Driving to Mobile

We drove across the long, skinny bridge to Dauphin Island like a little matchbox car teetering on a flimsy plastic track. Our peripheral vision was swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. My friends and I giggled nervously while I imagined a hurricane coming through and swallowing this little road.

   Road to Dauphin Island.                   Photo courtesy of commons.wikemedia.org

I was on a solo 6-day vacation to see friends. I took the long way. I meandered down through Southern Illinois, continued on to Nashville, hopped in the car with friends to drive to Mobile and then down to the tip of Dauphin Island. While driving is the means to an end it also serves as the transition between different worlds. As the miles stacked up behind me so did my petty work anxieties, the dishes that needed to be washed and the counter that needed to be wiped. I only had this one thing to do. Drive. The rolling Wisconsin farm hills flattened into wide Illinois farm fields which became the rolling hills of Kentucky, the flowering trees of Tennessee and the towering oaks of Alabama.

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road."
Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Though vacations are usually about doing things, this vacation was largely about visiting. I visited with my best friend and her family and listened to stories about her girls and shared stories of my girls/boys. We took a midnight dip in the pool and tread water and talked and swam laps and talked and talked above and around the adolescent squeals of the girls.

I see her once a year. In many ways it is like no time has gone by when we see each other. We can immediately jump back into each other's lives. But I also see that a lot of time has gone by and suddenly her daughters look so much older and so much time has gone by since we last talked. But here we are having the best morning together.

I went on to visit with my Nashville friends as we drove through the pouring rain along the long Alabama highway. We arrived in Mobile and sat for long talks over coffee and over wine.

Mostly we ate. Ate and talked.

Our side trip to Dauphin Island was great and we successfully made it without drowning in the Gulf.
The stormy day enhanced my impression of this island as a rough and tumble little place. It seemed mostly wild and undeveloped.

We did spend half of our time inside of this bar though. It still counts as sightseeing. I read that they have a great bird sanctuary on the island. We did not see it.

These ladies filled up the empty spot where my girlfriend time used to be. It's hard if not impossible to balance a job and a marriage and kids and time with friends. But then you have a weekend where the balance teeters back and you feel centered again.

I didn't exactly travel across the country but traveling from the Upper Midwest to the Gulf Coast put a lot of miles in between my and my routine. As I ticked down my final highway miles at the end of my trip, I couldn't wait to rejoin my life.

Sally: Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way.
Lightening McQueen: How do you mean?
Sally: Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.
--Cars, 2006