- Ms Kaye is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Mary Carlisle is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Prem Gill is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
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- Vincent Strgar is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Helen Spiegelman is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Subir Guin is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Kimball Finigan is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- Joanne Manley is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
- David Leach is a Tyee Builder. You can be, too.
End of the Road
What to listen to when love, vacations and jobs hit the wall.
How to survive when the yellow brick road stops.
Even the greatest road trips must come to an end. (Even if you're following a band around the continental U.S., the party only lasts as long as the band does.) And that end is always where you began, because, I think we can all agree, a one-way road trip is not a road trip. Even moving across the country isn't a road trip. It may be a journey; it may be a life-changing, soul-affirming event; however, a road trip it is not. Road trips must come full circle. (I think I read that on Wikipedia, which means it must be true.)
Listen to this:
If you left in love and are still in love (there is only one choice): Hawksley Workman's "Safe and Sound"
If you left in love and are now not talking Blur's "No Distance Left to Run", and Feist's "Let it Die"
If you left angry and are now at peace: Meg Baird's "Do What You Gotta Do" (The only link I could find was set to clips of Elizabethtown and I cannot, in good conscience, ask you to watch Orlando Bloom wooing Kirsten Dunst, even to listen to this great song.)
If you left angry and are still quite angry: Marilyn Manson's "Beautiful People"
If you needed to get away, even for just a moment, and managed to find a place where you can accept who you are and what you must do: The Dodos' "Fools"
In any event, that end is always bittersweet.
On the one hand, those hours in the car have probably made you feel more cloistered than a ninth century monk. And regardless of whether or not you've stayed in the finest hotels, your clothing and physical being will still manage to smell, shall we say, funky.
Even if you've had a deeply meaningful bonding experience with your car-mates, let's be honest -- two weeks in a car is more than enough time to spend with people you like; never mind people you may have begun to hate. Like Bible college students who end up being atheists, the proximity generated by a road trip will have the concurrent effect of bringing you closer to your friends than you've ever been, and making you want to not see them for a long, long time.
Right about now you might be wondering, is this column going to be about music? Is this even a column? And, what's for dinner? Those are all valid questions. The answers: everything is about music; it is a columnella; and you took the pork chops out of the freezer, and I recommend a side dish of grilled asparagus.
Related Tyee stories:
- Spring Road Trip!
Songs for the beginning of your journey. - Songs for the Road (of Life and Asphalt)
Escape with some sing-along, filth and a good beat. - Music to Soothe Us in Troubled Times
Bush, sub-prime and Nancy Grace require good soft rock.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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James Burns
4 years ago
ya know I always thought a
ya know I always thought a road trip meant you went somewhere on a road. ya know road and trip... kinda gives it away.
As for trips with friends, and how worthwhile they are... it really depends on the friends. While not a road trip, I've gone to Cuba with others from Vancouver... not an experience I would repeat unless I know they've either traveled there before, and loved it, or have gone without some of the convenience they are used to here, and won't bitch endlessly about not having it.
realisticman
4 years ago
Yo Bro
Did you go to Cuba with a bunch of right wing silver spoon ingrates?
I've often thought that some of those that constantly complain about Vancouver should take a vacation in somewhere like North Korea or Burundi - and get a perspective.