studentdriver

Okay, I suppose sometime I have to write about it. This'll be fucking long.

So, a few weeks ago, a Monday morning, I rented a car and drove. And drove. And drove.

I got a decent car-- a 2007 Corolla. Its CD player sucked, though, unable to play MP3s, so I made a stop in a small town just before Ohio to pick up some "real" CDs. Finally got the latest by NIN, and a double-CD "greatest hits" Prince collection. A weird pairing, I guess, and it got a stifled laugh out of the haughty checkout girl at some small-town Best Buy. Right-o, Ms. Hip, Prince not cool enough for you? Have fun ringing up sales all day while I continue having a fun road trip.

I planned to cross the upper north end of Ohio, a state road most of the way, avoiding big cities (and traffic). Right as I got out of sight of civilization and in sight of dilapidated, abandoned barns, my check engine light came on. Crap. Finally found a pay phone and called my company (which is local only). "Oh, it's probably just due for an oil change" "No, the car has 500 miles on it. And there's a separate 'scheduled maintenance' light on the dash that would light up for that." "Well... do you feel okay driving it?" "I guess, as long as I won't get sued if the engine blows up." "Oh, no, you're fine. Drive on!"

That damned check-engine light was erratic the rest of the trip; off for a day, then on for 5 minutes, then off for another day...

My first day, I made it out of Indiana, across Ohio into Pennsylvania, around Lake Erie (where I picked up naught but Canadian radio stations-- tantalizingly close to Toronto. I could get to Toronto in 6 hours. I'm applying for a passport). Into New York. Drove through my first Indian Reservation (Seneca Nation). A sad sight: right inside the western border of the Seneca Nation was a big sign. "Seneca! We're Not Just Bingo Anymore!," advertising a casino.

Saw my first mountains. Probably nothing to most people, but I finally began to understand why visitors to Indiana would say "Jesus, this place is so flat." I've been to Iowa and Nebraska, so to me, Indiana's got nice hills compared to... well... Iowa and Nebraska. But this... wow. Green mountains modestly called "hills." At points, you could turn 360 degrees and not be able to see a horizon. Feel the cruise control begin to crank as my ears clogged-- climbing a mountainside. Watched storms approaching from the west actually get snagged on a mountaintop.

Around 6 pm, I decided to get off the road-- my original idea was to drive on and on, napping in rest stops, but my body wasn't too thrilled with that concept. I stopped in Olean, NY, found a Wal-Mart at which I replaced my bag o' personal supplies which I'd left behind, and checked into a little motel, where I discovered the embarrassment people in NY feel when they're not from NYC.

"What brings you to Olean?" "Heading to New Hampshire, just taking a break..." "Oh, where did you drive from?" "Indianapolis." "I hope you're not disappointed, this is a small town, the sidewalks roll up at night." "Oh, I know, I'm just here to nap really." "People are always surprised that New York is mostly small-town, quiet..." "No, I know it is, don't worry." "Really, we're kind of a fun place, we're no New York City though, so I hope you're not let down..."

The next day, I sailed across New York into Vermont. Only 50 miles across at its southern end, so I originally guessed I'd get across into New Hampshire around noon... shame I didn't count on topography.

Okay. I get it now, Indiana is flat. So is Illinois, so is Missouri, so is pretty much any place I've ever driven. Where I'm from, when you want to build a road, you just start at point A, build towards point B, then you're done. Our roads are pretty much grid patterns-- we have roads that go north/south, east/west. You can choose any interstate going one direction, go for a few hundred miles, and get off and feel confident that you've just gone in one direction.

Vermont. "Green Mountains." They've got mountains. It's not easy to build roads over/through mountains, so you just kinda follow the routes nature gives you. In Vermont, this means that the few interstates run vaguely N/S, and state roads that claim to get you E/W actually curly-cue around like Charlie Chaplin on rollerskates. I used to think it was weird that in the Panama Canal, the sun would rise in the Pacific and sink in the Atlantic, but now I think it's interesting that when you're on a road in Vermont that claims to be going "E," you can be blinded by the sun going down *in front of you*.

A few things about Vermont:

• My North American road atlas has a neat feature. They list the population of each state/estado/province/territory/whatever. Vermont has half of the population of just metro Indianapolis. ~600,000. There are no big towns.


