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At least once a week, while Joe Teehan and I are coming up with the Daily News Poll, he’ll tell me that some of my suggestions are “too wordy.”
It’s fair criticism, as I’m sure many of you don’t want to slug through responses that are drawn out and might not even reflect your true thoughts. But at the same time- I can’t help it. Years of writing essays for AP English classes and communications courses simply can’t go to waste, in my opinion. And I do like to write (which probably explains why I decided to go into news 😅). Whether it’s a fiction piece that I’m scrambling to get together for National Novel Writing Month, or piecing together a complex news story, my fingers can’t seem to leave the keyboard.
In the spirit of having all these words flying around in my head at 110 mph, the folks at KGMI decided to give me an entire platform to get some of these ideas (and even more words) on the web. So, here we are.
Welcome to Beyond The Morning News.
This picture was taken at the train station in Syracuse, New York, about 1 week before I set off on The Great American Road Trip.
I spent a lot of time at this station. While I worked and lived in Syracuse, many of my friends lived about 2 hours away in Buffalo. For a few years, I’d hail a cab out of work on Fridays and catch the last train out to Western NY, and get on the last train back to Syracuse on Sundays. After I got my car, I still took the train- especially when I didn’t feel comfortable trekking through lake effect snow conditions on I-90. While the idea of taking a 5 day train ride out to Bellingham was tempting, I had long dreamed of setting off on a cross-country road trip by myself. I remember a few years ago, I planned out all the states and sites I knew I wanted to see along the way for a birthday road trip… that didn’t end up happening (but it’s still on my bucket list!). So when the opportunity came to move to Bellingham, it was a no-brainer.
This is the route that took me a full week to drive through. According to Google Maps, if I drove non-stop, this would have taken me 42 hours.
I left Syracuse on a Monday evening for a warm-up drive to my friends’ house in Buffalo. From there, it was a lot of 7-10 hour driving days, wondering why the Spotify algorithm kept playing the same few songs every time I got in the car, and some pretty spectacular views. I mean, look at this:
(Photo taken in the South Dakota Badlands)
And check out these rolling hills:
(Photo taken near Rock Creek, Montana)
What I didn’t consider on this Great American Road Trip was that I was on a deadline to get to Bellingham- and it didn’t leave much time to explore the regions I was driving through. But if I saw an opportunity to stop and snap a few shots, I did. The area between Cleveland and Seattle was unexplored territory for me, and it was always exciting waking up each morning knowing that by the end of the day, I’d be in a new state. Not to mention, my car was a trooper through the whole ride- the only car-related issues I had along the way were rising gas prices beyond South Dakota (where I believe I paid $2.99/gallon at one point).
I made one last big grocery run before I left, packing up a cooler with sandwich ingredients and other snacks to cut costs. I didn’t want to get in the fast-food rut, mostly due to the cost of all those meals and to avoid the havoc it would wreak on my stomach. However, I made one exception to this rule in South Dakota- at a Culver’s in Sioux Falls. Friends from the Midwest raved about Culver’s frozen custards and fried cheese curds. Who was I to not take an opportunity for a palate cleanser?
The custard melted on the ride back to my Airbnb, but in defense of the custard- it was late August. It tasted just fine.
I capped my driving time at 10 hours a day, making sure to stop every few hours to move around and have a snack without getting crumbs all over the driver’s seat. I booked Airbnb’s at predetermined cities along the way so I had an end goal by the time the sun began to set. And I’ve added a few more cities to the ever-expanding list of places I’d like to explore even further, including but certainly not limited to:
- NE Wyoming
- SE Minnesota
- Columbia River Valley in WA
- Eastern Idaho Panhandle
So, to recap: I left Syracuse on a Monday, drove across most of the entire North American continent, and landed here in Bellingham on a Sunday. I cut it pretty close, too- I got to my final Airbnb just 12 hours before I was expected to arrive at the KGMI studios for my first day.
But I wouldn’t have changed the course of the trip in any way. Even before the pandemic, I never thought I’d be able to take a whole week just to drive across the country. In fact, I strongly recommend it if you have the opportunity. It doesn’t have to be the same exact route I took. It doesn’t even have to go from sea to shining sea. The thrill of the Great American Road Trip is a feeling unlike no other.
Take that opportunity if you can.