On the Road Again . . .

DES MOINES, IA. Yet another road trip. This time my youngest daughter Alex and I are off to Cerritos, Cali. Quite a bit different from my last road trip out west in 2007. That was round trip, alone and for three weeks. This time I am helping Alex drive to her new home and new job in Cali. Then I'm flying back from LAX after a few days of sun and fun. Actually Alex and I have done this before -- at least as far as Boulder. Then six weeks later I flew to Denver; hopped off the plans; and jumped in Alex's car and were off to Michigan. That was a killer. I swore "Never again." So here I am again. One major difference is that Alex just bought a Hyundai Tucson which is many times more comfortable that her old Jetta with 115,000 miles on it.

It's a big stretch to come up with something interesting, entertaining or, maybe, funny. A good place to start is always something that went wrong. For example, the top thing on my list for the trip was some new prescription sunglasses. My current ones are scratched and not that effective. First I tried Pearle Vision who wanted $480 for one pair of polarized sunglasses. No way. On to Lenscrafters. Amazingly that had a 50% off sale going on. What a shock! They have more 50% off sales than Diamond Jim's Whoopee Emporium. So I gave the guy my prescription (which I noticed had been written in 2007) and in an hour they were ready . . . and at half the price! Amazing. I did notice that I couldn't see all that well, but that was because I was inside. Unfortunately it didn't take long to realize that this was not my prescription. So I took them back for a comparison to my current glasses and . . . (drum roll) they were completely different prescriptions. I needed a written prescription for them to make me some new ones. I had no time to get to my doctor before we left on the road trip. What to do? Well, I told this story to M and she asked why I didn't get their doctor to do an eye test on me. I don;t know. Because it was too obvious. Because my head is too far up my ass? And thus, no new sunglasses.

Meanwhile our drive from Michigan to Des Moines was marred only by the fact that our attempt to buy a delicious breakfast at McDonald's required three stops and almost an hour. After unsuccessful stops in Marshall, Michigan (line was too long)and Albion, Michigan (too closed), we spent a half an hour in Kalamazoo waiting for our wonderful food. No more McDonald's.

We crossed the Mississippi at Quad cities and stopped just on the other side at the Primary Iowa Welcome Center. Which of course made me wonder what the secondary welcome center might be. I took some photos of the mighty Mississippi but they are shit, so no picturesque shots to accompany this blog. As we continued our initial incursion into Iowa we learned a couple of interesting facts about Iowa's rest stops: they apparently don't know what primary means because their was a second Primary Iowa Welcome Center about ten miles in and in Davenport their are two rest stops that are two miles apart. And it is so exhausting to drive that extra two miles that the second one is for parking and sleeping only.

Deep Thoughts. (Remember the segment on the original SNL with that name?) For many many I’ve had the same recurring daydream while I’m driving on the highway. I’m driving with a guy who has been transported from the mid-19th century to my car. He has never seen a car or a highway and of course has never traveled at eighty miles an hours. My job is to explain where he is an what our time – which is of course the future to him – is like and what a car is and so forth. After a while I drift into the opposite direction and I am back in the mid-19th century but with my life’s worth of knowledge and experience from the 21st century. I wonder how much an average guy like me can help move technology and society forward then. Vat does zis mean? Maybe I want to be a time traveler. I sure as hell whole like to go back before I got sick and try it again.

And finally. This trip allows me the great privilege and pleasure of spending one on one time with Alex. Even though we talk every little – so little that many people find it strange – I enjoy the opportunity tremendously. Alex is a wonderful person. Even though she is soft spoken and a real rule-follower, she is gutsy as hell and tough and resilient. I think she will love California and will do great there.

As always, thanks for reading.