Another 1,800 miles on my odometer. Only 300 more to go. Over 6,000 on I-95, I-85 and I-65 since Christmas. The road is crowded, but lonely, everyone in their moving cans like tomatoes on the way to the shelf in Wisconsin or Atlanta or St. Louis. This week, I have spend another 35 hours driving a truck, and not a small one, the back loaded with 41 years of my life.
Highway food is heartbreaking, literally. Fat, calories, salt, cholesterol – you can die on the road, and not from an accident.
Driving a big vehicle with big mirrors and big wheels and a tall clearance is a wrestling contest of weight, wind, physics, hydraulics and boredom.
Last Saturday in Georgia, I stopped at a gas station/convenience store. Hanging from the ceiling were dolls for sale. They looked like children, about 3 feet tall. The person who hung them there had done so with small ropes – around their necks. There were close to 20 of them hanging up there above the candy bars and potato chips. They were all black. Sometimes the retail irony of the road is a sad reminder of our past.