Driving: My American Dream

Alone on the road, I’m confident and cool…a happier me. This is beautiful US-20 near Juntura, Oregon. It stretches all the way from the Oregon Coast to Boston, Massachusetts.

The road rarely feels long and lonesome to me. I wish my route were limitless. No time constraints, no finish line, and always another destination on deck. I get a peaceful feeling just imagining that.

When I'm all alone out on some desolate, dusty road, I'm in the happiest place I can be…better in-tuned to me. No passenger to tend to, no one but me to make as comfortable as can be. Sometimes I hold myself responsible for the comfort of others. But when I'm out there, making my way on my own, it's precious time that's solely for me.

And when I'm completely out of reach, that's all the better. It's comforting, it's freeing, and it makes me feel like I've left my well-known world for a foreign one. And somehow, immersed in the unknown, I feel more alive, more me. It's rejuvenating, it's exhilarating, and perhaps a little dangerous to be where no one knows you are – where no one familiar can find you. But it's a really unique feeling I've grown to crave. 

Sometimes mere communication with people in my world, or simply being within reach can feel like a burden...another text to read and process, another response to conjure up and produce, another external factor infiltrating the internal labyrinth of my mind. Especially when one of those innocent intrusions arises while I'm cultivating creative energy. Joyce Carol Oates says, "Interruptions are the destruction of imagination," and how right she is. It's kind of like hitting a speed bump when you're cruising at a steady clip of about 60-65. And it doesn't mean I love my people any less – it means that in order to love them and me better, I need to go play hide and seek by myself for a while, pretty regularly. 

Somehow the strangers I meet along the way, while I'm withdrawing from the familiar, are exempt from this kind of pre-covid social distancing. Instead of making me pause like a now obsolete toll booth in the middle of a highway would, interactions with perfect strangers are more like cool signs and roadside art installations I can appreciate along the way. 

It's funny how sometimes I need less solitude than I think I do. I'll unplug, roam around on my own, then have an exciting experience I just can't wait to tell a friend about. And just like that – I'll reach out. Sometimes the conversation will be a boost, energizing me and propelling me into the next great thing, like a power-up in Mario Kart that blasts you forward with the force of a fire-thrower. Other times, the conversation injects too much of an energy I don't wish to absorb, and I'll think, why did I call? Now I really need to be alone…and thank ME…I am!

Cross-country driving appeals very much to me. Some road trips I've taken have turned out to amount to more miles than driving from NY to LA...like the time I drove from North Dakota to Arkansas on a route that winded through 2,716 miles of the glorious Great Plains. Or my epic Pacific Northwest/Rocky Mountain adventure that took me on a 3,427-mile loop starting and ending in Seattle. (Always remember, this is THE cheapest way to rent a car…starting and ending in the same location.) But even though they're not routes that stretch from the far east to the far west, these journeys hold the magnitude of cross-country trips. Someday I'd like to start at the southernmost tip of Florida and make my way as far north as the road will take me in Alaska. Or drive all the way from San Diego to Maine, Minnesota to Louisiana or the southern tip of Texas. 

But wherever I declare my endpoint to be, that destination usually takes on some semblance of sadness because I never want to reach a finish line. As I approach my final road trip destinations, I tend to circle a bit. I'll do a few laps, take a not-so-quick detour somewhere else first…you know, stall a bit...regardless of how long I've been truckin' that day. I just don't want my trips to end. I need a month or more. Preferably more. I can't get enough of travel, can't get enough of my rental beasts, or my time alone with them. 

After my trips end, I miss the weird things you'd never expect to miss, like filling my tank daily, stocking my throw-away styrofoam cooler with ice by day, then emptying its water by night. I miss the smiles and waves from strangers in cars approaching on those empty, two-lane roads. I've decided that my fellow travelers wave because it's been so long since they've seen another vehicle. Sometimes it feels like they're saying, "Hey! I wasn't expecting you, but it's nice to see you." or "Hey! Look at us making our way out here, through the vast nothingness. Great job! Keep it up!"

I miss having to really put some elbow grease into the squeegee on my windshield to rid the glass of plastered insect carcasses. Somehow those bug guts get so cemented to the car's surfaces that only a serious gas station squeegeeing can hope to eliminate them. On some trips, I've even had to buy paper towels and Windex to really get the job done. Windshield wipers and fluids don't stand a chance against whatever these insects are made of. And I've concluded that this only happens in areas of the country where the speed limit is 70 mph or higher. Those poor bugs just don't have enough reaction time to get out of the way. That's also where daredevil birds do reckless dips and dives in front of flying cars. I swear I think they get bored and try to see if they can get out of the way in time…sort of an avian Russian roulette. The birds in South Dakota and Eastern Montana are particularly famous in my mind for this. And of the many risky routines I've seen, I only witnessed one casualty, may he rest peacefully.

When my trips end and I come back home…I miss these things being part of my thought process. I miss the kind of challenges that occupy my mind and time in place of all the usual struggles that come flooding back the minute I land at a New York airport. Grumbly and grouchy people, just itching to unload their cranky onto my unburdened, free spirit.

And all this is just a little glimpse into why life on the road via tiny house or RV or renovated Sprinter van might really be for me. I'd love for my home to be wherever I park it. I'd love to work a summer in Yellowstone National Park, breathe the sulfuric scents, watch Old Faithful erupt every day, then head to Acadia in autumn to see the spectacle of colors wash over the leaves. Maybe try a winter way up north in the Upper Michigan Peninsula, climb the frozen waterfalls of Lake Superior. A lot of retirees are living this way. I've met many a couple in their 60s or older who've sold everything they owned for this adventurous American dream. But I don't want to wait until I'm older and grayer. My life's happening now. It's not waiting for me.

Or maybe I'll become your tour guide. Get my CDL, keep learning the ins and outs of different lands then give you first hand what my words attempt to deliver in so much of what I write. I'm not really sure where I'm going next or next after that, and most of me likes it that way. When I grapple with the urge to have it all figured out, I try to remember how exciting it can be, not knowing what kind of adventures await on the road ahead. As much as I love to plan every inch of my trips maximizing every minute to see all there is to see...the unexpected twists and turns, the chance encounters and mishaps I couldn't have anticipated...those end up being some of my most cherished memories (and my best stories). And isn't that so true of life too? Sometimes, it's the people, places, and decisions we never saw coming that wind up meaning the most.