How to Bond With Your Wife in One Easy Step: The great American road trip

Some couples renew their vows. Others plan a romantic getaway. Me? I took my wife on a cross-country road trip right after I completed a Cannonball Run and within 72 hours, we were fleeing an Arizona State Trooper at 100+ mph.

Let me back up.

The disastrous Cannonball Run was behind me, the dust settling in Redondo Beach. My wife flew out to meet me in California, and we spent a few relaxing days at the Portofino and running around LA (ever do a burnout on Rodeo and kick your car sideways on Mulholland? We did.) before setting off on something I’d always wanted to do: a real American road trip together. No tight schedule. No hard plans. Just the two of us, the open road, and the kind of GPS guidance that says things like “Turn left now for The World’s Largest Pistachio.”

Our only goal was to see the country finally stopping at all the places I'd blown past during faster missions. Grand Canyon? Yep. Meteor Crater? Why not. Route 66 kitsch? Sign us up.

But somewhere between wholesome Americana and hard charging, I forgot one thing: I don’t exactly drive slow.

After running across the entire country in just over a day, your brain starts to forget time and distance are a thing. I genuinely though we could have lunch in LA and get to the grand canyon for dinner. Silly now but at the time it seemed to make sense. I was rocketing towards the Grand Canyon when I blew past an Arizona State Trooper. Pro tip: Arizona is not the state to speed in. Virginia gets the headlines, but Arizona writes the checks. I saw the trooper’s lights flicker on and did the only thing that felt natural—I stayed in it, exited two miles ahead, and disappeared into a Best Western parking lot behind a row of trucks. The little Mercedes blended in perfectly. My wife? Not so much.

She was full panic. “We should stop!” she shouted. “We’re going to jail!” I reassured her calmly: “We’re going to bed.” We checked in, and she immediately passed out either from terror or relief, I’m still not sure.

That moment set the tone for the rest of the trip and our hotel of choice. We really enjoyed the best western plusses. .

We were blasting toward the Meteor Crater with 15 minutes to spare before it closed to see it because why not, saw the UFO McDonald’s in Roswell, stopped at Cadillac Ranch, skipped the Big Texan steak challenge (too full from our meal in roswell) but had a great dinner that i was so full after, i couldn’t drive, my wife got covered in fuel at a fuel stop in Albuquerque and met up with a few Cannonballers along the way. But the next close call came in West Virginia, in a construction zone with a posted limit that might as well have been 15. I was doing considerably more while looking for country roads on my phone as I saw the WV state trooper out of the corner of my eye. I was going faster than everyone else, but everyone was speeding lucky for me, the trooper pulled over five cars at once.

This time, my wife wasn’t yelling. She was white-knuckling the seat and quietly sweating. When she asked what would happen if I went to jail, I calmly laid out the logistics: “You follow me to the station, bail me out, and we hire a lawyer.” She nodded like we were discussing which gas station to stop at.

The trooper walked up, I hit him with the high pressure sales pitch to donate to a non profit before he started his script, offered him a challenge coin in exchange for a donation, and somehow—somehow—we walked away with a warning.

My wife was stunned. “You’re doing 110 again,” she said as we pulled back on the highway. I replied, “We’re already in Pennsylvania. I don’t care anymore.”

In the end, this wasn’t a honeymoon. It was better. There’s nothing quite like shared chaos to bring two people closer together. You can sit across from each other in therapy, or sit side-by-side at 110 mph across the desert, trusting each other with fear, risk, and the silence in between.

That trip did more for our marriage than any vow renewal ever could.

Fuel, Fire and Water with a Misfire

I wrote this lying in bed at the Portofino back in 2019, waiting for my wife to land in California after the run edited ever so slightly.

A week before the start, I found myself with no codriver. I had mostly resigned myself to doing it solo, no big deal. Then I got a message from Rob. We talked. Turns out, we saw this the same way. Same sensibilities, same drive. A few conversations later with the last one literally happening literally as a friend walked down the aisle at his wedding. Rob was in and was going to fly over from the UK.

Friday comes. I pick Rob up at the airport. We hit the hotel, settle in, and do a final strategy session at Barnes & Noble. The car checks out except suddenly the auxiliary fuel gauge, which is dead. No fixing it now as it’s likely the gauge. But I’ve got an odometer and I know my transfer timing cold.

