Ugh. And, apparently, my dad pulled his usual habit of acting interested in something, and then coming around and saying he really doesn't have any intention of saying 'yes' in the first place.
Instead, his ideas were:
1) Use the trip money to buy a car and drive to Canada
2) Use the trip money to buy a car and drive around the US
3) Use the trip money to buy a car and travel to Mexico
None of those really sounded appealing to me, and the conversation kept degenerating into politics.
Generally a subject I avoid with my parents. The most frustrating thing was being unable to come up with any response to "Why?" better than 'it seems like a good idea.' Yeah, he bluntly told me that he believes that he knows what's better for me than I know for myself...I'm almost hoping this is some kind of test or activity to encourage me to be more persistent or whatever, rather than just him exploiting my interest in the trip as a method of making me reveal more about myself than I'm comfortable with (I'm already regretting it; my even slightly liberal views seem to have made him start exclusively talking about option 2 b/c he feels I don't appreciate the work the US has done for the world...)
Maybe I should at least get a passport, so that's not an issue if some opportunity to go to some country comes up. Like Mexico or Canada, w00t w00t
Edit: Not that I have anything against Mexico or Canada, they just aren't places that I've had any kind of ongoing interest in going to. As far as going to another country goes, they sound interesting, but I would much rather head to Australia. After that's Britain/Russia/France/Germany. No, nothing beyond the gut feeling of 'this is a good idea'.
