Driving into the Ocean... It Could Happen.

Ok, so my earliest memories of traveling were road trips to Louisiana with my mom to visit her bf.  What I remember, or have been told, is that there was lots of singing - Patsy Cline, Mac Davis, Mel McDaniel (who sang Louisiana Saturday Night).  Little girl me in the back, big girl mom in the front - braving the interstate with no cell service and no males! (I will revisit this scenario in a few more years... stay tuned.)  This must have instilled the need for road trips, and road trip tunage, at an early age.  It also was the start of yearly migrations across damned interstate 10!

A few years later, while heading on yet another family trip down 10 east, my father passed down a bit of travel wisdom.  He told his young, naive, impressionable daughter to 'make sure daddy stays awake and doesn't miss the exit or we'll fly right into the ocean'.  YES! You read that right - playing mind games with small children and toeing that screwed-up-for-life line.

Here, I'll illustrate it for you so you truly get the horror that was going through my mind:

With this image in my head for years, its truly remarkable that I ever drove near a body of water again.  Needless to say, I made sure that everyone in my car stayed awake and paid attention, hopefully annoying every adult in the process.  Serves them right.

A few years later, 'daddy' would play a similar prank on my grandfather by explaining to me that I needed to remind my poor forgetful grandpa to check his gas gauge constantly as we motorhomed it to Ohio.  I did my duty, and was anxious the entire vacation.

Now that I've grown up, I can see that those roadtrip antics weren't things I needed to worry about.  Ok, maybe the gas thing.  Only god and myself know how many times I promised something in return for making a gas station appear on the dusty desolate horizon!  Behind the wheel is where I feel most comfortable (ahem, cough, cough, control freak) and this is a good thing as I'd spend the majority of my 20s crossing the US, back and forth.  Kinda like Forest Gump, same good tunes but way less hairy.