend')!

Nandini,
Definitely. I'll not give you wrong information :)

Naren,
Lol...and thank you :)

Aparna,
Me too :)

Gayatri,
Variyaa?! ;)

Alan Smithee said...

Don't forget to dine at waffle house in flyover country.

Arun Sundar said...

Alan,
Will most certainly not! :)

Arjun said...

Kavitha,
Do visit Orange County(Southern California) when u come down..I know you have seen it b4..