i flew from jfk to lax, then drove to wisconsin from la. over 30 hours in the car but it felt shorter than most drives i took to college in minneapolis from madison. i was with my best friend, who besides always being up for a good time has the ingredients for a perfect road trip partner: an off-key singing voice to match my own, a knowledge of crappy 90's pop songs, and a history with me that dates back to high school. our friendship was formed over our love for food - we co-chaired the food for the national honors society's annual blood drive. in our adult road-tripping years, this means we share an excitement for spotting wendy's in new mexico - or even better - a culver's in southern wisconsin. culver's is a modern marvel in the art of fast food. when i was a swim coach, we loved culver's so much that we coaches dressed as culver's drive-thru workers as one of our costumes that we wore for our big swim meet. fast food, however, was not the highlight of my trip.
we skipped out on the vegas route and opted for the southern route. tess' '89 buick century was only questionably up for the challenge of high altitude driving, plus we feared a backlash when the two of us would choose going to bed at 11pm after watching a movie on HBO rather than hitting the slot machines or doing body shots at pure. instead we selected what tess dubbed "vision quest". this mystical journey through the southwest took us through arizona, new mexico, texas, oklahoma, missouri, kansas, iowa, and finally the southern part of wisconsin.
day 1, hour 7 or 8. we're moseying through arizona. i use the verb moseying because her car's speedometer only goes to 85 and we were traveling on a route with a 75 mph speed limit. apparently speedometers in '89 weren't particularly accurate. somewhere along I-40 i found myself being pulled over by officer plumb of the arizona highway patrol for going 86 mph. on one hand, i'd say it's a scientific miracle that defied the limits of physics. on the other, we should have probably been concerned that the mphs that the car projects aren't its real speeds. whatever the case, i ended up on the side of the road in arizona, explaining to the officer why i was a ny driver but only had a (valid) wisco license. (my ny license was in my wallet when it was lost/stolen a month or so back and i haven't replaced it). while laying out the situation to him, i had a flashback to the scene in 'super troopers' where the kids think they're safe, right before the squad car backs up a few thousand feet to bust the kids. tess would have to come bail me out of the only jail cell in the county - and our road trip would be delayed for a few days while tess washed dishes to scrounge up enough dollars to bail me out of the slammer. this of course was far more dramatic than what actually happened. the cop didn't even care about my license situation; he just had me walk to his squad car to tell him my correct information to fill out on my warning sheet. (which incidentally will soon be posted on my fridge).
but this story isn't about my brush with the law. or my vast knowledge of state nicknames (virginia is the old dominion state). it's about how much i really love driving places. with gas prices the way they are, it's just not practical to drive everywhere. nor do i really have the time to hop in a car for 24 hours every time i want to go visit my family. (plus i don't even have a car to hop into). but every day i get on the subway - f train all the way to work unless i mix it up and take the 6 so i don't have to walk the mile from bryant park if it's cold out. i spend the weekends in my backyard, or in another borough. i have a few trees in my backyard and prospect park has pretty sweet greenery but i should really get out more - outside of the little bubble i've made for myself in the empire state.
i really should thank my parents for all of the road trips as a child. besides being able to claim visiting 47 of the 50 states (washington, oregon, and alaska are the only ones i've not been to) i have a great patience in the car staring off into space and listening to music. tvs in cars are a modern convenience that i'll never understand. i get the idea to keep your toddler content in the back seat. but i'm old school - i hate the idea that all these kids are growing up having to be entertained 24-7 by dora or hannah rather than having to play the license plate game. my childhood involved trips to florida twice a year. my grandma had a winter home down in ft. myers and she insisted that her caddie was with her for the duration. we'd drive the car down to florida right after the new year, then go get it sometime around april fools. thus my childhood seasons were divided into four parts: pool opening, pool closing (aka the school year), drive down to florida, drive back to wisconsin. somehow with all of this time in the car, i get carsick when reading. i'd probably be a much more intelligent person if i could have spent all that time in the car reading sarte. instead i excel at scattergories and catch phrase - probably a product of the quick thinking games i learned on the road.
as i sit here in brooklyn, i can't help but think that i should do a better job of traveling more. i'm far too poor to go abroad on a regular basis, but i really should take some strides to do some more serious roadtripping. we hit two big cities on our whole trip - albuquerque and dubuque. most of the time all you could see was rock formations and open space. and it was perfect. tess joked that i was pumped when we hit dubuque because i was missing the skyscrapers. honestly, i get in such a groove here sometimes that i forget that i'm surrounded by giant buildings. it's just a bunch of metal that blocks the sun. when i leave and come back though i'm happy to see them. i love the open road but i'd end up with more than one run-in with officer plumb if i were left to such vast stretches. plus i much prefer a night out at a nice restaurant over wendy's spicy chicken. those sandwiches are amazing but i they need to stay a special treat for the good of my cholesterol. and anyone who may need to see me in a swimsuit.
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