What Happens When You Drive For 21 Hours?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEH_EvKICQ8

Let me preface my comments by letting you know that both Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese told me they were unavailable to work with me on making the video above.

Howard’s personal assistant told me he was washing his hair and Scorsese’s guy said he was having his eyebrows done so what you have is the very raw version of an emotional day.

It doesn’t do justice to the place I called home or give you the sort of insight that would make you nod your head and smile because you know why I say I am going to miss that place. And if you know me well you know that I am not sentimental about too many things, but homes tend to be one of the few.

What Happens When You Drive For 21 Hours?

I left Fort Worth on Friday and drove straight to El Paso, Texas. My good friend Google Maps measures that as taking more than 8 hours to complete a bit more than 600 miles.

Saturday morning I woke up and decided that 600 miles on day one wasn’t enough driving for me so I punched in the coordinates for LA and set out for the 800 mile plus trip with the idea that it would be better to see my family sooner than later.

The net result is that I drove for a bit more than 21 hours which means in two days I went from Texas to New Mexico to Arizona to California.

Have I mentioned that the last two hours were brutal and that after dinner Sunday night I threw up twice. Haven’t figured out if it was exhaustion, the beef jerky I bought at a gas station in Bowie, Arizona or something else that did me in.

But I can tell you that my eyes look simply fabulous, there is nothing better than stomach distress to help make you look like someone beat you up. I figure when I walk onto the basketball court I can tell the guys I stopped two muggers at a truck stop.

Won’t make me play any better but if I can intimidate the other guys it might make the game easier for me which fits with the philosophy of work smarter and not harder.

It Feels Like A Lost Weekend

Since Monday is a work day I made a point to push hard so that I could get back and have some time to relax before the work week starts.  It also meant that I only stopped to fill up with gas and to hit the restroom.

A sizable chunk of driving time is through the desert which has a sort of stark beauty to it.  It provides plenty of time to do nothing more than keep your eyes on the road and think because radio stations seem to be few and far between, at least for us non satellite listeners.

The lack of consistent connectivity meant that I really didn’t listen to the news and because my stops were limited and short I didn’t go online to check things out.

It felt strange to be so disconnected from the world. I don’t always update the blogs on the weekend but I do make a point to check the news and see what is going on in the world.

The lack of connection left me feeling like I have lost a couple of days.

Reentry

And just like that I have moved from living alone for an extended period of time to being with my family again. The family time is great. It is important, necessary and needed but there is no better word than reentry to describe some of how I feel.

The noise level is exceptional and it comes with this weird sort of Deja Vu. I know my place, what I expect and what is expected of me but it would be a lie if I said it isn’t an adjustment to have be concerned with everyone else’s schedule and my own.

It is not a bad thing and it is something I have been working towards but it is different.

And part of that comes from having had an important and memorable time in Texas. Maybe it is because Texas has always attracted me or because so many good things happened there.

Or maybe it is because it is on the list of places I could see myself living.

Maybe none of it matters, but I took the video so that I would have more active memories. I suppose the one thing I probably should have done is have made a point to have run the tape before the packing and movers.

And now here we are. Should be interesting to see what comes next.