#843 Getting out of the car after a really long trip

Neil Pasricha

Might not be stopping for a while

I spy, with my little eye, something that starts with U.

If you guessed Uncomfortably Long Car Trip, you got it, baby.

Yes, maybe you’re in a Backseat Squeeze for hours, one leg on each side of the Floor Hump, your bladder clenched tightly, holding on for dear life. Or maybe you’re slouching in shotgun in a blissful Game Boy Cocoon, headphones in your ears, video game system in your lap. Or maybe you’re driving the boat, steering the ship, mind on the road, eyes on the mirrors, just navigating carefully through the dangerous world of steep curves and sharp swerves.

Now you're playing with power

Whatever your situation, it sure does feel good when that tired car finally rolls to a slow stop at a fast-food joint or gas station.

That’s when you pop open the door and just stretch like you’ve never stretched before. Arms out, arms up, way up to the sky, just popping that back and twisting that neck in all directions while saying oooOOO a lot. Maybe squeeze up onto your tippy-toes, and feel the burn rise up your legs, those cold, clenched muscles getting a hot slap wake-up call. Yes, you can feel your hamstrings stretch long, stretch hard, crying out with tears of joy as freedom rings again.

Plus you finally get to pee.

AWESOME!

go-the-distance

Photos from: here, here, and here

25 thoughts to “#843 Getting out of the car after a really long trip”

  1. I am not the last person in the world with that black and white gameboy. That’s awesome.

  3. What’s also awesome is how after five hours in the car it feels so good to… get indoors at your destination and sit down. :D

  5. Whenever my wife and I go on long road trips, we’ll always bring a frisbee of a football in the back of the car, and stop from time to time and rest stops, and just toss the sports item of choice around for a bit. Great feeling to get the blood pumping into the muscles again.

    I get the same feeling at work when I’ve been sitting for 4 or 5 straight hours and finally stand up, and my legs cheer that they’re finally getting used again.

  7. When I stretch after 8 or 9 hours on the road between here and Litchfield, Pawley’s, or whichever beach I’m heading to that hasn’t been ruined by the unwashed masses, I generally make a sound like a pterodactyl. Voluntary? Involuntary? I don’t even know anymore.

  8. My last road trip was cross-country from East Coast to West Coast and back again. I went with two of my closest friends from grad school after we finished our last exams. AWESOME!

  10. Between 4th and 8th grade, my parents took my little brother, sister, and I on a series of very long road trips, either leaving Wisconsin in the biting cold to somewhere blistering hot (I promptly remember a wonderful trip around Southwestern US during Wisconsin’s definition of Spring) or leaving all of my friends over summer and going to places much more awesome (Alaska, “out east”…)

    You forgot something. Very long arguments made by children in the back seat, often resulting in someone biting/hitting/scratching somebody else and having your dad take you out of the car and yell at you. Of course, everything is resolved within 10 minutes because you can’t stand having the tension in the car anymore.

  11. Tears. Of. Joy. Definitely.

    & for me, it’s usually the laptop and the cocoon of work which I am basking in the ambiance of… or I’m guiding the mobile.

    And “are we there yet?” asked repeatedly of the driver. Hilarious for the asker, painful like a gunshot wound to the hand for everyone else.

  12. ahh the stretch when you get out, is like the morning stretches when you get up. bliss! in fact it makes me wanna go on a road trip now :(

  13. It feels great to stretch after a long car trip. My knees get locked up more as I get older if they don’t move for awhile.

  14. i HATE getting out after a long trip…your legs are all sweaty and going out makes them cold. and your undies are so far up your butcrack that one would think your wearing a g-string. unless you are.

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  19. A 1965 short version of “National Lampoon”, the youngest of 3, plywood teetering on the bump on the floor of an old Ford Falcon~my seat/bed/sister’s foot rest…from Vancouver, with a bad rad, 100+f temps, parent’s fighting and rattle snakes at pee stops, to visit relatives in Orange County, California. Yee-ha’, oh ya’, Stretch and “Catch A Falling Star!”

  21. Seems like it’s finally around to get warm again . It was a wild winter this year on county. Is seems just like spring time won’t come quickly enough.. Getting excited about the summertime months ahead ..

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