Newsletter: April 1, 2005
Everyone knows that when this time of year rolls around Americans like to jump into the car and
do a road trip of some sort. The weather is nice, the kids are out of school and there's just
something in the air that makes a lot of people feel the uncontrollable need to wander the
open road. When I'm on vacation, I more often than not, end up in some bizarre place because
I just couldn't resist the temptation to find out what was around the next corner. Before you
know it, you've put a thousand miles on your rental car over just a few days. To those who don't
understand the whole urge to do the road trip thing, let me tell you a few stories here so you
can actually see how it's done.
This spring, I managed to get out to Arizona for spring training.
For most people, this means that you get a hotel room, play some golf and attend a few baseball
games. Of course this all happened, but being one of those road trip guys, you have to understand
that Arizona was calling, and I had to see something different! My friend Rebozzi is a good road
trip kind of guy because he can get in a car and head in a direction for no purpose other than to
go. Good for seeing random things, but not that good if you need a plan to be happy. We actually
had a planner on this trip and Pierre was the guy with the map and and instructions and we called
him our road trip “Swiss army knife” because he always seemed to have the right tool for the job.
Four of us hit the road after the Giants afternoon game with the goal of hitting Sedona by sunset.
It was going to be a challenge though because we had about a two hour drive and only a couple hours
of sunlight left. We had to tear through the desert at a pretty good pace and although it was close,
we hit Sedona just in time to see the most amazing sunset against all the red mountains. We savored
the victory of a successful road trip!
On the other side of success is pretty much where you might
find my sister because apparently, she had the same road trip bug as I did this spring. Instead of
four guys, my sister's crew consisted of four women, and normally this is good because women tend
to be more “Swiss army knife” kind of road trippers. They like to ask for directions and they like
to know where they are going, but despite having four co-pilots in the car, Cheryl's trip wound up
a bit off course.
They managed to travel from northern California down to Las Vegas without any trouble and this is
no short drive! Their trouble came on the way back when they realized that they might have made a
wrong turn somewhere. Cheryl put it simply when she said, “We looked around and realized that all
the cars had Utah license plates and we thought it might be a good idea to pull over and ask for
directions.” They did indeed pull over to ask for assistance and during this pit stop, they had
to ask the classic random road trip question: “What state are we in?”
Yup, they were in the State of Utah! Not one, but two states away from their destination and
hours down highway 15 in the wrong direction! She called me from the road to tell me where she
was and I immediately opened up the map to see what was going on. Did they change the roads somehow?
Was there a new way to go down there? Nope. In truth, they simply got on highway 15 and managed one of the
most amazing impromptu random road trips of all time! Not only did they miss the signs that say
“Welcome to Arizona”, and “Now Leaving Arizona”, and “Welcome to Utah,” but they also missed the
Grand Canyon, pretty much the biggest and most famous hole on the planet. Something tells me when
you see that going by, you might just think to yourself, “Now that's strange! I don't remember
seeing that on the way in...” I'm sure that somebody somewhere might have wandered into Arizona
by accident before, but this one takes the cake for the worst road trip navigation ever!
The funny thought that I had about my sister's trip is the possible encounter that she could
have had out there in the desert. I pictured my group of guys tearing down the Arizona highway in
search of some amazing view, and the only thing we see is a car full of women, with my sister in
the lead, driving by in the other direction while wondering what state they are in. Eventually,
the girls made it back to California, and just like any other good road trip, they have a story
that's going to be with them forever! I'm not sure if my sister caught the random travel bug from
me, but I'm sure that she has some advice for you if you want to do the road trip thing. Buy a map.
~SM~
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