We’re going on a roadtrip this weekend. My wife’s brother is getting married in a little town in Ohio. So, we’re gonna pack up the truck, throw Max in the back with the luggage and his lamb and drive on out. It’ll be fun. We haven’t done a real roadtrip since the Virginia Beach trip last year. The best part is her parents will be there. I can smell the Pinochle and trash talk already.
There’s something wonderfully American about roadtrips. Jen and I decided last night to plan the Great American Vacation. We may never take it, but we’re going to plan it. We assume we’ll take a big honkin’ RV, spew pollutants across this great country of ours. I call it “spreading the love”. We want to finely balance great natural and historic wonders like Monticello and Yellowstone with the macabre and campy American classics like The Corn Palace and World’s Largest Ball of Twine. We’ll stay in campgrounds, I’ll wear a fisherman’s hat, shorts with black socks and chew on an empty pipe. She’ll look at the map quizzically while I go on and on about the price of gas and how many miles we need to cover before we get to Carhenge. Max will sit in the back playing video games and looking at us like we’re crazy. Yeah, it’ll be the perfect vacation, just like the home movies we watched at Grandma’s. Uncle Bud shooting 16mm film out of the back of a beat-to-hell station wagon as mom, Aunt Linda and Aunt Judy played in the seat in front of him. Stretches of concrete in a disappearing line behind him, filled with gas-guzzling behemoths of steel passing on all sides. Who wants to go?