2 #2
“Yes. I can imagine.” Miranda felt her stomach lurch as Joy pulled the big RV into traffic. But Joy didn’t even flinch when the driver behind her honked the horn. Maybe she thought that was for the brightly decorated RV too.
“So what kind of gas mileage do you get in this thing?” Miranda stared straight ahead with her fingers wrapped tightly around the armrests.
“About ten miles a gallon.”
“Wowzers.” Miranda watched with wide eyes as a big semi passed them on the left. Was there really enough room on the road for both of them?
“That’s when we’re not towing.”
“Towing?”
“A tow car. George and I used to pull a little SUV behind the motor home. You know, so we could park it and still have something to drive around in.”
To further distract herself, Miranda started doing mental math. Dividing ten mpg into their total distance, then multiplying that number by the current gas price was a bit staggering. “Do you realize it’s going to cost you around a thousand bucks to make this trip?”
“Sure. I have it all figured out. And that’s just gas. It’ll be about that much again for campsites and food.”
“Two thousand bucks for a road trip?” Miranda shook her head.
“It’s worth it, dear. This’ll be the trip of a lifetime.” She glanced over with a grin. “Besides, I got a real nice price for my house. I can afford this.”
“Right.” Miranda pointed at the road. “Better keep focused, Joy.”
Joy just laughed. “You’re just like George used to be.
At first anyway. After a while he’d sit back and relax.
That chair reclines. You can even put your feet up if you like.
” She pointed to a little quilted basket full of cassette tapes.
“Go ahead and put one of those in,” she told Miranda.
“I think we have enough Christmas music to get us all the way to Phoenix without even listening to the same album twice.”
Miranda pulled out a tape. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a girl. Do they really still work?”
“For the most part. There might be a couple in there that are stretched and worn in spots.” She chuckled. “A bit like me.”
With Christmas music playing merrily, they continued on down the freeway. Joy kept the speed down and drove in the slow lane, allowing the other lanes of traffic to whiz past her, but Miranda was relieved when they exited onto a highway with fewer lanes.
“This is it.” Joy pointed to a highway sign.
“Even though they don’t call it Route 66, this is where it begins.
They started building this road in the mid-1920s, but it was during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl that the road really got used.
A huge migration of folks looking for better days in California went right through here. ”
Miranda looked out at the perfectly normal-looking highway and tried to imagine people from the thirties in their loaded-up cars and trucks.
The only image she could come up with looked like a scene from The Grapes of Wrath, but that worked.
The Joad Family would’ve used Route 66 to get to the West Coast. Although it was probably just a two-lane highway back then.
After about an hour, Miranda felt considerably calmer.
Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. At least they were still on the road, and the sky was still clear, and Joy seemed to be in her element behind the wheel.
And sitting up high in the passenger seat looking out over everything was rather nice.
“So tell me, Joy, who are we going to visit and why?”
“We have six stops to make,” Joy began, “to see people I selected from a contest I held on my website.”
“When did you do that?”
“Mid-November. About the same time you went to assist your sister with her children and the new baby.”
“I can’t believe you set that up all by yourself with no techie help from me,” Miranda said. Joy usually depended on Miranda for new additions to the website. But Miranda had been trying to show Joy how easy it was to do some things herself.
“I just followed the directions you’d written out for me,” Joy explained. “It took me a lot longer than it would take you, but I eventually got it up.”
“Good for you!”
“The contest wasn’t anything fancy,” Joy continued.
“I didn’t know how to put up any of the fancy extras you’re so good at.
And no photos. I simply announced that I had a lot of great Christmas goodies that I wanted to give away.
I called it the My Route 66 contest, and I invited any deserving folks who lived along that route to contact me with their story. ”
“And you got a lot of responses?”
“A couple dozen altogether, but only six that qualified.”
“Well, six sounds like plenty.”
“Yes, six is more than plenty. I have it all scheduled in my book there.” She pointed to the red and green notebook on the dashboard.
“I had originally planned to leave a few days sooner than this. But there was so much preparation to be done. I can hardly believe it’s already mid-December.
So we’ll need to stick to the schedule and keep this road trip moving whippity-snap in order to accomplish everything before Christmas. ”
“You said the people were deserving,” Miranda said, pressing for more info. “How so?”
“Well, they’re all different. Kind of like apples and oranges and bananas and pears.
I guess you’ll just have to see them for yourself and decide.
But mostly they sound like regular folks who’ve fallen onto hard times .
. . for various reasons. Just everyday people who are not feeling too cheerful about Christmas this year. ”
“Kind of like me.” Miranda folded her arms in front of her.
“Yes, I suppose so.” Joy’s voice lilted. “Which is exactly why you are perfect for this trip, my dear.”
“How’s that?”
“You know how it feels to suffer, Miranda. You have developed great empathy.”
Miranda wasn’t too sure about this, but at least it sounded good.
She leaned back into the comfy seat and attempted to relax.
Maybe she’d been wrong to be so concerned about taking a trip like this.
Maybe it was just what she needed. Well, that and a good cup of coffee and some chocolate.
Because if she allowed herself to focus on the sorry state of her life, she would probably slip into a total meltdown.