Are We There Yet?

If you forced me to pick a favorite sport, it would have to road tripping. If you play your cards right, you can even make it an extreme sport. Prefer the marathon side of the sport over the sprints, but any road trip is better than no road trip.

Practice makes perfect. Didn't really take up the sport until 2017, been trying to stay in practice, with varying degrees of success, ever since. Did an I-40 run out to Santa Fe in 2018, on a budget and in a hurry, which just whet my whistle for going back.

These photos are all from 2023, when I got to do just that. That first visit had been five days of driving and just a couple days worth of adventuring, the second time around we got to take more time and see the country we were passing through.

There's just something special about road tripping that's hard to put into words. In a country as large as this one, turning distilled dinosaur bones into greenhouse gas gives you a sense of the vastness and variety to be found that is lacking in other forms of travel.

We covered 2800 miles over a span of two weeks, kept asking my partner "Can you imagine doing this in a wagon?" It's one thing to read about people 'crossing the Great Plains,' something else to do it yourself. Even in a Chevy Trailblazer it seemed like it was never going to end.

Are we there yet? When we think of trips, we tend to think about them almost exclusively in terms of destinations. Road tripping is a little different, in the words of Townes Van Zandt, "Where you been is good and gone, all you keep's the getting there."

The getting there usually turns out to be more memorable than the being there. May never see Rock City, but the cryptic graffiti in Amarillo, Texas more than makes up for it.

Timewarp gas stations too. I-40 was built along or even atop the old Route 66 and some of the old gas stations still ply their trade like it's 1950. This particular one and its competitor at the next exit are likely responsible for having the highest per capita billboard rate in the country.

The scenery may change, but people don't. Much. You get west of the Mississippi River and the drivers get more courteous or maybe just less insane.

Spent the better part of a week in Santa Fe this time around, before heading down to Albuquerque for the world's largest balloon festival.

The landscape in New Mexico was much drier and different from my native Kentucky. Was quite glad not to have to worry about poison ivy, but Mother Nature had plenty of other unpleasantness to keep us on our toes.

The original impetus for road tripping to Santa Fe in 2018 had been to see a concert at Meow Wolf, an interactive and immersive art installation. Wasn't going to let the sun set on this trip without making a return visit to the House of Eternal Return.

There's been a lot of inflation in recent years, and bucket lists were not spared. Still, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta probably deserves a spot.

On that note, it's probably about time I flew on to bed and got some shut eye. Who has a road trip in the works?