The Drive

 Okay, first things first. I’ve been preparing this week to go back to northern Michigan, a land as yet undiscovered by things like cell phone signals and high speed Internet connections. So I’ll be away for a little while. In the meantime, Get out, enjoy the weather, enjoy the holiday, hang around with your family and your friends!

I have to confess, thinking up something for this entry was a little hard, since I haven’t been thinking much of northeast Iowa. What I’ve been thinking of instead is The Drive. That’s how I see it in my mind, spelled out as a proper noun.

The Drive is exactly what you’d think it is—a drive between Cresco and my parents’ house in northern Michigan. It’s no less than two states away in any direction, and at least twelve hours depending on the weather. Get on the road at 9 am, you can expect to reach your destination around 9pm with a vague sense you could have been doing something else that day.

Believe it or not, The Drive is not that bad. It’s a little tedious, but when driving to northern Michigan you don’t have much choice. I could take the train, but it stops a good three hours from my parents’ house, so that’s out. I could also take a plane, and while I could do that, I could also choose not to pay the thousand-dollar fee they slapped on for air travel during a holiday. I could also take the bus, but I’ve taken the bus before. I can tell you from personal experience listening to a person who is genuinely mentally ill talk for an hour and a half about how the Devil infests everyone when they are born and he can prove that because DEVIL spelled backwards is LIVED and EVIL spelled backwards is LIVE, you start to wonder about your safety. You also wish he would just shut up and keep this theological thoughts to himself, but that’s really secondary to fearing for your life. Even the guy who had just gotten out of prison didn’t want anything to do with this guy.

Anyway, The Drive really isn’t that bad. It’s mostly peaceful, and with a fully-charged iPod you should be good to go. Also, I have to be honest, when you’re going somewhere for a week, you want to bring along a car. I don’t want to be confined to one piece of luggage that can fit in the overhead bin, especially since I plan on bringing along books and DVDs that we can watch at night. I’ll also say that driving back into Michigan fills me with the sense that I’ve come home again. I don’t really feel like I’ve returned home when I get to my hometown, but the state itself? I feel very, very good when I finally cross the border, even if I do have to drive for four more hours.