In past blog entries I’ve mentioned my car, the trusty
Honda, on numerous occasions. We’ve been together for over ten years now, during which time we’ve become good friends, mainly because he doesn’t get annoyed
when I sing along to the radio, nor judgmental when I consume a hasty on-the-go
breakfast from Kwik Trip consisting of a half-dozen doughnuts and coffee.
While our adventures have piled up over the years,
it recently dawned on me that it’d been quite a while since we’d been on a real
road trip together. During his younger days he’d taken me to both Montana
and Tennessee , but over the past
few years he’d been asked to do nothing more strenuous than occasionally
shuttle me to and from Michigan .
This newfound realization didn’t sit very well with me, mainly because of the fact
that as I grow older, one of my biggest goals is to prove that I still “have
it.” In short, I’d like to think that I can still run as fast and jump as high
as I could ten years ago – albeit with a few more aches and pains afterwards – and
so why wouldn’t the same basic principle apply to the Honda?
This was definitely food for thought, and after a little
soul-searching I decided that we should go to Wyoming
to see the Bighorn Mountains . It’d be a win-win
situation. I’d get a chance to not go to work, and the Honda could prove that
he, too, still “had it.”
The trip would be somewhat abbreviated. We’d leave Minnesota
on a Sunday and return six days later. It’d be a lot of driving, but that was sort
of the point. There’d be a lot of time to listen to music, ponder
the mysteries of the universe, and, most importantly, relive some of our past adventures – although
hopefully not the one where I almost let him roll off the Bear Tooth Pass
during the aforementioned Montana trip. The problem, however, was that I
simply couldn’t ignore his age. He was over ten years old and in the twilight
of his life. Something was bound to go wrong. He’d been so trusty for so long
that the law of averages was bound to catch up with him. The only question was: what, exactly, would it be?
And so I was actually happy when his ability to produce cold
air suddenly began to wane a day or two before the trip. Maybe this was the “something”
that was bound to go wrong! Heck, I could handle weak, or possibly no, A/C! I
mean, the pioneers didn’t have A/C when they crossed the plains, and they
survived – at least some of them! And so, armed with a renewed sense of
adventure and a Triple-A card, Sunday rolled around and the Honda and I set
out on our way.
Not far into our journey I turned on the radio, and the
first full song I heard was William Michael Morgan’s “Missing,” whose chorus came
pretty close to summing up the adventure we were embarking upon, both physically
and spiritually:
Well there ain't no telling where I'm bound (correction: Wyoming
The big city or the country, a little beach town (correction:
still Wyoming
But you won’t find me 'cause I can't be found (correction:
unless you call my phone)
I'm on a mission, to be missing
I'll be back some day I just don't know when (correction:
Saturday)
'Till then I'll be a feather floating in the wind
So don't you go missing me
'Cause sometimes missing is my favorite place to be
As the song’s last chords disappeared, I knew the trip had
been the right choice. In fact, I was so inspired that I plugged in my iPod just
so I could listen to it again. Ahhhh, it was perfect! Fate was obviously smiling
down upon me and the decision I'd made! Then I realized that in my exuberance I’d missed a turn, roughly three miles from my house, which had to be some sort of navigational
error record.
Undeterred, the Honda and I were soon back on track and heading into
southwestern Minnesota , which can
only be described as flat-as-flat-can-be-and-probably-even-flatter. Farms
littered the landscape, and while I appreciated the fact that they were playing
an integral role in the feeding of this great nation, I was also very happy
that I was traveling via freeway, which meant I could appreciate them at a fairly
high rate of speed.
It was a hot day, and having diminished A/C was a
little distracting. Still we pushed on, and eventually we entered into South
Dakota, where the landscape instantly morphed from flat, never-ending farmland
into flat, never-ending farmland where the speed limit had been bumped up to 80
miles an hour! Woo-hoo! Now we were getting somewhere!
There’s not much to say about South
Dakota except that I believe the majority of their
economy is based on the construction of annoying billboards along Interstate
90. The ones I hated the most – based entirely on the sheer number of them –
were for the Corn Palace, the Petrified Gardens, the authentic 1880’s town,
and, of course, Wall Drug. (The Wall Drug ones made no sense, and by the end I
was pretty sure that if I went there, I’d get to fight dinosaurs in a shooting
gallery while drinking coffee and eating ice cream.)
The trusty Honda handled South Dakota
admirably, punctuated by an overnight stay roughly halfway through, and the
next day we hit Wyoming , ecstatic
to leave billboard purgatory behind. After a stop at Devil’s Tower
National Monument Wyoming .
When we finally chugged into our destination of Buffalo,
I felt myself becoming overwhelmed with pride for the Honda. He’d made it!
After we’d stopped and I’d gotten out, I wanted to give him an encouraging pat
on the taillights, but instead I went with the Appreciative Guy Nod,
which, while almost imperceptible, still speaks volumes. However, it was the
Honda who’d done most of the talking that day, and I’d heard him loud and
clear. He still had it.
My stay in the Bighorns was highlighted by rain, snow, fog,
hail, giving a random guy who’d hit a deer a ride back to Buffalo, the Chris
Ledoux statue in Kaycee, and the trusty Honda not rolling off any mountains.
Needless to say the time passed quickly, and before we knew it, it was time to
embark upon the return trip. Our sights were set on Mount Rushmore
and Crazy Horse, and with Car Talk blaring through the Honda’s speakers, we
again took to the interstate. As with the previous few days, it was raining, but
as we headed east the skies eventually cleared and the sun broke through,
making for a pleasant drive. This lasted up until the sign in Custer ,
South Dakota Mount
Rushmore , at which point we hit a dense layer of impenetrable fog
that pretty much confirmed my working theory that I’d recently done something
to annoy Jupiter, the Greek god of light and sky.
And so, thanks to Jupiter and I now somehow being mortal enemies, I get to say that I’ve been to Mount Rushmore but have
never actually seen Mount Rushmore . It was all sort of funny, and I found myself stifling giggles as I walked the Presidential
Trail in a doomed attempt to get close enough to see through the
fog. Nobody else around me, however, seemed as amused by the situation as I, and
so I did my best to keep my mirth to myself, as I didn’t want to get beaten up
in front of Abraham Lincoln.
Once I’d finally given up on seeing anything, it
was a straight shot back home, highlighted by us blowing past the Wall Drug
exit out of the sheer principle of not being manipulated by advertising.
(Although I did sort of want to fight the dinosaur.) The rest of the trip was
uneventful, and when we finally pulled into my driveway I realized that I never should
have doubted the trusty Honda. He seemed as strong as ever, except for
the minor A/C issue.
My condition, however, was a different story. I was exhausted
from driving and navigating and consuming nutrient-deficient food, and as I tried to find
the motivation to unload all of my stuff into my house, it suddenly hit me: Perhaps
I’d been thinking about this wrong the entire time. Maybe I was the weak link. Heck, maybe the Honda was going
to have to trade me in!
