One time, a (nameless) family member told me they hated road trips. ('What do you do anyway? Just sit there?') It felt fundamentally wrong to hear this, and I have never forgotten it. No, you don't just sit there. You gaze at the horizon and see everything all at once.
If you're like me, you think about the history of each new place and who used to live there. (I understand this is probably just me.) You watch sunrises and sunsets, sometimes in the same day. You meet interesting people at gas stations. Usually you feel glad to leave that gas station.
You listen to whole CDs and are transported back to another time when the songs were new. You (probably, no definitely, let's be honest) get into one or two fights with the people you're with. At least for a few seconds you regret the choice to get into the car with them at all. You feel trapped. You are in despair. But then it passes, and you finally get there. I think something like this is inevitable.
You listen to music like this.
Then your sister wants you to listen to country music, and you humor her for 45 minutes in order to not be the bossy older sister. You try to talk yourself off of this terrible ledge by making it thematic....'We're in Wyoming. This is appropriate. It's not all about you. Try to hear the story behind it. It's not that twangy.' But then it is, and eventually you snap and can't listen to country anymore. You compromise and find something in the middle. After all, she listened to your hipster indie rock too.
That's a car trip.
Depending on who you're with, your snacks are either terrible for you or terribly healthy. Or both. A few years ago, before a trip to Montana, Jenna and I planned to trick ourselves into eating healthy food as we drove, instead of falling prey to whatever was offered at gas stations. (Or not as often.) So we packed all kinds of fruits and vegetables into a cooler with the expectation that we HAD to eat them before we ate the M & Ms.
Our ploy worked, except that we forgot about/just couldn't eat the cauliflower and broccoli by the time we found ourselves in Wyoming. Nothing was worth that kind of misery.
And you know what happened next? We went on our merry way, camping and hiking through Glacier, and forgot about those veggie snacks. Until the moment when we faced reality and about died of noxious gas coming from the back seat. I think we got into a fight about whose fault it was, and then ended up laughing about it. (My fault.) That's a sister for you.
I've taken a lot of road trips in the last few years, mostly during the summer when I'm not working. I go to the mountains, and I go to my friends. What I'm thinking of most nostalgically now though are the mountain treks with Jenna. These are the things people tell you to do when you're young and it's just that easy to get into the car and go. There's nothing like it, and of course they were right.
The open road, your sister, lots of hours, lots of music, a general plan, a light budget. Yes.
One summer we went to Glacier, which is my favorite place. We swam in the lakes, hiked way too close to bears, had car trouble (3 times over), took great pictures, and spent long hours on the beach looking at hazy blue glaciers. We ate huckleberry ice cream, and roughed it, really, with camping. On the drive out, I sang Celine Dion music quietly to myself for about 2 hours. It was the dead of night, and I thought Jenna was sleeping. She wasn't. So embarrassing. We talked to interesting people. And when we woke up early in the morning we needed mittens, even though it was August.
My favorite things. (Minus the bears.)
One summer we went to Colorado, which is her favorite place. We didn't have car trouble (Jenna bought a better car), took a thousand more good pictures, hiked through aspens to lakes and solitude. We got into a few fights, and spent long hours looking at the mountains from the high point which peered into a valley.
July 9 of last year will always stand out to me because it's the day we found ourselves looking into this valley in the Rockies. And it is, to date, one of the holiest moments I've ever experienced. We came to this one special place Jenna loved, and I became woozy with reverence for such a creative God. I could not stand in His presence. Amazing, big, wow....I could not stand up.
We spent at least an hour just looking at hazy green forests built into faraway mountains. There was snow in the distance, and wind blew through the valley. I can still hear the sound of it. But we were mostly silent. You can be like that with your sister, and good thing because you must in the presence of such holiness.
These are the best things.
Last year in Colorado, we found ourselves planning how to do trips like this with a family. We decided that someday we would trek west, but it would have to be different. No way around it....the reality is, with a kid you do not hike very far. We passed a bunch of people with 4th graders who were having a great time. But sometimes they'd look envious when they asked about what lake we were headed to.
And so we took time to really enjoy ourselves. We went as far as we wanted because we could. Not even an idiot decision like FORGETTING THE WATER can stop you from at least 10 mile hike in your 20s, especially with Jenna leading the way. (The water thing was my fault...again.) We rationed the water all day and played mind games in order to make it not seem totally wrong. (It still was.) Jenna was really forgiving, even on the hike down, when she could have been most mad.
These are the best things.
A lot of times last summer, when we'd have all of these hours of hiking, we'd reminisce about road trips from childhood. You see your childhood differently in adulthood. How did my dad drive that far with us fighting so bad in the backseat? It really was like Chevy Chase going to Wally World. No joke. The same enthusiasm and idealism from that movie journey can be found in my childhood.
These are the best things.
Even when the car broke down or almost started on fire because of how far we had dragged a pizza box across the road.
Even when the destination looked great online but ended up being a real dump. (Ha ha, way too often.)
Even when it was 100 degrees in Nebraska and the air-conditioner went out.
(A nightmare memory to this day.)
My family got a lot of character building on the open road, two miles away from the aforementioned despair.
I get so detailed and organized and Type A about my job sometimes that when I'm 6 inches deep into papers, a road trip sounds like the best relaxing thing. That's what I was thinking about last week. I'm going on a trip with Vanessa. A short one, but a good one, real with meaning already. We have a general plan, a light budget, and time on our side.
Hasn't it been said a thousand times that Vanessa is as close as a real sister? Yes. We've had so many conversations, hilarious and raw and heavy and deep and also brilliant in the last year. I am their baby's aunt. She is another sister.
She even prefers country to my hipster indie rock!
Bring on the road trip.
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