So we aimed to make this trip more of a lifestyle than a roadtrip persay, but we also have a lot of ground to cover, and a destination (hometown) and timetable (a few days before Christmas) that are set, so as we get closer and closer to the deadline it’s gone to be pretty standard roadtrip feel, with a pressing need to put in some relatively serious driving hours.

That means less time to do normal life things (work, reading etc), and a lot of time taken up by driving, getting in some basic siteseeing, and researching the next stop.

Because this whole venture was a last-minute undertaking, and b/c we wanted to stay somewhat flexible and spontaneous we didn’t do much research into destinations before leaving.

Unfortunately that means I spend a good deal of my time researching as we go. We could go old-school and just show up places and see what happens, and I think on the rare occasion that can lead to a really cool experience, but my more practical experience with winging-it has left me not such a fan of this strategy.

I really hate paying more money for food or lodging than necessary, especially if the place turns out to be sub-par, and we’ve found a lot more gems by thoroughly researching in advance than by simply stumbling into them.  Probably a contributing factor there is that I’ll try a well recommended divey looking place, but I’m not about to try everyone I come across to find that special one myself.

The twitters tell a pretty good tale of where we’ve been lately, I just added a tool so they will show up here in the main section instead of just having a sidebar, and you can view all of them on the twitter page: www.twitter.com/carperecession. Please join and follow us so we don’t look so sad.

We spent a couple days in Austin, crummy weather unfortunately. It was fun, but with bad weather and being during the week, and finals time for students, it was a little dead. Then a couple long driving days, with a stop over camping at Tyler State Park in East Texas, and at a hotel in Meridian, MS. We also stopped for lunch in Shreveport, LA and get a quick taste of the local scene there, the place we went for lunch was definitely the go to for local business folks, political operators etc. Now we’re in Birmingham, AL.

I have tons of photos to go through, but until I get my new computer I’m afraid I won’t be making much progress there, my current laptop is barely stable doing web tasks. But hopefully I will have some time over the holidays and in the New Year to start sorting and posting those up….