My Life in a Car

   While I was on the road yesterday I thought back to all the times I've spent in a car. I wish I knew how many weeks or months the time I've spent in a vehicle equated to. It goes all the way back to my childhood, even though those memories aren't as clear. I was probably an unusual kid.  I preferred the company of my parents over my friends. Due to the line of work my parents were in we had to travel a lot, but even as an adult I love taking road trips. Thinking back on all of it makes me think of some of my most precious memories.    
   In my childhood years I mostly remember our frequent trips to the city. That drive always seemed so long to me as a child, but in reality it didn't even take two hours. I always looked out the window waiting to see the amusement park with the big roller coaster that marked the outer edge of the city. I remember watching the people on the roller coaster wishing I could be there. Just once I wanted to go spend the day there.
   On the way back I didn't have any landmarks to let me know we were getting close to home so I was the annoying kid that would always ask how much further. It got so bad my mom just taught me how to watch the mile markers and when we got to 211 we would be home. Even to this day I look for that mile marker to see how much further. I don't even pay attention to the road signs.
   I'm not sure how often we took the long drive to California. I think I was about 14 when we apparently decided it was a good idea to squeeze eight people, four adults, three children 14 and under, and one toddler, in an old van and go to Disney Land. Us kids took up the whole back seat. We even had a curtain to section us off from the rest of the van. We played Mad Libs most of the time. I don't think we ever got tired of it. The toddler was in a car seat, but not strapped to a seat, most of the time. The van didn't have any A/C or heating and we drove across New Mexico and Nevada during the Summer. During the day it was hot and at night it was freezing.  I remember at night the youngest of us took up shop on the floor board to sleep because it was the warmest. We only had two blankets for all seven people. My mom used a sun visor on her legs to try to keep in her body heat.
   We also took several trips to Arkansas for business and pleasure. I remember, the day we bought Aladdin and the King of Thieves, we went to Arkansas for a camping trip. We stayed in a cabin somewhere, I was too young to care where. I was so excited to watch that movie. I studied the cover front to back on the way to the cabin. I don't remember how long the trip actually took, but it felt like an eternity.
   Oddly enough the things I remembered most about those trips we took when I was a child was how mad my dad would get when he took a wrong turn. This was back before GPS was thing, or if it was a thing it wasn't affordable. The music would get turned down and my mom pulled out the map trying to find us back to where we needed to be while my dad exhaled deeply through his teeth so it made a hissing noise. We usually didn't stay lost for very long, my mom is an excellent navigator. I guess years of practice and pissed off dad helps with that though.  

   When I was of driving age I actually I loved getting lost. I found it challenging to find my way back on the right path and felt accomplished when I got there. One of my favorite memories as a teenager in a car was a trip a friend and I took to some weekend church camp. I'm not a very religious person, but my friend didn't want to go by herself. I think we both told our parents that we were taking a bus because we thought they wouldn't let us go in my car since I had just barely gotten my license. We made it there fine, but when we got there we spent one night and left the next day after dinner. We found it to be too weird and not really our thing. So we took off just before dark with no money for the toll roads and hardly enough money for gas. We, for some reason, didn't plan any of these things out. So we had to take back roads the whole way and scrapped up the change we had between us to put what gas we could in the tank. We drove through some really interesting towns and made jokes about getting murdered. I think we finally made it home at around 3 in the morning.  
   As a teenager I took my first long road trip by myself to go see my best friend at the time. She lived in Indiana. I drove 11 hours straight and only thought I had gotten lost once. I had an atlas with my route marked with a highlighter. Again, GPS wasn't affordable at the time. I actually really enjoyed that trip. No worrying about anyone else's needs or finding something to say to fill the car with chatter. Just me, my music blaring, my atlas, and the open road. I would love to do that again some day, even without using my smart phone.
   I don't know if anyone else is like this, but I've always associated being in a car as an intimate setting. I'm only comfortable with my loved ones, whether that's family, friends, or my significant other. I don't like being in a car with someone I'm not close to. Even if I work with that person every day and we're friendly with each other at work I wouldn't be comfortable with that person in a car. Maybe it goes back to my teenage years or maybe it's just the close proximity that makes me feel trapped and no where to hide.
   I spent a lot of time in a car as a teenager. We always felt so free from our lives when we just piled into a car and drove around no matter if we had a purpose to be driving or not. At times we had beer in a cooler in the back and everyone would drink, minus the driver of course, until we found something better to do. Sometimes we would just park on the side of a dirt road and drink...invite a couple of other friend to join us and hang out. A lot of my best teenage memories happened in a car.

