Day 4 - Driving Cross Country (Part II)
One by one, the garden gnomes are stealing my sanity away
--Graffiti, Arkansas MM 91 Rest Stop, I-30
Drove from E's house to my parent's house today. I made good time despite a nearly hour long "unscheduled exploration" of rural TN. I've never driven out here this time of year, and the prettiest bloom I saw was the crimson clover along the roads in TN and AR. There were also Texas bluebonnets, evening primroses and Indian paintbrush blooming, but in much smaller quantities.
I listened to about half of the audio book version of Fledgling, lost interest and then cranked the iPod and sang along for the rest of the drive. This was a tougher day of driving than Friday: it was warm sunny weather which made the car hotter; I was feeling a little off, slightly light headed and tired. I think road food was a shock to my system after two days of eating pretty healty with E.
The first and last sections of the drive were on state highways rather than interstates. It felt odd to drive at top speed on a two lane highway, especially curving roads with no shoulder on steep hills. I'm used to driving in heavy traffic on multilane roads instead of sparse (or non-existent) traffic on narrow roads. I think I hit rush hour in Texarkana; there were actually stoplights that I had to wait for.
I spent time on the drive thinking about the quote, "you can't go home again." It feels very true right now. I've completely lost touch with all the friends I had when I lived out here. My parents don't even live in the house I lived in here. As my mother said many years ago, it's not like I'm really from here. I'm not sure where I'm from after living away from the Midwest and the South so much longer than I lived in there growing up.