Let’s go on a road trip with a Young Dude I used to know and become our 9-year-old selves. It’s May. Temperatures in New England are rising, so we’ll take the Enzo Ferrari out of storage.

Young Dude will be our driver; we are placing him in command of the super sexy cockpit. Our Enzo Ferrari is red. SO RED. (Believe it or not, Young Dude and his dad know the owner of this dream machine—one of only 400 to ever be created on Earth.)

Blessedly, it’s 2018 and roadways still exist for the classic pleasures of motorcar cruising. We won’t be alone on the roads because as soon as the fruit trees are blooming and the honeybees are zooming in the northeast—upsy daisy go the garage doors of car enthusiasts everywhere and from those protective chambers emerge some of springtime’s most beautiful babies—born when art, design, and beauty feathers a nest with power, speed, and technology.

Young Dude plans to catch frogs, turtles, and snakes along our routes. If we drive past rock shops he’ll pull over so we can all take a look, though we all prefer finding rocks and fossils on our own. As for snacks, we’ll be totally bummed if seasonal ice cream shops aren’t open yet.

Our driver Young Dude is an Uber Dreamster. He dreams all the time. He dreams unconsciously and deliberately and, some would say, irresponsibly. Young Dude is driven more by his dreams than his grades and it appears he is on track to flunk out of fourth-grade. If that happens, we are down with blasting into the sunrise with him. In fact, we’ve hatched a plan to drive our Enzo off the cliffs of Schafer Canyon Road in Canyonlands National Park, which would be more like a runway for the Enzo because everyone knows our Enzo can fly.

(Note to driving enthusiasts everywhere: Schafer Canyon Road in Canyonlands National Park in Moab, Utah is a still-surviving terrifying roadway. If you haven’t already done so, drive it before they pave it, put up guard rails, and install a toll booth. Our family did it in a big Yukon. A complete and memorable white-knuckle frightfest.)

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After our road trip, Young Dude drives the Enzo Ferrari to school where he glides the work of art into a conspicuous parking place in the center of the playground.

He gets us to school just in time for English class.

The teacher hands out a writing assignment.

Ready? Remember, we are nine years old and we are trapped in the fourth grade.

Here’s the prompt: Write about a magic stone that when you skip it across a pond, it comes skipping back to you. 

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Here’s Young Dude’s unedited story, penned when he really was nine years old (a long time ago) and he was my happily-obsessed-with-all-things-cars-trucks-planes-and-trains son.

Dude and the Awesome Pebble

     Once in a strange time, there was a weird place called Dudeland. Everyone wore sunglasses, Hawaiian T’s, and shorts and greased back hair. And there was a curious little 9-year-old called Dude McDude. He loved Lamborghini’s and Porsche’s and Ferrari’s and any other kind of sports car. He had a friend called Dudical O’Dude. One of their favorite things to do was to swim and skip pebbles. So here is the radical story about Dude and the awesome pebble!

One day, Dude and Dudical went for a ride in Mr. McDude’s radical Baja Beast. They were headed for a lake in Lamborghini Land. After about fifty billion light years, they were at the stoked lake. They immediately put on their Hawaiian-designed swim shorts and jumped in to play a game of “Lamborghini Diablo.”

They saw all kinds of fish: the Dudefish, Dudish Idol, Picasso Dude, HammerDude Shark, AngelDude, and the Puffing Dudey.

When they were done swimming, they started to skip pebbles. Dude skipped two, then Dudical skipped two. Dude skipped his third. It did three skips—but then began to skip backwards! He pondered. Stumped, he put the stone in his pocket, walked up the sandy beach, and left.

That night, he remembered the stone. Did it really mean something? Yes! He knew it did! He pulled the pebble out of his pocket. Whoa! It was glowing silver in the shape of a Diablo SV! He passed out and fell asleep.

The following morning, he woke up and looked out the window. The sky was blue, the grass was green, the driveway was filled with Diablos…wha…Diablos?! He took the pebble out of his pocket again. But it was now glowing red in a Porsche shape! He looked out into the backyard and saw…Oh Boy…

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Oh Boy is right.

My life as mom to a natural born automobile enthusiast has been enriched by my son’s quests for speed, gorgeous design, and history as told through the stories of people affected by similar, lifelong passionate pursuits. Therefore, last year my husband and I finally reserved a patch of lush green grass on the infield of the race track at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut for three days of camping with some of the most beautiful cars still being driven—physically and mentally—by Uber Dreamsters fast around a race track. We set up our gypsy glam wagon while our son set up a tent amid BMW’s, Porsches, and exotic British Sports Cars. It was Labor Day Weekend when Lime Rock Park hosts Historic Festival and although we’ve been going to Lime Rock Park since my son was a little boy, we’d never attended Historic Festival.

