Road travel can be a grind. Sure, there’s the initial exhilaration of leaving on an adventure, cooler packed, duffel stuffed, and road map handy. As well as, and perhaps it even should go without stating, the grand triumph of the arrival.
But in the middle there, in the middle of the trip, are the fuel stops, stretching, wandering buggy eyed through the Quik-Mart looking at a buffet of sweet laden junk food, and old grey hot dogs slowly rotating in the steamy glass box on the counter, and worse yet is seeing your reflection in the other sleepy travelers stocking up with handfuls of what you detest but cannot deny stimulates you, if only briefly.
The miles drag by on the trip counter as you stare out for something different on the landscape, something to trigger a thought or idea about life “in these here parts,” but all too often it is just bill boards and an assortment of proprietary signs advertising the same thing…everywhere you go. Missing are the differences, in the way people speak, cars driven, houses, restaurants…..it’s all one big meltdown of the same.
So you keep your eyes on the pavement, or for our purposes here, the centerline. Your mind is called upon for entertaining thought, stimulated by unfinished contemplations from your busy life back home. You are alone on the road, even with sleeping passengers, you are alone. Your gaze is fixed, your body postured, hands ten and two, and you are once again alone with your thoughts.
Oh the grind, the glorious grind of the constantly welcoming and never ending centerline.
