Fun Lessons From The Road
There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
We like to say the world is small, but when you travel it you realize it is vast. It’s full of wonderous and terrible things. Things that will astonish you. And things that will make you scratch your head and say, “But why?”. Even in your home country. I wanted to share a few interesting things I encountered driving over 6,000 miles across America.
There is a lot of space out west. I’m starting with kind of an obvious one, but even though I knew this intellectually it was different to experience it. I enjoyed camping so much more in the wide open spaces out west than the cramped and crowded east coast that I’ve always called home. Here’s a quick visual to prove my point; look at all that white and light pink space. That’s where I like camping.
Image courtesy of https://ecpmlangues.unistra.fr/
2. Cows cannot be trusted. This sign made me chuckle, it was along a hiking/mountain biking trail in Moab, UT.
3. Beware light timers. Many public parks will allow you to park there overnight, which is really nice. I used a few during my travels and most of them also have public restrooms. That’s all good stuff. However, some of these (looking at you Kansas) have lights that turn on automatically when motion is detected and then turn off to save power when no motion is detected. Do you know where there are no motion detectors? Yeah, that’s right. Inside the stall. I know what you’re thinking. “Geez, how long were you in there?”. The answer is 5 minutes. I timed it after the incident I’m about to describe. Trust me, a public park restroom is the last place I want to hang out and spend any more time than is absolutely necessary. But I think we can all agree that 5 minutes is a pretty tight window, especially when you don’t realize there’s a time limit. Imagine doing your business when all of a sudden the bathroom goes pitch black. You’re in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. You’ve never been there before. It’s 11pm. A lot runs through your head.
When I first entered the bathroom I was really impressed with how large the single stall was. I had a less positive perception as I waddled my way over to the door to open it and wave my arms around to get some lights on so I could finish up and get the hell out of there. You’re welcome for the visual.
Artist rendering of what the bathroom looked like with all the lights off.
4. USA must hold the crown for best road trip country in the world. We just must. We have this giant contiguous mass of land you can drive on for days and days on end. Deserts. Rainforests. Mountains. Plains. Oceans. Lakes. And on top of that, you can get everything you need if you look for it. I couldn’t believe how many things existed right in front of my eyes that I’d just never noticed (or had any reason to notice) previously. I was blown away by the number of places that offered showers, bathrooms, free wi-fi, water filling stations and more. They’re at rest areas, gas stations, country stores, welcome centers, public libraries and more. Yes, public libraries still exist. It’s possible I just happened to go along well established routes and there were definitely stretches where I had a hard time locating some of the above. But overall I couldn’t believe how prevalent these things were in places I’d been going all my life and just never noticed.
This is the largest gas station in the world, a Buc-ee's outside of San Antonio, TX. I didn't stop at this one, but it illustrates what's out there. It has 128 gas pumps, 80 restroom stalls, 60 cashiers working at a time. Crazy.
5. People aren’t so bad after all. I can be guilty of taking a cynical view of things from time to time. But I interacted with dozens, possibly hundreds, of people over the course of 5 weeks all over the country. Did drivers annoy me? Of course. Did I see selfish or inconsiderate behavior? Yeah, it was still people. But my interactions were so overwhelmingly positive that I’m struggling to come up with any specific examples of negatives. Almost everyone I met was friendly, open and kind. People gave me directions, gave me great tips for local activities and restaurants, helped me change a flat mountain bike tire on the trail, convinced me to do the hardest part of the hike to get the payoff, invited me to meals and drinks and in a couple of cases even opened up their homes to me. And not one person asked me what religion I was before showing kindness. I was never asked if I was a democrat or republican. There’s so much rhetoric and vitriol and talk about division. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, I’m just saying that’s not what I saw at ground level. I recognize I may be in the easiest possible position as a straight, fit, white, male. But others I met on the road echoed the same sentiment. People are generally good and for the most part we all want similar things. As someone prone to fits of road rage, I didn’t expect driving across the country to restore my faith in humanity. But honestly, it kind of did.