Suboptimal Routing

First off, I’d like to apologize to everyone for the lack of content appearing on the blog. Given the amount of time I spend on the road and then time I spend actually doing things once I get to my destinations, it’s been a bit difficult to find time to sit down and write. I’ll do my best to keep this updated a bit more but so you don’t miss out on anything, here is the basic order of all of my media updates from most frequent to least: Instagram (@suboptimalrouting) YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChMG_9zUKXvopXRAJt6cELQ ) Blog Ok, so with that out of the way, let’s get back to the trip. Big Bend National Park to Mesa, AZ: 756 Miles So the next morning after camping in Big Bend I packed up the car and hit the road for Arizona. I had an 11.5-hour trip ahead of me so I wanted to get an early start. Now let me tell you, this particular journey was pretty rough. I didn’t get a ton of sleep the night before because it turns out that the city-boy that I am c...

Bright and early Wednesday morning I packed up to go down to Big Bend. Actually, that’s only half true. It was early, but it certainly was not bright. I don’t think the sun had even begun to peek out yet. Now, while this may seem miserable to some of you, in truth, it provided for quite a nice drive. There was a very nice sunrise over the desert plains and far off mountains and since I was in the middle of nowhere, I had the views almost entirely to myself. Now, when I say I had the views almost entirely to myself, that actually may be an understatement. By the time I got on US-385, which goes in to the park, I was just surrounded by open desert. There was nobody. Else. There. It was extremely eerie to drive through a place with so little evidence of human contact. It felt like a zombie movie. Except there wasn’t even a place where zombies could pop out from. So maybe it was more like Cast Away but in a desert. I didn’t start talking to a volleyball so clearly it wasn’t that big of an ...

The day has come! I hit the road in Dallas just before 9 AM and set course for Marfa, TX. By some stroke of divine intervention, I was able to avoid almost all traffic in the metroplex. Clearly the traffic gods were looking favorably upon me. For those of you unfamiliar with Marfa, it’s a small town in the big bend area of far-west Texas. I had been told that this was supposed to be a nice little artsy town with a cool amount of tourist-y activities. What I was NOT told, unfortunately, was that on Tuesdays the town resembles a ghost town straight out of an old western film. I ended up getting a nice meal and some local beer at a hotel bar so not all was lost. All in all though, I was bit disappointed with my visit. Maybe someday I’ll go back when things are actually happening. The good news though is that the drive immediately in to Marfa is quite nice. As far as I’m concerned I was driving through the real-life Kalimari Desert level of Mario Kart 64; there were train track...

On July 11 th , 2017, I’ll be moving from Dallas, the city I’ve called home for the last 6 years, to Pittsburgh, where I’ll be back in school for the next 2. Naturally, I’ve packed up my things and I’ll be driving up there. According to Google Maps, driving from Dallas, Texas to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is 1221 miles and takes just shy of 18 hours.  It’s a simple route, going through Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. There are some nice things to see along the way: Graceland in Memphis, Bourbon Distilleries in Louisville, and I’m sure there’s something relating to Lebron James to see in Ohio. By any measure, there are enough sights and attractions along this route to make for a nice road trip without even having to go too far out of the way. This is not the route I’m taking. My intended routing is what we’re going to call… suboptimal. A trip that should reasonably be a leisurely weekend, I am turning in to a 3-week behemoth of a cross-country expedition: The Ro...