In summary, it was a great trip - a great adventure, in ways I expected and in ways I didn't. We saw an unbelievable amount of stuff, and wished we could have seen more. Both of us are a combination of ready to go home & ready to keep going; we're flat broke and coming in on 7 cylinders, but happy to have been able to make the journey.
M and I seem to be getting along decently, and Dapple and I are getting along decently, and M and Dapple - well, they're on again & off again, depending. She never failed to get us where we wanted to go, never left us stranded, and M wishes we'd had cooler weather so we could have spent fewer motel nights and more camper nights - he likes the camper, and said I did a good job of making it home-y. I'd have liked the chance to cook more camper meals, at least on the nights where we ate gutwrenching Chinese or Wendy's (since nothing else was open.) But she has been rather a high-maintenance trip companion, finicky and capricious. I used to have a friend who said "incrasyncrasy" instead of "idiosyncrasy" and that's what I'd say: the old girl has her incrasyncrasies. Her behavior is unpredictable - just when you decide she only falters uphill, or in the heat, she'll run through the desert without complaint and then choke on the straightaway in the evening. She'll lock herself and refuse to open, or decide she doesn't want to start at all for a while, and has to be coaxed with a can of ether. M says she made her bones on this trip, but in the next moment he's ready to smack her with a hammer. (He probably feels the same way about me, but he ain't got MY pink slip.)
There are a lot of memories and impressions that didn't make their way on to these pages, and probably won't show up in the photos, but are mementos I bring home. The smell of the piney woods in Georgia. The familiar sight of Dapple's dappled hood in front of us as we put in long car hours. The joy in using a bathroom without someone standing two feet from me on the other side of a stall door, blow drying their hair and asking me where we're from. The kindness of the man who followed us off the freeway to tell us that our tahr was low and warn us that we were liable to blow out that sidewahl in this kinda heat, running a low tahr like that. The Sikh in the Needles convenience store, trying to figure out if the bean burrito was vegetarian, reminding us we were back in the melting pot that is our beloved California. Sonic drive-ins. Fried chicken on every corner. Hand-lettered signs everywhere. Draped Spanish moss in the Carolinas, red cliffs in Arizona, ghost towns and Talavera tiles. It's all coming home with me.
Our trip notes, from a discussion in the truck today as we cruised Highway 5 to home:
_______
If we could go back to one city:
M: Austin. I'd like to take a mandolin lesson from Ben at Fiddler's Green. I'd eat at food trailers. Check out music clubs. Talk to Mrs. (friends) about Mr. (friends) and his railroad career and WWII.
Me: New Orleans. I'd walk the French Quarter at night and listen to the music.
If we could explore one state or area:
M: South Carolina. Check out the Sea Islands, visit the Gullah people.
Me: I'd start in Charleston and go back through Savannah, explore the Gullah culture, drive down to New Orleans and see the Louisiana bayou country. (I changed the question to “area” so I could get away with this.)
They couldn't pay us to go back to:
M: Farmington.
Me: Farmington.
Most Interesting Stranger:
M: Leo the cab driver in New Orleans.
Me: Ditto.
Most Novel Experience We'd Have Again:
M: Playing music with (my cousin in Charlotte.)
Me: Watching rabbits play tag in a graveyard next to the Waffle House.
Most Novel Experience We'd Never Have Again:
M: Seeing a !@&^%# church every two minutes.
Me: Tornado. In any form, anywhere, any time.
Best Meal:
M: Breakfast at La Posada in Winslow. (Ed note: they have the most amazing cheese and green chili scalloped potato dish thing, you could feel your arteries slowing down.)
Me: Ribs with red beans & rice in uptown New Orleans.
Worst Food:
M: Ruby Tuesdays in North Carolina. It sucked. I thought that was generally the worst meal we had.
Me: "Chinese" food in Holbrook, AZ. Fried Pork Nuggets. Eyechhhh.
Best Campground:
M: Carlsbad, New Mexico. Had the swings you liked. Nice atmosphere.
Me: Austin, Texas. Shady and pretty and we had time to go for a swim in the evening.
Worst Campground:
M: Ojo Caliente, because of the mosquitos.
Me: The Zed & Jed's in Charlotte, because they had NO BATHROOMS and creepy people. But we stayed for free!
Best Hotel:
M: The Andrew Jackson in New Orleans. Ambience.
Me: The Andrew Jackson, because it was so quaint. But I loved that indoor pool in Taos.
Worst Hotel:
M: The one that smelled like cats. I think it had grasshoppers. Yeah, that was in Fuquad, Texas. Want me to spell that for you?
Me: Yeah, the Bates Motel with the plague of locusts. That was my birthday.
What we'd do differently:
M: Fly. Much easier and cheaper. (Later amended to: No, I wouldn't have wanted to fly. But I would have put new tires on the truck before we left.)
Me: Do it in three months, or six. Take a portable air conditioner.
Things We Missed from Home:
M: My old car. Would've been fun to have taken on the old roads.
Me: My kids. But they wouldn't have been fun to take on the old roads.
______________________
Thanks for taking the trip with us. If the three of us are still speaking in a year or two, maybe we'll run the All Who Wander Tour #2 - The Northern Route!
No comments:
New comments are not allowed.