Tuesday, April 15, 2008

On the Road

I just finished Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.
So okay, I know I am way behind in reading this; most people loved this book back in high school. But I think it was just one of those books I avoided for some odd reason, maybe because it is a book that I am just expected to have read and enjoyed so I just stayed away from it. I’m a rebel baby.

Anyway I read it and I enjoyed it. Actually I loved it and want to live my life by it. What a cliché.

I read it mostly on the train, which in itself is some sort of irony, as I would read a few pages, be taken in with the traveler/beatnik/nature spirit, and then viciously elbow my way through the sea of businessmen so that I wouldn’t be late for my desk job. In a way this book made me hate my priorities and instilled a panic in me. “Why,” I thought to myself, “am I not living a life such as this?”

Obvious answers would be
a- society instills it in us that we are supposed to go to college and have a life plan
b- I like nice clothing and other such luxuries
c- I am a female, and females cant travel alone like a bum

But I want to have an experience like this in my life. The closest I’ve ever come to a rambling road trip was in New Zealand and we were all in a van so it doesn’t even count. I mean it counts, but it’s not the same. Alex has said she would go on an adventure backpacking across a cool European country with me, but again, the ‘two young girls alone in a foreign country’ is not as appealing in real life, what with the whole human trafficking thing. So it is more likely that we’d be staying in some sort of hostel. Tim has agreed that getting away from everything is an interest to him, but the idea of road tripping-wandering-adventuring doesn’t seem to be something he has taken a major shining to.

What I would like to do is drive across the US; there are so many places that I haven’t been. I would love to stop at truckers diners and eat steak and eggs even though I don’t eat steak and eggs, and I’d love to eat pie with real ice cream. And see the world’s largest ball of twine and set off legal fireworks on a beach and sleep in a crappy motel that is run by a mom and pop and go to a bar and play the jukebox and drink cheap beers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

if you plan on stopping in virginia im down. seriously, pancakes the size of tires.