I pull out of my driveway and crank up my iPod. Even before I’m out of Elizabeth City I’m in road-trip mode, observing, relaxing, enjoying the ride. Each mile, each road sign means something to me, a face or a memory, or a point in life.
The bumpy bridge in Edenton makes me thankful that it’s shorter than the rocky trip from Quito to Babahoyo, the only significant time I’ve ever in my life been car sick. This one other particular bridge just outside of Hertford means there’s a speed limit drop ahead, the one I first noticed when I was heading this same way to see Lydia at governor’s school almost two years ago. I left home a couple hours late for that trip too. I had a better excuse then, though.
Williamston. There’s a Subway on the left where James, Jerry and I ate at the beginning of our Florida road trip in April of 2006. We hadn’t even managed to make it out of North Carolina before we stopped. Not even more than an hour before a food break. That’s when I knew it was going to be a looong spring break that year.
17 South turns into 64 West. I pass the exit for Conetoe, and I remember Leigh Denny teaching me how to pronounce the obscure North Carolina town’s name. There’s a very large, very destroyed tire that reminds me of that one we blew on the band bus on the way to a jazz festival one year. Possibly even the jazz festival in Chapel Hill, though I can’t really remember anymore. Whether it was the Chapel Hill trip we blew the tire on or not, I think about that first time I was on UNC’s campus, another fateful Subway meal with Mike, and standing above Cosmic Cantina, having no idea what it was or how many times the two of us would be in the same exact spot.
Now I’m on a real highway. Not sure exactly when that happened, but 64 has widened up; there are more lanes. Somebody has hit a dog, one not much bigger than that fox I hit out in Weeksville on the way to Julia’s several Christmases back. It was really cold that weekend. I hope it’s not that cold when we run on Saturday. And I hope I don’t hit any animals. I’ll still hear my dad’s voice if any stray dogs run in front of my car “…don’t swerve, just hit it… you’re more important than the dog.”
Oh yeah. And running. Why haven’t I been running more? At least I’m a little bit back in shape (time warp: little do I know).
There’s some more debris on the asphalt, off to the side where it’s blown or pushed out of the lanes. Like the random shiny road debris I looked at from dad’s Nissan pickup in Atlanta. I got sick one morning before school. I was about nine, and for some reason Mom wasn’t home. Dad took me to work with him at Southlake that morning, and rather than being my usual chatterbox self, I stared out the window at the early morning Atlanta skyline, the street lights, and the coins, bits of rubbish, car components, various highway fragments just off the side of the right lane. I distinctly remember looking out the left side of the car, although that’s ridiculous since I would have been on the passenger’s side of the truck.
That was a cool trip. Even though I was throwing up at six am, I was eating Skittles in my dad’s office by eleven. Skittles… should I stop somewhere before I get there? Dang! I’m on 40 already. When did that happen? Pretty soon I’ll be on 440… like that time I accidentally drove around the whole thing twice, was late getting back to work at Goody’s (why I came back from that road trip the same day, knowing I was scheduled to work at 5:00 I can’t possibly figure out now), and ended up being thankful Ada was the manager on duty and didn’t care that I’d be in (just barely) at six, so long as I was around to mop the floor at nine, since none of the girls would.
I pass the exit for Rock Quarry Road. Jerry and I stared at that sign off and on for 3 hours once. We were on the way to Chapel Hill, and then on to Greensboro to see Cameron and Roberto. I was planning to spend the summer in Ecuador. Jerry had no idea as he sat in my car that he’d be coming along for that adventure as well. Neither of us even thought we’d get around the wreck that shut down the entire Beltline that night. It finally forced us to backtrack, cut through Cary, and take 540 on the directions of a liquor stand clerk, a buzzed guy in line, and two cops at the only grocery store that was open, and after they gave us three sets of directions that took us back to where 440 was stopped.
And suddenly I’m in Chapel Hill. Why do people think 195 miles is so far away? And why is my butt asleep?