What Is It About Road Trips?

Mesa Verde, trucker banter, and a kid called Pippy Roo.

Ever since I was a little girl and my dad took us on our first road trip in that sun-faded pop-top VW camper van, I’ve been hooked on the feeling of being on the move. That first summer, I was just 9 years old as we traced the old bones of Route 66, skipping summer camp and structure in favor of dusty roads and wide open spaces.

We aimed to hit every National Park we could. Memories of Zion, Yellowstone, Glacier still vivid in my brain, even after all these years. The one that stamped itself into my memory the most was Mesa Verde. I remember climbing this gigantic wooden ladder, steep rungs winding up to the cliff dwellings. The sun hot on my back, the canyon echoing below.

My mom says she was terrified the whole time, watching me shimmy and scramble for each next rung, while muttering panicked prayers under her breath. I only remember being thrilled.

Since then, I’ve often looked back and wondered: Where did I lose that fearlessness?

That summer blurred together in the best way. Long hikes, sore feet, faces flushed from sun and wind and just being outside all the time.

We stopped at diners that looked like they hadn’t changed since the Eisenhower era… formica tables, cracked vinyl booths, jukeboxes with sticky buttons. They all had names like Mama’s Kitchen, The Waffle Shack, or Gravy and Grits—greasy spoons where you didn’t quite know (or dare to ask) the sanitation grade, only knew the coffee would be hot and the tea would be sweet.

Each one had a distinct regional flair to it, like the flavor of the town was cooked right into the biscuits. Somewhere in Arizona, a waitress called me “hon” in an accent so thick it rivaled the gravy she served on the side. Her hair teased to high heaven, makeup layered like war paint, her smile wide and worn at the same time.

Every little roadside dive had a server or fellow diner like that. A character who felt ripped straight from a Faulkner novel. I felt like I was living my own version of Travels with Charley, making sense of my country by way of gas station fill-ups and bottomless coffee cups.

It was messy and magic. No GPS. Just maps spread across our laps and best guesses. You learned quick to read signs, trust your gut, ask strangers for directions. You learned to figure things out. Somewhere along the way, I even earned my nickname, “Scout”. My granddad gave it to me.

He was a long-haul trucker, and had a CB radio rigged up in the van. He even gave me my own handle: Pippy Roo, after Pippi Longstocking, who he said I was “the spittin´image of”… “Precocious as heck” he’d say. “And a hellfire of a mess.”

When we were driving, I’d listen for chatter on the line, the voices of truckers slicing through the static. They had this rhythm, like verbal shorthand mixed with dry humor and half-code. Granddad always made sure to tell them I was a kid before he let me speak. Then he’d let me press the button and say something like, “Breaker one-nine, this is Pippy Roo, anybody got ears on?” And just like that, we were in. Sometimes they’d joke around with me, sometimes they’d give us real tips… where the traffic was backed up, which diner had the best pie, where the troopers were hiding just outside Flagstaff waiting to bust anyone who was feeling like unleashing their inner Formula One driver that day.

He also made a point to stop at every Stuckey’s. Said it was a trucker’s rite of passage. I can still close my eyes to this day and picture their signature pecan logs, stacked like bricks, the same keychains and rubber tomahawks lining the shelves.

That summer did something to me. I didn’t know it then, but it set the tone for everything that came after. The road got in my blood. The in-between. The forward motion. The not knowing what comes next. The hopefulness that whatever it is, will be wonderful beyond my wildest dreams. I still crave that.

Today, it’s been six years on the road solo for this now adult. And that feeling is still there. That pull. That sense that the next stop might change everything, or nothing, and either way, it’s worth going.

Some people think it’s about escape. And maybe at first, it was. But eventually the road stops letting you run. It turns into a mirror, one that doesn’t hang on a wall but follows you across state lines and border crossings, even oceans. And if you’re lucky, you learn to not only stomach what you see, but stare back at it, with empathy.

I miss maps. I miss my grandad’s voice crackling through the CB. I miss the hush of big trees, and the clatter of plates in a diner where the waitress has worked the same corner booth since Reagan. But I am glad to be able to still bring the best of those road trip memories with me… the chance to be surprised by the road. And by myself.