There is something so soothing about getting in your car and driving without any particular destination, but perhaps just a vague direction in mind. Most of my life I've had a wanderlust. It's taken various forms and has been fueled by an assortment of moods. My wandering has taken me all over the United States and it pulls on me almost constantly. There have been times in my life where I feel itchy with a nervous energy to get up and go. Other times, I find myself in front of the computer searching airplane flights to various cities and daydreaming for hours. I'll spend days mapping out routes to different locations, barely resisting the almost consuming desire to pick up my car keys and drive away for long days and dark nights on the road. Sometimes the feeling comes on with the attraction of a New Adventure. Other times, it seems as though there is a darkness I have to escape from, that if I can just keep moving it won't catch up.
When I was younger I would do just that. Living in southern Illinois, I'd take off for Chicago - a mere 5.5 hours away, or occasionally I'd start north and turn left at St. Louis and spend three days en route to Oakland; getting my road legs through Missouri, singing my way through Kansas, marveling the beauty of Colorado (and always meaning to stop in "Rogue River"), flying free through the Great Salt Lake and watching the Rockies loom ahead, up through Reno and then the inevitable nighttime three hour race down the mountain through the industrial glittering that is Martinez and into Oakland.
Waitressing in Seattle gave me tip money which I'd save in a jar for the specific purpose of spending on a roadtip. When I'd saved $150 or so, off to Oakland I'd go; twelve blissful hours speeding through southern Washington, winding my way over lovely Oregon and it's spiderweb lightening storms and down into the grasslands of northern California. I'd spend a weekend visiting with friends, then off I'd go back to Washington, back to Illinois, back to wherever. I never worried about work - if I got fired for leaving, I'd just find some new crap job. It was a pretty happy, but futureless way of living.
Nowadays I'm all grown up. I guess when you have overhead and responsibilities you can't just take off on a whim and a fancy. Well, I suppose one could, but what would be waiting when you came back wouldn't be very pleasant.
That urge, that drive (please pardon the pun), the incessant need to GO still lives in me. It's not as active as it once was, moving me at 1am to drive 300 miles, but it is still under my skin crawling around. When this craving comes upon me, I sit in front of my computer punching in different URLs: maps.google.com putting in different destinations and seeing how long it would take to drive there, what route is the best or most interesting or quickest. Travelocity, iflyswa, orbitz all get a visit from me. How much would it cost to go to x, y, or z? Are there layovers? I'd rather take a direct flight but I won't leave a six in the morning because that would mean arriving at the airport at four in the morning, which would mean getting up and out of the house by three in the morning. Forget that.
Instead, I take an abbreviated road trip. I go to Montezuma's Castle and read the history, I drive over to Canyon Lake, I take Alyosha out to Globe and for a long walk in the desert scrub, stopping occasionally to pinch cactus needles from his footpads.
It's a sickness, this wanderlust. The cravings I felt when I quit smoking weren't this strong. It fills my mind and makes my feet unsettled. I feel the ground shifting under me and I have to make sure it doesn't pull me under. So, I drive until this craving has had it's fill.
But as certain as death and taxes, the impulse will come back.
