Now, You Took What Route Chatter

 I grew up in rural Alabama, and my dad would take me along to visit relatives.  Some lived nearby and this topic never came up.  But those who were 200 to 500 miles away....somewhere in the first twenty minutes of talk....the route would come up.  They'd want to know if you took the interstate, or went by state highway 55, or such.

At some point, I started to note that my dad was more intent on map use, and would go a slightly different route on occasion.  I'm not saying it's shorter or a better route....just that it'd open up the conversation to the idea that they never considered country-road 11 or the route through the national forest.  

I got into a talk once in the 1990s....with two Air Force guys.....one from California (central region) and one from rural Iowa.  Same route chatter.  The California guy indicated this was much more intense there....while the Iowa guy admitted over a 200-mile path....there was only route-A, route-B, or route-C.

Somewhere around the 8th grade, we had a English class where you had write a brief description of where you lived from the school....usually meaning four changes of path...over a 15 minute drive. Yeah, it was a speech....more or less.  For about a week, this had been a talked-about project.  

We had this kid in the class...'Timmy'....who was looking for a 'A'-level description (the winner of the route 'talk').   

He discussed the matter with me, and I suggested....there were sixty different ways of getting to his house (something he'd never imagined).  Monday came with the task to give a talk (Teacher had figured 12 people per class) and we'd do this over Monday and Tuesday.  

Well....Timmy got up first, and gave a 15-minute summary of 50-mile path to his house (instead of the 3-mile, 60 second version). Yeah, he took you on a 'journey'....describing each bridge....each burger-joint....each gas station....each 'marker'.  

We had to extend the 'talk' stuff into Wednesday because of Timmy.

After this....I came to realize that there's always various ways of getting places, and the chatter is more of a saga....than anything else, if you make it like a Steinbeck novel.