The Big Road Trip – Begins

Well, I’m sitting in Keyser, WV at my friend, Carolyn’s, home. This is my departure point for a cross country drive. In a few minutes I’ll post this and the preceding posting and then head north to pick up Interstate 68. I-68 takes me to Morgantown, WV where I pick up I-79 to Washington, PA where I head west on I-70. My plan is to get to and, hopefully, just past Indianapolis, IN today – where I’ll be heading north on I-74. I’ll take I-74 to I-80 and that will be my route until I reach the Salt Lake City area where I’ll head north on I-84 to my first destination, Ontario, OR.

Why Ontario, OR? Because, I’ll be setting up another temporary recording studio to record two more audio books for Tremendous Life Books, the publishing company (formerly known as Executive Books) of my late, very dear friend, mentor, client, colleague – Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. His family has continued the business, headed up by one of Charlie’s daughters, Tracey Jones, an Air Force Academy graduate and, like everyone at Tremendous Life Books, a very talented, sharp and motivated person. It was always great working with Charlie and now, I’m very fortunate to be able to continue working with his family and legacy. This is another fantastic benefit of living and working free.

I’m making this a road trip because, first, I couldn’t find a decent set of airline schedules and I hoped to be able to use some frequent flyer rewards I have and that wasn’t possible from the mid-Atlantic region. Second, I would have had to ship a bunch of acoustical materials to OR and then ship it back. So, since I had a plan to head out west to visit my former wife, mom-in-law and brother/sister-in-law in Fresno, CA – it gave rise to an opportunity to make a transcontinental road trip. I’m planning to see parts of the U.S. that I’ve only ever seen from 35,000 feet before. I’m also hoping to meet interesting people along the way. The first person I may have a chance to meet is a “fellow” audio producer/engineer who lives in IN. We’ve been email friends for about 13 or 14 years.

I’m going to be shooting still photos and some video as I make the trip and plan to post some of them here on the blog. This is a time I truly wish I had the motor home, but I’ve turned my 1996 Cadillac Seville STS (a fantastic road car) into a one person “Cadillac RV” for this trip. While I’ll mostly stay in low cost accommodations along the way, I’ll have the ability to subsist and even catch small naps in the car. I haven’t done this since I was in my early 20’s with my ’67 Mustang fastback.

Well, today is the second day of this adventure and the first day of serious travel. I’m going to wrap this up, head out and take care of a couple last minute preparations, a trip to the post office to ship books to Amazon, pick up ice for the cooler and, since Carolyn doesn’t have high speed Internet at her house, I’ll head to the Burger King where they have WiFi and post these two blog posts and then, it’s on my way. I hope to be on the road by 12:30 PM and drive until I’m tired or just before dark – hopefully getting to get just beyond Indianapolis.

Stay tuned for more of my adventure and photos – maybe even a short video from time to time.

Enthusiastically,
Ed