Vacate or Staycate

In the modern tradition of ugly word smashing (see also: vlog, Brangelina), a nasty little neologism has woven itself into our economically depressed 2008 lives: staycation. A staycation is when you take some time off of work, but you don’t actually go anywhere, since airline rates and gas prices are through the roof, and you [...]

Day Three: Beignets and Cow Country

Wanting to savor a little more time in the Big Easy before heading into the cultural smorgasbord that is the state of Texas, we decided to take another morning stroll down Royal Street. I had a few shops in mind that were closed the evening before. One of them was some kind of voodoo shop [...]

Day Two: N’awlins

On Sunday morning, we were on our way out of Chattanooga within half an hour of waking up—we weren’t anxious to soak up the local color. More importantly, we were anxious to get to our next destination: New Orleans, LA.
A few miles into our second leg, we crossed the border into Alabama, which, interestingly enough, [...]

Day One: Leaving the Brown and Holy East Coast

We had been on the road not more than 2 hours. The backseat was stuffed with Chips Ahoy and Milano cookies that my well-meaning mother had bought for our trip, along with the healthy granola bars and bottles of vitamin water that we had quietly picked up the night before at the huge, suburban grocery [...]

Manifest Destiny: Preparing for the Journey

Planning a 5-day, cross country road trip–on MY budget–has been no easy task, but thanks to The Internets, I’ve found some useful tools for vacay planning:

Manifest Destiny – Prelude

The day I turned 19, my house in Southern California, where I had spent the last 14 years of my life, was in boxes. I remember lying on my belly on the twin bed in the spare room, adjacent to my own bedroom, looking out the front window onto the street, as I usually did [...]