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Someday Finally Showed Up and it looked exactly like a corner booth at Mr. D’s 66 Diner in Kingman, Arizona. Both had the burger and the Root Beer float. Both had the pie. They had been married forty-nine years and eleven months and they were somewhere in the middle of the greatest road trip of their lives.
I noticed them the way you notice people who are completely at ease with each other. No phones on the table. No awkward silences to fill. Just two people who had long since run out of things to prove and were simply enjoying where they were. Late sixties. Sharp eyes. Laughing at something before I even sat down.
Someday Finally Showed Up Because Something Rearranged the Calendar
They weren’t vague about everything. They were clear about the important parts. Fifty years in December. Kids grown and gone and good. A diagnosis somewhere in the recent past that neither one of them felt the need to name out loud over pie and coffee with a stranger. What they were clear about was this, something had shifted. The calendar looked different than it used to. And the list of things they always meant to do together had suddenly moved from someday to now.
Route 66 was always on that list. Had been since before they were married. He had driven pieces of it as a young man. She had always wanted to see the desert stretch through Arizona. Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Painted Desert and because they just loved the song, they had to make it to the Standin’ on the Corner park in Winslow. They had talked about it the way couples talk about the things they’re going to do when the time is right. And then one morning the time was right and they got in the car.
This was no ordinary year for the road either. Route 66 turns one hundred in 2026 and the centennial had nudged them the rest of the way off the couch. If they were going to do it, this was the year to do it. The whole country was paying attention to this highway right now and they wanted to be part of it.
Someday Finally Showed Up and It Came With a Plan
They weren’t winging it. That was clear from about the first two minutes. She had a folder. An actual folder with printed confirmations and highlighted maps and a note in the margin next to Kingman that said Mr. D’s / burger and pie. They had done their homework and they had done it together and that folder was as much a love letter as anything written in fifty years.
The plan was simple and perfect. Drive Route 66 from start to finish. Take their time. No rushing. A few hours a day, good stops, good food, good sleep. End in California. Then board a ship in Los Angeles and cruise to Hawaii. Two things they had always meant to do together. Not one for him and one for her. Both for both of them.
That detail stopped me. In 25 plus years of doing weddings I’ve sat with a lot of couples and I know the difference between a marriage that runs on compromise and one that runs on genuine shared joy. These two weren’t trading dreams. They were living the same one.
What a Diner in Kingman Knows About Love
Mr. D’s has been feeding Route 66 travelers for a long time. It sits right on Andy Devine Avenue in the heart of Kingman and it has the kind of energy that only comes from a place that actually cares about the people who walk through the door. It was the right place for this particular day. The right booth. The right pie.
I asked them what took so long. She laughed first. Said life took so long. Kids and work and mortgages and all the things that are worth doing but have a way of filling every available space until one day you look up and realize the space has to be made on purpose.
He nodded and added something I haven’t stopped thinking about. He said they had always assumed someday was somewhere out ahead of them. Waiting patiently. Plenty of time. And then something happened that made them understand that someday doesn’t wait. You have to go get it.
So they went and got it.
They finished their coffee, picked up that folder and headed back out to the parking lot and whatever miles were left between Kingman and the California coast. Fifty years in December. Hawaii Islands ahead. The Mother Road’s centennial year as the backdrop for all of it.
I sat with my coffee a little longer than I needed to.
✨ Roadside Reflection:
Someday Finally Showed Up and it didn’t look the way they thought it would. It looked better. It looked like a folder with highlighted maps and a corner booth and fifty years of knowing exactly who you want sitting across from you when the pie arrives. Whatever is on your list. Whatever you’ve been meaning to do together or alone or for the first time.
Someday doesn’t live out ahead of you somewhere waiting patiently. It lives in the decision you make today to stop treating the life you want like something you’ll get to eventually. The road is a hundred years old this year and it is still out there. Still waiting. Still the same two lanes it always was. Go get your someday. It’s closer than you think.
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Faith and Good Courage is a podcast and journal by Christopher Tuttle.