Over the next ten days (October 23 to November 1, 2006), Charlie and his father, Charlie will drive the 3,500+ miles from their home in Pennsylvania to Los Angeles, CA. With stops scheduled for Indiana, Nashville, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and more, one of the Charlie's will provide daily reports on their location and trip highlights.

Pre-Trip Stuff

Wow...We've transferred Charlie from Salesianum High School to Laurel Springs (Home Schooling), installed satellite radio in the car (gotta listen to the Eagles games!), found a place to live in LA (Gonna be there until April...maybe longer?), got the surf boards racked on the roof of the car, yea, looks like we're ready to go. We'll throw some clothes is a suitcase tonight, gather the mountain of schoolbooks and it's off to LA at 7 tomorrow morning! We estimate spending about 50 hours in actual drive time. Charlie will have to do a lot of his schoolwork in the car.

DAY 1: West Chester, PA to Floyds Knobs, IN – 706 miles

Our 7 am start somehow turned into 9:15. Packing and preparations for the trip went longer than anticipated.

After saying our goodbyes to Barb (Mom), Erin and Grace…we drove a few miles and shared a solemn moment at our neighborhood WAWA (convenience store). WAWA’s run along the east coast from Virginia to above New York. They are busy 24 hours a day and have great sandwiches, coffee, etc. Recognizing that this will be the last time, for quite a while, that we’ll see a WAWA we stopped in and indulged ourselves. Charlie gets three breakfast sandwiches and I (Dad) get a coffee.

On to the PA turnpike!
What a time of year to be driving with the trees turning color. We are following a route mapped out by our GPS system…just installed last night. As it tells us to veer off the PA turnpike before Pittsburg, I’m wondering if it was installed properly. I anticipated taking the PA turnpike through PA and into Ohio. But what do I know compared to a satellite?! A few minutes later we see signs saying that we are heading towards Frostburg, MD…(that sounds enjoyable). The temp begins to plummet from 50 degrees to around freezing. Then the snow begins. It’s October for goodness sakes…too darn early for snow! Fortunately the highway is too warm for the dusting to take hold. We breeze through Frostburg with little more than a chill.

We cruise through Morgantown and Charleston, WV, Lexington and Louisville, KY stopping a few times for gas and a sandwich. Charlie is laughing to himself most of the way…listening to comedy on his Ipod. I’m enjoying the satellite radio and the reflection time that was non-existent over the past month as we prepared for this adventure.

 We reach our first destination…The Reilly’s in Floyds Knobs, IN at 8:52pm.

Day 2:  Floyds Knobs, Indiana – 0 miles

The day started with an early welcome from our three young cousins, William, Aaron and James before they ventured off to school. Charlie spent the morning working on Chemistry and French 3, and played with James when he returned from Kindergarten. Charlie drove with his Aunt Teresa to pick up William and Aaron at school while Uncle Bill and I went on a 3-mile run along Skyline Drive, which is, located a block from their home. Floyds Knobs sits about 1,000 feet above Louisville. Running along Skyline Drive provided one great view after another of Louisville and 100 or more miles beyond!

The rest of the day was spent hanging out with the kids. Charlie skateboarding and playing basketball with Aaron and James, I assisted William in finding 6’ to 8’ long logs in the woods that could be used to continue the building of William’s log cabin. By the end of the day we added about 2 feet of wall height.

We’ve decided to spend one more day here. We’ll depart early Thursday rather than Wednesday. We should be able to stay on schedule by taking a more direct route. We’ll head west to St. Louis and catch Route 40 by Oklahoma City. The original plan was to head south from Floyds Knobs and catch Route 40 in Nashville. It would have been nice to visit Nashville and Memphis but hey…got to save some sites for the return trip right? Two days of 12 to 14 hour drives should put us at or very close to the Grand Canyon by Friday evening.

