Tale of the Nail--Suzuki Adventure, Day Nine

First off, a confession: It isn’t really a nail that we discover in the front tire of the Kizashi two hours into the drive on our ninth day of driving. It is a screw. However, “nail” rhymes better, and the two have common character: sharp, shiny and tire-popping. Perhaps a screw is even worse, because of the wearing, tearing grooves.

Driving the Natchez Trace: Suzuki Adventure, Day Eight

Equating the concept of “parks” with green space, as people naturally do, it’s difficult to picture a park that’s also a thoroughfare—but that is just what the Natchez Trace Parkway is. It’s a 444-mile road that’s also a national park. It goes from Natchez, Mississippi all the way to Nashville, Tennessee. It passes by Civil War memorial sites, prehistoric mounds, cemeteries and former plantation mansions. For historians professional or amateur, it is irresistible. 

We get on the road early the day we’re driving the Natchez Trace, because the whole point of driving it is to SEE it—therefore, all travel must be during the limited winter daylight hours. I fear that another storm will come along and render the daytime dark and foggy, but happily, we’re in a sweet spot between the New Years’ storms and another snow-showering miserable front that will shortly overtake the East Coast. It’s a crisp, clear, sunny day that promises great pictures and ideal driving conditions.

Creole Eats and the Great River Road: Day Seven

Waking up in the heart of Creole country, Louisiana on New Years Day, only one thing really comes to mind: Where can one find the most lavish, over-the-top brunch in town? 


It’s actually easier said than done, because Lafayette restaurateurs like everyone else enjoy spending the holiday at home with their families, not at work serving the likes of me. We make three fruitless stops before giving up and heading out of Lafayette toward Baton Rouge, deciding there must be some good road-food restaurant that’s open, and we will just have to find it. 

Tornado Territory: Day Six Suzuki Adventure

We have come halfway across the United States in the middle of one of the worst winters on record and encountered no bad weather, except for the rainstorms leaving Los Angeles. While airports all over the East Coast are closed due to blizzards, nary a drip of rain has touched our windshield in a thousand miles.

So it’s with a combination of resignation and jangly nerves that we learn via the news on New Years Eve day that we’re driving into the heart of a tornado/blizzard/hail stormfront that stretches across eight states and has already wreaked intense havoc in the Midwest.

According to the Weather Channel experts, the severe weather is expected to move upward by nighttime, leaving the Louisiana/Mississippi area where we’re heading mostly in the clear. However, we don’t want to be driving late at night because a) it’s New Year’s Eve, b) weather experts are usually wrong, and c) I know from experience that driving through a pretty bad storm at midnight is just as difficult as driving through a severe one in the daytime.

Home of the Cowboys: Day Five, Kizashi Adventure

No trip through the US is complete without a pilgrimage to cowboy country, and our trip through the southern states has taken us straight into the epicenter. Ft. Worth, Texas, which many people think of as merely a Dallas suburb, is in fact a major city in its own right, and one with a unique heritage. It was originally a US Army outpost, but later became integral to Texas’ cattle industry. Millions of “beeves”  (beef on the hoof) came through on cattle drives, driven by rowdy ranchers who stopped in Ft. Worth to shower, pick up supplies, and enjoy creature comforts before hitting the trail.