“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” --Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Oh, the places you’ll go!
I’ve no idea why I’ve been possessed my whole adult life with wanderlust, a need and desire to get on the road and go, but that is what I crave and enjoy more than just about anything else. To travel and cross over state lines. To explore and get lost in a little town or a big city. To discover serendipitously some out of the way gem: an Iowa diner with amazing blueberry pie, or a Minneapolis bookstore filled with first editions or a roadside historic marker on the exact spot where the first Jell-O factory stood, in the small-town of Leroy, New York.
I’ve just got to get going.
Maybe my road obsession comes about because like other homo sapiens, I’ve got two legs that are designed, not just for standing, but more important, for walking and running and moving and always ahead. Getting from one place to another. Humans were made for the road and so perhaps I’ve got some leftover echo of the hunter gatherer in my DNA and bones, that pushes me to never stay still for very long; to seek out the new, the unexplored, the foreign, that next destination just over the horizon.
Westward ho!
So too, the faith I practice was founded in part by a people who seemed to never stay put, the Hebrews, who in ancient times sought out the Promised Land and eventually, after forty years on the road, finally arrived. Now that’s a road trip! My commitment to forward motion might arise from the immigrant still within me, a spirit bequeathed to me by an Irishman who came over on the boat in 1876 and a French-Canadian who made his way down to Vermont, to find a new life far, far away from his home, in Quebec.
In the summer of 2021, I know my anxiousness to hit the road is absolutely born of the past year and a half of staying put, sitting still, zoning out on endless Zoom meetings, or worse, masking for the big trip of the week to…THE GROCERY STORE! I bought an almost new car in January of 2020 and have put about the same amount of miles on it as the cliche old woman who only drove her vehicle to church on Sundays. In eighteen months, I left Massachusetts just once.
The siren song of the highway calls out to me.
And so very soon I will be on my way, undertaking an epic 3,399 mile plus road trip to visit friends and family in Ithaca and Cleveland and Minneapolis and Cincinnati and Asheville and Baltimore. Nineteen days. Seventeen states. Fifty-three hours on the road, not counting the intentional detours to find some roadside antique store or tiny museum or corner post office, so I can mail my postcards to the folks back home.
No. God did not make us to spend the bulk of our lives in just one small corner of God’s amazing Creation. This nation we call home offers up so many amazing things to do and people to see and destinations to visit. At a time when all we seem to focus on from sea to shining sea, is what separates us, I think all of us could use a little travel right now. A road trip to realize it is the diversity of this land, not our sameness, that makes the United States of America such a one-of-a-kind place. Such a beautiful land, and a beautiful citizenry, even with all our current woes.
Where do you want to go? And what is stopping you from hitting the highway and taking a road trip, if only for a weekend, before fall comes knocking on the door? With the delta COVID variant making its nasty way across our country, it’s a better late than never time to travel. Yes, I will be safe and yes, I will put on a mask when conditions call for it, but absolutely I will not sit at home.
No way is COVID ruining my summer road trip.
Wherever life and God and travel take you in the days and weeks ahead, via con Dios. Go with God. Enjoy this land. Get lost to find some place new. Be kind and talk to a stranger and really listen to them. Go to a baseball game. Watch as a small-town parade goes by. In all these ways, and so many more, may you rediscover the joy of the road again.
Gotta go! This is my exit.
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