Road Trip Bonding
‘Take Me Home, Dad’
“A two-day road trip north along I-95 affords a rare bonding with my adult son,” says writer Allan Ripp, sharing the story of his road trip bonding with Boomer readers.
Did I want to drive 760 miles in two days? Not really, but my son Asher asked if I’d help bring his car back from South Carolina to New York. He’d spent the last year in Charleston for a research fellowship and was about to start his fourth year of medical school in Brooklyn. My wife and I advised him to sell his used Nissan back to the dealer, but he didn’t want to part with it. Given how little quality time we’d had together recently, a road trip seemed a good way for some rare father-son bonding.
When I arrived in Charleston on Sunday, Asher was still in New Orleans delivering a paper. His flight back was cancelled, so he had to book another with a stop in Houston and got to our hotel past 1 a.m., when I was sleeping. It was a jarring déjà vu to wake up in the same bed together – something we hadn’t done since he was six.
On Monday, I watched him pack the last remnants of his studio apartment – he was impressively organized, filming a broom-clean video for the leasing agent. He managed to fit everything snugly into his car, including his flatscreen TV and golf clubs. I waited outside the hospital while Asher and his friend Matt – also hauling back to New York – said extended farewells to their fellow fellows and their research head. It was after 3 when our two-car caravan hit the road, not an ideal start time.
Driving through rural South Carolina, we marveled at the fire-and-brimstone “Repent Now” billboards alongside handmade signs for boiled peanuts and recurring directions to “South of the Border,” a Mexican-style roadside attraction near the state line. Asher described his research into surgical treatment outcomes for rhinitis and how psyched he was to begin clinical rotations and to see patients. Keeping pace with Matt on the endlessly flat I-95, we counted the number of huge outdoor ads by personal injury lawyers.
In Florence, South Carolina, we stopped at a mega service outlet called Buc-ee’s, featuring racks of beaver-themed souvenirs and displays of beef jerky, fudge, giant cakes, and Reba McEntire and Taylor Swift merch. After scoring some jerky, Asher nudged me away from ogling a muscle-bound customer in hot pants whose red beard flowed below his knees. It was a spectacle of highway Americana, and the cashier warned us to avoid weekends, “when the real crazies show up.”
We pushed into Virginia, where I had my first-ever Chick-fil-A. The gummy bun stuck to my palate but hey, two sandwiches and drinks cost only $15. I drove the day’s final stretch in darkness, with Asher and Matt speaker-messaging each other over which gas station had the best price per gallon.
We hitched for the night at a Hampton Inn near Petersburg, Virginia. I rode the elevator with a couple and their enormous, unneutered pit bull. “He’s a sweetheart,” the woman said when the dog buried his face in my crotch. In the room Asher and I discussed whether his car was parked close enough to the entrance – we decided to take our chances that no one would break in. Disoriented at 3 a.m., I started crawling over Asher to get out of bed. “Dad – it’s the other way,” he mumbled, pointing me to the bathroom.
Day two of road trip bonding
With 375 miles to go, we started the next morning at 10:30, sampling a podcast Asher’s girlfriend recommended about strategies for making hard decisions, something she recently had to confront in deciding whether to go to business school. The host – a best-selling author and life coach – got on our nerves, repeatedly previewing what she was going to tell us.
We pivoted to the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain reading his hilarious “Kitchen Confidential” memoir. We noted the similarities between the life of an aspiring chef grinding it out amidst the heat, chaos, high expectations, and precision instruments of a restaurant kitchen and that of a rising med student, especially one heading towards a career in surgery.
But after a while we just talked, and talked – about family, sports, Asher’s research cohort and various friend groups, and his thoughts about upcoming applications for residency, due in the fall. There was none of the tension that sometimes hung over our conversations about his plans for life, or just the weekend. Here he was a nearly 27-year-old with a firm direction of where he was headed and the milestones needed to get there. We also had benefit of the open road and free association – he even wanted to know about my wacky cousins and why I don’t communicate with my older sister. We stayed in contact with Matt and found a tasty mini-mall Mediterranean spot near Baltimore for lunch.
Making great time in Maryland and even New Jersey, we got backed up in the feeder lanes heading into the city. Downright giddy by the time we exited the Lincoln Tunnel, we still made it back in time for dinner.
Home for one night, Asher was immediately off to Europe the next day for a quick getaway with his girlfriend before disappearing into intense hospital rotations for the coming year, including one in Chicago. Our foreseeable time together will be scant but I take comfort knowing we’ll always have I-95, and of course Buc-ee’s.
Allan Ripp runs a press relations firm in New York.
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