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“San Francisco to Chicago. In a convertible. With a redhead. What could possibly go wrong!!?”

That is the subtitle my friend Rick gave a photo album shortly before we set off on a cross-country road trip in May. He was moving to Chicago, so of course we had to kick off this new life chapter with our biggest adventure yet. We posted photos along the way, but here is the full collection in one place. (Photos are by both of us; if you claim them as your own, you’ll face the combined wrath of Rick and Layla, which I do not recommend.) Click on the photos to see them in all their full-sized glory.

My vacation started at 5 p.m. on Friday, when I left work and went on a 13-mile run. The next day I was off to the wedding of two dear friends. Between the flowing wine at the reception and the strong drinks with lots of dancing at the after-party, I was nearing collapse when I got into a cab and then caught the last train home. Sunday morning involved a rare hangover, a three-mile “car retrieval run” and a few forced bites of breakfast.

Day 1: California and Nevada

Rick picked me up at 1:30 p.m., and the trip was officially underway.

About two hours into the drive, I got excited about huge road construction equipment that was bright turquoise. I think this is probably the first time Rick thought to himself, “Wait, I’m stuck with her for HOW MANY days?!” But answer me this: Have you ever seen turquoise road construction equipment??

Anyway, Rick did not toss me out of the car, and we pulled over at the Nevada state line.

This set the stage for future states, though we didn’t know the ante would be upped. (See that? It’s called foreshadowing.)

First priority: Solar eclipse! No, Rick’s actual first order of business: Seeing if Layla’s hair would blend in with traffic cones. (This was not my idea. In fact, I think this makes excitement about turquoise road construction seem pretty mild.)

Moving along to real priorities. The solar eclipse was the first one visible in North America for 17 years, and Reno just so happened to be a prime viewing location. My dad was in town and had managed to find eclipse viewing contraptions, so we met up on a street corner in Reno and peered up at the sun.

So, yeah. Reno had been hot and sunny with no cloud relief for several days. It was a prime eclipse viewing spot. And then, five minutes before the moon moved perfectly in line with the sun, the clouds decided to play games. No ring of fire for us. Meanwhile, we were standing on a mildly sketchy Reno street corner, staring up at clouds, while mildly sketchy people stared at us. It was time to move along to another family meet-up, this time with Rick’s aunt, Betty.

Her boyfriend, Brian, was preparing to leave the country for work for at least a year. His best buddy of several decades was less than happy, so they were having one last hurrah and had spent the whole day drinking. And that is how I met Brian and Woody. I will forever kick myself for not getting a single photo of Brian and Woody together. Maybe that’s because Woody, who had just gotten another tattoo on his arm, was very intrigued by my name, my hair and me.

Woody promptly decided that I reminded him of Jennifer Gray in the movie “Footloose.” And then he exclaimed: “I’ve seen you in your underwear!” Best line of the entire road trip.

I had run that morning, barely eaten anything, recovered from the hangover, and was nearing delirium from lack of calories. Woody and Brian had no plans to stop drinking, so Betty and I got a table at a nearby restaurant while Woody and Brian proceeded to pour about four beers into Rick in the span of about three minutes (we have no idea how that happened, but it’s impressive). He soon joined us for dinner, and Woody and Brian went off to do whatever Woody and Brian do. Actually, this is what they do:

Soon, The Most Interesting Man was placed at our table, entertaining passersby — not just any passersby, but tipsy casino-goers.

That’s around the point when I said The Most Interesting Man would look good in Rick’s convertible. “Oh, oh, oh!!” a rather animated Rick exclaimed. “He needs to go on the trip with us!!!”

Day 2: Nevada and Utah

Our new friend needed a name. I nixed Steve. So then Rick came up with Arlington (a road we’d passed in Reno), Arlo for short. On Monday morning we carefully buckled him into the back seat and were on the road.

We set off across Nevada, which looked like this for a little while:

And then it got pretty boring and flat. We switched off the driving, and the scenery was still just as boring.

When driving across the entire state of Nevada…

We finally reached another state line.

A few outtakes:

Then we stopped at the salt flats, which didn’t photograph too well. They’re white and, well, flat and salty.

Off in the distance, we saw a tall smokestack-type of thing. We kept driving, went around a hill, and we still hadn’t reached it. The thing was huge.

I was, of course, dying of curiosity about the thing, but I didn’t actually find out what it was until long after the trip. However, Rick had guessed correctly that it’s so tall in order to send gas into the atmosphere, rather than into the population of Salt Lake City. At 1,215 feet high, the Kennecott Smokestack is the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River and the fourth tallest smokestack in the world. It would be the third-largest in the world and the largest in the U.S., but one in Pennsylvania was built three years later, and I’m guessing they intentionally made it two feet taller for bragging rights. (OK, OK, I’ll stop with the history lesson — can you tell that I loved history in school and that I like finding the answers to my curious questions?)

After a long day in the car, we arrived in Salt Lake City and pulled up to a lovely hotel, with an extremely lovely (and massive) room and a lovely view. Rick said it was to make up for the place we would be staying the following night, where hotels are few and starred ratings — any stars at all — are rare.

We also had a lovely dinner. I still hadn’t been abandoned on the side of the road due to my random silly comments, so I pushed my luck and took a couple quick photos of the first course at dinner:

Day 3: Utah, Wyoming and Nebraska

The next morning, Rick got in the car and then jumped backward — Arlo was sitting calmly in the backseat and had startled him. Good start to the day! Plus, Utah was much prettier than Nevada:

As was Wyoming:

Speaking of Wyoming…

We cruised through Wyoming, and this might be where I was introduced to the novelist Dick Francis. We alternated music and an audio book, and before long I was hooked. I didn’t think I’d be interested in a story about horse racing, but I’m always game to try something — and then it turned out to be a mystery. Two thumbs up from me.

