Road Tripping

  Now that I have attained my twenties, I finally got to do something I have wanted to for awhile now. I took a road trip with my brother half-way across the state (and by the way, you know you live in a big state when it takes five hours to drive halfway across it). My beautiful cousin Rachel is getting married on Valentine's day, so my brother and I came up early to help get ready for the wedding.  

  Wednesday morning, I woke up at 4:45 after a less than desirable sleep experience the night before. None-the-less, I was surprisingly awake. My brother and I loaded our belongings the trunk of my parents station wagon and set off on our journey to Denton, Texas.

  I enjoy driving. I have never had much trouble focusing on the road when it is calm because it holds a certain therapeutic quality for me. Driving in the early morning traffic of Houston, Texas is not therapeutic. There is just not a lot of appeal in being cloistered between lines of white with countless tons of moving metal and red lights. Even when the drivers crowding the road are wondrously polite, I would rather them not be there.  

  After I pushed out of the city limits of H-town, I headed north on the four-lane interstate. My brother, who had kept his promise to stay awake as I drove through downtown, leaned his seat back and fell into the arms of sleep. I am still not sure if it was the coffee I had filled my stomach with or the excitement at the thought of seeing my cousins or simply the adrenaline running through the blue lines beneath my skin that kept me awake. 

  As I drove on though, I found that albums I once thought long are short when I have so much road before me. I also found myself wanting to drive on the two lanes of black-top that curved and dipped like a ribbon next to the interstate which stretched out like an arrow. I learned that there are few things greater than driving out from under a blanket of gray fog into the friendliness of the golden sun burning in an azure sky. And as I have learned every time I go to visit my cousins, nothing matches the warmth feeling you get in your stomach when pull into their driveway and know once you get out of the car you will get to go into a house in which live people that are among the most wonderful in the world (and to any of my cousins who are reading this, this applies to all of you).

 

I also learned this is a great road trip song: