Hey! Thanks for clicking in and indulging your curiosity (and my love of extended detail) about the long drive from the West Coast to the East Coast. Below you’ll find a brief breakdown of the eastbound itinerary, along with plenty of pictures, field notes, and fun highlights from the weeklong drive from San Diego to Atlanta.

How I felt at every destination we reached: this must be the place! [Picture of the menu at Morning Glory in San Diego—on our last meal in the city].

Day 1: San Diego, CA-Phoenix, AZ (Roughly 5.5-hour drive, 355 miles)

Not much to report on this day. We were pretty exhausted from packing up the apartment and the car before heading out on the drive to Arizona. We'd failed in getting In-N-Out one last time before leaving California, but found one within a mile of our Airbnb for dinner.

If In-N-Out doesn't put the "good" in Good Friday, I don't know what does, and while I didn't get to celebrate Passover with a full-on seder, I technically celebrated with a Passover-compliant meal: a protein-style burger and fries has no chametz.

The highlight of Phoenix? Cheaper gas prices by as much as dollar and a half compared to San Diego.

Day 2: Phoenix, AZ-Albuquerque, NM (6.5-hour drive, 466 miles)

Our Airbnb in Albuquerque is easily in the top 3 of "road trip accommodations out of a horror movie" due to strange photography, vaguely-satanic art, and the painting on the garage door of a pale, bloody, disembodied bust. (#1?: The Atlanta Airbnb we booked on the initial drive to Houston. Spooky.)

[Pictured above: two slightly-less creepy pieces of “art” in the Airbnb.; the well-gated Walter White House; the Dog House Drive-In in full evening glory: the tail wags and the lit-up dachshund eats links of hot dogs. ]

Were the photo ops at the Walter White house (from Breaking Bad) and the Dog House Drive-In worth the potential mortal risk? I’m not sure, but the pictures were good, as was the chili on the chili dog and chili fries. I was told that when in New Mexico, eating something with hatch chiles is a must, and for dinner, I had a hatch chile pork cachapa (definitely not Passover-friendly).

Day 3: Albuquerque, NM-Amarillo, TX (Roughly 4-hour drive, 290 miles)

Needing a good leg-stretch after the longest drive of the trip the day before, I went on an extended walk with the dog in the two-mile radius of the spooky Airbnb. The walk took me to a neat coffee shop, a hidden-gem bakery with round-the-block waits for pastries on Easter morning (not your average bakery: we’re talking hatch chile croissants), and the Jackson Wink MMA facility (training facility to many a top UFC fighter).

[Pictured above: an Albuquerque house that matches the cacti—or do the cacti match the house?; some murals on one of the main streets in ABQ; a burnt honey latte from the stellar Burque Bakehouse, complete with a sprinkle of bee pollen]

In the evening, I got the chance to catch up with a college friend who is based in Amarillo for medical school. We sang a cappella together in a very Pitch Perfect kind of group back at Princeton, and while we didn't sing for our supper that night, our dogs tried to sing for scraps of Torchy's Tacos.

Rufio ignores the camera. Snickers looks dead on and looks like she’s hating every minute of this photo op.

Day 4: Amarillo, TX-Oklahoma City, OK (Just under 4-hour drive, 260 miles)

The morning dog walk took me past strip malls of I-40 to a coffee shop called The Palace (super bougie, with a logo that was halfway between Wu-Tang and The Hunger Games).

Engines charged on caffeine and Airbnb packed up, we stopped into a gas station/convenience store that featured the merchandise of Amarillo’s local baseball team, “The Sod Poodles.” Sod Poodles, apparently, are prairie dogs.

The most touristy thing in Amarillo, however, is not a Sod Poodles baseball game but the Cadillac Ranch: not a ranch but a bunch of cars planted "nose-first" into the ground that you can spray paint. We took our pictures and hit the road to OKC in earnest thereafter.

