The DU Lounge

...in a car, or even just with friends on a one way or two way road trip, it was different.

My drives each way with my future wife and years later my wife herself were romantic to a point, until the confinement in the car made us cranky, the first way, in the Mohave at night; the way back, many years later, upstate New York.

I was never "lonely" on the road. I always did it with someone, except once, when my mother was ill with what in the end would kill her. I was so wasted on caffeine I barely remember it. I drove from Utah to Long Island, non-stop, a very dangerous enterprise, since I recall I was hallucinating on the George Washington bridge. I was 22, freaked out, terrified at what was coming, and I guess, stupid. I could have killed someone or myself, which would not have been good for my family. Somehow, I don't know how exactly, I made it. (The car blew an engine the week after I made it.)

I was, I concede, a dumb kid, but the road struck me as romantic at least when I was traveling with lovers or good friends.

I was a road warrior for a few jobs I had, but that was mostly via air and rental car. That often sucked, not always, but often.