I Don't Drive Angry, But I Certainly Don't Drive 55

Sammy Hagar or Eddie Rabbit....is this question really stupid?

Back in my younger days, when my body was undamaged and unravaged by genetics, I loved to drive. Short trips or long, it didn't matter, so long as I was behind the steering wheel, I was a happy camper.

When I was in my late 20's, I used to take these monster driving vacations, and I used to drag my wife along on these fiascos. Of course, being the dorky dumbass who really didn't take in account how upset his wife would progressively get throughout the years, I would plan these things that took in account zero for sightseeing.

Think I'm kidding?

On my honeymoon, we did a driving tour of New England. Kind of. Sort of. I mean, we drove straight up through Connecticut and Massachusetts into Vermont and New Hampshire, before wandering back down to Connecticut. With no sightseeing. Being that my wife was completely besotted with me, it really didn't matter that no sightseeing was involved.

The next driving vacation I took, which was the first of two, was driving US 6. Now for those of you who may not know this, US 6 starts in Cape Cod Massachusetts and ends in Bishop, California (and vice versa for those of you who live on the left coast). It meanders through Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and finally California.

Being that I was really too lazy to start in Massachusetts and back track, we simply took off for our one and only intended destination on the trip: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Five days out, and five days back. And the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, in my humble opinion, was overpriced and only semi-impressive.

Anyways, a few years later, I decided to do the US 6 thang again, this time starting off in Iowa (which is where we turned around at the first time), then trying to travel to California. So we (meaning me, I did all of the driving, Joanne was the navigator), took I-80 to Iowa, and continued down US 6. Problem was that back then (late 90's) there was a lot of construction going on, so we wound up taking tons of detours in Iowa and Nebraska.

Eventually got as far as Sterling, Colorado before calling it quits and heading home. We did managed to see a movie, "Gone In 60 Seconds", but other than that, no sightseeing.

At this point, Joanne was more than a little miffed that our last few vacations contained absolutely no sightseeing, so she told me in no uncertain terms, that next time, we better do some sightseeing. I said fine, so on the very last normal vacation I would take for about six years, we took my daughter Jenelle to the Topeka, Kansas Zoo.

Naturally, being the very bad trip planner that I was turning out to be, we arrived at the zoo on a Sunday afternoon. Suffice to say, there wasn't much to see since most of the zoo was closed for the day. So the trip to the zoo was a major league bust. But hey, at least spending two days in Pennsylvania because I stupidly decided to take the Pennsylvania Turnpike (a lesson not learned and was doomed to repeat six years later) wasn't a total loss.

In 2008, I made plans to visit a former chat room bud out in Indiana. However, due to unforeseen complications, we had to kill about three days before we could actually visit. Remembering the threat that Joanne made back in '02, I decided to some sightseeing prior to the visit.

Prior to our visit in Indiana, we stopped at:

1} The Civil War Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
2} The Zane Gray Museum, Norwich, Ohio.
3} The Columbus Zoo, Columbus, Ohio.

I highly recommend the first two. If you love American history and the Civil War, that museum is the be all to end all. When we were there, we got see a little of this:

 

Also, for the longest time, the header to my blog featured this wonderful statue/sculpture:

If you like all things about Zane Gray and US 40/The National Highway, you have to check out the museum sponsored by the Ohio Historical society.

When we were Indiana, we didn't do much sightseeing beyond going to the The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. I took loads of pictures, but they didn't come out very well, so I really can't show anything from there, except maybe, this:

Since that vacation in '08, I don't do much in the way of long road trips anymore. But, just the same, I still think about hopping into my new car with just the wife, and doing another ten day road trip. Someday, I may do that, and possibly visit some of my blogger friends. Until then, I'll have to be satisfied in simply reading about everyone else's driving adventures.