It's just about 2000 miles from our residence in Colorado to our summer quarters in Vermont. Early this week I made my 33rd drive from the one to the other. We were lucky -- we sidestepped both floods and tornadoes, though fields were flooded throughout Iowa and there was impressive and nasty twister damage in Aurora, Nebraska. There were the remnants of dwellings and big hunks of metal roofing lying on the side of the road. Nevertheless, it was one of our easier trips: four solid ten- to twelve-hour days of driving. As usual, I was impatient for the first hour -- It takes a while to get into the swing. But after a while I went into a "zone" -- otherworldly, attentive, resigned, content. It's another state of being.
It was only at the end of the trip, along narrow and undulating Route 4 from Rutland to Woodstock, when for twenty miles I trailed the Executive Director of the Slow Drivers of America, that I lost my equanimity. I was just about to metamorphose into the Incredible Hulk, vault from my vehicle and toss the guy and his Plymouth into the Ottaquechee River, when I found an opening to drop into third, floor it, and zoom by him. Ah, what satisfaction!
It's an amazing trip -- an ever-changing and fascinating landscape. Some people claim that the mid West, with its astonishingly large cornfields, is boring, but those who think so are just not paying attention. It's a long book, to be sure, but every page is different. Despite the pleasure of it all, I'm relieved to get out of the vehicle, stretch the old legs, and get going on the gardens. With nothing on the driving horizon except an occasional trip to town for supplies.
40 hours of driving? I can't imagine it. I have just declined an invitation to spend the solstice in Carnac, Brittany, as it would be an unendurably long four-and-a-half hour drive each way.
Posted by: Sarah | June 15, 2008 at 03:53 AM