On the road, the first time
Oct 29, 2025–Recently I had to embark on something I haven’t done, nor had the desire to do, for three decades: Travel.
More specifically, I had to undertake a cross-country car trip.
In my youth, traveling coast to coast and border to border was in my blood. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get off the farm to see the world. I joined a band, bought a 1968 Ford station wagon, loaded up my drums, and hit the road. I gave it no more thought to driving 2600 miles than to running to the local tavern for a Hamm’s beer.
I had been harboring desires of travel since high school, having read classic road books like Travels With Charlie and Blue Highway.
Looking back now, it alarms me how we traveled in the 1970s. We trusted our safety to a high-mileage used station wagon that carried all our worldly goods. There was no GPS, no cell phones, no backups whatsoever. In those days you couldn’t get a credit card until you turned 30, or at least I couldn’t. Every time you crossed a state line the first stop was at a gas station to buy a new road map. We had no YETI to keep our bologna cold, no Stanley to keep our coffee hot. If you wanted to make a phone call or do laundry, you had to keep handfuls of change in the car ashtray.
All cars had ashtrays. But no cars had air conditioning. Only those little triangle windows that you could adjust to louver air in your face or tap out your cigar ash, since the ash tray was full of quarters. Many is the night I would pull off at a truck stop and sleep in the back seat. When I needed a shower I’d cough up $1.50 and pull into a KOA camping slot. I remember those restless nights, trying to sleep between rolling the windows down to let the cool air in and rolling the windows up to keep the mosquitos out.
The solitude amazes me now. When I was on the road, no one… NO one knew where I was or how to find me. You could literally disappear. There were no phones or computers or national network of security cameras. I missed my great grandma’s funeral because I didn’t know she had died and no one in the family knew how to reach me.
This most recent trip is so different. A family member requested my presence at an event halfway across the country. My first response was I don’t want to go. You can’t pry me from my warm, soft couch. I gradually came to terms that this is a journey I must take, dreading it despite the advances in technology.
Cars today are spaceships compared to the old Ford wagon. We can travel in air-conditioned comfort, with built-in GPS and stereo audio beyond what any college dorm room had in the 1960s. Roads and interstate highways take you anywhere in the country, smooth as Aladdin’s flying carpet. With our phones, entertainment lives in the palm of our hands, and lets us tap into a universe of hotel reservations and restaurant reviews.
Yet, I was still reluctant. As we age, we grow accustomed to sleeping in our own beds, eating our own cheese, and bathing in our own tubs. I know where the apple cider vinegar is in my own grocery store, and I know which station sells the cheapest gas.
And that sums up both the fear and excitement of travel. We are forced to navigate unfamiliar terrain. It’s a journey.