We Need a Road Trip

My wife Lisa and I desperately need a road trip. The last two years have been very hard for her and me. First, her mother had a massive stroke. Lisa has spent the last two years in emotional turmoil and on the road. Second, we went through the disaster of my motorcycle accident last spring break. I spent five months in a body brace, and she had to take care of me in ways no human being ever should. Lisa and I love traveling to new places. Therefore, the time has come to hit the road for fun.


We used to travel all the time. In fact, we were notorious for flipping a quarter on a map and taking off to whichever location the quarter landed on. Whether we had been there or not. In 1998, we hit the road to Vegas from Houston. Taking every back road we could think of. It was a nine day excursion that left us exhilerated and exhausted at the same time.


Lisa is the bestest travel companion ever. She is my super navigator-flight-attendent. When we go through a drive-through, she organizes my burger, fries, napkin, and ketchup so I can drive and eat at the same time. Her aptitude for finding music on the radio in the middle of no-where is unparallelled. She only has one flaw, she stinks with a fold out map.


She taught me how to relax on a trip. When we first met, I would drive all night to reach our destination. I would only stop for bathroom breaks and energy drinks. Her gradual insistance on stopping to spend the night somewhere led to the greater enjoyment of our trips. First, it kept us well rested. 
Second, it led to us enjoying the sunrise on the road. There is nothing more beautiful than watching the sun come up behind you while travelling west across the mojave desert. Third, breakfast eateries, greasy spoons, and flapjacks. Diners across America are amazing, and we never knew what variety of food we were going to get. In one place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she had the best juevos rancheros ever, and I had blue pinion nut pancakes, deleicious. 


Every day we have been on the road, we never knew what was going to happen next. One morning, after a night spent in a hotel by the Grand Canyon, we saw a dog sleeping on the hood of the car next to us. On another trip, fog said good morning to us after a night in Gatlinburg Tennessee. The place where I did my first bunjee jump. 

Somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, a heart is carved in an aspen tree with "Larry and Lisa forever" whittled in the center of it. The Harpeth river near Nashvile Tennessee, has my favorite shirt and an expensive camera buried at the bottom of it. Lord only knows how many goofy little items we have left under the beds of our hotel and motel rooms. 

Sadly, in the last four years, we have not done much travelling for fun. The one trip I went on last Spring Break ended in disaster when I decided to fall off my motorcycle at 30 miles per hour and bounce into a guard rail. Now that I have graduated, the time has come to start hitting the road again, to begin to pass on our road trip heritage to our daughter, Alexis. I need to start planning where we are going next, or I could just toss a quarter.