Cross country road trip

Everything else
1

My wife and I are about to embark upon a cross country road trip for a family reunion, going from L.A. to Louisville, down to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, then coming back home with a stop in Dallas. Our 8 mo. old daughter is coming too, though she doesn’t know yet about all the fun and excitement that’s waiting for her next week. Stopping frequently to get her out of the car but she’ll probably sleep the majority of the trip.

Anyone have any tips I might have missed? LA -> near Denver -> Kansas City -> Louisville in 3+ days is going to be a lot of driving but should work.

Any particularly exciting things we should see on the route? My wife’s found a list of interesting stuff but maybe someone’s actually done this before and remembers something cool. I-70 to I-64 on the way there then back through Memphis on I-40 to I-30 to I-20 to I-10 on the way back.

2

That’s a lot of driving, my good man. How much time will you have in Louisville?

H.

3

I’ve only driven across the US once, from Philly to LA, but it was amazing. You’re taking a much different route than I did (I mostly took the 40 halfway across), but I’m sure you’ll have a great time, and I hope you have a safe trip!

4

We should get there Monday night (7/16) and leave Weds morning for the reunion. My wife’s sister teaches at the U of Louisville so we’re stopping by to see their new house, visit, etc. Not sure what they have planned or what we’re supposed to see there as I’ve never been!

5

Ah, enough time to do a few things!

First, we’re a big foodie town, so definitely hit some local eateries. If you go Ethiopian you’ll be right by my house!

Second, if you’re a bourbon drinker, we have the Urban Bourbon trail, use wisely. You can also stop and do a distillery tour on your way out of the area in Bardstown.

There are four main entertainment corridors:

Bardstown Road: Irish bars, local restaurants, younger crowd with a big dose of hippy.

Crescent Hill/St. Matthews: Restaurants, shops, etc. Much smaller but a bit older and more refined.

NuLu: Nobody actually calls it that, but it’s E. Market St. downtown. Not really recommended on weekdays, it’s pretty barren until the weekend.

4th Street Live: Shitty corporate forced entertainment area. This is where the Hard Rock and similar stuff live. It’s there to attract the convention and ballgame crowds, locals don’t really go except for the d-bag meat markets on Saturday.

Downtown you have the Frazier Arms Museum, The Muhammad Ali museum, 21c (Conde Nast best hotel in the U.S.) bar/restaurant/museum/hotel, Kentucky Center for the Arts, and the Louisville Slugger museum, Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, all within six blocks on W. Main.

Other than that we have fantastic Olmstead-designed parks and the usual fluff of a minor city. Let me know if you’re looking for anything in particular.

6

“Are we there yet?”

(Repeat ad nauseum)

7

Cool, thanks! I’ll run all this by the interested parties.

8

Reason #1 why we’re doing this before she can talk!

9

I have relatives in Kansas City and Dallas so we’re going different ways there and back - plus new scenery, etc. Thanks!

10

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/

Lots of good and not so good but never not interesting things to see here. We do lots of driving trips and really the most fun we have is finding the cool yet off the beaten path places.

11

I recommend TripAdvisor. My wife had this on her iPad for our comparatively small road-trip the other week and we found it to be very useful for scaring up a decent place to eat in an unfamiliar locale that wasn’t a national chain of some kind.

12

Oh, that place is a hoot! Does the gallery/restaurant still have the one-way glass on the wall in the men’s room?

It sounds creepy, but for me the effect was more along the lines of amusingly dislocating and absurd. Basically, you’re standing in front of a large wall-to-wall, waist-to-ceiling window as you take a leak. If the stars are right, you’ll find yourself face to face with someone two feet away, oblivious, checking their hair in the “mirror.”

13

I haven’t been by in quite a while, so I can’t say. We’re about five blocks away from connecting up our entertainment corridors, if we do that and put in free trolley service on the weekend I think downtown would finally take off permanently.

14

If possible I would explore getting out of the interstate and driving on the 2-lane roads for a while - it’s a much more interesting drive and less stressful to boot!

15

I wish we had more time/money for this sort of option but definitely not possible for this trip…maybe a future one, assuming this goes well!

16

If you’re into samurai culture they recently opened an exhibit at the Frazier.

17

wait, you’re doing all of that in 3+ days?

— Alan

18

This sounds pretty interesting too - I’ll see if we have a chance to check it out.

That’s the plan!

19

That’s too bad - you can actually do most of Route 66 on your way there if you wanted to.

Anyway, I also drove on I-70 (and US-50 for the 2-lane portion) past Kansas City and Denver in my roadtrip from Michigan down to California back in May so here are my thoughts:

  1. Colorado and Utah is where the fun is - I-70 is a actually a nice drive through these two states and I suggest stopping at Arches National Park before you cross over to Colorado and into Denver - you go up and through the Rockies in this route, which is really cool. It would be awesome if you can head down to Colorado springs as well, but you probably don’t have time for that.

  2. Once you get past Denver, just tough it out and keep driving. The only semi-interesting stop in Kansas is probably Lawrence so you can check out the college town atmosphere. Ideally you won’t stop until you hit Kansas City( or head right into St. Louis if you have the stamina)

20

If you are going to keep to that schedule, you won’t be stopping much.