I love traveling. I’m sure that sounds like a cliche but it’s true. I feel my most free when I am on my way somewhere new or even somewhere old. The exhilaration of movement is perhaps my favorite sensation in the world. A lot of people espouse this idea as I understand it: the idea that traveling is all they really want to do, if only they could quit their jobs and just travel the world. Makes sense I guess. It’s like the holy grail of human life if you ask me: finding a way to just keep moving on and on and on through the world never really having to worry about money and jobs and attachments and all the rest of it. I mean, isn’t that what some of the most popular social media sites are all about? Traveling around and taking pictures of oneself in exotic places, having new experiences everyday, just seeing new and interesting things forever? Well, who knows what the hell social media is really all about. I certainly don’t, and I’m not sure I really care anyway. All I know is, life usually doesn’t seem so bad when I’m going somewhere that isn’t home. I mean, travel has its hassles for sure, especially now with updated “security” measures all over the place, but still, for the most part, the pleasure of the journey is worth the BS.

I’m planning a trip with my father to the American Southwest that’s scheduled for about 3 months from now. I’m really looking forward to it but I hope I’m not setting myself up for a letdown.

I’ve taken a bunch of trips in the last 5 years or so and a lot of them have most certainly had their share of hassles but… they were all international. This is the first domestic trip I’ve taken in quite a while. That means… no language barrier, no customs, no sense of being a foreigner in the true sense of the word (although you are always a foreigner to some extent when you travel outside your customary circles), no currency exchange, and I won’t have to limit my cell phone usage to when I’m near a WiFi signal (maybe being able to use my cell-phone more often isn’t such a good thing but whatever).

The last international trip I took, I went to Belize and man, that did not go well. I won’t go into the details but I had to completely rearrange my plans halfway through it and the people with whom I originally set up the trip kicked me out of their group for no good reason. But I did do something cool while I was there, I took a bus from one end of the country to the other and I had a great time. It was insanely cheap and I was the only white guy on this old beat up school bus traveling down these dirt roads with lots of sunshine and palm trees and reggae music blasting over the stereo most of the way. I felt very self-sufficient and like a really accomplished traveler. You can bet your average American tourist has never traveled anywhere in a foreign country like the way I did on that trip. I mean, who knows, maybe they have but the point is not whether or not other people have done what I did but the way I felt doing it and the fact that it made me feel competent and accomplished at the time.

This trip, no more school buses. I’m going to be traveling in style. I’ve decided to rent a Jeep from a company called Turo, which I heard about through Doug DeMuro’s Youtube channel. I really, really wanted to get a convertible for this trip and all the traditional car rental agencies didn’t have one. Turo’s rates seemed ok and they were the only car rental company (traditional or otherwise) that offered an option for a convertible vehicle. We are going to be driving a long way too. We’re going through a lot of desert and mountains and a convertible just seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. All route 66, roadside diners, Americana, and the open road with my head out the window and shit. Or something like that. That’s how I pictured it anyway, we’ll see how reality aligns with my expectations when I get there.

My own and my Dad’s interests seem to get more and more similar as we age in parallel. I don’t think I could have planned or executed this trip with him in my 20’s or 30’s. But now that I’m 40ish and he’s 80ish, I just feel like he and I have both relaxed our… our… well, I don’t know what exactly. Maybe I’m just rationalizing spending a lot of his money to take a trip for myself and bringing him with me. I mean, it was my idea and honestly, some of my ideas really don’t work out that well but he and I have both agreed that this is definitely something we want to do. I am optimistic about it.

Furthermore, the other trips I’ve taken in recent years have been planned exclusively by me. I’ve asked for advice here and there from this or that person but basically I did all the planning and I had the final say on everything I did. This time, we (my father and I) have really put our heads together and planned it jointly, sharing the responsibility of deciding where we go and where we don’t. I had the opportunity to put in my two cents as often as I liked but I don’t think I could have talked him into doing something he didn’t want to do. The trip (and the planning of it) feels moderately egalitarian and I like that about it. We came up with a bunch of really fun and interesting places to stay along the way although the places we stayed were mostly (again) my ideas. However, he did make one suggestion for a place to stay called “The Firetree Inn” which is on the Utah/Arizona border in the middle of the desert. It looks really cool to me. Here is the link to their website if you want to check it out: https://www.firetreeinn.com. I have no idea how the hell he found this place by the way. He said he did some kind of search for it but I don’t think I would have found it. Anyway….

A long time ago, when I was in Mexico with some friends from California helping to build an orphanage on the outskirts of Tijuana, I participated in something called a “sweat lodge” ritual. Basically, the sweat lodge is where you enter a small hut in which are placed several extremely hot stones upon which are poured buckets and buckets of water until the temperature in the hut gets very, very warm. There is chanting and you stay inside until you can’t take anymore. Then you emerge and you feel cleansed. You take a cold shower and your pores feel sparkly clean afterwards. It’s great. If you have the means to partake, I highly recommend it.

This hotel my father found reminds me a lot of the sweat lodge thing I did oh so long ago. And for that reason (among many others), I’m looking forward to it.

There are many other things about this trip I’m looking forward to although predominantly it is the traveling itself for which I can’t wait. Again, looking at this sentence, it does seem kind of cliche to me, talking about traveling on my blog but who cares, I’m pumped. I’ve never been to the Southwest before but I’ve heard a lot about it and seen plenty of pictures. I always think of it as kind of quintessentially American. You know, cowboy hats, sunsets, drive-ins, big open spaces, etc. I mean, the Southeast and Northeast have plenty of charm too but I still think of the Southwest as very characteristically and stereotypically American. I imagine that when outsiders think of what America is like having never been here themselves, they picture a landscape like the one in the Southwest. That’s all for now.