Fulfilling a childhood dream to travel the country and tell its stories, Two Lane Gems, Vol. 1, is a road trip romp from the Chicago area to San Diego and back. Theresa Goodrich grabs her laptop, her camera, and her journal and makes (asks, she means, asks) her husband, Jim, to drive 6,479.5 miles through thirteen states.

Starting at the most important archaeological site in North America, their journey takes them through sand dunes, forests, plains, and mountains. They stayed in haunted hotels, a rustic cabin, charming bed and breakfasts, and the oldest motel in Arizona. They camped in canyons and deserts and were visited by deer and surrounded by turkeys (jerks). They met a World War II vet, learned how to grow a date, and had a beer in the lowest bar in the Western hemisphere with a bartender named Scheherazade.

Part travelogue and part travel memoir, this book will have you smiling, laughing, sometimes crying, and, at the end, planning your own American road trip.

Two Lane Gems, Vol. 1 is an uplifting, inspirational, and often humorous love letter to America. From cliff dwellings to buried cars to more hoodoos than you can shake a switchback at, this tale follows their round-about journey to find the country’s treasures.