We love road trips. As kids we spent hours and thousands of miles on the road traveling as much as cash and time would allow. Driving all night. Sleeping all over the car, and yes, even the back deck over the back seat was a favored sleeping spot!
This transferred to adult life, and, to date, our longest road trip was 1987 and covered nearly 12,000 miles, but we have spent countless hours enjoying the journey, reaching some destination, and then the return trip.
This year, instead of flying anywhere for a couple of weeks, we decided to drive through some seldom traveled Western states. From Washington, across Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho and then back home. Around 3,500 miles.
If time and money allowed, then I’m ready for more road miles!
This trip is not a repeat of any other single trip, but does cover ground we’ve been on previously in our 44+ years of marriage! We are refreshing the places we found special then, and new places we are enjoying today.
I firmly believe you cannot go anywhere just a single time. Memories are made, relived, and restored with new experiences in previously visited places.
The first time here was winter around 1979 on vacation to visit friends in Las Vegas. We met at Lamaze class in Baytown, Texas, both of us experiencing the births of our first born. Then they moved to Vegas and we felt connected enough to crash their apartment for a few days.
This same trip included Vegas and Hoover Dam (not visited), Flagstaff, Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon (AZ), and White Sands and Carlsbad and Gallup where I found Gurley Ford (NM). Of course, the trip across Texas was one for the books! For the most part everything was totally enjoyable because of friends and new destinations. It was also memorable because it was cold (Yeah!) and there was Snow (Whoopee!) Feet of it!
As much as I cannot comprehend the idea of “Vegas” and it was not a favored portion of our trip, we did meet good people along the way. Often it’s the people that make a trip and not the experience of a location!
Flagstaff shows us how much it’s grown! It really makes me want to hang around more than a couple of hours, or days!
While headed to our next stop we see the little town Winslow pop up on the radar. Yes. If you knew the Eagles as a singing group then you most definitely know this little town, on the corner, girl in a flatbed Ford, and the rest is history! Popular song. Great memories.
We have been driving through national forest where the trees don’t tower much over 20 feet, mining towns, the same beige high plains and desert, rocks, canyons and driver river beds. It’s barely rained, and each dry bed makes me want to come back during the raining season just to prove to myself that dry beds become raging torents of potential destruction!
Good roads. Bad roads. Good drivers. Bad drivers. Good stops, and not so good stops. Good food. Bad food. And a few really great experiences.
All of this reminds me of something I perceive about life. I’ve written about it previously and believe it to be the truth.
Traveling is not about the destination, although that is an important goal, rather, it's about the journey. Click To TweetHow well you deal with the challenges of every journey says a lot about you, your character, and your ability to adapt. You know the old adage:
When life gives you lemons
Make lemonade
Setup shop and sell
Make your millions
And enjoy!
Every questionable part of your journey could lead to better results if you could adapt your attitude to success instead of having a pity party. Mixed in with the good days will be bad days. Success shares the path with failure. Love and hate, hand in glove. Good choices…yep, there will be bad choices.
Here’s my thought today. Life is a road trip! It’s a journey that is often fraught with peril and success. Good and Bad. Happy and Sad. Dizzing heights and death valley lows. Every day is a portion of the whole, and every second is a portion of the minute.
How well you do on your journey is the crucial description of you. Find good travel partners, make good habits, keep your choices headed in the right direction, make the best of a bad situation, deal with all the negatives with a well defined attitude…and most of all…
Enjoy Your Road Trip!