american road trip talk

Spotify is currently not available in your country.

Follow us online to find out when we launch., spotify gives you instant access to millions of songs – from old favorites to the latest hits. just hit play to stream anything you like..

Listen everywhere

Spotify works on your computer, mobile, tablet and TV.

Unlimited, ad-free music

No ads. No interruptions. Just music.

Download music & listen offline

Keep playing, even when you don't have a connection.

Premium sounds better

Get ready for incredible sound quality.

American Road Trip Talk

By american road® magazine.

Listen to a podcast, please open Podcast Republic app. Available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store .

Category: Places & Travel

Open in apple podcasts, open rss feed, open website.

Write a review

Description.

Open Road: 50 Best USA Road Trips with Jessica Dunham

In this week’s edition of American Road Trip Talk, meet Jessica Dunham. She is an expert on American road-tripping from Route 66 to a plethora of other routes across the nation. Just released is her updated version of The Open Road: 50 Best Road Trips in the USA .

As the owners and producers of award-winning  American Road  magazine devoted to promoting and communicating the joys of traveling America’s scenic and historic back roads, Thomas and Becky Repp want your future road trip to be both interesting and exciting. By teaming up with veteran radio broadcaster, Gary Mantz, they offer up valuable road trip planning information.

For more information visit  www.americanroadmagazine.com  or dial 1-877-285-5434 extension 2 to subscribe.

• PODCAST NETWORKS PODCASTONE PODCASTONE SPORTSNET CAROLLA DIGITAL LADYGANG HUBBARD
• TRENDING PODCASTS The Jordan Harbinger Show Adam Carolla Show I've Had It Cold Case Files Bitch Bible

I've Had It

When Reality Hits with Jax and Brittany

Crime Salad

Turtle Time with Ramona & Avery

Causing a Scene with Sara and Natalie

On Brand with Jon and Marisa

It's Not Only Football: Friday Night Lights and Beyond

Unlocked with Savannah Chrisley

Hammered Heroes (And Villains)

Our Fake History

What They Don't Tell You with Jordyn Jones

The Jay Jay French Connection: Beyond the Music

The Michael Irvin Podcast

The Dr. Gundry Podcast

From Negative to Positive with Pitbull

Too Tired To Be Crazy with Violet Benson

LiveZone Music News

Court Junkie

That's Awesome with Steve Burton & Bradford Anderson

American Road Trip Talk Podcast features the NARM Association

American Road Magazine

American Road Trip Talk is your chance to discover the backroads that embody true Americana. As the owners and producers of award-winning American Road magazine, Thomas and Becky want your future road trip to be both interesting and exciting. By teaming up with veteran radio broadcaster, Gary Mantz, they offer up valuable road trip planning information.

On April 8, 2022, American Road Trip Talk featured “NARM Association: Museums on Their Minds” with Virginia Phillippi, Director of the North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Association, “who has made a career connecting travelers with over a thousand museums under their coast-to-coast umbrella. If it has cultural or historical significance, it is important to the NARM membership. Aficionados, unite!”

Previous Post Mother Line

Next post imagine that the power of picture books.

Comments are closed.

• Download NARM Member List
• NARM Quarterly Magazine
• Resources For Institutions

© 2024 North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) Association®. All rights reserved in all media. | An Engenius website. Terms & Conditions

• How It Works
• Daily Features
• NARM Magazine
• Individuals
• Institutions
• Find An Institution

Frommers.com Podcast: Great American Road Trips for the MTV Generation

By The Frommer's Staff

Guest host Kathleen Warnock and "MTV Road Trips U.S.A." contributing authors Maya Kroth and Ethan Wolff talk about an American tradition: the road trip. Wolff and Kroth share pre-departure planning advice and some great trip ideas and itineraries for exploring different parts of the country. And what road trip would be complete without a soundtrack? Our authors' reveal their favorite songs for the open road.

To listen this episode, click the "play" button on the MP3 player below.

To download this episode to your hard drive, click here . To listen to previous episodes or to subscribe, visit www.frommers.com/podcast/ .

