Road Trip

Roadtrip. 

Does that stir up some images and emotions for you? Does it make you think of grabbing a couple of granola bars and heading to the car, fifteen bucks in your pocket, a tankful of gas, and some tunes, maybe some U2 or Coldplay or Arcade Fire, to fill your vehicle while you and your thoughts shoot from county to county, looking for a destination, or looking for none? 

Does it bring to mind college days with friends, piling into the ol' Toyota, not just a car, but a character with a name like Ike or Samuel or Mortimer, a spray-painted message on the hatchback that reads "honk if parts fall off?"

Do you think of visiting a friend, or a love-interest, or maybe traveling to a concert or festival, all of your gear stuffed into Mortimer's hind-end (or front-end, if he was a Bug), the transmission just barely moving you up the hills on the Pennsylvania turnpike?

Or maybe it brings to mind beach days with the kids, a call to "Grab your swimsuits!" and a frantic packing of summer-scented sunscreen, a cooler full of Cokes, and a sack of fruit snacks, of heading out pale and dry, returning tanned and sandy and satisfied.

Or maybe it's just you, getting away from a less-than-lovely day, with nothing but an overnight bag and your ukulele, striking out to find a grassy cemetery hill where you can write some poetry and contemplate life's next big choice.

Wanderlust attacks me often. I've always felt a thrill upon finding an empty square on the calendar and just enough cash to fuel up and maybe a few more bucks to spend on some hole-in-the-wall diner where I can savor a couple of coneys, buttery New England bun toasted on both sides, slathered with a tangy sauce and topped with onions,  and an ice cold homemade root beer to wash it down. Or an Indian restaurant with a heaping buffet full of Chicken Tikka Masala and perfectly browned and bubbled garlic naan and a cold, creamy glass of Lassi. Or a tamale shop, an oval plate piled high with steaming, cornhusk-wrapped goodness and a couple of friends to dig into them with. Or maybe you build a fire on the beach, nestle the cast iron dutch oven in the glowing coals, toss in a salted, slippery chicken and a fistful of red potatoes that you'll have to eat--ouch, ouch, ouch--feeling the heat on your fingertips, because it's too dark to find the flatware in the bottom of the big black bag. 

And it's important to test all of the dairy stands along the way, right? I stumbled upon one that served the most delicious soft serve I've ever licked, the perfect blend of creamy and icy, a fabulous balance of chocolate and vanilla in the twist, with the chocolate bearing just a hint of malt flavor. I've never found that place again. It might not even be in business anymore. But every summer, I crave that soft serve. I think God will meet me at the gates of heaven with a cone in his hand. 

There's the independent bookstore with the Annie Dillard you've never read, used, for four bucks. There's the pottery shop where you might only be able to afford one tiny teacup, but you buy it and treasure it until someone shoves it in the cupboard behind the plates and its handle gets slammed off, but you keep using it anyway. There's the little antique store where you find a vintage porcelain hand, just right for hanging your necklaces from, and a little cobalt blue bulldog that you ogle and debate over, because it'll take your last six dollars to buy it, so you put it back only to find your soulmate was paying attention and presents it to you, wrapped in white butcher paper, and you take it home and put it on your windowsill where it will sit and soften your heart towards him when he has lost your keys yet again. 

There are walking trails and covered bridges and old houses and crooked creeks. There are historic downtowns and sprawling suburbs and art museums and aquariums. You sleep on floors and couches and air mattresses of good friends, or friends of good friends, or sisters of good friends, or people you don't even know. You sleep in tipis and tents, hotels and hostels, bed and breakfasts and the back of the van. You photograph, and photograph and photograph, in your mind, with a roll of film or on a little SD card that you guard with your life, shoving it into the reader the first chance you get so you can relive each moment, recall each color, see the smiles and the distant miles and line them all up, not wanting to let go of any of them, even the blurry ones, because they will be your brain when you've forgotten where that little ice cream stand was and who was missing their front teeth, and which baby had been born then, who had been stung by the bee, what your friend Joey looked like the summer before the car accident, and who you were when the man you loved wrapped you in his arms. You'll dig out the book, breathe the campfire as you stuff your clothes in the washer, unwrap the cobalt blue bulldog from his white butcher paper and place him on the windowsill.

You'll dig in your pocket and find the ticket to the concert, the bottle cap he threw to you, the neatly folded funeral program, the sand that landed there when you ran down the dunes, the piece of amber beach glass and the tail of a seahorse, and your last six dollars, crumpled and smoky and damp, which you'll hide in the little green box in the back of your closet where it will wait for the next roadtrip, which might be six months away, or it might be tomorrow.

Because, prepared or not, when it calls you, you know. You just have to go.