Like many a Cameron Crowe movie character before me, I am taking a road trip this summer to find my real dad. No just kidding, I know my real dad, but I really will be taking an awesome sort of cross-country road trip. That part was true. I’m accompanying my boyfriend, Greg, for the next few weeks and I’ll be keeping you updated on our road tripping status here in my column.

Arizona

I live in Arizona so it wasn’t so much a road trip for me as it was Greg, who drove seventeen hundred hours (give or take) from Texas just to see me (obviously, it is because not only am I very pretty but I also bake him cookies (and they are delicious)).

It was sort of fun to keep track of Greg as he called me from different parts of the country. It was like tracking Santa Clause on Google Maps, except instead of a little sleigh icon moving from state to state, he probably would have had a pair of wayfarers.

When he finally arrived he was exhausted but wanted to go somewhere for a bite before he poured himself into bed. Only one place came to mind so late at night on a Sunday in Arizona: the twenty-four hour grocery store.

Basically, my entire life revolves around this question: How many days in a row can I eat sushi? But also, when can we eat? And I love to go to a grocery store with my best friends and show them around as though I’m Ariel from The Little Mermaid in her treasure cove like, “Look at this stuff, isn’t it neat?” Because seriously, my grocery store has a grand piano in the Feminine Care section. It IS neat.

Since Greg and I live in different states and I like grocery shopping late at night, I call him a lot from the store. He talks me out of buying the gummi bears I want and then I tell him about who’s on People Magazine and he politely responds with things like, “Oh really?” when I know he has definitely not been keeping up with the Kardashians like I have.

I dragged Greg from aisle to aisle. Almost literally dragged. The kid had been driving all day. I’m surprised his legs even worked. I said, “Look at the organic cereals! Look at the entire row of Nutella!” It was a little like show and tell.

“What are you getting here?” he finally asks me after half an hour of wandering, ending in the bakery section (the pièce de résistance).
“Oh,” I say fiddling with at a box of cookies that looked really good to me at that late hour. “Nothing.”
“Did you need something?” Greg asks.
“No,” I say absent-mindedly, still kind of thinking about the cookies.
“So we’re just here to be here?” Greg seems confused, but I say, “Yeah, that’s the idea. Isn’t this place neat?” And he laughs, because he thinks I’m ridiculous and I don’t buy the cookies. The next night when he’s less tired, I take him to a bar instead of a grocery store so he can watch the Mavs win. Because I’m a good girlfriend like that.

Total Miles: 1,072

Featured image courtesy of Drew Coffman
Insert photo courtesy of Stephanie Sparer