Top Tips from This Podcast See transcript below for links to more information. Planning: Have an outline of where you want to go and what you want to do...but keep an open mind to spontaneity. Chemistry: If you're travelling with others, it's a good idea to have everybody's agenda in tune. Avoid Trouble: Pay attention to your water supply, and drive carefully -- especially on roads that are less maintained. Scenic Travel: Try avoiding the major highways for a more scenic drive. Get Lost: Don't be afraid to turn off the GPS and wander from your planned route. Music: A good playlist will go a long way towards making the trip more enjoyable. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. David Lytle: Welcome to the Frommers.com Travel Podcast. For more information on planning your trip to any one of thousands of destinations, please visit www.frommers.com .

Kathleen Warnock: Hi, and welcome to the Frommers.com Podcast. I'm Kathleen Warnock. I'm an editor with the Frommer's Travel Guides. I will be your host today. We will be talking about the MTV Travel Guides. As you may know, MTV and Frommer's have collaborated on a series of guidebooks for students and 20-somethings and some of the rest of us. My guests today are two of the authors of the new MTV Roadtrips USA Guide, which I edited. Ethan Wolff traveled around the American Southwest on the trail of the first Americans, and Maya Kroth went on a barbeque odyssey throughout the South, and a rock and roll road trip up and down the west coast. She did the planning chapter, and if you're into planning, that's important. So I edited these roadtrips and a whole bunch of others that cover a whole lot of the lower 48 and a little bit of Mexico. We're here to talk today with Ethan and Maya. So welcome. Thanks for being here today.

Ethan Wolff: Thanks.

Maya Kroth: Thanks for having us.

Kathleen: All right. Let's start with a question for the both of you. Maya, what do you think, since you're the planning person, are the ingredients for a successful roadtrip?

Maya: How did you know that my first answer to that question would be, "A good plan!" [laughter]

Maya: I am a big planner, so having an outline of where you want to go and what main things you want to hit, to me was really key. But on the flip side of that, I thought that having an open mind, being open to spontaneous things that aren't necessarily in your plan, is almost as important, if not more so. I really couldn't have done either of these trips without really awesome music selections sitting in my car stereo.

Kathleen: OK. Ethan, what about you? What are your ingredients for a successful roadtrip?

Ethan: The first thing I always think about is chemistry, particularly if you have some other people along with you. It's good to have everybody's agenda more or less in the same direction. I know one roadtrip I made, one of my traveling partners was in a real hurry to get to his destination, and the rest of us were very eager to take our time. I'm sure we irritated the heck out of each other trying to get that straight. It's funny thinking about the planning, because a roadtrip is classically such a spontaneous experience, or designed to be spontaneous. But it really is helpful to have some good advice. I know I benefited just from going around and doing my tour. One thing I tried to put in my chapter were good photo ops. Because it's not necessarily something that's going to be intuitive just from driving along. Sometimes you have to go a little bit off the road. But it seems like documentation is a big part of roadtripping, or at least a classic part of roadtripping. So having some good camera or video or recording or just a notebook, something like that, to document; and then also some good advice about places you shouldn't miss as you pass through.

Kathleen: Yeah, I totally agree. I also think that, for me, the ingredient for a successful roadtrip is having a quest - whether it's a quest to go to see this band that you have always loved and you're going to drive five or six states for it, or whether you're going to tour all the parks in the National League, or something like that. Or you just want to go out and blow off as much steam as you can possibly blow off in the period of your roadtrip. So I think that putting all those things together can really get you off to a really good time. I'm going to follow up a little bit now on the planning chapter, because Maya wrote it. You actually gave us several personality types of the roadtrippers: the solo flyer, the explorer, the navigator, the know-it-all, the driver, and the Zen optimist. Now you sort of hinted at this, but what's your roadtrip personality?

Maya: I don't know. I think everybody's got a little bit of each of these personalities in them, of course. For me, the dominant one would either be the driver or - I'm embarrassed to admit it - but the know-it-all, kind of. I have a hard time accepting the fact that other people might know more than I do about a certain location or alternate routes or whatever it might be. But I definitely like to be in control. I don't like to get lost. So it's key for me to be behind the wheel and have a really good navigator sitting next to me.

Kathleen: Well, I think those are important. What about you, Ethan?

Ethan: I have definitely played all of those roles at one time or another. I think most often I end up as the navigator, which maybe ties into the desire to write travel. I don't mind telling people where to go.

Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense. Of course, when I roadtrip, I have been queen of the bus schedules myself, because I do a lot of my roadtrips here in the Northeast. I'm also a Zen optimist, because I've been known to get on the wrong bus. So you just sort of get where you get and you start exploring. OK. So now let's get down to some of the fun stuff from the book. As the editor, I asked you guys to come up with a trip that you'd always wanted to take and design it yourself, and then go. So, Maya, you did a Southern barbeque roadtrip that took you from Austin, Texas, to Lexington, North Carolina, which is right outside of Charlotte. The folks who are into barbeque take it very seriously, as I'm sure you found out. So after eating your way across eight states, what did you discover about barbeque that you didn't know before? Did you have a particularly memorable meal? Were you really tired of barbeque again by the time the trip was over?

Maya: Surprisingly, when I got home, I thought the last thing I ever wanted to do was eat a cold pork sandwich. But when we got home from the trip, the first thing that my companion and I ended up doing was going out for barbeque at home in San Diego, just to see how it compared. I think what I learned about barbeque is that you should forget everything you think you know about barbeque, because whoever you're talking to knows better. They've got better barbeque, and their mom makes the better sauce. I don't think there really is such thing as a consensus when it comes to great barbeque. It's all good. It's like what they say about pizza or sex. You can't go wrong with barbeque. But that said, I think my most memorable meal was probably in Memphis, where I got a chance to get to talking with Patrick Nealy, who's the proprietor of Nealy's Barbeque in Memphis, Tennessee. He took me back in the kitchen and showed me where they smoke the meat all night. Until like 4:00 in the morning, they're smoking ribs back there. At one point, he showed me a rack of ribs that had been just sitting on the counter in the kitchen. They do dry rub ribs, which means they don't mop their ribs with sauce. He just grabbed a bone from the middle of the rack of ribs and just barely fiddled with it, and it just slid right out of the rack, completely clean. You know that's a good rib when it's just literally falling off the bone. Those were pretty tasty.

Kathleen Warnock: That sounds great. All right, Ethan, your trip was called On the Trail of the First Americans. It took you through the Four Corners region of the Southwest. You call Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, the best place to feel like you've stumbled onto the Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner set. That's really vivid. Can you talk a little bit more about that and the landscape?

Ethan: Well, the cartoonist had to come up with those ideas from someplace, and when you land yourself in Utah, you feel like, oh, it must have been here. There's something like 2,000 arches in Moab, in Arches National Park, and all around it is really spectacular, Mars-like scenery of eroded buttes and petrified sand dunes. It's all kind of red, orange, brown. If you see it in the morning or the afternoon, it just lights up. It's incredibly surreal, and I think maybe the most beautiful place on the planet.

Kathleen: That's fabulous. I think that touches on something that I was hoping for when I sent all of you guys out, which is places that touch you and change you. Can you talk a little bit about why you picked that part of the country, and the sort of things you were looking for when you were going there?

Ethan: I lived out there several years ago in Albuquerque, and had made some little trips up into the country. I'd really fallen in love with it. I find it very haunting. I'm from the east, and just to see that much sky or that much space and to have it be pretty empty most of the time, is very strange. The ruins are so spectacular. I'm talking about the Native American structures that were abandoned, oh, maybe 800 years ago. They've been left in place, and the climate out there is relatively forgiving to old stone. So some places look like they just left a couple of days ago. The wood looks like it was just freshly cut. It doesn't really show any rot out there. There's something about being in that landscape and having your normal associations stripped away. I find it really moving.

Kathleen: I think that's one of the things that you want to do on a roadtrip. You want to get away from whatever's going on in the rest of your life, strip it away, and do something else, because it allows you some perspective. At least that's my experience with roadtrips. One of the things that I wanted to do as the editor was to give people a lot of different kinds of experiences. From stuff that involves the wide open spaces to stuff that involves, say, enclosed spaces and a lot of noise, which is my segue back to Maya. Because you also roadtripped up and down the west coast on a rock and roll odyssey, hitting the best clubs for live music all the way from San Diego to Seattle. So can you tell us a little bit about what your favorite music town is and why? Do you have a favorite club? Did you see an absolutely brilliant show along the way?

