Take a couple of strangers, add 4 cell phones, subtract an iPod, tack on 2 laptop computers and 5 bags of beef jerky, and you get roughly 2,200 miles of driving, or the sum of commuting from Atlanta, Georgia to Phoenix, Arizona.

Yes, I'm bragging about my recent journey across America. But I'm also sharing a story of two strangers (or acquaintances? What do we call people these days that you only know via World Wide Web?) who found the secret to success in what could have been just another race to get the hell out of West Texas.

Because I simply can't find enough ways to waste time, deplete earnings or jeopardize my safety, I decided I needed a new challenge. This time, the goal was to fly into Atlanta, attend and "cover" Formula Drift, and then drive back to California within 5 days. Check that – actually, the original plan was to search online for yet ANOTHER crappy car in Georgia, fly out, buy it, make sure it was mechanically sound and drive off. I'm eternally grateful to whoever talked me out of that folly. I'm also obligated to thank my parents here, who balked and whined and text messaged (yes, my parents text message me) to death begging me not to do the drive alone.

At this time I will also thank my friend Joanna for recommending the perfect candidate for the trip, Blair "Jiinkz" Sato. It would be difficult to explain how we met because we had never done so. Jiinkz is a close friend of Joanna's, and one wild night in Vegas after a bit too much drinking, he picked up her Sidekick and began chatting with me on Instant Messenger while our mutual pal puked her guts out in the background. LOL.

Our trip began on Monday, May 14. Jiinkz flew in red-eye and arrived at my hotel in Atlanta at 7 a.m. "It's like meeting up with an old friend I haven't seen in a while," he said. I couldn't have said it better. There was little doubt in my mind that we would get along and, as it turns out, one of the reasons we traveled together so successfully is because we are so like-minded.

Neither of us had driven through the Southeast before. Neither of us had ever visited Alabama, or New Orleans, and we were eager to see both. Both of us come from very stable, traditional backgrounds; our parents are still together and we are both college graduates. Neither of us is a convicted felon. Both of us are very much into fast cars, excessive drinking and strip clubs. We were also on the same page when it came to eating healthy, working out daily, avoiding sugar, carbs and caffeine, and having as much fun as possible as kids and a mortgage loom on the horizon.

With little introduction and zero knowledge of the background info you just read, we departed in our 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander. Our base model ES came with a CD player and not much else; real men get the job done without navigation systems, right? Boasting 213 horsepower (PZEV rated in California), 72.6 cubic feet of cargo space with the seats folded down and cloth seats, we had the ideal vehicle for a cross-country trip.

Armed with our AAA Road Atlas and four internet mobile devices — two Sidekicks, one Blackberry and one Blackjack — we felt more than prepared to make the long journey down Interstate 10. Sure, we did the usual rounds of pointing out roadkill and counting the number of broken down cars on the side of the road. We also scanned for the worst possible radio stations we could find. Of course, we counted how many Cracker Barrels and Best Buys we passed by. But more than that, we talked, explored the South and in many ways came back to the West Coast with a feeling that there is still some good in this country.

In Mobile, Alabama, still an extremely depressed industrial area, we found a Chinese buffet for lunch. The restaurant was fashioned like a tacky Asian pagoda, complete with a bridge and an Oriental gift shop, all painted in very un-Chinese colors of red, green and yellow. There was also a Civic parked in front with a faux-JDM license plate. The restaurant was run by real Chinese people, and the food was decent. I consider this a huge victory over our other lunch candidate, which was a small burger shack that advertised "2 BURGERS 2 DOLLARS 2 PM".

In New Orleans, we were shocked by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina that was still so evident in the city. For as much attention as has been heaped on the revival of the French Quarter and how nightlife there made a solid comeback during Mardi Gras and New Years Eve, there are no words to describe how ghastly and real the effects of the storm have been on the forgotten unknowns, even today. Scores of barber shops, nail salons, real estate offices, coffee houses, and discount stores, to name just a few businesses, remain vacant, many shuttered with signage that reads "Closed due to Hurricane Katrina. Sorry for the inconvenience." It makes you wince, and then some, after learning that Lil Wayne was the headliner at the local concert hall a few weeks ago. Or that the number of post-operative transvestites who work at the strip clubs in the French Quarter is staggering.

Driven out of the city by a beautiful lightning storm, we agree to eat well at least once on the trip and stop for dinner at Landry's Steak and Seafood somewhere in Louisiana. It is a masterpiece, complete with calamari, shrimp gumbo, swordfish, tuna steak, crab and a cute waitress whose incredible accent and Southern charm transform her from a 5 to a 9 or 10 based purely on those two traits. And when the time comes to choose between Motel 6 and the Holiday Inn Express, obviously we pick the latter for the internet connection and better amenities. By the way, are we the only ones who have driven across the marshlands and wondered how many dead bodies are floating in there? Just a thought.

Should you have the pleasure of traveling through Texas, I highly recommend a stop at Buc-ee's for a Panini sandwich, ice cream and a t-shirt with the beaver logo on it. We picked up lunch, shirts, homemade beef jerky, shot glasses and kettle corn. We contemplated a new meat smoker for $800, but opted out. We briefly thought about stopping in Ozona, too, home of the Davy Crockett Memorial, but kept going.

We stopped for gas in Fort Stockton and encountered a heinous storm off the Gulf Coast that stranded us at an IHOP. Twenty years ago, the 20th century road warrior would have shacked up in his car and slept until the storm cleared. The 21st century adventurer, however, scoffs in the face of Mother Nature because he knows better. Instead of downing 2 cups of black coffee and winging it, instead he goes to the Days Inn next door, steals the wireless internet connection and tracks the storm online. After determining from www.weather.com that the storm was moving and breaking up, we decided to drive an extra 120 miles down to Van Horn to spend the night.

The stars were shining bright the whole way there. And as we made the home stretch back to the Pacific Standard Time, we saw snow (in Texas? In May?), tipped our hats at the truck stop church ("Trucking For Jesus" is their slogan), bought some fireworks in New Mexico (of course) and even paid a $1 admission in Arizona to see "The Thing: Mystery of the Desert."

Between adventures, what else did we do? We talked, 3 days, 2,000-plus miles of conversation. We didn't have an iPod jack in the car, we didn't stop at any point to buy CDs, and we didn't have a DVD player to play Season One of "The Lone Ranger" that we bought at a Cracker Barrel in Georgia. So we did it the old fashioned way.

Aside from the occasional phone calls and text messaging along the way, we told funny stories about our college days, talked about Jiinkz's background in drifting and his relationship with the infamous Drift Alliance, waxed rhapsodic about relationships and casual sex, asked the occasional polite interview question ("Do you have any siblings?") and realized we liked each other enough to travel to West Virginia next month to visit a coal mine and check out Formula D at Summit Point. Check out Jiinkz and his yet-to be purchased coonskin hat at the DA booth and yours truly somewhere close by.

For more information on:
The 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander: www.mitsubishicars.com
Drift Alliance: www.driftalliance.com
Buc-ee's: www.bucees.com
Formula Drift: www.formulad.com
Landry's: www.landrysrestaurants.com
"The Thing": www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/AZCOCthing.html

About Jackie Liu:
J2…nuff said. Email her at jackie2@urbanracer.com.