On a variation from the Blues Brothers, it’s 2053 miles to Rolla, the car’s packed, gas tank three notches from empty. I’m wearing sunglasses, but it’s broad daylight and I’ve got a drowsy post-teenager sprawled across the passenger seat. Time to hit it.

Short version of the story is that Jeremy needs to be back at Missouri Sci & Tech for school on Monday. Most of his classes will be remote, but there’s a fair bit of blacksmithing and metallurgy that you just can’t do over Zoom. He’s moving into an off-campus apartment, which will reduce the outright plague risk, but being off-campus means he’ll need his car out there. Neither Devon nor I were excited about the idea of him driving it cross country alone, and I happened to be in the neighborhood, so here we are.

Besides, father-son road trips are the stuff memories are made of, right? And I think the last time he and I traveled together, he was small enough to lug under one arm.

I will reassure you that we’re going out well-prepared. We’ve got close to a dozen masks between us and about a liter of hand sanitizer in the center console. Full camping gear and a fantastical assortment of road food running the gamut from garden carrots fresh-picked by Devon this morning to French Army combat rations. You think I’m kidding.

Oh, and a sword. Or at least the start of a new sword Jeremy’s working on. So much stuff is easier to transport when you’re not flying.

Most importantly, we each have about 60 hours worth of audiobooks and podcasts, so we won’t have to actually talk to each other over the four days we’re planning to be driving. That’s how you make sure you’re still on speaking terms at the end of the trip, isn’t it?

I’ll likely be posting random roadside pics on Instagram, if you’re into that sort of thing. Stay tuned…