My Favorite Part
It's been almost three months since my last road trip -- true road trip, with the driving and the gas stations and the tendencies toward caffeinated beverages -- and it'll be another 25 days before my next one.
Which might explain why I'm going a little stir crazy.
I like traveling in general; that much is obvious. England was fantastic, a vacation unlike any I've been on before, and it managed to hold just about every aspect of a truly adventurous trip -- airports, train stations, hotels, interesting food, and people I haven't seen in ages.
However, it was missing what is generally my favorite part: the long drive.
That's right. I love long drives. When I was shopping for a car, I had very specific road trip criteria -- a highly adjustable driver's seat, easy climate control, easy stereo controls, non-finicky cruise control, great highway mileage, quiet rides over 70 mph. Automatic locks and windows, the color scheme and horsepower came secondary to the things that I knew were going to be abused.
I love the drive. The drive is the interim, is hours spent in limbo, is a time to adjust to whatever it is you'll be doing when you get where you're going. The drive is a chance to think without interruption, a chance to listen to whatever you want or -- in my case -- to discuss things you need to discuss with yourself. The drive is the one chunk of time where no one can screw with your schedule -- you can only be there so fast, and how fast that happens to be is entirely up to you (and the highway patrolmen out there).
Sometimes the drive is bonding time if you happen to have a passenger (or several). Sometimes it's a great time to get caught up with friends states away -- after all, you're not going to be interrupted any time soon.
[That's right, I condone cell phone use while driving. Not while driving in town when you need to start and stop and pay attention to pedestrians and other drivers, but if you're on a long stretch of highway? I'd rather you be on your phone than falling asleep.]
I love the drive.
But here's the strange part: the more familiar the stretch of highway, the more I like it.
The first time along one route can be fantastic -- that whole "new frontier" feeling is hard to forget. The next couple of times aren't terribly exciting. But then there's a turning point and suddenly it's more like hanging out with an old friend. No more awkward small talk and trying to remember where you need to turn -- you just go.
Finally, finally, my drive to my parents' house is getting to that stage.
It's not exactly an interesting drive, save for three or four ten-mile stretches here and there. And it's seven hours in a car alone now that Mia Sorella is back in SoDak. All the same, it's hitting that point of familiarity where the trip just starts to fly by.
I've got two or three of those drives coming up in the next three months, and I'm looking forward to all of them.
But the drive I really love is one I don't get to make anymore with any level of frequency -- and I truly miss it.
From about February 2002 to December 2006, I made that drive enough times to circumnavigate the earth at the equator one and a third times. Including all the family trips when I was younger, I'm up to at least three times around the earth. Not as many as some people (Andyman comes to mind) but enough to have nearly every bend and bump in the road memorized.
I miss that drive.
The drive from my parents' house just south of Sioux Falls to Rapid City is about a 350-mile jaunt (chiefly depending on where in RC you stop). There are points where there are ten miles between exits. There are even a few exits where there isn't a town in sight -- if you're lucky, there might be a truck stop and a Subway. At some points in the long and flat, the road turns rather inexplicably, treads on for a mile with no overpasses, and then turns again. [These are intentionally designed to make it possible for bombers coming to and from Ellsworth AFB to make emergency landings. I’m not joking.]
And there are landmarks. Things like a water tower just fifty feet off the Interstate in a ditch, a huge metal bull's head, billboards of every level of cheesiness for Wall Drug, Mitchell -- the home of the Corn Palace, the crossing of the Missouri River (gorgeous), a human skeleton leading a T-Rex skeleton through a field, an 1880 replica town, the Mountain/Central Time Zone change in a seemingly arbitrary location, petrified gardens, a dinosaur with red eyes that you can see for miles in the dark, the majesty of the Badlands that don't seem nearly so scary from the highway, scenic overlooks, tipi rest stops, and more than one uninterrupted expanse of prairie.
It's far more interesting and far more beautiful than it first seems. Unfortunately, it's neither until you're willing to take your eyes off the road and look at your surroundings.
