Life on the Road

Mattie and I average about eight hours of driving each day. There is a morning and an afternoon driving shift and we rotate driving each one. Despite road trips being the definition of freedom and carelessness, it's actually a rather stressful gig when you factor in weather, traffic, gas prices, and other deranged drivers. Initially, my goal each day was to just get to each destination. We would be safe there. I relaxed when we finally made it to Nashville and was at ease in Jeanette's homely living room. I was secretly anxious about getting back on the road each morning and found myself wondering if perhaps I'm just not a road trip kind of person.

In Salina I left the hotel room to grab a charger from my car and I shared the elevator with an Asian man. I got a strange vibe from the man who said nothing to me but stared at my knees and then my feet. He looked up at my face and then back down at my knees. I looked down at my feet. Nothing odd there. I looked up at him. He was blatantly grinning at my wrinkly, bulbous knees. It was a frustrating, tiny tipping point for me. I thought to myself, "Why am I doing this? Why am I in this tiny box with a creepy, grinning Asian man?"

Mattie and I admitted to each other that we get anxious and unsure at night, once we're settled somewhere until morning. We feel better knowing we're both this way. As we've gotten used to things, I now find that I'm ready to get back on the road each morning. Stopping in people's homes for the night is more stressful to me now. I want to get out of their hair and back into my car. In a strange artsy way of thinking, the road is our only constant and as I was saying about my false independence, I realized I need a constant to feel safe.

On a less thoughtful note, let me tell you what I've learned about Mattie.

Mattie snores. Mattie survies entirely off of the sustenance provided by chain restaurants. She's a grazer, eating little bits here and there, and throwing away a lot of food. Each time I stop for gas, Mattie disappears and comes back with a milkshake or a packet of french fries. She does not like to linger in a place after she's finished eating and I've noticed that as soon as we get wherever were going; a gas station, restaurant, or someone's house, she jumps out of the car the minute it stops rolling and just goes right on inside. I sit, gathering my things and putting away my keys to find that I'm all alone in a parking lot.

Despite her hasty abandonings, I'm so happy she's with me. Mattie drives the scary mountains for me and a few days ago we were surely going to die in a tornado. As soon as we crossed from Kansas into Colorado, the sky turned a greenish purple and a wall of lighting danced in the distance. I called our friend in Denver. "Kelsey! What do we do?"
Even Mattie, my rock, was whimpering as we drove towards the storm. There was no rain and no thunder. Neighboring cars plowed towards the mess with casual faces while Mattie and I looked for places to park and run. "We'll hide under that bridge." Mattie suggested. "How about the ditch?" I added. Kelsey had no reassuring words, insisting that the weather said there would be light thunderstorms. Perhaps it was the miles of open land, but we had never seen a storm look like this.

Clearly we made it through unscathed and laughed riotously to relive the tension. As our scariest encounter to date, I feel good about our road partnership. Mattie drove near-confidentally through the storm and we arrived in Denver to an 85˚ and sunny day. 

Our temperaments towards road living have also lightened since we began. We started off aware of each of our highway exits and which lanes we belonged in. We watched the GPS as we got closer to our turns and both verbally announced all road signs to ensure that the driver was ready. Wrong turns were stressful, tense matters and missing an exit was a shameful event. Now we hop on highways in the general direction we'd like and bother with finding our exits later. Missed turns are a minor and mostly ignored inevitability and now, it's up to the driver to read the signs. Should the passenger become uncomfortable, one simply lets out an uneasy grunt, and the driver will slow the car or pull into the slow lane, or "loser lane" as Ellen calls it.

I've found I enjoy driving in the "zippy quick" lane as it makes me feel like a pack leader. The Alpha Dog. In real life I'm never an alpha but on the road... I'm Jackie Chan.