Road Trippin'

Wikipedia tells me that a Road trip is a journey via automobile, sometimes unplanned or impromptu, or a journey involving sporting games away from home, thus encompassing any journey by automobile, regardless of stop en route.

Urban Dictionary states the following (printable versions.. however I love this site for its truthfulness and usage of word in a sentence!) 1. Road Trip - When a bunch of kids get in a car (most likely a VW Bus, with tons of drugs), and drive to an exotic destination (like Vegas or New Jersey). s.= "Hey dude let's go to Vegas! Hell Yeah! Road Trip!!"


Road trips are on my mind lately. Most especially since I just came off one.. I began to think on my most recent road trip about many other famous, (or infamous), fictional, (or non-fictional), road trips. There are the more famous varieties to look at.. Dorothy's road trip down the Yellow Brick Road to Oz. (although no motor vehicle was involved, nonetheless, a road trip!) Harry and Sally's drive from Chicago to NYC.( The prelude to their future road trip as man and wife.) Then there's Little Miss Sunshine.. more reminiscent of my childhood road trips, (endless driving in a VW Bus with your whole family in the 60's and 70's but instead of Beauty Pageant quests we had to sleep in Civil War campgrounds..ugh), or the sillier Dumb and Dumber.. a film I never got! And then there is the Road to Emmaus.. the Easter story road trip where 2 of the disciples are befriended by a risen Jesus, "in disguise", on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus.. a 7 mile walking journey that involves the discussion between a stranger on the road in regard to Jesus' recent cruxifiction and Resurrection. Anyway you look at it an awaking happens on the road trips of life!

Movies and songs describing road trips are fantastic. I personally dig these songs!! Sometimes they ring true of moments in our existence, and sometimes they are very imaginary. They can conjure up wild images as only Jackson Browne's "Load out-Stay" can, and as equally captivating is the Eagles can paint, "Running down the road trying to loosen my load I got seven women on my mind... Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see, there's a girl my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me!" or...they can cloud the mind in painful memories of arguments, unspoken truths, and blurted out bodily noises none of us care to remember! Human nature taking over. Point is.. no matter the truth, or the trip, the road has a way to get to the bottom of whatever is ruminating in the depths of our beings and blurt out the unspoken and the uncertain! I am convinced that Route 95 is a lay line underneath the Earth's surface.. it holds many of the world's secrets. It must... as many a traveller has unloaded their souls on the trip north or south.

Summertime for many, is the season of the road trip. Folks seem to travel as soon as school is released. They are looking for other lands. They are craving adventure and a neediness to "G'it outta Dodge." They are truly looking to get beyond the rainbow and find a place where happy little bluebirds fly and troubles melt like lemon drops.. when the body and mind.. and mostly the soul is tired of living in the Matrix. The road trip is a way to commune with your God. It allows us to see the world in ways we refuse too when stuck in suburbia. It forces us to befriend and speak to people who normally don't speak to us... or us to them.. such as a scarecrow or the boy we had a secret crush on in college whom we pretended to hate with a passion. Road trips equally make us deal with terror on the road.. flat tires, missed exits, hungry tigers, wicked witches, and traffic hold ups in the DC area! It invites us to strut our stuff in those Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots.. a Harley look perhaps.. red ruby slippers... where life is wild and showering, an option!

My recent road trip involved all those things. And it should because they are about real life. They help us tune out ordinary ho-hum and tune in to what really just happened...or what is about to happen when one lives outside of the Matrix. On this recent trip we, (my travelling partner and I), were using a device that tunes your Ipod into local stations in order to get a signal and play the music YOU want to hear. Interestingly enough, the tuning devise, (sometimes a royal pain in the...), would only pick up signal in areas that weren't congested. Places where the ho-hum of suburbia makes us go through the motions of survival each day.. those congested areas of our lives allow us to not see what is clear.. or in our/my case not HEAR what I wanted to hear! I just got static or FM. The switching of stations over and over 'til I desperately find something I like did not impress my partner.. sadly that is how we seem to roll... or even worse turning off the radio and tuning in to, "Living in quiet desperation..." , as the Floyd says.

Road trips teach us to get on the open road and explore.. find out.. research and let go of ordinary ways. Our Ipod was pre-programmed, but it was set to either play the prescribed music when wanted or set to shuffle to surprise us.. that's okay. Either way.. it was coming in clearly and it made us happy.

Life however still happens on the road trip.. as did mine. Car wrecks and constipation (sorry).. miles of bottomless promises to see this great thing called "South of the Border"... billboard signs along the road telling us we're in trouble with God, (No. Carolina) or, inviting us to a topless lunch with live music, (that would've been my choice of fun!).. also ironically in No. Carolina! Mixed messages abound one might say... nonetheless.. life. On this trip, I wasn't the driver most of the way.. and that was good.. My job.. was that I needed to makes sure on this adventure that we weren't receiving static, buying into misguided road stops, staying on course, and having fun! WOW.. isn't that what we are supposed to do every day??

I once began to write a book about traveling down life's road. It was to be called "The Rules of the Road". I still possess the draft of it. Recently, this year I believe, some other budding author published a book and came up with the same concept.. and title.. ironically.. which was proof that if you don't pick up and do it yourself someone else will! The road trip teaches us to embrace the moment... live in it,, instead of waiting for it.. but do it with a plan of some kind... or as my friend Jon always asks me, "Dawn.. what's your end game?" Road trips start somewhere and need to end somewhere.. they can't last forever... (life on the road can get overwhelmingly at times). Road trips take place somewhere over the rainbow looking for the great and powerful Oz.. but even Dottie knew that Kansas was her last stop. She had her eyes on her fries.. without one single McDonalds or Starbucks along the Yellow Brick Road. The Disciples eyes were opened to the realization that indeed the stranger was Jesus on the road to Emmaus.. a little girl traveling with people she adores on a VW bus realized her dream of being somebody, and Harry and Sally get married.. all due to a road trip!

My trip ends well. It ends up back home.. the nightmare being over..
with the realization that I have awoken from a dream and everyone was there. The road trip took me away and brought me back safely. Mishaps, some .. laughs.. more than I can mention.. and truly the return produced a rainbow in the sky in the company of friends! The promise of brighter days ahead, no static, that home is wherever life takes and makes you happy inside...

Safe Travels, Miss Dawn