I'm Adalimone and this is the slowdown.

I love a good road trip.

Well, to be honest, I love a road trip when someone else is driving.

Not because I don't like to drive.

I like to drive.

I just like staring out the window more.

I like pointing out the different crops, the different billboards along the roads.

When my husband and I first started dating, we took a short road trip from Redbank, New

Jersey to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

So much corn.

I pointed it out every time I saw it.

Corn, corn, corn, corn.

Until to my delight, I shouted Christmas trees.

There's something about the interstate highways, the different roadside diners and gas stations.

They're feeling when the landscape shifts entirely and you know you're someplace new.

I used to do book tours with two friends who are also poets.

If we had time before the reading, we'd stop at anything we'd find interesting along

the way.

The odd museums off the interstate, the original diner that supposedly invented the milkshake,

the good bookstores and small cities and towns, the record stores, the graveyards.

But even more than that, sometimes I just loved the open spaces.

That feeling when mountains or prairie land or forests felt like they were endless,

...