• The stereotype is right: every place advertises cheese and/or maple syrup.


• The primary industry besides selling tree blood and moldy milk does appear to be running beds & breakfasts.


• Little hand-painted "Wi-Fi here" signs are out front of every place that has ever hosted a traveler. I still shake my head sometimes at how deeply computers have entrenched in society, especially when people treated me as a weird-o for espousing it in the 70s and 80s.


• Vermonters drive like maniacs. Legally. Wet, barely-two-lane roads, serpentine and banked like race tracks, moose-crossing, snowmobile-crossing signs everywhere... "runaway truck" lanes to catch semis that were out of control, blind curves, fog, etc... and 60 mph limits. Roads that anywhere else would be 25 mph, no-passing roads lined with "my relative died here" memorial crosses... highway speeds. I pissed off a good 20% of the population on my drive through.


• If you remember the fad of getting giant concrete geese for one's porch, dressing it in bonnets and vests for seasonal looks... the latest fad I saw in VT and NH: giant concrete bulls or pigs or something. Large, tubular things at any rate. Set out by the side of the road. With their bodies painted with scenes... hunks of cheese and a red barn, Dutch windmills. Weird. They seem to be advertisements of some sort, but... yeah, I didn't really get it.

So it took 6 hours to wend my way around the tortuous roads of both Vermont and New Hampshire. Spent an expensive night in Concord, New Hampshire (damn me for wanting to go to NH when they're the first presidential primary state... but the hotel was amazingly lush), found Moxie for sale (Moxie! I finally tried Moxie! It's like... a less sweet cola with a dash of quinine), drove up to Weirs Beach the next day... Funspot. The world's largest classic arcade... plus a normal arcade and other such "family fun" stuff.

Walked into Funspot. My first sight: a Computer Space machine in a locked room. I peered in-- Computer Space, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Astron Belt... locked up. AAAUGH! Found my way to the classic arcade portion. Old black and white machines, a Pong Doubles, old electromechanical gun and bat machines, pinball machines, vector games... I had a grin on my face for hours. Popped $10 into a token machine, got a cup of tokens, and began playing. Introduced myself to a guy who was refunding jammed tokens to a couple. He turned out to be the nephew of the owner, his (deceased) dad was a cofounder of the place... he showed me around, gave me a close-up look at those locked-away machines I saw at the start, introduced myself to his uncle and others at the place. Asked me to find him and hang out when I came back the next day, gave me a $20 gift card, then opened a machine and dumped a bucket of tokens out for me. Holy crap!

Eventually, I made my break to find a place to stay. I found a crappy Bates-Motel-like place... the door to my room had a massive fissure through which I could watch the passing traffic, the air conditioner was dangling precariously out of my back window, next to the back door that was held on with a hook. My TV (with cable!) sat on a chair, my shower was a jerry-rigged plastic cubicle lashed into the corner of the bathroom with thin copper tubing, my bed was clothed with threadbare flannel... I dropped my glasses on the floor, and when I lifted the bedclothes to retrieve them, a pile of hastily-swept dirt greeted me. A nest of spiders had a giant home built in the corner next to my pillows. It was great! (No, seriously. I love the hovels as much as the luxe palaces.)

Hit Funspot again that night. I discovered that, on some games, my skills aren't what they were. (Time Pilot especially... that was depressing.) On others, however, I've massively improved. Pretty much rolled Elevator Action, could hold my own at Red Baron, discovered the joys of Timber, actually gave up my game of Chiller because I was doing so well that I couldn't lose. The guy's uncle gave me another bucket of tokens that night. The $20 card got me a free dinner of pizza. A lot of pretty single mothers hanging out, watching their kids play, watching me. They smiled, asked if I was having fun while they rolled their eyes in the direction of their kids... I went outside to a patio umbrella to eat pizza and drink Moxie in the rain. One mom- she looked younger than me- followed me outside, shooed away a child who followed... she made small talk about the noise of the games, blah blah blah, and asked me "which was mine." "Oh, I've no kids, I'm here for myself!" as I triumphantly hoisted my bucket o' tokens. Yeah, not my finest move.

