It was late fall or early winter. The precise season doesn’t matter; it was definitely cold. Equally cold was my companion riding shotgun. Her visit to icy Ithaca was, as usual, marred by the arguments we always found ourselves embroiled in, only this time I was living in a double with Min that should really have only been a single. The claustrophobia of such a tight space was so overwhelming that we traded it for the equally tight confines of my Corolla, but there’s something different about driving down a country road. Something that gives you the illusion of openness and freedom while you are crammed between lane lines and car chassis. The tension and anger seemed to flow away. We made peace and turned around about halfway to Lisle and didn’t look back that weekend.
Driving hasn’t always been this relaxing for me, but I don’t see how it ever could be for a kid. At age seven I can recall my mother telling us about her family’s weekend drives around California. They would pile in, drive around, and just enjoy taking in the sights. How incredibly dull life in the ’70s must have been if this was considered high family entertainment. This, of course, was her rationalization about why we were supposed to be looking out the window and taking in the sights instead of bickering, reading, or playing our Game Boys. It’s prohibitively expensive to fly a family of five anywhere for vacation, but that wasn’t going to stop my mother from taking us places. My family hit the road.
It’s fair to say that my love for asphalt stems entirely from covering so much ground in cars throughout my life. Beyond that, there’s power in driving to my destinations. Planes, trains, and public transportation all have me yielding control over departure times and the operation of the vehicle. Perhaps this is a male thing or maybe it’s just part of my personality, but I take great pride in getting myself places and I take great pleasure in taking in the sights that I ignored in my youth.
Out of character for me is that I actually enjoy solo drives more than a drive with passengers. I don’t hate having passengers, it’s plenty of fun, but I’m more of a fan of hitting the open road by myself, listening to music as loud as I want or to podcasts. The isolation affords me time to think, something I rarely give myself, and it even encourages me to catch up with my family and friends on the telephone.
The only thing that keeps me from driving to all my destinations is feasibility. I intend to see ballgames in Illinois, Texas, and Minnesota this year, but all of those destinations are more than ten hours away by car (take out Chicago and it’s twenty). Given that I’d only have a weekend to go to these places, it’s just a waste of my time and money to drive that far. Give me a destination within six hours and I’m already on the road.
I’m glad I don’t make a living on the road, but I hope that I’m able to hit the road a lot more this summer. There’s no greater feeling than escaping the confines of home life and taking to the expanses of the open road.
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