   As a young adult I had a lot of good times too. My first road trip with the hubby, before we were married. We drove down to Texas to stay the weekend at his aunt's house and go to Six Flags. I think it was about a 8 hour drive, but I don't think we left early enough in the day because we got there pretty late. He had a little CRV at the time, most uncomfortable seats in the world. We had pillows to sit on, but our butts still went numb. I somehow managed to fall asleep on the way. I woke up when we were just outside Houston and he was racing someone, a Corvette I think it was. He said he only slowed down because he saw a helicopter in the sky and wasn't sure if it was a policy helicopter or not, but I think it was because I woke up and caught him. I think hubby was so delirious from sleep deprivation that he starting thinking regular things were funny. Like Subarus, not going to go into that story though.
   After we got married hubby went to basic training in Ft Leonard Wood, MO. I had to go pick him up when he got discharged. I was so excited to see him after three months of being newly married and alone. I went shopping for the occasion and got this really cute skirt, which I wore for the road trip. Before I even got on the road I stopped by McDonald's for breakfast, it was about 5 in the morning, and with my first bit into the breakfast burrito juices squirted out and landed on my skirt. I was so mad.
   When we moved about 1000 miles away from home my in laws helped us move all of our stuff. We were in two separate vehicles. Only about 15 minutes into the drive we came across a semi that had crashed through the center median and stopped on our side of the road. Debris was spread across the road and the truck had caught on fire. We stopped to make sure the driver was okay.
   We made it to Nebraska that first night and stopped. I some how got sick in the hotel room. I was the weirdest thing. It came as suddenly as it went and I felt fine afterward. The next day when we were almost there we go lost in some city trying to find a place to eat. We all decided who ever the city planner was needed to be shot. We finally stopped off at some Sport's Bar and Grill to eat.
    We ended up making a lot of back and forth trips of 15 hour drives between our two homes. One of our first few trips we missed our turn and didn't realize it until we were in Missouri. We had to cross this really scary looking bridge. It was metal and wood, mostly wood I think, and only one person can use it at a time. I nick named it Death Bridge in fact. Although I think at one point hubby was so concentrating on opening a can of Pringles he went into the opposite lane with oncoming traffic. I called them Death Pringles as well.
   This isn't a road trip, but still happened in a car and makes me laugh every time I think about it. When Eleven and I first started hanging out we went to lunch together. It was Winter so the roads we a little icy. When we came back after our lunch break I tried to stop to turn onto the road in front of where we worked, but instead of stopping we just kept sliding. I didn't try to turn the wheel or anything so we just kept sliding right on past the street we were supposed to turn down. As we slide past it we both just watch the street slide by us. We laughed so hard when we finally stopped and I had to back up to make the turn.
   For Eleven's 21st birthday we drove to Vegas. Took us 24 hours straight in her little Honda Civic, stick shift, which I wasn't very good at driving. We still took turns driving though. I was mostly Eleven's entertainment because I sucked so much at driving a standard. Most people who suck just  kill it when they get into first, not me, I squeal the tires. So getting out of gas stations and back onto the interstate was embarrassing.
   On the way to Vegas I spilled Powerade on the floor board so we pulled completely off the road and parked in a closed gas station's parking lot. I'm pretty sure we could have been murdered there and no one would have heard our screams, it was so desolate. We finally go to Vegas around 6 pm, hardly had anything to eat in the last 24 hours and went right to a party. True Vegas style!
   I think the real fun began after we left Vegas though. We decided to stop off in my hometown so Eleven could meet my mom. That was a 17 hour drive, but we had a lot of fun. We drove through several small towns where I had to stop and go a lot, which I sucked the most at. In one town I stopped at a stop light right next to a cop. I was so nervous that I would squeal the tires and get pulled over. I concentrated really hard and tried to get it into first normally, but still ended up squealing the tires a little bit. Luckily the cop didn't pull me over!
   This isn't a road trip either, but just really documenting one of my retarded moments. CPK and I went to go see the Nutcracker last December. It was actually one of the last things we did together. On my way to the theater I drove the wrong way down a one way! I've lived there for over 5 years and had never once done that. I have no idea what I was thinking. Then I was frazzled that I had done it I almost hit a car when I got on the correct road, when I changed lanes I didn't look!
    Then we moved again! This time closer to home, but still had to drive. We were all in four separate vehicles, hubby drove the 26 foot U-Haul with his car towed behind it, my car, Eleven's car, and Daggins' car. Eleven and I stuck by each other, but Daggins and hubby went and did their own thing. It was actually a really pretty drive. It felt like it took forever, but we finally stopped off in Wyoming somewhere for the night. It was a gorgeous city actually. Right in a valley with mountains surrounding it. Eleven and I ate at Outback, which was delicious. The rest of the drive was much easier.
    One of the epic memories happened semi-recently. Eleven and I picked Daggins up from the airport and some crazy snow storm came in. The airport is almost two hours away from where we live. So the drive that usually takes two hours at most took us about four hours. It was the worst snow storm I had ever tried to drive through and I wasn't even driving! There were a lot of car in the ditch. We even saw a car slide off the road and into a snow bank coming at us! When were about 45 miles away from our town and Daggins says he has to pee. So Eleven starts to pull over, but he chickened out and told her to keep going. This went on about three times before she finally pulled over and told him to get out. So he is trying to pee on the side of the road while other cars are going by us. Right at this moment "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" by the Beatles comes on and we just started laughing so hard.  When Daggins finally came back into the car we asked what was so funny. We did our best to explain through laughter and he told us to fuck off...rightly so.
    I think what sparked my memories yesterday was I noticed sometimes when hubby is driving I'll put my arm on his shoulder and gently rub his neck. I do this without even thinking about it really, but I realized that I had watched my mom do the same thing to my dad on our road trips. I had seen it so many times that I do the same thing to my husband without even realizing it. It just got me thinking about all the awesome times I've had in a car and I thought I would share some of them.