Then reality crept in. The more we contemplated the map, the more we realized this wouldn't be fun; this would be insane. The maps went back in the drawer.

Five years went by and then five more. Alex grew up, got married and moved from our Hawai'i home to the Mainland. He was in Wisconsin, and the dream was on the back burner.

It simmered there, quietly. Maybe its ridiculousness kept it alive, but I still wanted to do it. And — to my satisfaction and surprise — so did Alex. He suggested coming with me — at least part of the way. Out came the map. This time, though, we decided it would be just — just !— a road trip, no record attempt. We'd see America first, if very, very quickly. When Jordan Kramer, an old friend from San Francisco, agreed to tag along for another leg, it was no longer a question.

It's intoxicating to charge the horizon wearing a car like a comfortable suit of clothes. Some deride being sealed in a highway-bound projectile, but to me it brings the near-hypnotic hum of the tires, the splendid sense of isolation, removal from the mundane and routine, insulation from responsibility and time for reflection, not to mention an excuse to eat bad (for you) food.

Let the good times roll, I said, and they did. Mostly. I rented a big four-door Chrysler with unlimited mileage. I planned to average 600 miles a day, sleep in a bed every night and take some two- and three-day rests. The route was simple, resembling a smaller version of the U.S. profile.

Jordan would join me first, flying into Las Vegas last September, and we'd start from there. There was no better metaphor for America than this anomaly in the desert, no better foil than a town so sincerely and meticulously phony (in the best sense of that word), so outwardly unlike the rest of America, yet nonetheless an avatar of the American tourist dream.

The night before departure, Jordan and I toasted our journey over a steak-and-frites dinner at that uniquely American institution, Paris Las Vegas. I realized that by the time I finished the trip and was back home, I would have seen every state but Alaska. I would be a 49er.

At 6 the next morning we were off. Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" blared from the car speakers, as it would every day of our trip:

Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way.

Within three minutes, we were lost.

Crestfallen, we regained our bearings and headed south through the Mojave Desert for California and our first state line. U.S. 95 plunged 100 miles to overheated Needles and the Colorado River. Interstate 40 beckoned, but we preferred the time warp of Arizona's old Route 66, passing through Kingman, longtime home of cowboy actor Andy Devine, countless trailers and the lonely high desert. Survivalist country.

Desert gradually dissolved into grasslands and the Coconino National Forest of Arizona, but the wide-open spaces ran out when we ran up against a two-mile traffic jam approaching Grand Canyon National Park. Still, it was an easy first day — 376 miles.

Westerns' landscape

Laurie's Cafe, Gate, Okla., a friendly roadside eatery; reservations not required. Photo courtesy of James Dannenberg

Utah's Monument Valley, locus of all my favorite John Ford westerns, was calling, but we settled for a stop at nearby Goulding's Trading Post, which straddles the Utah-Arizona line, before heading to Colorado.

Jordan and I had found our road rhythm and, though aware of the things we were missing, steeled ourselves against the lure of parks, monuments and tourist oddities. Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, home to ancient cliff dwellings, would have to wait, as would the retro Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and the isolated Hovenweep National Monument, which I have — for no good reason — bypassed perhaps a dozen times over the years.

We were going to make Taos, N.M., if it meant wearing blinders. The scenery gave us reason to keep going, with new riches with every mile: high grassland plateaus, distant mountain views and, past Durango, Colo., mountain forests reminiscent of France's Auvergne. The tradeoff was inevitable: We could see it, but we couldn't taste it or smell it or feel it. Even without a quest for the record, time was a taskmaster.

As the miles passed, Jordan and I talked about music — I had about 50 CDs with me, some classical, some opera, some classic rock — and photographs of our families and kids. Sometimes we lapsed into silence, and that was OK, too.

We reached Taos at sunset.

Running mileage total: 966.

The crater at ground zero surrounded by a bustling New York City made an impression after the empty roads of the Midwest. Photo courtesy of James Dannenberg

Still, I felt certain that we'd find something of value. Near Gate, Okla., I predicted we'd find the perfect roadside cafe and it would be called Mom's.

It wasn't. But it was close to perfect.

We walked inside. It was about two-thirds empty. Laurie, the owner whose name the cafe bore, approached us.

"Do you two have a reservation?" she asked, deadpan.

We laughed, sat down, ordered. As we ate Indian tacos made with fry bread and meat, we listened to her life story.

