The American Road Trip Part 1

The salesman at Alamo, if I am frank, did not have to work hard to convince us to upgrade our original economy grade car. He simply said these three things, I'm not even sure of the order. "British, Road-Trip, Soft-Top"? There was probably some padding around them of some description, but in essence, that was all it took. Several minutes of negotiating later and for $200 or so more we got to drive a 2015, dark grey, Ford Mustang convertible from Vegas to San Francisco for the next 9 days. We were happy, the dude behind the desk was happy. It was an exciting moment.

I think a lot of people dream of the almost cliché American Road trip. The ideal experience that takes you through the American countryside, muscle car roaring beneath you, and hair flapping in the wind. At least, a lot of British blokes see to have that dream. Acting upon this dream was what had got me and a friend of mine, coincidentally also called Sam, onto the North American continent in the first place. The other Sam, otherwise known as Noir, a nickname he earnt during the trip, wasn't a close friend of mine at the time. We were more acquaintances than anything else. But the American road trip dream united us enough to fly halfway around the world. 

It was 2015, the year before Trump would sweep into office, the year before the infamous Brexit vote, and a whole 5 years before the world devolved into absolute chaos due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19). I originally wrote this story as one long email to my U.S. based cousins describing mine and Noir's trip across their home country. During the U.K.'s lockdown, I came across the original document and thought it might be worth sharing. It at least made me happier to think back on those 6 weeks.

Anyway, back to the airport car rental.

Five minutes later and we had our keys, had unlocked the car, stuck the luggage in the boot, and we were sitting in the front. Considering, by this point, we hadn't slept in 20 hours, we were full of energy. The fantastical dream to drive a convertible across America in the most epic of road trips, had arrived at our door, and we were about to set off. Months of planning, creating maps, booking motels and trying to figure out everything that would be in our path and whether we could see it, has led to this moment. 

But we couldn't start the bloody car.

At home, I drove a 15-year-old Peugeot, its top speed is 73MPH and 78MPH if you had a gravity assist from a steep downhill. It feels like it takes 10 minutes to get to 70MPH and is a manual "stick shift" car. It is not complicated either, you stick the key in the ignition and turn the key, it powers on, you disengage the handbrake and drive off. Slowly and steadily.

Noir also has a similar personal transport experience at home, except for the fact that his car was an automatic. Thus, he was more familiar with the one-foot approach required to drive, what we lovingly came to refer as the 'massive Go-Kart'. Yet neither of us, both averagely intelligent and moderately car proficient, could figure out how to get the car to start. Modern cars were utterly alien to us recently graduated students.

There was no key slot to turn the ignition over. There was a big button that said "Start". But pressing it simply turned the electronics on. All the messages that flashed up on the screen simply served to confuse us even further. For 15 minutes, we get in and out of the car, trying different things...

We put seatbelts on and pressed start. Nope. We double-checked that we had closed the 'trunk'. Nope. We undid our seatbelts and pressed start. Still nope. We pushed, fiddled with, cajoled and wiggled every ruddy button in that car. And yet all we managed was to trigger the voice assistant and the car alarm (how?!). We couldn't get damn the kitty to purr. We started to get desperate, sweat drenching our clothes in the Nevada desert heat. 

Then suddenly, it roared to life, not a coy meow, a proper American muscle roar. A Fast and Furious; over the top movie-style roar. So naturally being scared to shit about scraping, scratching, hitting, or doing anything but get to the hotel, we two sleep-deprived idiots from the U.K. started our first driving experience in the U.S...

Slowly, we inched our way out of the parking garage in an attempt to get our bearings. I was driving the first stint, and therefore it fell to Noir to try and wrestle with the utterly confusing Sat Nav to get us to our destination - Treasure Island. A slightly ironic, but entirely metaphorical pot of gold at the end of a moderately colourful journey. 

We'd been awake for over 22 hours by this point.

Our first drive through the surrounding Vegas suburbs on our way to the 'strip', didn't go too well. Driving on the other side of the road, being on the left of the car, experiencing stop signs, being beeped for not turning right at a red light - 3 times. My already racing heart was leaping out of my chest. Not quite that road trip feeling that had been filling our pleasant nightly slumbers for the last few months.

After going the wrong way... three or four times we eventually end up on a freeway, and the Sat Nav informs us that the five-mile journey would take 30 minutes. I guess that is Vegas traffic for you, in fact, it turns out that it is American traffic. A maddening experience that made me question my anger at British traffic jams. Suffice to say, I understand now why Elon Musk started a company solely to solve L.A. traffic. Thank god we had enough people in the car for the carpool lane. Not that we knew what that was at this point. 

Due to our ineptitude, we were late getting out of the car rental, late getting to the hotel, and late trying to check-in. There was a massive queue. One which even with all my Britishness I could not muster a smile at.

After dumping our stuff in the room, the next challenge was to find food, a cheap dinner to stave off starvation. But of course, all the Casino restaurants were full, completely. Off outside we went. "Maybe there is one just around the corner?" "Or on the next 'block'." We joked. Thinking we were extremely witty for using American terminology. Our jokes slowly faded to silence as we discovered just how long getting to the next block would actually take.

Eventually, we found an Italian place, after taking an hour to walk two Vegas 'blocks' or in London from Soho to Bank. 

"Fucking blocks."

We slept in the next day until 10:59. Well not quite 10:59, more like 10:40. The point was it was late. We had to check out at 11am but were so tired that we overslept through both our alarms. Scrambling around the room, we packed all we could quickly, shoving the rest into carrier bags. Down in the lobby we attracted only stares. Our four overflowing shopping bags providing mild amusement to the more regular casino guests. We could tell who they were because they were already at the tables.

A valet tip later, a short trip to Walmart, where we picked up 5 gallons of water, grapes, chips, breakfast and several other items for the duration of our time in Yosemite National Park and we are on the road.

Technically, the real road-trip had started right then. In the middle of a Walmart parking lot. Possibly the most American thing we could have done on the entire trip. But we didn't realise it.

With sleep, everything seemed more manageable. We were flying on cloud nine, blood pumping. We had the Sat Nav working, we had figured out traffic lights and stop signs. We were doing the whole driving thing without feeling like we might crash at any moment. We sped out of the city and into the desert. And... nothing.

For miles and miles, there was just the road, some paint and us. It was glorious. The straight road was disappearing into the heat haze of the distance. Shimmering tarmac, tunes blaring and the top down. Obnoxious perfection for two early 20s blokes on an American road trip.

This story is continued in part 2 of the America Road Trip, where we once again have car problems but this time, we have to use a 9-foot branch to fix it.