{"id":84,"date":"2011-06-24T22:52:02","date_gmt":"2011-06-25T05:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/blog\/?p=84"},"modified":"2012-05-18T14:10:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T21:10:00","slug":"nothing-like-a-road-trip-to-blow-the-dust-off-the-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/nothing-like-a-road-trip-to-blow-the-dust-off-the-imagination\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing like a road trip to blow the dust off the imagination!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Historic<\/a>

Discovering history in a fast red car and a road trip with Capt. Bob<\/p><\/div>\n

OK, it’s not a sailboat, it’s a sports car.\u00a0 A 2001 Honda S2000\u00a0that we shipped from Hilo, Hawaii to Long Beach California.\u00a0 Bob and I\u00a0live part-time\u00a0in Hawaii and we’ve had the S2000\u00a0there for ten years —\u00a0but really, a car like this is\u00a0wasted on an island, is it not?\u00a0It might be called\u00a0the “Big Island” but you can drive around it in a few hours if you don’t stop for a plate lunch or a longboard\u00a0lager.\u00a0\u00a0 This car begs for\u00a0the long and winding road, the Autobahn,\u00a0the salt flats of the Great American West!\u00a0This car needs occassional doses of 80-plus mph, which is the legal speed limit in parts of the desert.<\/p>\n

Here we are next to the Route 66 Museum in Victorville, California, about an hour after picking up the car at the Matson dock in Long Beach.\u00a0The rag top is up because the sun is intense.\u00a0 Only tourists, mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.\u00a0 Convertibles\u00a0are made for\u00a0full moon nights!<\/p>\n

To be completely honest,\u00a0Capt. Bob and I did not follow\u00a0historic Route 66 in its\u00a0entirety.\u00a0 No way; that was not\u00a0our\u00a0intention (although I do have a fascination with trails:\u00a0Lewis and Clark’s, the Oregon Trail, Santa Fe, Trail of Tears, Pony Express, the Selma to Montgomery, I could go on and on, and follow them all.\u00a0 Not to mention the\u00a0great sea routes which are also trails.\u00a0 Then again, I like to forge my own trail, better known as bushwhacking which I’ve done my share of, including urban bushwhacking, but then I digress…)<\/p>\n

What is\u00a0it about a journey, a voyage, a passage, a road trip that inspires me, that unlocks the questions, the\u00a0feelings, the memories, and the words to express them?\u00a0 Is it the passing through time and space with eyes and ears open, windows down and air stinging my face,\u00a0imagining (or remembering) so many others who came before me?\u00a0 Is it the eons of geologic time glimpsed in road cuts, in distant plateaus and valleys\u00a0devoured by the slow\u00a0jaws of rivers, the sculpting of wind?<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, journeying inspires me and connects me with the earth and with those who lived before me.\u00a0 It also gives me a chance to observe others\u00a0who are sharing\u00a0this present time with me —\u00a0and\u00a0I feel like I have a better understanding of\u00a0what the future might hold.\u00a0 Traveling is crucial to my writing process; my writing process is crucial to discovering who I am.<\/p>\n

Whether by land, air, or sea, a voyage opens doors for me.\u00a0 This time it was a road trip with my husband, who happens to be a great traveling companion.\u00a0 We’ve crossed oceans and traversed mountains together, fallen through the air at terminal velocity on\u00a0hundreds of\u00a0skydives, (many of those jumps required holding onto first time freefall students between us),\u00a0we’ve explored numerous\u00a0museums, bistros, countless bottles of wine, the bottoms of lakes and tropical reefs — pause for breath here —\u00a0ambled on\u00a0evening walks together,\u00a0yet we keep each our own secrets too! \u00a0( And yes, that’s an awkward, run-on sentence but it captures the essence of what I’m feeling right now and if I took the time to edit my blog I wouldn’t have as much time to imagine, write and edit my novels — a topic for another blog…)<\/p>\n

Tonight I’m in Steamboat Springs, a place we are also fortunate to call home.\u00a0\u00a0Washing clothes, catching up on email. \u00a0The summer writing tour\u00a0continues tomorrow as we head over Rabbit Ears Pass on Route 40, to Denver.\u00a0 More to follow… Please join in and\u00a0help me celebrate the writing and publication of Surgeon’s Mate; book two of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series<\/em>,\u00a0while gathering material and inspiration for works in progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, it’s not a sailboat, it’s a sports car.\u00a0 A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[24,20],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-american-west","tag-road-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}