robotnik2004 | Eat Your Automobile

Originally published at Route 96. You can comment here or there.

The Trip came about, basically, because for the first time in my life, I acquired a car that didn’t have to be home by midnight.

Rob at the Memphis Pyramid In the face of our planet’s global ecological crisis, more and more people are coming to realize that our society’s love affair with the automobile is an unaffordable luxury. Let’s face it: nearly all the everyday uses of our cars could be served just as well, if not better, by bicycles, superstitious native porters, and El Caminos. If I were Supreme Ruler of the World (and those of you that don’t think having gills would be cool can thank your lucky stars that I’m not), automobiles would be used for three purposes only:

High-speed chases.
Teen makeout sessions.
Monster cross-country road trips.

Fun as they are, #1 or #2 would make for a very short zine–so road trippin’ it was!

(The rest of the cars could be turned into attractive roadside sculpture, or better yet, put to productive use as giant battling robot dinosaurs!)

Pete on a rooftop in Vancouver My fellow travelers were my old school homeboys, Peter and Derek. On hearing this, many skeptics and nabobs predicted disaster: that the plan would fall through, that somebody would weasel out at the last minute, or worse yet, that nobody would weasel out and we’d all drive each other freaking crazy. But none of those things happened–and really, I could imagine no better trio of Jenkinauts, no group more prepared for a four week soak in the fabulous stupidity of America. We didn’t have a planned route or an itinerary or any candy-ass TripTik, but we did share a vision: we were looking for American cheese.

I don’t mean that literally, of course. We weren’t looking for those individually wrapped Velveeta slices of extruded plastic that turn an everyday hockey puck into a Royale With Cheese. What we looking for was cheesiness.

Derek on Highway 666 Now, man does not live on cheese alone. (Or if he does, he’d better sleep with a window open.) [2006 Edit: Oh man. Fart jokes already? Read charitably, folks. Keep in mind I wrote this ten years ago.] Our eyes were always open for natural wonders–obvious jaw-droppers like the Grand Canyon and them big trees in California, but also the surprising beauty of places like New Mexico and the Ozarks. We wanted to party in hipster cities like San Francisco, Vancouver, and of course Columbus, Ohio. But the real raison de trip was the roadside attraction. You know what I mean: all those places your parents refused to stop on childhood vacations. The Mystery Spots, the Drive-Thru Trees, the huge Firework and Lawn Ornament Emporiums.

If it was weird, we wanted to see it. If it was tacky, we wanted to buy it. If it was stupid, we wanted to experience it. If it was weird, tacky, and stupid–well, just read on…