I want to go on vacation. There must be much driving — enough to feel stultified, to get to that point at which a modest 2 star AA rated motel with old, old decor but a murkish pool in the parking lot fenced area feels like decadence. I want to swim under the stars in Montana, and giggle at running horse paintings in Wyoming and stop at every brown roadside sign and avoid mcdonalds in every state and listen to dozens of books on tape and just look at everything they way they want us to see it. I want to time travel, to a place where a kid is excited by this prospect, rather than blunting it by his indifference and cushy lifestyle. He is a little bossy with me lately, so that also blunts the prospect of joy. I want to toss a tent and an air mattress and some pillows and swim gear and extra notebooks and books and books on tape into a car, crammed full, load it with apples and good intentions and a camera and see where we end up. But we live so damn far from anything that it seems like 2 days until we’d come to a starting point. I am losing steam at the prospect of Monday’s as-yet unplanned vacation and the prospects of severe irritation and dustiness and swollen tonsils and bored child.
I am not without punitive secret weapons — the trip one is forced to take because one did not take an active-enough interest in the charms of the Mitchell Corn Palace: there is always…..Walden Pond!
