Days 5,6 - Sunday and Monday - Natchez to Grapevine, Texas


It’s always great to see familiar and friendly faces after time among strangers and last night (Sunday) was no exception. After three nights in “…one-night cheap motels” (Eliot in “Prufrock”), I am at the home of Paul and Elizabeth in Grapevine, Texas, just west of Dallas. Their hospitality is heart-warming, particularly the little touches, like the tray in my room with bottles of water and assorted snacks.

Sunday's drive, 410 miles from Natchez, Miss., will stick in memory for the variety of carnage seen on the road and the small act of not contributing to it. In the span of some thirty miles on Route 15 north on the way to Interstate 20, I passed by (not over) the remains of armadillos (1), raccoons (3), opossums (3), fawn (1), cat (1- black), skunk (1), and one unidentifiable fresh mess (to which I had been alerted by seeing the red pick-up truck two hundred yards ahead of me swerve into the on-coming traffic lane -- and back-- for no apparent reason: as I got closer, the two carrion-birds unhappily taking flight from the red bits on the road were a dead giveaway (no pun intended).

Thus far, I’ve also avoided the other main road hazards: speed-traps. In the 1784 miles thus far since Philadelphia, I’ve counted 14, with Maryland having the most (5) and Tennessee none (perhaps because the stretch passed through was short). While I’ve kept my speed at no more than 10-15 miles above the speed limit (which has varied from 55 to 70 mph) and with the other traffic, there was a (brief) point when I would have deserved one. On a section of I-20 towards Dallas where the road was level and straight into the horizon and other cars just dots behind and ahead, I set a new personal speed record: 104 mph. In the Boxster, it felt like 50 mph used to feel in my first car, a 1963 Rambler American.…. I won’t do it again until the next opportunity. (Reading web-logs of others’ cross-country drives, I noted one person’s account of going 130 mph on another part of Texas. I don’t intend to match that!)

Today’s drive is to Carlsbad, NM, some 500 miles and 8 hours away, mostly on I-20, though one part will be on secondary, more interesting roads. The weather looks overcast, which is an improvement over the last few days, but there are warnings of thunderstorms on my path. I’m glad for the new wind-shield wipers and re-sealant on the cloth-top: I’m impressed by how it has withstood the downpours.

I mentioned, in the first entry of this blog, how road-trips are always two trips. the external one and the internal, and even set out the objectives of the former. I had thought, starting out, that I knew the objectives for the latter: to explore the directions and options for the next phase of my life. Few of us, in our busy lives of unrelenting demands from obligations and responsibilities, have the time for a “time-out” for reflection. And when we do, it’s often too short, a matter of hours or, if really planned, a day or a weekend. I know that what I bought for myself in these five weeks on the road is a necessity disguised as luxury.

Setting out, the fork ahead seemed simple enough. At fifty-two (yikes!), I could continue to pursue work paths dictated by chance happenings in the past (including career choice), with their attendant (higher) financial returns and security, or to choose (and follow) avocations that carry little hope of either yet. The question I set out to answer was: “How do I want to live/work going forward that will give me peace, meaning, and a smile at the end?” While the question may be universal, it is a luxury to be able to ask it when hundreds of millions can not. And that truth has been de-railing all the subsidiary questions and eaten up the miles thus far.