To the great horror of all my relatives, who were all convinced that their little baby would end up strangled in a ditch somewhere, this winter I decided to take a road trip from Dallas back to Providence. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision, rationalized by my desire to bring a lovely set of mid-century modern dining furniture [thanks, Gramma!] to my apartment. I started out a few days after Christmas, and took two days to wind my way through the South before joining up with the Blue Ridge parkway to head north towards New England. I don't really have a fully-functioning digital camera at the moment, so most of the pictures I took were with my new cell phone, which has a surprisingly decent resolution.

Anyways, here were some of my favorite parts:

• The sendoff. In proper Harris fashion, any road trip must begin with a proper breakfast, and this time was no different. We packed up my rented mid-size SUV and made a small caravan for some down-home good eatin' at Cindi's. Once my car was no longer double-parked by a 16-wheeler Coca-Cola truck, I was on the road!


• The music. In addition to "an indie infinitie" (the awesome mix my brother made me) and three CDs of Gillian Welch from my friend Elana, I burned a sizable collection of my own music for the road. At each hotel I stopped at, I would burn more for the following day. My favorites were the Lost in Translation soundtrack (particularly excellent for misty Tennessee mornings), the Something's Gotta Give soundtrack (surprisingly appropriate for Arkansas), and tons and tons of public radio podcasts like Marketplace, This American Life, Hidden Kitchens, and RadioLab.


• The hotels. I stayed at hotels in Jackson, TN, Roanoke, VA, and Bethlehem, PA. While the first wasn't much to speak of, my second two hotels were excellent finds! The Hotel Roanoke was a restored train depot in the heart of old town Roanoke, complete with smoky pub and swanky restaurant. They gave me a warmed chocolate cookie upon checkin (its a standard DoubleTree thing, I believe). My hotel in Pennsylvania could have been a distaster - my original reservation in Allentown boasted room service from Red Robin - if I hadn't quickly asked for a refund and booked a night at the Hotel Bethlehem a few miles away. Located at the heart of the old Moravian settlement that started the town (on Christmas Eve, mind you), my room at this hotel overlooked a snowy street bustling with shoppers heading to the Christkindle markets. At night I could hear horse-drawn carriages clopping by. It was pretty much tailor made for me.


• The scenery. Driving camera-less through the country was a real blessing for me, because it allowed me to explore without feeling the need to document. My favorite thing to do was get up really early, grab some strong coffee from a local Starbucks, and get on the road in time to see the landscape as the sun was just up. Tennessee was mindblowing - a cold front had blown through the night before, so every body of water I passed by was steaming heavily, and the steam was rising into isolated patches of fog hugging the highway.
  Ok, I lied, I did try and take a few pictures:
  

And, in the end, my new dining table has been a fantastic addition to my apartment! I have to tear myself away from it to go work in studio, and its the perfect place to have a cup of coffee in the morning. I'm even kind of in love with the burnt-orange naugahyde chair cushions.

Total miles driven: 1,931
Average miles per day: 483
States visited: Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island