by Richard
The end has come. We’re finished. Sarcasmo and I finished off our 10-day, seven-school college road trip. And, to top it off, neither of us attempted to kill the other. Well, at least as far as Sarcasmo knows, that’s true. We’ll just let him keep thinking that.
All told, we drove one thousand, two hundred eighty three miles during those 10 days. That averages out to about 120 miles each day. You know, this is the first time I actually sat down and thought about that. That’s a whole lot of driving. And odder than that, we spent three days in one place and two days in another so we weren’t driving during those days. Well, not much anyway.
The whole purpose of this trip was to give Sarcasmo some idea of what different colleges were like, as well as what colleges and universities emphasized which majors. Before this trip, Sarcasmo had no idea what university he wanted to attend nor what major he wanted to try and enter. Now that the trip is done, well it’s a whole different story. Out of the seven schools, Sarcasmo has definitely eliminated only 1. AS to majors, he’s still got no idea, but maybe something in engineering. Or not.
So, yeah. Job well done on the college road trip front, yeah?
At the end of all this, what did we learn? Well, to start with, Sarcasmo loved Clemson University until we were driving out of the college on our way to the University of South Carolina. That’s when he realized that the nearest bookstore to Clemson was more than a 40-minute drive. Didn’t matter that there was Amazon.com and other online bookstores, he wanted to real thing, so goodbye Clemson.
Did you know that the first thing you see at the University of North Carolina when you’re walking from the visitor’s parking lot to the Admissions building was a cemetery? True story. And, yeah, that’s pretty much what made Sarcasmo scratch that school off his list. Just a bit too creepy.
College of Charleston? Spread out over too many actual city streets. Sarcasmo was afraid of the possibility of getting run over by a bus when he was on his way to class.
Sarcasmo wasn’t the only one who learned things during this trip, though. I learned that he’s not my actual clone. When given a choice between chocolate and vanilla, he’ll go with chocolate while I love a good vanilla. There. Big difference.
We also had a good time during our hotel stops. We’d eat out, read a little back at the hotel, make fun of the movies playing on tv, read a little more and then sleep. I like to think we drew a little closer during the trip, but that’s not something you can really ask a 16-year-old. I’m going to have to go with my intuition on this one.
When we got home, Sarcasmo was happiest that his brother, Zippy the Monkey Boy, would be doing something similar next summer. Unfortunately, we’ve got bad news for the oldest dude. Seems his brother already pretty much knows where he wants to go and what he wants to study so his road trip will, of necessity, be much shorter. Thank goodness.
Tags: A Dude's Guide to Kids, Aftermath, Amazon, books, Bookstore, City Streets, college, College Of Charleston, Colleges, Colleges And Universities, Day Seven, Different Story, driving, dude, Job, love, Majors, Man, math, Monkey Boy, movie, North Carolina, Online Bookstores, Parking Lot, richard, Road Trip, sarcasm, Sarcasmo, school, sleep, South Carolina, Spent Three, study, summer, True Story, Universities, University Of North Carolina, University Of South Carolina, Whole Lot
Okay, please say one of your dudes will end up a Gator!!