Marco-YOLO

Having bid ailing Pablo farewell and get well soon, we set off towards Dulles airport to rent a capable steed to carry us across these United States. I held my breath hoping they’d have a Ford Fusion on the lot (because its front fascia resembles an Aston Martin) and they did! However, as we were doing a 42 day rental with unlimited mileage and their only available Fusion already had close to 40k miles on it, they upgraded us a class and gave us a brand new Chevy Malibu with only ~300 miles on the odometer. By the end of our trip, we’ll have racked up 9,000 additional miles on it, increasing the odometer reading 3,000%!

As a type of vacation, the road trip is its own animal. There is no fixed departure time, or passenger manifest, or FAA approved flight plan. While some meticulous planners may not like the sound of that, there is an excitement that comes with knowing you are the captain of your ship and have full discretion over where you’re going, how fast and with whom. And unlike most oceans, the roadways of America are teeming with interesting sights, people and experiences. Plans can change, unplanned adventures may take place and if you cover a wide enough swathe of the country as we plan to do, you see the real America in all its wondrous diversity.

Our first meal on the road was in honor of Azam, my Burger King aficionado brother!

Can interstate driving be a form of meditation? As bizarre as that sounds, it sort of is for me. After a hundred or so miles, autopilot takes over and the cloud that normally hangs over my mind clears. There are times of no thought, there are times of many thoughts, but for some reason the associated anxiety isn’t there.  Since I find it relaxing, I can drive a dozen or more hours day after day without complaint, not that we’ll be doing that on this trip. On the days we are driving, the average time in the car is under 5 hours.

As we approached Tennessee, we played traditional country music to set an authentic local mood inside the car.

You’re off to great places, today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so… get on your way!   – Dr Seuss (from Oh, the places you’ll go!)

Forty two days in a rental car is a long time. To make our US road-trip more enjoyable, we bought a portable GPS unit ($90 from Target) and a satellite radio ($40 from Best Buy). This will hopefully prevent us from getting lost and in case we do, at least we’ll have good tunes to rock to

This was a 10 day road trip along California’s famous coastal highway in a convertible.

San Francisco – Met up with old Capital One friends, Tsvetan and Jarisara, for lunch, took my cousin Alizeh, a freshman at UC Berkeley, to dinner, and did some tourist stuff again.

Carmel – I love the vibe of this town, relaxed and happy, a great place for the low-key kind of Dolce Vita.  It was also near Pebble Beach, which was cool to see.

Hearst Castle – This may be the coolest building I’ve seen in the US. The beauty and opulence of this mega-mansion is something to behold and crown jewel for m was the pool, maybe the most iconic in the world.

Pismo Beach – Just a stopover, nothing special.

Los Angeles – LA is a fairly known quantity so not much to say. At Colleen’s behest, we took a TMZ bus tour, which was the corny guilty-pleasure type fun you’d expect it to be. I also rode a mechanical bull for the first time and did miserably.

San Diego – Nice city by the bay. Highlight here was a shore dive into the kelp forest off La Jolla. It was my first cold water dive so I was wearing a 7-9mm wetsuit with hood, gloves and shoes. The hood confused a playful seal (photo below) who initally though I was a giant awkward seal, but even after he figured out we weren’t seals, he still hung out with with us for several minutes. But the oddest thing was being 40-50 feet under water and seeing birds swimming by you like rockets. Cormorants seem remarkably at home under water for a flying species, and the amazing thing is some Cormorants can dive to three times that depth!