TRAVEL

I have traveled many roads, lots of distances and through many states.  I travel to work each day, through rain and snow and gloom of night.  I traveled cross-country in a blinding snowstorm and rode from Maine to California in the heat of summer with no air-conditioning.  But the hardest trip I ever made was when my daughter went to school in Utah.  She bought a car to take out with her and I rode shotgun.  Or at least was supposed to.

Chelsea attended a business college in Utah and the first year I flew out with her to get her settled.  She enjoyed college and made many friends.  But public transportation was her undoing.  She hated taking the “Trax”, a tram system that is used as public transportation.  The frequent stops, starts and jerks made her sick.  And she didn’t like the bus system either.  Chelsea is a bit of a “germ-a-phobe” and doesn’t like to be around strangers because who knows where they’ve been or what they’ve touched.  So when my friend Mike said he had a car for sale, I jumped at buying it for Chelsea. 

Chelsea took out a personal loan and purchased the car.   Mike had taken good care of the car, so it should make it out to Utah, no problem.  Only the terrain from Maine to Utah wasn’t the same all the way out.  Chelsea’s roommate, Hannah, flew up from Tennessee and we packed the car for our exciting journey.  As we pulled out of the driveway, I thought, this won’t be so bad, we’ve got three drivers.  The beginning of our trip wasn’t too bad.  Through New York into Pennsylvania was quite enjoyable.  I always love to look at the scenery and the roads were good, the signs were clear.  We spent our first night at a “Holiday Inn Express” in Pennsylvania.  I told the girls we weren’t staying in any dives because we were putting in 10 -12 hours driving a day and I wanted a comfortable night’s sleep.

When we got into Nebraska, things started going wrong.  We spent the night in Lincoln, Nebraska, home to the Nebraska “Cornhuskers”.  There was a big football game that night and lots of partying.  The next morning, we started out, but the “check engine” light came on and we stopped at a gas station.  As I got out of the car; icy, blue radiator fluid gushed onto the ground.  I panicked.  Here I was in a strange city, and my car was leaking radiator fluid.  I couldn’t move the car from the gas pump and went inside to plead my desperate situation.  Luckily, the people in Nebraska are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.  They let me call my road service from their phone.  A man came out and looked at the car and discovered a kink in the radiator hose that probably caused the fluid to leak.  He got the air out and voila!  The car was fixed, I called AAA to cancel and we were off.

The next hazard was when we drove over the mountains of Wyoming.  When I say “we”, I mean me and Hannah.  Chelsea had little interstate driving experience and was anxious about driving in unfamiliar territory.  I probably drove about 8 hours a day and Hannah made up the rest.   I will NEVER drive in Wyoming again.  Usually, my motto is “never say never”;  but I can unequivocally affirm that I will NEVER drive through that God-forsaken state again.  The “check engine” light shone brightly as we traversed one mountain after another.  I prayed the whole way that we would make it out of the state.  The car protested by not going over 45 miles per hour up those mountains, so that relegated us to the breakdown lane.  And there is nothing great to look at in Wyoming, either.  Miles and miles of nothing.  Every once in a while, I would see a sign for “Little America”  which I think is some sort of tourist attraction, but I never saw anything when we reached the designated exit, so I don’t know.

Finally, we made it to Utah.  It took us three days to reach our destination.  Three exhausting days.  Three miserable, tiring, draining, grueling days.  But we made it.  The car got us there, and for all its complaints and objections, we made it to the Salt Lake valley.  My daughter’s dorm is part of a hotel in Salt Lake and she knew the desk clerk.  He gave me a great room rate while I was there.  What I thought would be an easy trip turned into a series of mishaps.  I think the car was trying to tell me that it was a Maine car and wanted to stay home.  But it made the trip and got us where we wanted to go.  And it got Chelsea around Salt Lake without having to take public transportation.  So the car fulfilled the measure of its creation and I flew home, grateful to for the miracle of flight.