urbaneer: The Big American road trip - Part 3 (Special edition): Roadside

From Miami to San Francisco in total we drove 5302 miles (8533 km) over the space of 1 month. We went from the US Atlantic coast across to its Pacific shores cruising mostly closely along the southern border. We traversed through 4 times zones, 8 states and various landscapes. We spent under 500$ on petrol due to gas prices unfathomable to most Europeans and our little car managed to do between 400-500 km on a full tank.

For food we enjoyed the delights of roadside dining – Denny's (the favorite), Waffle House, Cracker Barrel, Popeye’s, Taco Bell, Jack in the box, Sonic and some local BBQ joints and diners. One time we nearly lost the passports as Astrid left them in a Waffle House somewhere between Little Rock and Clarkesville – luckily we found our way back and the lovely Ms. Pat had saved the bum-bag which contained our most valuable possession.

Overnight on the road we tested the interstate suites of lodging options – some chains: Quality Inn, Days Inn, Motel 6, Super 8, and some local options: Marble Canyon lodge, 9 Palms Inn or Detjeens in Big Sur.

Having a Sat Nav helped not only to pretty much almost always get us to where we wanted to go, it also saved a lot of arguments in the car.

It is amazing to experience how much of the US live-style is built around the car and the convenience or now the necessity of having one. It has been great fun cruising on the thousands of miles of straight open road in cruise control with nothing but blue skies ahead of us. We are sure that this was only the start of more US explorations J

Roadside - Food:

11th street diner - Miami