Sunday, July 19, 2009

Cultral Tropes: Riding in Vehicles

On our way home from dinner tonight, Pete and I saw this great little MG convertible containing a guy and (probably) his son. It occurred to me that I don't think I've ever actually ridden in a convertible. I feel like I have. I've certainly seen enough of them and experienced it vicariously through TV and movies that this personal oversight has gone unmarked. That got me started on thinking about how many other vehicle-related cultural tropes there are that you might not actually ever experience without feeling any personal lack for not having done so. I'm going to start a list here of the ones I can think of. Maybe you have additions? How many of these things have you done? Have you ever thought, "Man, I'd really like to do that someday!" about any of them, or are these the kinds of things that no one ever really feels like they're missing out on? Here is my list. I've put an asterisk before the one's I've done.
  • *Drive in general
  • *Ride as a passenger in general
  • Ride in a convertible
  • *Ride in the back of a pick-up truck (in the bed)
  • *Ride in a limo
  • *Ride in a taxi in general
  • *Ride in a yellow cab in New York
  • *Ride in an old black taxi in London
  • *Be driven in a town car
  • Ride in an ATV
  • Ride a motorcycle
  • Ride a scooter/moped
  • *Ride a bicycle
  • Ride a tandem bicycle
  • Ride in a car with your feet out the window (My mom has a terrible story about someone doing this that results in a broken leg, so I could never bring myself to do it.)
  • *Ride a city bus
  • *Ride the subway in any city
  • Ride the subway in New York
  • *Take a San Francisco trolley
  • Ride in the Portland tram (gondola? what is that thing called again?)
  • *Ride in a funicular
  • Ride a Swiss gondola (the mountain kind)
  • *Take a train in the US
  • *Take a train in Europe
  • Ride a train from one state to another
  • *Ride a train from one country to another
  • *Sleep in the sleeping car of a train
  • Take the Trans-Siberian railroad
  • Take the Orient Express (Can you even do this anymore?)
  • *Drive from one state to another (Oregon to Washington doesn't count, Oregonians. And Virginia/Maryland/DC doesn't count, DC-area people.)
  • *Drive across the US
  • *Drive across a country other than the US
  • *Drive between countries
  • Drive between countries other than the US and Canada
  • *Ride a ferry
  • *Drive your car onto/off of a ferry
  • Take a cruise
  • *Canoe
  • Kayak
  • Whitewater raft
  • Ride in a speedboat (Maybe? I don't think so, but I'm not sure)
  • *Ride in a rowboat
  • Ride in a Dragonboat
  • Ride in a sailboat
  • Ride in a Venetian gondola (Had the opportunity; couldn't bring ourselves to do it)
  • *Take the Sternwheeler
  • Ride in a Mississippi riverboat
Well, that's probably good enough. I probably shouldn't have bothered with the boats. In any case, I hope it's at least food for thought.

1 comment:

Joe Streckert said...

I'd add a few:

-Take the Shinkansen (bullet train)
-Ride in a small aircraft
-Take a seaplane and land on the water
-Ride in a big-rig truck
-Fly in a plane, in general
-Fly across an ocean
-Fly first class
-Ride in a balloon
-Drive Route 66
-Drive through the Lincoln Tunnel
-Drive in L.A. during rush hour
-Fly in the back of a cargo plane that doesn't have proper seats installed
-Fly in a helicopter
-Take a hovercraft
-Take a hovercraft over a primarily non-water surface
and of course:
-Have sex in a moving vehicle