{"id":1060,"date":"2015-03-17T18:23:42","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T22:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cwa-scacanada.ca\/retirees\/EN\/?p=1060"},"modified":"2015-03-20T10:42:52","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T14:42:52","slug":"transcontinental-road-trip-is-about-the-going-not-about-the-getting-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cwa-scacanada.ca\/retirees\/EN\/transcontinental-road-trip-is-about-the-going-not-about-the-getting-there\/","title":{"rendered":"TRANSCONTINENTAL ROAD TRIP IS ABOUT THE GOING, NOT ABOUT THE GETTING THERE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting my kicks over 7,000 clicks\u00a0<\/em><\/h1>\n
\"How
How fitting that the trajectory of my 7,200-kilometre road trip turned out to be a smiley face<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Jim Withers<\/h4>\n
\n
\"Jim
Jim Withers: Following in Jack Kerouac’s tire tracks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The allure of the open road isn\u2019t what it once was, but for those of us who\u00a0came of age before the world became so interconnected, the romance of\u00a0driving for driving\u2019s sake has never gotten old. As long as we\u2019re on the go, we don\u2019t much care where we\u2019re headed.<\/p>\n

I grew up before the Internet, smart phones and social media turned the\u00a0world into a global village that even Marshall McLuhan couldn\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>have\u00a0<\/span>envisioned. My generation read Jack Kerouac\u2019s \u201cOn the Road\u201d and John\u00a0<\/span>Steinbeck\u2019s \u201cTravels With Charley,\u201d and digested movies like \u201cEasy Rider\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/span>and TV shows like \u201croute 66.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Life is a highway, as singer-songwriter Tom Cochrane put it.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I didn\u2019t turn down an invitation from a fellow retired newspaper\u00a0guy to be part of a two-man road trip across the U.S. this\u00a0winter.<\/p>\n

Over a game of pool, friend Mike Shenker put it this way, \u201cWe\u2019ll be in\u00a0search of an America that once was \u2026 or maybe never was.\u201d How fitting, I thought, at age 66 I\u2019m going to get my kicks on Route 66.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

I only had a couple of weeks to plan, but that\u2019s the beauty of retirement:\u00a0our bodies may no longer be flexible, but our time is. With an understanding\u00a0<\/span>wife, and no work commitments or deadlines, I embarked upon what would\u00a0<\/span>become a 25-day, 7,200-<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Mike
Mike Shenker “in search of an America that once was, or maybe never was …”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

kilometre road trip covering 15 U.S. states and three\u00a0<\/span>time zones. In his Mazda-5 mini-minivan, Mike and I would travel together\u00a0<\/span>from New York to Richmond, Va., then head southwest to New Orleans, across\u00a0<\/span>Texas and New Mexico, and up Arizona to the Grand Canyon. Then, 17 days into\u00a0<\/span>the trip, we\u2019d split up, with Mike staying on in Arizona while I would, in a\u00a0<\/span>rented car, make my way to the Pacific.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t wearing a happy face the first day of the trip (Jan. 7), when nasty\u00a0winter weather delayed my flight to New York for about eight hours, most of\u00a0which I spent on a plane on the tarmac. I finally did\u00a0get to LaGuardia,\u00a0however, where Mike was waiting for me. We set off from Long Island the next\u00a0morning, racing along the eastern seaboard, as the states flew by like a\u00a0picket fence \u2026 New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia \u2026<\/p>\n

\"Waiting
Waiting to leave the cold behind …<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We got our first taste of Southern hospitality over breakfast the next\u00a0morning in Richmond, Va.<\/p>\n

James, our waiter, was pouring us a second glass of orange juice. \u201cI want to\u00a0make sure you\u2019re straight so I can have peace in my soul … all day,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

When I later thanked him for bringing us a coffee refill, he replied,
\n\u201cYOU\u2019RE welcome! You ARE MORE than welcome!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, after we\u2019d paid the bill and tipped him, James pointed to some fruit\u00a0on the counter and asked us if we wanted any for the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I have anything more to eat you\u2019re going to have to roll me out of
\nhere,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ll roll you out with LOOOVE,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have the heart to tell James that this was the first time \u2013 and
\nlast \u2013 that I\u2019ll ever try grits.<\/p>\n

Hours and hours spent in the car while looking at blacktop and the
\never-changing landscape gave us a lot of time to listen to CDs and radio,\u00a0and to discuss such weighty subjects as:<\/p>\n

Newspapers<\/strong>: how much time have they got?<\/p>\n

Knuckleballs:<\/strong> are they just an optical illusion? (There\u2019s a scientist out\u00a0there who contends just that, but then again he might be one of those\u00a0professional contrarians who claim that the vast majority of scientists are\u00a0global-warming \u201calarmists.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The Beach Boys<\/strong>: Why do they want all the girls to be from California<\/a>
\napart from that\u00a0\u201cthe-girls-all-get-so-tanned \u00a0\u2026 French-bikini\u201d stuff? After all, the song\u00a0itself acknowledges that girls from outside the Golden State also have great\u00a0qualities (\u201c\u2026 and the Southern girls, with the way they talk, they knock me\u00a0out when I\u2019m down there.\u201d)
\nIndeed, I love accents, and that goes for the
\nlovely Southern y’all drawl we\u2019d experience over and over.<\/p>\n

We also discussed money, in particular the loonie\u2019s dramatic nosedive \u00a0vis-\u00e0-vis the U.S. greenback. The pain in the pocketbook visiting Canadians\u00a0experience is only partly mitigated by the<\/p>\n

\"U.S.
U.S. dollar is at a premium but we love the price of gas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

dramatic worldwide drop in fuel\u00a0prices. For much of the early going on our trip, we were paying less than $2\u00a0U.S. per gallon for gas, or less than 60 cents (Canadian) a litre.<\/p>\n

\"New
Mike Shenker: Deep fry one of everything but hold the gator<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After three days of pedal-to-the-metal interstate driving, Mike and I were\u00a0happy to sojourn in New Orleans, where we almost made ourselves sick on\u00a0Cajun and Creole cuisine:<\/a>\u00a0jambalaya, deep-fried shrimp, deep-fried pickle slices,\u00a0deep-fried EVERYTHING, oysters, catfish, blackened redfish, beignets (a kind\u00a0of doughnut covered in powdered sugar), plus roast-beef po\u2019boys (a kind of\u00a0submarine sandwich). We didn\u2019t try alligator (\u201cthe other white meat\u201d).<\/p>\n

\"New
New Orleans lunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was heartening to see that post-Katrina New Orleans hadn\u2019t lost its\u00a0unique charms \u2013 its rich multi-coloured architecture
\n(wrought-iron balconies, well-preserved antebellum mansions, etc.) and its\u00a0vibrant music scene. Indeed, you never know when and where music will break\u00a0out in the Big Easy. Our visit included the sight and sounds of two guys\u00a0working on their bagpipe chops in a fire station and an elementary-school\u00a0marching band strutting its stuff through the neighbourhood. The city\u00a0pulsates with jazz and blues from its many clubs, and from the seemingly\u00a0spontaneous nightly street performances by informal brass ensembles on\u00a0Frenchmen St., a good place to avoid the spring-break-like craziness of\u00a0Bourbon St. Indeed, for three straight evenings, Mike and I had dinner in\u00a0the area and listened to performers like Meschiya Lake <\/a>and The Little\u00a0Big Horns Jazz Band while standing, with beer in hand, in the\u00a0intimate but\u00a0lively confines of the Spotted Cat Club.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n