Maya: I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? I think my hearing was permanently damaged on that trip. [laughter]

Maya: The thing about the west coast is--I mean, I grew up here most of my life. So I know this part of the country probably a little bit better than other parts of the country. But there's so many great music cities here. Seattle, obviously, with the whole grunge thing, and then totally reinventing itself again with the Indy rock craze lately. L.A.'s just got a little bit of everything. San Francisco and Portland, same thing. I mean, quirky little clubs and really dedicated people. These are the kinds of places where people will show up. They don't even know who the band is. They just show up because they know it's going to be something good. There's something about that community aspect to the rock and roll scene that really attracted me. I'm really hard pressed to choose a favorite, but Portland is probably pretty up there. There's just so many little hole in the wall places. You don't run into a lot of chain stores or corporate concert venues or anything like that. So every experience you go to feels really intimate and one of a kind. I got steered toward some random metal club out in this far southeast neighborhood in Portland, where all of it--it was filled with glow in the dark murals, like black light murals. The bartender, when I got there, behind the bar, he handed me a pair of 3D glasses and said, just go wander around. It's really cool, man. That was totally not my scene, but it was such a great experience. A lot of these things, it felt like this could only happen here. That's what I liked about Portland.

Kathleen: That's cool. One of the things too, was that we wanted to make sure that people didn't get too pale on this roadtrip. Because it is up the west coast, and it is some gorgeous driving. You pointed that out a lot in your chapter as well. What are some of the things that you saw outside of rock clubs that were most beautiful or most fun?

Maya: Oh, well, the terrain. Just the driving from L.A. to San Francisco. A lot of people take the most direct route, which is the I-5. Really not scenic. Really not fun. So I'd highly recommend driving the coast if you're doing that. Just for the ocean, and you get to drive through some beautiful wine country up in Santa Barbara and that area. Then particularly striking is extreme northern California, between San Francisco and Portland. There is Mount Shasta. Lake Shasta is up there, which was just some of the most stunning vistas. I had to stop three or four times and just take some breaths of fresh air. Refreshingly non-L.A. air. It was gorgeous. There's forest. The most untouched wilderness I think I saw was in that stretch, for sure.

Kathleen: Wow, that sounds awesome. I'm going to be get back to you for a minute, Ethan. Because in your chapter, you ran into a few bumps in the road, so to speak. You ended up with a few of these little boxes that we have in each chapter called Uh-oh! Uh-oh is sort of a warning about something to pay attention to. Or it could lead you down the wrong path or cost you some money or cost you some time. So tell us a little bit about some of the things that you would highly recommend, especially when you're traveling, say, in the parks of the far west.

Ethan: Yeah, I was definitely a magnet for disaster. I don't know. I could justify it by saying at least I knew I'd have something to write about, but in retrospect, my wallet and I probably would have preferred not running into that much trouble. I was two hours into my trip when I destroyed my rental car. I was going down a dirt road that was not well maintained. It was partly flooded out. I'm just much more used to the New York subway than anything like that. I bottomed it out. I think I knocked the radiator offline. Whatever it was, I was probably 100 miles from the nearest tow truck or gas station. Everyone was very helpful, which is certainly something you find in the Southwest. But I would say, as a precaution, just drive very slowly, unless you've got some crazy Hummer or something else. Because the roads out there are not like they are back east. Another piece of advice I learned the hard way, is really pay attention to your water supply. I know this is completely self-evident, particularly if you're out in the desert in the summertime. I ended up in Natural Bridges, which is a gorgeous place. I didn't know anything about it. I just saw on the map that there was a driving loop. So I figured, OK, I'll just take the loop and see everything there is to see. But I ended up at one little point where you could get closer to an Indian ruin. I wanted to see it up close. I went down the trail. I had maybe a little thing of water in my pocket, and nothing more. I just kept going, because it was one of the most beautiful valleys I had ever seen. It just kept drawing me in, and I kept wanting to get closer to this ruin. By this point it was midday. One of the other troubles you run into out west is that it's inverted hiking a lot of the time. You're going down into canyons. So the real work is hauling yourself back up again, uphill. So at any rate, I ended up staying hours past the time I had meant to stay out. I didn't have any food. I was coming up that hill with the sun beating right on me. I could just feel the air sucking all the water out of my body. Something like that is extremely easy to avoid. There was water at the visitor's center. All I had to do was--I had water sitting in the car. I had Gatorade. I had trail mix. I had some of those bars. So it very easily could have been avoided if I had just taken Maya's advice and done a little bit of planning.

