Adam-Jackson

In May, which which was only 4 months ago, I announced that Laura and I were going on a road trip. Ford Motor company provided me with a brand new Lincoln MKS Sedan for 5 days and I would be traveling to Las Vegas via Los Angeles and back. The trip was very well documented and I think Ford was extremely happy with how I covered the event. Here are a few resources from our last trip that are still online.

It’s own FriendFeed Room “RoadTrip 2009″

It’s own Blog Page

Tons of blog posts

A Huge Flickr Set

Tons of Videos

and more

This time, they’re giving me another car from this Friday (the 11th) until Monday (the 14th). For this second road trip they didn’t just give me a car though, I had to apply for a 2nd go around and luckily, my past work with Ford was very influential and they chose me again for another test-drive. This time, only 4 days but it’s slightly more exciting! The first road trip I went on was in a very luxurious car from Lincoln and this time it’s a more affordable full-size sedan but with some updated bells and whistles that will make for an exciting drive!

Ford Motor Company has offered their brand new 2010 Ford Taurus. The new Taurus has some kick ass features that will be sure to turn heads. First of all, it has the new Ford eco-boost which delivers 365 horsepower but has the fuel economy of a 4 cylinder car with far less horsepower. The interior has been completely revamped and it now has Microsoft Sync (which is what the Lincoln MKS that I tested has). There are other available features like all-wheel drive and a brand new body design. For the complete run-down, check out the new 2010 Ford Taurus Website!

I have to admit that it was fun taking that 5 day road trip back in May but something was missing. I really missed not having a destination. It sounds odd but I was looking forward to a destination and a place to go in the Lincoln instead of just driving for the hell of it. Well, there’s another detail that I haven’t yet shared yet.

Two tickets to the Seattle Seahawks vs St. Louis Rams NFL Game on Sunday.

Two nights hotel accomadations

A very healthy fuel reimbursement budget

And of course…The brand new 2010 Taurus for a few days.

All of this combined with a beautiful drive from San Francisco to Seattle is going to make for a very awesome weekend! The car will be dropped off at my office on Friday morning and it’s due back Monday night. If I take I-5 North, it’s around 12 hours to get from San Francisco to Seattle.  If I take Pacific Coast Highway from Portland to Seattle, I’ll add about 4 hours of driving but I hear it’s totally beautiful! My plan (right now) is to take I-5 to Portland on Friday and see some friends and then wake up on Saturday and take PCH into Seattle, hang out in the city, visiting Microsoft HQ and get a hotel that night. Then see the game on Sunday and drive straight home overnight. It’s going to be an awesome weekend!

But wait; aren’t there two NFL tickets that you have? Who’s going with you? Well, that’s a good question. I’m probably going to go alone. The truth is, I don’t know anyone other than Laura that I can spend 15 hours in a car with without going completely insane. If I can find someone last minute, that might change. My goal is to take my cameras, laptops and video equipment and put as much of the trip on the web as possible in real time. I won’t be doing as much coverage as I did last time but it’ll still be pretty meta. Oh and I’ll be hitting my 50 thousandth tweet this weekend so that’s pretty exciting!

Thanks everyone for your support and I’ll be seeing you online!

I’ve always considered myself a person who is very adventurous but lately, I’ve been sitting still (geographically speaking) and have only explored the web and business. It’s time for a vacation and recently the constant workload has gotten me a little down and burned out. Every year since I was 15, I would spend Spring Break in the woods camping and away from all technology (even a cell phone) and this has been the longest I’ve gone without that escape and I desperately need it. In April, a PR firm contacted me about test driving a Ford vehicle and they asked what kind of car I would prefer and I specifically said, “the most cutting edge and technologically advanced car you have.” They responded and it blew me away! Laura and I are going to embark on an adventure worthy of The Internet.

Ford Motor Company came back and offered a few days with a 2010 Lincoln MKS. The MKS is a full-size luxury sedan from Lincoln (A Division of Ford Motor Company). I’m not a car guy but during my research on this model, I became VERY EXCITED to have the chance to drive this vehicle extensively and explore all of the cutting edge features. I encourage you to read about the Lincoln MKS on the links below.

• Lincoln.com MKS Homepage
• Wikipedia.org Lincoln MKS
• Jalopnik discusses Ford’s new EcoBoost System in the MKS

Here are the most notable features that I’m extremely excited about:

• EcoBoost which delivers the power of a V8 engine with the advantages of V6 fuel economy (read more)
• Active Park Assist which is a system that allows the car to self-park itself with the push of a button (read more)
• SYNC which is Microsoft’s system in many of this year’s Ford vehicles. It’s a futuristic control center for your MP3 Player with maps, directory assistant, SIRIUS and more. (read more)
• Collision Warning is a system that notifies you when you’re nearing a front end collision with a car in front of you. If you don’t respond, MKS hits the brakes for you to avoid collision (read more)

Additional Features that make this car an amazingly cool vehicle to drive:

• Virtual Key less keypad with buttons that only appear when touched in a certain place on the car
• Capless fuel filter so you never forget to screw the gas cap back on the car
• 6-Speaker THX II 600 Watt Sound System
• Dual Zone Climate Control & 12 way heated seats
• Automatic rain detecting wipers
• Automatic rear sun shield
• and about 40 other features that blow me away!

