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It seems like yesterday that Roxy rolled into our lives, with only four hundred miles on her odometer and all of the tread still on her tires. Back then, Chris and I were biased against cars, seeing no need for them in our walk-friendly city of San Francisco.
Over the past six months, Roxy has become a part of our family in a way that we never expected. After all, she is just a “brilliant silver” 2010 Ford Fusion- a mere material possession. Maybe it’s the fact that we practically lived in her as we traversed the country during the final days before our marriage ceremony. Or maybe it’s that she represented a connection to the country at large every time we passed a Ford dealership. It may sound stupid to you, but it is very real to us.
We spent our last moments with Roxy on the coldest, dreariest day of the year. We took some pictures, shot some video, and listened to her Sync voice one more time. As she drove off to meet her maker (Jason Camp of the Los Angeles Media Fleet Division), Chris and looked in the opposite direction to keep from bawling. We will miss Roxy, but the bottom line cost of purchasing a car of her quality just doesn’t jive with our current financial goals.
To borrow from Marley and Me, I have these final words about Roxy, arguably the world’s greatest car:
“What I really wanted to say was how this car had touched our souls and taught us some of the most important lessons of our lives. Roxy taught us about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. She taught me to appreciate the simple things- a drive into the sunset, singing along to the radio, and traveling between the cities of the people you love most.”
Side note: To all the asshats who thought we changed our name to Ford because we wanted to get free stuff, I hope you’ll now find someone else to verbally assault. We’re Fordless Fords… and we’re cool with that.
It’s been a few months since the Wedding Road Trip finished, and now that I’m recovering from the trauma, I can share some favorite experiences from the trip.
For the overly serious of you (and yes, I know who you are), I jest. The trip rocked and I loved almost everything. So when I tell you about my favorite food, it’s not because I didn’t have forty other homemade meals that were delicious. Everyone was a fantastic “guest” and treated us really well. Even those with dogs that tried to mount us (true story!). So here are some random favorites…
Best Mix CD
Many had asked about which was the best CD we were given at our Red Devil Lounge Kickoff party, and the winner was Colleen Crouch, who amazed us with a large collection of This American Life, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Savage Love, and mashups.
But we had dozens of other great ones, and Erin Camarena, Christina Kerby, and Matt Caywood all deserve shout-outs.
And so does Evan Hayden for having the balls to start a CD with Xanadu by Olivia Newton-John…which totally rocked.
Prettiest Drive
We live in a very good looking country! I know you grew up with her, and see her a lot, but clear your mind and look at her again. Yup, she’s not just the kid you went to elementary school with – she’s HOT!
Take that, Europe, you cold bitch.
We saw lots of great scenery, some surprising (West Texas, Kentucky, northeastern Oregon) and others expected (Mount Shasta, the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Bridge). My favorite though was the drive from Denver to Santa Fe – first the green eastern slope of the Rockies, with towering mountains in the distance and pancake flat plains below, then through a pass to New Mexico, stark and striking, with its bleak yellow mesas shadowed by the occasional solitary cloud.
Funnest Drive
Since New Mexico appears to have a population of 17 people, it’s light on the highway patrol. Roxy got to visit 110 MPH for a little while…though Jaime hit 112 in Utah. The hairpin turns on Independence Pass above Aspen were also a ball, although Jaime was sure we were going to die. So for high speed entertainment, I recommend driving from Utah into Arizona on I-10 through the video game-inspired Virgin River valley – sheer walls of rock, constant turns, and steep downward grade.
Funniest Drive
The Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale drive, featuring the stunning St. Petersburg-Clearwater Bridge and the arcade game danger of Alligator Alley – where I honestly expected a two lane road threatened by snapping gators. It’s actually quite dull but the entertainment value for Jaime when I shared my vision made it a lot more fun. And driving through Florida is accompanied by its insane collection of billboards that advertise—in succession—porn, an end to abortions, and vasectomies. These themes may be related.
Best BBQ
Mark’s Feed Store of Louisville does have some good BBQ, but Chad Pilbeam of greater outer Houston left work two hours early to mesquite smoke two whole chickens. And it was outstanding.
Craziest Drivers
Hands down, the people of Cleveland, who were apparently texting constantly or were blowing a 0.8. Genuinely scary driving with people swerving between lanes or slowing down to 40 on the interstate then speeding up to 70.
