Another summer has to mean another vacation, so in late June the Hitchcocks mounted the Family Truckster and headed to Walley World, er, Southern California, to visit my in-laws.

Ah, the pleasant and exhilarating panoramas of the open road ... I wouldn't know anything about that, since our trip was condensed into a six-day window. We spent two days yellow-highlighting our way down two interstates (11 hours the first day, 10 and a half the next), followed by two days of frantic catching up before the long road home.

I never saw any blondes in red Ferraris, didn't drag a dog to death with the car or have a family member die during the journey, but nonetheless this lampooned vacation had its moments.

The teenage daughter, with plenty of room in the backseat on the way down, occupied herself with frequent text messages, DVD movies and a steady diet of cat naps. "I don't know what it is about this car, but it makes me sleepy," she would exclaim on the return trip.

The wife made infrequent comments about the landscape, and, of course, my driving - always a source of entertainment and/or ridicule.

But no matter what the wife thinks, I have always liked the road trips, and up until this summer, the longer the better. Back in my college years, I would burn up Interstate 15 from Montana to SoCal, traversing the 23-hour grind with a steady diet of mix tapes (back when we bought the TDK 10-pack and recorded all our favorite albums onto cassettes).

This trip would be different, as the road tunes were ejected for the best local radio had to offer. Usually that meant country music, but just enough top 40 signals came through to add some variety. I always sing along when I'm on the road, which may explain my daughter's dozing off ...

Motels were nothing to speak of, except our first stop landed us across the street from the Brigham Young University campus in Provo, Utah. My daughter and I decided to explore such after dinner, and man, a tidier and more elaborate campus I have not seen. Matter of fact, the whole town appeared to be litter-free.

One of my trip highlights was keeping tabs on urban sprawl. Memories of my trips south 20 years ago as a reference, I noted plenty in Missoula, and even Dillon, Mont., had some pastureland northwest of town torn up to house obvious retirees.

Cedar City and St. George in southern Utah, as well as the gambling town of Mesquite, Nev., have exploded in every direction.

As always, road construction slowed our progress, but luckily we kept moving for the most part. The exception was a stoppage for a few minutes when a giant construction crane tipped over along the highway just south of Mesquite and emergency vehicles squeezed through to attend to the handful of injuries. Other than that, we saw no fender benders, and only the omni-present Utah State Patrol was visible to keep speeders at bay.

Speaking of speeders, no less than three BMWs overtook us during our excursion, at speeds in the mid-90 mph range. Hmmm ... the Ultimate Driving Machine, indeed ...

One of the reasons for the trip was to aid in cleaning out the in-laws' storage unit. We had purchased a rooftop cargo carrier to aid in carting some of the booty home, and it was subsequently stuffed, along with the rear of the vehicle, for the trip home.

We all got to taste some Southern California air (smog flavor) and I was reacquainted with the SoCal driving style: merging across three lanes of traffic to get to an exit, extreme tailgating and fingered commentary on your own driving exploits.

All in all, it wasn't a bad trip. Our gas bill was over $100 less than our trip two years ago. Thanks to cruise control, my lower extremities got a chance to stretch out and get the blood flowing, and the scenery, with frequent vistas of greenery flowing off into the distance all the way down to southern Utah, made the miles a lot more tolerable.

But I have to admit to succumbing to age. The back and especially the kidneys aren't quite up to 11 hours in the saddle like back in the day. Even my own pillow from home couldn't prevent a stiff neck, and the steady road trip diet of sugar, salt and caffeine didn't make my body a happy camper.

Maybe next year we'll pick a destination closer to home, so Dad can fall apart a little less.

Jerry Hitchcock is a copy editor for The Press. He can be reached at jhitchcock@cdapress.com.