At 2,000 miles, on the way to Memphis

JACKSON, Tenn.--What a week.

I am running on fumes as the Road Trip 2008 odometer hits 2,000 miles even.

I've spent the last week or so almost entirely in Tennessee and Kentucky, visiting some of the most interesting factories, museums, distilleries, and other destinations in the region.

At 1,000 miles, I was on Interstate 65 on my way to visit Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. I made it there and had a great time getting a taste of the astronaut training primer that more than half a million kids have gotten over the years. As well, Huntsville was the home of the Rocket park at the U.S. Rocket and Space Center, where the original Saturn V is on display, a very impressive piece of hardware indeed.

Looking back, it was really a crazy thousand miles.

There was also a visit to the General Motors assembly plant in Bowling Green, Ky., where I got to watch Corvettes get made.

After that, I took a couple hours to wander through Geek Squad City, a giant facility in Brooks, Ky., where the famous computer repair company has 700 technicians servicing thousands of machines every day.

Next up was the Louisville Slugger factory, where more major leaguers' bats are made than anywhere else in the world. And then it was time for two days of full UPS immersion.

First, I spent several hours on a tour of Worldport, the cargo company's unbelievably big Louisville air distribution center. Then, the next day it was on to visits to several companies that are part of the larger UPS logistics system.

If you think that's enough for any thousand miles, you're seriously underestimating me. I still had a several crazy days in which I experienced some of the most interesting Kentucky color, including the famous gold depository at Fort Knox; a museum of a century of cavalry and armor; and the well-loved Maker's Mark distillery.

That's all that's been published so far. But stay tuned to Road Trip 2008, because I've already visited United Record Pressing, one of the world's biggest makers of vinyl records; NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston; and Gibson's specialty and custom guitar factory.

And all of that was within a thousand miles of driving what is turning out to be a really nice 2008 Subaru Outback 2.5 XT--though I will admit that I had to take a quick overnight flight to Houston for the NASA visit.

What will the next thousand miles bring?

To find out, please keep watching this blog, as well as my Twitter feed and my Qik channel.