One of the reasons I insure my now-aged 2006 Mini Cooper with Hagerty is the ongoing enjoyment I get from reading their superb Drivers Club quarterly magazine. First of all, the issues are printed. This fact makes me think think back on the USGA’s defunct magazine, Golf Journal, surely one of the best golf periodicals ever and also a stinging example of the USGA’s lack of vision and why golf sucks. I have collected a handful of year’s worth of Drivers Club issues. I keep them in wooden magazine holders I’ve owned for decades. When the dedicated holders got full about a year ago I decided to purge the least-interesting past issue whenever a new issue arrived in my PO Box.

Wednesday is happy hour day (I say day because my friends at Institution don’t do HH every day but only on Wesnesdays and only from 4-6pm. Geez.) at Institution Ale and I made sure to bring my reading glasses so I could devour the issue in a hop and sunshine-augmented vibe. The issue was a little disappointing but I still read most of it. By the time I finished my one-and-done ON PINS & NEEDLES (Session IPA) I had closed the magazine, done with it and sure it was the latest issue not to make it into the vanishing space of my wood magazine holders. By the way, I don’t usually care for session IPAs but this one was excellent, while not at all like being hit over the head as are so many of the big-boned, broad-shouldered IPAs I typically enjoy. After leaving my empty glass on the bar I noticed a trash can and unceremoniously dumped the current issue of Drivers Club.

Then, I forgot all about it.

Until this morning.

While on my 30-minute drive to tennis I made a couple voice memos, two of them actually. After I finished the second recording my mind flashed to the day before and the trashed magazine. And then I remembered the largely subliminal urge that caused me to throw the magazine away.

There was an article in the magazine about a guy who set out in his crappy old Mitsubishi pickup / camper to visit some of the environs of California’s own, John Steinbeck. Something about the guy’s set up irked me. I may not have appreciated the Steinbeck works he focused on, especially Travels with Charley, but there was something else that kept me from reading an essay that might have been right up my reading alley. I know Steinbeck’s work well, having read all of his works (even his superb short stories) with the exception of East of Eden. I could easily do what this guy did (absent the mini-truck camper). What afflicted me was simple road trip envy.

Yes, we recently returned from my family reunion in the midwest.

Yes, we extended our trip with a three-day visit with my dear friend MIB in south-eastern Michigan.

And, yes, we hope to make it to Sacramento sometime this fall.

And, that was enough when it comes to travel for a while.

But, a true road trip is different. I haven’t been on one of those for years. To me, road trips differ significantly from simply traveling by car. One of the main differences is a lack of advanced hotel/motel reservations. This is especially doable when on one’s home turf, which I am whenever I am in California. Unless I’m way north of Redding, I’m more than happy to head for home if I can’t find anywhere to stay. A big challenge for me is finding places in California I’ve not been before or places I’ve forgotten about or would actually like to visit. A friend of mine just got home from riding the historic Skunk Train in Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg is a weak maybe while the Skunk Train is a big probably not.

Even though I’m not excited by the prospect of riding a near-silent rail car I would like to spend some time in California in the 300+ miles from Fort Bragg to Medford, Oregon. Here I am thinking of the Trinity National Forest and the Six Rivers National Forest.

But now the calendar says September and that makes me wonder when we will have the chance to take another road trip.

I hope it’s soon.

In the meantime, I wonder if I can find a copy of the current issue of Hagerty Drivers Club on Ebay?