Corn on the Cam
Ever since my two young boys discovered wormholes and shape-shifting aliens, I promised we would visit the Star Trek Experience in American's city of sin. I put the trip off for months, then a year. Las Vegas ain't cheap, and the Hilton charges a cool forty dollars a warm body to hurl through space and time in a jolting metal chair surrounded by 3-D images and two-bit actors. But a promise is a promise. I hoarded my Avon earnings and served black beans and rice for six weeks until I saved exactly enough to treat two Trekkies to an overnight trip.
"We still have to be careful," I told the boys as I stuffed a paper bag with bread and bananas and a package of pretzels. "Since I'm going to spend a bunch of money in Las Vegas, we're going to eat peanut butter sandwiches along the way. No stopping for snacks, OK? We'll leave at the crack of dawn."
My youngest son, 8, ran to his bedroom. I heard him unzip his backpack, heard the clutter and clang of a million handheld starships against canvas and zipper. His older brother, 10, stared into the space above my head, as if some travel angel whispered advice.
"Uh, mom?" He stuck his hands behind his back and tipped his body up on sandaled heels. "Doesn't it take like all day to get to Las Vegas? Why don't you use that car cookbook?"
Car cookbook? It took a moment, but then I remembered a Saturday morning yard sale in a tired inland neighborhood, a slim worn paperback called Manifold Destiny, and a bored woman wearing denim overalls with scuffed army boots who accepted my offer of ten cool cents.
"I'll go get it, Mom. It's under my bed." 10 ran to retrieve the book and I shook my head. Weird kid.
10 read the book out loud as I handed the scraggly-haired neighbor girl twenty dollars and a list of pet care instructions.
"Mom, we need aluminum foil. The recipes tell you to wrap your food in foil and then stick it next to the hottest part of the engine. Is our car more like a Lamborghini or a BMW?" I glanced over his shoulder and read the funny captions comparing the cooking abilities of fancy cars. I pictured our sensible family vehicle, the way it smelled of dog hair and spilled Avon Sugar Cookie bubble-bath.
"Lamborghini. Definitely." I rolled my eyes and told 10 to choose a few engine recipes and to pack the ingredients. "You're in charge."
The next morning I hauled the boys' backpacks to the car while 10 prepared the first of our engine delights. He balanced three wrapped packages in the crook of one arm and carried our small red cooler in the other. He waited while I lifted the hood, and placed the foil packettes gently here and there, next to places that would glow invisible heat as we crossed the lichen-studded Mojave desert. His face looked studious, artful, as if he were a traveling four-star chef, and I noticed how elegantly each square serving was folded, an origami feast. I slammed down the hood.
"Wow, you really did a nice job. So. What's for breakfast?" I rubbed his dark hair.
10 waved his arms over the car in some kind of magician's swirl. "Our first course is grilled cheese. The book says to cook for 55 miles."
8 piled into the backseat, holding two Star Trek action figures, a box of colored pencils, and a stack of drawing paper. "Rats. I wanted French toast."
Las Vegas was six hours away, but with two young boys and a rolling cookout I knew the road would stretch four hours longer, feel like ten days later, hurt like five years older, with tired legs and red-rimmed eyes at the end. We turned north, turned east, and 10 watched the odometer with hawk eyes and nervous fingers, the road grill bible in his lap.
Mile fifty-five meant grilled cheese breakfast, and we pulled over one mile early at a rest stop outside of Los Angeles, opened steaming squares of soft bread filled with melted swiss. The California border town of Blythe meant a snack of "smores" consisting of graham crackers filled with oozing chocolate and marshmallows, all wrapped in the ubiquitous tin foil, eaten along I-15 in the red brick of mid-morning, the dry heat of August sand stinging our eyes and hands, matching degree for degree the heat of our campfire car snack. Thermometer reached ninety, then ninety-nine, one-hundred, one-hundred three, leveling at one-hundred-thirteen as we hit the plane of the Mojave near mid-day.
10 fussed, his hands in the cooler, the backseat beginning to drip from ice cube condensation. 8 slept soundly, Wesley Crusher and Lt. Worf in his hands, tiny pieces of foil littering the back seat. I glanced in the rear view mirror, watched 10 place three pieces of foil per serving in his lap. He held The Book in one hand, his other sprinkling pieces of chopped potato onto the silver sheets. He brought cut potatoes? I tried to think of when he might have prepared the ingredients, but drew a blank. He sprinkled salt from my good ceramic shaker - the one my Gramma left me - and I bit my tongue, didn't want to erase his enthusiasm, his scientific excitement. He balanced the shaker on the arm rest and I took three deep breaths, swung the car into an exit lane, and pulled into an ancient forgotten riverbed and popped the hood. 10 pulled on my gardening gloves and opening the side door. A blast of mercury heat filled the car, swelled my hands, as 10 stuffed packets of potatoes and green beans into the nooks and crannies of our engine.
The car shot green light against the highway, and our open hood and mom and two youngsters sifted along the sands like pathetic flotsam caught the attention of six dudes on Harleys and I saw them pull up behind us, a swarm of chainlink midday ghosts.
To Be Continued...
8:24:25 PM 
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