1,526 miles from DC to Austin, split up into a leisurely 2.5 days of driving. Here’s the basic breakdown of the trip:

Favorite Albums Listened to in Their Entirety:

— Grateful Dead, American Beauty
— Obits, I Blame You
— Kris Kristofferson, Kristofferson
— Augustus Pablo, King David’s Melody
— Boredoms, Vision Creation Newsun
— Mi Ami, Watersports
— Big Star, Radio City
— Patton Oswalt, Feeling Kind of Patton

Bad iPod Ideas That I Still Kind of Want to Try on the Way Home:

—Listen to 8 straight hours of Grateful Dead Bootlegs.
—Listen to every Lungfish record in a row, in order.
—All minimal techno, all the way home.

Random Bizarre Thoughts Had While Driving: Somewhere in Tennessee I suddenly and vividly recall one of my elementary school teachers forcing my class to watch an educational film about an old woman, ignored by her ungrateful yuppie children, who dies alone in a log cabin. Why were they screening this for a bunch of pre-teens? Were our parents trying to sow the guilt seeds early on? If so, it worked. Everybody cried at the end. Upon remembering this, I make a note to phone home.

Regrets: Forgot to bring the first four Tom Petty records.

Overnight Stops:

Nashville: To be honest, sort of disappointing. Granted, we were only there for an hour or two. Went to Ernest Tubb record shop, but decided I didn’t really need to buy that Roy Acuff boxed set. Mistake. Walked into the Charlie Daniels Band Museum, which was free, yet surprisingly lacking in useful data and ephemera regarding Daniels. They did, however, have this outfit on display.

Texarkana: I wasn’t aware that this was an actual city, but it is. And the air smells strangely and unnaturally sweet, kind of like donuts.