(U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas – As the laziness of summer creeps in, students all over the country get restless, stricken with an insatiable wanderlust. So they pack up their cars with duffel bags and friends and head home, out to the beach or to a distant campground.

Unfortunately, far too often we sacrifice the art of the road trip for the function, simply looking to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. That’s not what road trips are really about. The old-fashioned road trip relegates points A, B and C to simple changes of scenery along the way.

The road itself is the destination.

I am an aficionado of the open road. So when an old friend of mine asked me if I wanted to hop in his old Jeep Wrangler and take it out west to his new home in San Francisco, I grabbed my gear and climbed aboard.

We snaked through Comanche territory, heading towards the Grand Canyon. We trekked along slowly at 55 mph – not only because of fuel efficiency, but because 80 mph would have blurred the landscape.

At 55 mph, one has time to think.

I’ve driven Interstate 10 coast to coast, along the eastern seaboard to Manhattan. I’ve toured with rock bands on buses and vans, but it wasn’t until this past week that I realized that “Go west, young man, and grow up with the country” isn’t just a nostalgic sentiment; it’s a maxim of epic proportion.

On the back roads, and in the small towns, we can find the heart and soul of this country and fall in love with her all over again.

It’s in midnight’s blackness that a tiny diner that hasn’t changed since 1954 could provide shelter from a freezing cold summer thunderstorm that angrily pelted me with hail. There, in the middle of the New Mexico desert, I ate an awful bowl of chili because it was warm, and I was drying from the rain.

I was happy to be there, and even happier that the sweet old lady serving me the terrible food was there, at an ungodly hour, delighted to have made $18 in tips so far that night.

And so I tipped well.

Bounding off boulders, scrambling over the side of the Grand Canyon and hanging precariously from cliff-dwelling trees makes it easy to realize how small we truly are, and how great were the men who came before us. Undaunted, the Apache and Navajo made this sacred land their home, and when faced with the insurmountable task of forging ahead, American explorers descended into the Canyon’s gaping maw, and emerged anew on the far rim.

At the Grand Canyon, native-born residents and foreign tourists alike braved scorching temperatures and the sizzling summer sun to marvel not only at the work of mother nature, but at the man-made wonders of America’s children.

The historic Route 66 cut to the quick, laying bare the inequity between wonderful towns like Flagstaff and the Hualapai town of Peach Springs. In Flagstaff, road-weary travelers mingle with tattooed students in the hip-and-haunted Monte Vista hotel cocktail lounge – drinking, fighting and loving. In the ghost town of Peach Springs, 66 became a shadow of its former self, and abandoned roadside Indian trading posts alongside rusted trailers betrayed no sign of revelry.

Cars zipped by in ignorant bliss on the adjacent Interstate 40, while 66 meandered tirelessly towards the glitz and glamour of Hollywood – naked, honest and heartbreaking.

Don’t rush to get to your destination on this summer’s road trip. Explore the old highways. Roll down the windows and drive through the Mojave with the top down. Get lost on Pacific Highway No. 1, driving up to Kerouac’s Big Sur and Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. Don’t eat at McDonalds or stay in the Best Western. Instead, take the risk of eating at the ramshackle steak house and staying at the family motel on the side of the road. Talk to your hosts along the way. Learn from them.

Slow down. Don’t channel surf your way across this great country.

Puri is a psychology, history, government and Middle Eastern studies senior.