Get Ready, Heartland. We’re on Our Way

Hair half-combed, we are heading off to see America, a formidable adventure, a car trip in the first degree.

“Dad smells kind of funny,” says my lovely and patient older daughter.

“That’s just Armor All,” her mother explains.

“It’s more like . . . bass bait,” says my older daughter, scrunching up her nose.

“It’s bass bait and Armor All,” her mother says.

For a week I have prepared the minivan, washing it thoroughly, then waxing it slowly with a soft cloth, like a pre-trip massage.

“Hear that?” I ask the boy.

“What?” the boy says.

“It purred,” I tell him, rubbing the fender.

“The car?” he says.

“There it is again,” I say.

“What?”

“Listen.”

“What?”

“It purred.”

*

Now the white minivan waits in the garage, front-end facing out, so we don’t have to back out of the driveway when we leave. We’ll just roar off down the street and up onto the interstate, our sights set on the heartland.

“No going backward,” I explain to the boy after I back the car in.

“Only forward, right, Dad?” he says.

“Exactly,” I say. “Only forward.”

Dads are nuts for road trips, have been for generations now, their frontier instincts rising like a bad rash each July and August, when they retreat to the garage to prepare the family wagon, giving it the annual physical: tires, plugs, battery, fluids.

“Maybe I should paraffin the seats,” I tell my wife.

“Wax?” she asks.

“To protect them from kids,” I say.

“Don’t wax the seats,” she says.

“OK, I’ll paraffin the kids,” I say.

We’ve done this once before, sailed across America in this Honda minivan, surviving on truck-stop candy and a hundred roadside cheeseburgers, some with pickles.

Liked it so much, we’re trying it again. Same minivan. Same country. Same dad.

“Dad, they have airplanes now,” my older daughter informs me.

“You’re kidding?” I say.

“I’ve seen them, Dad,” says the little girl, an expert on air travel.

“Now you tell me,” I say.

“So we’re flying?” the boy asks.

“We’re driving,” I say.

We’re driving because I like driving. We’re driving because I like going up the Continental Divide, then gliding back down the other side, gravity at our backs. We’re driving because I’m cheap.

“What about the tomatoes?” my wife asks.

“We’ll bring the tomatoes,” I say.

“Dad, we can’t bring the tomatoes,” the boy says.

“Someone will watch the tomatoes,” I say.

We will leave early. Vegas by 10. Utah by noon. In three days, Chicago.

We will leave early because guys always leave early. Your dad left early. His dad left early. Davy Crockett and Kit Carson, they left early--on the road by dawn, vowing to beat the traffic.

“I’ll bet Charles Kuralt left early,” I tell the boy as we check the radiator hoses.

“Who?” asks the boy.

“Charles Kuralt,” I say.

“Who’s Charles Kuralt?”

“A guy who left early,” I tell him.

So I tell him that this trip may be our tribute to Charles Kuralt, a man who appreciated the open road for what it was: a page unturned, a poem waiting to be read.

In Utah, we will see an old drive-in. In Colorado, a river or two. In Des Moines, their eccentric Uncle Jack.

Then finally Chicago, that lush and beautiful city by the lake, with oak leaves so soft they’ll hold your fingerprints.

“You guys ready?” I ask the kids.

“Yes,” says the little girl.

“No,” says my older daughter.

“Maybe,” says the boy.

And with that hearty endorsement, off we go to see America.

“I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry out in the night, and the eyes into which I smile in the morning,” I tell my wife, toasting our trip with a can of 7-Up.

“What’s that?” she asks.

“An old Celtic wedding vow,” I tell her.

“Why?” she asks.

“Why not,” I say.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” my older daughter asks, sensing that something unexpected just happened.

“I think your father just married me again,” her mother says as she climbs into the minivan, a double wife.

“Congratulations, Mom,” our daughter says.

“Thanks,” she says.

See you in a couple weeks.

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.