I should’ve bought the t-shirt.

It wasn’t in my best color and it would’ve probably needed ironing and it cost a few dollars more than I wanted to spend, but I still wish I’d bought it. Because the six words on that souvenir shop t-shirt perfectly summed up our trip.

“Not all who wander are lost.”

Right after work the Friday before last, we headed down the Turnpike to Tamarack, where we met up with my former sister-in-law and her son. They’d invited my daughter to spend several days with them at the beach. I was scheduled to be off those same several days, with plans to deep-clean our house, but the lure of our own road trip was too much to resist.

Most of the vacations I’ve taken as an adult have been thoroughly researched and meticulously planned, done to squeeze the most value out of the trip. But lately, it’s been more than just vacations I’ve scheduled that way. It’s been most every minute of most every day. Too much writing on the calendar. Too many Post-Its on the dashboard and purse. Errands for lunch hour. Places to stop on the way home from work.

I wanted this road trip to be nothing but road. A trip with no destination, where our turns were determined by the flip of a coin, where we’d eat at Mom and Pop diners and shop at souvenir stands.

When I mentioned the trip to my V100 DJ friend Ric Cochran, he said, “Stop somewhere to eat that has ‘Joe’s’ in the name.” Ric’s simple suggestion got my wheels turning. Soon, I had a list of ways we could shape our trip that seemed more fun than just flipping a coin.

Turn down any road with the last name of a famous singer.

Make a rubbing of a tombstone. Take pictures of strange yard art and signs.

Ride a horse. Find a sock monkey. Spend an entire day eating nothing but white foods.

It wasn’t a real agenda, and we took our list lightly, but having it there on the dashboard helped remind us we had the freedom to do whatever we pleased. There was no timetable or destination. No Mapquest directions to curse.

We wound our way from North Carolina through the curvy mountain roads of Tennessee and Virginia, then cut through coal country (where I snapped a picture of a “U Can Tan!” sign at a business that boasted of having “extra wide beds”).

Some tourists are lured to our state by the thrill of rappelling or white water rafting, but our tourism department should consider promoting the buzz a person can get while driving amidst barreling coal trucks on narrow, windy roads.

To add to our adventure, we decided to stay in the cheapest hotels we could find. Steep discounts weren’t hard to get because there were surprisingly few tourists competing for rooms. I can’t really say why. The trees are lovely without those flashy gold leaves. The bare gray branches blend nicely with the perpetually gray sky. I’m shocked more people don’t vacation this time of year.

(Please note: Some sarcasm was intended in the paragraph above.)

For the most part, the cheap hotels were just fine, except for the one time when raw sewage bubbled over my feet while I was taking a shower. I could’ve skipped that. And I could’ve done without my husband lying in bed that same night, next to his traumatized wife, and deciding it would be funny to pretend he was scratching–and then smashing–all kinds of little bugs that were crawling on him.

Aside from that, the trip was a dream. It was relaxing and fun and exciting. It made me feel silly and carefree and young.

Not all who wander are lost. But I’ve learned that sometimes, we can get nicely lost when we do.

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