New Years Looking Back - Road Trips

First inkling. If I had to look back to where the lure of some far off place beckoned, it would be to the thought of blue. Not the blue of a night sky, but the light blue of a well traveled station wagon. The blue was the color of ocean meeting sky, catching the sun like water, reflecting upwards the glint of the day off abundant chrome, as we set out for yet another weekend or vacation drive. As children we were highly embarrassed by this car, but I could see Dad's point, it was paid for, it was in good running order and it wasn't so pristine that anyone would panic if there was a dent or a spill .

What I remember from childhood is "going out for a drive". Does anyone just "go out for a drive" in these days of high priced gasoline? When was the last time you got into your car or truck with no real plan as to where the day would take you? Driving simply to drive, not maneuvering from Point A to Point B while also doing other things. Simply heading to where the sky slaps the horizon line. No phones, no TV for anyone in the back seat, no teleconference. Sure the radio might be on sometimes, but you don't need to send a fax at the same time. It seems as if everyone in a car anymore has to multi-task. Talking on the phone, eating. drinking, reading the newspaper (yes), putting on makeup, singing along to the iPod while waving both arms in the air. Usually while one of the rest of us are slamming on the brakes, cursing and giving them that "you're #1" hand signal.As kids we'd pile into the old station wagon every summer and drive Southwest to my Aunt and Uncles ranch about 500 miles from us. While we were there, our folks would relax and joke and drink cold beer and listen to music that I listen to today. We would play with our cousins outside all day, throwing stones at bats flirting through night trees, swimming in the irrigation ditches, riding a small motorbike around. But as fun as that was, what I remember most is the drive to get there. As kids we mostly got along, but there was the occasional "Mom! he's on MY side" and such. Dad threatened to pull over at least once as has every father in recorded history. So one trip, when we made it a point to be little angels, Mom said at the next stop she'd buy us all a present! She comes out of this store with these small cactus plants. Remember, we're little kids. What kid under the age of seven that you know, wants a Cactus?? We looked at each other, politely said "thank you", and spent the rest of the drive planning mayhem with mutual conspiratory glances and the words we didn't have to say. . . . "We were robbed". But you know, we remember it, and we laugh about it together and it's a good memory now. If she'd just bought us a soda or a candy we'd have long forgotten that trip.

But the majority of memories of those drives were happy ones, long treks across new landscapes. There's a time in every trip, no matter how long, where you settle into the drive as a family. For my Dad the driving seemed almost effortless, as we watched the landscape change from green to brown to mountains and back to brown and we'd hear stories of his youth, of he and Mom growing up together in Montana, the radio off, the only music the sound of my Mom's relaxed laughter, a sound I can still hear in my own voice. We'd sing and we'd tell stories and we'd laugh, I could crack open the window and the coolness of the wind would blow in and around us, cooling my cheeks and the back of my throat and as I looked up to a hawk that had caught my eye, our laughter would echo in the wide spaces ahead.

What I recall of those long ago trips other than the laughter was just sitting and looking out the windows for miles, for what was most memorable were the landscapes, stopping when we got tired or thirsty and actually looking and touching the wonders we'd read about in school. Great Dams on shiny rivers, the giant bronze horse sculptures on Highway 90. Memories of the many drives, into Canada, Little Big Horn, Yellowstone, and one long, long trek to see if there were any hippies left in California to take pictures of. Then back in the car, with postcards and maybe a souvenir baseball hat. I saw mountains and tumbling landslides, and fish leaping against gravity up a ladder, and once even an albino buffalo, kept on a small piece of northern range land on which resided a little restaurant.

I had never in my life been next to an animal that big. He was old, and completely tame, raised by the husband and wife with the restaurant, with a few acres to roam, and enough wild memory to twitch in running freedom in his dreams. I was afraid at first to approach him, almost blind in my fear, but I crept up, drawn by soft eyes the colour of a seashell, and the warm flank. Judging by his breathing, the slow, patient release of air, that sound of a concertina, I knew he would not hurt me and I reached out through the fence rails and touched the great big muffin of a nose, the velvet structure of a face as enormous as time, as he looked back with those pink eyes, a countenance as strong as history, as unmoving as memory. And we stood there, together, a little auburn haired girl and that lone remnant of a past that's faded to nothing but dust and cornered thought, all alive and all alone.

We made our way that weekend, those summers; to happily anticipated destinations. We had no videos, we had no electronic toys, we had no air conditioning. Yet there would always be a point a few hours into the trip, where already settled in as a family, we would settle into the road. Like my long drives today, there was a point where the journey became a game, matching wits against the elements and the curve of asphalt, red barns and giant outcroppings of soil and rock, semi trucks and flashing lights blending into a moving diorama of the land. In my truck, in those miles, I can find myself without asking for direction, as I did those years ago. Trips where, with nothing more than some water and promise, we experienced our true selves; we shared grace and and honest laughter. We had no fixed plans, simply intent on the journey, not the destination.

When I get home, and have a couple of free days of clear roads and sunshine, I'll simply fire up the truck and head west, to where the horizon takes me. I'm going to round up Barkley, grab some water and just take a drive. We'll head out through the fragrant morning, and watch new vistas come into view. I'm going to leave the radio and the phone off. I'm going to just take in the landscape, a horizon that beckons. I'll leave the map put away, for where I'm going is not in any map, places of truth never are. For the real journey, the real adventure, is not simply seeking new landscapes but to see them through the scrapbook of past roads traveled, with an anticipation honed by time and miles and memory.

Because the being and cadence of the open road calls to me, has always called to me, the sound of the car, the hum of a small tailwheel airplane overhead, the movement of life continually cresting another hill, another mountain, hurtling down a path of fluid need. The affirmation and promise of road and open sky has been present with me since those early road trips, and it only takes a long afternoon drive to take me back. Somewhere out there I might meet that horizon I seek, but in the meantime I'll continue on. If I need fuel I'll stop and if I get hungry I'll see if I can find a quaint little Mom and Pop restaurant.

Just maybe someone out there still has an albino buffalo.