On the Road

People are always asking me, "What do you do for fun?" Whether it's a peer making small talk or a recruiter trying to figure out the person behind the resume, the fascination with what we do outside the office (or the school) is universal.

One of my great loves is taking the all-American road trip. To be sure, folks from other countries also take road trips--Parisians drive to the French countryside, for example. But long, meaningful road trips are a quintessential part of Americana. The US has such beautiful and vast expanses and so many places to go.

In California, my friends and I were on the road frequently. We went to Tahoe, Yosemite, and occasionally headed south to Santa Barbara. I never drove north to Portland and Seattle, but I should have.

My restless soul finds peace on these trips in a way that I've never felt in foreign lands and in and out of airports. So, in the spirit of Sal and Dean from On the Road, traveling back and forth across the country, going nowhere and everywhere at the same time, I hit the road after my last final exam. After a week in New York City, I returned to Ithaca to pile up my car and head towards New England.

After a detour to a town called Colonie, New York, thanks to a bad case of engine sludge, I headed east through Vermont on 9 (the scenic route) and then onwards to New Hampshire to a picturesque lake house. From there, I headed back to Colonie to pick up my Saab, newly unclogged and running quite well. I retraced the highways back to New England, this time headed for the Cape, and concluded my trip via ferry to Martha's Vineyard.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Boston, where my new cubicle awaits me at Novell. And with this one last short trip, the halcyon days of road trips to the homes of my family and friends will come to a close.