A Look at the Road Trip That Inspired “Fender” (With Photos)

The road trip in Fender is based on a real road trip my wife and I took with our dogs back in 2015. Just for fun, I thought I’d share our itinerary from that trip, as well as a few photos.

Including driving around each destination—from the hotel to dinner, landmarks, dog parks, and so forth—we logged more than 7,000 miles and 126 hours behind the wheel on that trip, visiting 12 destination cities and spending 23 nights on the road.

We took I-90 west, I-5 south, and I-80 back east.

We drove through 17 unique states, in order:

1. New York
2. Pennsylvania
3. Ohio
4. Indiana
5. Illinois
6. Wisconsin
7. Minnesota
8. South Dakota
9. Montana
10. Idaho
11. Washington
12. Oregon
13. California
14. Nevada
15. Wyoming
16. Nebraska
17. Iowa

Then a repeat of IL, IN, OH, PA, and NY before crossing back into Canada.

The characters in Fender stop in many of the same cities we did, stay at many of the same hotels and motels, and eat at many of the same restaurants, even though the names of some venues were changed.

Here’s how our road trip broke down:

Milwaukee, WI
October 16, 2015
633 miles

Sioux Falls, SD
October 18, 2015
575 miles

Rapid City, SD (*)
October 20, 2015
347 miles

(*) A half hour from Keystone, site of Mount Rushmore.

Missoula, MT
October 22, 2015
660 miles

Seattle, WA
October 23, 2015
475 miles

Portland, OR
October 26, 2015
174 miles

Vacaville, CA (*)
October 28, 2015
582 miles

(*) The approximate halfway point between San Francisco and Sacramento, both of which we visited.

Reno, NV
October 31, 2015
165 miles

Salt Lake City, UT
November 2, 2015
518 miles

Cheyenne, WY
November 4, 2015
440 miles

Omaha, NE
November 5, 2015
494 miles

Chicago, IL
November 6, 2015
471 miles

Fort Erie, Canada (*)
November 8, 2015
542 miles

(*) Home, just on the other side of the river from Buffalo, NY.

To quote the Afterword (page 209) of Fender:

So please, I urge you, if you ever find yourself presented with the opportunity to venture cross-country by car, do it. You just might find that every road is a path toward a new beginning, and each new landmark you explore brings you one step closer to home.

Fender is available for purchase now in both print and Kindle eBook format on Amazon.

As new formats and retailers become available, the books page of this website will be updated.