Talking with my friend last week, he is looking forward to his 40th birthday in 2 years time. 

I’ve just had mine but missed any kind of mass celebration due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. I’m not one for having a birthday party in my honour but I’m a huge fan of nice restaurants and doing something that I wouldn’t normally get to do. 

Last year, Mrs. P bought me an Aardvark experience at Blackpool Zoo. It was fantastic. I got to go in their enclosure to feed and interact with them. We spent a lot of time at the zoo before my oldest 2 kids went to school and the Aardvarks really captured my heart. 

Several years ago Mrs. P really pulled it out of the bag and got me an Aston Martin driving experience at Silverstone. Absolutely amazing. These experiences are the best presents. 

Anyway, this year I kind of missed out on an adventure. Yes, I got my new snare drum, if you haven’t seen the unboxing video then please check it out on our YouTube channel, which is unbelievable but it would also would have been nice to have an experience too. Which is where my friend comes in. 

Like I said, his 40th is in 2 years so we’ve started planning. We floated some ideas about and decided the only way to celebrate properly is to have an epic trip away. Our ideas went from the fairly standard lads trip to Vegas. Jamaica was mentioned and then things got silly rather quickly. Apparently, there are good deals to Wuhan at the minute and I think North Korea was mentioned. Stupid boys. 

Vegas was a clear winner until inspiration hit me. ROAD TRIP! 

I love a road trip. Mrs. P and I spent our honeymoon driving down Route 66. Hands down the greatest holiday of my life and something I will definitely be doing again at some point. We had a red convertible Mustang and we lived the dream. Starting in Chicago, driving through Illinois, Missouri, cutting the corner of Kansas then the world seemed to change as we hit Oklahoma. We were quite literally not in Kansas any more. This is wild west country and as soon as you’re over the state line you can see and feel a complete difference. We couldn’t believe this was the same country. From there we went through Texas, I ate the biggest steak I’ve ever seen - 72oz (with Baked Potato, Shrimp Cocktail, Bread Roll and Side Salad) - into New Mexico taking in the old alignment up to Santa Fe then Arizona for the Grand Canyon and a massive Meteor Crater, which luckily landed at the end of Meteor Crater road - you couldn’t plan for such good fortune. We then took a detour up to Las Vegas and finally back down to Route 66 Through the Mojave Desert in California all the way to the Pacific coast where the route finishes at Santa Monica Pier. The whole trip was absolutely amazing. 

Music features so heavily in my life, obviously. I don’t just enjoy listening to it and playing it. I love the history of it, I love learning about its origins, I love learning about the evolution of my instrument so there is only 1 place to start our 40th (42nd) birthday road trip. 

New Orleans. 

From there, we will head north through the Mississippi Delta and take in as much of The Blues culture and history as possible, visit the crossroads in Clarksdale, see what deal I can get for my soul then on to Memphis and the home of The King. After Memphis we are going to head east across the great state of Tennessee to Nashville. The home of Country Music. I think I may also be persuaded for a trip even further east to Dollywood, well, you have to. Don’t you? 

Luckily, Mrs P is well on board with my buddy and me and hopefully another friend of ours heading out for our adventure/mid life crisis. I’ve got a good ‘un there. 

I’d love to know where you’ve been and where you’d love to go. Let’s take a trip together. 

Take it easy.