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Get-Up & Go
When I was fourteen my dad decided our annual winter get-away would be a roadtrip to Miami with a 4 day/3 night cruise to the Bahamas aboard the U.S.S. Tropicale. That was the most fun trip ever…a combo roadtrip AND cruise! As we boarded a Jamaican trio played on djembes and sang, “Sad to say we’re on our way/won’t be back for many a day” and there was lots of food, three pools! And I met a friend, Sarah Lawrence, who was planning to go to Sarah Lawrence. No joke!
The bad part was that everyone but me got seasick, and they ended up spending most of the time in the cabin. That left me freeeeeeeee! I went to the shows, cute Cuban guys served me Cokes, and I gambled at the slots. Cabins on ships are really small and I didn’t want to spend all of my time watching my fam puke. Yes, I did feel sorry for them.
The roadtrip that year was especially good too. Dad had a route east to Beaufort and then we came down through the Atlantic coast. That was our last roadtrip. From then on we flew everywhere for our twice annual trips. It was okay, but not that exciting. No stories about towns. Everything was out of context.
Well, I was thinking that the cities we went to could be invented, not actually exist. You get in a plane and fly and disembark and there you are.
So sometime during that year I decided to make a pledge to myself. I would travel by road to every state in the US, except Hawaii (which I already had and ended up having twice more) by the time I was 21.
I am now 26 and I will finish up this year. (Life threw some other things my way so I am a little behind. I will do it though. Plus I already do have some out-of-the-US places...Bahamas, Jamaica, Canada, Mexico.)
Perhaps my roadtrips are an excuse. Maybe I am trying to recreate a time when my mother wasn’t sick and my dad was still vibrant. Maybe I am trying to recapture my happy days. Then again I do this for sheer fun.
I hope you find a good reason or excuse to do roadtrips too. The stains on the carpet will wait.
My next target, after I complete the USA, is Europe. I want to spend two months across the sea. Well that’s another story, for later.
How To Make A Roadtrip A Gas
*If you are interested in a town, the first thing you do is to buy a newspaper. It will tell you a lot…political biases, financial standing, what ever is on the front page is what the people find of importance, Letters to the Editor are always worth skimming, check out the ads, see what jobs are available, what a house costs, so so many things…also notice what is not covered. The local newspaper is a town’s Holy Grail.
*Plan at least one day when you and your travel companions will do absolutely nothing but sit on the beach or around a pool.
* I once wrote a travel column for a gambling magazine. Okay I will admit it. I don’t really gamble. I think Las Vegas sucks. And, okay the editor-in-chief was my boyfriend and he basically edited the hell out of the columns I penned. But still, I did write the first draft…the guts, the flavor, and I did the rewrite.
He sent me on an all-expenses paid assignment to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. The staff treated me like some Queen of the Northwoods, and I was perked everything from very expensive dinners to massages to private behind-the-scenes tours. Now most peeps would really like this and that would be the right thing, I suppose. But I try to be authentic when I travel and a recreation of Atlantis is lovely, but it is made up. And for me to write about how I enjoyed it was fake since not everyone would be treated the way I was. Plus the whole scheme didn’t fit in with my collecting of our states of the USA. Oh, and traveling by yourself kind of sucks because when you see something cool there is no one beside you so you can’t point and say, “Wow, look at that!”
So always travel on the buddy system, and if anyone wants to send me on assignment, please make it the backwaters of Fiji. No grass huts though. I do like amenities, just not in a sealed-off giant-scale resort.
My Road Trip Necessities:
Dove soap-Okay, I only use Dove at home. It’s not a luxury. It makes my whole life better. Good-feeling skin rocks. In hotels you will get little bars of soap, some are brands you have actually heard of, and sometimes they are not. The problem with these weird little soaps is that 1. they don’t lather up, and 2. they leave a residue on your skin. You will fill uncomfortable all day while you are driving and you won’t know why. So I recommend that you bring along a bar or two of your at-home soap. You will feel much much better. And, yes, this includes those of you who prefer Lava.
At one time I didn’t care about hotel pillows, yet now I do. Maybe I thought about it too deeply. But how often is a hotel pillow, the actual pillow, not just the case, washed? Not often I bet. And how many peeps drooled on that pillow? Millions, probably. I mean I am all into love of your fellow human, but there is a limit. Mine stops at pillows. So why not just bring your own. A pillow can be stashed anywhere in your car. Okay, I will admit that maybe I do have a pillow fetish. I love men’s pillows. Well, men that I like. In fact his pillow is the one thing I steal from men when I leave them. I have a nice collection, and yes I do write their camp-name on the pillowcase with a Magic Marker.
My last item is food. I love apples, so I bring along a bag of those big red Delicious ones. Apples are fresh and make my mouth feel good and I am highly unlikely to puke them up and I think a person could last about 3 or 4 days just on apples because they have their own water in them. They do not need refrigeration. Also I get to use my pocketknife. So you can see that they are the perfect road food. When I was a kid I liked peanut butter on crackers, but then you need a drink to wash it down, and drinks can spill in Dad’s new car, and in not too long you will have to go pee again and if you stop each time someone has to pee well you won’t arrive in time to go swimming, so stick with apples or some other food that is similar to apples, like… hmm, can’t think of another fruit as perfect…peaches, oranges, and cantaloupe are too juicy…so stick with apples or maybe bananas. But I like bananas for something else and I wouldn’t use bananas as roadfood, too distracting, but you could.
