Love's and A Trip Backward

Yes it occurs to me a section of travel fun has fallen off the map, out of this arena, out of the time-space-continuum itself.

It's not that serious, really. I just haven't gotten around to writing about it yet. I'll give it a throw now - -

A while ago, in a bar at the end of the street in Hoboken, New Jersey, we'd been enjoying cocktails with Chris Hayes and his NOW FIANCÉ Lauren (Congrats you two!). I'd compared drinking in one state and sleeping in another to playing Marco Polo in a Gulfstream.

You remember where we are?

The trip from Hoboken to Stamford took ninety minutes and falling sleep took ninety seconds. In the morning, when I removed the anvil of dried alcohol from atop my sleeping head, ahem... In the morning, after I'd eaten a handful of headache medicine and two bottles of water, we spent the day wandering Stamford and decided that just then, four or five days of highways after it should have dawned on us, we would go ahead and purchase a map. A map of roads with helpful information organized in a state-by-state layout. They sell them at Target. We bought ours there.

Lunch and wandering brought us to Greenwich Connecticut which could only be cuter or more quaint if they sold bunnies on the street corners. Bunnies with bundles of homemade cookies hanging from their necks, even. A filling dish of gnocchi at lunch and a persistent hangover requested a nap in the shade of a small tree raining pink petals into the freshly cut green grass. I obliged, and I drifted off in a scene that I can only describe as some of the middle bits of PLEASANTVILLE when all the characters start bucking conformity and their lives get, call it, colorful.

And then we decided to drive to Boston.

We spent a solid day wandering MIT and Harvard campuses, sneaking into the science building and wandering the halls of the English college. Then we splurged on a meal that could have fed several people, drank wine and martinis until well after midnight, and broke in a new plan of financing the experiences we want instead of merely "surviving" on bargain sandwich day at Subway as we scuttle across the country, frowning, our cold thrifty hands wrapped around the cast-iron fences that keep expensive fun in and medium-thrifty fun out.

We voted for financial ambivalence where it applied, is basically what we did.

And we decided to parlay that into Red Sox tickets for the next day, where we sat twenty-four rows behind home plate, yelled and cheered, ate hot dogs and drank beer until we were hoarse and freezing (it doesn't take much, the Maui skin is thin and doesn't like anything colder than sixty-two. The temperature in the ninth inning was forty-five with a breeze and I haven't owned a coat in who knows since when. Sandals were a poor choice.)

New Hampshire and our time there will remain a mystery for a moment longer. And following that will be the "Day of Four States" and the "To Hell With Block Island and You Too Mr. Parking Guy" rant. Don't want to miss those.

In closing: I love truck stops. Love's in particular, because they aren't the scary brand, they're the Loving Brand. Where else but a truck stop can you satisfy a shopping list that includes vintage-new cassette tapes of the Eagles, Casablanca on DVD, a fishing pole, a graphing calculator, a remote-controlled semi, hats from every college or nascar team on the circuit, Jack Daniels flavored beef jerky and 25cents worth of Obsession by Calvin Klein sprayed directly into the flannel expanse of your driving shirt. Where else can you get all that in one place and have a sweet woman with a GED and a vest help you with your purchases?

Oh right. Wal-mart...

Well. I love Truck Stops, Love's in particular. And we'll leave it at that.