Doodlebug: A Road Trip Journal

Doodlebug [dood-l-buhg], noun: a homemade tractor assembled from parts of other machines, often ungainly mis-creations that never quite fulfill the builder’s intention.

Feel like a long road trip but can’t take one? Thinking about taking one but need to know (or be reminded) what you’re getting into? Join Robby and Louis Porter as they climb in a 1979 two‐wheel‐drive Toyota Long Bed and leave a chilly Vermont winter for the sunny shores of California. With a route planned partly by where they have family and friends and partly by sites and sights they want to see along the way, the brothers embark on a two-month journey into the unknown.

Robby, ten years older than Louis, brings along his old Olivetti manual typewriter and a camera and keeps a log of their travels—the people they meet, the things they see, the things they talk about as they traverse the miles, and the growing irritability of two people spending too much time together.

Doodlebug, is an honest, insightful, distinctly American tale of the ridiculous, the sublime, and everything in between: transgressions against wildlife, Texas politics, bad cooking, home remedies, southern family history, and a friendship almost ruined by falafel. And just as there are times you’ll find yourself saying “I wish I’d done that!” as you read, there will also be times you ask yourself “What were they thinking?!”

And best of all, unlike Robby and Louis, you can experience it all without being cold, scared, tired, or cheesed off.

Robby Porter was born in Vermont in 1965. Except for four years of college in New Mexico, he has spent almost his entire life in Vermont. "Jack of all trades, master of none" is an entirely apt description of his abilities, which include woodworking, forestry, writing, building, designing, and hydroelectric plant operation. His education was the Great Books Program at St. John's College. He is married and has two adult children.