Day 3:  Floyds Knobs, Indiana – 0 miles

More fun at the Reilly household! William and I with the help of Pop Reilly, finish the log cabin. Charlie sets up a skateboard ramp for William and Aaron. He also introduces them to their first “T” (teen) rated XBOX video game. Somehow Aunt Teresa was able to pry the kids from the game to finish their homework…but it wasn’t easy! Not sure if we’ll be invited back.

Coincidently, Barb’s parents arrived from West Chester, PA this afternoon. They get out to Bill and Teresa’s pretty often. It was neat seeing them here.

We’ve got a monster driving day tomorrow. It looks like 825 miles, which would put us just west of Oklahoma City. The mapping directions estimate 14.5 hours of drive time. The weather is supposed to be pretty lousy. Hopefully it won’t slow us down too much.

Day 4:  Floyds Knobs, IN to Weatherford, OK - 839 miles

It was an earlier than normal morning at the Reilly household as the kids awoke around 6am to get some playtime in before school. William gave Charlie and me a gem from his rock collection. Aaron serenaded us on the piano. Everyone filled up on Pop Reilly’s pancakes. We got back on the road after the kids left for school at 8:30am.

The road…wasn’t looking so good. Very dark clouds, lots of rain and 40 degrees kept us company through most of Indiana. At about an hour from St. Louis the rain stopped. We drove right past the Gateway Arch and were almost at the front door of Busch Stadium. Charlie and I were tempted to hang around for the World Series game later in the day but…the pull of the Grand Canyon was too strong. We kept driving.

Our first mechanical scare occurred about 30 minutes outside of St. Louis. While ordering lunch at the Steak & Shake…(Great shakes and baked beans!) our coolant light came on. I’m pretty good at putting gas in the car and once or twice added oil. This coolant thing would be breaking new ground! Twenty minutes later the green, glow in the dark fluid, was safely inside the vessel.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. The sun came out in Tulsa, OK. The temperature hit 78 degrees while dead bugs covered our windshield. We stopped for a $14 Chinese diner and arrived at our hotel thirty minutes later at 9:30pm. (10:30 EST.)

We’re feeling good and ready for another marathon drive tomorrow!

Day 5:  Weatherford, OK to Holbrook, AZ – 713 miles

I wouldn’t say we hit the wall today, but it was within striking distance. Charlie and I started the day with a workout at the Comfort Inn fitness room. It wasn’t bad, two out of the three meager pieces of fitness equipment worked. Charlie jumped on the treadmill and I took the bike. After a shower and a free breakfast in the Comfort Inn lobby it was back on the road by 9:30am (10:30 EST). We destroyed two time zones, as we blitzed through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and cracked into Arizona. As usual we limited our stops to fuel (Both car and people.) and bathroom breaks. The first three hours of driving were a bit hairy with very strong wind gusts blowing the car over a foot or two every couple of minutes. We saw our share of tumbleweeds cross the highway. The wind was a result of the backend of the storm / blizzard that hit the Midwest on Thursday. The temperature stayed around 60 degrees with not a cloud in the sky.

Throughout this trip we have hit zero traffic. I’m sure the LA traffic will more than balance this out once we arrive! Today however, we were slowed at least a dozen times for road construction. The speed limit out here is 75mph but, when we hit the construction, we are slowed to 40 – 50mph for miles at a clip. If not for the construction we would have made it to Flagstaff.

The scenery was so beautiful that we decided to stop driving just after sunset at 6:30pm (PST). Holbrook is about 100 miles east of Flagstaff…and maybe the only town between Flagstaff and us?? The Grand Canyon is an easy three-hour drive from here. It will be a much nicer drive in daylight tomorrow. We found a Comfort Inn and a Chinese restaurant and called it a night at 9:00pm. (12:00pm EST) Wow…did bed feel great!

Speaking of sunset…driving directly west at sunset is downright blinding! Back east there are plenty of trees, buildings and hills to block the sun. Out here it is just the road with what seems to be the sun at the end of it. There is no escaping it!

