With the long weekend approaching,I’m already planning on taking a long road trip on Saturday. I have visions of driving across the country and back, but honestly I don’t that can be accomplished on one day during Memorial Day weekend, what with the traffic and everything.
God bless Earl. He happily jumps into the passenger seat, ready to tackle our next road adventure. Since driving across the country is out of the question, we’ll probably tour around the Hudson Valley a little bit. Or maybe wine country along Lake Erie on the other end of the state. Perhaps both. We’ll have to see.
I love going for rides. Aside from my road geek interests, i just find riding in the car very comforting. I especially like riding in the car after dark during a new moon. The world seems to have a sinister edge to it, as we go about our business under a blanket of darkness. I find a certain sense of adventure.
When I was a kid, we would go for rides from time to time. Dad would often want to check out the progress of someone building a house or the remodeling of a camp or some other project his business was working on, so the four of us would pile into the ’71 Heavy Chevy (yeah my Dad was cool having a new muscle car and all), and later the ’78 Impala and go see what was going on. We’d occasionally go for a long ride that would take us elsewhere in the state. He once drove us to Delhi to show us where he went to college. Or we’d ride through the Finger Lakes. And once or twice a month we’d drive the 40 minutes from Grandma and Grandpas in Syracuse to our home on a Sunday night. I have very happy memories of my family from the back seat of the car. We didn’t play “Count The Cow” or get all breathless over “License Plate Bingo”, but rather we’d chat a little bit about whatever state the world was in, all accompanied to the sounds of 62 WHEN in the background, or whatever local AM radio station we could find. When we were all in the car, we were all together, spending time with each other. Dad wasn’t in the basement working on the airplane. Mom wasn’t doing her thing with the Eastern Star. Jennifer wasn’t at baton twirling lessons and I wasn’t building paths through the woods. No, we were all in the car, enjoying each other’s company, talking and if we were lucky, stopping at A&W or Carrols for a bite to eat.
As an adult, I would often go for rides alone. Whomever I was dating at the time wasn’t really that interested in checking out some far off nook or cranny elsewhere in the state, so I’d feed my loner tendencies and enjoy the trip alone. Then Earl came along, and well, like the rest of my life, that all changed. He gladly jumped in the passenger seat, gladly listened to radio and gladly talked about whatever state the world was in. That’s one of just many ways I knew my life changed when I met Earl.
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to going for a ride on Saturday.
