BIG TRIP Chapter 1

This month marks the 20th anniversary of a 6-week cross country solo camping trip I took in 2002. All alone over 5,600 miles through 17 states in a rental car, sleeping in a tent most nights, I stopped to visit a few friends along the way. -rh

Back in 2001 I started thinking about taking a solo trip to Europe. Maybe something simple and relatively easy, like 2 weeks in England and France. London, Liverpool, Paris. I was really curious about Spain and Italy too. So much art, history, architecture, food and wine to experience and explore. At the time, I was coming up on the 10-year anniversary at my job and it seemed like a good time to make a clean break, take a sabbatical, and go on a life-changing trip to another part of the world. To save up for the trip I set aside a little bit from every paycheck for several months and started researching the places I wanted to go. Then 9/11 happened and overseas travel was off the table.

I've always enjoyed the fringe benefits of being a AAA member. Just call them up and ask for a couple of maps. They drop them in the mail and you've got 'em spread out on your dining room table within a few days. In those days before Google Maps, the custom AAA "TripTik" was the only way to go. Personalized, printed, and spiral bound, they highlight your route and even tell you where to expect construction delays. If you're old school, or just old, they still offer this service.

My Euro travel plans on ice, it didn't take me long to come up with a Plan B. I could pack my tent, some clothes and a cooler and drive around the US. The same nest egg I had set aside for two weeks in Europe would last well over a month of cross country camping right here in the good ol' US of A. Once I started to map it out, I was suddenly a lot more excited to explore America on a solo camping trip than I had previously been to check out England and France.

I set a date, put in my notice, and hit the road before sunrise on the 2nd day of May 2002.

Heading south out of Cincinnati, I drove through grey skies and pouring rain in the rolling hills of Kentucky on into Tennessee. Hitting lunchtime traffic as I approached Nashville, I stopped for a meal at the Elliston Place Soda Shoppe. Hearty, home cooked "meat & three" of roast turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy set me back $7.36 and I was back on the road.

Sunlight finally burst through the clouds as I crossed the border into Alabama, arriving in Birmingham around 4:00pm to visit my old friend Vanessa who I'd known for many years. I'm afraid my lasting impression of this weekend in Birmingham is what terrible company I must have been. I ate too much food, smoked too much grass, drank too much beer, and fell asleep very early after overindulging every night I was there. Mostly it was the food: Grilled catfish, crab claws and gumbo at the Fish Market; pastries at the Continental Bakery; fried chicken, corn, rolls, onion rings, and squash with a slice of Oreo pie at the Irondale Café; broccoli chicken and egg rolls at Surin West; Vanessa's homemade vegetarian lasagna; tacos and margaritas for Cinco de Mayo. I would soon learn to pace myself. But that weekend in Birmingham I ate like a pig.

Elliston Place Soda Shoppe, Nashville, TN

During the day, in between meals, I visited record stores and the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. I actually walked around there taking photos for a couple hours. Big, beautiful place. The grounds there include a huge hillside forest with many winding trails, creeks, and beautiful waterfalls. The weather was quite grey and overcast, but under the tree cover in the shade it was nice and cool and the wet air smelled great. Dozens of different smells all around, depending on where you stood because of the many different areas within the large park. There was a vast expanse of woodlands, a fern glade, a giant greenhouse full of all kinds of plants including a “cactus room”, and a huge rose garden. A light drizzle felt good in the morning humidity.

Each evening ended with a few rounds at an incredibly unique bar called The Garage, located inside an architectural salvage shop courtyard. A place where artisans and antique collectors once gathered to sell their wares, the courtyard out back behind the bar is an amazing collection of sculpture, junk, cement benches and tables, wrought iron trinkets, knick knacks, old frames, rotors, auto parts. Under lock and key a dozen or so cubicles like small garages with sliding glass doors on either side of the courtyard held tons more antiques: chandeliers, cabinetry, shelving units, tables, lamps, chairs, pottery, farm implements, model cars, you name it. Sparse lighting, just a few small lanterns on the walls on either side of the courtyard and strings of Christmas lights in the trees overhead. Every third or fourth cubicle lit by a single bulb so you could see rusty treasures casting strange shadows behind the sliding glass doors and wrought iron gates. The courtyard was fairly overrun with all this stuff and unkempt jungle landscaping with trees, bushes, shrubbery and vines growing everywhere around you, up the walls and over your head. The darkness of night lent the surroundings an extra element of surreal murkiness. It was easy to see why this was Vanessa's favorite place in town.

Birmingham is green and hilly and you never saw a city with so many trees. It is beautiful. Vanessa’s neighborhood looked quite nice to me, but she said it’s actually kinda scary. First week of May it's already quite humid down there. I had taken a guitar along with me on the trip of course. It was interesting to feel and hear how guitar strings are much looser and easier to bend in the heat and humidity. It struck me as particularly interesting since one of the trademarks of Blues guitar is bending notes and of course the Blues was born in the American South.

Looking back, that first day on the road was one of the few times I saw ANY rain at all on the entire six week journey. Later I would see some drizzle and then far worse in Texas. But after returning home I realized that it had rained on only 2 or 3 occasions as I crossed the country. Ironically, back home in Cincinnati, May 2002 was one of the wettest months on record, raining something like 23 out of 31 days.

There was a torrential downpour when we had lunch at the Irondale Café. Formerly known as The Whistle Stop, it is the setting for much of the story in the novel and subsequent film version of Fried Green Tomatoes. The restaurant is located right along some railroad tracks. I vividly recall a train passing through just as we made a mad dash through the pouring rain back to the car.