Kathleen: OK. Well, that's good to know. It's one of the things people can pick up when they read through the different roadtrips that people have. We're getting ready to wind it up here, and one question I'd like to ask both of you. If you're addressing say, the reader who has read the book and says, you know what? I want to do this. What's the advice you would give them as they walk out the door for their own roadtrip? We'll start with you, Maya.

Maya: Again, I think that having just a good mental balance between being open to spontaneity while at the same time sticking more or less to your plan. That's going to have you the least stressed out and the most able to just enjoy the things that you stumble upon when you're exploring a different part of the country. I really can't stress enough the importance of going to the bathroom before you hit the road. [laughter]

Maya: There's nothing more annoying than having to stop 16 times because everybody forgot to go.

Kathleen: I think that's a very wise piece of advice. Now what about you, Ethan, other than not bottoming your car out in the first two hours of the trip?

Ethan: Well, among that, I definitely would say, don't be afraid to get lost. Don't be afraid to turn off the GPS if you have it. Although I agree with Maya that it can be lifesaving to have a bunch of good music with you. Sometimes, turn off the music you brought and turn on the local radio. Because I find that sometimes it's the really unexpected times that the character of a local place will seep in. To do that, sometimes you do need to get off the plan a little bit.

Kathleen: Yeah. I'll ask you each one more question, also starting with Maya. I had you write up playlists in your chapters. So give us your favorite roadtrip song. You don't have to say why, but you can tell us a little bit about it. Maya?

Maya: No question. "Out of Gas" by Modest Mouse.

Kathleen: Hopefully you didn't run out of gas.

Maya: I didn't. But that's just one band. All of their songs are characterized by being on the road and what you see on the road. It really helps get you in the roadtrip mindset. I was listening to a lot of Modest Mouse.

Kathleen: Oh, that's cool. Ethan, what about you?

Ethan: For me it's Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee," which is also covered by the White Stripes. It's about taking one more cup of coffee before going down to the valley below. I think it's really a haunting tune. Particularly in the desert, I think you really like to have the more drawn out, haunting songs. They seem to match. It's either that or blasting Led Zeppelin. Both seem to work for me.

Kathleen: Yeah. When I'm actually doing a roadtrip in a car, it's not a roadtrip unless we hear Joan Jett and the Blackhearts' "Light of Day, " which was of course written by Bruce Springsteen. I really thank you both for coming in off the road and telling us about your stuff. I expect you'll both be hitting the road again soon, and I expect I will too. But I'm really glad you came and joined us today. I'd like to thank you. Let me tell you a little bit more about the MTV Roadtrips USA Guide, which is coming out very shortly. We already have the MTV Guides to Italy, Ireland, Europe and Spain that are out there right now, and you will see some more MTV destinations in the months ahead. So Ethan and Maya, it's been great talking to you. Thank you so much for being here. Join us next week for another conversation about All Things Travel. I'm Kathleen Warnock, and I'm hitting the road. [music]

David: For more information on planning your trip, or to hear about the latest travel news and deals, visit us on the web at www.frommers.com . Be sure to email us at [email protected] with any comments or suggestions. This has been a production of Wiley Publishing and may not be reused or rebroadcast without expressed written consent. [music]

• All Regions
• Australia & South Pacific
• Caribbean & Atlantic
• Central & South America
• Middle East & Africa
• North America
• Washington, D.C.
• San Francisco
• New York City
• Los Angeles
• Arts & Culture
• Beach & Water Sports
• Local Experiences
• Food & Drink
• Outdoor & Adventure
• National Parks
• Winter Sports
• Travelers with Disabilities
• Family & Kids
• All Slideshows
• Hotel Deals
• Car Rentals
• Flight Alerts
• Credit Cards & Loyalty Points
• Cruise News
• Entry Requirements & Customs
• Car, Bus, Rail News
• Money & Fees
• Health, Insurance, Security
• Packing & Luggage
• -Arthur Frommer Online
• -Passportable
• Road Trip Guides
• Alaska Made Easy
• Great Vacation Ideas in the U.S.A.
• Best of the Caribbean
• Best of Mexico
• Cruise Inspiration
• Best Places to Go 2024

Willie Nelson Recalls the Prolific Road Trip Where He Wrote 3 Hit Songs in 1 Week

Peter Burditt

Updated: 

Writing is often considered as a sacred thing. Given this cherished characteristic, it is typically performed in a personally significant space. Whether at the office, in your bedroom, on a deck, or anywhere conducive to productivity. The space in which one writes is a place that allows for no distractions between the writer and the writing. Hence, when Willie Nelson writes, he goes to his car for a creative retreat.

