Sounds of Travel 12: I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)

Here at Gadling we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each — maybe you’ll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you’ll think that they’re good songs.

Got a favorite of your own? Leave it in the Comments and we’ll post it at the end of the series.

“King of the Road,” my first Sounds of Travel pick, evokes the spirit of independence. It’s an ode to the traveler who strikes out alone without a care in the world.

“500 Miles” by the Proclaimers, however, is a tribute to traveling with another. In my case, this travel often has been on foot– literally.

My husband is a walker. He has great big feet–size 14. When I met him when we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of the first things I noticed is his need to walk. He has a way of striking out into the world in great big strides wearing boots that could double as door stops. Not long after I met him, I was hoofing it to keep up.

One of our first forays into mega walk travel was on a camping trip into the Gila Wilderness in southern New Mexico.

“How far are we going, exactly?” I wanted to know when he suggested such a venture. It’s not the walking I mind– it’s the carrying stuff. “It won’t be that far,” he said. “By the way, there are a couple places we’ll have to cross a stream.”

“Okay, sure,” I said, not mentioning my phobia about wading through water–or rather, I did have a phobia about wading through water. After crossing the stream at least 14 times, I was cured.

That walk was just the beginning.

“How about a trek in Nepal?” he suggested as our first Christmas vacation while we were living in Singapore. “We’ll hire porters to carry our stuff.”

That trip took us from Jomsom to Pokhara. Two other couples went with us. It’s not the going up a mountain that hurts all that much if you go slowly. It’s the going down that is hell on knees.

Then it was the 9-day trek in Ladakh, India through the Markha Valley.

“There are pack-mules AND porters to carry stuff,” my husband said to entice me. The only time I whined a bit was when I noticed how dry my skin was becoming in the thin mountain air. “I don’t know if my skin can take much more of this,” I said, thinking that in another week I’d look one hundred.

“Why don’t you ask the women here what they do?” my husband said, casting his gaze towards a group of women in the distance who were wrestling with rubble and dirt while hoeing a field. He’s sympathetic that way.

Still, whenever he slips on those massive Red Wing boots of his to head out the door, calling for me to come with him, I know it will be an adventure–one that I wouldn’t be taking if I wasn’t willing to share the road.

The first time we heard “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” we were on a date seeing the movie “Bennie and Joon.” The song was the movie’s theme song and Johnny Depp was one of the stars.

When we got married, three weeks before we moved to Singapore, this song was the recessional at our wedding. For a traveling pair who walks, it seemed to fit. Whenever I hear the Proclaimers belt out this song in their jaunty, Scottish Irish fashion, I see images of all the places my husband and I have passed by from the simple walk in the neighborhood to the expanse of a spectacular vista.

One of my two most favorite images of the miles we’ve traveled is of my husband winding through the streets of the Old Quarter in Hanoi with our daughter perched on his shoulders high above the crowd when she was three. My other favorite image is of him strolling through the streets of Bangkok swinging our then 3 month-old son in his Graco car seat carrier like our son was a purse.

Yep, he’d walk 500 miles–and 500 more. Honestly, I would too.

Click here for previous Sounds of Travel.

Sounds of Travel 4: King of the Road

Here at Gadling we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each — maybe you’ll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you’ll think that they’re good songs.

Got a favorite of your own? Leave it in the Comments and we’ll post it at the end of the series.

WEEK 4: “King of the Road” sung by Roger Miller

When my brother and I were young, our parents gave us Hummel figurine music boxes. His figurine was a small boy sitting on a fence with a bundle tied on a stick that rested on his shoulder. When the key was wound, the melody “King of the Road” played while the boy turned.

My figurine was a girl feeding chickens. Although, I dearly loved my music box– the girl looked like Heidi, that independent lass who lived in the Alps with her grandfather, I was drawn to my brother’s more. There it sat on his chest of drawers in a spot within reach.

Even before I knew the lyrics, the title of the song was enough. King of the Road. What could sound more grand?

The lyrics, though, said it all. Hitting the road without cares or worries–the thrill of being in control with each step towards the horizon. A life spent enjoying simple pleasures as long as a person can keep moving and make connections with folks along the way.

Never mind that I happened to be female–and at the time, one of the only known female travelers who got much press was Amelia Earhart–and we know how that turned out. I come from a line of women who have wandered.

Those women carried the aura of far away places, particularly Aunt Clarissa. It wasn’t the stories my great aunt told me of her time in Japan as an Army major after World War II that captured my interest–I don’t specifically remember any– it was the feeling I surmised that traveling gave her. The zippidy do dah.

When Roger Miller wrote King of the Road in 1965, he was telling the tale of a carefree traveler at the same time Miller was on the road seeking out his dreams as a singer-songwriter. After he sings in the video, Miller recalls that the song was inspired somewhere between Dayton, Des Moines or Chicago when he saw a road sign that said, “Trailers for Sale or Rent.”

What caught my attention about this version is Miller’s utter exuberance, both in his voice and his body, particularly when he belts out the third chorus and throws that fast crook in his elbow–and how the song stuck with me all day once I listened to it again.

When I think of my King of the Road experiences, the ones where this song played in my head, I am:

  • by myself on a bus heading to Maine from New Paltz, New York to work at a summer camp after my senior year in high school, the possibilities endless. This summer was late nights doing laundry so I could head out every weekend to places like Boothbay Harbor, Camden and Ogunquit, eating lobster and clams dripped in butter and skinny dipping in a lake with the moon shimmering across the water;
  • I’m walking down the streets of Arhus, Denmark, my arms swinging in stride with my legs as I head to the Viking ship museum, my entire body feeling in sync with the sidewalk beneath my feet and the breeze through my hair. I’d come alone–or if I was with someone, I can’t recall because the memory of being so in touch with my body on that day and the sense of adventure has eclipsed a companion;
  • I am walking away from my village into the Gambian bush to hang out under a tree for a few hours drinking tea, writing and listening to music, soaking up a bit of R&R from being the village Peace Corps volunteer. As cows grazed nearby and finch flitted and darted between the scrub brush, I regained balance;
  • and I am taking a friend of mine on a road trip through New Mexico so he can see how the landscape changes. As the hues of reds and browns change with each turn past Jemez as we get closer to Bandelier National Monument, we marvel at the wonder of us and our good fortune to have a car and all the time we need.

Whenever I hear that song, my feet start tappin’ and I want to head out–see new places, make new friends, visit old ones and know that the world is my oyster. What better feeling is there than being a king of the road?

Despite the lyrics, I’ve never smoked a pack of cigarettes in my life. I do, however, look at trailers with great affection.

Here’s a bit of King of the Road trivia: It’s been used in the movies: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Swingers, Into the Wild, Im Lauf der Zeit (In Due Time), and if you saw Brokeback Mountain, who can forget the scene where Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack, confident and full of energy, is heading in his truck to see Ennis? King of the Road was playing on the radio. Of course, that was before Jack’s hopes were dashed.

Still, the song for me is an optimistic all will work out.

Click here for previous Sounds of Travel.