Conestoga wagons still trundle across Texas on 22-inch wheels, packed to their square corners with people and cherished possessions. Like suntan lotion and those chairs that come in bags and big blue Igloo coolers full of my son-in-law’s odd beer. And hot-dog buns and junk food, of course.

We were beach-bound in an SUV so big that the people way in back resided in a different ZIP code.

Well, maybe not. But the first time I stood next to the towering 2013 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum, I wondered if the air was cooler up there on top than it was at ground level with the Democrats.