Road Trippin’ with Jess Riley

You know how taking a road trip can be so much fun? You pack your bags, grab a shitola-load of snacks, the best tunes E V E R, turn ‘em up sooo loud, and just hit the open road? Well, that’s what we’re talking about here on Manic Mommy today! Fun road trips! Cuz this week, my pal Jess Riley has her debut book out, Driving Sideways, and in honor of it FINALLY arriving, we’re giving away two copies! Currently, one of them is signed. Currently, one of them is NOT signed, but I shall rectify that situation, and NO, that does NOT mean I will plagiarize her name. I will get it signed FOR THE WINNER.

I’ve taken a few exciting road trips in my day. Like the one when I drove from NIU to Daytona Beach with my girlfriends in a bus with about 50 other drunk students freshman year of college, and I let a guy shave my legs in the back of the bus and then made out furiously with him. (Stever, where are YOU? I still have a thing for you, you hottie boy with the long hair who later in the semester LICKED MY EYEBALL—SO HOT!—and yeah, for the record, after he shaved my legs on the bus, WITH shaving cream, and AFTER we made out in the back of the bus, the bus made a pit stop, he got off the bus and yakked his brains out.)

So memorable.

But yeah, that one in particular comes to mind.

Or the next year’s trip, same destination, different bus, same crew of drunk co-eds headed to Daytona, and I was loaded BEFORE we get on the bus, because we girls thought it would be a riot to do shots and drink beers while we waited for the bus to arrive. So I’m throwing UP before the bus takes off for a 24-hour non-stop road trip (granted, come on, the bus was LATE!), and here I was already nicknamed “PUKER” by all the passengers, and called that the whole week. I guess it beats some of the other names they could have called me.

So, yeah.

The next year we decided NOT to take the bus to Daytona and instead drove down to Florida; six of us gals in a Jeepy sort of car. And yeah, we broke down on the way to Daytona, and yeah, I got a speeding ticket at 4 a.m. on the way home from Daytona.

Not fun. But boy, the memories will last ya a lifetime.

There are other more mature, grown-up road trips like the time when Mr. Manic and I drove with the three kids from Philadelphia to Tampa straight through 18 hours when Tukey was just four months old and we were on such a mission to get there, that when Tukey crapped his diaper, we wouldn’t even stop to change him. Instead, I’d whip him out of his car seat, fling him onto the top of the cooler, and change him right there as Mr. Manic sped down the highway. Looking back, because now that I’m in my late thirties mid-thirties, I find I am maturing nicely and can deal with “looking back” on perspective and can understand the stupid, idiotic, asinine things I used to do error of my ways. It’s all a part of maturing and growing up.

But road trips offer us a chance to do this. And Jess's book, Driving Sideways, takes a great look at a woman who has a second chance at life, literally, and she’s taking it by the balls I tell ya! She is grabbing her world by the kahonas and living it large and in charge and doing things she never thought she could!

And it all starts with a road trip!

So, if you want to read Jess’s awesome debut, and I know ya do, and if you want a chance to win a copy of it here, simply leave a comment with a story about a road trip you have taken. It can be an amusing story that will enlighten or make us laugh, or vomit, or spit out my Pool Boy (you know, that summertime concoction I love: champagne, cranberry and pineapple on ice with a slice of lime—because summer officially starts at the Manic house TOMORROW!). It can be a story that’ll make us pee our pants or crap in our capris it’s so funny. You choose. You tell it!

And Jess is choosing the winners so make it a good one! Good luck, and happy road tripping! I cannot wait to hear what you all come up with!

Peace UP!