It all came back to me when I saw the drive-in lines. There’s a strip of businesses parallel to the interstate, maybe half a mile of Safeway and McDonalds and Starbucks and a few gas stations. There’s an freeway exit on one end and an onramp on the other, so it’s a very easy stop. You pull off, get gas, maybe stop in the Starbucks to use the bathroom and get coffee. There’s an okay place to walk a dog at the back of the parking lot; there’s an open field behind a self-storage business. It’s not the nicest spot, that one park is much nicer, but it’s totally functional.
Only it’s not, really, not right now. Everything is closed. When you park to stretch your legs and grab a bite to eat, there’s nowhere to go. The drive-thru lanes are open, sure, and they’re backed up ten cars deep. You can spend the duration of your twenty minute break sitting in an idling car. You will be no farther down the road when you are done, though perhaps you will have some fries or a latte with an extra shot in it.
I was driving 300 miles to visit my mom for a few days. Things are slightly more open in her town than mine, but application of good Corona guidelines is patchy there at best. At the supermarket, only about 50% of the patrons were wearing masks, and a fair percentage of those folks weren’t wearing them properly. There was no enforcement beyond a few ignored signs. My home supermarket is at near 100% adoption of mask use and it’s become the only place I want to shop these days.
OH HEY. I have a book coming out this fall. It’s called The Same River Twice and it’s a travel memoir/coming of age story that’s also an 80s time capsule and has some shit to say about politics.
Preorder it here. Sign up for email updates about the whole messy process here.
On the return trip I made sure I had a thermos full of coffee and snacks within reach so I did not need to stop for roadside pleasures that no longer exist. I did use the rest stop bathrooms where again, only about 50% of the people I saw were wearing masks. Those felt okay, though, it’s not like anyone is spending extended time in a rest stop bathroom, and everyone was in and out in minutes. Wear a mask, wash your hands, the exposure time feels brief. The rest of the time, you’re outside and it’s not exactly a crowded festival, so it feels safe enough.
One of the best parts of a road trip is that detour off the interstate to take a break. I’ve found a terrific sandwich place, a bakery with vertigo inducing cake, so tall their cake is, and a cafe staffed by fresh faced teenagers, all from some particular Christian sect. Their coffee is very good and their service impeccable.
When I’m on a long drive, I don’t want to sit in my car shouting my order into a speaker before driving away with a paper cup full of corporate coffee. What I want is to exchange pleasantries with the waitstaff and ask about the pie while sitting in a diner booth that is much too deep for someone of my short stature. I want to wrap a tiny bit of my turkey melt in a paper napkin and bring it with me to the car as a treat for my dog. I want to walk a few blocks along some unknown main street looking in shop windows while my dog sniffs tree trunks and then, I want to get back in my car and continue the drive.
The lights are out and in some places, shop windows are still papered or boarded over. Restaurants are reopening, but I don’t feel right exposing the waitstaff to unneccessary risk just so I can have bottomless two dollar coffee with my club sandwich. And as soon as I leave my neighborhood, I’m confronted with people who, for whatever reason, haven’t adopted the recommended safety protocols for this incredibly stupid era.
On a recent road trip to the Cascade Range, I saw the river tubing shuttles were running. Who thinks it’s okay to get in a van with strangers right now? In that same town, multi-generation families were strolling about with grandma, groups of twenty somethings were on bike rides together, there was a summer vacation in the mountains vibe everywhere as though we were not in the midst of a global pandemic. One of my favorite places to eat was dark, a sign in the window saying “Social distancing benefits us all, we’re closed,” while in the center of town, people lined up for Sunday breakfast as though it were just another weekend. I found it maddening to see the blatant disregard of best practices as though a plate of diner French toast was more important that keeping the plague from spreading. What plague? Is there a plague? Do you have that boysenberry syrup?
I don’t know that I’d call my trips essential travel, which we are still meant to be avoiding in Washington State. The first was to visit my mom, post surgery, and the second was to get my dog out of Seattle during the annual fireworks festival. I had good reasons for both trips, they were motivated by more than my need for a change of scenery. All the same, it was thrilling to be out of my tiny neighborhood bubble for a bit. I enjoyed being on the freeway with the radio on. Harley and I both enjoyed the long morning walks through different territory than we’re used to. But the road trip part of these experiences kind of sucked.
There are lots of people who like to drive just for the sake of driving. They like the feel of the road, the landscape out the window. I know a handful of people who will still take the car out for a Sunday drive as though the car needs the exercise. A road trip just for the motion. I sort of get it, but it’s not my thing. Road trips are about the places you stop while underway. Weird thrift stores. Still standing independent diners with hand lettered Home Made Pie signs in the window. Surprise street fairs and farmer’s markets in towns you didn’t plan to visit but it’s only ten miles off the highway and what’s the hurry. Conversations with strangers.
All that’s off now, making road trips so much more about the car and the road than is appealing for someone like me. The car is a means to an end, and that end is a plate, clean but chipped, holding a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie. Eaten while country music leaks out of an old boom box propped on a shelf behind the cash register. But that’s off now. (I realize that in many places you *can* do this, but should you? I’d say no. I am not dying from Corona for slice of pie. And no one should be in a place where they have to serve pie to survive right now. There’s a pandemic on, people.)
Without the inbetween, road trips are just a drive. Unless there’s a really compelling reason (trust me, if you saw my dog suffering from fireworks anxiety, you’d approve), I’m staying home. And the more we all stay home, the sooner we can get back to proper road trips.
Stay home. Make your own pie.
Road trips suck right now.
You sound pissed. Me too, sister. (“What plague?” … )
Are you at liberty to share the name of the “terrific sandwich place”?
It’s the Antique Deli in Kalama, so named because it shares space with a now out of business antique mall.
I always stop there once I learned about it…on a way to a ukulele retreat . The coolest place.
Was that Cult Kitchen in Eugene Oregon, by any chance? There was a very weird one there, years ago!
Nope, it was a place in Leavenworth — Good Mood Food.
I’m so confused. More so now than before. Here I was dreaming of epic road trips some day in my future. Now, splat. Those are gone, too. Sigh.
Well, in the FUTURE, sure. Like, 2022 maybe?
I was toying with idea of getting a small camper trailer with a bathroom, just to avoid corona exposure on the road. But it seems like more trouble than it’s worth.
I love the idea of a small camper. If you’re truly self contained, it’s probably a great way to go. Crowded campgrounds, though, and camp showers? Is that okay?