Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: This is not an article about a Kardashian entourage caravanning through Beverly Hills.
There is something deeply bonding about sharing the specific, low-grade misery of not fitting into the world’s default dimensions. We complained. We adjusted. We ate too much. And somewhere around the 800-mile mark, we stopped thinking about our butts and started thinking about the sky, the music, and the asphalt rolling by.
The sensible choice was to fly. But the fun choice was to turn our wide-load anxiety into a manifesto. We invited my brother-in-law, Dave (6’4”, 280 lbs, affectionately known as “The Lovable Fridge”), and the Big Butt Road Trip was born. Our first stop wasn’t a gas station—it was an auto parts store in Harrisburg. We bought three things: a gel-infused memory foam cushion for Dave in the back, a “purple” honeycomb seat cover for Lisa up front, and a seatbelt extender for me (no shame in the game). big butt road trip
By Hank O’Hara, Special to The Asphalt Jungle
She wasn’t wrong. We are a family of “comfortable dimensions.” We like cheese fries. We have sturdy Dutch ancestry. And we had a wedding to attend in Nashville, 1,000 miles away from our home in Philadelphia. Let’s get one thing straight right out of
Happy trails—and wider seats.
Spoiler alert: No. But we had a blast trying. It started as a complaint. My wife, Lisa, slid into the passenger seat of my 2018 Honda Fit and immediately yelped. “These bolsters are digging into my glutes like a pair of angry salad tongs.” We adjusted
4 out of 5 stars. (Deducted one star because the Honda Fit’s cup holders are a crime against humanity. Added one star for the sheer joy of ordering a T-shirt that reads “I Survived the Big Butt Road Trip.”)