My Great American Roadtrip "Novella" 2015, Part 1: Great Expectations

Setting out from Kentucky to visit stops over the next week and a half-ish in North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. (Bit of a tour of some of the finest cities in the good old American Southeast.) It’s said to be a giant part of the American DNA to plan a great big road trip every now and again. I wasn’t quite expecting to end my thirtieth year with a road trip, but I’m hoping to take advantage of it. Some of it will be for business (wish me luck) and some of it will be for pleasure (don’t envy me too much). Possibly if I’m lucky and crazy enough I’ll find that I’ve blogged something close to that next great American roadtrip novel that critics always seem to be looking for. (Probably not, but let me know if I do because that would be an interesting surprise.)

I’ve never really driven this much in this short a span of time, so this is going to be quite an experience. My lifetime miles per gallon score on my Volt is going to take another drastic hit, and I had just (re-)hit 145 miles for every gallon of gas I’d put into KITTEN. ¹

I’ve laid out the major milestones for the immediate next couple of days. It’s funny because a part of that was checking the last minute updates on the NCAA bracket to make sure I’d have time to stop and watch my team’s games this weekend. It’s not entirely a coincidence, but this is surprisingly not the first time that I’ve been between jobs and/or interviewing/travelling during March Madness. March Madness is not just important for the careers of student athletes, if my anecdotes mean anything. It’s not a bad metaphor for how the job search certainly feels: lots of roller coaster moments and upsets and surprise endings and giant wins. I’m hoping for some of the last two this trip… ²

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