Road Trip 2012, A National Park Odyssey

16 National Parks, 18 States, and 6,588 miles and Countless Hours of Driving.

That is what a journey we are dreaming of undertaking will entail. A journey that will take us across the United States from Florida to Washington. We anticipate hitting every National Park in our path, as well as all the Dog Parks, Brewpubs and now playgrounds that we can. Our tenative departure date from Pensacola is April 1, 2012, right when our current lease will expire.

Here is our plan. We purchase an older Trek Pathfinder RV, a smaller coach than the Cruisemaster to make it easier to park and take places. And we convert the coach into a two tank, SVO (straight vegetable oil) capable running diesel. Solar technology will power the coach’s systems when we are not plugged in at an RV park, and even then we will try to not use electric unless absolutely necessary. We intend on going as green as possible and that includes modifying the water/sewer system also.

Then when the time comes to take off we take everything we have, or don’t need for the trip, and put it into Noah’s Ark storage which is a block from where we currently live. Seems fitting ;) To help offset the costs I am working diligently to obtain sponsorships from corporations and small businesses.

My first big sponsor I want to get is a shoe company. I will be setting up at art shows/festivals in towns as we go to sell books and would like to raffle off gift cards from the shoe company to gain exposure for both the project and the sponsor. The systems on the coach would also serve as a good opportunity to gain sponsorship, perhaps in the form of lending us their systems in exchange for including their logo on our coach and website. It will be a must to do a complete wrapping of the coach in order to display our sponsors, hopefully we can get a company to donate that as well.

Advertising spaces on the website will also help fund some of the trip. Another major part of the sponsorship puzzle is getting a large national chain restaurant on board to donate used vegetable oil to fuel us. There are may other small things we will try to do as well to fund the trip. Perhaps some t-shirts or posters. This is where my viewers and fans come in by helping me come up with any ideas or leads to help us out.

Another way is to help, is help us garner as many fans on Facebook as we can to show our potential sponsors and advertisers that we have a large loyal following. I think this can be accomplished as long as I can get interest from the public. I plan on twittering about all the off-the-beaten-path locations we visit. To share the world of Americana that we discover. To let people to vicariously explore through us, or be inspired to go out and explore on their own. This is a place that Twitter and Facebook will really be my best allies and I will utilize them to their fullest to the journey as interactive as I possibly can.

And of course I will be finding Lost Soles the entire way and I am sure their will be plenty of interesting stories accompanying them as usual. Below is a link to the route we have plotted out. If you are on this route or have been in the places we have marked, and you can give us any insight into what to see, where a good beer can be found, any festivals or art shows take place, we ask for you to share that with us.

Of course this is all just a dream at this point but we will make it come to fruition after all in 2012 the world ends anyway so what the hell, we will go out living a dream :)