The oldest joke in the sport of professional bass fishing is that the competitors are long haul truck drivers who happen to make a few casts now and then.

Most of the long-timers I’ve been around treasure time at home. They’re tired of road life, living in motels, campgrounds and rental houses. They’re unamused by flat tires and diesel prices.

On the other hand, after spending 30 years mostly behind a desk, I want to be out and about. The good people at BASS have enabled me to do that, and this spring has already seen lots of highway miles. I’ve driven to the Elite at Guntersville and the Classic. My wife and I drove to a sport show in Chicago. I drove to meetings in South Carolina. Now I’m in the middle of my longest trip yet – from Virginia to Kentucky to Oklahoma to Missouri back to Oklahoma and then a couple of stops in Arkansas before heading home. I’ll have five or six days there (depending on how fast I drive) before leaving again for back-to Elites in South Carolina. After that I’ll have three days at home before flying off to a tuna-chasing expedition in Panama.

And I’m loving every minute of it.

Talk to me this time next year and I might not be so enamored of the highway, but so far this has been a low-pressure chance to set foot in all sorts of places that I’ve only read or dreamed about and I’m getting paid to it.

Here are a few things I’m trying to make it a point to do:

• Eat local as much as I can, from the best barbecue in Muskogee to little diners in towns of 500, I am avoiding the chains.
• Take a detour or see roadside attractions whenever possible. I’m not in a rush to get there, so whether it’s the Uranus Fudge Factory or a side trip to Mickey Mantle’s boyhood home, I’m taking the time out.

But here’s what I’m not doing well:

• I need to learn to eat better and to exercise, even if it’s just taking a long walk each day.
• I need to stay up on my writing, building in time each day for assignments and projects that might get away from me.

I am fortunate to have a wife at home who not only tolerates these walkabouts, but takes care of everything at home. I’m fortunate to have outlets that’ll pay me to write about these trips. I’m thankful that we live in a country where we have great history, some great people and a great interstate highway system.

But mostly I appreciate the fact that I have friends in each of these stops, people I get to see once a year or once in a blue moon who are willing to socialize with me. I’ve seen long term friends and made new ones. I’ve seen the kindness of strangers and a few things that scared me. But mostly this ground level view has inspired me to do more of the same.