Road Trip or Bust!!

It's still over a month until summer "officially" begins, but for me, it starts in D.C. when the Yellow Line Metro bursts up from under the Pentagon/L'enfant Plaza and brilliant daylight meets my work-weary eyes, highlighting the Potomac River, the cherry blossoms (in the spring), and the beautiful Jefferson and Washington memorials. I always try to sit/stand where I can see them as I travel to and from work. Dismal indeed are the months when dark, dreary night obscures such a gorgeous vision.

With added daylight hours comes the advent of one of my favorite summer activities: road trips!! There's nothing quite as thrilling as chucking your junk into your trunk (don't snicker), buying the granola bars and baby carrots (and my own personal favorite, dried squid... hey, some of you eat that nasty smelly beef jerky. Ewwwwwwwww...), mapquesting/google-mapping your destination, creating a sweet playlist on the ubiquitous iPod, filling up that tank and headin' out!

I've driven from New York to Utah twice, passing through geographical gems as Ogallala, Nebraska and being startled by a giant bust of Abraham Lincoln somewhere in the mountainous area between Wyoming and Utah. The summer I graduated from college I packed up my entire life into my baby blue '95 Camry and headed out to Palo Alto, CA, a twelve hour drive I was supposed to take with a good friend until he called me at 6 am the morning of and told me he had been mysteriously throwing up all night, forcing me to embark on the trip solo on two hours of sleep. I have a testimony of those rumble strip thingies on the sides of the highway... they caught me falling asleep more than once at 95 mph. I spent the night in Lake Tahoe, having stopped in the dead of the night and woke up to a glorious scene of lake, mountain, snow, and big blue sky.

My most memorable road trip was a path traversed from Pampa, TX to Alexandria, VA to help a friend drive her car back from her hometown. We didn't get on the road until 8 pm the first night (breaking rule #1 of my father's Road Trip Restrictions: Never drive after 6 pm) and it had started to rain. Summer thunderstorms are purportedly legendary in the "Panhandle" of the USA and this one lived up to reputation; I had never seen horizontal lightning nor seen it since. As I squinted through the deluge, searching for the hairpin turn I was supposed to make to get on the freeway, I marveled at the beauty and power of Mother Nature. Or God. As the sharp turn was successfully navigated, I crowed "I dare you to impede my progress!!" ...and was answered with a torrential downpour the likes of which would have me cowering in my basement, much less in the middle of the muddy plains of Texas in a tiny Geo Prism. When we finally stopped that night to rest I abashedly told God that I would never challenge Him again.

What's the coolest/most dangerous/most memorable road trip you've taken? It doesn't have to be summer, but it does have to involve at least two wheels upon which you were riding...