Saturday morning, we crush the hotel breakfast buffet, double-check everything, and load the car for the last time. It’s game day. We retreat to our rooms to call loved ones and try to rest before our late checkout… but sleep never comes.

4 p.m., lobby call. I grab some fuel injector cleaner to help the factory tank’s sensor—my paranoia about fuel gauges stems from past experience where there is a complete gauge failure. We stop at Walmart for snacks, then top off both tanks with fresh fuel before linking up with Dave for our pre-run gourmet feast of Stop & Shop hoagies.

We hang out until it’s time to roll. Except it’s not. An accident near the Tappan Zee threatens our launch, so we delay. I prep the Garmins for timekeeping, planning to start the scanner and ALP 15 minutes before departure. Want everything fresh. Except… one Garmin isn’t charging. I can’t find the charger I just had. Thankfully, Dave comes through with a spare. Back in business… for now.

Then: more problems. I deleted the wrong app for my V1 detector. The big Garmin still won’t charge. The module’s cigarette lighter is dead. I scramble. Fix the lighter, plug in the Garmin, reinstall JBV1, and re-launch the scanner. The IR camera on the backup phone quits—fixed that too.

Finally, everything’s working. JBV1’s running. Scanner is logging. Garmins prepped. Rob slaps a Cannonball sticker on the dumpster. I bring the car down. Photos at the start. It’s late, but we’re rolling.

At 10 p.m., I’m standing outside the car—my last few moments before being glued to the seat. Rob snaps the start photo, starts the stopwatch, and we’re off. Dave runs alongside until the split. Rob reminds me to keep it safe, this isn’t a sprint. It’s a chess game.

We hit New York. Traffic starts thinning. Time to find a rhythm. Then a misfire. Feels like a hard miss, but intermittent. I figure the injector cleaner is working its way through. No big deal.

Then a light comes on. Not the CEL I expected from the fuel cell evap mod, its something else. Rob checks it while I drive. The misfire gets worse. We make an unscheduled stop in Pennsylvania. I check fluids and everything's full. Turns out the light is a coolant-level warning. False alarm. We fuel up, and mileage checks out.

Then more issues: Rob switches the Garmin from route to stats—and the data’s nonsense. Moving time, averages, everything is off. Both Garmins are cooked, intermittent power loss. Even our independent tracker craps out. We’re flying blind on the “big picture” stats now. It’s calculator time.

The CEL kicks on. Cylinder 8 misfire. Car is running worse. I limp it through a 30mph zone with a cop behind me. Fantastic. Once we’re back on the highway, it slowly clears up. Probably gunked from the cleaner.

Detector is chirping like mad with false alarms maybe, maybe not. I’m stuck at 65% of our intended pace. Frustrating. But then I transfer fuel from the cell to the main tank—and suddenly the car comes alive. Time to move.

At the first scheduled stop, Rob hits the restroom while I fuel up, then we swap. Car’s okay—not perfect. After a bit, the dash starts cutting out. Full instrument failure. I research it and it’s a known issue, won’t leave us stranded. Push on.

Rob handles Ohio and pushes into Indiana. Finally, the car’s loosening up. He’s getting 80% out of it now. I try to nap. Try.

Somewhere past Indy, it degrades again. No power, even at full throttle. Feels like something this might be it. We stop again. I check under the hood. All the coil packs are loose probably from the earlier misfiring. I tighten everything down. Fire it up and bam, power’s back. A lot of power. We didn’t realize how crippled we were until now.

Rob crushes the next stint. Car’s strong. Roads are clear. Illinois passes fast thanks to our eye in the sky, Rob Zappa. In Missouri, we make a small wrong turn and end up at the Gateway Arch. Worth it, got a great photo under the arch.

Next fuel stop. My turn. The stumble on startup fades. In Oklahoma, traffic slows us down. No mechanical issues, just humans. Then an overturned truck in OKC blocks our ramp into Texas. Once clear, I open it up while Rob sleeps. Hit a zipper merge in Texas coming to a dead stop. I pull over and amazingly it ends up saving us 10+ minutes. Bonus stretch, bathroom break, topped off coolant to shut off the annoying light due to the sensor coming uncovered on the road, replaced some fuses for the dash as this was something that could cause the dash issue. Back at it.

