Making The Most Of A Road Trip

 AAA projects 38 million Americans will take a road trip over Labor Day weekend…

These are snapshots of a world that opens to you on a road trip. Ten-foot walls of snow beside and canyon of blacktop before us, we ascend the road to Glacier Point, high above Yosemite valley on the first Spring Day it opens to vehicles.

Sandwiches at roadside stops hidden beside waterfall and alpine flowers; pink Mountain Pride and yellow Butterweed. Seals in San Francisco, dining with my daughter on Pier 39, summer hailstorms and the best build-your-own salad stop ever outside of Visalia (thank you Yelp!).

My first car was a white AMC Hornet, an oblong piece of steel with a steering wheel and crisscross olive upholstery that my dad purchased at a L.A. County used car auction. You could still see the shadow of a circle on the doors where the county emblem had been peeled off. To seventeen-year-old me it was the portal to adventure. It was a straight shot down the boulevard to the Hollywood Hills (cue Bob Seger), Ventura Freeway took me to the canyons and onto the coast. Always wondering what was beyond the bend. And so it began.

A warning about road trips. They are a doorway to adventure and a catalyst to heated arguments. The best man at my wedding nearly jumped out of the passenger door while we were driving through East Texas. My wife and I had our first fight (on our honeymoon) because of a wrong turn. Cooped up in a small space necessitates your ‘shot-gun’ and you get along better than most. Friends that require lunch at noon and dinner at five, the always sober and serious, those who choose schedule over serendipity will not be accompanying me.

The idyllic Instagram moments won’t happen if you stay attached to your phone. Ironic. Leave the highway. Look out the window. Eat at hole-in-the-wall places. I was first introduced to Peanut Butter whiskey at a roadside stop. I’ve had the best beef-barley soup ever off the beaten path, and the best breakfasts. Yes, you risk having the worst Tex-Mex meal of your life but it’s well worth it for the story.

Solo trips are worth it. Great bonds can be formed with family and friends. Don’t be the guy that won’t pull over until the destination. Plan for the big things like where to sleep but buffer that Google travel time for sightseeing. Take the old highway. If a girl at a roadside shop asks if you have neat handwriting; help her letter the sandwich board.

Sir Richard Burton once said, “The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” Departure begins at the end of your driveway or at the car rental booth at the airport. If you let it, I promise you, the road will bring you to magnificent beauty, sumptuous road side stops and unique encounters with other human beings. Gas up the car!

 

 

Wine Lies In The Relief Lines

 Wine lies in the relief lines of every good road trip.

Someone once said they disliked humanity on the whole but individuals were often delightful. Meeting those individuals is a benefit of travelling. Though bad travel stories abound, serendipity surprises.

We walked toward roadside relief beyond the shiny sliding doors of the TA travel center. A shiny black SUV pulled up beside me, rolling down the passenger window. Reaching across the vehicle, he said, “My name is Achmed. May I ask you for a favor?” As I shook his hand he recounted an incredibly intricate story of how his wallet had been stolen at Walmart, and he was driving through Santa Fe to California and did not have enough money for gasoline. In the back seat, his pregnant wife nodded through each mounting interval. By god’s grace, I really wanted to help him if he needed it. Yet every intuitive alarm in my body was ringing “No!”. I glanced at my wife. And I offered him five dollars. He left in a huff. Sometimes you open with a move to discern whether to lean in or out.

You’ll meet quirky people. “And how do you spell that?” asked the Barista. The tall Teutonic looking gentleman replied that it was “Erich with an H,” and launched into a lengthy story of how his mother didn’t want him confused with other Erics. We ordered after them and went to sit out on the patio. The couple invited us to sit with them, “No need to sit in the sun!” He was an engineer of sorts (shocking, right?) and his wife a nurse. Because we were in Santa Fe, conversation turned to art. Erich said a friend of his is the most left-brained engineer he knows, going on to tell us about how his friend designs houses and sees possibilities in texture and color. They live in Poway, forty-one miles south of Temecula Valley, which bills itself as “a wine-plus spirited destination inspired by the vine.” We wrapped up our conversation in agreement; Temecula Valley isn’t Napa and shouldn’t charge Napa prices.

“I’ll sit with these folks,” Mary the Administrator shouted to her bureaucrat friends. Tall, sharply dressed and sharply featured, she pulled up a chair. Though Mary is HR administrator for a school district, she is also, seemingly, the unofficial PR spokesperson for New Mexico. She leans in. Begins with an affirmation of what we’ve already encountered, New Mexicans are a warm and welcoming people. The conversation bounced around like small talk does; places to visit, places that no longer are. How the fires ravaged Ruidoso, draught (light snow) in Taos and why the college makes Los Cruces hop. The talk flowed, like the Rio Grande, shallow, in small ebbs and flows, to the Gorge an hour north, home to one of New Mexico’s’ three wine regions.

 

 

 

Letting Go Of Baggage

 Despite flight delays, crowded airports and TSA I still find vacation travel refreshing. It’s got me thinking about perspective. Glass half full? Hero or victim? Upon landing on one of our flights a middle-aged woman began jostling those ahead of her while talking on her cell phone and loudly saying, “Let me move forward. I’m missing my connecting flight.” Our flight had arrived early! Frustrating, yes! But you can pack that bad behaviour! Missing flights or being delayed is normal (more so post-covid it seems).

Ushered out of the terminal by police a crowd of us waited outside while security in flack jackets marched by with bomb-sniffing German shepherds on leash. This was my experience on another trip years ago. Once given the clear I headed back to the gate where I was told I’d missed my flight! “We called your name,” they said. “I was out on the curb with a hundred of my best friends,” I replied to no avail. Eventually a ticket agent assured me I’d have a ticket out on the next flight.

Travelling encourages me to experience the good in other people. The traveler stepping backward in line and graciously allowing us to take the spot in front of her. The tram attendant that grabbed our suitcases first (probably because we look feeble and in need of help) and insisted we find a seat before the bus filled up. The worker in the parking structure who gave me a ride on his golf cart so that I could get to our car and then go pick up the wife. There are these glimmers of other human beings that give me slight hope for my fellow humans. A very slight hope.

Purpose and attitude; it all comes down to those. Less escape than release and recalibration. The lady trampling down people to get out of the plane; what’s her purpose? One can only guess. Some bring all their baggage with them. Some leave it behind to calibrate and evaluate what to jettison when you return back home.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.”

                     Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash