The Great American Road Trip
69 dispatches from the road, in the order they were written — starting with the two chapters that set the trip up.
Browse the trip by state
46 states and D.C. have a dispatch. Gold tiles open it — or a list when there’s more than one. Grey tiles don’t have one (yet).
Hover or tap a state.
Great American Road Trip — Chapter One
CHAPTER ONE “THE GREAT AMERICAN ROAD TRIP” The lure of a road trip beckons hardest in Spring. Flower blooms and crisp air, sunny days and shimmering tarmac, it all begs for a…
Great American Road Trip — Chapter Two: The Car
CHAPTER TWO “NOT JUST A CAR, ITS A CADILLAC” I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. In the 1970s and 80’s, Birmingham was a Buick town. The president of the bank drove a Buick. The…
Alabama State Line
Dashing out of my home state, pedal to the metal, I forgot that the Heart of Dixie has one of the best roadside attractions in the country: a genuine Saturn 5 rocket. The perfect…
Viva Nashvegas
Nashville skyline never ceases to amaze. It matches the fins on the Brougham. The city itself is deceptive. From classics such as the Grand Ole Opry to modern restaurants and…
Kentucky’s State Line
After having fed the collector car another 9 gallons at mile 412 of my trip, I decided it was time to feed myself. Now, as the former travel editor and food critic of Southern…
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Oozed the Cadillac into this General Motors town at 1 pm. What a great place to be in a collector car–the home of the Corvette and the Cadillac XLR. After a nice segment on WBKO…
Charleston, West Virginia
The Brougham nearly catches fire. Hobnobbing with Rolls Royces.
Running Hot in Fairfax
Pulling into Fairfax, the Brougham began to overheat. Kelly Estes of Estes Automotive in Birmingham used a laser thermometer to measure my engine heat–the gauge, as it turns out,…
A Sunday Capital Cruise
Sunday in the City With all the figurative storm clouds swirling around Washington, DC, it was almost a shock to see the city so bright and lovely. It’s impossible not to…
Monday in Philly
This morning I got underway at 7 o’clock and the car was grumbly and cranky. She flooded twice and then wouldn’t start as I pulled out into traffic (near the Washington beltway).…
Sick in Sicklerville
A few other people recommended a carburetor man in Sicklerville, New Jersey, about 30 minutes south of Philadelphia towards Atlantic City. Racing Carburetors isn’t a huge…
Sicker in Sicklerville
Pat picked me up at the Best Western at 9 o’clock and by 11 o’clock we had the new voltage regulator in the car and working fine. All ready to go–except the fuel regulator was…
Batmobile pulls into Gotham
The Brougham ran a little lean driving through Jersey and into New York, which caused it to run a tad warm. But otherwise, she purred into Manhattan. New Yorkers are actually…
Lloyd Neck, New York
You may be wondering, where the devil is Lloyd Neck, New York and why would I drive a 1958 Cadillac down the world’s longest parking lot (the Long Island Expressway)? My bride…
My Cousin Joe
Actually, Joe is my cousin-in-law by marriage. But let’s not get bogged down in genealogy. Joe is a former racer and has sped along at more than 300 miles per hour in drag racing…
A Southerner in Connecticut
A gorgeous morning made for perfect driving in Motordom’s Masterpiece this morning. Cranking the Brougham is a still a bit of a mystery to me, despite great advice through the…
Pulling into Hartford, Connecticut
What a gorgeous capital city. Hartford’s streets are full of sculpture and history. I hot-footed it around the city, delayed somewhat by my fuel gauge mishap. Still, I managed to…
The Ocean State
Floating into Rhode Island proved an easy jaunt from Connecticut, taking back roads all the way. The gas gauge came back to life, but I kept a sharp eye on the odometer just in…
Pulling into Beantown
I have never been to Boston, and much to the chagrin of Mrs. Murphy (who went to New England Conservatory, www.newenglandconservatory.edu, my first visit to her college town was…
Top 10 Hotel Annoyances
As a former travel editor for Southern Living, I have been in more hotel rooms than the Gideon Bible. Check out some of my old stories at www.southernliving.com/travel/ As you…
Big Bucks in Boston
How do you start a business? How do you fund a new venture? How do you survive? All questions I’m frequently asked on the road. It’s true that capital is currently hard to come…
Docked in Portland
Good people of Portland: you are punk. I have seen more tattoos in the past 24 hours than in my past 10 years in the U.S. Navy. And some unusual daily drivers: a right-hand drive…
