Best and Worst of Road Tripping

Photo of me at the Grand Canyon : Taken by Maya Lucchitta

I give you the best and worst of road-tripping. I've had two of those this year. The first one was in March and involved driving a good stretch of I-90 in the north. The second is the one I ended on May 15 and involved driving through the U.S. South and then up through California and on into Oregon and Washington. Both were great! I highly recommend a good, hearty road trip.

Best Natural Wonder: It's a toss up between the Grand Canyon and Yosemite. Both are spectacular!
Best Humanmade Wonder: The Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
Worst Natural Wonder: Is there such a thing?
Worst Humanmade Wonder: The Houston Expressway. 16 lanes. Really? Is that necessary? Come on Texas, get green already!
Best Breakfast: A toss up between The Eggshead Restaurant in Fort Bragg, CA, and Cafe Pasquales in Santa Fe, NM.
Worst Breakfast: The diner off of the interstate in Georgia. Hands down horrible. Puke worthy. Wish I could remember the name to ward you all off, but alas.
Best Hotel: Any of the Best Westerns we stayed in were good.
Worst Hotel: The Motel 6 20 minutes north of San Antonio, TX.
Best Accommodations with Friends: They were all good! Thanks Lisa, Cal and Ann, Senga and Joni, Virginia, Ivo and Barbara, Heidi and Joe, Gram Kincaid, Sid and Toz, and Cele.
Worst Accommodations with Friends: None of the above.
Best Roads: Is there such a thing?!
Worst Roads: All of them.
Funnest Backroad: Old Route 66. The Burma Shave ads alone made it a blast!
Coolest Sight: Everything. The San Francisco Peaks at sunset, Carlsbad Caverns, the Badlands and Mount Rushmore, El Morro, the Lincoln Presidential Museum, the Nauvoo Temple. It was all cool!
Most Disappointing Sight: All the traffic in Yosemite.
Most Surprising Discovery: The beauty of Texas' Hill Country. Wasn't expecting that. And the use of styrofoam containers in the South. And Sedona, Arizona. That blew me absolutely out of the water!
Least Surprising Discovery: New Orleans. I expected it to be a little sleazy and seedy. It more than lived up to that expectation, which was kind of disappointing in its own right.
Cheapest Gas: Somewhere in Alabama, I think.
Most Expensive Gas: Southern California, of course.
State with the Stupidest Law: Oregon, where it's illegal to pump your own gas.
Number of Tickets: 1 for doing 74 in a 60 mph zone on the last day of the trip in Washington State. There's a story all it's own, too.

Photo copyright: Maya Lucchitta, 05/09