Happy summer, you all! Anyone out there been taking any road trips?
Rice and I have. Or, at least we’ve started to venture out more again.
Back in 2020, we both retired with big hopes to travel more often. We even toyed with blogging about our adventures, sharing his photos with my write-ups. He went so far as to suggest a snappy name for our posts: Honey and Rice Do Vermont. Or Maine. Or whatever. The point was to play off the nicknames we have for each other—I’m Honey, he’s Rice—and share our perspectives on our destinations.
For a bit, the pandemic kept us from venturing far. But Rice and I are getting our groove back, having just returned from a multi-state trip up the Southeastern coast and down through the Shenandoah Valley. So, yeah, Honey and Rice have hit the road again.
In some ways, it’s like the pandemic never happened. Here’s what we discovered as we prepared to travel longer distances again:
Honey still has to study various driving routes ad nauseam and make copious lists of the places she’d like to stop along the way. Rice pops open a travel app, gives it a cursory glance, and knows every step and stop of the trip without having to look again.
Rice shoves shorts, shirts, and toiletries into a bag over the course of, say, ten minutes.
Honey takes a week to pack, replenishing lotions and cosmetics, making and revising lists of outfits (including shoes and necklaces to go with), and frets that she’s under-packed.
Honey decides we need to do something important, like update our wills and durable powers of attorney, the day before hitting the road. Rice agrees, figuring it’s easier to acquiesce, plus it will only take an hour or so. Right? Ha! After revising content, mixing up pages, finding a notary and witnesses (who again mix up the pages), several hours have passed. We’re behind schedule. And the added excitement means Honey needs a nap.
Rice tells Honey he’d like to leave the house between 8:00 and 9:00 the following morning. Honey is proud when our actual time of departure is 9:27 a.m.
On our recent trip, we visited my sister and her husband, whom we hadn’t seen in eighteen months. Seeing and hugging them at their Bel Air, Maryland home was the icing of the trip. We had never visited their new residence before, and oh, my gosh, it was so beautiful. But there was plenty of cake along the way, too, especially in other places we’d never been before, like
Wilmington, North Carolina: Who knew you were such a charming port town?
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina: Do you think Orville and Wilbur would count “just driving by after-hours” as making a visit? (I sort of don’t.)
Chincoteague Island: You sure were pretty, but who knew we should’ve gone on to Assateague if we wanted to see the wild ponies?
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware: We can see why Dr. Jill and Joe make you their summer home.
St. Michaels, Maryland: We enjoyed you, especially our stop at Skipjack’s for gelato, as you were hotter than Hades.
Roanoke, Virginia: From your downtown and restaurants to your Mill Park view and wildflower gardens, we loved you, and we’ll be back.
If you’re like Honey and Rice, road trips come with predictable but as yet unpreventable glitches. Some of them are merely a bummer. For instance, she might get excited about some new destination only to be disappointed that it’s too commercial, or perhaps it tries too hard to be quaint. He might get giddy anticipating historic stops along the way (Kitty Hawk and Tudor Hall—the latter where John Wilkes Booth spent his youth) but forget to check their hours of operation. She might try to beat the rising temperatures but end up suggesting routes that follow a God-awful heat wave. He might insist on driving further for a better gas price when the gauge is pointing precariously close to the E. (No harm—as long as that tank does not go past the E.)
Of course, some glitches are extra irritating. And costly. For instance, say someone puts the pedal to the medal with a little more zeal than necessary. In a location almost eight hours from home. In a state that issues a fine and mandates a court appearance. But, hey, in lieu of a personal appearance, one can pay an attorney to make a court appearance on one’s behalf.
Oh, yeah. That happened. And if Honey and Rice live another fifty years, we will likely continue to sprinkle our travels with similar snags and squeaks that get us to squabbling.
But enough with the whining.
Some say that life is not so much about the destination as it is the journey. I truly do believe this. The thing is, when two people journey together for years, the potholes and ruts sometimes try to overshadow the vistas and seascapes. Power and love still exist, but they’re often eclipsed by routine—routine that helps keep us going but can also leave us stale and less than joy-filled.
So thank God for travel! Somehow it has sparked a little more power and love back into our lives. How else to explain Honey and Rice laughing over detours and traffic citations and missed destinations? How did it come to pass that Honey cheerfully obliged Rice’s requests to shoot a pic of him outside yet another obscure landmark in homage to (or to prank) friends who do likewise? or to eat at a hole-in-the-wall diner he researched and yearned to try. How did he hold back from grousing when she stopped to photograph the hundredth wildflower in her path? or the cemetery or old building or mural or animal sculpture decorated by a local artist?
Not quite sure what happened to us, but we definitely enjoyed our recent journey. Or maybe, much as Honey the homebody hates to admit, it might just boil down to this:
Cheers! And safe and happy travels to you, too, if you’re inclined ~ J
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