Road Life

In the autumn of 2023, Evan and I departed home to move him from Asheboro to Portland, Oregon. For five days, from Sunday until the following Friday, we crossed the epically massive United States, driving from the Piedmont on our side of the Appalachian Mountains across the prairie, into the high country and into the high desert, and finally down from the Columbia Plateau into Portland. We drove about eight hours each day, in four-hour shifts, stopping at pre-reserved hotels, did the walk-through of his apartment, and slept there on Friday, before his big “pod” of possessions arrived the next day. It is officially the longest road trip I have ever taken, and it made an indelible impression on me in so many ways. It also cemented for me a basic fact about myself that I suspected but now know for sure: I am not made for long road trips.

It’s not that we didn’t have a good time. It was an amazing experience. We bonded, and that was well worth the challenging nature of the drive. Our adventure far surpassed several pilgrimages to Louisiana and one two-day expedition to Minnesota for a family reunion by way of New York City. We drove to the Big Apple, dropping a much younger Evan off at his New York Film Academy summer camp there and then headed northwest. Early on, we drove to Pennsylvania regularly to see family there, but Reading is a mere 484.7 miles, four states, and about seven hours away. It’s nothing to sneeze at, but it can be done in one day and is a moderate trip, especially since the drive is uneventful and fairly scenic if you like farmland.

Day-long drives aren’t a bad thing if one has a vehicle that gets decent gas mileage and is comfortable. Our drive across the country, which was five day-long drives in a row, was especially daunting. Imagine all six feet three inches of me wedged into a Honda Civic passenger seat with bags in the footwell and surrounded by drinks, snacks, and a book or two, and you’ll get a sense of my physical discomfort. Evan is tall, too (though less broad), and I know that he struggled as well. He definitely still has his youth, but he was wrecked for several weeks after. I took an extra week off work just to recuperate. Despite all this, though, he masterfully organized and planned the trip and deserves major credit for handling the whole thing beautifully. 

It was a very long, very intense week. We drove 2,808 miles through nine states, stayed at four hotels, and listened to about forty hours of music or podcasts. We had his very big, gregarious, and sweet dog Chloe with us in the back seat, which made things a little more exciting at rest stops and hotels. She was somewhat disoriented by days of travel (her idea of excitement up to that point was chasing the family cats and trying to hump our poor family pug). When we stopped for the night, she would frequently shake windows with her booming bark anytime someone walked by our room.

On the flight back to NC, I decided that it would be at least five years before I did anything so physically and mentally draining again. Even so, it was so much fun and a life-changing experience. If Evan asked me to drive back with him, I’d forget my promise and fly to Portland to help him pack up and drive homeward. We certainly miss having him around. Plus, it would be nice to have all three boys in the same region again.

I’m a man of physical activity. I like to be up and moving. Even when I’m sitting in my chair in the den with the dogs, I’m usually up every little bit to move laundry around or some other household chore. Driving gets dull after a while. There is nothing to do but sit for prolonged periods, getting stiff and sore from just not moving. We listened to podcasts and had some good chats, but after eight hours cramped into a packed car, even the most engaging content can get a little wearisome, and there are only so many topics to cover in conversation. At some point, someone asks the question, “What is your favorite book,” for the third time and sullen silence ensues. Luckily, I gave the boy plenty of opportunity to comment on my driving during my shifts, where, whether he knew it or not, he was almost directly quoting his mother, saying, “Jeez, Dave, are you paying attention to the road?”

America is a beautiful place and we gasped in awe and her natural splendor. And yet, something about America’s sprawling highways and interstates makes me crave calorically dense, processed cheese food and crunchy treats. Sometimes I wanted peanut M&Ms, and other times I wanted Combos, but I was always noshy for something sweet or salty or some combination thereof. I also tended to prefer soft drinks, though I’m not usually a big soda drinker. I now know that a 20-ounce bottle of caffeine jammed sugary cola can really help me get into the mindframe of a long drive. A deeply negative side effect of eating gas station or rest stop kibble during a long car ride is that eventually, the digestion rebels and fills the lower intestines with noxious methane gas. Being that we are men, we let fly rather than suffer the pressure of the ailment that Evan calls ‘bubble guts’, but he has always had deeply malodorous farts that shrank the small enclosed space of the car’s tiny cabin forcing us to ventilate to the outside air.

Beyond the risks of prolonged sitting, like blood clots and deep-vein thrombosis, and the damage from sugary drinks and greasy snacks, we also had to factor in regular meals. Because we were on a tight schedule and had Chloe in the car, Evan and I tried to keep the meals to fast-food stops during the day and then find something suitably local after we checked into the hotel for the evening. I heartily approved of this efficient thinking on Evan’s part, but invariably, when you eat a lot of fast food, you run a risk of digestive uncertainty. What we made up in speedy drive-thru service, we could certainly lose at rest stops a few hours later. This was the case with one of Nebraska’s fast food franchises,  unironically called Runza. If you’re in the Cornhusker State for any reason, take my word for it and avoid that stop on your bucket list unless you’re into prolonged intestinal distress. 

Years before, hoping to save money on expensive and unhealthy fast food for a family of five, we packed the boys in our trusty minivan with a cooler full of homemade sandwiches, small bags of chips, some drink boxes and bottled water, and a large bag of party-sized candy bars to be given out at ‘hundred-mile celebrations’. The boys griped endlessly about this because they preferred fast food to healthy choices, as all kids do. By the time we arrived at our destination, our middle son had groused so much that we abandoned our health-focused plans of the first leg and drove through fast food stops just to keep them quiet. Despite all the lamentation, though, we always tooted the horn whenever crossing state lines, which had the nice combination of keeping the kids engaged in the trip and scaring the hell out of surrounding drivers.

