Road Trip Ramblings

In no particular order, some thoughts from our big trek to Central Pennsylvania and back:

1. The U.S. is a very big country. You can drive for 15 hours and be only 1/3 of the way across it--unlike in Europe, where if you miss one train stop all of a sudden you're in the wrong country (true story).

2. A Present Bag of toys from the Dollar Store is a very good way to keep a toddler occupied in the car. A stick that makes noise when shaken, however, is perhaps a poor choice for a two-year-old in a confined space.

3. Yes, you can take a toddler in a canoe--for about 10 minutes.

4. Sometimes it's more fun to bushwhack through an unknown field and see the fireworks from a distance.

5. Of course I don't believe in using TV as a sedative, but at the same time, a laptop and an Elmo DVD sure can make a car trip go more smoothly.

6. And while in an abstract sense I deplore the cultural hegemony of chain restaurants, McDonald's makes a great sausage egg biscuit, and periodic Starbucks Drive-Thrus make endless interstates almost fun.

7. Green Day's "Holiday" is going to make me get a speeding ticket one of these days. Whenever it's on, I feel the need to go at least 80.

8. Digital cameras are wonderful for allowing people to take large numbers of decent pictures, but they're still no good to anyone if you don't print them out or send them to people.

9. Love of a place, like love of a person, can defy explanation. Why do I love the town where I grew up? My more cosmopolitan relatives who visited when I was little were unimpressed by a small college town in the middle of nowhere. Part of me still misses it, though. In fact, I started crying when we crossed over into Ohio and I knew I wouldn't be back until Christmas.

10. I didn't want to come back to Missouri, but now that we're here I'm enjoying being at my desk again. Last night I went to the grocery store for milk and ran into a friend and arranged a play date. We've been here for over a year now, and this place is both home and not home.