On Wednesday afternoon, July 2, at 1:30 pm, I completed the sale of our house in Gainesville, FL. With a huge check in my hand, I looked North. I was 786 miles away from home. In two days, the banks would be closed for the Fourth of July holiday, then for the holiday weekend.
Time to get going.
North on 34th street, far to the north, passing a neighborhood we lived in ages ago. Across highway 441, leaving the town behind, now on State Road 121 -- a secret route North I discovered a few years ago, that avoids the speed trap towns to the east (Waldo and Lawtey). The sun dives in and out of cloud banks; there will be a thunderstorm here later. I won't be around to see it.
The speed limit jogs up and down: 65 here, 35 there, each town I pass through exerting its pull on the flow of traffic like invisible asteroids. Lacrosse, Worthington Springs, Lake Butler: will I ever pass through these towns again? A log truck pulls in front of me going 20 mph in a 65 zone -- typical. It's still Florida. Now Raiford, and a long wooded stretch. A state mental hospital. A large radio tower.
And suddenly, the interstate. I-10, under construction, of course, a clogged artery pumping into the heart of Jacksonville. I avoid the big city by joining I-295 north. I travel from the 9 o'clock position to 12 o'clock around the perimeter, then get onto I-95 north.
My last look at Florida, at least for a while. The short distance evaporates, and I'm in Georgia. NPR is my co-pilot. Radio stations fade in and out; mostly I can find NPR in the low numbers, 87.9 to 92.5. The problem with scanning is that this area is also thronged with religious stations. If I accidentally land on one for any period of time, I quickly flip to a heavy metal station to balance out the scales of cosmic justice. I end up listening to a lot of metal. I'm in my wife's car, the one with the blown out speakers, so packing CDs wasn't an option.
Nor was there a place to pack them. There's no lack of oxygen in my car: it's stuffed, and my driving companions are all houseplants. There's an amaryllis behind my head, and a fig tree sitting shotgun.
Through Georgia, the land of my youth. I traveled a lot of these roads in high school, going to different academic competitions. I pass the turn to Jekyll Island, the place where the Georgia Junior Academy of Science had its 1985 convention. Then up, burning away the miles, wearing through the storm of memory, to Savannah, a city with it's own story. I may tell it one day. But the call North is strong, and the past belongs behind me: I drive on, and soon I'm standing at the South Carolina welcome center.
I'd been here a few days before, with my dogs, while I was driving that huge U-haul. Now the sun is very low in the Western sky -- it's late afternoon. I try to call Hannah again. There's a problem: I don't talk on the phone while I'm driving, and she's called twice. I've ignored it. However, every time I get to a rest area or stopping point and call back, I've missed her, only getting voice mail. Looks like I'm playing phone tag while I wander through the states. I decide at SC that I'm sick of it and will only call when I change states -- I waste too much time trying, and the road isn't getting any shorter while I stand there.
The road is strangely empty. You may hate the gas crisis. But if you'd driven I-95 when gas wasn't expensive, well, you'd be thankful for the difference. Normally the road is thronged. Now, apparently the only people out are the ones with somewhere to go. Years ago, I think if you'd charged me an additional $10 to completely clear out the road for the next 100 miles, I'd have taken it.
Every road seems to have its eyesore landmark. You know, the place that thinks having a billboard ad every 15 feet will somehow excuse the fact its a cheesy tourist trap. There's one just before you get to North Carolina. It doesn't need any more publicity, so I'll just say I was glad to pass it.
North Carolina: I lived here, in 1971-1972, and again in 1977-78. My dad was stationed in Jacksonville, NC both times, at the Marine Corps Air Station New River.
Talk about a home town. You poor kids of the 21st century. You get a bike for Christmas, and then can only drive it to the end of your driveway. Someone has taken away all your freedom. Well ponder this: I had a bike in 1977. I was 9 years old. Given a map, I could go anywhere on that base there wasn't a fence, a guard, or a checkpoint. I rode through all the neighborhoods. It was freedom.
I mean, what sort of idiot would go onto a Marine Corps base to try to abduct children?
The same wasn't true in the outside world. In 1976, I learned the value of having a family dog. My mom and I were staying in LaFayette, GA, with my grandparents, while my father was doing a tour of duty overseas (Okinawa). I was out in the front yard, playing on a tire swing, when this guy pulled off the road and came toward me. He claimed he wanted to use the phone. What else he wanted, I'll never know, because my dog, Ruff, a Shetland Sheepdog, turned from fluffy, happy pooch into some sort of clawed, fanged, nightmare hellhound. He barked and growled turned his little 30 lb frame into the most formidable threat I'd seen. The noise was enough to get my Mom and grandmother out of the house -- they made the strange guy go away.
Dogs can tell things about people. That day, Ruff probably saved my life.
Across North Carolina I drove, as the sun finished vanishing beyond the horizon. I'd finally spoken with Hannah from a gas station in Lumberton. (We had stayed in Lumberton -- with Neri -- on the way to our vacation in the Pinelands.) I was driving in darkness, now.
Virginia doesn't do much to make you welcome. Whereas other states have all these road displays (like South Carolina) welcoming you to the state, the first things you see entering Virginia are a series of signs chiding you for this and that, warning you of this and that. No radar detectors. Lights on when raining. Speed checked by aircraft. I've already mentioned the welcome center doesn't allow trucks. I wasn't in a truck this time, but I was still offended.
You know how all those rest areas in Florida say "Nighttime security" or "Rest area patrolled at night"? Well, in Virginia, I found out why.
Before I'd crossed the border, I tanked up on some Rockstar. It was getting late, and I didn't want my energy level to plummet once I crossed midnight. The side effect was: I had to visit the can in a big way. So I stopped at an (apparently unpatrolled) rest area.
Bad idea.
I'm not going to cast aspersions without proof, but I'd say there were a lot of friendly people working there, even friendlier for a certain fee. Where you see those, you generally see other types of crime. There was no turning back, though: I was on yellow alert. As I say, my back teeth were floating. So I basically ran into the bathroom, hurried the process, then got back to my car as fast as I could -- before someone mistook my houseplants for something else!
I made a point of getting gas in North Carolina, long before I reached Richmond. Richmond has this bypass, I-295, with idiotic exits. You see one that says "Gas, next exit" and list some stores. You turn off. Then, once it's too late, you see a second sign that says the gas stations are 4.7 miles away!
In other words, as we said in the '80s: psych.
Want some gas?
Next Exit!
Ah, 4.7 miles -- Siiike!!
So I resolved never to get gas on the Richmond bypass ever again.
The road from Richmond to DC is normally, as I call it, a cyclotron. However, look at the picture below. Yes, it's blurry, because I took it with my cell phone camera at night. It's something I'd never seen: that stretch of I-95 completely empty.
Of course traffic picked up the closer I got to DC. And believe it or not, the perpetual traffic jam on I-95 south (where the HOV lane merges with regular traffic) was still there -- even at almost 2 in the morning!
I turned off, and took the Fairfax County Parkway home. This late at night, I was the only traffic. I went through green light after green light, and finally made it home at 2:30 in the morning -- 13 solid hours on the road.
