Are we crazy or sumpthin’? Have our brains taken permanent vacations — grabbed a stimulus check and high-tailed it for the Caribbean? Did we lose sight of sanity, which is two hills back, around the bend and enjoying a guilt-free bologna sandwich.
Are we really proposing a 1,000-mile road trip with a three-year-old? All the way to Missouri. Spanning numerous days. Forging rivers. Crossing mountains. Visiting truck stops. Eating in places where they misspell “turkey loaf,” and where the coffee tastes like watered-down motor oil.
Actually, it could be fun. It could be a blast. We might all sue each other when it’s over, but think of the stories we could tell. And all the states we’d cross. All the country we’ll see. All the time we’ll have together in the car, which actually brings me back to thinking we’re nuts.
If the thesis gods approve, I’ll graduate in May with a masters degree from the University of Missouri’s Journalism School. I need to finish up my research, make sense of it all, figure out what methodology means (“Isn’t that about dragons and dwarves and fairies? What does that have to do with my research?”) and then send it off to see what people far wiser than me think.
Should they sign off on it, they’ll let me graduate, which will mean robe-ing up again — haven’t done that in almost 15 years — and walking for a diploma.
Funny how long this has been in the making — this graduate school thing — and now it’s here — just a couple of hard-working months away. So I’m planning and thinking about how to get us all up there to Columbia, Missouri, which sits right between the middle of nowhere and nobody cares.
It’s actually beautiful out there, and while it might be tense, the trip could be fun. Road trips always are. I appreciate the speed and general ease of planes, but nothing gives you a feel for the country we live in like testing out the odometer and putting some miles on our great interstate system. I haven’t had a good road trip in almost a decade.
We always used to take them when I was kid — mainly my father, brother and me. It was a great introduction to a world we didn’t often experience in our private schools of Tampa and the sheltered life that went along with it. But you learn a lot on the road, especially stopping at truck stops. Like what those strange, funny-looking things are that they sell in the dispensers on the walls of the men’s rooms. It was always a great mystery to me why truckers would spend 75 cents on long balloons that were sold in foil wrappers. I think I pictured them making elaborate balloon animals in the rig to pass the time.
There were tourist shops to hit that sold Indian moccasins and tiny cap guns. There were fireworks stands that were always named “Crazy Larry’s” or “Bonko Billy’s,” which really made you wonder why any governmental agency would license such individuals to sell explosives.
There was the cotton-candy mist that hung low to the ground as we snaked our way through the Smoky Mountains or the hypnotic nothingness of the deserts out west. There were gorges and canyons to traverse, and hamburger stands to test our resistance to botulism.
There were campgrounds where you woke up in the morning to the sounds of babbling brooks and the kind of views you need to rub your eyes to believe.
Our road trips were never dull and never boring. Even the monotony became somehow pleasurable — like a test of wills or a chance to invent new and elaborate road games. Traditions were being built, and I get giddy at the thought of sharing them with my daughter at such a ripe, young age. OK, well, maybe not the truck stop restrooms, but definitely the other sights and sounds that hopefully she’ll never forget.