Blog 41 – 6.2.15

This Memorial Day weekend with three days off work in a row I decided to drive from Lafayette, Indiana, where I am working, to the Mackinac Bridge, which connects lower Michigan to the UP. It was a wonderful ride in my trusty Jeep Wrangler. Soon the odometer will read 200,000 miles and I intend to put a million miles on her before I trade her in for wings. Yes, I think there is a road trip out of this world awaiting all God’s children, all first class, through tickets to a higher better realm. If you think differently that is your prerogative.

My drive to northern Michigan was not the longest road trip I have every taken. That honor belongs to the seven days of ten hour driving I made from Detroit, Michigan to Kenai, Alaska in June of 2012. Memorial Day that same year I drove from Detroit to Pennsylvania to visit a pipeline inspector friend of mine, Bruce Delong. On the way back I detoured up to New York State so I could see Niagara Falls. That is a sight I have always wanted to see and I highly recommend that everyone see her once.

Marilyn Monroe, the goddess of the silver screen, made a movie called Niagara that has some lovely scenes of the Falls and even lovelier ones of her. This one of Marilyn walking away from the camera is classic. When Marilyn and Jane Russell, another beautiful actress from the 1950s were both getting stars on Hollywood Boulevard Marilyn commented that instead of their handprints in the cement they should have made cement prints of their more famous assets – Jane, her bust, and Marilyn her bottom.

So much beauty to behold in the wide world and there is nothing like a road trip for seeing people, places, and things you have never seen before. Some of my most favorite memories as a child are of the road trips I took with my family. We never ventured far from my hometown, Chattanooga. Except for the several year adventure we had to Detroit of which I have no recollection. We did make several drives to Perry, Georgia south of Macon where my uncle, aunt, and their two sons lived.

In my early thirties I was privileged to make several business trips for the oil tool manufacturing company I was working for in Houston, Texas. I flew to Memphis, Tennessee, to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. to Indianapolis, Indiana, New York City, to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Denver, Colorado, and to Los Angeles, California. One on my fellow inspectors, Tim Welch, who loved the trips as much as I did said his favorite song was Willie Nelson’s On The Road Again.

I admit when I hear Willie singing that song that the wanderlust takes hold and I long to be on a new adventure. Another of my favorite road songs sung by Josh Grobin has these words:

When every town looks just the same
When every choice gets hard to make
When every map is put away
Then I’ll be bringing you back home to stay.

There is much of this beautiful blue ball I still want to see before this adventure ends and a new Bigger and Better one begins. Happy trails to all.

Your Fellow Traveler,
David White