Day 6 :  Holbrook, AZ to Grand Canyon, AZ – 224 miles

Knowing that we only had a couple hundred miles to drive, we slept-in and took our time hitting the road today. We ate our free breakfast crammed in the lobby of the Comfort Inn. In an amazing feat of furniture arrangement ingenuity, they somehow fit three tables across from and next to the check-in desk. As you can imagine, three tables are nowhere near enough for a 40-room hotel to host a breakfast bar. Those lucky enough to enter an already full “breakfast area” are escorted to the office behind the check-in desk where guest can enjoy their faire on top of purchase orders, invoices, spreadsheets and such.

About 40 miles into the drive we saw signs advertising Meteor Crater and figured…what the heck. Minutes later, after following a road to nowhere, we were very impressed! Meteor Crater is home to a 550 foot deep, 4,000 feet across crater. 50,000 years ago a huge 150-foot across iron-nickel meteorite hit the ground at 26,000 miles an hour! This crater is also famous for being a training site for astronauts starting in 1963.

After spending an hour or so at the crater, we were back on Route 40 and headed toward Flagstaff. By early afternoon we were seeing canyon like signs in the earth. At one point, about 25 miles outside of Grand Canyon, we stopped at one of those roadside scenic view spots. The viewing area was down below the parking lot. To get to it we had to walk past a mini flea market of Indian crafts. All items were handmade and very nice…mostly jewelry and pottery. Charlie was drawn to an authentic bow and arrow set. Once through the market, we walked to the below observation area and were blown away by the site! This was supposed to be a mini canyon. There was nothing mini about it. We were so high up that the river below looked like a little stream. Visitors are able to walk right up to the edge with only a waist high rail standing between them and a straight 2,000+-foot drop. We roamed around the observation deck for about 30 minutes and threw our share of rocks into the abyss below.

An hour later we were standing at the Grand Canyon. It being about 4:00pm and the sun setting, the colors were spectacular! We looked at the canyon with our jaws dropped for quite some time until it dawned on me that we needed a place to stay tonight. Figuring that it was the off-season, I wrongly assumed that we’d get a room in the park. Hearing that the park was completely booked and noticing that we had not passed a hotel in at least two hours prior to arriving at the park, visions of a cold restless night in the car flashed before my eyes. Fortunately, we were guided to a town only four miles away and found a number of hotels with vacancies.

At the hotel we were able to get a load of wash done during commercial breaks of Law & Order. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant as we watched the end of an Indian dance show. We fought off sleep during our meal. We haven’t adjusted to PST. It may only be 9:00pm here but it sure feels like midnight!

A special hello…
We were informed that Mrs. Pace’s 5th graders from the Ridley school district outside of Philadelphia are following our trip. The students are using our entries as an example of journal writing. I guess I should start using the spell check!

Day 7: Grand Canyon, AZ – 0 miles

Today it was up early with a good buffet breakfast at the hotel. I always get excited when I see all that food! When all is said and done however, the breakfast buffet always plays out the same for me. I go for the oatmeal first. After eating a monster bowl of oatmeal overflowing with fruit and granola, I’ve no room left for anything else. Oh…all those hopes and dreams of ruling the buffet die another death at the Grand Canyon.

Fueled up from breakfast we were ready to hike! On the way to the trail, we stopped at a convenience store for food and water. I had scouted out a six-mile hike that looked interesting, three miles down and three miles back up the canyon. The decent down would be over 3,000 feet and according to the write-up should take four to six hours to complete the six miles. The decent should bring us about halfway down the canyon. The full decent to the bottom is a hike that is to be done over two days according to the park information brochures.

We arrived at the trail and were greeted with numerous warnings about heat stroke, hypothermia, and other hiking related dangers. We read that there are 250 rescues each year. I guess going down seems easy and some folks don’t realize how challenging the hike back out will be.

We begin our hike down the canyon and I cannot believe that most of the path runs along the edge of one cliff after another. At some points the path is only five feet wide with a granite wall on one side and a 1,000-foot drop on the other. Then every so often you have a mule train passing by. These mules carry folks to the bottom of the canyon and back up. I’m not sure that I would want to be sitting on top of a mule as they walk along the edge of the cliff!

