There’s nothing like seeing an RV flipped onto its side in a median to really set the tone of a road trip. Until then I’d thought this journey would be about grooving to good tunes and watching trees roll by. Now I was beginning to feel that this trip was going to be a little more involved.

Days before we left to make this grand trek from Miami to Boston my husband had said, “Man, I’m not looking forward to this trip” and I’d responded, “Why not? It’s going to be fun.”

Granted I was enthusiastic about leaving Miami. It wasn’t at all hard to tell my boss, who was as chipper as a pit bull with a raging case of ‘rhoids, that I quit. And it caused me no heartbreak to leave our apartment that was as moldy as bread in a frat house.

I was eager to depart the Sunshine State, more aptly titled the So- Humid- It- Feels- Like- You’re- Being- Slapped- In- The- Face- With- A- Wet- Towel- Every- Time- You- Walk- Out- the- Door state.

I also discovered that Miami is my number one selection for “A nice place
to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Following in at a close second would be Mars.

So sure, I thought this road trip would be fun. Yet as we traveled along I-95 that ‘fun’ was quickly replaced by fear. Our first challenge on I-95 was leaving Southern Florida alive. For a longer stretch of time than I care to remember, we were flanked by a blue haired granny driving her monster Town Car. She was wrestling with the steering wheel like it was a bear. Comforting.

And on the other side was a hunk of a Honda with more junk on the dashboard than a T.G.I. Fridays. My guess was that for all his fringe and flare this guy didn’t have a lick of insurance or a driver’s license.

Then of course there were the numerous Vipers and Lamborghinis that
zipped passed us like we were a heavy smoker riding a bike with two flat tires.

We were doing eighty.

I tried repeatedly to determine what part of this hellacious trip I thought would be fun. We’d purchased the audio version of The Da Vinci Code which I thought would be enjoyable. My husband was able to follow the story and with each new twist revealed would mutter things like, “Ah, interesting,” whereas I was more focused on the road and was muttering something more along the lines of, “Ah, crap!
We’re gonna die!”

Surely the fun was not to be had in Virginia. I never knew that eighteen wheelers could be so big, drive so fast, and sandwich us so successfully between them. It is not until you are surrounded by a pack of semis traveling at high speeds that you understand what it feels like to be an ant amidst a herd of stampeding elephants.

It was at this point that I managed to tear my terrified eyes off the road for a second and saw the funniest sign I’d ever seen. It was for a discount furniture store, but some of the lights had burned out so that it presently read “Disco n Furn u.”

I was too afraid to laugh.

By the sheer grace of God we made it to Boston in one piece. As I stepped out of the car I grabbed the road map and said to my husband, “We won’t be needing this anymore. I’m never making that drive again.”

“Why?” he asked with a smirk. “I thought it was fun.”

I threw the map at him.