Where are we going to go? Great question. I created this map which is a general idea of where we’ll be going but half of the stops on our trip are optional and I have a feeling we’ll scrap a few of these in favor of being able to enjoy ourselves. Below is a map of my “like to do” map but all of this is unconfirmed.

This sounds like fun but how am I going to put some Adam Jackson flare on it? Well, everyone is being taken along for the ride! I’m going to cover the entire trip over at Adam and Laura Go West in the form of CONSTANT BLOG UPDATES and I’ve also created a special page that will let you follow every move that I make. if you prefer the old fashion way of links to each point of interest, here it is.

• AdamAndLauraGoWest.com (The Primary Aggregate for all of our adventures)
• Zannel.com/AdamJackson (Photos & Updates)
• Twitter.com/AdamJackson
• Twitter.com/LauraW
• Flickr.com/Photos/AdamJackson (Best of the best photos)
• TwitPic.com/Photos/AdamJackson (Random Photos)
• Justin.TV/AdamJacksonLive (Live Streaming from OUR CAR)
• YouTube.com/AdamJackson1984 (Daily Videos)
• FriendFeed.com/AdamJackson (Aggregation of every single update)
• 12Seconds.TV (Posting photo / audio updates)
• TweetMic.com (Allows me to post auto updates to Twitter view an easy to use 99 cent iPhone app)

That’s right, every day, we’ll have fantastic photos from our adventures posted instantly and we’ll be editing and posting the good photos on Flickr too. There will be instant streaming video using Justin.TV and higher quality videos posted to YouTube. Our Tweets, Zannels and TwitPics will keep a constant stream of info flowing and you can go to our blog to see blog posts around what we did that day.

Here is a taste of a few things we’ll be doing:

• Yosemite National Park
• Santa Cruz for Surfing
• Santa Monica for beach side dining
• Venice Beach for a BBQ with my So-Cal Friends
• Disneyland in Anaheim
• Hollywood for celebrity sightseeing
• Newport Beach & Laguna Beach because we’re fans of “The OC Show”
• San Diego cause I hear the zoo is AMAZING!
• Las Vegas for Cirque, Blue Man Group, Gambling, Sightseeing
• Also, Tiesto is playing at The Bellagio and he rarely comes to The US
• Skiing in Lake Tahoe
• Wine Tasting in Napa Valley
• Back to San Francisco

You’re probably asking yourself, “how in the hell are Adam and Laura going to do all of this in a few days? Well, that’s why 50% of this is optional and we’re not planning ANYTHING! I did book hotel rooms in Vegas but that’s it. When are we doing this? GOOD QUESTION!

Laura and I pickup the Lincoln MKS on Friday, May 22nd at 9AM. Actually, Ford is dropping it off at my apartment which is even cooler! We leave town ASAP and we don’t come back to town until Wednesday the 27th. Here’s my proposed schedule:

• 22nd: Drive through Yosemite OR Santa Cruz and take the scenic drive to Santa Monica
• 23rd: Disneyland, Hollywood and BBQ with Friends
• 23rd: (evening) Clubbing in downtown LA
• 24th: Newport Beach, San Diego Zoo, Laguna Beach
• 24th: (evening) Arrive in Las Vegas and check into New York, NY Hotel and see shows + gamble
• 25th: Check out of hotel and drive to the Hoover Damn. Rent an UZI and an AK-47 at The Gun Store
• 25th: (evening) Check into The Bellagio Hotel, see more shows, gamble more.
• 26th: Checkout of hotel and drive to Lake Tahoe and do some fun things in Reno Area
• 27th: Ski, snowboard and hang out on the mountains, Drive to Napa afterward for wine tasting.
• 27th: (evening) Return the car back to Ford.

My estimated mileage for these days: 2,000 Miles if we do all 80% of all of these activities.

I’d like to also add that I never take vacations so when I do take off I have to make it something that I can later add to my resume and I can’t just sit still. Laura is the same way so trust me when I say we’ll stay very busy. A perfect example of this is:

when Laura and I wanted to go to Six Flags in Atlanta, Georgia. We wanted to go on a Sunday so I got out of work Saturday night and we drove 7 hours from our Jacksonville apartment to Atlanta and arrived right before the park opened. We stayed until the park closed and drove 7 hours back home, arriving in Jacksonville at 4AM Monday morning. I had to be at work at 8AM. That’s just how Laura and I take vacations and it’s always worked well for us!

So, this is my plan and Ford is in love with this marketing idea. Basically, I take their most technologically equipped car out in the wild for a few days, travel across the west coast on their dime but in return I produce hours and hours of marketing not because I have to but because I REALLY WANT TO and I love what I do. I’m lucky to have been asked to do this and can’t wait to see what this car can do!

If you have any additional recommendations for our trip just paste them below in the comments and in the meantime, bookmark our blog for updates.