ON THE TRIP

I’ve been home for a while now and have had time to reflect on my latest journey. I’ve been asked why I didn’t stay away longer. Two reasons: (1) money and (b) my roommates. I do not live alone. My daily companions are Sadie, a canine and Twiggy, a feline. They are my friends and my responsibility. My thanks to sister Carolyn for keeping Sadie and to my neighbor and friend Joan for looking in on Twiggy. Also, I can eat so many restaurant meals and stay in so many motels, no matter how nice before I start to think about my own bed and my place in the woods and a grilled cheese sandwich at my table.

What I am considering for next year is renting a place for a month or so, probably in Florida. I’d take Sadie with me but I’m not sure what to do with Twiggy. Cats do not travel well and I’m not sure she would be happy anywhere but right here. The jury is still out on Sadie as far as travel is concerned. We have take a couple day trips with mixed results. She’s still quite young and may prove to be a good traveling companion. Time will tell. We may do a trip to the Upper Peninsula later this spring to see how it goes.

But I digress, as I always do. The trip was for the express purpose to do the Road Scholar program in Fernadina Beach which was five days. I spent another five days on the road, coming and going. As you should know by now, I don’t like freeways and sprawl and much prefer the back roads and old highways. William Least Heat-Moon called them “Blue Highways” in his wonderful book of the same name. It’s sort of a later-day “Travels with Charley” but without Charley. They are called blue highways because that is the color of secondary roads on the map.

In recent years I have flown to some destinations but I find the experience unsatisfactory. Being stuffed into an aluminum tube with a hundred other people after being treated like sheep and examined for contraband is not really my idea of having a good time. I’m funny that way. Besides, I think the journey is part of the total experience. I like to see the subtle changes in the climate and topography along the way. To see mountains loom in the distance from your windshield is to anticipate an adventure. I’m curious to see what is around the next curve and over the next hill.

I’ve been going south in the spring for many years. I like the climate and I like the people. There really is such a thing as southern hospitality. I think that have done a better job in preserving their culture and history than we in the north have. I especially like places that preserve some of the old south. I also think they have done a better job of integration than we have. I lived in the segregated south briefly back in the 50s. To go into a small town cafe and see blacks and whites together still gives me a thrill, knowing how conditions used to be.

There are still places, even in Florida that still are not overrun with tourists and condos and theme parks. I hate all that crap. I will not tell you where they are because I want to keep them a secret but you can find them if you look hard enough. Places where there are mom-and-pop cafes and motels and two-lane highways and a quiet dignity and charm that is uniquely southern. Those are the places I seek before they too disappear under the Walmarts and malls and fast food joints. That’s why I travel south. That and the spring weather. But don’t ask me to go there in summer!