Skip To Content

    19 Things You Talk About During A Cross-Country Road Trip

    I drove from New York to Los Angeles in three days with my brother. This is what happened.

    BACKGROUND: A few weeks ago I moved from New York City to Los Angeles, and like any sane person, I chose to drive myself instead of taking a magical flying tube aka an airplane. (Those things suck anyway — driving is wayyyy cooler.) My brother Eric volunteered to drive with me, bless his soul (also he scored brownie points with our grandma for doing this, so it's a win for him too).

    We both had time constraints, so this was going to be the fastest cross-country road trip in the history of road trips. THAT'S RIGHT: IT WAS GOING TO TAKE US LESS THAN 15 MINUTES. Just kidding, but it would take us exactly three days. Now I'm going to share with you all of the things we talked about on our three-day trip, so that you can experience what we experienced, because I know you want to.

    1. Road signs.

    "Lol, did you see that route was called 420." Eric and I probably attempted to take 200 pictures of road signs that we found ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS AND AMAZING. Only about five came out "clear"; the rest look like the photo below.

    2. Other signs unfamiliar to us passersby.

    3. What your road trip snacks resemble.

    4. This dog.

    5. What do babies and animals think about?

    6. Things you write after driver delirium aren't as funny as they are to you at the moment of delirium.

    7. What happens when you ship an E-ZPass?

    8. Sunsets, and bugs fucking up your sunsets.

    AREN'T SUNSETS SO PRETTY?!?! You get to see a bunch of them when you are driving west, because it's like you are driving into the sun. However, BUGS WILL RUIN YOUR SUNSET (photo on the right). Look at those dead bugs blocking our view! RIP bugs.

    9. How fun that one rest stop was.

    10. Has anyone named their child exit?

    We were an hour and a half away from Ohio and I became curious. Out loud I asked, "Do you think anyone in the world is actually named 'Exit'?" I googled it, and it turns out there IS. At least two people actually. They reside in Mississippi and they both have the last name McQuarter. Are you Exit McQuarter? I'd like to take you to lunch if so.

    11. When is it appropriate to turn on your windshield wipers? (And that's what rain looks like from afar.)

    12. Guy Fieri.

    An important thing to do when deciding where to eat while passing through a random state that you don't know anything about is ask yourself, "What would Guy Fieri do?" So we turned to the the bible of food TV shows, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. There we found our answer, and so we stopped at this sandwich place to get...um...sandwiches, endorsed by GUY HIMSELF. They were good. We also bought a lotto ticket there and did not win.

    13. Time zone games.

    14. And time zone questions.

    15. Landscapes

    A lotta landscapes out there in this here country! But mostly it's corn fields and mountains. In fact it's all corn fields until you get to Colorado. Then it's mountains, then it's canyon things (but not GRAND ones — those are reserved for ridges that were named during the 1920s when "swell canyon" just didn't seem like the best name), and then it's desert. The pic on the left is Eric in front of a cool mountain thing in Colorado. We decided to stop at this one because as you can tell by the other photo here, it was a good place to get that perfect ~empty road in the middle of the good ol' USA~ pic. Shortly after this photo we were on a stretch of road for 129 miles without any exits or rest stops. The landscape was mostly sandy rock.

    16. How many hours are left before we are there.

    17. Miscellaneous dumb shit.

    18. VEGAS, BABY.

    No road trip across America would be complete without at least a quick pit stop in Vegas. Even though it was late and we still had hours to cover, we decided that Vegas had to be done. "In and out in 30 minutes — OK?" HAHA FAMOUS LAST WORDS. This was my first time in Vegas; it was like Disneyland for adults, but sadder. We walked in and I put $20 down on a game of roulette. Within 15 seconds I had lost that $20. I felt defeated and betrayed by Vegas. It had gotten me good. Gotten me real good. After my major loss, we checked out the strip, my brother made a sports bet (which I helped him lose), and then made our way back to the car. But before we went I decided to try out a slot machine. It was then that I won $25 and felt like I was on top of the world. After about two hours there I came out with a profit of $5! That's the thing with Vegas: It chews you up and spits you out, but you love it!

    19. How fun it actually was.

    vine.co

    Long days, not enough sleep, too much country music, and way too much junk food. That's what a road trip is, I guess? But even with all of that shitty stuff, and even though driving kind of sucks and the end can never be close enough in sight, it's kind of awesome to spend three days with your brother, out on the open road, talking about baby thoughts, and taking pictures of sunsets. (So you should do it too). Also, car sing-alongs.