In My Words: Kimberly Burton Allen, Writer

Starting time: 7:15 AM MST, Flagstaff, AZ Starting mileage: 59382 Yesterday's mileage: 617 Whether due to the change in time, an unusual amount of traffic noise, or just anticipation, we were up and out early this morning for our last leg of the seven-day trip. Some more history: Chris bought the Duchess sight unseen, off eBay, where it was listed through a dealer on behalf of a client. The gentleman had owned the car for 25 years. About 14 years ago, he had shipped her from his home in Northern California to his summer home in Nova Scotia, where she became the "summer driver," until the gentleman grew too old to drive and reluctantly decided to sell her. No garage, so the Duchess gets a blankie for the night Chris and he spoke for hours over the phone prior to the conclusion of the sale, and one of the funniest moments was when, at Chris's instruction, the old gentleman and his daughter, armed with an iPhone with Facetime, gave Chris a virtual test d

Starting time: 7:45 AM CST, Amarillo, TX Starting mileage: 58744 Yesterday's mileage: 571 The mesas of Arizona These are the long days, on long, mostly straight intertates with few outposts of civilization. The hours en route are artifically shortened by the fact that we are gaining time as we head west. Amarillo was shrouded in cowshit-scented fog as we pulled out onto the westbound highway this morning before 8 AM seeking a place for breakfast and coffee. Except that we hadn't realized we were staying on the western edge of town, and within a mile we were once again on the open road with not even a truck stop in sight. Thankfully, almost as soon as we cleared the city limits the dense fog lifted, exposing unpopulated prairie as far as the eye could see, broken only occasionally by things like a small windfarm or a stockyard. I am VERY cranky when I don't have coffee and some food in the morning, so between that and the fog, the fifteen or so miles to tiny Vega,

Starting time: 8:40 AM CST, Topeka, KS Starting mileage: 58173 Yesterday's mileage: 325 miles MADE IT!  Now on to California!!!  I have a confession. Semi trucks give me panic attacks. Yes, Doctor Freud, I can trace this back to my younger days. I was in my first year in college, driving the second-to-fast lane on the 57 Freeway from Cal State Fullerton to my job at a restaurant in Tustin, CA on a rainy day in November. A double-trailered semi truck in the slow lane of the six-lane highway hit his brakes and they locked up, and on the slippery road he lost all traction. He careened across the six lanes of traffic, hit the cement center divider, and slid back across the freeway. His second trailer fishtailed into the front quarter panel of my 1966 Mustang GT, sending me spinning into traffic. My car stopped spinning facing north on the southbound freeway, and I said a quick prayer that all those cars heading straight at me would stop and...they did. Shaking, I drove off th

Starting time: 8:45 AM CST – St. Louis, MO Starting mileage: 57843 Yesterday’s mileage: 470 Average MPG: 15.9 MPG We stayed last night at Embassy Suites Downtown St. Louis, in a phenomenal old building that had been built in the mid 1800s as a department store, After several iterations, it was most recently a Dillard’s, which closed in the 1980s. The ceilings in our room were twelve feet high (and you really appreciated that height when you looked at the floor-to-ceiling curtains; what do you suppose was the yardage required per room...?) Complimentary happy hour and breakfast were served in what they called the Atrium which was, remarkably, NOT on the first floor, but rather on the fourth floor (of five). This is a picture of it, which fails utterly to capture the magnificence of scale. And of course, one of the attractions of the Embassy Suites was the fact that it offered valet parking for the Duchess. The head valet, who stated "There hasn't be a car in for

Starting time: 9:00 AM, EST, Huntington, WV Starting mileage: 57368 Yesterday's mileage: 436 Yesterday's average gasoline MPG: 15.4 Chris would write this blog using the four lines above, period, no commentary.  Well. I always say that the reason I write novels as opposed to short stories is that I can't even introduce myself in 500 words. Something that differs this year from our previous trips: As we approach the end of the driving day and need to arrange accommodations for the night, Chris gets on the phone to ask the various hotels if they have secure covered parking available. This definitely separates the men from the boys, so to speak, in the hotel world. All the classic motor hotels--out. After about the third call, he's asking the clerks if they know who in town DOES have covered parking. With last night's endeavours we ended up at a Holiday Inn Suites (suites!? what a misnomer that was), but it was in a fun part of town due to Marshall Univeristy

Starting time: 8:40 AM EST, Baltimore, MD Starting mileage: 56922 Yesterday's mileage: 282 miles Yesterday's average gas mileage: 13.2 MPG Chris and Andrew just before today's blast off Growing up, my family seldom ate out. Mom cooked dinner every night (don't get me started on that). So on a road trip to visit the extended family, it was a great treat to stop for meals in Denny's restaurants, where the paper placemats showed a map of the USA with little stars representing the chain restaurant's widespread presence. I used to use a crayon to X off the states we'd journeyed through. Fast forward to 1992, when Chris took a job in New York and we relocated. I envisaged that Denny's placemat map and thought, YEAH! Just think of all those little bitty New England states I'll be able to easily cross off my list! --Well, the joke is on me: Not only are those states not quite as little bitty as I envisaged them, but when you live on the end of