Day 1: Naples, FL. to Destrehan, LA.

835 Miles

“Alright, Julian,” I started. “Pretend we had no limits on time or money. If we wanted to drive out west, where would we want to go?”

Thus started the idea of our Great American Road Trip 2019. While Isabella (my wife) and Chiara (our daughter) were doing the ballet summer intensive tryout circuit around Florida, the boy and I planted the seeds of our summer vacation.

When we were done, we had planned a 92-day route, without including the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic states. From there, obviously, we pared it back to something do-able. For a family that loves traveling, it’s hard to eliminate places from a list. “We can’t do Vancouver and Seattle, sorry.” Damn. When’s the next time we’ll even be that close? But that’s how it goes, right? Time and money, time and money.

Over the next few weeks, when time permitted, we worked together and finalized our circuit. It would be five weeks and about 8500 miles. We made hotel and national park reservations, bought the America the Beautiful Pass, and did our best to leave some space for surprises, be they pleasant or not.

Day One has arrived.

We leave the house at 7:30 am. No, wait. Make it 7:50. Okay, we’re on the road “for reals” now at 8:09 am. Our Great American Road Trip of 2019 has begun.

Our “kids” are 17 and 12 – a girl and a boy, respectively. My wife and I have considered the possibility that this might be our last chance for a long family vacation with all members present, as our daughter will graduate high school next year. I’d love to think that she’ll continue to spend summers with us once she’s in college, but I know we might get lucky just to get a week or two at a time. Regardless of how that turns out, an old-fashioned, very long summer road trip is now under way — just in case.

What we have rather randomly designated as the “First Leg” (of three) is 3000 miles long: Naples, Florida to the Hoover Dam. There are several stops along the way. First up is New Orleans, where we’ll be staying with my best friend from high school and college, Shelby, and his lovely wife (also our friend, of course!), Sherrie.

About an hour and fifteen minutes into our long trip up I-75, we hit a dead stop near North Port, Florida. The map apps all say we’re in for a 90-minute stop, but the accident is only about six miles ahead. No way! I think. we’ll be out in 20 or 30 minutes.

The apps were right. Three accidents, all back to back on the same stretch. I try to remind myself that we are fortunate not to be involved in the accidents, but the prolonged delay so early in an already long voyage is nonetheless irritating.

It takes forever just to get to I-10 West, and then to get out of Florida completely. Ultimately, we manage to reach the Alabama border after several more stops for traffic, gas, food, stretching, photos, and a quick tour near the Florida Capitol building in Tallahassee.

We cross the gorgeous Mobile Bay bridge just after sundown. It’s a beautiful area, and we make a mental note to visit there in the future. (We toured the U.S.S. Alabama there in the bay a few years back, but didn’t have time for much else.)

About an hour later, we’re in Mississippi. My eyes are getting red by now, and the boy is doing his best to sleep in the car, but we’re almost there now.

When we hit the Louisiana state line at about 10:15 PM, we get out of the car for our state line photo, and this woke us all up again. We were excited to see my old city, and I was looking forward to seeing friends long overdue to be seen.

As this is the first entry in the travelogue, I’ll lay out some of what we did to prepare for this trip. We tried to consider both practical and fun things, and plan as much as we could without feeling overly stressed about being in certain places by certain times.

If time allows, I’ll review some of these products in more detail after we’ve used them for a bit. Oh – and check out some of the songs we put together, based on the states we’re driving through or visiting!

Doubtlessly, there will still be things we forgot, or which we’ll wish we’d have thought of before we left. But all things considered, we feel pretty well prepared. Only time will tell!

So to close this first entry, as I will try to close all entries for this journey, here’s a slideshow of highlights from today’s adventures!