In later years, when it was just her and I driving somewhere, Micki had the brilliant idea to fight the monotony of a long ride with regular two-hour stops. Not only would we fuel up and refill snacks or get lunch or dinner, but we also switched up drivers. This made for nice breaks that kept just one person from being completely exhausted by the end of the journey and also made bathroom and food stops more predictable. One of the best things about the East Coast is that it is absolutely coated with Sheetz gas stations (I am not getting royalties for this product placement). At this travel-focused stop, one can use a clean bathroom, request food that is “made to order”, get protein bars, candy, crunchy snacks, drinks, and whatever else might be needed, and (for those who are card-carrying participants) get three cents off per gallon at the pumps. Our two-hour interval breaks are sometimes less or more than the allotted time, based on the location of these gas stopovers, but we aim to hit Sheetzes all along our route for convenience and familiarity.

With all of these trek-easing rules in place, a spin across the neighboring states can be quite pleasurable. We usually bring a book or some other distraction for when we’re not driving. The last long trip we took carried us to Long Island for a family funeral about a year ago and has been covered in other essays, but wound up being the longest we have been in a car at one go at least since I returned from Portland. Despite the sad nature of the trip, Micki’s driving itinerary, spaced out with lots of breaks and switch-ups, made the day, though long, still tolerable. 

It is hard to imagine it now, but when I was a young driver, I made several long interstate trips. The first was a drive from Reading to Fort Wayne, Indiana. I drove my 1987 Chrysler LeBaron, “hoopty” as my friends named it. The car had bench seats, no A/C, no tape or CD player, and got crappy gas mileage. And yet, with a little luck and ingenuity (and no speeding tickets), I made it safely to the Hoosier State and back and then drove through to New Jersey. If I were Pops (and I have had the relevant experience with our lads) and the Dave that I was back then was departing on one of these long road trips, I would have forbidden him. I certainly traumatized myself a few times during those lone voyages. I guess Pops knew that experience was a good teacher and simply hoped for the best. He probably also realized that I would have gone either way. I was a reckless rascal. Despite that, I had a specific plan of attack for that particular escapade.

I was no stranger to long trips, even then. I’d made the journey to Indiana several times during the year that I attended college there, though someone else was always driving. The first trip I made was with my school friend, Jason Sterner and his father (who also happened to cuss quite a lot for a preacher) and was done totally at night, when traffic would be less dense. I think I slept through much of that trip, which was probably better since Sterner’s father spent most of the time lapsing between singing hymns and swearing at other drivers. During that ride I learned that everyone had their preferences for the best way to undertake a long journey by car.

For me, the ideal road trip was—as with Pop Sterner—done in one go, with maybe a pitstop or two for a wee break and refueling (no road number twos was my motto unless it cannot be helped). No nighttime travel, though. My theory was, if you have a flat tire or other breakdown, the middle of nowhere at night is a great way to be disappeared by some hillbilly psychopath just hoping for a disabled vehicle and a skinny kid to torture. I didn’t want to stop for food or drinks. I learned from Uncle Dan, who used to plan trips out months in advance, to prep the vehicle with food and drinks as if one would be driving across an apocalyptic landscape rather than the heartland of these United States. 

I therefore bought two six packs of Mountain Dew and several sleeves of my favorite candy bar. Those rode shotgun with me along with my trusty 1998 spiral-bound Rand McNally road atlas with route highlighted. Finally, on the day of departure, I drove through my favorite (at the time) fast food joint and grabbed a bag of ten or fifteen cheeseburgers for fifty-nine cents each. 

For entertainment, because the old hoopty was so sparse in that department, I rigged up my Sony Discman as powered by the cigarette lighter in the dash and added portable PC speakers that allowed me to crank my tunes from the back seat. It took a couple of test runs to get the volume just right with the windows down and the engine roaring on the interstate, but once I had it sorted, my trips were set. I honestly only remember the drives, not the destinations, which means that I got way more out of the adventure, I guess. 

Rolling home, broke and tired, though, I felt as though the world was my own to explore and in just a few short years, I would take a fateful drive to North Carolina to start a new life. I was in a different car, then, and had all my earthly possessions jammed into it, but it was by far the best of the lone car trips I ever made and also the last one of any real length by myself.

Recently, Micki and I drove to Boone, NC, over a Saturday. It isn’t that far away, but it is a pretty jaunt across a third of our state into the western mountains. On the way, we stopped at Sheetz, got food and drinks and topped off the tank. We chatted about everything, and the radio never came on except when we needed to listen to the satnav lady give directions. On the way back, Micki taught me about the female Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut and I realized as we neared home that we’d gotten quite good at road life together. Soon, we will have to make a try for PA again, and since air travel is dubious at best right now, driving may be our only option.

As for a really long drive, I might be up for a scenic, meandering cruise across the nation, where we only spend a few hours in the car and stay at scenic places and shop or go on hikes and stay at Bed and Breakfasts and then hop in the family automobile the next day, slowly accruing distance. Right now, the idea of a high-paced, intensely scheduled cross-country excursion when time is a factor gives me something like bad nerves. Either way, I guess the best thing about long road trips is also the worst thing about them. They are fun and can be made tolerable by spending time with people you love on the way, but they can also be taxing and frustratingly cramped. Like Micki and I, if the whole thing is properly arranged, or like our trip across the country where Evan had the whole thing taped out to perfection, it might be tolerable, but for right now, anyway, I think I’ll stay home.