Soaking it all in

  It’s been a long time since I took a long-distance road trip. Obviously, with the price of gas these days, it might be a bit longer before I hit the road and head west or north. About 26 years ago, I took the trip of a lifetime. I had accumulated so many vacation days that I was able to take a whole month off from work. Back then, I lived in Miami, worked for a natural gas company and was a personal trainer as a side hustle, and there was a huge fitness convention in Las Vegas I wanted to attend to update my training credentials. I took out my atlas maps — this was before GPS, Siri and Alexa — and created a plan. The first part was driving from Miami to Chattanooga to spend a few days with my brother. My best friend was my travel buddy. We packed up our stuff and headed out. After visiting my brother, we headed west along I-40. The next destination was the Grand Canyon. We took turns driving and stopped at Motel 6s if we needed sleep. We also took side roads. I-40 runs parallel to Ol