As I was driving home yesterday around dusk, I was admiring the color of the sky and a specific memory came to mind. From the details present, I think it’s from August 2008, although it could just as easily be from July 2009 or 2010. These were the last 3 years that I drove from Vermont back to California in my 2008 WRX and the soft blue glow of the stereo is a clear part of the memory. However, it’s the sky that I remember best. It was primarily this deep orange hue with shades of pink, red and yellow coming through in stripes. There were layers of thin clouds up high and towering storm clouds seemingly perched below them. I’m pretty confident that I was somewhere in Pennsylvania on I-80 (or was it I-99 southbound to pick up I-76?), a sea of semi-trucks, towering motel and fast-food chain signs completing the scene. The landscape ahead of me was flattening out, a preview of what lay ahead for the next 24 hours on my way to Denver.
I always stopped in Denver or Boulder back in the day. Reliably, there was a couch to sleep on. Maybe a spare bed unoccupied by a roommate who’d gone to their boyfriend or girlfriend’s place. I didn’t know anybody to visit between Pennsylvania and Colorado, so I only stopped for food, gas and to use the bathroom. I’d make sure to get my skateboard out and do a kickflip at least once in every state, a tradition that started with a friend at age 15 the first time I drove from Oregon to Vermont. Sometimes I’d stop at a Wal-Mart and get a couple hours of sleep in the parking lot (well lit, security, bathroom if you need it). Most of those trips I’d just power through with a couple quick naps. Ah, the stamina of youth. I get a kick out of it every time one of those drives comes to mind.
Living in Nashville, they come to mind often. With I-40, I-65 and I-24 all running through town, it’s easy to glance at a road sign and think “St. Louis for the weekend could be fun.” Then I check the back seat and see my daughter rubbing her eyes. Gotta get home, get her fed, bathed and to bed. Whether we’re still living in Nashville when she’s old enough to remember the impromptu overnight road trip is anybody’s guess. Packing up the car with her and picking a direction is one of the things I’m looking forward to most as she grows up.
As I recently heard a wise man say when discussing the nightmare of British autoroutes on a holiday weekend: “Well, better in a car going somewhere than not.” I agree, holiday traffic notwithstanding. There are few pleasures as simple as the overnight destination drive. Don’t get me wrong, I like a day-trip well enough, but to range a little further from home such that it’s best to spend at least one night, that shifts your state of being. You’re no longer out for a drive, you’re on a road trip. The real beauty of a road trip is the little universe that you get to create every time you start the engine. You not only get to choose your destination, but you get to choose what you allow into your world along the way. The car has long represented freedom of movement, but now, perhaps more than ever, it represents freedom from distraction.
Unless your career entails matters of life-and-death, you’re going to be just fine if you turn the phone notifications off. If your vehicle has a CD player or AUX jack, you’re set up for success. It had been years since I had a daily driver with either, and now that I do, I rarely opt to stream music in the car. Choosing from a few of my favorite albums or selecting “shuffle all songs” on my recently resurrected iPod keeps the phone out of hand. Amazing what that will do for your memory on even a short drive, let alone a road trip. If you’ve got a co-pilot, the conversation is deeper. If it’s just you, the mind wanders freely in a way that simply doesn’t happen when the phone beckons.
For example, maybe your old iPod that you’ve just back to life cues up a song you haven’t heard in nearly 20 years. Maybe that song calls to mind a certain road trip, and when you look out the window of your car, the sky is reminiscent of one you’ve seen before, somewhere in Pennsylvania. Wait, was it Ohio?