To The Long Road Trip

[Tom Byrne continues his guest blogging with another great American theme.]

Not the 4-5 hour trip that's easy to do between lunch and dinner. Not the 2 hour commute because traffic is so snarled on every one of the routes you normally take.

This trip take you to a place you haven't been to before or it's one you would normally take by plane because you just don't have the time.

Our mom. Behind her, our trusty VW van and our little orange fiat.

You see things you can't see from 8 miles up - the roadside stand with cantaloupe so fresh it had to be bought. The gas station that isn't a gas station any more - it's an artist's studio with wooden bowls that shine.

This is a trip where for two hours you just count off the miles waiting for something around the next bend. You come into town with a little cafe that you stop in for a bathroom break and find they have the best pie you have eaten in a long time. The hills come right down to the road on your right and the blue winding snake of a creek is to your left. This is a trip that used to take 6 months to make and someone died along the way. And now three states in one day is just a half tank of gas. Or you go from one end of Texas to another but the landscape is so different you MUST be in another country.

This trip is the one you take when you are going to see someone for the last time and you think about them the entire way and you never want to go back home. You just want to pile them in the car and keep driving.