Growing up, I was endlessly fascinated by, and enjoyed listening to, my nomadic family discuss travel. It held my interest to listen to various uncles, friends, shirt-tail kin, parents and grandparents outline a travel trip by rattling off series of highway numbers that - to my young ears - were like secret codes... this was an adult thing I had better pay attention to, and learn, so I would be able to make my own suggestions for trekking and travels when my time came. I can recall pouring over road maps to find these exotic highways and byways, all the better to learn the roads and best ways to get around this beautiful country. I simply loved and embraced travel!
In our tribe, if anyone was planning a trip, it was not uncommon for intense discussions to erupt about the latest and best - or better- routes, hazards to watch for, construction to be mindful of and such, not to mention which combinations of highways were best in various weather conditions, and which were most dangerous.
I would be in awe of the dueling equations … one uncle would swear by one route … another by another, and the folks had their own sets of road combinations to get places they preferred . These were always slung together by a string of all the various connecting highway numbers needed to make time and get from point A to B. Everyone had a dog in the fight and would suggest their 'best' routes and mildly chastise others for their woeful lack of understanding why their series of roads would be better.
This competition was a high art form in our tribe!
[Editor's note: This story was written by R. Cane and is the first in a series of 10 stories.]
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