The festival is jammed with vintage car races, vintage race car and sports car parades, car auctions, and an event I recommend to all: Sunday in the Park—Concours d’Elegance and Gathering of the Marques. This is a special experience where more than 300 vintage automobiles along with their histories (as told by their devoted owners) are on display around the racetrack in a setting that becomes an interactive outdoor concert of story telling, wishing out loud, and gratitude—because it is always restorative to my soul to meet other  people who are willing to share their passions. It is also always fascinating to have history revealed through the front windshields and rearview mirrors of vintage cars and the goggles of devoted drivers. It rained hard for Sunday in the Park so I couldn’t use my camera to photograph the magnificent motorcars. But I did take some random pics during racing events on the sunnier days of the weekend.

If you or someone you love is an automobile enthusiast, you will understand how much I have enjoyed my newfound car-influenced experiences, all of which enhanced my life when I had a boy who loved cars and, through his undying obsessions, inspired me to become a bit cuckoo for them too. (Full disclosure, Matchbox cars and Hotwheels were some of my favorite toys when I was a little girl.)

It is indeed finally springtime in the northeast. As I notice flowering trees and shrubs, I am also smiling at the blooming of pretty cars zipping around on the roadways. As I listen to the spring peepers and wood frogs, I am also tuning in to the wistful conversations of winter-weary folk dreaming up plans for summertime road trips with unknown destinations.

Yet I can’t help but sense that there are, in our super-speedy modern world, spring breezes blowing in new directions. I wonder…how many more seasons will we hear the rumbling engines of drivers venturing out and about for breathtaking exhilaration on the open road? Or the calm cruise of country drives? Or the excitement of life-changing road trips that puts them in the cockpit of a motorcar where they take control over journeys that don’t need predetermined finish lines?

It’s true, self-driving cars hum on our horizons, ready to transport lazy minds and worn-out souls to nowheres. All I can think is this: How could such a machine ever know that as soon as life says you need to put the brakes on those dreams, it’s time to step on the gas?

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Labor Day Weekend Historic Festival.

Bucolic Lime Rock Park, Connecticut. Trackside camping.

Our campsite.

 

My son and I trackside.

 

In the evenings, we rode our bikes around the racetrack as the local fauna made brave crossings on the now-quiet track.

 

The legendary, super elite Enzo Ferrari.

 

In the evenings, after dinner, music other than the sounds of tuned engines by my son and his dad.

 

When my son was not yet 12 years old, everyone looked the other way at Lime Rock and allowed him to try Endurance Karting for the first time in a field of racers much older and more experienced. The race was faster and more serious than I thought it would be.  The newbie racer finished fourth to his father’s and his father’s friend’s second-to-last and last place finishes. I was glad when that ended well.

 

For his 21st birthday, I made my son a monster truck cake. (Donuts for the wheels.) We gave him a day of racing instruction at Lime Rock Park with professional drivers. He had to get his car track ready and show up before the sun was up and the fog had lifted for inspection. Then, he spent the day alternating class room instruction with on-the-track fast and intensive racing. He had one spin out which probably scared only me. Curious, I asked his driver to take me as a passenger during one of the professionals only races. The ride, without a doubt, was the most terrifying experience I have ever had. I didn’t like it at all. Nevertheless, I gained awareness and appreciation for the focused mind and intensely-skilled reflexes of a race car driver and the unbelievable heat a race car’s tires produce after speeding around a track!

Ready to learn how to race.

Leading the pack.

Sun setting over Lime Rock Park. Another day with cars when all ended well.

Another experience of car racing lore which taught me respect for a race car driver’s necessary combinations of healthy body, healthy mind, speed, skill, and intelligence came my way on top of “America’s Mountain” in Colorado. Pike’s Peak is known for inspiring Katharine Lee Bates to write “America the Beautiful.”  It is also where the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (“Race to the Clouds”) takes place offering all drivers climbs to 14, 110′ in little over 12 miles with 156 serious curves. The tales of this race enticed me to ride bikes down the historic roadway with my husband. Even on a bike, the hairpin turns were nerve-wracking for me. I would love to watch someone drive a car up this road, fast. (The speeds at which they do it are beyond impressive.)

Electric race cars already conquer the Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb. The EV’s (Electric Vehicles) can make the climb without concern for the altitude changes, which had always been a factor throughout history due to the loss of power as internal combustion engines react to diminishing oxygen in higher altitudes. (I think. Or something like that.)

 

I gave my son’s first car, a Cozy Coupe, a new name for him: the Crazy Coupe. He could drive it without snow tires through New England’s most challenging snowstorms until spring.

 

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