Road Trip

Get on the Road For Yourself!

The requirements are rather simple: you must travel at least 100 miles (round trip) and spend at least one night away from campus.

  The nature of the trip is up to you. It can be a trip home or a journey into the unknown.

It MAY NOT BE a required trip for a UR-sponsored event, a trip by airplane or train. You may make the trip alone or with others. The trip must be in a motor vehicle that runs on a road: car, truck, or bus. You may not hitchhike. It would also be good to go with a "travel buddy."

In your essay, discuss how the trip you make compares to those we've read or seen. Be specific, and use the road-trip essay I will provide in class to guide you. Just remember that the focus will be on your experience—this is a personal experience essay in which you relate your feelings about your trip and the road to what we've studied. 

Seth Kugel's "What I Learned Driving Through the Heartland" may work as a model for you, stylistically. I'd be sure, however, to add more: specifically, close connections between you and some of our readings or films.

Format For Your Project:

• The paper should be at least 1,500 words, double-spaced. Include a title that is creative and sums up the focus of your paper + a separate page with works cited in text and entire manuscript in correct MLA Format.

  • A scrap book with at least 12, and no more than 20, color or black-and-white photos plus captions hand-written or typed, paper souvenirs, and anything else legal and creative you wish to include.

Phones are fine for taking photos, but keep in mind TWO things:

• You lose points if you do not learn, before the trip, how to get your photos from the phone to a printer for the scrap book. Learn early and practice in the TLC or with an inkjet printer.

• You are adults and adult things can take place on the road. Please note that I have no perverse interest in student-produced porn; keep anything you photograph to a PG-13 standard or "cleaner." 

• I found these road-trip photos by readers of the New York Times inspiring; one gets not just a pretty shot but some context as to why the photo represents a state of mind or changed opinion about travel.

Requirements for the Road Trip:

• In the essay, provide clear and detailed parallels between your experience and those from our readings and films. I did a bit of this in a blog post you can use to help you.

• Stay off the Interstate and prove that in your paper and scrap book.

• In the scrap book, provide receipts or take-out menus with your paper to prove that you ate at non-chain restaurants. Stay somewhere safe: here a big chain motel may be a good friend, as would a locally owned B&B. If you stay in Virginia for  your trip, I may be able to provide some recommendations for food and lodging.

• Include souvenirs that you can prove you did not steal.

Some Routes Outside the UR Bubble Near Richmond:

• • West: Route 6 To Schuyler VA and The Walton Mountain Museum. The museum reopens for the season March 1. Scottsville has a few good places for lunch.

  • US 250 To Charlottesville and beyond. Too many sights to catalog, and in parts around "C'ville" you will be in suburban hell.  Easter Egg: 1 point extra credit to anyone getting a snapshot eating a Gus Burger or "Grillswith" (Vegans don't try either).

  • The Blue Ridge Parkway. It's a fine drive south from Afton (I-64 or US 250 will take you there). The Parkway passes little villages and there is a nice visitor center at Humpback Rocks. Take a short hike up to the top. Wear sturdy shoes and take a water bottle; it's a hour up and an hour back, maybe less.

  • North: US 1 from Richmond to Washington DC. Not a "Blue Highway" these days but worth a look for the remnants of that older era of travel before the Interstates were complete. Old town Fredericksburg is well worth a day in itself.

  • US 360 to Tappahannock. Lowry's Seafood is old-timey fun and you will be the youngest folks in the place. It's not this century's idea of seafood, but if you are lucky, you'll get to hear someone play tunes on the Wurlitzer organ, tunes your grandparents knew. Check out the old-car display. The crab-cakes are very good. Easter Egg: 1 point extra credit if you get a snapshot of you near the Wurlitzer!

  • East by Southeast: Route 5 from downtown Richmond to Williamsburg. A wonderful pair of old Plantations--Berkeley and Shirley--lie along this scenic byway. Jog back east on US 60 to Pierce's Pit Cooked BBQ. It is famous, though not my favorite. Give it a try.

  • VA Route 10 from Petersburg to Virginia Beach. A long ride but so worth it. When you get into "Peanut Country" around Waverly and Surrey, you will truly have stepped back in time. Get some country ham, peanuts, and peanut soup if you can find it!

How to Really Impress the Teacher: Have fun and be creative with the project. If you do a lackluster job, don't expect more than a lackluster grade.