- Sanjay Joshi : ( i.e., me) Ph.D. student in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Dept. at University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD.
- Srinivas Rao: Fresh MBA graduate from Weatherhead School of Management of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.
Srinivas accepted a job offer from VARStreet in San Jose, CA. Instead of shipping his car in a truck, he explored the option to drive all the way. I jumped on the opportunity. To make the cross-country trip complete, I decided to drive from Baltimore, MD to Cleveland, OH.
I flew from San Jose, CA to Cleveland, OH, and drove back to Baltimore, MD.
- Baltimore, MD -> Cleveland, OH -> Baltimore, MD:
Sanjay's car, 1989 Honda Civic, 3 Door Hatchback. 1500 cc, 92 HP engine, ~97000 miles. - Cleveland, OH -> San Jose, CA:
Srinivas's car, 1988 Honda Civic CRX. 3 Door Hatchback. 1500cc, 105 HP engine, ~84000 miles.
<- Sanjay with his car
The shortest distance between Baltimore, MD to San Jose, CA via Cleveland, OH is ~2900 miles. Because of various detours, I ended up travelling 3744 miles (5990 km) coast-to-coast.
4 May 1999 to 12 May 1999, 9 days, for coast-to-coast journey, 12 days in total.
We mostly stuck to Interstate highways. We travelled on the following:
695, 70, 76, 80, 480, 271, 90, 94, 294, 894, 43, 39, 88, 35, 29, 15, 5, 580, 680, 880.
The other major roads we used were:
US 36, CO 7, CO72, US 191, US 89, UT 9, CA 58.
The states we travelled through were:
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California.
The following map shows the travel on each of the 9 days in different colors.
A short version of the daily report is available at the following links. Some photos are included.
- Appalachians, Baltimore, MD to Cleveland Heights, OH (4 May 1999).
- Lakes, Cleveland Heights, OH to Pewaukee, WI (5 May 1999).
- Flatland, Pewaukee, WI to Seward, NE (6 May 1999).
- Heartland, Seward, NE to Estes Park, CO (7 May 1999).
- Rockies, Estes Park, CO to Fruita, CO (8 May 1999).
- Arches, Fruita, CO to Green River, UT (9 May 1999).
- Hoodoos, Green River, UT to Mount Carmel Junction, UT (10 May 1999).
- Canyons, Mount Carmel Junction, UT to Barstow, CA (11 May 1999).
- Pacific, Barstow, CA to San Jose, CA (12 May 1999).
- Hilly City, San Jose, CA to San Francisco, CA and back (13 May 1999).
- Flight, San Jose, CA to Cleveland Heights, OH (14 May 1999).
- Atlantic, Cleveland Heights, OH to Baltimore, MD (15 May 1999).
We would like to thank
- AAA for maps, tourbooks, and trip guides.
- Mapquest for online maps and gimp for the image manipulation software.
- GORP and National Park Services for information on various national parks.
- Rohit Dube for tips on the national parks of Utah.
- Vikram Dwarkadas and Noella D'Cruz for tips from their trip across the country.
- Christopher Morris for tips from his trip across the country.
- A lot of folks from a local newsgroup, umbc.general, for a very interesting discussion on wireless phones.
- Bhagwant Rege, my ex-roommate, for lending me his camera.
- Prof. Joel M. Morris for letting me take off on a vacation even while the semester was going on.
- Bipin and Ashwini Salunkhe for accommodating us for a night and providing excellent home-baked muffins!
- Sai, Ranjani, and Aparna Nellore for a lively stay at Mountain View, CA, with great food and a ride to San Jose airport at early dawn!