We planned to go til the map turned blue, somewhere near Daytona, and then turn north up A1A. She was my ready companion, navigator, alternate driver, and youngest daughter. College was just over the horizon and her days at home were numbered. So we hit the road.
After an overnight at Lake Mary, we left the interstate and headed east. Trees dripping with Spanish Moss shaded roadside produce stands, and orange groves fanned out on both sides of the road. We got up early to sit on the cold sand and watch the sun rise over the endless Atlantic, and we climbed all 219 steps of the St. Augustine lighthouse. Just the two of us. Zac Brown and Jimmy Buffett comprised the playlist for our Thelma and Louise getaway. It was the first of many.
We saw Michael Buble in concert in Nashville and Memphis, and made an impromptu Jason Aldean concert stop in Athens, Georgia. That one almost didn’t happen when we assumed there would be at least one hotel vacancy in Athens. As it turns out, Jason Aldean is pretty popular. We watched the concert from behind the hedges at the UGA stadium one balmy April night, shared a midnight snack at the local McDonalds, bought a t-shirt, and made memories.
We mastered air travel and rental cars and tour buses and subways and harbor cruises. We learned to love Boston, especially Carmelina’s Italian Restaurant in North End. We also learned to respect Boston’s Court Street when we clearly underestimated the time it would take to dash across all 8 lanes in 10 seconds with Ann Taylor and Banana Republic bags fanned out behind us. Boston drivers aren’t nearly as courteous as those in Savannah, Georgia.
We share a lack of attention to detail but it’s how we roll and it usually works out. As long as one of us hangs on to a debit card and we each maintain access to a photo ID, we figure we’re set. What we lack in focus, we make up for in commitment. We can be up and out by 4 a.m. any day as long as we have a destination in mind and as long as I’m paying.
My oldest daughter and husband are much more grounded and anxious so we don’t tell them a whole lot about our near misses. It would drive them crazy. There was absolutely no point in worrying them about the cell phone I thought I had left at the rest area in Illinois. It showed up under the car seat the next morning, so all’s well that ends well.
And we’re nowhere done yet. There are a lot of things I miss about having little ones in the house, but one thing I never planned on is how much I would also enjoy them as we somehow got closer in age and became friends. Life is pretty serious, and 20-something-year-olds have major decisions to make that I can’t do a whole lot about. So we leave it all behind sometimes.
Occasionally, we head to Fairhope and walk or bicycle by the bay and dream of actually owning one of those houses by the water. I’d name mine Nest Egg or maybe Just Beachy. I’d even settle for a house on Tybee Island, as long as it had ready access to A.J’s Dockside. My youngest has promised to buy me a Lily Pulitzer bicycle in floral print when she earns her first big money as a college professor. I’m going to hold her to it.
We’ve made the rounds, ordering the shrimp basket at Sea-n-Suds in Gulf Shores and the grain bowl at Cava in D.C. We’ve taken the Boston Duck Tour and the Savannah Ghost Tour, and the Newport bus tour. We’ve seen buttercups in the snow at Arlington and red tulips blooming for Mardi Gras in South Alabama. We’ve walked through a cool Savannah square beside old men coordinating checker moves on an upturned box and we’ve braved the inky blackness of a Smoky Mountain midnight to marvel at synchronized fireflies.
In an earlier generation, when I was the daughter of another mother/daughter duo, Aunt Ruth drove up from Louisiana to join Mama and me and my grandmother for a jaunt to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Just a bunch of women in a bright red 1978 Cadillac gamboling through the rolling Ozark Mountains, stopping at every junk and antique store along the way. Not far into the trip the air conditioning failed and we had a flat tire, which none of us knew how to correct. And cell phones didn’t exist. So we laughed and figured it out. Somehow we got a tow and a new tire and a sweet memory.
So now we’re thinking about our next trip. I’m leaning toward San Antonio in June, but we have yet to take the plunge to Hawaii, so we’ll see. My travel buddy is studying at Oklahoma State to become an Agricultural Economist, which is really cutting into the travel time. I don’t understand what’s so hard about learning to count cows, but Oklahoma apparently takes it more seriously than we do in Alabama.
What I know is that at the end of that time, she’ll honor her word and get me the flashy new bicycle. Then we’ll have to take it to Key West or Amelia Island for spins around the beach. And if I can figure out how to declare it as a carry-on, we’ll take it to Tuscany. Because we’re going til the wheels fall off.