Best Restaurant (that we went to on our own)
I’m not going to evaluate the places people took us, because there is no way I could pick a favorite. But we had some lunches and dinners on our own, with the far and away standout being Magnolia’s Restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina. Fried chicken, pork shoulder, a crab cake…it was rich, unhealthy, and delicious.
Once upon a time, like a month ago, we spent two days in Louisville, Kentucky. We frolicked with Dave and Fox and their kids, and wrote clever posts about ducks and brunch. But we didn’t really tell you anything about them or their relationship advice. In short, our reporting was imbalanced.
Ha ha, what a coincidence, since that was their main piece of advice for us. Our whirlwind tour of Lewuhvill (as properly pronounced, “like you have a mouth full of marbles”) began with brunch, then segued into a tour of ducks, waterfront parks, and the Louisville Slugger and Churchill Downs museums. After that warmup, Dave and Fox took us to the 21C Hotel downtown for a drink and a tour of the coolest art museum south of the Ohio River.
Dinner was at a fine Mexican restaurant, whose name escapes me, with dessert at a local pie and ice cream shoppe where we fell in love with derby pie. It was something like chocolate, caramel, and calories combined. Dave and Fox, we are blaming you for both pounds we gained on the trip.
Somewhere in between mouthfuls, Dave and Fox shared their marriage advice for us: balance. Meaning…
- one person cannot do it all, you need to share responsibility
- focus and passion needs to be tempered with patience and perspective
- day to day accomplishments must be weighed against long-range goals
It’s hard to argue with these points, but we’re doing so anyway, given how independent Jaime and me both are. But I think we’ll have many years to fine tune our approach. Until then, we’ll remain a little imbalanced.
Please don’t read anything into the fact that I’m thinking about divorce this morning. It was a topic of major conversation this past weekend during our hometown Wedding Road Trip interviews, and it’s still on my mind.
This past Sunday, we had the chance to wine and dine with my Aunt Jeri and Uncle Jim. Both on their second marriages, they talked candidly about the mistakes they had made in the past and what they had learned from their previous circumstances. While both ended up with two great kids, they admitted that when they got married the first time, they thought it would be forever.
But in this instance, second time’s a charm. Jim met Jeri while managing the apartment building where he lived. When Jim decided to ask Jeri out, she shut him down quickly, letting him know that dating someone in her building was a conflict of interest.
He put in his thirty day notice the next afternoon.
Their marital preamble was short and sweet, culminating in an engagement that involved a limo and a trip to New Orleans. They were married in Lake Tahoe a year later and have now been together for almost twenty years. A few years into the relationship, they were also “blessed” with my cousin, Paul. I put “blessed” in quotations because I am still bitter about the time that he beat me at a game of chess when he was only seven years old (I was 25). They have built a beautiful family, and both Chris and I always look forward to catching up with Jeri and Jim’s latest adventures.
Over the past two decades, Jeri and Jim have never contemplated divorce, no matter how trying times have been. Considering they raised three teenagers together and are now on their fourth, this is an achievement that is Nobel Peace Prize-worthy. When they instructed that divorce should never be an option for us, I balked immediately. If divorce had not happened in my own family, I wouldn’t have my younger brother, my stepdad, or some of my greatest Ventura memories. While I’d never advocate it as a first choice, is it really the big, bad demon that society has deemed it to be? I appreciate the sentiment, but is it reality?
Let me set one thing straight: I am not going into a marriage Chris with a plan to ditch him for a new model. I’m diving into marriage with everything I’ve got, which will hopefully translate into a lifetime together. But I’m also not going to say that a divorce could never happen. To make a statement like that requires me to be able to forsee the future, something I’ve yet had the power to accomplish, no matter how many books on E.S.P. I’ve read.
It’s pretty fair to say that Chris and I were about two steps away from secretly getting married at the SF courthouse at the end of the Wedding Road Trip. Sure, we’d planned a ceremony and party for all of our local friends, but after six weeks of talking about love and marriage, we were pretty much ready to seal the deal in secret.
And then came Will and Jenny’s wedding. Will is my younger brother’s best friend and one of the nicest, most sincere people I’ve ever met. His fiancee (now wife) is an exquisite woman with a perfect sense of humor and an incredible ability to put people at ease. The two met at a USC tailgate party and were instantly smitten. The rest, as they say, was history.
After spending the afternoon and evening surrounded by the love and admiration of Will and Jenny’s friends and family members, I can honestly say that I am looking at our ceremony in a new light. Vows shared in secret can never compare to a day filled with the love and light of the people you care about most.
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