At the next Texas stop, we swap again. Ironically, it's the same place Rob stopped during his C2C Express run. No traffic. Rob hits it hard. 80-100% sustained. After dark, I finally crash hard for a real nap.

We realize we’ll need one more fuel stop due to being out of sequence, so we plan for a shorter stint. In New Mexico, we fill up near the Arizona border. Rob crashes. I push on. Roads are garbage in Arizona, rough and full of potholes. I’m tired. Really tired. Then I see it: “Winslow, Arizona.” That damn song stuck in my head thanks to Zappa. I pull over and take the photo—“Standin’ on a corner.” Rob’s bewildered. “What are you doing?” He doesn't know the song. I hop back in and hammer it.

But fatigue wins. I’m cruising, then suddenly slam the brights thinking I saw a massive black panther leap across the road. Full brake, heart racing. Rob bolts awake. “What’s going on?” I tell him. He says, “How about I drive?”

Deal.

I pass out cold.

Later, I wake to Rob yelling, “Where’s the f***ing kill switch?!” He slams the brakes—we just flew past an Arizona sheriff. Brake lights off, we coast at the speed limit. The sheriff paces us… then backs off since he didn’t get a hit and who would expect this car of going triple digit speeds. We live.

Fuel light’s on. Rob tries to wake me. I barely register it. He shakes me again. I get up, find a stop, pass back out. He tries again. I guide him to a good stop. He’d been hammering it, making up serious time.

My turn again. Final splash and go before California. I grab coffee, top off. We're on the last leg. It’s uneventful until Barstow. Then the usual: L.A. traffic hell. Two and a half hours of stop-and-go. But we’re close.

Adrenaline kicks in. No more fatigue. Just drive. We weave through school zones, hammering it. Three lights from the marina entrance, I go to make a pass around someone panic stopping at a yellow. BANG!. No power. Nothing. Rob and I lock eyes—did we just blow the transmission?

We can see the Portofino.

I start rolling. Hills are on my side. I throw the shifter around. Suddenly the drive engages. We’re alive. I punch it, pull into the Portofino, stop at the sign. Rob jumps out and snaps the photo. I follow.

We did it.

I figured 40 plus hours. That’s what Rob had been saying.

He looks at me, grinning. “37 hours, 13 minutes, 36 seconds.”

I wanted to be disappointed, we had issues start to finish with so much time stopped but with everything that happened?

I couldn’t be prouder.

Because we made it. And only those who’ve stood at that sign, after ripping across the country, truly understand what that feels like.

California, Here We Come! My Road to the Cannonball Run

I wrote this in 2019, half-buried in tools and grief. I had just lost my uncle, Bob Burns, the kind of man who never played by the rules unless he was rewriting them. I was rebuilding his car in a cold garage, chasing clarity through busted knuckles and late-night silence. This wasn’t some polished tribute. It was survival. It was purpose.

The world had kicked me in the teeth, and I did what I always do: I built something. I wrote this while the engine was still open, the future uncertain, and the road ahead calling louder than ever.

This is what Cannonball meant to me both then and now.

Why Cannonball?

Cannonball? Why on Earth would anyone do something so crazy? Driving on public roads well above the 85th percentile of speed sounds dangerous and foolish, right? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.

I’m not here to argue right or wrong. I'm just here to tell you how I got pulled into this madness — and how I ended up prepping for a run of my own.

It started when I was ten.

I was in bed, watching TV, when a movie came on. It opened with police chasing a bright red Lamborghini Countach. Then it cuts to a bored kid my age skipping stones with his grandfather. The Countach hits a roadblock, darts onto a dirt road, and ends up skipping across the pond where they’re standing.

I was hooked. I had no idea what I was watching but I knew it was something different. That night, I learned about something called the Cannonball Run.

A Brief History (Buckle Up)

Cannonball wasn’t just a movie. It was real. The original “Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash” was created by Brock Yates and Steve Smith as a protest against the 55 MPH national speed limit and government overreach. The first run happened in 1971 in a Dodge van dubbed Moon Trash II, clocking in at 40 hours and 51 minutes.