Then we reached Nebraska, where Rick decided that we needed weeds in our teeth. This was shortly before I got a little mixed up about roads (they change numbers when you cross a state line). That was my one near-meltdown on the trip, and of course I felt like an idiot once I calmed down a few minutes later. Lost Layla is unhappy Layla.

Rather than driving straight across the country on Interstate 80, we had a detour planned. Neither of us had seen Mt. Rushmore, and both of us wanted to see it. This was discussed before we determined that the trip was actually happening. That wasn’t the only thing I wanted to see: Long ago I had added another site to my unofficial bucket list, and when I looked at a map, I discovered that it was basically on the way. It sounds goofy, and Rick was skeptical at first. But I was extremely excited about it, so he humored me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Carhenge!

Yep, Carhenge is exactly what you think: An imitation of Stonehenge, made of old cars. It was built in 1987, and it’s basically the only thing worth seeing in the town of Alliance, Nebraska. Or probably most of Nebraska, for that matter.

Pardon me while I post some Carhenge photos.

At one point, we left Arlo to admire the cars by himself. We should have known he’d attract the ladies: A couple girls saw him and took a couple photos. We hurried back, for fear that he’d be kidnapped and doomed to life in a town that had very little cell phone signal, but all was well.

Dinner was at a Mexican place recommended by the girls at Carhenge. The food was great, but our desire for Dos Equis (Arlo was rubbing off on us) was foiled because the restaurant didn’t have a liquor license “yet” — despite having plenty of alcohol listed on the menu. Our server was more than a little spacey, but maybe that’s also a western Nebraska thing. We did ultimately find Dos Equis that evening.

Day 4: Nebraska and South Dakota

The next morning, after chatting with an interesting couple from Pennsylvania, we headed north.

Nebraska soon gave way to South Dakota.

The state border brought some sprinkles, so Rick had to lend Arlo a jacket before he’d agree to get out of the car.

We got to Keystone, South Dakota, a quaint town clearly aimed at tourists. A mile later, I got my first glimpse of Mt. Rushmore through the trees, and then we rounded a bend.

The Mt. Rushmore visitors center has lots of fascinating history, and it also houses the models that were first created in order to give the workers something to work from. They’re built to scale, one inch equaling one foot. Each head on the monument is 60 feet tall.

On our way out, I snapped a few quick picture of this guy, Nick Clifford. He’s one of the original monument carvers.

Mt. Rushmore was all I’d hoped. If it were being built today, I wonder if the same presidents would be included on the memorial.

The drive across South Dakota was green, cloudy and sometimes rainy. My sunburnt skin was grateful for a reprieve. We passed the northern edge of Badlands National Park, but I was driving and didn’t get photos, so you’ll just have to imagine interesting rocky shapes.

Did I mention that South Dakota was green? Yes, I’m a big fan of greenery. And pretty clouds.

My task for the last half hour of driving that day was to “find a nice place for dinner.” This is where it’s handy to actually know your road trip companion, and know that he does not have something like Chipotle in mind. The combination of Yelp, UrbanSpoon and OpenTable led to success, and the tired travelers enjoyed a fantastic dinner in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

And then came the lightning storm. To say that I was thrilled is an understatement: I’ve always loved lightning storms, and these days they’re a very rare treat.

Day 5: Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois

I had noticed on the map that we would pass due south of Mankato, Minnesota. Until January, that was the town where my friend Jim lived. Six years ago, I was on a radio show that Jim happened to hear, and for some reason we became Internet friends. A year ago, he lost his father to cancer, and then he was also diagnosed with terminal cancer. Jim embarked on road trips, in order to make the most of his remaining life. On Jan. 1, I broke the 4-hour barrier in a marathon because I kept fighting in his honor. Two days later, Jim died.

If it hadn’t been for cancer, I would have finally met up with Jim on this road trip. I kept the sad thoughts to myself and soon regained my perspective: Life is short and should not be spent in regret. I knew that Jim would have gotten a kick out of all my road trip photos. So I consulted a few of the websites I’d browsed before the road trip — I needed another interesting site along the way, and I found one due south of Mankato.

How do you top Carhenge and Mt. Rushmore? Well, you don’t. But this will suffice:

Yes, that’s a 55-foot-tall statue located in the middle of nowhere, aka Blue Earth, Minnesota.

Of course, this called for goofy photos, including Layla being irreverent and Rick being the photography director.

As if that’s not funny enough, in the (very long) time it’s taken me to actually write this blog post, I have since won a friend’s random blog contest. My winnings: A bunch of Green Giant loot. Between these awesome photos and the Green Giant merchandise I am now using, they should hire me.

We almost missed the Wisconsin state line due to a poorly placed off-ramp, but we couldn’t disappoint Arlo and his fans.

Deer don’t fare well on Wisconsin highways: That afternoon I counted five dead ones on our side of the road. We wondered who had to pick them all up, and why there were no automobile repair billboards facing the highway. Rick also realized that we’d seen almost no people pulled over by highway patrol officers on the whole trip, and very few officers’ vehicles, for that matter. The roads were wide open, there was no road rage, and everyone just cruised along.

After a stop for dinner (where Rick the manager admired the efficiency of the operation, while Layla the people lover watched the customers’ attire and interactions), we reached our last state.

After 2,461 miles, we reached my mom’s house. Rick headed into the city of Chicago. And that, my long-suffering readers, is a wrap.