What happened to John Irving

I have been asked that I should probably explain what happened to John Irving, or more appropriately what the hell was the point of this whole following the route of this character etcetera. I read this short story, called Almost in Iowa, when I didn't even know how to drive. I was fascinated by the idea of a road trip, of escape, alone across a vast swathe of country. So I wrote down the route and promised myself that one day I would drive it. And now probably over a decade later, I have driven that route, more or less. What I learned was that first, after repurchasing the book before my trip, that I didn't like the story that much anymore and that the trip itself was a little ho-hum. I nonetheless persisted (such is the power of dreams from one's misspent youth) on driving this route that this character took as he ran from an unfaithful wife and a probable divorce he found hard to face. I didn't particularly like this character any longer either, so ultimately I did the drive because it happened to be a decent eastern route and out of sheer stubbornness. In the end, it was a bit of a bust, and during my detours off the route the character took, I was enjoying my trip, instead of following his tedious route. I think I had some idea that it would turn out to be interesting, that I could perhaps relate to the character (I tried in an earlier post but it was a stretch) but nope, it really wasn't up to much. So there it is, one of the few failures of a very successful trip. In that perhaps is the best way that I could relate to John Irving's writing (including this particular story) which is often about personal, human failures.