Roadtrip USA

After a long and gruelling 3,000 mile drive I have finally arrived at my new post in New Jersey.

I have been reassigned to our New York/New Jersey bureau to oversee the setup of the newest addition to the Asian Journal Publications family.

The trip took about four days and passed through the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and finally ending at the city of Edgewater in New Jersey.

I drove the company provided 2007 Honda Odyssey minivan (which I fondly call Homer) for an average of 10 hours per day, racking up at least 700 miles before my buddy Luky (Indonesian driver of Asian Journal) took over usually in the evening or when I felt that my body was crashing with fatigue.

The van was pretty much loaded with 3 people barely able to fit in with the rest of the space filled with luggage and boxes full of computers and office supplies.

Good thing that we were very lucky during the roadtrip since I have a bad tendency to stomp on the accelerator on the usually empty freeways, reaching as fast as 110mph (150kph-160 I think). But usually I tried to stay 10 miles of the stated speed limit which was about 65-75 depending on which state your are driving in. We were advised that state troopers were kinda strict in the heartland but I only had two or three close calls with the smokeys.

Thanks to the Magellan roadmate 2000 GPS and to AAA TripTix we didn't get lost and managed to find superb room rates along the way.

The drive itself was exhilirating and the view quite fantastic specially when driving thru the high deserts of Utah and the mountain passes of Colorado. After that the view was kinda tedious passing thru the heartland of America. I mean it was corn or wheatfields as far as the eye can see. Unfortunately I was too caught up with driving that I barely appreciated the scenery. Thus the virtual dearth of pictures which I would normally have plenty of if I did not drive.

Given the chance I would do the trip again and if permitted I think I could solo from LA to NJ to get one of our delivery vans.