There’s nothing quite like trying to get your wife to turn the map right side up so you won’t go 120 miles out of the way. Ah, the pleasure of it all.
The Great American Road Trip. Some do it out of necessity. Some do it for fun. We did it because, well, I think…..to tell the truth, I don’t really know why we did it.
We had to get to Santa Fe to visit our dear friends, enjoy the cooler air and to eat and drink for free. Plus I’d had an itch for some time to visit Larry McMurtry’s eclectic group of used book stores in Archer City, Texas, and it was kind of (not really) on the way, so the car/road trip thing seemed to fit. That was before I got out the AAA and plotted out the route and mileage. I ignored the reality of a long trip through uninteresting topography and went with the fantasy of a peaceful trip through serene and interesting small towns, long erudite conversations with the darling wife, into the desert, on to Santa Fe and back.
Before I entertain you with the details of our adventure on the highway, I thought it would be useful to remind you of the derivation and definition of the title term “Road Trip”. The first known public usage of the term was in the 1978 movie that every fraternity boy in America has watched at least one hundred twenty court times…you got it….Animal House. Surely you remember. Otter, Boon, and Pinto persuade Flounder to use his brother-in-law’s car to go pick up some chicks at the girls school down the road and partake of some liquid courage at a black night club on the edge of town. Needless to say, nothing turned out as they intended and the car was returned much the worse for wear.
I must confess to a similar escapade in my collegiate youth. My own inaugural road trip if you will. My father had grudgingly allowed me to take our family second car (a 1960 Ford Pinto) back to college for a few weeks with appropriate admonishments to “take good care of it” or else. To cut to the chase, three ne’er do well fraternity brothers persuaded me that it would be a great idea to take my (father’s) car to New Orleans for a quick trip to the Mardi Gras. We had little money, no common sense, no hotel reservation, and two gallon jugs of Everclear punch left over from an earlier party. As you might suspect, nothing turned out very well. We drank the punch, slept not at all for forty eight hours, ran out of money quickly and had to write a dubious check to cover the cost of repairs on the Pinto which determined to run no more as we approached the Mississippi River Bridge. A good time was had by all.
But as I think about it, there is a long list of extraordinary road trip movies that have served to motivate and entertain us all. I’m sure your list would be somewhat different than mine, but in addition to Animal House, I would offer Thelma and Louise (I know it’s a chick road trip that ends badly, but still a great example of the genre), Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (who could not like anything with John Candy and Steve Martin), Sideways (a adult roadtrip with a little too much romance, but a good one, nevertheless), and my personal all time favorite……National Lampoon’s Vacation. Who could ever forget the Griswold family and their eventful trip to VacationLand. It had every thing one could hope for. Gratuitous nudity, surly teenagers, Aunt Edna wrapped in a tarp and strapped to the roof after she passed on (literally) on the way to be dropped off in Phoenix. And who could ever forget the dog Dinky who was leashed to the bumper at a rest stop and became the second fatality of the trip. Little did we know then that one of our presidential wannabes came close to the dog thing in reality.
Even these short vignettes of past (fictional) road trips suggests a working definition that one probably won’t find in the OED. Road trip: a journey, usually by automobile, motivated by spurious reasoning, to a wholly unreasonable destination by two or more people who believe that traveling together will create some kind of personal bond that would not otherwise occur.
Having reviewed my own lifetime experience with roadtrips and reflected on great roadtrips of Hollywood’s invention I have come up with some important rules of the road for roadtrips. I suggest you read them carefully, even commit them to memory for that future time when you too will be inclined to defy reason and take you own roadtrip.
1. Do not, under any circumstances, use MapQuest, Google Maps or AAA Triptik to plan your route. These things are inventions of the devil, full of misleading, unintelligible, and unnecessary information.
2. Never, ever take the Business Route to any where. It will only lead you to innumerable traffic lights, seedy motels, and small town cafes that serve inedible, so called home cooking.
3. Do not stop at any place that advertises itself more than ten miles in advance.
4. Never miss an opportunity to stop at Whataburger. No, I’m not a hamburger freak, but Whataburger has the only clean restrooms in great swaths of America.
5. If you have to spend the night on your roadtrip, pick the place advertising the lowest price and with the easiest access. You will wind up hating wherever you stay, so you might as well not pay too much for it and be able to get to it without going through multiple intersections. I once had to wind my way through a Wall Mart parking lot and down an alley to get to a national brand hotel. Not worth it.
6. Be very cautious about taking directions from anyone. Seldom do they know what they’re talking about, and if they do, they will never explain it in a way that you will understand.
7. Take the restaurant recommendation of the pimply faced, twenty year old hotel desk clerk at your own risk. In fact, you’re better off fasting for the duration of your roadtrip. If you can’t do that, stick with peanut butter cheese crackers and whatever brand of sugar water you like. A package of BBQ flavored potato chips will provide needed variety.
These are my Big Seven. I have lots more, but you’ll have to send a self addressed stamped envelop to get the rest. Oh, I forgot. I was going to tell you about our roadtrip. I think I’ll save the details for another day and another posting, but suffice it to say that my darling wife S. and I drove about fifteen hundred miles, only got lost twice, ate at a series of really bad restaurant/cafes, stopped at four tourist trinket traps, discovered the filthiest restroom in North America, filled up with gas fourteen times (S. is always afraid of running low), drove through twenty-one dead or dying small towns, and listened to sixteen hours of bad music and talk shows on the radio. In short…..we had a great time. I’m already planning the next one.
