Sorry this is way late. I started packing to move as soon as we got back and neglected to finish this post. But here it is!
Sunday – Wednesday, May 20- 23, 2007
Click here to see Set 9 of our Road Trip 2007 photo gallery.
The last few days we basically just drove straight through from Oklahoma City to home with a stop in Memphis, where we went to the zoo, and a stop in Clarksville, TN to visit my aunt.
We're back from the road trip now, and I think it was very successful and entertaining. Zero tickets once again…heh.
I did have some thoughts on the whole road trip thing now that I've done two of them.
"And this was really the way that my whole road experience began, and
the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell."
I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but it's not 1950 any more. The days of the locally owned road-side diner have almost disappeared; it's all McDonald's and Burger King's anymore. With most places feeling like most other places it's sometimes hard to get that sense of distance that comes with visiting a new town far away from home. I guess having all the conveniences of home (minus Bojangle's and Chik-fil-a :-p ) makes most places seem pretty familiar. All the amenities of home can be found just about anywhere now-a-days. That makes it tough to find those tiny, out of the way towns where there's still a slower pace to life. You can find them, don't get me wrong. It's just not as simple as it used to be.
Whenever I travel somewhere new I usually have this desire to want to have some type of Kerouacian experience from the trip. Finding that kind of meaning isn't exactly easy either. Maybe you need to take a few months to travel around the country so you can really take in all that you get to see. Going 6000 miles in 11 days and seeing all the things we saw really causes a sensory overload that makes it difficult to retain everything.
I do love these trips though. You get an opportunity to see a little bit of a whole lot and get a feel for where you'd like to spend more time. I was also thinking along the way, around day six or so, about how we had seen more things in the past six days than a lot of people get to see their entire lives. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we feel lucky to have had the chance to drive around almost the entire country now. Twice for Joel and I. I also only have 12 more states left to visit and I'll have visited all 50!
"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."
