Roam-ance on the highways

Every now and then you stumble on a book, a movie or in this case an essay that so captures you or your way of life, of wanderlust, that you finish reading, or watching it in one go and feel good at the end. Much like you might feel after a meal of your favorite dish. Content.

So it was this morning as I scanned the WSJ or the Wall Street Journal, that clearly has expanded long ago beyond things happening on the stock exchanges, that I happened on an essay by the famed author Paul Theroux. I had briefly heard of him when a book he wrote about rail travel in Asia became popular.

Today I read an essay he wrote about road travel in America. Spot on. Below is the link to the essay online. You likely need to be a subscriber to read it in entirety but your local library should have free copies of the paper ed. Another way to get your hands on it is at your local Starbucks.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-romance-of-the-american-road-trip-1504281812

While reading you can almost hear the wind rustling past your car windows or the smell of a diner approaching the next bend or the amazing and always appetite stirring whiff of french fries at the next ramp on the interstate.

I also enjoyed the narrative about his train travels in India that I read in the The Great Railway Bazaar.

Some of the experiences were similar to mine when I backpacked and railroaded through the southern fringes of India a few summers ago from Vizag on the east coast down to the Cape and up along the west coast to Trivandrum.

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