2600 Miles

Last week, I drove 2600 miles. The night I got home I was at a neighborhood party and the host asked me how I was. “I just drove 2600 miles!” I said, beaming with pride.

“By choice?” she asked incredulously.

I drove this distance completely by choice for a few reasons. The main one is that, for the first time in my grown-up working life, I have the entire summer off. Also, a few months ago I got a new car. This is a unique moment in time where I have both an extended period of freedom and a reliable car. I wanted to take advantage of this perfect storm of goodness. The third reason I took this road trip was to visit Lucia in Colorado .

Before I started the drive, I had in my mind that the distance from my home in Seattle to Lucia in Boulder was 994 miles. I thought that because that’s what the distance says on my Find My Friends App. But once I got to Utah and realized I still had quite a while to go, I recalculated and understood that that 994 miles is actually as the crow flies, not as the car drives. In reality, my drive would be closer to 1300 miles each way.

For the entire week before I was scheduled to leave on my solo road trip, I suffered from a condition I call Tight Lung Syndrome. This self-diagnosed condition manifests as an inability to take a deep breath for extended periods of time, up to hours at a stretch. In preparation for my solo journey, I was simultaneously excited and gravely worried. There were so many unknowns and my stress was a 9 out of 10. I couldn’t relax enough to take a deep breath.

I first experienced Tight Lung Syndrome during COVID when I, like many people, felt wrecked with fear and confusion. I struggled for months to get a deep breath, and ultimately convinced myself that I had permanently damaged lungs (even though I didn’t have COVID). It got so bad that I ordered a pulse oximeter to test my oxygen levels. Only when I consistently registered 99 did I finally come back to reality.

I left for my road trip around 6:00am, armed with a thermos of coffee and a cooler of snacks. My plan was to drive for as long as I could and then stop for the night. This unknown was a big source of my anxiety. I stressed about not finding a hotel vacancy or only finding space in a town filled with gun-toting, violent criminals. But I also worried that I would get on the road and find it boring and tedious and then I would be screwed because not only would I have to drive to Colorado, but back as well.

So, I was packed and prepared physically, but still struggling to breathe. To my surprise and delight, as soon as I got on the freeway, I found that I loved the open road. I felt strong and confident and stable in my car. My navigation panel, a new experience for me in my updated vehicle, was my constant co-pilot, reassuring me with little blue arrows that I was going in the right direction, that I was on the right road.

I listened to recorded books narrated by friendly voices that guided me as I drove across the mountains. When I started to zone out, I listened to playlists, including showtunes from all of my favorite musicals that I sang along to, keeping me energized and alert.

When I got hungry, I pulled over at a rest stop and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. When I got bored I ate cut up carrots and shredded cabbage, crunching my way over mountain passes.

My delight built like the slow charge of my electric car battery with every mile I drove. This was fun! This was amazing. I surprised myself early on with the recognition that, not only could I do this, but I loved doing it.

The first day I drove almost twelve hours. I found a Holiday Inn streaming with families in mini-vans in Ogden Utah and hunkered down for the night. In the morning, I rose early and filled my thermos from the machine at the all-included breakfast bar. I hit the road again and made it to Boulder by 4pm.

When I arrived, Lucia welcomed me to her summer sublet with a basket of my favorite car snacks for the drive home. We spent a few days hanging out–hiking, shopping, and eating meals together. It was so good to see her, and I felt surges of pride and comfort at seeing her manage her life in her town.She was independent and communicative and loving. After three days, it was time for me to get back on the road. Lucia helped me pack my car and get ready for my 1300 miles that would bring me home again.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said as she shoved my food box into the foot space behind the driver’s seat.

“Why?,” I asked

“You have such a long drive ahead and you’re all alone,” she said, “I’m so sorry. Will you be okay?”

“Are you kidding?” I replied, almost too happily “I’m so excited. I can’t wait to hit the road!” I was sad to leave Lucia, but vibrating with excitement to get back to that “on the road” feeling.

Having left later in the day, the trip home would be three days and two nights. The second day I was driving somewhere between Wyoming, and Montana where my service was very spotty and Lucia called me.

“Mom,” she said, “Can I talk to you? Something happened.”

She proceeded to tell me that she’d gotten into a fender bender. Lucia’s car is a 2005 Prius, not in pristine condition. Her bumper, already hanging off the rear of her car on one side, now had a massive dent on the other.

