Big Butt Road Trip 'link' -

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.

No, the “Big Butt Road Trip” is something far more relatable, far more American, and (literally) far more down-to-earth. It’s the epic journey my wife, my brother-in-law, and I took last summer to answer a single, burning question: Can three people with generous posteriors survive 2,000 miles in a subcompact hatchback without requiring chiropractic intervention? big butt road trip

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). She wasn’t wrong

We were stiff. We were tired. But we were laughing. And we had a wedding to attend in

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.”

By Hank O’Hara, Special to The Asphalt Jungle