[Pictured above: the obvious photo op from Palace coffee; some Sod Poodles perch; me and the ween at Cadillac Ranch]

Oklahoma City was a solid midpoint for the journey back east. After seeing so many unfamiliar places, it's nice to have a dose of something familiar. I find it amusing that the strange city of OKC is now a city I'd consider familiar.

We don't usually train while making the longer drives because we're usually too tired to have a decent session and drop-in fees can be steep. But those who knew we were in town nudged us into training, and in hindsight, I'm glad we got to roll around and reconnect with people from earlier in the trip. The visit reinforced my appreciation for how much we'd learned over the last year, and especially in the last six months, both on and off the mat.

Day 5: Oklahoma City, OK-Lonoke, AR (Roughly 5-hour drive, 355 miles)

Before shipping out to Arkansas, we caught brunch at our favorite food establishment in the country, the one and only Cafe Kacao, with two of our favorite people from the trip so far. It's rare to find a lower-priced food establishment that is so deliciously consistent, and on visit #5, Kacao continues to deliver. I'm still salivating over my horchata latte and motuleño.

[Pictured above: latte #1 at Cafe Kacao; Underwood Ranch’s finest cattle; a hot dog at rest from barking at said cattle all afternoon]

Far and away one of the coolest Airbnb experiences I've ever had, we spent the night on a cattle ranch about 30 minutes away from Little Rock, AR. Snickers tried to get in a fight with the cows in the backyard. As a neat little touch, the Airbnb hosts leave ground beef from the ranch in the freezer, which you can buy for $5/lb. That's as farm-to-table as I've ever seen a hunk of meat.

I'd totally go back to this spot armed with a pot for homemade chili and a cast iron skillet for cornbread. Maybe try to make a pie or preserves. Country cooking feels like the thing to do in that farmhosue.

Day 6: Lonoke, AR-Nashville, TN (5-hour drive, 325 miles)

We started feeling drained at this stage of the drive and after signing the Airbnb guestbook and bidding adieu to one of the horses on the ranch, we continued eastbound. The day wasn't too eventful beyond a speedy lunchtime stopover for BBQ in Memphis at a well-regarded BBQ spot called Cozy Corner.

[Pictured above: the Airbnb guestbook; a horse near the ranch; the Tennessee-Arkansas state line; Cozy Corner looking run down and legit AF]

By the time we arrived in Nashville, we were pretty wiped out from the previous days of driving and weren't in a position to enjoy much of the city. It also turns out that most of the fun stuff in Nashville is more fun when you don't have to worry about a hangover interfering with an early-morning drive the following day.

Day 7: Nashville, TN-Atlanta, GA (3.5-hour drive, 230 miles)

This was the shortest stretch of the trip, but it felt like the longest, because we were itching to unpack the car, have a proper shower, and be done with driving. By this point, I was tiring of the sausage dog squirming on my lap and the sunflower seed snacks slipping through the front row seats.

Before we left Nashville, I took Snick on a walk and mildly mourned the end to our driving days (for now) with a coffee from the fittingly-named coffee shop, Elegy and got a laugh at the bar next door to Elegy: if I were looking for a sign, “THIS IS IT.”

45 minutes out from Atlanta and in need of some gasoline for the home stretch, I got to visit my favorite Texas export miraculously situated in Georgia: a Buc-ee's.

[Pictured above: Elegy, Mickey’s Tavern, Buc-ee the Beaver, and the view from the apartment]

At around 3PM, we moved into our new digs in Marietta, a town that’s a 20-minute drive NW from downtown Atlanta. After collecting a few essentials from Target, we drove to the Town Square, which was the epitome of small-town community charm: dance studios, ice cream shops, pet stores, and small restaurants scattered around a park in the middle of the square. Not what I expected in the slightest.

But the favorite view of Atlanta so far? The new backyard view.

[Addendum] Issue #010: Zen in the Art of Fighting: Cross-Country Field Notes