Road Trip 2018

This past November, my BFF Kathleen and I launched ourselves into what we hoped would be a memorable road trip. We plotted, planned and prepared but still had the mindset that we would throw caution to the wind if we saw a sign that enticed us to some interesting phenomena just a few miles off of our predetermined path.

To this end, I always believed that part of the pleasure of a journey is in the planning, the anticipation of said event. So many times I find myself driven to do stupid little things that probably seem inconsequential to others but I derive great pleasure in the planning. So I took a large piece of one of my many saved pieces of paper and plotted out a calendar of sorts and wrote each day’s destination and possible highlights and then going the extra mile, drawing and watercoloring some things that might be pertinent to our potential visits.

So we were off, leaving Austin after I completed a day of work, to head for San Angelo for the first night of our road trip… a stressful four-hour drive because of rain and poor highway conditions combined with construction along the way. But we arrived at our hotel, albeit very tired, none the worse for wear, dropping into an exhausted sleep.

Up early to hit the road again with iconic stops along the way to enjoy some of the delights of the infamous Route 66, a hard push to Roswell to visit the UFO museum (the truth is out there!) and on to Winslow Arizona to stand on the corner. The 7th Wonder of the World, The Grand Canyon was breathtaking followed by the red cliff beauty of Sedona and culminating with a few days in Tucson with the highlight for me being the National Saguaro Park where thousands of giant Saguaro stood like soldiers amidst the desert landscape.

Road trips should be an opportunity to just relax and enjoy the beauty of the landscape and the wonders encountered throughout the journey. This trip lived up to my expectations and my only regret was in the thousands of miles traveled, I failed to encounter one of my favorite birds…The Roadrunner. But as luck would have it I did find a suitable substitute on the way home.