Destination Uncertain

I definitely inherited the road trip gene from my dad, because my mother doesn't believe in highways. I probably have more miles on my car now than my mother has ever accumulated on all of the cars that she's ever driven. Until he traded in his Honda last month, though, my dad had me beat by about 200,000 miles.

My earliest road trip memories are of our annual visit to my dad's parents in Chicago. We would make the two-day trek from Philly packed into the family station wagon. My mother would bail out halfway through for a conference in Ohio, leaving my father to deal with my younger brother and me. And leaving the open front seat as just one more thing for us to fight over.

My father's fatal mistake came when he implored us to "just sit still and watch the scenery." We happened to be passing a field full of cattle at that moment, and my brother and I decided that we would take turns mooing at the cows, with the approximate ratio of one moo for each cow that we saw. There are a lot of cows in Ohio and Indiana. I don't think any man was ever so glad to see a cornfield as my father was on that trip. It guaranteed him at least a couple of miles of peace. Or maybe not, because mooing at the cows was pretty much the only thing that my brother and I agreed about during those trips.

When I finally got my own car, my road trips were mostly out of necessity: visiting family, a friend's wedding, moving from city to city as I changed jobs. Not long after I moved to Memphis, I discovered the Gulf Coast, and I used to squeeze in a trip to the beach any time I could string together more than two days off in a row. I wish I'd done that last weekend before the oil got there.

Visits with my dad now don't include mooing or cows or grandparents (sadly) any more, but there's usually a road trip or two involved. We've covered a fair amount of Colorado -- mostly in the mountains and never during ski season. From Memphis, we've ventured mostly south: to Tupelo, Oxford, and, most recently, Vicksburg. To be honest, I had no idea how long it took to get to Vicksburg from Memphis, nor did I realize how much longer it would take with my dad driving. But we had enough time to make it around the battlefield, read historical markers, and eat some really good seafood.

I actually started this post a long time ago, even before the Vicksburg expedition. As the title suggests, I wasn't sure where I was going with it. I'd say that applies to a lot of things in my life right now, so maybe that's why I'm back to the topic. Sometimes it seems like everything you thought you knew about your life gets turned upside down. Then, just when you think you've figured out why, you find out that everything you've said to explain it to yourself no longer makes sense. Kind of like fate jumping up and biting you on the ass because you're arrogant enough to think you understand it.