Tag: Driving

  • ODDS and ENDS: Trains, Planes, and Roadtrips

    (Into this house we’re born…)

    I like the train. See, the kid’s soccer team has started practicing not too far way from the Metro North tracks on Park Ave. The team mets up in the early evening, so all the trains going by are for the rush hour heading out of the City. I’m not saying that I want to commute out the City everyday, but I do miss riding the train for work purposes. A long time ago, I would occasionally take the Long Island Railroad (L I Double R) out to the college I used to work for. On those days, I would be heading in the opposite direction of everyone else; They were coming into the City, and I was heading out. The train was sparsely filled with people, and I got a bit of reading done, or journaling. Other days I would just enjoy watching the City unfurl around me, and give way to Nassau County. It wasn’t the happiest time of my life when I was riding the LIRR, but it was a time that allowed me to be introspective.

    I hate airlines. Flying sucks, and it is not enjoyable. No matter which airline it is, they all blow. Flying today is worse than being on a crowed bus at rush hour. When we make vacation plans, the flying portion of the trip is equal to a hammer being dropped on my foot for three to four hours. The seats suck, the boarding sucks, the nickel and diming sucks, and the other passengers also suck. It’s amazing how the airline industry took something as fun and exciting as flying, and made it uncomfortable as a root canal.

    I love driving across America. And if I have a choice, I will always choose driving over flying. I like highways, and interstates, and roadside attractions. Dinners that are open late, and gas stations that have amazing local restaurants in the back. I like the sound of 18-wheelers passing you on the other side of the highway. I like naps in the backseat, and wondering what is around the bend. I love seeing America, who we are, and how we do things. I love yelling “moo” out the window at cows, and singing in the car. I love moving and discovering.

  • Road Trip Thoughts, Part One (Unedited)

    This has been a very hectic two weeks in my life. It was supposed to be relaxing and fun, but ending up being more taxing than I wanted, and it has left me rethinking where I am going and what I am doing with my life.

    To explain; the kid had been at sleep away camp, and we needed to go and pick her up.

    Won’t lie, it’s exciting to have the kid go away for a couple of weeks. Not that me and the wife did anything crazy. (We did repaint our bedroom. Whoa!) But it is nice to have some time just the two of us, to remember that we did have a life before becoming parents, and that we do like spending time together. The other fun part is that about three or four days before we head out to pick up the kid, we start heartbreakingly missing the kid like a bunch of sad puppies. More than once I found myself saying that I just want my kid back.

    The drive down south to get the kid is also the last Act of Summer in our household, as she starts school a week after we pick her up. So, this is a read trip that me and the wife look forward to.

    Except this year the wife go sick on the Wednesday night before we were to leave on Friday. No matter how much we wished, and tried, she wasn’t going to be well enough to travel. I was going to have to do this on my own.

    It has been over twenty years since I was alone on a car trip. Twenty years ago, I’d fill the car with gas, buy a Coke and a pack of cigarettes, grab my cd’s and head out. No cigarettes this time around, and I grabbed a water, and no cd’s as I made a playlist on Spotify, but it was pretty much the same. But lonelier. I liked listening to my music, but there wasn’t anyone to talk to. Just me, thinking about everything that I had happened in the last several years.

    Thought a lot about my mom’s death, and how I find myself getting angry at her now, and that makes me feel guilty as her son. I thought about my failures as a father, and not doing the best job at being a good provider for the kid. I feel secure in my marriage, I worry sometimes that we should be doing better at buying a home, or saving for the kid’s college, or retirement. I’m almost fifty, and will I ever be being gainfully employed? Is this writing thing just a delusion, and I am avoiding being responsible?

    And then I saw that I was passing close to the Antietam Battlefield. I’m a Civil War buff, when will I ever be alone again to explore this in my full nerd-out glory? Odds are never.

    So, I headed to the Battlefield. I still had a kid to pick up, so I promised myself that I was only going to stay for an hour. With limited time, I thought it best to head to the part of the battle I was most curious about, which was the Bloody Lane section. Oh, and it was like one hundred degrees outside. I always have a feeling of uneasy eeriness when I visit battlefields, because now they are all pastoral, and silent with very few people around – and I know as I walk that this was a place where thousands of men died, in horrible ways. That so much pain and suffering happened where I was walking. But there is also the grim understanding that a place like this is what allows me to live in the country I proudly call home. It was a humbling place to be, somber in its reality.

    True to my word, I kept it to an hour, and was back on the road.

    I made it to my hotel, a nice, newly built, budget friendly place. It was nice and clean, and I’m not a very fancy guy, so it was great for me. There was a burrito place within walking distance of the hotel, so dinner was fast. I called the wife to check on her, and fell asleep looking forward to seeing the kid in the morning.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Euro Cup, Summer Playlist, and Driving Up the West Side Highway at 8am

    (Don’t break the spell…)

    Today is the first day of the Euro Cup. Germany is playing Scotland, and I know nothing about the Scottish squad, so I’m putting my money on Germany. And if this is your first time following me through an international sports tournament, then I need to let you know from the beginning that I have a cursory understanding of these teams, but I make up for it with blind enthusiasm! Also, there’s only so much baseball I can watch during the summer, so I need another sporting competition. But most annoyingly, I will be supporting England, which might be a tad pedestrian for an American football fan, but I really want to see Harry Kane win a cup; Any cup at this point.

    As per my family tradition for summer, the wife and I make Summer Playlists for all the traveling we’ll be doing, especially in the car. This year, the kid is adding her own playlist to the mix. She’s graduated beyond suggesting songs, and actually has some eclectic picks of her own. I have yet to start creating my playlist, but I have a feeling it will be Beatle heavy, with some grunge slipped in there.

    It was a cool morning today, and I needed to pick our car up from shop after it got its annual tuneup. The shop is in that weird area of Manhattan that’s not Hell’s Kitchen, nor is it Midtown West, but what it does afford me is easy access to getting on the West Side Highway to head home to Harlem. And on a Friday morning, there’s no one heading north, so I could put the windows down, blast my music, and have a few moments of enjoying driving; Manhattan to my right, and the Hudson, New Jersey and the rest of America to my left.