A Hoot of a Car Show
I drove to Rockland, not for its huge contingent of media, but for the “Spring Auto & Antique Aeroplane Show” at the Owls Head Transportation Museum. A friend in the Cadillac and…
Best Burger in New Hampshire
The Brougham seemed to be behaving after a week of struggles. Suddenly, in Maine, she began to run cooler and even the generator seems to be charging again. Did she heal herself?…
Rainy Days and Toll Booths
A few friends have asked, “What is it like driving a 1958 Cadillac? Are you uncomfortable?” Good Lord, no. Driving a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado is like getting injected with…
A Wrong Turn
No, I wasn’t lost, thankfully. But somewhere around the quaint city of Hopkinton, my stomach took a turn for the worse. Having been a food critic for years, I know food poisoning.…
Putting on the Ritz
This is a helluva way to break in a new engine rebuild, but I’m thankful not to have had car trouble since Boston. I have stopped holding my breath while listening to the faint…
Vroom through Vermont
By now, caught in the fading twilight of a slightly chilly evening, my stomach was in full revolt, rumbling like the Brougham’s exhaust. Though I’d planned on lingering in…
The Brougham Spa
Want to learn how to fix your car? Take it on a 15,000-mile road trip. I promise–you will know your automobile, every blessed rattle, squeak, and rumble. Better still, visit…
What was that!?
My wife’s brother and sister-in-law have a huge and gorgeous cabin in Hancock, Massachusetts. Jiminy Peak Resort is less than a mile away, and in winter, it’s one of the best ski…
Small Business Details
I’m getting a crash course (well, hopefully not an actual crash) in running a small business. Starting Motorpool this year has been the most exciting time of my life–a very…
Motoring through Motown
Most collectors appreciate history, which is why they have a passion for vintage cars. With that passion usually comes an interest in the car’s provenance, the manufacturing…
The Windy City
Chicago sits just a few hours from Fort Wayne, and the Cadillac ate up the miles like Rosanne Barr at a Chinese buffet. Bucolic farms and barns soon turned to smokestacks and…
Cutting through Cheese Country
My fascination with Chicago and the car’s electrical spasm put me more than a day behind schedule, so air traffic control (Catherine Russell, our office manager) routed the…
Another Parking Lot Repair
At five this morning I bolted out of bed and made for the parking lot. Aside from the 41-degree weather and being stranded in tired Holiday Inn, it was a stunning day in…
Escape from Cheese Country
I’m lactose intolerant. It’s not that I can’t eat cheese, milk and other diary products, it’s just that I’m ready to get out of Wisconsin. My cousin, Kim Morgan Jemison, has…
Twin City Despair
Breakfast at the Best Western revealed a car-enthusiast waitress, who came out with the cook, dishwasher, and general manager to see our stately departure from the parking lot.…
Fargo
Throughout our time in this friendly North Dakota town, Kim and I developed an annoying joke routine of peppering all our conversation with lines from the 1996 Coen brothers…
The feeling is mutual
Omaha rose off the plains like a shimmering oasis. We stayed at a fantastic Marriott and spent the morning seeing a few sites. The Lewis & Clark landing seemed particularly…
Filling up in Corn Country
Filling up in corn country with a little help from a local. Fortunately, the drive to Kansas City began to clear. We stopped for some premium with ethanol to put in the classic…
Going Home
People who love old cars also have a good appreciation for history. I’m one of the lucky collector car owners who knows the history of my car. In fact, I bought the car from it’s…
Going to Kansas City
At Kansas City Airport, I bid goodbye to Kim (boy I’ll miss her) and waited to pick up my next riders for the trip, Dr. & Mrs. Charles Bugg–Charlie and Bebe to those who know…
Coming Unplugged
Unbelievably, the Brougham isn’t charging again. My generator light is on and the needle reads “discharging.” No amount of profanity can adequately sum up my frustration. Let’s…
Big D Mayday
So my mission of the day: fix the car (again). It’s probably either the voltage regulator or (worse) the generator itself. Maybe both. My friend and fellow Brougham driver Ken…
Vegas or bust
It’s about 8:30. I went to bed at 2:15 and awoke to the alarm at 7. Today will be a long day–Las Vegas is 867 miles away. That’s about 13 hours, if the car continues to run…
I just love old Arkansas
