Assassination Vacation blog post

I listened to Assassination Vacation on tape as I drove through what felt like all the most boring parts of the Midwest. I enjoy learning about history, of course – but Sarah Vowell gets more excited about history than I think I ever will. She doesn’t just like the big picture stuff, or the fun stories, or the connections to the modern day; she writes equally enthusiastically about plaques in little towns where some President once stood. For a long time as I listened, I was just happy to be on my own road trip, where I didn’t have to stop and see every single site there was to please someone else.

But I have to admit, Assassination Vacation got to me. I was in sort of a bad mood, driving through this big, empty part of the country, wondering how long it would take me to get somewhere interesting. I couldn’t understand how Sarah Vowell got all excited about these middle-of-nowhere spots. But at some point, something clicked – there aren’t any empty, boring parts of the country. Something happened everywhere. In every single place I could possibly drive through, people had been born and had died and had lived full lives in between. So I started paying more attention, and all of a sudden, the long drive brightened. In little diners and bars, I asked locals to tell me about their respective towns, and I was not disappointed. Even places with no major presidential assassinations or anything had their points of pride and odd lore: one town I drove through supplied all its own water from a well the townspeople had dug at its founding; another claimed to be the pickle capital of America. The rest of my week was fascinating. It was a good reminder of why I’m out here on the road in the first place.