Videos by American Songwriter

In 2014, Nelson sat down on The Howard Stern Show and divulged this information. Stating, “If I really need and want to write a song today, I’ll get in the car and take off driving down the highway.” The “Why” to Willie is fascinating, and one that writers alike can understand. Consequently, it is this “Why” that has led Nelson to write some of his most famous songs from behind the wheel.

Willie Nelson’s Drive from Texas to Tennessee

In 1960, Nelson left Houston and headed straight for Nashville. Aiming to make it big in the business, before he even stepped out of his car he already had three hits under his belt. He just didn’t know it yet. Nelson wrote “Night Life,” “Crazy,” and “Funny How Time Slips Away,” while making the country music exodus.

It was this drive that delivered Nelson one of his many big breaks. Upon reaching Nashville, he went to Tootsies on Broadway, played “Crazy” on the jukebox, and then Patsy Cline’s husband went to play it for her that night. Cline and Nelson went on to record the song just a week later, according to Nelson on Stern. Nelson’s 11-hour drive holds nearly 60-plus years of music history.

Drivings’ Divine Nature

Stern asks Nelson if he’s a religious man, and Nelson merely responds, “Probably.” However, it is the act of driving that seemingly delivers songs from the heavens into Nelson’s catalog. Per the interview, Stern utters, “Well maybe it’s like a gift from God.” Nelson briefly replies, “Well that’s for sure.” Despite this portion of the interview not being fleshed out to the fullest extent. One can wonder, what divine happenings happen with Nelson writing in his car.

It seems Nelson’s Nashville career was started on the road. The road for Nelson is what the garden was for Claude Monet. A creative space surrounded by an impenetrable energy that becomes an incubator for creativity. Thank goodness for Nelson’s trip to Nashville, and the many other car rides that produced hit songs.

Photo by Robert Mora/Getty Images

Leave a Reply

Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.

More From: Features

Jimmy Page Gives an In-Depth Look at the Recording of “Stairway to Heaven”

4 Addictive 1980s Rock Albums That Were Ahead of Their Time

The Story Behind “Oh, Boy!” by The Crickets and How the Band Created an Alter Ego

5 of the Best 2000s Country Albums You’ve (Probably) Never Heard

The Song That Made Elton John Love the Beatles

Watch Chris Stapleton Make Garth Brooks Cry With “Shameless” Cover of a Classic Billy Joel Original

You may also like.

Watch Johnny Cash’s Final Film Appearance in the Music Video for “Hurt”

Behind the Meaning of “Call A Cowboy” by Lainey Wilson

Willie Nelson Insists “I Quit Every Night” When Discussing His Ongoing Music Career

3 Country Songs Written by Kris Kristofferson That Will Play Forever

Witt makes Royals history with 30 HRs in consecutive seasons

Kansas city heads back home on a five-game slide.

Jeremy Rakes

HOUSTON -- After defeating the Guardians on Tuesday, the Royals were tied with Cleveland for the American League Central lead. The past five days of the eight-game road trip were not kind to Kansas City.

• Be there at all Royals regular-season home games: Just $39.99/month!

Alec Marsh pitched well and Bobby Witt Jr. hit his 30th home run of the season, but it was not enough as Kansas City dropped its season-high fifth straight game, 7-2 , to the Astros on Sunday at Minute Maid Park.

• Complete coverage: Royals’ clinch scenarios, tiebreakers, key games and more

The Royals were swept for just the second time this season and swept in a four-game series for the first time since losing four straight to Boston on June 28-July 1, 2021, at Fenway Park.