The hike was great. Just about every step we took was a photo opportunity. Beautiful scenery! We ate lunch at the three-mile point and started our journey back up. Between the steep climb and the thinner air at this higher elevation, the hike to the top was a good workout.

Before we knew it, we were sitting in a hot tub at the hotel. We ordered out for pizza and let a “House” (TV show) marathon, take our minds off of our tired legs.

Onto Las Vegas tomorrow!

Day 8 : Grand Canyon, AZ to Las Vegas, NV – 243 miles

After a quick workout and one last “Grand” buffet breakfast, we were headed to Las Vegas, NV. On the drive we experienced very little life between the two points. Other than the Hoover Dam, the drive is pretty desolate. The Hoover Dam was certainly worth a pullover! The dam was built during the Depression and is one of the engineering marvels of the world. We walked across it along with hundreds of other tourists. Then we jumped back in our car.

An added bonus…Since Arizona doesn’t recognize daylight savings, we picked up an hour when we crossed the dam and entered Nevada.

We arrived in Las Vegas at 12:30 and pulled into the first resort on the “strip”, Mandalay Bay. Since hotel business is typically slow early in the week, we were able to get a $300 - $400 room for $109! The place is gorgeous. Charlie and I hung out by the wave pool for the rest of the day. Charlie has brush burn spots on his back, arms and legs, a result of riding the waves and being thrown onto the concrete pool floor. Ah…as long as he’s having fun…

For dinner we walk across the street and do, you guessed it, Chinese take-out. We eat dinner while watching “Hero’s” and call it a night!

Day 9: Las Vegas, NV – 0 miles

A beautiful day greeted us…sunny and mid 70 degrees. We spent most of the morning on schoolwork. Took a short walk along the Strip and got lunch. We spent the afternoon at the wave pool. Hard to believe it is Halloween and we’re swimming outdoors!

With our energy sapped from swimming, our motivation to visit the casinos along the Las Vegas Strip wanes. Fortunately, we had an appetite and needed to find dinner, so off we went. As we made our way to dinner we find that it is impossible to get to any destination in a casino without traveling across the casino floor. One look at these casino complexes and it becomes obvious (painfully obvious for the gamblers), how profitable gambling must be! Charlie and I kept our hands in our pockets and successfully navigated the casino floor on the path to the restaurants. We had a nice dinner at Rainforest Café. Before returning to our hotel, we decided to take a ride on the monorail. The monorail runs about five miles. It makes about five stops along the way and passes every major casino. During the ride we passed the Stardust Casino. Known as one of the first and most famous casinos in Las Vegas, the Stardust will close forever tomorrow.

We made it back to our room in time for “House”, then lights out!

Day 10:  Las Vegas, NV to Los Angeles, CA – 285 miles

After nine days of living in a car and various hotel rooms, it felt good to enter what will be our permanent address into our road mapping guidance system. It told us that our west coast home was a mere five hours away. Our experience driving across the country has been tremendous. A wonderful adventure yes. The anticipation now hits me. I ask myself one last time, “Will our efforts be worth it? Can Charlie make an impact in LA? Is this what’s best?” The answer …absolutely. It won’t be easy. And who knows, when it is all said and done, Charlie could end up in a career outside of acting. It worked for Ronald Reagan! But, Barb and I are convinced that there is no better real life learning experience for Charlie. He established this long-term goal. He continues to work very hard and has made the sacrifices necessary along the way to achieving it. The rest may be up to luck or timing but we’ll never have to look back and say, “What if?”

We drive the five hours straight through without even a thought of a rest stop. During the drive we get a call from Charlie’s agent informing us that Charlie has an audition for a role in a FOX feature film tomorrow. That certainly is reassuring news and a great start!

This adventure has ended but the journey continues!

"every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" - Semisonic

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