Road Trippin'

I like road trips. The two things that I like about road trips? The waiting to go phase and about the first hour of the trip. After that, I hate road trips and will act as though I never had an affinity for even the remote idea of a road trip. But, that first hour is such a nice diversion from my everyday life, or is it?


To start, for my husband's blood pressure to resemble anything but shape of Applachian Mountain Range, I don't usually drive. For some reason, his driving pattern of "as fast as you can go while not signaling anything and slam on your breaks periodically" keeps his blood pressure at a steady rate. This pattern is always followed by the statement, "I'm not the one that's ever had a wreck, Meleia". I usually think, but don't say, well statistics would clearly show your time could be near, not to mention the way you drive.

His driving means I get Libby settled in her "back suite" as I fondly refer to it. We could put that backseat on vrbo.com and run a tight race with some of the advertised cottages....sleeps 3, tv/dvr, cold drinks, lots of entertainment. Then, I put my huge sunglasses on. i.e. The ones that are the total opposite color and shape from the Kate Gosselin white, plastic huge square sunglasses that go with the red-pink clash, mini skirt outfit.....you know the picture. My faithful sunglasses are what allow me to view everything along the way and to gaze off into thought without being asked what I'm thinking.



Traveling takes money, which is why we don't. It's so unlike my Nanny Ree's favorite saying, "have 'drawers' will travel". At seven years old, I knew the saying, but hadn't a clue what she lightheartedly meant. At 33, I know what drawers means and I know it takes more than drawers to travel.


Anyway, every blue moon, we plan a little road trip. I can't much tell you about the planning phases because my form of planning is to say, "let's go somewhere that we can see....or somewhere we can get....." and that starts the process with sbridenstine. He budgets it out to a tee, spreadsheets it up and before too long the Purchase Order is processed and we are on our way. (somewhat exaggerated, there).


Here's the magic of that first hour...........you're driving--well, riding, along and you begin to look at things in a way you don't look at them on your normal beaten path. Obviously, there are times when you really "eye" those houses on your neighborhood street and harbor those same questions that you have on a road trip, but far too little. Those thoughts like...."I wonder who lives in that house..how the heck do those folks live like that, or awww, that person drives a bus...wonder what their neighbors think about them parking it in their yard...." Those random "wonders", those thoughts that would lead you to waltz right up to their door and ask if it weren't for speeding along at 75 mph.


A perfect example is when I see a school. I think, "you know, my world revolves even if that school is scoring X or even if that school does Y" and it puts my sometimes "school tizzies" into perspective.


I really like analyzing the community and thinking how it's somewhat like an anthill. The ants busy along doing what makes their hill survive, doing what they know and not until someone disturbs it do the ants realize there's a whole world out there or at least a reminder of why they stay in their little circle of existence.


Do you think that's how we are? Do you think, we as Daltonians or Georgians or whateverians, don't even notice the things in other places that make them matter? Why is it that things that make a world of difference to us don't make a bit of difference to the passerby?


I bet that's why I can't be on a road trip more than an hour before I'm tired of it. I try to analyze way too much!


There used to be this show on CBS Saturday Mornings that showed a guy open a phonebook, run his finger down the page and lands on a name that he called and met with to show the point that "everyone has a story". I loved that show segment. If it were on 24 hours, 7 days a week, I'd have wasted away the remainder of my life because I'd still be sitting there in absolute amazement at people's stories. There was another guy that did documentaries about living in people's lives for a period of time. He did one where he lived on minimum wage. It was fascinating to me. It was kinda what I invited Oprah to do a couple of blogs ago. When her people call my people, 'cause you know she must be amongst my five faithfuls, I'll have a whole list of them for her to try.

Think along your drives. Wonder about those around you who have their own little universe of issues spilling out.