An On the Road Meme

 

As I was scanning the FB feeds this morning, I came across a meme one a friend had posted about wanting to go on a road trip.  The kind of road trip described or implied was not the manic road trip of Neal, Jack and the boys.  The road trip described was also not the kind of road trip you would have set out on with a couple of twenty-dollar bills and a couple of pairs of clean underwear, a toothbrush and toothpaste.  No, it was more the kind of road trip Joni Mitchell sang about in Refuge of the Roads.

 

Exploration, taking pictures, sunrises, feeling the wind in one’s hair; these are the kind of things you can do when you have a little money in your pocket. Don’t get me wrong I am fully in favor of this kind of road trip, duh.  But I want to add a footnote, a caveat of sorts.

 

DON’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

SERIOUSLY, DON’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!

 

When I was about twenty a couple of the people I worked with talked about hitching up to Montreal and grabbing a flight from there to London.  Then as now airfares out of Canada were much cheaper than they are in the US. As we stood around listening to David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, we planned dreams and dreamed plans.  Only one of us made the trip back then and it wasn’t me.

 

Like so many of my “plans” born of rock and roll and a couple of Rolling Rocks my folks put the kibosh on this idle vapor of thought.  The hammer of “Well, you can do that or we can help you with paying for college,” was wielded effectively.  Still, I have always regretted not heading off to the continent when I was young.

 

Oh, don’t get me wrong I taken more than a couple of road trips over the years.  One was made in a $50 car with a thirty-dollar Coleman stove and a pup tent.  From Michigan to Oregon and points in between.  From the wilds of Idaho to the Rolling Stones in Anaheim it was a legendary trip.  But it was not the road adventure I had longed for.

 

Over the years I have more or less circled the Great Lakes.  I have travelled from Canso, Nova Scotia to Sooke, British Columbia.  I went to the Olympics in Norway.  I spent time in Paris, London and Lisbon. Right now, I am dab smack in the middle of just under 90 days in Portugal.

 

But it is not the same.  I have kids.  I have a pill minder.  I have a knee brace.  I live by a concrete rule of no more than two low alcohol beers per day and that is bending my cardiologist’s guidance just a wee bit.

 

Don’t get me wrong, it you can travel with adaptations and rules like I do, and you can afford it, GO!!!!!  There is never a point where learning about other people, other cultures, other viewpoints and other ways of living is a bad thing. But if you can do it younger when you knees work, when your voice is strong, when you don’t mind the hangovers (or you can power through them) then do it.  Go threadbare and on the cheap. But GO!!!!

 

Waking up to a sky painted red and blue is wonderful.  Sitting around drinking espressos in little cafes is divine. Gazing at a woodcarving on an altar overlaid with gold gilt that most likely took two artisans in the time of an earlier plague 10 years to complete, well it moves something inside of you.

 

Excuse me while I finish my pastry.  I need to wander down to the harbor to watch the ships come and go.