Road worriers

A long holiday weekend only encourages me to stay home. No sense planning a road trip at the risk of being maimed or even killed in an accident. Self-preservation, that’s the key to a long life, and nobody knows this better than retired folks. Give all the non-retired vacationers all the time they need to get back to work or school or whatever life of crime sustains the family, and that’s when I start unfolding my maps.

As a child I sat in the backseat of my parents’ car, my eyes glued to the window until the motion of the vehicle rocked me to sleep. In college, my thumb managed to get me down the road. Once I could afford my own reliable transportation I didn’t hang around home. I drove, sometimes like a maniac, and I didn’t even buckle my seat belt or pack spare underwear. During my career years my employers organized my expeditions into those traditional slots known as vacations. Like a rubber band, I was tethered by how far I could stretch my days off, and the whiplash from getting back on time took its toll.

Now the day I leave is flexible and the day I return is negotiable. That’s not exactly a definition of freedom, but it’s as close to a vagabond as I care to get.

Recently I was forced to rent a vehicle for 10 days while my only transportation was in the shop. The agent on the business side of the rental desk asked if I was under 70. I started to worry, does he really need to know? Apparently he does, because more car rental agencies, even major ones like Avis or Hertz, are imposing maximum age limits for drivers, not just minimum. Although there is no standard policy in this country, some European, African and South Pacific nations already impose a 70-75 age restriction; a few U.S. carriers are setting their cruise control at the same limit. In a few years it might not be so easy for me to get out of town.

One more worry that surfaces when I start planning a road trip involves where I’ll sleep. It’s not that I’m unreasonably finicky about accommodations, but rest area picnic tables and a reclined bucket seat have lost their appeal. Motels are always a crapshoot when it comes to finding cleanliness and comfort on the fly. Nobody wants to say it, but the chances of coming upon a good motel for under a hundred bucks is like walking into a public toilet and discovering a clean and comfortable seat.

I need to start packing for a road trip at least five days before because it gives me enough time for remembering the items I’m likely to forget, for unpacking and repacking the same items in two or three alternate configurations, for removing the stuff I finally decide I’ll never use and then reassuring myself I’ll have sufficient time to put it back again after I’ve processed the nightmares of being stranded in jail in a foreign country without, say, my favorite spare belt.       

What I’m going to eat can constipate my thinking when I’m planning a trip. It’s not impossible to pack healthy food in ice chests and stay away from the fast food feeding troughs, but it’s that I don’t want to. What fun is being on the road, freewheeling, when I have to be a dietary monument to responsible decision-making. Good eating choices. Vegan of the vehicle. Organic overdrive. I work hard at choosing a sensible diet when I’m at home. On the road, I’m with Jack Kerouac: “I ate another apple pie and ice cream; that’s practically all I ate all the way across the country, I knew it was nutritious and it was delicious.” My road trips will never inspire a generation, which is why it’s necessary that they at least inspire me.

I returned from my 10 day trip to Devils Tower in just seven days. I may have been worried about things back home, or maybe the thought of operating someone else’s car without the desire to drive like Mad Max took the exhaust out of my sails. But I saw no aliens, though everyone I talked to warned me about the possibility. I learned there are parts of Wyoming where driving at or above 80 m.p.h. is not such a bad idea. I learned that the rabbit population of Wyoming might be on the brink of extinction based on the number of squashed bunnies that littered the highways. I also learned that people who live in Wyoming are collectively called Wyomingites, which is better than being mistaken for a  Nutmegger if you drive through Connecticut. I worry about that.

– David Feela