Old is the New New

Tags: How I spent my summer vacation.

Old is the New New is still on summer hiatus, but here’s the new old content I’ve been promising you: my new summer vacation blog, Route 96!

Ten years ago, in the summer of 1996, I and two friends drove across the USA and back. Actually, that makes the trip sound more linear than it was. Really, we drove around the country, in a big rambling loop. We avoided the interstates whenever possible, taking two-lane highways and seeking out all the roadside Americana we could find: Graceland and Las Vegas, sure, but also things like Carhenge, Roswell’s UFO Research Center, and the World’s Largest Talking Cow. We covered ten thousand miles and visited twenty-five states. It was one of the most excellent things I’ve ever done in my life.

After we returned, I wrote the whole trip up and published it as a zine. Because that was what one did in the days before weblogs. Ten years later, to commemorate the anniversary of that trip, to share the love with a new generation, and to imagine a time where I could seriously contemplate spending four freaking weeks tooling across the continent with my underemployed buddies, I’m going to blog the ten-year-old zine, entry by entry, on this snazzy new weblog. (I’m also using this as a way to play with WordPress, since I’m thinking of switching this blog over to that at some point.)

Come, get your kicks on Route 96.