“What gives value to travel is fear. It is the fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country… we are seized by a vague fear, and the instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits. This is the most obvious benefit of travel. At that moment we are feverish but also porous, so that the slightest touch makes us quiver to the depths of our being… There is no pleasure in traveling, and I look upon it as an occasion for spiritual testing… Travel, which is like a greater and graver science, brings us back to ourselves.” Albert Camus, 1963
Audra and I have very different ideas about what it means to travel. She finds pleasure in the planning and ultimately wants a nice warm place to sit and relax. Planning and relaxation have never been among my strengths. I prefer a general direction and an uphill climb. Not an actual uphill climb, as anyone who has seen me lately can attest.
I have always found comfort in mileage. Specifically, the distance I can put between where I end up and where I begin. It may be west toward Phoenix for 38 hours on a whim, or south to Key West to watch the sun go down before heading back. I once drove across the country alone in a three day sprint, and drove an extra hour past my house just to see a girl.
Suddenly that was nearly ten years ago. There has been a lot of travel since that trip, and many miles. There is still something about that long straight shot west out of Indianapolis; however, that just taunts me.
Sometime last year it hit me. I have already accepted that Audra will never enjoy my preferred style of travel, but Dane is six and still very impressionable. Audra has a head start with him, thanks primarily to Disney World and Florida beaches. I decided that the best thing to do was to put him in a car and head west for a few thousand miles.
I cannot believe that I had not thought of that sooner.
