Car Rides

My husband and dog and I are soon to be off on another of our summer journeys. We love to get in the car and travel for miles, living out of our car, our tent, our ice chest, and not needing too much else. Except stopping for a real meal at a restaurant every once in a while. OK, often.


Last year's trip from to Wyoming is what got me started blogging. I kept a journal the old fashioned way, and when we got back, I typed it up, added pictures and planned to keep it as a remembrance for us. But then I decided to share it with family, and the easiest way to do that was to put it in a blog. I had no intention of starting a never-ending preoccupation. But by the time I actually posted it, I was hooked, and here I am, a whole year later, addicted to writing and reading in Blogland. Such a lovely country!

If you'd like to read it, here you go (I must warn you, it is long. But worth it! (Possibly.)): Summer Road

I'm not sure if I will blog along the way this time, or just give myself material for the next month of Sundays. We'll see.  But in the meantime, I leave you with a memory from my childhood car rides, which quite possibly should have cured me from ever getting in the car again.

Car Rides

Our family of six gathered in summer
only for long distance car rides,
Held hostage like flies, languid and purposeless
in an air-tight jar as we skimmed the earth:

I see my mother's tight face as it skews to the right
The endless scenery beyond her reach.
The baby is wedged under her arm,
Plugged into a silent, pacified stupor.

The back of my father's almost-bald head
nearly reaches the roof like an aging mountain,
Resolutely rising through a cigarette fog, his fringe
Of black hair combed to narrow, straight roads

Till a roll of neck fat sends the end hairs flying
Like reckless cars leaping a sudden train track.
He is the same, linear as headlights
Until a rattling unnerves him and his voice explodes.

My brother stares ceaselessly from his corner at nothing.
My sister's asleep, slouching dreamless between us.
Her hot, sweaty legs stick idly to mine,
So I pull myself closer to the window, the edge.

My eyes drift to the clouds floating like angels.
I try very, very hard to not make a sound.