We drove through a fair chunk of the United States on our road trip, most of which we haven’t seen before. Here are our thoughts:
Montana: Missoula residents are disarmingly friendly, even at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday. Strangers wished us a good morning and held the door open for us at McDonald’s. Beautiful mountains and hills, with giant limestone letters topping several of them.
Wyoming: The least-populated state, which you begin to understand after driving out of the picturesque Teton Valley, to be met with increasingly barren-looking lands of scrub brush, antelope, and a cavalcade of semi-trucks. Fun fact, there are only two escalators in the whole state, and they’re both at a bank in Casper.
Colorado: A mix of mountainous and arid terrain, we were smitten by the red rock formations. This is also where we encountered our first Trader Joe’s, where we proceeded to go nuts buying snacks.
New Mexico: One of our new favourite places! We loved the desert climate, adobe architecture, and abundant art and culture. Especially Santa Fe. We also took a detour to Roswell, which is to aliens what Drumheller, AB, is to dinosaurs. The UFO Museum was out of this world!
Texas: WHY IS IT SO BIG?! I knit an entire sock in the time it took us to drive the length of the state — 10 hours in all. This is also where we encountered the transcendent Buc-ee’s truck stops for which Texas is famous. Enormous, well-stocked, and unironically a major highlight of the whole trip, Buc-ee’s is a religious experience.
Louisiana: Our ultimate destination was Lake Charles, which is in the boot heel of Louisiana. The weather was not kind to us while we were down there (including a literal tornado passing through on our last night), but it was nice to see my family!
And the latter leg of our journey is where the photos drop off.
Tennessee: We stayed on the outskirts of Memphis, which is probably only interesting if you’re an Elvis fan, which we are not. Instead, we were there for barbecue, which lived up to the hype. Memphis Barbecue Company is a woman-owned barbecue joint with 10 World Championships under its belt, and a dynamite brisket.
Missouri: There’s a reason why St. Louis-style ribs are a thing. At Heavy Smoke, we had ribs so tender, the meat slid right off just from being picked up, leaving pristine bones behind. Beyond that, we didn’t get up to much besides driving. We saw an awful lot of armadillos on the highway, which have become a major pest for this state. Surprisingly, we missed out on the cicada infestation.
Minnesota: Minneapolis felt suspiciously Canadian. Even the Mall of America bears a striking resemblance to our own West Edmonton Mall. Midwest charm in a metropolitan city, the concierge at the hotel was the friendliest person we’ve ever met in our lives and sent us on our way with a little treat bag for the road.
North Dakota: Bismarck is the 15th smallest capital city in the USA, with a population of just over 73,000 people. Yet the hotel we stayed at was the busiest one on the whole route because of some sort of baseball tournament. Very sparse and Saskatchewan-esque, which makes sense as they share a border.
14 days, 10,000 km, and 10 states — not including the ones we only passed through, like Mississippi and Idaho — adds up to a once-in-a-lifetime adventure! (No really, we will only ever do this once!)