Her tales were far more interesting than our next few hundred miles. Other than Price Tower, a Frank Lloyd Wright highrise in Bartlesville, Okla., we didn't see much before leaving the sparse plains, clipping Kansas and making Neosho, Mo., after dark.

Mileage: 1,739

The majestic Grand Tetons in Wyoming, where the author and son dined at Jenny Lake Lodge after hiking and touring in the national park. Photo courtesy of James Dannenberg

I had misgivings as we approached the South. It dredged up dark childhood memories — from family vacation drives from Wisconsin to Florida — of "white" or "colored-only" facilities, of shantytowns and menacing rednecks. As we slid down Arkansas' spine, through Fayetteville and Hot Springs, through Louisiana cotton fields and across the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, old prejudices were decanted.

Cruising lonely Mississippi byways, we crossed the Natchez Trace Parkway and charted a course for Philadelphia in Neshoba County, site of the 1964 murders of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner. I was apprehensive. After all, Jordan and I were a couple of aging Jewish guys driving an out-of-state car.

Soon we were on the courthouse square in Philadelphia. I had expected a dusty, threatening congregation of good old boys in pickup trucks, but I was wrong. Expensive SUVs outnumbered pickups, and the square reminded me more of Marin County than "Mississippi Burning." No segregated lunch counter — just an investment office and a number of upscale businesses. People said hello.

Mileage: 2,406

Through Alabama to Mobile Bay we noted numerous rural churches, the absence of people and the massive logging of this flat, forested country.

We turned north at Pensacola, Fla., and headed into Alabama on a cushion of sunshine between two hurricanes. We ate a down-home lunch in Selma, and paused at Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights marchers on their way to Montgomery were attacked and beaten in 1965. The specter of hate, once again, was sobering.

From there we sped to Athens, Ga., the end of the road for Jordan. In the morning, I'd continue the quest and he'd take a shuttle to Atlanta to catch a plane home.

Mileage: 3,031

Wounded Knee Battlefield National Historic Landmark, S.D., marks the last big battle between U.S troops and Native Americans, in 1890. Photo courtesy of James Dannenberg

Mileage: 3,714

The next morning, I made an end run around Washington, D.C., hit Maryland and crossed the Chesapeake Bay into Delaware and rode the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway to Westchester County, N.Y., where I happily bunked with relatives. The crowds in Manhattan were a startling contrast to the sparsely populated South. I visited ground zero. It was Sept. 10, and flags ringed the area around the massive hole, reflecting the enormity of an event that forever changed the country I was seeing.

Mileage: 4,120

The route into Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts took me again into wooded rural areas, where the maples were turning. In Hawai'i, I miss the change of seasons — that is, until it gets cold, and then I don't miss it a bit. After lunch with old pals in Connecticut, I sought respite at my brother Harry's place in Brookline, Mass., vegetating for three days except for a lobster lunch at the Weathervane restaurant in Kittery, Maine, just a hair over the border.

Mileage: 4,492

Leaving Harry's, I headed west toward Madison, where I had spent my college years and where Alex and his wife, Dalia, live. An early start took me through New Hampshire, across a corner of Vermont, and into the forested hills and mountain ridges in upstate New York — James Fenimore Cooper country, thickly settled yet definitely not urban. It was easy to imagine Uncas and Chingachgook — the last of the Mohicans — here.

The Ohio Turnpike was dull. After 815 miles I finally called it quits near Fremont, Ohio. In some nondescript motel off a highway exit, I faded quietly. This was America at its cookie-cutter worst.

Mileage: 5,305

Sick of the turnpike and the anonymity, I jogged into Michigan the next day, taking U.S. 12 past pristine farms to Lake Michigan, which I followed to Chicago and the inevitable construction delays. Back roads north of Chicago led to Madison, a reunion with Alex and a few more days off.

Mileage: 5,785

Western Wisconsin's U.S. 14 rambles through hilly farmland, where Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked, and beyond to the Mississippi River, which we crossed into Iowa's undulating eastern countryside. Interstate 94 circled the Twin Cities and headed into the lake country of western Minnesota.

I knew what was ahead and had told Alex to keep an eye out. Near Vining, he exclaimed, "Dad, there's a big toe."

He was pointing at a huge representation of a foot, one of the area's odd outdoor sculptures, which also include a giant cup of coffee and a pair of pliers holding a bug.