The original schedule called for a straight shot to Tulsa, Oklahoma, but the car was running fine, the day had the sort of sparkle one only finds at the beginning of summer, and…
Missouri—All in the family
In South Missouri, we stopped to get gas in Anderson. Many people approach the Brougham at gas stations. A giant, blue, be-finned spacecraft does merit a “howdy,” and everyone…
Oklahoma City
There are a handful of restaurants in the word that I get really, truly excited about. One is Cattlemen’s Restaurant in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Cattlemen’s isn’t fancy. It…
Or Bust
If you followed my Twitter log yesterday, you know that the day started early. I left the tramps at the Hampton Inn and headed to the nearest gas station to top off the tank and…
Viva Las Vegas
The phone rang at 8 o’clock. It was the fire marshal–they were threatening to tow the Brougham from its designated parking spot. Evidently the place where “Jimmy,” the hotel’s…
Leaving Las Vegas
This marks my first time to Vegas, so before I left town I drove the big Cadillac up the strip. After all, what could go better in Vegas than the car that Frank Sinatra drove in…
Hollywood Days
No, I have not wrapped the Brougham around a tree. The drive simply became so intense that I’ve not had a moment to update the blog. My apologies. Felt right at home tooling…
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
California is a big place, especially when you are driving from LA to Seattle. Granted, it’s beautiful–it just stretches on forever. For some reason I thought of San Francisco as…
WESTWARD HO
This morning I awoke bright and early. I had to leave Sutherlin by 7 a.m. so I would reach the Seattle airport in time to pick up Kim Morgan, my cousin. Checking out, I talked to…
The Pacific Northwest
Lake Moses had been a pleasant place to stay for the evening and boasted many retro hotels/motel signs. As we continued east both Kim and I marveled at the stunning landscape.…
Next Time I’m Taking a Buick
I awoke this morning found my Cadillac amongst a sea of Buicks. I’ve always bee rather partial to Buicks. I got my drivers license in Buick Electra Estate Wagon (with genuine…
The Long Haul
Our journey began the next morning at seven a.m. and took us through the verdant hills of Southern Colorado and long stretches of New Mexico. Long, straight, and flat: roads made…
Texas to NOLA
Wichita Falls hosted us last night. Now, Wichita Falls does not have a Ritz Carlton. There’s no Four Seasons (tragically). You can’t even find an Omni in town. So look at these…
Going Flat
After an hour’s sleep, I awoke to a dim Louisiana sky. The time: 5 o’clock a.m. Time to make the doughnuts. Slipping behind the wheel, I piloted the Cadillac over to the air pump…
Mrs. Murphy swoops into Town
Astute readers may have noticed that Mrs. Murphy has not made an appearance in the blog since New York. And back there, she wisely only rode in the Brougham for about 30 miles.…
A Little Dark Magic
Ahh, blissful sleep. Mrs. Murphy and I (finally) had a moment to sleep late and enjoy the sweet summer slumber of a New Orleans morning. With one last cup of cafe au lait, we…
A Katrina Car
My friend and broker, David Malone, suggested I swing by a restaurant named Mandina’s for lunch. To be honest, I really wanted to eat at that great New Orleans cliche, Mother’s,…
Mississippi Blues
With Mrs. Murphy in the Brougham, things were perking along well. We’d eaten, drunk, and been merry in the Big Easy and I felt confident about the trip ahead. Who wouldn’t be…
Gulf Coast Cruising
If you haven’t seen Mississippi’s Gulf Coast since CNN coverage of Katrina, you owe it to yourself to take a trip. Now, I’d suggest attending “Cruising the Coast,” which is one of…
Navarre and Destin
My family always spent our summer vacation in a small beachfront community called Navarre. When I was small, there was nothing there but the whitest sand in the world. It’s like…
Song of the South
Some say General Sherman (that bastard) didn’t torch Savannah because it was “too beautiful to burn.” Others claim Savannah’s lack of resistance and strategic import to the…
Lady Charleston
On the way to South Carolina’s coastal gem, I pulled off the road at the Carolina Cider Company to take a break. Today’s driving habits, when it comes to pitstops, involve…
State 48
We slept in on a beautiful Charleston morning, eventually making our way to the famous Hominy Grill for some grits. Today was the day. The day I finally made it to all 48 states.…
4 small numbers 1119
Bigger numbers: 605, truck regulator; 53 to 57 amps. 1119636 will also work. 53-57 amp output. King’s stuff: 601, will vary by temperature 85 degrees–44 to 49, at 205, between…