Prologue - Part IV: Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Is it the journey or the destination that is more important? In my case I think it’s both. The destination is an excuse to have the journey, and the journey makes finally getting to the destination more meaningful. It’s the stops on that journey that will determine whether or not that is true. So, what is it I’m planning on seeing on my journey? How about the remains of Styx River Water World amusement park in Robertsdale, AL? Or the world’s largest rocking chair or Ronald Reagan statue? Or making several stops along the Mississippi's Tamale Trail? Or a giant dime in a box in Dime Box, TX? These are the kinds of paces I want to see, but I didn’t start out knowing where these things are.


There was no one source for everything planned on this trip. Between camping, eating, and the various roadside attractions it took several tools. There were a variety of TV shows and websites that came in to play. For food, the single best source of stops on the road was Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt, which chronicles various unique or uniquely high-quality stops. Instead of watching every episode, I took advantage of the stop listings on the shows Wikipedia page and watched only the pertinent ones. While little, if any, were added to the list from Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, Man v. Food, and a one of the few stateside episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, they were at least entertaining if not helpful.

When it came to the discovery of tourist traps and other roadside ephemera there was no resource more useful than that of Roadside America. This site is the Mecca of the highway bizarre. It’s a combination of first-party field reviews and third-party user submissions. There are lists divided by state, a Google Map enabled search by city or state, and even an iPhone app ($2.99 per region or $5.99 for the entire US). To a lesser extent the Atlas Obscura and completely random Google and Wikipedia searches for places of interest near towns I already knew I was going through also came in handy. In some states there was an overload of offbeat options, others a dearth. In the end I hope I’ve found a decent balance. I guess I’ll find out the hard way.

So far, the hardest, and thus not entirely planned out part is how to arrange to be near a state or national park at the end of the day. The idea for this part of the trip came about by the fact that my route took me past and even through several parks of interest, such as White Sands National Monument. So far the National Park Service has been absolutely invaluable. It’s surprisingly easy to use considering it’s a government entity, and has all the information I need. The state parks sites, which are designed and implemented individually by state, have not been nearly as helpful. Or at least some of them haven’t. All are relatively easy to navigate, but none of them are laid out the same and some have more information than others. The biggest concern is what time the offices at each park close and how to figure out if I can make it there. I’ll post and update once I get that portion of the trip sorted out.