...like a band of Gypsies... by Liz Flaherty #WindowOvertheSink

Lots of people on road trips this year--have you noticed? It makes me want to go somewhere. I have so many favorite things about road trips.

• Hotels. I don't sleep especially well and I don't think the food at breakfast is generally all that good, but I don't make the bed and I don't cook or clean up, so...yeah. 
• Cracker Barrel. The food's predictable, service is almost always good, and I love shopping in the country store. And, if I don't talk myself into buying something there, I'll be able to get it a few hundred miles later.
• Welcome centers. They all have nice restrooms and coupons for hotels. Sometimes you get to have conversations with people you'll never see again. The flowers are usually pretty, too, and most everyone uses the trash cans instead of littering. 
  
• Exits. Sometimes if you see something on a sign that makes you sit up straight in the passenger seat, it's a good idea to turn on the signal and take the wrong exit. We were  going through New York one year on our anniversary and Duane saw a sign that said, "Niagara Falls, 20 miles." We were a day late getting to Vermont, but what a fun day it was.
• Unexpected pleasures. We were in a restaurant in Arkansas in 1980 and were served the best water we'd ever had in our lives. Nearly 40 years later, it's still the best. I have no idea where we were, but thanks.
• Awesome. I get the sighs almost every time I see or hear that word, but on road trips, you see things that really are. 
• Surprises. For some reason, I expected South Dakota to be stark. Plain. Soulless. Instead, it was...see the word above. 
• Wind farms. I know they're a sore subject around here and that many people
  
  think they're ugly (although I don't hear much about cell towers, which I think are hideous, but what do I know?), but I think they have an eerie beauty.
• Mountains and oceans. Because we don't have them and I love them. 
• Memories. We went to Washington, D. C., driving all night after Duane got done playing music, and ended up falling asleep crazy early the following night. We were all five in a room, sitting up talking at two in the morning. I don't know if the other four remember, but I do.

So, yeah, I'm ready for a road trip. How about you? Where do you want to go, or what do you remember from the last time?