More followed. Starting from Manhattan or Darien, CT, these were pure expressions of freedom, guts, and skill. They inspired spin-offs like the US Express, 4 ball rally and the One Lap of America, which still runs today.

Fast forward to the 2000s — Cannonball came back with a vengeance. In 2006, Alex Roy and Dave Maher posted a solo run of 31:04. That same year, Richard Rawlings and Dennis Collins reported a 31:59. Then in 2013, Ed Bolian and Dave Black shattered that with 28:50. Just when people thought it couldn’t be topped, Arne Toman and Doug Tabbutt dropped a jaw-dropping 27:25.

But solo runs are just one piece of it.

There are competitive events too like the 2904, created by John Ficarra, was Cannonball meets 24 Hours of Lemons. Budget cap: $2,904 for the entire run, including the car, mods, fuel, food, and any tickets. The C2C Express, started by Ben Wilson, keeps the vintage spirit alive using pre-1979 cars. Safety is taken seriously as in all of Cannonball history, the only injury was a broken arm from a limo crash.

Because here’s the thing: Cannonball is not about recklessness. It’s not about weaving through traffic like a jackass. It’s about proving that skilled drivers in capable, well-prepared cars can safely maintain speeds above the posted limits with good judgment and intense focus.

From “Someday” to “Let’s Go”

I was already into cars but the Cannonball movies took it further. Cross-country, flat-out? It captured something deep. But life throws up roadblocks. I told myself, Someday. Years passed. I stopped making excuses, and life got interesting racing, music, rallies. But none of it scratched the itch. I wasn’t dipping a toe anymore. I needed to jump.

Then life punched me in the face. The kind of hit that makes your eyes water. I realized I’d buried this dream under obligations that didn’t matter anymore. It was time to do the damn thing. It was time to cross the country.

Searching for a Car, Finding a Purpose

I dipped my toe in with a long road trip alongside one of my friends. The run wasn’t official or along the correct route, but it was the test. I needed to see if I could stay sharp behind the wheel for hours on end and stay focused, keep judgment. I passed. I was ready.

But I didn’t have a car.

I started hunting for an old Caprice I could rebuild with spare parts. Looked at several. All overpriced, or worse full of suspicious powder. Or the sellers were full of it. (“I know what I got.” Yeah, you and every sketchy Craigslist ad ever.)

Then December 2018 hit.

My uncle, Bob Burns, died suddenly. He was a force. Former mayor of Egg Harbor Township. Radio host of Your Neighborhood Garage and Bob Burns in Your Afternoon on WOND. A man who always said what he meant and never settled for the status quo. Losing him was devastating.

I went numb. I did what I always do, I buried the pain and focused on helping my aunt. But something shifted. Our relationship deepened. I told her I wanted to run the Cannonball in his Mercedes.

Without hesitation, she said, “He’d love that. It’s yours.”

Now I had a car. His car.

The Build

I dove in. Replaced far too much. OCD took over. Everything had to be perfect, not for performance, but for control. Grief was the ghost in the garage, and wrenching kept it at bay.

Finishing the build took longer than I expected and somehow, not long enough. When the dust settled, I had to sit with the grief I’d been outrunning. I did. And I found something in that space not just sorrow, but fuel.

I flipped the switch. The run was two months out. I changed my workout. Cleaned up my sleep. Reached out to Ben about running in the C2C Express. My car was two decades too new. It was a no but I had to ask.

Then I asked if I could at least come to the pre-run meetup in Connecticut. That was a yes.

Perfect.

Almost There

I was hyped. None of my close friends really understood the whole Cannonball thing. But if I went to the meetup, I’d be around people who got it. That meant something.

A few days before the event, I confirmed the location. I caught the bug, and in the frenzy of it all, Had a few drinks with some cannonballers. Day of Ben said F it, go ahead. Get you a codriver and go. I tried to recruit a co-driver on the spot.

Didn’t work out. I didn’t go.

But I’d been infected, and now I was ready.

The Road Ahead

Now it’s just a few weeks out from my own run. So many pieces are in place. So many unknowns still ahead. But I’ve got a car. A prepared car. I’ve got a co-driver I trust. I’ve got clarity, and it’s waiting out on the open road.

Now we pull the lever and see what happens.

California, here we come.