Road Trips

While I spent New Years Eve watching totally unnecessary amounts of Ugly Betty - my newest guilty pleasure - I saved new year's day to catch a movie I've long desired to see Little Miss Sunshine. Quirky story, incredible cast (Toni Collette, Steve Carrell as a gay Proust professor and Alan Arkin as a herion-addicted grandfather). The premise is a forced family roadtrip to take young daughter Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. The roadtrip in a yellow VW bus brought back memories of my family's travelling exploits. Not that my brother held a vow of silence, or that my Dad was a motivational speaker, or that a gay uncle tried to commit suicide.

Nothing of the sort. My family trips were gargantuan affairs, intricately planned and always, always focused on food. Matter of fact food played the key role in roadtrips. Starting with the Egg Filling sandwiches that Mom would wake at 3:00 am to make. Those and a large thermos of Ovaltine would set us off to Toronto or Ann Arbor or Daytona Beach. Dad, bleary-eyed but bossy would yell us into the old Chrysler that doubled as his taxi cab. With a prayer and a click off of the FOR HIRE sign, we'd be off. All trips began at the ungodly hour of 4:00 am, a time which my Dad fondly believed would relieve us of any traffic. And it usually did, for a few cities but when we arrived in the next state we'd be spot on time for rush hour in, say Virginia, or New Jersey.

Mom would hand out Egg Filling Sandwiches, which were comprised of onions, tomatos, scrambled eggs and hot green chilies. Yum! These were washed down with the afore-mentioned Ovaltine, seeing as how my family didn't partake of caffeine products like coffee. However, now that I am older and do partake of caffeine products, especially like coffee I can attest that coffee makes a far better accompaniment to those delicious sandwiches.