The eastern Dakotas aren't quite as rib-tickling — flat and empty, and it's impossible not to speed. In Redfield, S.D., I got nailed going 40 in a 35 zone. Alex, who'd stacked up his fair share of tickets in his youth, took a perverse pleasure in seeing his father tangled in the long arm of the law. It was even funnier to him, I suspect, because of my profession: I'm a judge.

We pushed on to Pierre, capital of South Dakota.

Mileage: 6,600

South Dakota attractions seem to be crammed into the southwest corner, and near the border you have choices to make: the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood, Badlands National Park, Wall Drug.

Exiting at Cactus Flat, we cruised the Badlands and the Pine Ridge Reservation, hardly affluent but less depressed than I remembered from an earlier visit.

We also paid our respects at Wounded Knee Battlefield National Historic Landmark, a lonely and forlorn memorial commemorating the last big battle between U.S. troops and Native Americans. We bought beaded handicrafts from some young Sioux girls looking to support their school softball team, and then rode in near-silence to Casper, Wyo., the weight of history hanging in the air.

Mileage: 7,061

It's hard to pinpoint the perfect road-trip moment, but crossing the Sweetwater River in Wyoming on U.S. 287 came close: You could see forever, cruising a long, empty road toward the Rockies, all the while watching storms scud across the darkened high plains. Alex dozed. I could imagine myself the only conscious being for 100 miles — alone but not lonely.

The Rockies in September can be treacherous. We discovered this as we crossed the Continental Divide at 9,658-foot Togwotee Pass, half-blinded by a snowstorm and leery about skidding off the occasional cliff.

Grand Teton wasn't much better, with the mountains shrouded in clouds and snow in the forecast. We drowned our climatologically induced sorrows with margaritas in Jackson, Wyo., and hoped that the sun would honor us with an appearance.

Mileage: 7,361

The sun obliged, and we had a couple of fine hiking and touring days, charismatic fauna included, topped off by dinner at Grand Teton National Park's Jenny Lake Lodge.

We dawdled through Yellowstone on the way to Alex's plane in Bozeman, Mont., past carpets of trees germinated since the 1988 fires. Neither of us was in a hurry to part. We'd had a chance to visit, had disagreed only once (over which way to go, and he turned out to be right) and had grown closer as we closed in on our dream.

After West Yellowstone, Highway 287 followed the Madison River, opening into a large dry valley before snaking through high canyon country reminiscent of "A River Runs Through It." We had it mostly to ourselves.

And then Alex was gone. I missed him almost immediately.

Only two more states, Washington and Oregon.

Past Missoula, Mont., the Lewis and Clark Highway traverses the Lolo Pass and tracks several rivers for 200 splendid miles across Idaho. Leaning into the hundreds of curves along the way, I was part of the road in the muted fall light. I saw few cars, but each felt like an intruder.

Civilization re-emerged in Clarkston, Wash.

Mileage: 8,496

The next morning, at 8,540 miles, I reached Oregon, state No. 48, and continued through the Wallowa Valley and then looped westward around the Wallowa Mountains to Interstate 84 and back east through Idaho. It was a lovely, quiet morning in this farm and pasture land, obscured occasionally by ground fog.

Soon to close the circle, I rushed through drab southern Idaho to Twin Falls, catching U.S. 93, the Great Basin Highway, south 200 miles to Ely, Nev.

Mileage: 9,187

My last day was among the best.

Great Basin National Park in Nevada was an unexpected treat. Surrounding 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak, it's an oasis in truly barren country. A 12-mile drive climbs to 10,000 feet, through thick forests of pine and aspen, the latter yellow and gold in full fall mode, and the basin's panorama stretching 50 miles to the horizon. I saw only six cars along that road and felt as though I owned the place. I didn't want to give it up.

But soon enough I was approaching Vegas. The closer I got, the more barren the landscape seemed and the more concrete replaced nature.

Last reading

Final mileage: 9,587 in 16 days of driving. It wasn't a record, but it was a reaffirmation of sorts.

America is too vast to know in just three weeks, but in my blitz across it I sensed that regional differences are disappearing. Should we lament this or celebrate it? I can't say for sure. I can say that I saw some of the scars of America's past, the product of hatred born out of the way we see differences. In this regard, perhaps the sameness will be the salve that begins to heal our wounds.

In my three weeks on the road, I found my share of solitude and natural beauty. I realized that once I get out on some lonely highway stretching to the horizon, where, as Kerouac said, "my witness is the empty sky," the years melt away and I am at peace with the world. Little can burden my heart. In the end, the road is enough for me.