I Don’t Want to Do That Again
Ten hours in a car is a long time, it is boring, stressful and tiring; not to mention all the times I must pull over at the rest stops (this phenomenon is a new thing that appears to correlate with my age). Naturally, I try to find ways to engage my mind; anything to make the time pass quicker. Last week as I drove to Nashville and back, I followed my typical routine of allowing my mind to wander and identify interesting topics that I hadn’t found time to explore. Unfortunately, that approach wasn’t working; no matter how hard I tried to find a novel thing to consider, I was sucked back into politics, the stress our country feels, and the divisions that exist among most people. It was like having a song stuck in your head, that you didn’t want to sing, but no matter how hard you tried, the damn tune kept replaying itself, over and over and over. And then I saw it.
As I climbed the ridgeline, on I40 West, eager to crest the Cumberland Plateau I noticed in the right lane a truck plowing ahead at roughly 50 miles an hour. This wasn’t an overloaded eighteen-wheeler; no, this lumbering, tired looking, truck was a twenty-six-foot U-Haul. Instantly, my mind was engaged. I too had once been the poor fella holding the steering wheel, that vibrated like a jack hammer, tightly with both hands, stressed I wasn’t going to see the top of the small incline.
Somehow, I had escaped the joy of U-Haul moving as a young man; I never moved too far away and when I did, was fortunate to have a moving company handle the task. My good fortune of avoiding U-Haul travel came to an abrupt end, when my daughter decided, she was going to attend Colorado State for college. It wasn’t the freshman year that got me, it was the next year when she upgraded from the dorm into her own apartment.
I wasn’t too bothered, or even paying attention as my wife and daughter spent the summer collecting things for her new place; I hadn’t even considered how we/her were going to get there. I guess I was too busy or some other poor excuse, but truthfully, I wasn’t engaged. And then as the end of July approached, I started to notice our garage and much of the basement had been overtaken and there was stuff, a lot of stuff. Suddenly, I needed to figure this out. After a little snooping around, I concluded renting a U-Haul was the only real option. I decided I would hire someone to help me load the truck, and I would drive it across the country while my daughter and wife drove her car. That didn’t seem like it would be too unpleasant.
I am not adept at packing a truck to maximize space, and neither was the hapless kid I hired to help. It took us the better part of a day to load the truck, but we got it done; it wasn’t pretty but as my dad would’ve said, it’ll do.
The next morning, I got up and eagerly climbed into the cab ready for a long two days; I had convinced myself it would be an adventure. Almost immediately I internalized I was sitting in the cab of a truck that had not changed in twenty years or more; it looked like the 1970’s had found a home. The radio dial was in fact, a radio dial. The air conditioner was a sliding handle, and the chair would have been just as effective as a bench in a WWII bunker; it was horribly uncomfortable.
Despite my discomfort, all was going well until we reached the Rockwood exit, not more than 25 miles from our house. I suddenly was traveling 50mph and losing strength climbing the Cumberland Plateau. I began to wonder, as cars whizzed past me honking, telling me I was number one, was I ever going to make it to the top. I did, but it took a while. However, the stress of the climb left its mark. I spent the next several hours trying to remember if there was another hill to climb that might be a greater obstacle. Good news, there wasn’t; if you haven’t driven to the Colorado front range, spoiler alert, it is flat, very flat.
In the end the trip was uneventful. Nothing bad happened and I survived, scars and all. I can’t say I ever found peace or joy in the isolation of driving for 25 hours in a cab sitting above cars. It was loud, very loud, it was hot, very hot, and I didn’t know FM stations could sound like AM stations, but they can.
Being less than forward thinking, I got on the plane home satisfied I had delivered my daughter and all her worldly goods safely to her new home; what I failed to consider, as I emotionally checked the experience up as a one-time event, was I would have to do it again when she finished at CSU.
After she completed her undergraduate and graduate program, she decided to pursue her PhD at Penn State University. Obviously, I was proud, I also sensed what was coming, another cross-country haul in a dilapidated truck.
She lived on the third floor of her apartment building, so I thought ahead; I told her you hire two or three strong guys to load the truck and I will make sure I was there with the truck and ready to drive it East. If she had only listened to my sage counsel; when I arrived with the truck, I learned she didn’t want to spend the money hiring help, she figured “we can do it.” I was now a sherpa and a very unhappy one at that. Needless to say, it was a very long day.
The trip was no better, in fact it was worse than the first journey. The truck was awful, the air conditioner didn’t work, and it was summertime, the truck sounded like it was straining to move, and the seat felt like I was sitting on the corner of a brick. To make matters worse, for three days I could look in my rear-view mirror at my daughter’s car following behind me and watch her and my wife laugh their way across America, clearly having the time of their lives.
Call it a rite of passage traveling across the heartland in a truck that seems intent to cause you pain, but I did it. As I watched the helpless driver last week drag his truck up the road, I felt pity. I also felt nostalgic. Life is about moments and memories, some are good, some are not; in this case it wasn’t a fun experience, but it has given my wife, daughter, and yes, me, much joy as we retell the two times we traversed the country. I wouldn’t trade those two trips for anything.
An admission, I have done another long-distance trip, in a moving truck, since my daughter punished me for all my fatherly failings. For me and my wife’s last move, I drove from the coast of South Carolina to our new home in Bristol. Not too long of a trip, and not altogether unpleasant. It was better because I rented a Penske truck. Not advertising for them or anything, but at least the truck was built in this century.
As I pulled into our new driveway, I smiled and thought to myself, I don’t want to do that again. But then you never know, life is always full of surprises.
