Road Trip Across America: From Houston To Detroit. We celebrate The Interstate, Cars, Culture And History

There’s something liberating about the open road – the rhythmic hum of tires, the changing landscape outside the window and the promise of new experiences just a few miles ahead. Ever since Gail and I were little kids, it has been engrained in our childhood. As adults, this is what we were looking for when embarking on our latest road trip adventures that began with a mid-morning flight from Toronto to Houston, Texas.

Packing was easy – no checked luggage, just one carry-on each (yes even Gail managed to pack light!!) The packing cubes are fantastic at keeping your luggage organized, we don’t know how we ever survived without them!

You can buy them here: Soft Sided / Hard Sided

We had a good idea of what we would expect, but in the end it was an adventure that we’ll never forget with many surprizes along the way, as well as driving a truck we fell in love with!

After weeks of planning, excitement buzzed as we touched down in Houston. The first thing that struck us was the Texan warmth – both literally (100°F / 38°C) and figuratively. Also we were surprized how organized the airport was for connecting to ride-sharing. It has its own designated spot – just outside the doors and the continual movement of vehicles was mesmerizing. Everything was so quick and effortless. We jumped into our Uber and headed off to pick up our truck for the journey home.

Check out our other adventures in our “Road Trip Across America: From Houston To Detroit, We Celebrate The Interstate, Cars, Culture and History” series (also published on Road-Test)…

** Please note, these links will become live once we actually publish them in the near-future – everything will be inter-connected **
Related:
* Road Trip Across America: From Houston To Detroit. We Celebrate The Interstate, Cars, Culture and History – https://wp.me/p3dbmo-29V
* A Sip Through Time – Exploring Jim Beam Distillery, History And Bourbon – https://wp.me/p3dbmo-2aR
* A Trip Back In Time Henry At Ford’s Greenfield Village – https://wp.me/p3dbmo-29x
* Ford Rouge Factory Tour – https://wp.me/p3dbmo-2cy
* The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation – https://wp.me/p3dbmo-29z
* National Corvette Museum – A Car Enthusiasts’ Dream – https://wp.me/p3dbmo-2bI

Note: We use What3Words throughout our travel articles to give you exact locations. The app is free and you can use it on your phone or desktop/laptop. What3Words is a proprietary geocode system that divides the world into 57 trillion 3-by-3-meter squares, each with a unique three-word address. This system provides a simple and accurate way to find precise locations. Try it – you’ll love it!

Background on why we’re making this trip

Our friend bought the truck we were driving (2022 Ram TRX) specifically for his drive in the Gumball3000. It started in Toronto and ended in Miami whereupon he transported it to Texas in order to ship it to Germany. But the Germany part didn’t happen because he didn’t actually ‘import’ it into the U.S. so he can’t ship it from there… it has to come back to Canada. We were tasked to bring it back to Canada for him… and then ship it to Germany.

After much debate, we’d fly to Houston and drive it back, but we added a twist – a mini holiday for us! On the way back we were going to see some stuff we hadn’t seen before, so we stopped in to see the Corvette Museum, Jim Beam Distillery and ending in Dearborn to go through the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Ford Rouge Factory Tour and Greenfield Village before returning home.

NOTE: We’ll post each stop on our journey in different articles so that we can keep this as just the Road Trip Across America travel article.

For an in-depth test of the superb Ram TRX click here: RoadTest

** All the travel/parking details are in “If You Go” section in each individual destination article… **

Leaving Houston

After picking up our ride to take back to Canada, we kicked off almost a week of exploration, culture and unbeknown to us at the time – American history. This trip allowed us to delve into iconic American brands – from Corvettes to bourbon to Ford’s legendary cars/trucks, as well as experience states and places we’d never visited before.

Before leaving Houston we stopped and grabbed some food, a quick stop at Walmart for drinks/ice, then Costco for the all-important booze (thanks to the interweb for finding that deal!) and filled up the beast with premium fuel… with an urge for the open road, we finally headed off for our hotel for the night – much later than we’d originally planned.

The Drive From Houston To Texarkana.

With the truck packed and the open road calling, we embarked on the drive to Texarkana – a city that straddles both Texas and Arkansas (hence the name) giving us the opportunity to experience a quintessential American road trip, complete with winding highways and an endless horizon of fields and ranches. It sounds boring, but in fact it was a really nice drive.

$Iain Shankland, Gail Shankland, TravelBloggers.ca, Road Trip Across America$

The roads were nice and smooth, but the amount of debris on the road was astounding – everything from large pallets, tires, the entire front-end of a Chevy, a deer, an armadillo with 4 feet pointing to the sky, plus everything in between. The scary thing is, this wasn’t just Texas – our entire trip was jaw-dropping at the sheer volume of crap at the side of the road… until we hit Ontario…and shockingly it was spotless! We complain about the debris on the sides of our highways, but its bliss compared to the U.S. of A.

The great thing about the U.S. interstates is most of them have decent speed limits, although in certain areas they are more of a suggestion than a rule – we’ll never complain about that! Most of the speed limits on our journey was 70 mph [111 km/h], but Texas was 75 [120 km/h] and we actually spent most of the time in the 80-85 mph [129-137 km/h] territory, several times on our expedition we hit 90 mph [145 km/h] for a number miles – keeping up with the flow of traffic etc.

