Why I love Ike

My left arm is about three shades darker than my right these days. That of course, is and indirect consequence of my automobile lacking air conditioning and my penchant for allowing my forearm to enjoy the sunlight and rushing air.

I have been fortunate enough to take road trips each of these last two weekends and I am always amazed by the experience. By a simple change of location, and especially in the sort of purgatory between locations (the Eisenhower interstate system) my preferences seem to change.

For example, while normally I abhor Rascal Flats and their minions of poppishly-horrible cowboy crooning, while I am driving through the open fields of Ohio, I absolutely crave some Josh Turner or Deirks Bentley (note: if you don’t know who those two are, I commend you, and I am a little surprised I can tell them apart now).

I also partake in the recent phenomenon of massive cans of re-branded soft drinks known as “energy drinks.” Whoever the marketing whiz is that took Mountain Dew and said “we can make a worse tasting, worse looking, incredibly more expensive beverage only we will sell it in large cans so you can’t see what you are drinking” is a genius (although not as smart as the 5-hour energy guy who decided to make commercials that look like infomercials and go the exact opposite route: sell their energy drink in tiny bottles).

Nonetheless, when on the road and stopping for gas, I remember I felt a little fatigued and the desire to pound 24-ounces of high fructose, carbonated B-vitamin goodness is unquenchable. And thus, I quench it. This past weekend, I set a new personal best by consuming 3 drinks in two days while each time justifying the increased cost by neglecting to eat a complementary meal (thus, much like ethanol, enhancing whatever beneficial and unfortunate effects the beverage would have on me).

From the sounds of the above, it would seem as if I did not enjoy these road trips. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I absolutely love them. I discovered in high school that I could take a day off academics, fill-up on gas and a guilty pleasure (I believe peachie-Os were my high school decadence of choice), and head out to some random college for an interview, tour, and maybe, if I was lucky to have some football coach who did not know my name blow smoke up my rear for twenty minutes. I have been addicted road trips since.

Of course, amazingly, whenever arriving at the destination, or back at home at the end of the trip, there is an amazing sense of fatigue and accomplishment (only one of which can be attributed to the aforementioned Taurine-enhanced beverages). And after a few hours of literally sitting on my tail, I feel as if I need a day and half to recover.