travel
Catch a ride with THE DRIVE at DC’s hippest bookstore: Upshur Street Books
Why do I declare Upshur Street Books the coolest bookstore in all DC? They picked THE DRIVE for an event, clearly, but also because in the same down-home block you can have a drink at the Petworth Citizen, tacos at a legit taqueria, and even get your do shaped before the party.
Ok technically it’s not a party; it’s an “In Conversation With” event — in DC bookspeak. That means instead of me sitting awkwardly behind a stack of books hoping buyers want signings, a working journalist/author actually asks me questions and starts a conversation with the audience. Which is why I’m so excited to announce my celeb-friend and amazing writer Sarah Wildman will do the honors. If you follow VOX news (that’s VOX not FOX) you’ll recognize her byline from all over the globe. But long before she wrote for leading news and culture magazines, we took dance class together at Joy of Motion in Dupont Circle. And then while I was off on the road trip through Latin America that become THE DRIVE — she wrote her own family memoir. Check out “Paper Love: searching for the girl my grandfather left behind” when you get a chance. Or better yet, come meet her in person next Wednesday night at Upshur!
Playing tourist in our own country (Drive Day 6 minus 44 years)
Hitting pause for a few days with family in Prescott feels we’re cheating, or at least procrastinating. But mom and dad took a decompression/sightseeing detour on their way to the border too. Six days after leaving Oregon we peeled off I-5 in a camper that looked like Frankenstein’s creation and played tourist in San Francisco.
Mom’s little pink journal catalogs the details that surprised her most in 1973:
- parking downtown 91c per ½ hour
- rode Bart, everything computerized – from ticket purchase to ride to rest room
- China Town – good coconut cookies
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom my teresabrucebooks.com website landing page or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Independence (Drive Day 4 minus 14 years)
Every July Fourth the whole country throws a birthday party for Gary’s older brother Mike, including a full-on western rodeo where he lives with his wife Carol in Prescott, Arizona. This year we crash the celebration in our Ford F350 and vintage Avion truck camper. Which, after three nights of boondocking in Walmart parking lots, I happily abandon for a real guest bed, hot shower and food that requires more than one burner. Does this bode well for my road-worthiness?
It’s so North American, this flag-waving, chaps-and-saddle extravaganza. I’m practicing adding the “North” part when describing the U.S.– since the countries we’re headed to have just as much claim on the name America.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom my teresabrucebooks.com website landing page or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Boondocking at Walmart (Drive day 2 minus 14 years)
Not quite 600 miles into a year-long road trip and I have no idea where the nearest campground is or why one would exist here anyway. Let’s just say Gary has felt no urge to get out any of the cameras he’s packed in the storage box under Wipeout’s padded shelf. We’re approaching Springfield Missouri and for the first time in my life I’m excited to see a Walmart.
I’ve seen RVs and 16-wheelers in the parking lots of Walmarts before but now I know what it’s called: boondocking or dry camping. You can read about it here, or in a beautiful photo essay here. There’s even an official website. I kinda prefer the term “independent parking.” Makes me feel less like a freeloader.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Hitting the road! (Drive day 1 minus 14 years exactly)
It’s a good thing the rearview mirror is now blocked by the camper wedged into the truck’s bed. If it wasn’t, I’d have to watch everyone I love getting smaller and smaller as we pull out of the driveway. We’ve both got our game faces on but this is completely unnerving. For one, it feels like the camper is a little off center. It can’t be: we’ve blocked it up, cinched it down, clamped every latch and ratcheted the chains that hold it to the fame so tight they’re straining. It must be the newness of carrying an entire house on our metaphorical backs. We are the ones off balance.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Standing in my mother’s shoes (The Drive, Day 1 minus 14 years, 11 hours)
Gary’s mom is serving the equivalent of a last supper. She’s piling our plates with his favorite foods: fresh sweet corn from a neighbor’s farm, three-bean salad, beer-soaked bratwurst and peanut butter potato salad. But I’m so nervous I can barely eat. I wonder if the night before my mother left she fared any better. So I dig out the Harlequin romance-size pink leather journal she gave me and my worries shrivel in comparison.
In 1973 mom wasn’t setting off on a grand adventure. On Drive Day 1 minus 44 years, she was still grieving the loss of her only son. His accidental death behind our trailer in the Oregon woods destroyed life as she knew it and the only way she and my father could cope was by running away. Their plan was to drive to the end of the road, as far away from the heartbreak as mechanically possibly. In pencil-tentative handwriting, she left this dedication: “In memory of John John, who made this trip possible for his 2 sisters.”
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Bournemouth
Here’s another blogger I follow — this post reminds me of something our Susan would have loved: road trip by bicycle
This weekend Budget UK sent me on my very own bucket list experience and it was one of the best weekends I have had since living in London.
Friday night I finished up my packing. I certainly had more then I needed, but that is the benefit of having a car, right? You can take as much as you would like and since I had the weekend planned and filled with activities I decided the more the better.
Saturday morning I woke up nice and early to pick up the car from London City Airport. It is not often that I hire a car but the process was incredibly easy and quick. I handed over my license and signed a few forms and the car was ours.
We loaded everything into the boot of our little Peugeot and got on our way.
We drove out of London and saw some of…
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A new collection of bibles: guide books for 13 countries (Drive Day 1 minus 14 years, 3 days)
I am sacrificing precious Avion cabinet space to make room for a stack of second-hand Lonely Planets and Moon Guides and splurging on expensive, new and even fatter Central and South American Handbooks.
It feels almost disloyal, this sudden devotion to the crowd-sourced wisdom of travelers I’ve never met. I already have an original source of information: my mother’s journal and my father’s collection of maps and 35 mm color slides from the first road trip down the Pan American journey. It is their parting gift to me and Gary; the equivalent of a precious family heirloom.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Why is #vanlife the latest travel fad?
Great piece shared on a terrific blog I follow called Needull — check out their travel topic, and art! Source: Why is #vanlife the latest travel fad?
The peak of paranoia: buying a gun (Drive Day 1 minus 14 years, 5 days)
I know better. At seven years old, I watched my father strapped to a chair in a Panamanian border cell with his own belt – by guards who didn’t suspect this nomadic North American family had a gun hidden in our home-on-wheels. Crossing into Bolivia in that same camper, my dad almost shot himself in the ass, hiding the gun from aduanas by sitting on the evidence.
When I tell him I want to hide a gun in the Avion he demands to talk to Gary. I pass him the phone but it won’t do any good. I know Gary thinks it’s a dumb idea too, but he isn’t the one with two portable file cabinets full of scary articles about the dangers along this route.
As a DC-resident I can’t legally buy a gun in my name. So it is Joe who finally buys me a Charter Arms Undercover .38 and creates a hidden compartment under the camper floorboards to hide it. He thinks the splice in the carpet looks pretty natural, all things considered. If he also thinks his new daughter-in-law is a lunatic he is kind enough not to say it aloud.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
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