We crashed for the night at the Country Inn & Suites by Radisson which was a great choice. The hotel was clean and extremely friendly staff made our stay enjoyable after a long day. They served the best breakfast on our entire trip.

Hotel – Country Inn & Suites by Radisson. 1918 University Avenue, Texarkana, TX, 75501 ///clapboard.offerings.meals

Texarkana, Texas To Bowling Green, Kentucky

We had to do another pit stop at Walmart to get what we couldn’t get in Texas (it was being remodelled) and the constant road works. We plotted the course for Walmart…this time in Arkansas. To be fair – our stop at the Walmart in Arkansas was eye-opening. The people in Arkansas are sooo nice and polite and not the fake “nice”…genuine nice, regardless if it’s the staff or a customer. They engage in short but very friendly conversations and say please and thank you and excuse me – it was so refreshing it almost makes me want to move there!!! Texas people were equally very nice and polite.

$Iain Shankland, Gail Shankland, TravelBloggers.ca, Road Trip Across America$

The trip from Texarkana to Bowling Green KY was quite different from the previous day. Arkansas is completely flat, boring and coma-inducing – it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry in a sauna – we couldn’t wait to get out of the state. Added to the ordeal was continual construction of many roads and bridges along our path.

We ran into a major slowdown and a complete stoppage for well over 45 minutes! Thanks to Waze, we ended up taking a detour off the Interstate and onto some back roads – where in addition to the much slower speeds (35 mph/56 km/h) and a 40-minute side trip through the countryside – we got to see where the average BillyBob and his cousin/wife MaryBeth lived, before eventually ending up back onto the freeway. In the end we should’ve stayed on the freeway parked for 45 minutes, but we’d have missed the double-wide trailers right next to fancy mansions in the country – you just can’t plan for things like that!

Hot Tea: In Addition To Texas, McDonald’s Doesn’t Sell Tea In Arkansas Either!

While I drink coffee – the Gail doesn’t, so naturally she’d want tea on our travels. Well wanting and getting are two different things in the south. After filling up the truck we headed into a nearby McDonalds drive-thru for a coffee and tea. Here’s what happened:

Me: Do you have hot tea?
Her: Huh?
Me: Hot tea…the tea where the water is boiled and you add a tea bag.
Her: Ummm you can have tea without ice, that’s a bit warm.
Me: Never mind.

Four States In 2 days

Our road trip continued through Arkansas and up into the rolling hills of Tennessee and Kentucky, with the goal of reaching Bowling Green by late evening. The scenic drive took us through plenty of hills/mountains of Tennessee and we enjoyed a much nicer viewpoint from behind the wheel than Arkansas gave us. However, the speed limit dropped to mostly 65 or 70 mph [104 or 112 km/h]. That, plus an increased police presence in-turn significantly tapered our speedy journey across that section of America.

$Iain Shankland, Gail Shankland, TravelBloggers.ca, Road Trip Across America$

Kentucky is much the same as Tennessee – lots of mountains and hills but the bonus was they actually made an effort to pick up the debris at the side of the road – it dropped significantly upon entering Kentucky. Exhausted, we crashed at the hotel and anticipated two excursions that were coming up tomorrow: the National Corvette Museum and Jim Beam Distillery.

Our choice of hotel for the night was Comfort Suites in Bowling Green, about 10 minutes from the Corvette Museum. Again, the hotel was great and they too had extremely friendly staff. They serve a good breakfast too.

Hotel – Comfort Suites. 1211 Kenilwood Way, Bowling Green, KY, 42104 ///equivocal.reclaiming.bidder

Bowling Green, Kentucky: Corvette Museum

After an early morning rise, we arrived at the Corvette Museum – located just off the freeway. We were eager to delve into the rich history of this iconic two seater sports car, and the museum treated us to a visual feast of classic models, rare prototypes and legendary racing cars, as well as modern models. The museum by far exceeded our expectations. Allow about 2-2 ½ hours to see everything.

Read our full article The National Corvette Museum – A Car Enthusiasts’ Dream

After Bowling Green the debris at the side of the road returned big time. Other than that the drive was nice – it’s really a beautiful area of the country. We’ve never been through this part of Kentucky before, usually we’re on 75 heading north/south to Florida.

History At Jim Beam Distillery.

Kentucky is synonymous with bourbon, so naturally on our way to Dearborn, we couldn’t pass up the chance to visit the famed Jim Beam Distillery – one of the most iconic names in the industry. Jim Beam is a place where they take perfectly good grain and turn it into the nectar of the gods and it just happens to be the home of our favourite bourbon – so it was a must-stop-and-see.

