The Road Trip

I asked my sister Julie (Jackie in previous posts) to write a guest blog post. She chose to write about taking a road trip. 

The family road trip… I mentioned it in the Secret Phobia post, but these vacations really did frame so much of our adult lives. I have taken my son on some road trips, and both my sisters and I usually choose to drive rather than fly for a vacation. As we’ve gotten older, some of that decision has been based on distance, but even then, we’ll drive across half of the United States.

Enjoy!

My Dream after Retirement

By Julie Bird

My ears perked up the other day when I heard a story on the radio about the great American road trip. One of the guests was a Canadian who was so fascinated with the idea of exploring America by road that, as a young man, he spent three months on a motorcycle circumnavigating the United States.

It was a formative experience for him and one reason the historian at a college in Washington, D.C., taught a class on the great American road trip. I’ll let you explore his ideas yourself, but basically, he says our geographic diversity and great highway system make it easy to hop in a car and go almost anywhere. Our car culture, the romance of the open road and the innate American drive to explore are also at play.

Hearing people talk about their road trip memories immediately made me want to hit the road.

I find a good road trip the ultimate expression of freedom. You go where you want when you want. You stop, explore and take pictures, or if you’d rather, you just keep going. It’s somehow exhilarating and relaxing at the same time. This was especially true when I was motoring around the American West many years ago, discovering spectacular scenery, campgrounds you didn’t have to reserve months in advance, and roads so empty I could pull over, get out and snap photos from the center line.

Road tripping has been on my mind more than usual as I contemplate retirement. Traveling is one thing I always imagined doing after being freed from the daily grind, and a road trip is the easiest — and most personal — way to travel.

I have visions of driving across the country and taking a different route back, seeing whatever there is to see along the way. I’ve visited about two-thirds of the country’s national parks, but that leaves plenty of parks to explore. I’d also like to see more of my own part of the country without having to worry about using precious vacation days.

As the dream gets closer to reality, though, reality is punching some holes in the dream. When I first embraced solo road-tripping in my 20s, I never considered how arthritis or other chronic conditions might complicate travel. Tent camping is no longer practical, at least not without something that’s easier to get out of than a sleeping bag on the ground. The energy and stamina that once fueled long days of sightseeing isn’t what it was.

None of that really matters.

Life is about adapting, just like a good road trip. Go with it and remember you’re chasing new dreams, not old ones. The reward is still in the journey as much as the destination.

And the sweetest joys are usually unexpected. Much like the discoveries on a road trip.

I can’t wait. See you in the rear view.