The Long and Grinding Road

Almost every summer when we were kids, my dad would take a week of vacation, load his burgeoning brood into the station wagon, and take us to a lake in some exotic place such as Wisconsin, or Indiana. The weeks leading up to the trip were filled with increasing excitement as the big day of travel neared. It was not the prospect of swimming and fishing however, that excited me. Sure, watching my mom fry up the little fish we had caught earlier in the day, and then gagging on the pin sized bones when we ate them, was tons of fun, but I always found the long drive to get there much more entertaining. That was when we would see strange wildlife splattered across the pavement, and could listen to my dad's entire repertoire of cursing as he smooshed dead skunks under the tires.


It was those fond memories that caused me to agree when Mark suggested a road trip to Chicago this summer.
“We can take the dog with us, and we’ll be able to cart all the crap I buy back home in the car.”, Mark added.
He was very smart to put the dog part of his proposition ahead of the shopping part. He knows how I hate to leave Chandler when we travel. The only drawback I could see with his plan, was the fact that I don’t drive, and the guy who would be driving, Mark, is the worst driver on the planet Earth outside of a few Chinese people. Despite those obvious problems, the road trip was on. So this past week Mark, Chandler, and I piled into the car, along with enough luggage for Mark to live for a year, and drove to Chicago.

Riding with Mark is intense. He cannot navigate interstate highways unless they are in an arrow straight line. Curves make him go into a panic and slow down to a crawl. Now Florida wasn’t too much of a problem, but as we made our way through northern Georgia Mark would vacillate between hysteria, and intense anger at the highway designers who “Made these damn roads so goddamned curvy.”. I have to admit, at one point I did reach over and give him a knuckle rap against the side of his head because he tried to stop on the interstate while a semi truck was tailgating us. Mark’s driving is so erratic, and he screams and shrieks so often while driving, that I found I couldn’t get a moments rest. It was like I had driven the entire way, I was so exhausted from him waking me up. At least Chandler took it well. He slept almost the entire time in the back seat, oblivious to how near he had come to death.