Solo Drive

There is just something about taking a solo road trip. Its something that I can't name...you just feel.

Granted, my road trip was only three hours long but I did drive through three states. I left Monday evening armed with my gun, GPS, guitar, and a CD case full of Joan Jett (really). There was a nervous goodbye as I settled in the car. J didn't want me to go but she understood why I felt I had to go.

See, Grandma isn't getting any younger. And she is only three hours away and I don't visit her as much as I should. I am the oldest of her grand children and one of her favorites. Yes, she has favorites. Me and my cousin Kurt. Maybe she shouldn't have favorites but really, we are the only two that would drop our lives and rush to her if she needed or just wanted us to. Cousin Mel is the only other grand kid that shows her any respect and the rest of my cousins...well, I have nothing nice to say so I will drop it there.

So I hopped in the car and loaded the CD player. I lit a smoke and waved to J as I drove down the driveway. I made a right onto the highway and rolled down the window yelling, "Tennessee here I come!"

There was no traffic and the weather was perfect. The sun was down behind the trees casting long shadows across the road and making me imagine that I was caught in a strobe light of sorts. The draft from the car in front of me picked up the dead leaves from the side of the road making it look like there were thousands of birds flying along just above the asphalt and I chased them with silly laughter, watching them in my mirror as they chased me too.

365 was vacant. The sky was the palest of blues tinted lightly with grays. I turned up "Do You Wanna Touch" and threw my fist out the window as I sang along screaming, "Yeah!" on cue. I took a deep breath of the clean air and watched as the mountains grew in front of me. Life is good, I thought.

About half way through my trip, the sun ducked down under the horizon. The mountains came to life with with lights from the hidden houses. It looked like space had opened up and swallowed the earth, turning everything into constellations of the living.

I almost didn't notice when I crossed into North Carolina. There was just so much to see. I must have driven this route at least a dozen times, but every time its different. Every time I see something I hadn't noticed before. A lighted cross on the top of a mountain. A new valley of lights. Colorful neon passing in a blur as I speed by.

My thoughts were scattered. I thought about the family I would see. Cousin Mel in from Alaska. I hadn't seen her in at least four years. Aunt C, Uncle T, and Kurt in from Florida. I hadn't seen them in at least a year. And all the rest of the family I would see.

J was never too far from my thoughts either. With Christmas around the corner, I went over the list in my head of all the things I wanted to give her. With that thought came the thought that we probably won't be together on Christmas...just like Thanksgiving. Our reasons for spending the holidays apart are the same. Her grandmother isn't getting any younger either.

The mountains got bigger the further away from home I got. And by the time I hit the Tennessee/North Carolina line, the massive beasts overwhelmed me. I've stood before the ocean, I've been so far out in the ocean that I could no longer see land, but it has never made me feel as small as the mountains do when they tower all around me.

My thoughts wandered and suddenly I felt like I was the tiny spec of dust on the leaf in the movie "Horton Hears A Who." (I think that was the name.) I was thinking about how space was infinite and really, if you want to drive yourself crazy, how we are just a spec of dust in it. Or something like that at least. Thankfully, my phone rang and snapped me out of all that.

I pulled up Grandma's driveway exactly three hours from the time I had left J standing on the front steps. No one was home yet (they were still thirty minutes away) so I got out of the car and leaned against the hood. I lingered in the silence as I stared at the infinite space above me littered with stars. Yeah...life is good, I thought. And as I grabbed my stuff from the trunk, I smiled. I was already looking forward to my solo drive home.