MMWUC: Mind Tripping on the Road

"By the time I get to Bluefield, you'll be rising
You'll scratch yourself or roll over and snore
You'll laugh when you read my note that says I'm goin'
'Cause I've done these road trips so many times before."

I love that song by Glen Campbell...By the Time I Get to Phoenix. And yes, I'm on the road from Apex, NC to Salt Lake City, UT to bring a fancy car to a mysterious buyer. Let your imagination roam. It's a break from the every day: the computer, yard, garden, Sydney (poor baby), fish, and the writing. It's the pause that refreshes, the hatchery of ideas. It's 2,148 miles with a few accidents to miss, road construction, some tarring to foul the air, a few restaurants to try, and a visit with a writer-on-pause in Iowa. I have to buy my wife some pants that can only be found in Davenport, IA. Why? I don't know. They're waiting for me at checkout. Is it coincidence or story development that the writer and pants are in the same state?

"By the time I make North Platte, you'll be working
You'll prob'ly stop at lunch and twitter me
But you'll get no reply cause I'm not responding
Cursor blinking, tis all you'll see."

I need time on the road once in a while. My mind wanders. Stories erupt as I pass cars, wondering where the people are going by themselves or crammed in like little Vienna sausage weiners...maybe I'll get them at the next rest stop with some crackers. Perhaps I'll spot some cute redheaded girl with an unorderly march of freckles across the bridge of her nose, just sitting, waiting. What's she waiting for? Boyfriend? Husband? Has she been abandoned? How long has she been there at the central Wyoming rest stop. She could be 14 or 24. Hard to tell with freckles. Did she have a fight with her step-mother on the way to meet her step-dad. Poor kid. Neither birth parents left, just a lot of steps to tread alone. So sad. What's her story?

"By the time I make Green River, you'll be sleepin'
You'll turn softly and call me crazy
And you'll smile just to think of the stories I'm writin'
Tho' time and time I tried to tell you instead
There not real, if they're in my head."

I did bring my notebook: the graveyard and birthplace of so many stories. I can never quite figure out what makes one soar like a fat and happy mosquito and the next one crash like a distracted bug against a window. OMG! The redheaded girl just got eaten by a pack of zombie prairie dogs. They swarmed her and didn't stop with the brains. THEY ATE ALL OF HER! I thought prairie dogs were vegetarians. You'd never see that in North Carolina. Poor girl. Nothing left but an elderly grandmother, looking around befuddled, and a pair of skechers. Didn't help her get stay fit and escape. Damn you, Kim K! You lied to us. Stupid prairie dogs. They ate too much and now are causing accidents on the highway as they burst like popcorn in the hot mid-day sun. Time to go.

Road trips. Just what the mind needs now and then. What's your road story?