TheBanyanTree: MY WORST ROAD TRIP

[Theta Brentnall]

Monique Colver wrote:
> I love road trips. 

I love road trips, too.  Some people have the 'settling down' gene and 
they get rooted to one place.  I have the opposite, the rolling stone 
gene, which I got from my ancestors.  In trying to trace my genealogy, I 
have come to the conclusion that all my forefathers and foremothers were 
the kind of people who picked up and moved when things got civilized 
enough for someone to try and count heads.  I can't really say that I've 
had a bad road trip, but then I've never traveled with a diarrheal Ash.  
I've met Ash.  He is related to Tigger, and Tiggers, as we all know have 
"bottoms made out of rubber and their tails are made out of springs."  
That's Ash, and having a seatbelt for that sweet but overly friendly guy 
is a really good idea.

I have had some very interesting road trips, however, especially 
traveling with my parents.  The first one that comes to mind could 
probably be called my parents' worst road trip.  Father was stationed at 
Huntsville, Alabama in the late 50's and one Christmas, Mother, Father, 
our Siamese cat and I had driven all the way out to Huntington Beach 
California for the holiday.  There were no interstates then - it was all 
two-lane roads like Route 66, where we spent all day passing cars and 
trucks, only to stop for gas and a potty break and then have to pass the 
same ones again.  My mother unfortunately came from one of  those 
families that put the fun in dysfunctional, and I had a pretty miserable 
time, so for some reason she decided to buy me a parakeet.  I remember 
going into an enormous flight cage with the breeder, where we stood in 
the middle of a whirlwind of birds and the breeder just reached up and 
snatched one out of the air.  She told me that it would talk if I 
repeated the same phrase over and over, so for the entire trip back 
across the country I sat in the back seat with the bird and the cat, 
repeating "pretty bird, pretty bird" and "Help!  The Cat!  Help!  The 
Cat!"  By the time we got home to Huntsville, the bird not only said 
those phrases, but could mimic the cat's meow perfectly because the cat 
sat there glaring at the cage swearing at the bird the whole time.  It 
didn't occur to me how intolerable that must have been for my parents to 
hear that over and over again for days on end until I had kids of my 
own.  Years later I asked Mother about it, and she casually admitted 
that after the first day they both were ready to strangle bird, cat and 
me, not necessarily in that order, but it was keeping me entertained so 
they just gritted their teeth and put up with it.  Saints, both of them. 

My father had an uncanny knack for getting lost.  During the three years 
we were stationed in Germany, we traveled roads no American had been on 
since the war and had great adventures.  Once we were going to Amsterdam 
and his sense of misdirection lead us instead to a village out in the 
middle of nowhere that was having their spring tulip parade, so we 
joined the people lining the street and were immediately recognized as 
Americans.  Someone went to get the mayor, who invited us up to the 
reviewing stand with the town dignitaries.  We had our pictures taken 
with the mayor in front of all the floats, and then joined him for the 
big banquet in the town square afterwards, where everyone in town came 
by the table to shake our hands and say how glad they were that we were 
there for their parade. 

Then there was the trip to Italy, where Father took a wrong turn going 
over the Alps, a terrible mountain thunderstorm moved in and we finally 
crept into a tiny village late at night.  There was nothing that looked 
like a hotel, so we went to the local police station to ask if there was 
a place to stay.  We ended up at the police chief's house, where we 
stayed three days because the road had washed out.  No one spoke 
English, we didn't speak Italian, and everyone had a great time.  Mother 
and I "helped" the chief's wife in the kitchen by sitting on stools out 
her way, and watching her while she lectured us non-stop on the 
intricacies of North Italian cooking while turning out massive 
quantities of food (think of the scene from Under the Tuscan Sun where 
she's feeding her work crew!) and Father went out with the townsmen to 
shovel mud off the road.  Getting to Rome turned out to be an anticlimax 
after that nameless tiny village.

Father had to go to the Army headquarters in Brussels frequently, and on 
one trip someone drew him directions on the back of a napkin for a 
"shortcut" to get there.  Mother kept telling him that she didn't think 
the road we were on was the right one, and just like most men, that only 
made him more determined that he was right.  The road turned from paved 
two lane to dirt two lane.  From dirt two lane to dirt one lane.  From 
dirt one lane to grassy track with twin ruts.  From grassy track into a 
farmyard and into the barn.  Where we drove, because Father was 
completely positive that the track would go through the barn, out the 
other side and on to Brussels.  I bet the farmer is still telling about 
the crazy Americans who drove right into his barn one day.

This September, Gerry and I spent a month wandering around the Four 
Corners area and I was able to complete the circle on one of my most 
memorable trips with my parents.  Father was stationed in Salt Lake City 
and I was going to college there.  During spring break, we went down to 
the brand new national park, Canyonlands, just outside of Moab, Utah.  
There was a rutted, washboard dirt road out to the park, where there was 
absolutely nothing but a plywood shack for a ranger station and amazing 
views in every direction.  The ranger told us that if we didn't want to 
take that same road back to Moab, there was another road.  It was built 
to drive cattle from the canyon up to the plateau, and later it had been 
used to carry uranium from mines in the valley floor up to Moab for 
processing.  So we headed down that road.  "Down" is the operative 
word.  The cliffs of Canyonlands are red sandstone that drops straight 
down 2000 feet to the valley floor, and this road was literally chiseled 
out of the side of the vertical cliff and it was one pick-up truck plus 
12" wide.  It switched back and forth in dozens of hairpin turns and 
once we were on it, there was no turning around or backing up.  The 
first stretch wasn't too scary.  It was a little wider than the rest of 
the road and the drop-off was on the driver's side.  Then came the first 
hairpin turn, where we squeaked around the curve and then the drop off 
was on the passenger side.  Mother could look straight down forever.  
She put fingernail marks in the bottom of the seat, holding her side of 
the truck up, and at the second switchback we stopped and she and I 
switched places so she couldn't look over the side.  The rest of the 
trip down, she sat there with her hands over her eyes, saying over and 
over again, "At least we'll all die together."  But we didn't die and 
when we finally got down to the valley and followed the road out away 
from the cliff a short way, we stopped and were going to take a picture 
of the road.  Only looking up from the base of the cliff, the road 
completely disappeared.  It was a very Twilight Zone kind of feeling.  
For years we told the story of the greatest of all Father's "shortcuts" 
but we were all pretty sure that road was quickly cut off by the park 
service and most likely didn't exist any more.  So when Gerry and I got 
to Canyonlands in September, we stopped at the visitor center and I told 
one of the rangers my story.  She laughed, especially about the dieing 
part, and told me that the road was still in operation; in fact, it 
started right behind the visitor center and if we had a high-clearance 
4-wheel drive vehicle and a few hours, we could make the trip again.  
There is an overlook where we could look down at the road in all its 
layers of back-and-forth, so I finally have pictures of the invisible 
road that was the most memorable of driving misadventures.  But we 
didn't drive down it.  I have learned that what was perfectly fine at 
the age of 19 is not so much fun at 60.  I was quite satisfied to just 
look and be able to say "I've been down that."

Theta