The tour and tasting were great, but the food was meh…

Read our full article A Sip Through Time – Exploring Jim Beam Distillery, History And Bourbon

Time change – don’t forget if you are coming from the west… you’re switching from Central Time Zone to Eastern Time zone – the no indication where it does the switch though! When we got to Jim Beam I thought it was 12:30, but it was really 1:30 – a bit of a mixed blessing because I thought we’d have to kill 90 minutes till the next tour, but in reality it was only 30 minutes – either way we were going to have a long and late drive to Dearborn. Having missed lunch, we opted to grab some lupper (lunch-supper) and were on the road for 4pm – later than we’d hoped, but the tour was way worth the extended time.

On The Road Again – Kentucky To Dearborn, Michigan

After enjoying the bourbon-soaked charms of Kentucky, we drove north to Dearborn Michigan – the birthplace of one of the most influential industries in the world: the American automobile.

The roads on our journey to this point have been great for the most part for seeing the actual lines, if not the actual smooth surface. But just outside of Toledo, Ohio it became diabolical… no painted lines – just a random dot on the road. Add in a torrential downpour and it was a guessing game of how many lanes and which one are you supposed to be in. I was shocked we didn’t trade paint with several transport trucks all the way through to the other side of the city.

Arriving in Michigan wasn’t much better but at least the lines were there instead of random dots. Like Ontario however, they too use rejected ceiling paint from Home Depot instead of luminescent paint that should be on every road in the country. Darkness + rain equals a guessing game as to which lane you’re supposed to be driving in.

Finally we reach the Promised Land: Dearborn, Michigan. The Henry Ford is like Disneyland for petrol heads – it’s history, but with engines… but that would have to wait until tomorrow… we needed a long hot bath.

Dearborn – The Hotel: A Nightmare Of Epic Proportions – It started bad and went downhill from there.

After a long day on the road all Gail could think about was a nice long hot bath. And that’s what she got… thinking was all that was available! There was no plug for the bathtub that we were very specific about having – and paid extra for…so no bath after a very long 14 hours on the road. Dealing with the front desk was futile. Let’s just say this was the worst hotel experience for us in over 30 years – and we’ve stayed in a lot of hotels!

If you are in the Detroit/Dearborn area stay far far away from this dump (Staybridge Suites Dearborn) – no matter how good the reviews appear to be on social media. It’s a haven for long-term guests and is dirty and smelly too. This was also the most expensive room in the area and it gave us the worst experience. The only redeeming feature is that it’s about 9 minutes from The Henry Ford. Holiday Inn is right next door (same parking) I’d give that a shot instead – ///yard.shop.loses

Dearborn – The Ford Experience.

“At The Henry Ford you’ll discover THREE must-see attractions… 250 acres of the unexpected and ONE awe-inspiring experience”

Ford Rouge Factory, The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation & Greenfield Village

Dearborn is synonymous with the Ford Motor Company, and no trip here is complete without visiting the Ford Rouge Factory and The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation – oh and don’t forget Greenfield Village – a place where Henry re-created bits of American history. It’s like a theme park, only instead of rollercoasters, you get to ride in a Model T.

If there’s ever a time to make a special journey to see something special, then you HAVE to make the effort to spend 2 days at The Henry Ford!! This isn’t a “you should do it”… this is a “YOU MUST DO IT!”

Everything is located at the one spot… “The Henry Ford”

Park and enter the main entrance to the building. You can pay for all of your experiences at once and then proceed to enjoy your visit. For the Ford Rouge Factory, you pay and go down the hall, then exit the building onto a bus that whisks you off to the plant.

For the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation there are three main entrances: the first one is just past the main entrance on your left, the second is half-way down the long hallway, and the third is all the way to the end. We recommend you go all the way to the end and work your way back to the main entrance.

Read more about our adventures here: Ford Rouge Factory Tour & Ford Museum of American Innovation

For your visit to Greenfield Village, it’s best to park as close as possible – further away from the main entrance and enter there. You can pay to enter at their gates or pay at the main entrance and walk all the way down to the Village Entrance.

Explore the journey here: A Trip Back In Time At Ford’s Greenfield Village

Conclusion: A Journey Through Time & Culture

By the time we arrived back in Canada, we felt as if we had taken a journey through time – visiting places where American innovation, history, and culture came alive. From the speed and luxury of the Corvette Museum to the smooth flavors of Kentucky bourbon. From the mechanical wonders of Ford’s assembly line to the historic streets of Greenfield Village, our road trip was a celebration of what makes road travel so rewarding: the thrill of discovery, the joy of exploration, and the stories you collect along the way.

We thoroughly enjoyed our first long road trip for a number of years and the people we interacted with were extremely friendly. Driving the freeways was challenging because of the junk on the roads, but the roads themselves – and the drivers was very enjoyable… so much better than driving in Ontario.

America is a country of contrasts, where you can go from the cutting edge of automotive technology to a village stuck in the 19th century in the space of an afternoon. America never fails to surprise – it’s a land of excess, innovation, and questionable taste, all rolled into one star-spangled package. And we wouldn’t have it any other way….

** Also published on Road-Test.org **
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About TravelBloggers…
Iain & Gail started blogging in order to inspire and motivate people to travel the world from their perspective – specializing in having the most fun while using the least amount of money…travelling on the cheap without sacrificing comfort.

** In the end you will only regret the things you didn’t do **