On the Road

My ducks are getting antsy again. It's about time to hit the road. And the day after tomorrow, I will. I'm going to Koinonia Farm to see what I find there, and then to visit my Uncle Buddy (of the high dive fame) in Florida. Southland in the springtime. Open road. I'm looking forward to it.

My dad felt the call of the open road on a regular basis. He hitchhiked from one end of the country to the other, and had plenty of interesting stories to tell, most of them too interesting to be true. Canada, Key West, California, and everyplace in between. We often had no idea where he was.

Our family traveled a lot when he was with us, too, usually camping or visiting friends along the way. We never had any money, but that didn't keep us at home.

Dad was always the one to pack the car. When we lived in an apartment on the edge of Atlanta, he'd spread all our stuff out in the parking lot before a trip--all of it out there for the world to see--and then pack it meticulously away in the back of the station wagon, leaving only a little squirrel hole in the very-back for my sleeping bag, a good book, and me. If only he could have organized his own mind so efficiently, with a comfortable place for me there, too.

I remember heading out on a trip in the still-dark wee hours. Very exciting. I loved it.

And then off we'd go, hours and hours in the car to wherever. No DVD's or seatbelts then. Instead, we counted squiggly line signs, climbed over the seats, followed the alphabet on the billboards, and sang our hearts out. Go to sleep, you weary hobo . . . I ain't gonna study war no more, ain't gonna study war no more, ain't gonna study war no more, no more, no more . . .

and the one that always made me think of Dad:

If you see me passin' by,
And you sit and you wonder why,
And you wish that you were a rambler too,
Nail your shoes to the kitchen floor,
Lace them up and bar the door,
Thank your stars for the roof that's over you.

It made me want to climb in his lap while he drove and watch the line in the middle of the road disappear under the car. So I did. There were good moments, and I relished them.

Now that I'm grown with my own family, we've brought some of those good moments into our family travels as well. Not the part about sitting on Dad's lap in the driver's seat, mind you. But we still play the alphabet game, and we still sing our hearts out. Now I'm the one who takes pride in packing the back of the van like a ship. And the redheads love the excitement of setting out on an adventure in the still-dark wee hours. Buckle up!

I used to be afraid that I would become the main character in the film Chocolat. The wind would shift and I would feel an irresistable urge to leave it all behind. Fly like a bird to the mountain.

But as much as I love these solo adventures to immerse myself in this exciting project, coming home is the best part.