Monday, September 8, 2014

The Long Road Trip

The Jetta somewhere in Rural Iowa.  That dust stuck to the car all the way home.
Sometimes you realize you've screwed up.  Ok.  I'll give you that one.  This post is my biggest mea culpa to date.  I swore to myself when I started writing about  my 2014 Jetta that I would be better, that this would be the Long-term-test to end all long term tests. A journal of my day-to-day car quabbles.

So far, my expectations haven't lived up to my self-driven hype.

Over the next several weeks I'll be posting a "run from the road" which is just an update on my recent barnstorm tour of the midwestern United States.  As you can see from the "States" section to your right, during the period in Late July and Early August, I ended up traversing almost half of the country.  In my August mileage reporting period alone I racked up an impressive 4,000 miles.

The reason?  My youngest cousin was getting married in Omaha and he asked me to be the photographer.

My initial thought was: Omaha?  Can't I just buy a present and be done with it?  In the end, I'm glad I didn't.  While the journey across the country was arduous, and portions of Missouri were so boring I resorted to counting off miles between where I sat and the furthest item I could see in the distance (they don't call 'em the flyover states for nothing!) parts of the drive were spectacularly (and surprisingly!) beautiful. 

The end result was, it was a spectacular trip.  The only change I'd make if I could go back and do it again would be to plan more time in some of the stops. 

With similar tours of the Southeast and Northeast coming up soon, I can say with certainty I didn't learn my lesson...but I promise to be more entertaining and current on those updates than I have been with this one!