I like to think of myself as a pretty good driver. Clearly this belief is founded in the following three truths:
1. I failed my driving test twice. The most notable moment? When I was told to make a left hand turn and I crossed over to the left hand side of the road to make the turn… and it wasn’t a one way street.
2. I once got broadsided by an uninsured driver after leaving church early to go to Taco Bell. A coincidence?
3. I “tapped” a car while parallel parking in San Francisco, sending the car down the hill and up a nearby embankment.
To this list, I’d like to submit the following:
#4. While driving from Eugene to Portland, I was so intent on finding my driver’s license that I overshot a stop sign by twenty feet, causing Chris to scream in a manner that made me question his sexual orientation. While I tried to tell him it was a calculated maneuver, cultivated from years of James Bondian-like driver’s training, Chris wasn’t buying it. No matter what happens for the rest of the trip, no matter how many speed limits I keep and tight corners I maneuver, this will be driving experience that Chris remembers from the trip.
So, I am back in the passenger seat where I belong, writing blogs and “navigating.” Chris is behind the wheel of Roxy Fusion, shooting me dirty looks as I stare longingly at the gear shaft. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)
Maybe he’ll give me a driving lesson later… if I’m lucky.
Just for fun, I put together The World’s Most Basic Map of our Wedding Road Trip stops.
(NOTE: I’m an urban planner, and yes I can make decent maps, but there’s a limit to what I can do with Microsoft Paint, which is the most advanced graphics program on my personal laptop.)
I then color-coded the stops by asking the question - at the ceremony, would these people sit on Jaime’s side or my side? That is, do we know them originally through Chris (blue dots), or Jaime (pink - the girly color).
We seem to have some regional trends. Jaime dominates the South, Great Plains, and Mountain states, while my people are mostly in the Midwest and Northeast, and we split the Pacific Northwest. This suggests two things:
- Jaime may be a red-stater, and I may be a blue-stater (as suggested in the great Flat Tax Debate), and
- If this was a presidential race, it would be a close election. I need some friends in Virginia so I can pick up its crucial 13 electoral votes.
Of course this is all moot. By the end of the Wedding Road Trip, everyone will be our family and friends, with no pre-nupital to decide who belongs to whom. Although Jaime may decline the option of associating with some of my old college friends.
I recently received a Facebook email from Josh, a friend of mine from back in the day. He commented that our trip “is city-centric (i.e. you’re bypassing some of the most beautiful scenery in the world).”
Josh… and others with this same question… come gather around the virtual campfire. Mama Jaime has a little story for you…
Once upon a time… ok, three years ago… I was fortunate enough to walk across the United States with twelve other people as part of Steps Across America, which you can still Google stalk, thanks to the Web Archive. This makes me incredibly happy, as I love that people can still find really bad mugshot-like pictures of me on the Internet forever. And ever. And EVER.
During the trip, we saw things like this:
And this…
Now, if Wedding Road Trip was all about seeing our country majesty, sweet land of liberty, we’d be KOA’ing it up from West to East and North to South. Okay, that’s a lie. I do not KOA. I Holiday! But still… we’d be taking more time to smell the citrus and be spending less time figuring out the fastest route from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Wausau, Wisconsin.
Nope, our voyage is about seeing the people. And seeing the people means spending a lot of time seeing this:
And this:
Turns out, it burns a lot of daylight trying to hit more than 35 cities in a short period of time. Which means that we might have to give up some pretty pictures in favor of some time-saving interstates.
But Josh, I promise that we’ll check out the Maroon Bells when we’re in Aspen.
Now that Chris and I have pretty much settled on a route for our road trip, we’re starting to contact people about the when and where of our little journey. Now, I know in this day and age (god, I sound like my grandmother) people are commitment phobes, but I had no idea that saving a date three months in advance was so mind boggling for people.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
Chris: Hey Road Trip Friend, we’re coming to Springfield on (insert date here) to visit you!
Road Trip Friend: Great!
Chris: So, are you free that day? It’s a Friday.
Road Trip Friend: That’s three months away! I don’t even know what I’m doing next weekend. I don’t think I’m doing anything that day. Remind me as the date gets closer and we’ll make plans.
Chris: Um… OR… we could cut right to the chase and make plans right now?
Road Trip Friend: Hmm… I guess you’re right! Why didn’t I think of that?
I have a sneaking suspicion that getting people to commit to our road trip schedule is going to be a bit like herding cats. Feral cats.
Chris and I got together this afternoon to work on the first iteration of the road trip route. As we fueled ourselves with lowfat mozzarella, wheat crust, deep dish pizza, we poured over a map, leftover from my Steps Across America days. Everything was going fine… until we hit the southern part of the United States.
Jaime (focused): So, if we go to Orlando, we can cut across through Tampa. I know someone in Tampa that we could visit. Then we’ll go on to Fort Myers- maybe-
Chris (annoyed): Wait. I’d rather go to Miami then see some random person in Tampa.
Jaime (defensive): She’s not a random person. We spent four months walking across the country together. She’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. She’s traveled all over the world.
Chris (going in for the kill): Is her number in your cell?
Jaime (stuttering): No. But I just got this backup phone a month ago. She’s in my other “real” phone.
Chris (gloating): When was the last time you talked to her?
Jaime (exasperated): Dude, she’s ALL OVER my Facebook page.
Chris (adopts his best sage expression): She sounds cool. I’m just saying… I don’t want you to end up hurt. These friendships you have might be more important to you- they might just be a blip on someone’s radar.
So, ladies and gents… the gauntlet has been thrown. I believe Chris is entirely wrong. I think the friendships we create in life are like an infinite tapestry, beginning and ending, ebbing and flowing. Whether I knew you best in high school or know you better now, we have history. You have knowledge about love, marriage and life that you want to share. We’re coming to see you- not because we have to, not because you’re the only person we know in town- but because we want to.
And it’s going be a blast.
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