“I don’t know what to do,” she explained. “I don’t think the woman who backed into me has insurance.” The woman that she’d collided with had been distraught to the point of peeing her pants. According to Lucia, it seemed unlikely that she’d be able to manage paying for any damages.

Because Lucia’s car is old, we don’t have comprehensive insurance. But she wouldn’t be able to drive for long with her bumper in the condition it was. I felt for her, having to manage this challenge for the first time on her own. I wish I’d stayed another day so I could be there with her to help her. But all I could advise her, through my terrible, spotty reception, was to go to the repair shop and plead for the least expensive, most functional repair.

Finally, at the end of the day, I had made my way across Montana and into Idaho, where I recovered reception. At this point in my drive, I was beyond exhausted and knew I needed to stop for the night. Managing my stress at navigating the mountain roads, many of them converted to two lane highways because of construction, had rendered me a frazzled mess. For a few hours I’d been desperate to stop for the night, but every town I went through seemed a little bit scary and sketchy, like maybe the gun-wielding felons were roaming the forests behind all the motels along Interstate-90.

Finally, at my wit’s send. I pulled off into a little town in Idaho. I had to weave through a forested arterial to get to the commercial district and I expected that I’d have to compromise my expectations. But when I arrived, there was a community music festival going on. Healthy looking people of all ages in tank tops and sunglasses were wandering all around. There were tiny stages dotting corners of the old mining town streets. I immediately felt safe and welcomed.

I pulled into a motel that had lawn chairs in a circle around a bonfire, happy people waiting for a band to set up. At the check in there was a basket of free s’mores kits for guests. I wandered around the reception building until I found someone who looked like they worked there and I asked if she had any rooms. “I have two left” she said smiling, seeming to know instinctively that this would make me jubilantly happy.

I unloaded my car into a clean, well-lit room and went outside in the last hours of daylight to explore. Within a block, I found a cheerful restaurant with an arugula salad on the menu, just what I craved after a long few days of car food.

I sat down at the bar and watched happy people wandering along the streets. I felt tired, but content, finally able to rest. By this time it was several hours after Lucia had taken her car to the repair shop. As I slipped off my flip flops and stretched my toes over the lowest rung of the bar stool, Lucia texted me.

“Mom, can you talk? You’re never going to believe what happened.” I called her immediately and in a giddy voice, she told me of a wonderful, surprising outcome at the body shop. The repair man had managed to fix her bumper. He figured out a way to screw on the side that was falling off and he also popped out the dent on the other side with a suction cup. The best part, she said, was that he had done it all for free. I felt so relieved for her and proud of her for independently managing this challenging, first-time car crash situation on her own.

I shared my good news at finding the perfect hotel in an adorable town and we said goodbye until tomorrow.

I don’t know if I learned anything radically new about myself on my road trip, but I was definitely reminded of some life lessons. The main one is that I can (and should) sometimes do things that scare me. Being on the open road with unknowns put me outside of my comfort zone. The night sleeping in a trailer/cabin attached to another cabin by a very thin door somewhere in eastern Wyoming was a sleepless night filled with flashes of horror movie slideshows, but I got through it.

Passing the wobbly semis on winding roads in endlessly mountainous states gave me cramps in my hands and tight shoulders, but each time I reached a flat, I breathed deeply and felt a little bit more confident.

As we get older we become habituated. We gravitate towards doing things that we normally do, things we’re good at. My 2600 mile journey reminded me that I can do new things, even if they give me bouts of Tight Lung Syndrome.

I think of the delight in Lucia’s voice after she took her car to the body shop and managed a solution that she felt good about. She was so unsure of what to ask, how to navigate a car repair, but she did it. That’s how I felt over and over again on my weeklong odyssey.

As I drove through Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and then back again through Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and back home to Washington, I marveled at the natural beauty all over. It was a solitary but astoundingly connecting experience, one that brought me closer to myself. It was just me in the Grand Tetons hiking in the early morning, singing my way through the woods to avoid bears. I couldn’t ask anyone else to drive the scary stretches or to make the decisions about which towns felt like safe places to stay.

The morning after I got home I took my usual early morning walk. It was a beautiful, clear day and I could see Mount Rainier to the south and Mount Baker to the north. The lake was still and glassy. “This is as beautiful as any natural wonder I saw on my road trip,” I thought to myself.

I’m lucky that I don’t have to drive far to see natural beauty. But my trip was about more than seeing beauty. It was an opportunity to step into an expansiveness of myself, one that lit me up and reminded me how great it feels to push through the fear to get to the other side.

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