trip

HOUSTON--"Houston, we have a problem."

If there is a five-word phrase more recognizable than that in the annals of modern science or space exploration, I want to hear it.

For my entire life, the "Houston" in that phrase was an abstract term, a reference to a disembodied place where people wield God-like powers--or don't, as the case may be--over the astronauts who were themselves abstract to me. I'd never seen them, and I wasn't old enough to have watched any of the mythical rocket launches prior to the Space Shuttle.

But earlier … Read more

MEMPHIS, Tenn.--I guess our version of a little bit of Southern humor didn't go over so well with the folks who run Graceland.

As I was preparing to begin Road Trip 2008, my tour of the South in search of many of the region's most interesting attractions and destinations, it seemed that we needed to have a banner for the special-project page that evinced the South in some way.

Last year, when I did Road Trip 2007 in the Southwest, we took a similar approach, and I dressed in a cowboy hat for the banner photograph.

So … Read more

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--When people think of the Beatles coming to America, they usually conjure up images of The Ed Sullivan Show and screaming teenage girls chasing the Fab Four on the streets of New York.

But here in Music City, there's something else to commemorate the earliest stages of the British Invasion: the fact that the first American Beatles 7-inch record was produced by United Record Pressing--then, as now, one of the largest makers of vinyl in the world.

On Monday, as I swung through Nashville on Road Trip 2008, I was lucky enough to get to visit the … Read more

JACKSON, Tenn.--What a week.

I am running on fumes as the Road Trip 2008 odometer hits 2,000 miles even.

I've spent the last week or so almost entirely in Tennessee and Kentucky, visiting some of the most interesting factories, museums, distilleries, and other destinations in the region.

At 1,000 miles, I was on Interstate 65 on my way to visit Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. I made it there and had a great time getting a taste of the astronaut training primer that more than half a million kids have gotten over the years. As well, … Read more

This afternoon TripSay, a travel site that's currently in private beta is opening up to a larger group of testers and launching a few new features. The service will help you figure out places you should go on your vacation based on a calculator that will narrow down the results based on your budget, lingual ability, and comfort zone for going off the beaten path. You can also plug in your interests, and add ratings of places you've already been.

All of this information is taken and mapped out for you while being combined with what other TripSay … Read more

LORETTO, Ky.--If you're the kind of person who likes to partake in the occasional glass of bourbon, this tiny town might just be your kind of heaven.

Loretto, about a 90-minute drive south of Louisville, is home to the Maker's Mark distillery, a fully functioning facility that turns out thousands of bottles of the booze each day.

As part of Road Trip 2008 on Sunday, after driving to Loretto along a series of lush green roads dotted with horse farms, charming houses, and plenty of wide-open space, I found myself signing up for a tour of the … Read more

LOUISVILLE, Ky.--I grew up in a household with two subscriptions to The New Yorker. How could we not? My father and my stepmother both needed their own copy of each issue.

With that as part of my background, how could I not become a lifelong fan of the magazine?

In 2005, New Yorker writer John McPhee published what instantly became one of my favorite pieces of all time, "Out in the Sort," a long treatise about the United Parcel Service's Worldport air-distribution facility here. Among his many detailed descriptions of this gargantuan operation, and the one … Read more

LOUISVILLE, Ky.--The other night, I found myself watching the College World Series on TV, the first time I'd seen any amateur baseball in some time.

But there was something wrong with it: Every time someone hit the ball, there was a loud pinging sound when an aluminum bat connected with horsehide. If you're a baseball fan, you know what I mean.

Contrast that, however, with the pure sounds I was treated to Thursday when I stopped on Road Trip 2008 at the Louisville Slugger factory here and spent a couple of hours on a behind-the-scenes tour of … Read more

BROOKS, Ky.--At Geek Squad City, it's no accident that everywhere you look are well-groomed young people in dark pants, white shirts, and narrow black ties.

Since its founding by Robert Stephens in Minnesota in 1994, Geek Squad has always been run on a very stylized kind-of-Mormon-missionary, kind-of-G-Men motif. That's why my host for a tour of the Geek Squad City facilities was Anthony Hadfield, who bears the job title "deputy director for counterintelligence."

I've come to the well-known computer repair company's giant facility just south of Louisville as part of Road Trip 2008.… Read more