Here’s the back story. Daughter #2, Heather, had recently finished an internship and secured a real job as an archaeologist in the Canyon de Chelly area of Arizona. Hurrah for gainful employment! She has been doing some pretty cool stuff.
Heather had been bumming rides off friends all summer, but as fall approached they were heading back to their colleges or hometown. Isolated in the middle of Navaho Nation, Heather needed her car. Now a logical person would either a) tell Heather to fly home and pick up her car or b) tell her to buy a used one locally or c) find someone or some service to drive her Toyota to Arizona. Instead, we decided on a late summer adventure. We drove Heather’s car out to her and flew back.
According to Google Maps, the trip would be 2458 miles in 36 hours of driving at an average of 68.28 mph. Three hard days? Three days of four-lane wide roads, blurred interstate signs, monotonous rest area food, mindless following of taillights, brutal tedium.
If it had been the beginning of the summer, and we could take four weeks to travel the Blue Highways or bring Thor, our golden retriever, along and do our version of Travels with Charlie, but we only had a week before I had to go back to school myself, so I plotted out five days to traverse 3/4 of the country. Not a leisurely trip, but we’ll get off the interstates along the way.
I’ve had thoughts of this project/trip brewing for that past three years. It started one day when I Googled “Concord” and was amazed at the number of places that share my home town’s name. There are Concords everywhere! The largest is Concord California, followed by Concord North Carolina and Concord New Hampshire. I started wondering what all these Concords have in common? Was there some connection to the original Concord: Concord Mass? Were the first settlers looking to find a bit of peace and quiet? Does the name fit today? My curiosity built as I continued to learn about my own town’s history. I became a licensed town guide. I read as much as I could about our local history, but still all those other Concords, those Concords with a population of 21, those Concords that no one had ever heard of, enchanted me.
So the first phase of our project took shape; Liz and I were to deliver Heather her car, but we visited as many towns named Concord as we could squeeze in during our five days on the road. As we prepared to depart, I could tell Liz wasn’t too keen on this. She would rather just get to Arizona and see The Darling Daughter, but she was being a good sport, (at least to start!) Would there be concord or discord as we turn a 2400 mile road trip into a 3000+ mile meander?