The Road Always Taken

There is a rumor going around that some families get on planes and travel to their summer locations and that they arrive at their locations the exact same day they left.  The exact same day!!! Is this true?  What?! People go on vacation without enduring cross-country road trips?  They can arrive at their vacation spot without deep-vein thrombosis ticking in their thighs and their happy family still intact?  What kind of witchcraft is this?! 

As it is summer, we have once again returned from a vacation filled with cross-country travel, mini meltdowns, mile markers emblazoned on our retinas and potential renal failure.  Ahhh, summer.  Summer and a McMahon road trip.  Old as time itself.  Pack everyone and snacks and set out on an adventure across America.  Sounds noble or empowering.  Sounds like we are pioneers setting forth across new land.  Really we are just trying to save a buck and might be a little crazy. 

This year’s road travel clocked in at a mere 3,400 miles as compared to last year’s expeditious 4,261.  This is the first time we have driven this far without a relative at the other end and it was as ridiculously far away: Austin Texas to New York City.  Well, actually Newark.  God bless Mark Miller and his help from the road where he steered our weary selves to the Newark airport to park and then shuttle into the city.  Day One was relatively easy and we joked about how every stop we stopped at looked familiar.  We have driven the same way once a year for 25 years, so yes, good chance we have stopped everywhere along the way.  On Day One, we always make great time, we sing, we listen to podcasts, we talk, I categorize the road kill by state, fun things.  (Armadillo and raccoon tied for most kills, Arkansas for the most road kill in a state.) Day One is always fine; miles click by, we think this is fun.  It is Day Two that kicks your ass.

Day Two saw us in Virginia.  This is a new state and that was nice for a while.  But interstate is interstate and we had a stupid amount of interstate to go. Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania.  Day Two is a long day as everyone is tired of driving, tired of music, of car food, of having to wait to pee.  Weariness sets in and you feel all the miles. But then, Eastern Pennsylvania was beautiful.  Like, ohmygod, beautiful.  Green, rolling, lush. Bucolic. Amazing.  Even in a Day Two road stupor, we enjoyed the beauty of eastern PA.  I kept looking for Amish, but as it was a Sunday, they were home doing good Amish things: going to church, eating strudel, raising a barn.  Thoughts of the Amish kept my mind busy and before long we were in Newark and managed to park, get a bus and get into the city.  We made it!

Not sure why is is sideways, but we were here!

We were in New York City!  We walked everywhere.  We managed about 8 miles a day and saw all the things and ate the food and only got in a car once to Uber.  It was nice not being in a car.  Even the subway and the ferry were nice because they were not cars.  But then, as always, there is the ride home.  Our plan was to stop in Philadelphia and do some fun things and break up the trip going back and then go to DC and do the same.  In my mind, I believed Philly to be the same size as Buffalo and that everything we wanted to do would be easy peasy.   Let me tell you, I stand corrected, Philly is not the same size as Buffalo.  More comparable to the NYC we just left and parking was impossible, traffic was snarled and angry and slow and I was possessed by a gremlin that rendered me mean and hating everything about Philly.  I hated that we couldn’t park and run up the Rocky steps.  I hated that it took twenty minutes to get three miles down the road.  I hated that I was hungry.  I hated that I had to pee and that there was nowhere to pee.  I hated everything like I have never hated before.  My kind family tried to console me with their words and I wanted to karate chop their kindness out of the air.  I wanted to throat punch the entire city.  I was angry and hungry and still had to pee.  Bill bought a beer at a bar across from Pat’s and Geno’s so we could all pee.  I have never seen the man enjoy a beer more.  Eventually we got our cheesesteaks and declared Pat’s better than Geno’s and decided no way to DC.  Enough with cities with no bathrooms or parking, it was just time to go home.

That drive was so interminable I am not sure if I can ever plan a road trip longer than one day again.  Truly.  We saw some beautiful things and I have some great stories to share in the next blog of people on this trip, but that car ride crushed me.  Bill, stalwart trucker’s son, drove and drove and remained whole until about Little Rock.  That is when he started answering us in grunts and clicks and I knew that the road had claimed him as well.  We made it home, showered and looked at each other with eyes that said “Never, ever again.”

I really would like to think that we will start flying everywhere we need to go.  That we will be among those families who get to their travel destinations in mere hours.  I would like to think that, but I can’t help but think of the lady driving a golf cart down the side of I-40 with her hair streaming behind her and an RV following her with its hazards on and I know you don’t get to see that level of crazy on a plane.  I also clicked off four new states visited and the kids clicked off five and there are so many more to go.  So, I do like to think never again, but I know, you know, we will do it again.  I’ll be here next summer writing about how I ruined another city by being hungry and having to pee and how it was the time of our lives.