From the Texas Coast to the California Coast A Family Road Trip Travelogue

By christopher tupa

Join our family as we spend our summer vacation driving 1400 miles from South Texas to San Diego! My favorite part of road tripping is all the unique things you can find on the journey if you look for them. We'll stop on the way and see "The Thing", midcentury-modern homes in Palm Springs, Dwarf cars, UFO themed hotels, pyramids, beaches, caves, pirates and even DisneyLand! This book details our trip and some of the funny adventures we had. From the Texas Coast to the California Coast: A Family Road Trip Travelogue not only tells you about our trip, I show you as well with over 50 cartoons and watercolor sketches.

• Language: English
• Publisher: christopher tupa
• Release date: Nov 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393042310

Book preview

The Start of a Vacation

Every summer we take a Tupa Family Vacation. It may be as simple as a weekend camping trip, visiting a nearby town for a couple of days, or in rare cases; flying out of the state. We never have much money but we do the best we can, and always have a good time no matter what we’re doing. Like the time we were waiting for an elevator with a crowd of people in Nashville and my 6 year old son Rylan was dancing around saying he had to go poop. It’s about the journey not the destination; making memories and experiencing all life has to offer, and all the other cliches.

I do love traveling and seeing new things and exploring places off the beaten path. A wonderful part of parenting has been getting to share this love with my family. And not having much money just means we have to be more creative with our adventures, which it turns out usually means we find and do some really interesting things; like exploring abandoned schools, forgotten old west towns, and random parks and trails. My daughter Ariana always asks me why I drive a junky old car and I tell her I’d rather save money to take a vacation than spend on a newer vehicle.

So anyway, back to the point; this past summer we didn’t have any specific plans for a vacation. We’ve traveled all over Texas and there wasn’t anything that we really wanted to do this year. Well, I should rephrase that; there wasn’t anything that really stood out for us to do within our budget that we haven’t already done or seen. Then one day, out of the blue Ariana said she wanted to go to California and see the beach.

Well, why not?

From Texas you drive down I-10 and connect with I-8 and it’s a pretty much straight shot to San Diego, albeit a 22 hour straight shot. We didn’t have the funds to fly so we’d have to drive to California. Road trips are always fun (if you can stand the hours of driving), and the kids always love a good road trip.

So that was it; California was our summer destination. And that’s how we came up with the idea to take a road trip to visit San Diego. On the way we’d stop at any roadside attractions that interested us. This is my favorite part of road tripping; all the unique things you can find on the way if you look for them.

What follows is a recounting of our trip; complete with notes, cartoons and artwork.

The Epic Road Trip Begins

The drive ahead of us was over 20 hours long, with the first 10 hours just getting out of Texas. Almost half the entire trip was driving across Texas! The longest part of any of our road trips is just getting out of Texas.

Our journey west is down I-10 and we have driven this same stretch of Texas highway several times before and now I prefer to drive it at night. This way when it’s dawn, we will be out of Texas when the sun rises and not have to waste precious daylight driving through Texas.

We hit the road at 8:20PM and switched drivers when we had to gas up the car or use the restroom. Driving at night is nice because traffic is light and since we’re driving so much during the night you have even more time to spend during the day at your destination. The worst part of night driving is eye strain. Oh, and all the deer along the shoulder of the roads. The last time we drove this way a deer ran out from the side of the road and smacked right into the side of our car.

My eyes get real tired driving at night and when you’re driving down I-10, out in West Texas you don’t pass through many towns and there are not very many lights lighting up the highway. All you can see is the moon and about 20 feet in front of you.

Sarah had downloaded over 500 songs to an Ipad