- 6 days ago
Spring gets me itching to get outside more . . . to plant flowers . . . to have a picnic with my grands. It also reminds me that it’s a great time for a road trip.
I credit (or blame) that on fond recollections of yearly beach trips we took when the kids were younger. Or even further back, to when I was a kid and my single mom took her five girls on cross-country adventures.
Sure, planes are faster, and cruises are cool. Still, a good ol’ road trip calls my name every now and again. Here are nine reasons I heed that call:
A delicious sense of freedom. Road trips come without the burden of flight schedules, luggage restrictions, or TSA lines. They offer a break from routine and time for unscheduled pit stops. Want to take the next exit to see the world’s largest penny in Wisconsin? On a road trip, you have that option.
The joy of anticipation. Road trips remind me of Christmas Eve as a kid. Not Christmas Day itself, but the childlike anticipation leading up to it. I’m never sure what to expect, but I’m quite sure that magical moments await.
The delight of local delicacies. I confess, certain things will never touch my lips, like pickled pigs feet, sold at country stores in more places than I’d have expected. I have sampled maple-flavored martinis in Vermont, muffulettas in New Orleans, and pasties in Michigan’s upper peninsula. (I’m talking Cornish meat pies here, not those fancy adhesive covers for nipples.)
Amazing views. Scenic overlooks do serve a purpose. I’d rather my driver gawk at the road rather than stare down the side of a canyon as he’s driving at the speed of light. That said, views from the passenger seat of a car in motion are kind of cool. Shorelines aglitter as dusk grows near. Colorful mazes of farmland pre-harvest. These views amaze me as much as a scenic overlook. Every time.
Open windows and loud music. The music we liked in high school supposedly brings on a sense of well-being and happiness. I believe it. Luckily, Rice is not that much older than I am. When we want to switch things up, we rotate who gets to pick the Sirius XM station during the next stretch of highway. (Psst. Don’t try this with teenagers. They may be the very reason that God created earbuds.)
Down time to think or nap, or perhaps to talk and bond. Road trips provide an opportunity to get unplugged. I always travel with my trusty steno pad, just in case the muse strikes. It’s also handy for notes on random topics Rice and I discuss, like things to buy for the garden, or how many of the United States we’ve seen as a couple.
Fun places to stay overnight. When we were younger, bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) were our go-to for when it came to lodging choices. We’ve stayed at Victorian houses—one in Annapolis on the historical register—a farmhouse in Santa Rosa wine country, and an old elementary school in Portland, Oregon, converted into an inn with a restaurant, a bar, and a movie theater, too. These days, a firm king-sized mattress tops the list of musts when we choose our lodging.
Random roadside attractions. Sites like TravelAdvisor are full of suggestions, and Pinterest comes in handy here, too. Pinterest convinced Rice and me to forego the quickest route from Albuquerque to Santa Fe and follow the Turquoise Trail. We had some idea of what we’d discover along the way, and we weren’t disappointed. It led us through old mining towns now hopping with gift shops, saloons, arts-and-crafts spots, as well as fun places to eat. The view wasn’t too shabby either.
Wrong turns that bring delightful surprises. Okay, you may think wrong turns sound a lot like seeking out random roadside attractions. But they’re different. A roadside attraction is the destination itself. A wrong turn is the surprise of what happens along the journey, depending on which fork in the road we choose. For example, in Italy years ago, our airbnb host pulled out a map and circled half a dozen small villages nearby. We chose a road that led to Montalcino and arrived to a huge festival underway. Hundreds of villagers dressed in medieval garb waved colorful flags as they paraded through town. We watched as they re-enacted a centuries-old post-hunting celebration, complete with boisterous competitions. Oh, and we joined them in sampling some of the best wines of our trip. Maybe that's why sometimes—and definitely in this case—I think wrong turns are precisely the point. They get us to where we’re meant to be, even when we don’t know it.
What about you? What are your thoughts and feelings and memories when it comes to road trips? I’d love to hear your stories. (And you know you have some!)
P.S. If, like me, you enjoy reflecting on where the wrong turns in life can lead, check out my upcoming nonfiction humor book—One Wrong Turn at a Time: How We Navigated Fifty States, Forty-Five Years & One Marriage.
The e-book’s available for pre-order on Amazon now. The paperback version will be available on May 16th wherever you like to order your books.
Doesn’t the word QUEST sound exotic? It brings to mind the hero’s journey, the mission to seek something important. That makes questing sound like a lofty pursuit.
But what if it doesn’t have to be?
What if a quest can be something quite small, something we do for ourselves, completely apart from life’s other to-dos? Who’s to say if setting aside ten minutes each day to sketch or doodle is any less of a quest than scaling a mountain?
When it comes to personal quests, do you know who gets to decide what is important? You do! Not a boss. Not a spouse (unless you set out on a couple’s quest). Not even the President of the United States.
So here’s my challenge: If you feel like you’re in a slump, why not rekindle your zest with a personal quest!
Here are a just a few ideas:
JUST FOR YOU…
A Gratitude Quest: Choose one thing each day that makes you grateful. Write it down or share it with someone special. I tried a variation of this with my favorite husband, Rice, suggesting that before going to sleep each night, we name one thing about the other partner that makes us grateful. The first night, he recited maybe a dozen very nice things about me. He did it in a way that symbolically tied a ribbon around the whole list that pronounced our quest DONE! Kind of took the wind out of my sails for developing a new nightly ritual.
A Forgiveness Quest: Each and every day, let go of ONE thing. (In the case of my Gratitude Quest above, I moved on, even though Rice messed it up.)
