"Trying to find the latitude and longitude of the nearest pie."

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 11:37 Written by Lisa Anjozian Tuesday, 17 January 2012 00:00

A road trip always begins with at least two elements: a traveler and a conveyance. The traveler may be going solo, the conveyance may be a sedan, and the destination may not necessarily be predetermined. But one thing that is predetermined is the desire, or need, to go somewhere. Another element of a road trip is the search for comforts along the way. This is especially true, and more insistent, the longer the trip is. Certain biological needs must be attended to, and hunger is a powerful force that drives discoveries of country fresh fruit, shoreline crab cocktails, a city’s simmering soups.

Slow travel—relatively slow travel—by car allows you to see the topographical changes that an air travel hopscotch of latitude parallels and lines of meridian doesn’t permit. Slow travel also heightens any craving for quotidian fare that the mind decides is more critical the more miles are traversed. I have discovered this any time I’ve hit the road in the very early morning, hoping to find a roadside establishment where I can secure something as complicated as a cafe latte instead of settling for a cup of joe. Sometimes a barrier appears, such as an ocean, necessitating backtracking. Desire for the juice of a burned bean has contributed to my driving endurance.

Distance—of time and space—from the usual and accessible foods we consume expands like rising yeast dough to fill nearly every corner of our waking thoughts until the craving is finally satisfied through some half-baked idea to drive another 100 miles to a town big enough to have a population that could support a market, a restaurant, a cafe.

Satisfying a food craving is also apparently powerful enough to open a mind previously closed to science. When John Wesley Powell made his first run down the Colorado River in 1869 with some mountain men as part of his geographic expedition team, the mountain men bitterly complained of the delays Powell and his scientists took in making measurements and recording data, and locating lost trails on clear, star-filled nights by dead reckoning. But after sodden and slogging weeks, Powell found one of the mountain men had a change of attitude. In his report on the trip, Powell writes, “While we are eating supper, we very naturally speak of better fare, as musty bread and spoiled bacon are not pleasant. Soon I see Hawkins down by the boat, taking up the sextant, rather a strange proceeding for him, and I question him concerning it. He replies that he is trying to find the latitude and longitude of the nearest pie.”

The desire for crust and confection as a route to exploring the fruits of science.