Road Trip!

Had enough of airport travel for awhile? Hate showing up 2-3 hours before your flight only to discover that your flight has been delayed for several more hours, or canceled? Been snowed in? Your luggage has been lost? Seats given to another family, even though you're checked in and on the plane (the other family just happened to beat you to the seats? Yes, that is a true story. Don't fly Air Canada!)

Okay, forget the harried lines and "no liquids" rule of airport security for a moment.

Remember the days when family vacations meant packing the station wagon or van with a cooler full of soda, fruits, cheeses, crackers, and candy? You'd pack your pillow and blanket and a few books (Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and An Old Fashioned Girl were my trusty companions), and then settle back comfortably, glancing out the window now and again as the van sped down the highway to the tunes of Neil Diamond, John Denver, Kenny Rogers, or Jim Croce? Well, everyone except the driver, that is...presumably that person was always looking out the window. ;-)

Yeah, it meant spending long hours in the vehicle. Yeah, it meant spending long hours of having to deal with your bratty younger brother, who was not actually touching you, but pretending he was going to, and dang it, he was LOOKING at you (I know you're reading this, M.).

But the destination was always worth it, especially when the road led you to places like Where the Merman Lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas!

Yep, all those cool and creepy Roadside attractions, like The Big Coffee Pot in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and The Mystery Spots in places like Santa Cruz, California, are listed on this website: Roadside America: Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions

So the next time you fly to your destination, think about how culturally deficient Americans are becoming because we're not taking the time to visit something so uniquely American like the World's Largest Ball of Twine or Giganticus Headicus. :-)

Now, if only we still had our brown Ford Pinto Wagon or the orange Dodge Van...

Michele