“The whole series was frustrating,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “We didn’t come out of here with any wins. That’s what we play for is to win every day. That stinks. These guys are good. We knew that coming in, but I can’t sum it all up in one. Every game was different. We were in every game. They pitched extremely well. They got big hits, and we didn’t.”

Kansas City fell 3 1/2 games behind the Guardians in the AL Central .

“I think what’s important for us is to just flush the series and move on to the next,” Marsh said. “We have big ones coming up, so just get to that next game and focus on tomorrow, leaving this one behind us. We’re going to be playing better ball here moving forward.”

The Royals have six at home against Cleveland and the Twins starting Monday.

“This is tough,” MJ Melendez said. “It didn’t seem like anything was going right. … It’s a little bit of a tough stretch, but hopefully, we get back home, get back in our environment and do what we do at home.”

Marsh retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced, but the Astros got to him in the fourth.

Yordan Alvarez led off with a home run to right, and Jon Singleton hit a two-run homer to right to give Houston a 3-0 lead.

“He threw the ball well,” Quatraro said. “He got beat on two breaking balls for homers. They looked from the replay that they were down in the zone and guys put good swings on it. Overall, I thought he threw the ball exceptionally well.”

Marsh surrendered three runs on four hits and one walk with five strikeouts in five innings.

He mainly used a mix of four-seam fastballs (28 of 73 pitches), sliders (13) and curveballs (12), but he had a lot of success with his sweeper. Out of seven sweepers, the right-hander got six swings and four whiffs.

“It was pretty solid,” Marsh said of his outing. “I thought my command was good. All the pitches were shaping up the way they should be. Attacking the zone was nice. Really, it was just two good swings on two pitches that I thought were good pitches. … I thought my fastball was jumpy. Getting ahead of guys was great. Overall, I was a lot better in my eyes.”

Witt became the first player in Royals history with consecutive 30-home run seasons with his solo shot into the Crawford Boxes in the seventh inning.

Bobby Witt Jr. is the first player in @Royals franchise history to hit 30 home runs in consecutive seasons! 💪 pic.twitter.com/3HQOum2fBa — MLB (@MLB) September 1, 2024

Sign up to receive our daily Morning Lineup to stay in the know about the latest trending topics around Major League Baseball.

His two 30-homer seasons tie Danny Tartabull for most in franchise history, but Tartabull didn’t reach the milestone in back-to-back years (1987 and ‘91).

“We talk about him all the time,” Quatraro said. “We can’t take for granted what we are seeing there. The first guy in Royals history with back-to-back 30-home run seasons. At his age, the things he does playing every day, the grind of the season and how mature he is, everything he does stands out. Whether that’s physical, mental, leadership qualities, they’re remarkable, and we don’t take that for granted.”

The Royals also got production from two newcomers as Yuli Gurriel, in his first game with the Royals since being acquired Saturday, hit an RBI single in the sixth, and Tommy Pham had two hits in his debut after being claimed off waivers Saturday.

However, the Royals continued to struggle to drive in runs. Kansas City had at least one man on in every inning except the second and ninth and finished 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

“The opportunities were there,” Quatraro said. “We took some walks. We just didn’t come up with the big hit when we needed it.”

About American Road®

American Road® is an award-winning periodical published quarterly by Mock Turtle Press, distributed internationally by Disticor, and now available at newsstands and fine bookstores. American Road® also offers a digital edition and an  iTunes app for the iPad.

American Road Magazine provides you with tools to discover hidden landmarks enjoy the road less traveled. Our road magazine subscription is filled with insightful material that will flourish in your mind and spark ideas. Readers will find sponsored downloadable trip itineraries that make travel planning a breeze, as well as the American Road® Forums—the ultimate road trip community.

To preview the current issue, visit the Preview Magazine page .  For Frequently Asked Questions about the magazine and subscriptions, visit the FAQ page.

In addition, we offer a variety of American road trip giveaways, travel contests and giveaway, sweepstakes, and more! You can find submission forms and submit your entry for sweepstakes here , and our Getaway Giveaway here .

AMERICAN ROAD® FOUNDATION

In order to promote the preservation and economic development of America’s historic roads and auto trails, AMERICAN ROAD® Magazine is proud to announce the organization of the AMERICAN ROAD® FOUNDATION. Learn more at:  www.AmericanRoadFoundation.org