Cognosco

So, I mentioned in my last Albie update that I like to drive. Actually, I love to drive. In fact, I’m not even sure that there is a strong enough word for how I feel about getting into a car and covering vast differences in short spans of time. I am the type of road tripper that many other people would hate because I don’t like to stop. I don’t want to savor each place. I just want to see as much stuff as possible. My husband is usually willing to humor me in this regard, and I do most of the driving on our trips because he knows it makes me happy. There is something immensely satisfying to me about looking at a map and tracing the roads that I have travelled. It is almost like a ritual cleansing for me because my mind can just go and go wherever it likes while my body covers these stretches. Some people have confession. Others have vision quests. There are cleansing teas and diets. I’ll take the road.

I have taken several road trips by myself, accompanied only by a dog. I remember the first time that I had a trip planned, my mom said she wished I was taking "someone" with me. Someone male, I’m sure. I felt perfectly safe in the company of an 80 lb malamute mix. A dog will reliably wake and raise hell when anyone approaches your car while sleeping. I cannot say the same for any human companion.

I have not taken one of these solitary trips in over three years. I have the itch. As soon as I can free the time and feel okay leaving dude for a few nights, I’m off again. It is an obsession. Maybe I’ll just take dude with me, but it is harder to just GO with a wee one. And I am admittedly selfish in that aspect. My current (favorite–don’t tell the other two) dog is a giant schnauzer-chow mix who is a simply amazing travel companion. He’s fine being left in the car as long as necessary. Or a hotel room. He will even stay in the car with the windows completely down. Never tears anything up (unlike the malamute who repeatedly destroyed seat belts…). And he is aging, so I want to make sure to get a few more adventures in with him. The nice thing about dogs is that after awhile, they are happy to shift in to travelcoma mode and just sleep a lot. At least the ones I have known. Babies don’t seem to be made that way, and I realize it’s not really good for them to be stuck in seats too much anyway.

I came across this Sam Shepard quote a few years ago that sums it up for me:

"I love long-distance driving. The farther the better. I love covering immense stretches in one leap:  Memphis to New York City; Galu pto L.A.; Saint Paul to Richmond; Lexington to Baton Rouge; Bismarck to Cody. Leaps like these. Without a partner. Completely along. Relentless driving. Driving until the body disappears, the legs fall off, the eyes bleed, the hands go numb, the mind shuts down, and then, suddenly, something new begins to appear."

I can almost taste those words when I read them.