A Dorky Quest: When I was a kid, my friend, Dianne Reed, and I set out on a pickle quest. We concocted a slew of edible combinations for serving pickles. And then we ate them! Can’t say I’ve craved another pickle and marshmallow sandwich since that day, but, hey, our Best Pickle Combo Quest provided a sense of personal satisfaction—and fun!—at the time.
JUST FOR COUPLES…
A Quest to Add Spice Outside of the Kitchen: How about a game of Scrabble? One where you only make words for the board that pertain to love. For added fun, if you make a word that’s a verb, you must act out!
A Quest to Enjoy a Six-Second Kiss…Every Single Day: Okay, young lovers. (If anyone young even reads this!) At various stages in a relationship, the daily kisses can get a bit perfunctory. I didn’t think too much about this until I tripped over a study claiming that couples who kiss for at least six seconds each day live years longer than those who don’t. Interesting. Was the article based on an empirical study? Who cares? A six-second kiss every day is already a win!
A Quest to Keep the Surprises Coming: For this one, rotating turns, each partner plans ONE surprise date every month. That partner marks the time of their date on a calendar. Several hours before the date starts, the planner reveals what to wear, where to meet him/her, and all the other details of the date. This one’s fun, I promise. Rice and I discovered the Fainting Goats Vineyards in Jasper, Georgia, through a quest just like this. (P.S. to Rice: We need to start doing this again.)
JUST FOR FOOLS…
A Quest for Some Goodhearted Couple’s Competition - Our friends John and Heather have an annual contest they hold at their holiday gathering each December. Before the party begins, they each bake a cake from scratch. Without sharing who made which, they ask guests to taste them both and choose their favorite. John and Heather appear to be good sports and do this all with a sense of fun. (Then again, maybe they’re just good actors. Plus, who knows how things pan out after the party is over?)
A Quest to Lose Weight More Quickly Than Your Partner – Not recommended for couples, unless they’re both of the same gender. Because every female under heaven knows, males lose weight a sh*t ton faster than females do. Arrrrgh.
A Quest to Add Spice to a Long-Term Marriage: Our friends Karen and Gary have invented a game they call “If I Die First…” The game consists of one partner asking each other the question, filling in the dots, and then both partners answering it. For instance, “If I die first, would you remarry?” or “If I die first, what big-tag purchase would you make that I’ve always nixed?” Granted, this one may sound odd, but whatever works, right?
JUST FOR ROAD TRIPS…
A Quest for the Best Off-the-Beaten-Track Diner: This one’s easy these days with Google and other online apps. During road trips, allow time to dine at obscure places. Agree up front on how far off the track these can be (maybe a max of ten miles) and whether they have to meet certain public health codes. (I recommend this.) Rice especially loves this quest.
A Quest to Find the Best Donut Shop Evah: Again, Rice loves this one, too. He’s especially fond of checking out apple fritters. We’ve had some pretty damned good ones…in Billings, Montana and Madison, Wisconsin, to name an example or two.
A Quest to Visit Every [Fill in the Blank Here]: Maybe you’d like to visit every national park in the U.S. Or the top five amusement parks in the country. My friend, Cindy, grew up in a military family. Now retired, she’s on a quest to revisit every town where she ever lived. Lucky Cindy, her husband, Charlie, enjoys this quest, too.
SPEAKING OF ROAD TRIPS…
Before the pandemic, Rice and I looked at how many of the United States we’d seen together throughout the years. We’d visited over forty, which brought to mind a grand idea: What if we went on a quest to finish visiting all fifty states? Together.
In 2024, we did just that. (Yay, us.) Then somehow that led to another personal quest for me: to record our shenanigans for posterity. So I wrote a book: ONE WRONG TURN AT A TIME: How We Maneuvered Fifty States, Forty-Five Years & One Marriage.
I’m excited to say, ONE WRONG TURN AT A TIME is scheduled to launch on May 16th. Please sign up for my newsletter for more details, coming your way soon!
Cheers ~ Jan
See this picture here? The one with the little girl in front of a flag? Well, if you think it’s about politics, think again. It’s hanging in front of my house, so I should get to say what it means. And to me, it’s not about politics. It’s about love.
If I can be flip for a moment, this flag speaks more to my packrat tendencies than to politics. I recently found it tucked in an old ice chest, one my mom passed along to me in the 1980s. It was the first antique she ever bought, and I’ve kept it. Seems I’m somewhat of a packrat—one with a mild compulsion to save things. Just in case I need them. Someday.
Being a packrat gets a bad rap. Sure, I have clothes I purchased during the last millennium. And a tub of old calendars dating back to 1981. But, hey, they contain crucial information, like phone numbers, work meeting notes, and dates with my OB/GYN. Granted, my youngest child will turn thirty-five in May. Still, I’ve saved those old calendars. In case I need them. Someday.
Which brings me back to the flag, the one in the picture with the little girl standing in front of it, forming a heart with her hands in honor of Valentine’s Day. I purchased that flag in late summer 1993. I know the date for a fact because I wrote an op-ed column about why I bought and hung that flag outside our house. (Packrat that I am, I saved that column, which ran in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday, October 11, 1993.)
Okay, I confess, this paragraph does get political, but only because my county’s policymakers took us there. In 1993, they passed a resolution, which stated in part: “…lifestyles advocated by the gay community should not be endorsed by government policy makers, because they are incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes; and that gay lifestyle units are directly contrary to state law.”
In response, I bought a rainbow flag. I flew it to make a personal statement against that resolution because, to me, it got into who should love whom, which should not be a political issue or a government matter.
It’s been over thirty years since I first flew that flag. The county’s “anti-gay” resolution has long been rescinded, my flag tucked away out of sight. But not out of mind.
Funny how packrats operate. I had to keep that flag. In case I needed it. Again. Someday.
Who knew that thirty-two years later, some people would need to be reminded that love is love? Who knew that someday would be now?