Came back the next day, played some games. Went to the pizza parlor to use more of my gift card, smiled at some harried moms... the owner and nephew saw me and treated me like a VIP (which caused the pizza parlor staff to panic-- i must be someone important!); ended up being interviewed by the nephew and uncle, photographed by someone who worked for the local paper. They opened up the coin box of a nearby machine and dumped the tokens into my still-full bucket as children went goggle-eyed at my magic, and their moms recalculated their opinions of the nerdy-but-cute-single-guy-eating-pizza...

Decided I needed to begin heading back; I wanted to get to Indy and finish off my online class before the weekend rolled over. Boosted by caffeine, I was prepared to drive straight through, and I left mid-afternoon. I was in Vermont again, winding around their insane fucking roads, when harsh storms hit... zero visibility from rain, with fog... I had to get off the road. Stopped first at a Holiday Inn Express in Springfield VT. Too expensive, but I ended up getting into an amazingly deep and personal conversation with the girl at the counter... she did all she could to get me to stay ("...we're having the Simpsons Movie premiere! I have tickets! I'll take you! I know fun places we could go! I could show you around!"), learned her plans to go back to school, where she was from, how long she'd been in VT. A western girl stuck in a small town in a small state, around no one she knew and an urge to travel. I honestly think that if I'd said "hey, hop in the car with me, let's go on an adventure!" that she'd have done just that. If I hadn't had a class and a life to resume so soon... I would have. But... I couldn't get caught up, so I took off again. Stopped at this beautiful little b&b, slogged through the rain to my room, watched TV (saw a local documentary on making those painted bull/pig/whatever things, as someone painted their concrete animal with the constellations of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, one hemisphere per side.). Dozed off, woke up to birds and sunshine... opened my curtains...

...I was on top of a mountain. Holy crap. A deep green valley swept down from my view, little pocket mirror lakes and toy barns off in the distance. The first time in ages I've just been knocked flat by an unexpected gorgeous view. I'm not a nature guy, but... this was just awe-inspiring.

Indy continued to call, though, and I drove on. Slept for a few hours in an Ohio rest stop, 10 pm to 2 am. A really good sleep. Popped the front seats backwards, opened the rear seats to the trunk, tilting everything together to form a cozy tunnel that blocked streetlights and any peering eyes...

Got back home around 4 am Saturday morning. The cat was alive (Tony had been feeding her) but pissed. A short nap caught me up, I finished up my schoolwork for the semester on Sunday, and was back in gear for work and mundane life. Woo-hoo.

God, that was fun. I was afraid when I was planning all of this that I might be chasing a chimera, some barely remembered idea of "life" as I used to live it as a teenager, when I was younger, more stupid, before I was married, before I had responsibility, that the experience would ring hollow and make me realize how much I'd changed.

Instead, I realized how much I missed doing this kind of thing. Heading home was hard. I kept that "returning home" melancholy away by thinking of what could be next. Where could I go next? I was kicking myself a bit-- I could have taken two weeks off, I was mere miles away from Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Now that I know the distances and times, I could go quicker, more intelligently. I could get to Maine without all ther stops, or I could go an equal distance in the other direction, hit the Dakotas.

I could get my passport and go to Canada. Quicker than NH!

Don't know when I'm doing it or what I'm doing, but I'm doing something again. I'm not going to wait 10 years to go out again.

I also reaffirmed my "road trip alone" tendencies. Tony was kind of let down that he couldn't have gone-- even his mom asked why he hadn't gone-- and he didn't really get why I said I couldn't have done that trip with someone else. I liked the silence (or the me-silence... Prince and/or Trent Reznor and/or NPR was on much of the time... y'know, Concord NH residents don't care for Prince screaming "work it!") Anyway. I can't really curl up at a rest stop for a nap with someone else along...

I thought a bit about Heather and such as well... a little sad as I went through PA, wondering what it'd have been like on the road with her. Making a turn toward the Pittsburg area. That would have been more... fulfilling... than going to New England with Tony, really. I think she'd have at least been amused by my shock/awe/delight at the changing terrain and such. I hate missing her, or missing the person I think she was.

I don't think I could have jammed to Prince had she been along, though.

Infuriating roads aside... I was really taken with the VT/NH area. I "got" a bit of that "I must be here" feeling Heather had for the beaches in North Carolina, I think. If I get my way later in life, if I can finish this school thing and do work which is really rewarding... I think I want to go back on a more longterm basis. Summer home, that kind of thing.

Happy summer, and thanks for reading this far.