ROAD TRIP!

Dayton to Winnipeg, 1,162 miles; 19 hours give or take.

A few things have changed over the years that Ken and I have been taking trips together. In the olden days — that’s the 70s and 80s — we’d drive straight through to a destination. We’d “dead head” it for 9, 10, 12, 18 hours in the car in spite of the fact that we didn’t have air conditioning in those days and our tunes were on cassette tapes that, in at least one car we owned, were regularly devoured in the tape deck unraveling miles of brown ribbon and rendering the tape deck inoperable and the remainder of the trip silent and deadly boring. (Except that same car had a leaky windshield which was always good for a laugh in a rainstorm.)

We first got air conditioning in a Honda Accord we bought in 1984 or 85. At that life-changing time we let go of our road warrior days and began breaking long trips into manageable chunks of 8-9 hours MAX!

That brings us to today, taking 3 days to drive to Winnipeg.

Day One – Madison, Wisconsin. Day Two – St. Cloud, Minnesota. Day Three – Winnipeg.

But now we are firmly in the 21^st century with AC, GPS, electronically adjustable seats, the lap top, 500 tunes loaded on Ken’s iPhone and plug in coolers that keep 42 soda pop cans nicely chilled (well in reality, we only checked into buying the cooler — we don’t really have the need for 42 cans of cold pop — although we could have used the cooler for bringing home some Mennonite sausage. The point is that the technology exists.)

Some things haven’t changed over the years, though. The Big Mac for example. Same as it was 35 years ago. Comforting, isn’t it?

One other thing that has not changed in 35 years is the AAA Triptik. No kidding. For those of you who have used a Triptik – they are EXACTLY the same as they have always been. For those of you who haven’t, the AAA Triptik is a set of printed, “vertical” maps – on paper. A Triptik is essentially a custom-made trip guide just for you. Each page represents 100-150 mile chunks, with inset details and a yellow highlight line, drawn by hand, taking you there and back; the whole thing assembled by hand and plastic coil bound.

Yes, Ken has a GPS app on the iPhone and it is brilliant. But I have got to hand it to the AAA – the Triptik is wonderful. It has descriptions of the topography you travel through and pithy comments about the cities and towns. And maps! Lots of maps! All pertaining to YOUR personal trip!

I ordered my Triptik weeks ago so that we could plot our route and book our hotels. But the AAA told us to bring it back in a week ahead of our trip so that they could mark up the construction sites we could expect on our trip. Sounded like a good idea. 

The day I went to AAA, I was ready to leave the thing behind and pick it up the next day all marked up. But before I could say, “Gotta go now!” I was whisked into a cubicle with Todd, my AAA agent. Todd got out a set of maps, put my Triptik on his desk, and consulted his computer. After carefully referring back and forth among his sources, Todd took out a rubber stamp with “CONSTR” on it and dabbed it on an ink pad. He turned page after page of my Triptik, stamping in rapid succession, mile after mile of construction. Dab, STAMP! Dab, STAMP! STAMP! Dab, STAMP! STAMP! STAMP! Over and over. Dozens of them. Like a comedy bit in a Mel Brooks movie.

“Uh, Todd. Are any of these construction sites worthy of detours? Or should we be replanning our trip?” I asked.

“Oh, ha, ha, no, well, it’s hard to know really. They’re just construction sites. We don’t really know if they’re big or little or how much they’ll slow you down.”

There was really no point to the exercise, then, was there, Todd?

We are on Day 3 of the trip as I write this. The Triptik has been a huge help. We’ve done tricky navigations through cities and have transitioned from one Interstate to another with ease thanks to the Triptik.  It’s a triumph of travel; a totally satisfying event to flip a page to put another 100-150 miles behind us.  “Hey, Honey! I’m turning another page of the Triptik!”

We have a few pages to go. Stay tuned!