I won't be making that drive again for another six months -- until then, I'll just miss it.
Which might explain why I'm going a little stir crazy.
I like traveling in general; that much is obvious. England was fantastic, a vacation unlike any I've been on before, and it managed to hold just about every aspect of a truly adventurous trip -- airports, train stations, hotels, interesting food, and people I haven't seen in ages.
However, it was missing what is generally my favorite part: the long drive.
That's right. I love long drives. When I was shopping for a car, I had very specific road trip criteria -- a highly adjustable driver's seat, easy climate control, easy stereo controls, non-finicky cruise control, great highway mileage, quiet rides over 70 mph. Automatic locks and windows, the color scheme and horsepower came secondary to the things that I knew were going to be abused.
I love the drive. The drive is the interim, is hours spent in limbo, is a time to adjust to whatever it is you'll be doing when you get where you're going. The drive is a chance to think without interruption, a chance to listen to whatever you want or -- in my case -- to discuss things you need to discuss with yourself. The drive is the one chunk of time where no one can screw with your schedule -- you can only be there so fast, and how fast that happens to be is entirely up to you (and the highway patrolmen out there).
Sometimes the drive is bonding time if you happen to have a passenger (or several). Sometimes it's a great time to get caught up with friends states away -- after all, you're not going to be interrupted any time soon.
[That's right, I condone cell phone use while driving. Not while driving in town when you need to start and stop and pay attention to pedestrians and other drivers, but if you're on a long stretch of highway? I'd rather you be on your phone than falling asleep.]
I love the drive.
But here's the strange part: the more familiar the stretch of highway, the more I like it.
The first time along one route can be fantastic -- that whole "new frontier" feeling is hard to forget. The next couple of times aren't terribly exciting. But then there's a turning point and suddenly it's more like hanging out with an old friend. No more awkward small talk and trying to remember where you need to turn -- you just go.
Finally, finally, my drive to my parents' house is getting to that stage.
It's not exactly an interesting drive, save for three or four ten-mile stretches here and there. And it's seven hours in a car alone now that Mia Sorella is back in SoDak. All the same, it's hitting that point of familiarity where the trip just starts to fly by.
I've got two or three of those drives coming up in the next three months, and I'm looking forward to all of them.
But the drive I really love is one I don't get to make anymore with any level of frequency -- and I truly miss it.
From about February 2002 to December 2006, I made that drive enough times to circumnavigate the earth at the equator one and a third times. Including all the family trips when I was younger, I'm up to at least three times around the earth. Not as many as some people (Andyman comes to mind) but enough to have nearly every bend and bump in the road memorized.
I miss that drive.
The drive from my parents' house just south of Sioux Falls to Rapid City is about a 350-mile jaunt (chiefly depending on where in RC you stop). There are points where there are ten miles between exits. There are even a few exits where there isn't a town in sight -- if you're lucky, there might be a truck stop and a Subway. At some points in the long and flat, the road turns rather inexplicably, treads on for a mile with no overpasses, and then turns again. [These are intentionally designed to make it possible for bombers coming to and from Ellsworth AFB to make emergency landings. I’m not joking.]
And there are landmarks. Things like a water tower just fifty feet off the Interstate in a ditch, a huge metal bull's head, billboards of every level of cheesiness for Wall Drug, Mitchell -- the home of the Corn Palace, the crossing of the Missouri River (gorgeous), a human skeleton leading a T-Rex skeleton through a field, an 1880 replica town, the Mountain/Central Time Zone change in a seemingly arbitrary location, petrified gardens, a dinosaur with red eyes that you can see for miles in the dark, the majesty of the Badlands that don't seem nearly so scary from the highway, scenic overlooks, tipi rest stops, and more than one uninterrupted expanse of prairie.
It's far more interesting and far more beautiful than it first seems. Unfortunately, it's neither until you're willing to take your eyes off the road and look at your surroundings.
I won't be making that drive again for another six months -- until then, I'll just miss it.
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