Road Recollections and Accomplishments

Over these recent weeks and next week as well, I'll have driven to or through nine states and one province.  I'm sure that's a personal record.  It's been mostly fun and I (mostly) don't mind all the driving.  Plus, I've learned a lot. 

Driving to Virginia this past week was much easier than I'd anticipated.  It's a pretty straight shot from my house to Chesapeake--door to door, my house to my friend's was only one tank of gas.  Anticipating the concert that was in my future I passed the 380 miles like this:

Gavin DeGraw ~ Chariot, Chariot Stripped, self titled, Free, Sweeter, Sweeter, Sweeter
Train ~ Save Me San Franciso
Michael Franti ~ Sound of Sunshine
and 94.9 The Point on the radio as soon as I crossed into Virginia.  

Coming home on Saturday, it was nearly the same playlist and radio with the addition of Sara Bareilles who has a new record coming out tomorrow.  There was lots of car dancing and I think I got a little hoarse singing along for seven hours.  My favorite musical moment in the car was when The Point played Sara Bareilles songs back-to-back with King of Anything and Brave.  I hope the people at the light next to me were either inspired or amused by my car dancing.  I swear:  I'm not crazy. 

Here are two lessons I've learned on the road:

Lesson 1 ... Pumping gas.  I'm a Jersey girl!  We don't pump gas.  No we don't.  New Jersey still has full service service stations.  I drive out of state only a couple of times each year and try to get gas at the border and time it so I don't need to get it again until I'm back.  Or I bring my son.  Or look for attended gas stations where they might exist like on the New York State Thruway.  

The most embarrassing gas pumping story dates back years.  My girl scout troop co-leader and I had led our girls on a camping trip to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.  It was 100 degrees in the shade that weekend and we played hard the whole time.  The girls were deep asleep in our two cars when we realized we'd need gas to make it all the way home so we pulled into a service station.  Neither one of us could figure out how to get the gas into our tanks.  Luckily for us (huge irony here), a bunch of biker guys pulled in so we fluttered our eyelashes at them and said would you? could you? and they helped us out. Thank goodness those girls were asleep and didn't see the women who preached "girls can/should do anything" at all times, do the eye flutter/need a man thing.  

I think I've mastered it this month, though.  I've pumped gas in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Delaware, and Virginia.  And yesterday when I realized I was on empty after driving home from Virginia, I almost got out of the car to do it myself and then remembered I was home.  Home!  Where those nice folks come out to pump your gas and all you have to do is sit in your car.  In all types of weather.  At any hour of the day.  Jersey girls have it made.  

Lesson 2 ... Cured of Bridge/Tunnel phobia.  I've driven south only a few times that I can remember.  We (that would be my husband at the time) drove to the Episcopal Church's Kanuga Conference Center in North Carolina where I was participating in a Christian Education Directors' Conference, my kids were cared for all day and my husband was left to his own devices.  Another time, post divorce, I was in Richmond to attend the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes annual meeting.  I've also been to Williamsburg with the kids.  None of these trips took me over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  I mean through the Chesapeake Bay tunnel.  No, bridge.  No, tunnel.  Okay ... bridge-tunnel.  That was probably a good thing since a little-known fact about me is that I suffer from a rare form of bridge/tunnel phobia and I pretty much hold my breath (subconsciously) going over and under large or small bodies of water.  The Tappan Zee bridge over the Hudson is a major challenge as it's pretty long.

But the Tappan Zee is like a foot bridge compared with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel/Bridge/ Tunnel/Bridge.  Gripping the wheel as I pulled onto the bridge, I could see another bridge off in the distance.  I thought to myself it's a little like the Hudson and East Rivers with multiple bridge crossings.  Oh little did I know that the bridge on the distant horizon was the same bridge with miles and miles and miles and miles between where I was at the starting point and it.   With a little time off for tunneling.  Twice.  My thoughts at the time:

On the bridge ...

I believe I love "the road."  I believe if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd pack up my little car and just drive.  Some people have been to every baseball stadium in the country.  Some people have been to every National Park.  Some people have driven border to border, coast to coast.  I'm not sure where I'd go.  But wherever it is, I'll breathe across bridges, through tunnels, pump my own gas and dance and sing behind the wheel and always remember that I'm a Jersey girl at heart.

(I promise never to drive and video again, though.)