When I was a kid, my family went on a lot of road trips. We would head north to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or up into the thumb. Sometimes, we’d head into Ohio and camp there for a week. I remember in fourth grade, my family went on a six week long trip from our home in Detroit, down south to New Orleans then out west to San Diego and back north again to head home.

I traveled through almost thirty states in that trip. I stood in four different states at one time. I went swimming in U.S. Military protected water and ran away before anyone showed up to arrest us. I climbed a glacier in the middle of July and slid down the snow of a mountain on a trash bag. I experienced so many different sights and sounds in those six weeks. I doubt I will ever be able to replicate the wonder and amazement that trip instilled within me.

We did a lot of driving on that trip. I sat between my Mom and Dad and had the honor of changing the tapes in the car when we wanted to listen to something new. In the middle of the desert in Arizona or possibly New Mexico, my mother and older sister had dozed off in the truck. My dad and I decided it was best not to wake them when we made a quick pit stop.

I looked at a map of the country hanging in the rest stop bathroom. I traced the path I (assumed) we had taken. My dad came out of the men’s room and walked to a vending machine where he bought a box of Everlasting Gobstoppers – my favorite candy at the time.

We walked back to the truck and hopped inside. My mother mumbled something in her half-roused state and then fell back to sleep. I buckled myself back in and my dad turned the key. An old episode of “The Shadow” resumed. My dad handed me the box of gobstoppers and I gave him an orange one before popping a yellow one into my mouth.

For the next hour or so, my dad and I listened to Lamont Cranston solve crimes while sucking on a gobstopper and laughing with my dad. Despite all of the amazing things I saw and all the great people I met during those six weeks, the memory of eating candy and laughing with my dad is the one I remember with the most fondness.