Road Trip, Summer 2011: Route 66.

My youngest son, Max. is taking my beloved Saab 9 3 convertible back to Los Angeles with him for his final year at the University of Southern California. I'm devastated but it's definitely a car that is happier in LA. (Max calls it his little Swedish spaceship.) And a perfect excuse for a Road Trip.

This is not the Saab's first 2,000 mile excursion to SoCal. In late December 2006, my husband, oldest son and I drove my then new (to me) car-baby from Illinois to Santa Monica where I was starting a new job in January. Unfortunately, the timing was bad. We hit Amarillo just as a terrible storm bore down on New Mexico. The state closed down the main highway, but in our zeal to reach the coast, we cut south and took two lane roads through the storm. Two days later, we arrived on the other side, into Arizona, with the Saab having performed admirably but looking like this:

So although I'm currently watching a dust storm from my hotel room in Holbrook, Arizona, this road trip has been much less stressful!

Other than my trepidatious 2006 voyage, I've been along the Route 66 corridor before, long ago when my boys were young, my husband was in the Army and we were moving from Illinois to Ford Ord (we always seem to end up back in Illinois, I don't know why, we don't have any family there!). But Max doesn't have any memory of that trip and it also took place in winter, so this time around it's a different adventure.

Next post, day 1.