PART 1:No, I'm not 100% sure why I'm doing this. Yes, it seems genuinely stupid.Maybe because I have a good friend in Memphis, who kindly offered to show me his hometown, crash at his place, and then roadtrip together (with his lovely wife) to New Orleans for a weekend full of gluttony and sin — the allure of beignets, shrimp and grits, and bourbon and jazz bars being far too strong for any reasonable man to pass up. Or maybe I just want to explore this great country and witness firsthand life outside of the Silicon Valley bubble and simply travel more and meet new people.A long time ago, I used to date a redhead originally from Bakersfield, and we'd drive down I-5 quite often to visit her family. In hindsight, my nickname for her was quite fitting — testarossa.On one such trip, we ended up at Wool Growers for her Grandaddy's 95th birthday. It's a local Basque restaurant which serves large portions of rural-California Basque food (imagine huge steaks, tons of butter, iceberg salad, home cut fries, pickled cow tongue, picon punch, etc.). The family sat at a long, communal table — his children, grandchildren, spouses and kids. Unsurprisingly, I got seated next to Grandaddy and we ate together silently while watching everyone gossip and argue amongst themselves, amused by the usual family drama.Eventually, I leaned over and whispered into his ear, "Grandaddy — you're almost 100, and I'm only 25 — do you have any advice that you would give yourself when you were my age?"He laughed in his raspy Bakersfield accent, more Southern charm than Southern California. He's the kind of man that loves rhubarb pie, plays piano at church every Sunday without missing a beat, and has been a lifelong member of the local Kern County Kiwanis Club. Over the course of our visits, we've shared lots of stories and got along surprisingly well — stories of his youth, to how the west coast looked 50+ years ago, to how he misses his first car — a 1929 Chrysler Imperial convertible!He sighed and whispered back, "" with a glimmer in his eye.Nowadays, I find myself thinking more about Grandaddy and his words of wisdom than his granddaughter that I was so head-over-heels in love with at the time.So last weekend I tuned up the little Honda as best I could — valve adjustment, oil change, transmission fluid, diff fluid, clutch fluid, brake fluid — she's sitting at 108,000 miles now! I'm praying that a blown engine, dropped valve, or spun bearing are not in my future.Many of you don't realize how big California really is — it took me 8 hours of southbound driving just to get out of the damn state to the Nevada border! Unfortunately, this meant I still had 3 more hours to go until I arrived in Flagstaff, AZ. In hindsight, don’t save your longest drive for your first day — my body and mind took quite the beating, despite the gas station pit-stops and the obligatory roadtrip In-N-Out Burger pilgrimage. Thankfully I got to recuperate with a four-course chef's tasting menu (and a lot of wine and cocktails) at Tinderbox Kitchen in Downtown Flagstaff.If you've never been to the Grand Canyon, add it to your bucket list. I would rank it as my #2 favorite National Park, right under Zion (with Yosemite as my #3). After temporarily willing my car to my friend Brian (in case I disappeared down the Colorado River), I ended up hiking South Kaibab trail down to Cedar Ridge. The rangers will warn you that it's twice as hard to hike up as it is to hike down, which was an understatement.I guess I didn't learn my lesson — another 12.5 hour drive — with a plan to stop in Amarillo, TX for the #6 best BBQ joint in the entire state (Tyler's Barbecue according to Texas Monthly). My plan had one fatal flaw however, which I didn't realize until it was too late — the change from Pacific time to Central time — and I rolled into Amarillo right as the restaurant was closing. Eventually I continued on the 4 hours from Amarillo to Oklahoma City, watching thunderstorms and lightning striking seemingly hundreds of miles away on the vast open horizon, not aware of the premonition of the storm to come the following day.I saved this easy drive of merely 475 miles (or about 7 hours) since I was going to meet with my friend Stephen (and his lovely wife), and hopefully get dinner and drinks in Memphis, my first foray into the South. About six hours in, I found myself driving into a storm, the likes of which I have never seen in my life on the west coast (and hope never to see again).I was barreling down eastward on I-40, a two-lane highway, and making excellent time. Just one more hour until I am in Memphis proper. I was surrounded by semi-trucks, SUVs, and pick-up trucks when the rain started... Hard.I decided to pull out of the fast lane and slow down to 65mph when the storm took a turn for the worse. Traffic slowed and I lowered my speed to 40mph in 6th gear, hoping to squeeze every ounce of traction out of my rear tires (Continental DW) as standing water flooded the interstate. And that's when the taillights of the trucks around me, the lane markers and paint, road signs, and all other vehicles disappeared — there was now zero visibility in this freak storm, but traffic was still moving. My adrenaline kicked in with an eery feeling of being surrounded by giant monsters that I could not see, but could sense were around me.Fearing that I was suddenly just as invisible to the semi-trucks as they were to me, I turned on my hazard lights. I kept my foot steady on the gas, the steering straight, now barely keeping it together at 30mph in 6th gear. I couldn't see anything in front of me until I finally saw the semi-trailer in front of me reappear almost as quickly as it had disappeared — only swerving in and out of its lane, starting to fishtail as the water was simply too much for it to handle.Every bone in my body yelled, "" but when you see a semi-truck in front of you about to lose it, and know there are a few more behind you, your body develops a mind of its own.And that's when my rear tires got loose and I felt the traction slip away...Thanks for reading, stay tuned for