Taking The Long Way

We’re taking the slow route to California from Wisconsin this year. We are joking a little about our former youth. Things are maybe a bit more challenging now (ahem).

Although we had tickets to fly, we just couldn’t do it. In the end, we canceled that plan and loaded up our senior-citizen version of a hippie van. Trust me, we brought everything.

Why didn’t we just fly? We could have crossed those miles in hours instead of days. But here’s the thing—before the drive begins, the journey already starts in our minds. Which route should we take? How far each day? And then the memories come rushing in.

“Remember the singing cowboy in Amarillo? Maybe we could stop there again. Do you think he’d sing The Yellow Rose of Texas?”

Remember the people at a hotel stop in Kansas who laughed at our mountain of luggage?
“Where’s the kitchen sink?” they chortled. Then we shared snowbird destinations. They were headed to Texas.

Remember the year we had to backtrack because of road conditions. We ended up in a cheap motel. It had a school-cafeteria-style restaurant serving home-cooked food on red Melmac plates. It was those plates that got us—and the first place Mark was ever called “Honey.” We’d made it to the South.

These are the stories we cherish. And there are so many more.

Serendipity. That’s what we’re calling this journey now—letting the road tell the story.

Every day, I write. Every day, I’ll share.

This country is filled with beauty you can’t see from the air. You have to drive through the farmland. There are places where cattle roam free. In others, they’re packed into spaces so small there’s barely room to breathe. You have to see the fields now. They carry solar panels and wind turbines. These are our human attempts to harness nature. They aim to feed an ever-growing appetite for electricity. And we’ll pass the stark contrasts — oil rigs and old farmyard windmills.

We’ll pass through bustling towns and others so small and worn you’re left wondering who lives here—and why. And then we make up stories. We fill that why space with moments we imagine they cherish: family traditions, legacies passed down.

And we keep driving. I create charcuterie boards on my lap while he drives. We watch the sun rise and set over changing landscapes and unfamiliar places. Always keeping our eyes peeled for that thing—the unexpected piece of art meant just for our imaginations.

Wait.
Stop.
Let’s take a picture of that.

What was it?

You’ll have to wait and see.

Oh, okay. I’ll show you one. We did find our singing cowboy.