So, we decided that she and I would drive out to Palo Alto so that she could have her car and bike with her during the next two year west coast adventure. The cross country trip would give us a chance to spend some quality time together, enjoy our country’s landscape and tick off a few states off our “been” lists. There was one (big) caveat: I was still recovering from major surgery and I wanted to make sure that the trip would not hurt my recovery process. I consulted with my doctor and he recommended that we not push it, take our time, and break each day’s drives into 2 - 3 hour segments. The decision to make the drive had come in early/mid August. We knew she had to be in Stanford on 9/12 so that she could get her living quarters sorted out and begin the process of integrating into her new community. Our goal was to arrive on 9/11.

The last time I made a cross country trip of this magnitude was in 1986 when my cousin and I drove from LA to DC. Back then there was no GPS, and no iphone, just plain old paper maps. And, back then, unlike this time around, the objective was to get across as quickly as possible. This time around we had the luxury of time - I arranged for at least 12 days off work and planned for at least seven days to get across.

My initial planning was to head to Google maps and begin plotting the route. The most difficult part of the process was figuring out where to stop every couple of hours. As I was struggling with the logistics it dawned on me, “this may be the perfect opportunity to use AI,” so I did.

I turned to ChatGPT and entered the following prompt: ”Help me plan a trip from Northern VA to Palo Alto, CA. I only want to drive for a maximum of 8-9 hours a day and I want to stop in places where there is something to do.”

Chat GPT returned a pretty interesting itinerary - I continued to tweak my prompt asking for stops every two hours, including hikes and landmarks, eliminating cities and places we knew we did not want to drive through and ultimately ended with the following route:

The more I prompted ChatGPT, the more it learned what my preferences were, and the more it adjusted the places to stop at to match our interests. Ultimately, the route included six overnight stops, 7 yet to be determined “cool” hikes, and a myriad of other places where could stop for lunch along the way. We also wanted “some” flexibility along the way and ended up skipping at least one out of the way spot that would have added nearly two hours to our drive through KS and opted instead for a visit to Carmel, IN instead of Indianapolis. Overall it was a great adventure and after having gone through it I would only change a couple of things, including skipping Reno, NV and staying at either Truckee, CA, or Lake Tahoe. Had we had one more day we would have definitely headed south along the lake and then continued west along 50 to Sacramento. Alas, hindsight is 20/20.

Below is our day to day itinerary, along with a selection of photos that highlighted each day. I also brought along my Retina IIIc film camera to document a few stops along the way…