One of the first road trips I remember took place under less than optimal circumstances. My grandfather had died, and we were making our way from Oklahoma to Indiana to attend the funeral.
Our transportation means at the time were humble: a little Opal Cadet with a penchant for breaking down with startling consistency. My younger sister and brother stayed behind with our stepdad on this trip, partly because there really wasn't time for the pit stops that were necessary, and, really, who wants to travel with 5 people 800 miles in an Opal Cadet?
We trekked up through Missouri and Kentucky, then upwards through Indiana with a stop at Clifty Falls, a state park with a couple of incredibly nice waterfalls. My brother and I went to the edge and drank from the falls, an adventure we couldn't wait to relay to our friends back home.
I had always been somewhat estranged from both sides of my family, so seeing all these people in one place was, literally like being in a roomful of strangers. It would have been bearable except for the moment when our grandmother forced us to touch my grandfather's corpse ("I feel dead people...and I don't like it"). We had a brief stop at the house of one of my favorite uncles, a former minor league umpire who was, at the time, raising Shetland ponies. His promise to us was that if we ever had the space, he'd see to it we each got a pony (sadly, he passed a few years ago, or else our one acre lot would be blessed with a pony; which our girls would love).
We returned home quickly, as our world often revolved around deadlines, and this was no exception. But the magic and wonder of the road never left me.
signing off,
Gideon MacLeish