The magic of smells...

When I went to get the mail yesterday at work, I noticed as I walked into the mail room a very strong familiar smell. While most people take caffeine pills, drink a good Dr. Pepper or Mt. Dew, or simple turn on the AC or roll down the windows, my dad as long as I can remember has eaten corn nuts to stay awake while he is driving. The smell is unmistakable, and I can't say the most pleasant either. But every time I even catch the smallest whiff, I am instantly transported back to our long family trips across the country. Every year we made the long journey across the country either from Florida to Idaho, or Illinois to Idaho or Arizona. Driving at least 10 hours in a day. These trips were always filled with mini adventures. I remember sticking a butter knife in seat cushions pretending like I was a pilot flying some sort of space craft, especially when we drove at night. I was always off on some crazy adventure in my imagination even though we may have been driving through the middle of Kansas. One of the things that I loved as a kids about these long trips, was the candy bag. My mom let each of pick out candy for the trip. Which very often included tootsie rolls, smarties, and little sweet tarts. These trips were some of the greatest bonding moments for my family. Including the time that my younger brother sliced foot open in the camper, blood gushing everywhere. Or when we pretendedmade news recordings on a very ghetto tape recorder. Or the time that we had the whole movie The Princess Bride memorized, so we muted it and each person in the car took a part and we said the lines of the whole movie. There are many more memories that I have from these trips, which I made add later. But it never ceases to amaze me how smells have
the affect of instantaneously triggering memories.