Road Trip. Always an exciting thought. When I was growing up we did not have a car until I was 10 so my life was one of public busses. But then the Easter break of my 5th grade year, off we drove to Florida from our home in Yonkers, NY, just outside of New York City. I still remember taking off at 6 am and driving the Jersey Turnpike. The first breakfast somewhere in Maryland. Much of the trip was off highway and I looked at all the fancy motels. Maybe someday, I thought, I’d get to stay in one of those –you know the kind. Big pillars. The motels all had a theme – desert oasis, wagon wheel inn. No red roof inns or motel 6. Imagine my mouth hanging open when I was told we would stay at one those palaces. 38 years later and I do not remember one detail about that first night’s motel. But I do remember searching for a restaurant for dinner and ending up in a town that was clearly quite segregated. I remember those bathroom doors and drinking fountains that said white and colored. Since I went to an integrated school, fully 1/3 of my elementary school was of color, this was a history lesson that taught on an on. I honestly think that my very Republican parents, had no idea that this was probably laying the foundation for my Democratic liberalness. Sort of makes our racial gaffs now seem little indeed compared to placing an entire group of people in separate and in no way equal living conditions. But that’s what a road trip is about. Seeing the details of life. Seeing what you don’t know, are not familiar with and at times are a life changing lesson.