Planning a Road Trip

Time may have passed me by.  As a late teen I missed out on a few things, partly from limited finances or at lease a sense that I had to be responsible with my parents' resources, and partly being highly focused on entering a career.  I never went to a resort on spring break or took a tour of European Hostels over the summers.  While people pasted flowered decals on VW buses, then hit the road, such an investment in time was unthinkable.

About half century later, far more prosperous than in my youth and now retired, I sometimes wonder if it might be time to catch up.  I've been to many resorts, largely as a week's escape from often demanding work that needed a reset.  This past year I made it to Europe for the first time, transported to multiple places and housed by a cruise ship instead of a Eurorail pass and hostel.  Close enough.

The road trip with an unclear destination and random stops en route still eludes me.  I have taken a few long weekends within driving distance of home but always with a finite destination and a small amount of itinerary leeway.  We stay at our specified hotel as a base, visit the main attractions of where we are going, see if any other local destinations catch our fancy and see what they have for brew pubs.  Rarely the intended destination will require more than a day's drive, but the intermediary motel gets chosen shortly after twilight and resumption to our destination resumes after breakfast.  In a 600 mile route, there may be some great places  Our destination path does not tolerate much deviation. 

What I might like to do instead is pick a direction randomly on my Compass App, a distance that I am willing to drive each day for two days, and then see what I find en route.  I've never done that, and anticipate that my wife will have reasons not to want to join me, but it is something that passed me by that I would like to sample two times as my semi-annual projects.