What's This Blog About?

So we're taking a road trip -- a nearly 4000 mile circular route on the backroads between southwestern Washington and southwestern Colorado with bunches of Idaho, Utah, California and Oregon thrown in. 

This trip was originally conceived as a backroads automobile trip which would be similar to the motorcycle trip I took last year to Williamsburg, VA and back (blog here) but this time Deb would make the trip with me.  However, the more I thought about the scenic highlights of the motorcycle trip, the more I became motivated to want to avoid the flat, straight roads between eastern Colorado and Kentucky, and focus more time in the west - specifically Idaho and Utah.  In fact, I declared the "Best Ride of This Trip" as "Scenic Byway 12" in this blog posting on October 16, 2009.  So this trip plan morphed into the current circular route (map here) with these goals:

1. Avoid, when possible, all interstate freeways and other straight highways.

2. Keep the daily driving distance under 250 miles.
3. Give priority to roads listed in Reader's Digest's "Most Scenic Drives in America" (50 of the 120 detailed here and the book shown here); National Geographic's "Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways," (detailed here and book shown here); and, those roads highly rated for scenic quality on the website www.motorcycleroads.com (which calls itself "America's Best Guide to Motorcycle Roads and Rides").
4. Drive Utah's "Scenic Byway 12" and visit as many National Parks as possible on our route -- an inspiration we got from the wonderful Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks .  

Now, in order to understand the title of this blog and the vehicle we are taking on this trip, you need to know this story:  While traveling the magical roads of the Smoky Mountains during my motorcycle trip, I happened to meet an older couple who were obviously having a ton of fun traveling the same curvy and scenic backroads in a Smart Car.   I visited with them at a couple different scenic overlooks -- and even got them to snap a photo of me in their car which I emailed off to Deb with a note that suggested we might want to take a look at these cars when I returned from our trip.  This chance encounter with this happy couple in the Smart Car prompted me to wonder whether a Smart Car might be a way to enjoy the backroads with Deb (since she no longer would ride the motorcycle) and in all types of weather (with the comfort of heated seats and air conditioning).

Shortly after my return from the motorcycle trip, we rented a Smart Car for a day and gave it a good workout to the top of Mt. St. Helens and back -- and both Deb and I came to love the little car: me, because of  its fun handling in the curves and Deb because it was "cute."  So, on Halloween 2009, we purchased our own Smart Car .  I commonly refer to the car as our "clown car" but Deb immediately named it "Nuggle" after the way our then 3-year old grandson pronounced "snuggle" -- as in "will you 'nuggle' with me."  She said the car just looks like it needs to be "nuggled."  Now after 11 months of ownership, we both still love riding and driving Nuggle.  Even as we were buying it, we were already planning for it to be our vehicle of choice for this road trip.