And miles I went before I slept...

One of the things that have fascinated me for a long time was to drive long distances and though I had been traveling some long distance in India (trips being from Delhi to Rishikesh and one to Chandigarh recently… okay stop laughing now)… I had been looking forward to an opportunity to do the cross country for once.

Well I had planned one all India trip some time back before coming to B-School but I could never find a company to take it to execution. However, this time I was determined to go all the way from Canada border to Mexico border no matter what… I asked a few friends to join me as I take my car to Austin from Ann Arbor, but as luck would have it all of them got out one way or the other. So was I ready to call it off… No way here and I started my 1400 miles journey on my own (well for our Indian readers it is slightly more than Delhi – Bangalore Distance!)

I started on Friday, May 18, in early morning (11 AM to be more precise) and as I had decided to split my journey in two days with break at Memphis, I thought of covering 750 miles on Friday and remaining 650 Sunday after taking a day off in Memphis with my cousin. The 750 miles were further split in to three stretches – first one being after 300 miles near Indianapolis, next after 550 miles near St. Louis and finally at Memphis. However, as I started my journey, I was tempted to go on and on.

After taking my first break after crossing Indiana, I just didn’t feel like stopping. Of course the scenes in the way and the mileage of the car did help me to continue. In fact, one of the most memorable moments was to cross the Mississippi river between Illinois and Missouri. As I was crossing the bridge, the shear force of water underneath the bridge made my heart skip a beat of two and though the speed sign still said 65 miles an hour I could not stay on more than 50. For Indians, rivers have always had a mystery attached to them; however I had not seen something this big ever before. Gosh, it was hard to believe having seen the state of Ganges in Kanpur recently when it seemed nothing more than a canal. Even in Rishikesh, I have seen some people driving motor boats along the river; but seeing motor boats running from one bank to another was something I am sure not many Indians can digest easily. Anyways, after completing whole 450 miles in a record time (the distance equal to Delhi – Bhopal Journey), I finally reached Memphis at 10 PM local time. Some of the facts of the entire day –

Miles Covered – 750
States Covered – Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee
Major Cities – Indianapolis, St. Louis, Memphis

The Second Phase

It always seems easy to do less in the second phase; however the biggest hurdle becomes the boredom and lack of surprises. I had been chatting with myself for a long time now on the road and finally as I started to bore myself, I found something really occupying and this time it wasn’t Cowboys or Horse of Texas, it was the Texas Traffic. This leg of 650 miles was split between two states only, Arkansas and Texas, with one major stretch on I-30 being more than 320 miles. So as I was getting ready to cover this stretch and reach Dallas, I was illuminated with the truth of American city traffic; which I had been missing all this while in our small town of Ann Arbor, and there by I had been posting blogs on how different and difficult it is to drive in India. Sorry about that and here is the story – I was heading towards exit 44 on I30 from exit 48 (which means 4 miles of distance) and seeing 1:30 PM on my watch I was smiling to have covered so much in such a short time… so much so that I was thinking of reaching to Austin at around 4 (much ahead of my scheduled arrival at 5)… and suddenly I saw a whole sea of cars stopped in front of me… and on this highway with speed limits of 65 miles an hour it took me slightly more than an hour to cover 4 miles!

The journey there on was engrossing from the fact that I was constantly in the middle of this sea of traffic and getting my way forward was becoming increasingly difficult. Sooner I realized another fact about Austin. No matter how accurate your map may be, it is always difficult to find your way here and I lost my sense of direction in no time. Thankfully I had phone number of a friend of mine who had volunteered to help me in case I get lost and as he sat in front of his computer, it still took us nearly an hour to finally reach to my apartment from the nearest exit… phew!!! Even after reaching my apartment, things didn’t work out the way I would have like. From 1212 apt I searched all the way to finally reach at 2121… in between I had to call a few people to check my emails and as my phone gave up, I tried to get my computer hook on to some insecure wireless connection… got my way around the pressed shift key (my comp has this funny habit of getting the shift key on when I need it the most… those stupid practices of keeping numerals in your passwords are so crazy in these times)… all said and done I was home and on my bed at 7:00 PM… after completing a great journey all alone!

Miles Covered – 650
States Covered – Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee
Major Cities – Hope (Birth place of President Clinton), Dallas, Austin