Driving sucks. But every summer, I drive thousands of miles to get to the places I want to be. This summer took me from the mid-Atlantic up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, down to the start of the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, and at the time of this writing, the southwestern corner of Colorado. From here, I head to the northwestern corner of Montana, only to return to the other side of the mountain range in southwestern Colorado where I am now (poor planning? Probably). After that, I head back to the mid-Atlantic. All in, I’ll drive at least 8,000 miles this summer, and that doesn’t factor in the other jaunts I take the rest of the year. So, I must like driving in some ways, I guess, but I really don’t. It comes down to a few simple facts: I want to bring my dog with me and have my car and my stuff; I don’t like flying even more (and that would make it harder to bring my dog, my stuff, and my car); and there are a lot of really cool places I want to be, and since teleportation hasn’t been invented yet, the only option is to drive. (Sidebar: yes, I could take the train or a Greyhound, but let’s be serious.)

The nightmare that awaits. (Image retrieved from here and comes courtesy of Pixabay)

It seems every year after my summer travels I forget how much I hate those long stretches on the road, the gridlock, the mundanity, the restlessness, because I sign up for another series of long hauls, inevitably, for the summer to come. Just the other day, I was thinking how I’d like to drive out see my friends in Portland, Oregon, next year, and while I’m at it, take a detour up to Bellingham, Washington, to see a retired colleague and another friend from my time living in Colorado. I was supposed to dip down to Sante Fe, New Mexico this summer before my Colorado trip, but that got called off because (another) retired colleague had a shake-up in his own travel plans. I thought about rescheduling for next year. Sounds daunting and terrible.

Most of friends are nowhere near as committed of road warriors as I am, and they all mostly suck at seeing their friends (i.e., me) who live elsewhere. I don’t know why I spend so much time and money trying to keep up with and visit them, because it really doesn’t get reciprocated very often. Though, there may be a good reason for that: I don’t like houseguests and entertaining. So, by me going to visit, I can maintain connections and not have to worry about disrupting my very habitual life at home. Sometimes these endeavors do include flights, mostly for short weekends, but it’s really the summer hauls where I try to cram in as many friends as possible, assuming they fall within the general footprint of my travel itinerary.

But I also greatly enjoy my personal time away from home, too. Right now, for the first 9-day stretch of this current trip, and the next 8-day stretch, I don’t plan to see anyone I know, which is fine by me. I prefer it, in fact. However, on the highways and interstates connecting all these places, I would love some company to keep me from going insane. I may already be there, though…

When I was younger, I used to drive 15-16-17 hours at a time, no problem. I can’t do that now. Ten is the edge of easy for me, 12 is the longest I’ll do now. But I hate those overnights in the middle. Nothing is worse than getting off the road after a long day of driving to settle down in a crappy roadside roach motel with some greasy pizza, only to have to get up early the next morning and log another five or six hours to get to where I’m going. Yuck.

If I were rich, I’d get one of those huge tour buses and tow my car behind (on a trailer of course; no point in adding mileage on the tires and such), all the while having a paid driver handle the worst part of getting there – the driving. Maybe I can hire Clarence Thomas after he steps down from the Supreme Court. He seems to like driving all over the place in one of those rigs. Though, I don’t think that’s the company I’d be looking to keep. And to be fair, he probably doesn’t want to spend any time with me either…

But I’m not rich, so that won’t happen in any form or fashion, sadly. The best option available is to just move somewhere I want to be almost all the time and stay put. The next step would be to build a carriage house so that friends could visit but not be all up in my business. Of course, they’d have to want to do that, so maybe that would just be the end of most of those friendships. They were fun while they lasted.

Driving sucks, and I’m dreading the thousands of miles I must go between now and mid-August. Be careful what you wish for is the message, I guess. Don’t dream of going somewhere else, because it might end up being a rude awakening.

Marco Esquandoles
Heading Somewhere