{"id":94,"date":"2009-03-16T11:01:25","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T12:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/blog\/?p=94"},"modified":"2022-04-27T22:25:20","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T02:25:20","slug":"on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/on-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/e54brx69fnk.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/thuri_road-150x150.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&w=2560&ssl=1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-920\" title=\"thuri_road-150x150\" src=\"https:\/\/e54brx69fnk.exactdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/thuri_road-150x150.jpg?strip=all&lossy=1&ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Their life was struggle; their lot was war. Did Spartacus and his followers ever feel the simple thrill of the open road? On an afternoon when things kept going wrong until I sat behind the wheel of a car on the highway, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder.<\/p>\n<p>It began in Boston\u2019s Logan Airport, waiting for the shuttle to LaGuardia Airport in New York. I turned on my laptop, or tried to. Instead of a bright screen I got three high-pitched sounds. I tried again and again but nothing doing. Well, that\u2019s what airplane books are for.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>After starting a Dean Koontz novel on the flight to New York City, I was looking forward to finishing its high-wire chase on the connecting flight home. But the flight to Ithaca was canceled and there were no seats on any planes to nearby cities. I couldn\u2019t imagine summoning up the energy to rent a car, white-knuckle it through New York City traffic and over the hills home.<\/p>\n<p>No laptop. No book. No flight.<\/p>\n<p>Throw away that airplane ticket! I drove across the George Washington Bridge and felt like a million dollars. I stopped for a tuna sandwich in a New Jersey diner and strolled back to the car. Old rock and roll played on a tinny radio as the sun set. It was Sunday night and the road was open.<\/p>\n<p>A few hours later, the odyssey ended, as odysseys should, in Ithaca. It was a chilly spring night. The town\u2019s cockeyed charm lay silent under a starry sky, with Orion\u2019s belt all aglow. No legionaries lay in wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[392],"tags":[260],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}