The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.In two days I might be going on the craziest ride of my life. In two days I might have my last supper of my life. In two days I might actually drive the farthest ever in my life. In two days my dad and I are going to situate ourselves in a dull sage green Chrysler (or Dodge, I always forget to look at the symbol on the grill) mini-van with a double-decker boat in tow and hopefully make the 2848.14 mile trip from our small town in the valley to the East Coast get-a-way called Westport, Connecticut. Well, at least it looks like a get-a-way from all the photos I have seen, but that's IF we make it to Westport, Connecticut.
- Elbert Hubbard
I've never driven a trailer before. Okay, I have, but it was in a parking lot and it wasn't even a fourth of a mile long. With my luck, I'll probably forget that the trailer is even attached to the mini-van, not take a turn wide or change lanes in a car-size space, and plow into an innocent bystander. Hm. I better tell my dad to put our dear and beloved boat (#1010) in the top bunk of the double-decker!
But I keep trying to tell myself that I'll do fine. As long as we're not in a city during rush-hour, a tornado crosses the freeway, or there's a stampede of cops, I'll do fine. I'll be the one going the speed limit because it hasn't been eighteen months since my last ticket. We won't go into that though.
What am I doing for the times my dad is driving? Well, I plan to observe the scenery outside of my window the entire time since I'm very good at doing that. I will have my iPod Touch with me and I will probably alternate between songs and podcasts. I only have three of PRI's "This American Life" podcasts left, so I have all of NPR's Radio Diaries podcasts stuffed in as well a a podcast on the Battle of Midway, a segment on how we remember, biographies on Paul Newman and Gypsy Rose Lee, as well as a couple podcasts on the history of Rome. I know I'll do some last minute searching for new and interesting podcasts to hold my attention as I observe.
Of course I will bring my camera case which will be filled with all my lenses, camera body, and laptop to keep all of you at home up-to-date on everything that is going on during my two week trip. I cannot imagine what a pain in the monkey's butt it will be to get all of that through security when we fly to Oregon and back home! But hopefully it will be worth it. I hope it will be worth it. It will be worth it because not only are we getting out of the awful state called California, but we are going to Thistle Nationals AND the lovely state called Oregon!
At least there's something to look forward to to get my mind off of driving...
