Travel - Thursday 10/20

The strange thing about taking the ferry from Port Jeff to Bridgeport is that I live so close to the ferry, I don’t really have a chance to get into a driving/road trip rhythm before I’m stopping. Then an hour and fifteen minutes later I’m closer to my destination than I otherwise would have been if I’d drove the long way round. Lining up, other drivers either get out of their cars, or stare straight ahead. Few read. I feel that I’m an exception as I look over my research for my presentation. Those traveling with passengers engage in small talk. They laugh and smile, they look at each other. They occasionally turn their heads and look out of the car, but it’s a vacant kind of look. A looking without seeing. Some talk animatedly on the phone, or pick their noses, or hardcore rock out to the radio in the way that people sometimes do when they forget that the world outside the care continues to exist even when they’re inside. The way that people sometimes do when they forget that car windows work both ways, that people can see in.

The ferry arrives, unloads its human and automotive cargo and then it’s time to load. Most drivers’ attentions are fixed on the crew directing traffic. Once they’ve arrived in their appointed spots, some wait patiently in their cars until the spaces around them are filled, others rush to exit their cars before any impediments arise. I wait.

Rough crossing. The wind rattles my laptop screen as I sit outside and work on my paper. Spray blown off the white caps leaves a residue on my keyboard and a film on my screen.

Merritt parkway northbound. Gorgeous warm colors sway in the breeze. Canopied road. The American myth of the road. Kerouac. McCarthy. Easy Rider. On a land mass this big and this well traversed, the land becomes what the sea was for maritime civilizations. And the sea still has that pull for many, myself included. I was a bit queasy on the crossing. Been away from—or out of—the water for a bit too long I suppose. In a way it’s nice to know that even a salty old bugger like me can still get a bit queasy crossing the sound. But so anyway, the call of the road is immense.

I plan to stop at a rest area on the Merritt, but blow right past the first one. I don’t really need anything to eat yet, or to use the facilities; I just want to open Spotify up on my phone, but I don’t stop because I’m still getting WNYC, and I don’t really need to stop for any other reason.

WNYC cuts out seconds after I pass the rest stop exit. I haven’t even reached the rest stop parking yet.

I eventually stop at the rest area on 91, a big open area, welcome center, no gas or food. Coming out of the building, listening to the steady buzz of traffic zipping by. I’m struck not for the first time, but in a deeply profound way, by the allure of the TARDIS. All of time and space. See an alien world and be back in time for tea on the same day you left. Visit another galaxy and be back 5 minutes before you left. It’s less the TARDIS itself than it is what the TARDIS represents, which is something akin to Jack Sparrow’s speech about “what The Black Pearl really is” or Ishmael’s beautiful musings in “Loomings,” the first chapter of Moby Dick.

I suspect that I’ve driven through Springfield, MA before, but can’t place when or why. The basketball Hall of Fame confirms this suspicion, but doesn’t help me place when or why. I’ve never been there, I just recall someone pointing it out. Is it possible I was on my way to Boston and 84 was closed? Or just so backed up it made more sense to drive up to 90 and take 90 across Mass than 84 through Conn.?

The rest of the drive is relatively smooth. Some clouds set in, a bit of mist—the kind that wipers never really seem to help, the kind you have to let build up until you can’t see anymore before the wipers will do anything other than smear and streak and bounce and squeak.

Driving through Winchester, NH and I can’t tell whether it’s a quaint little town untouched by time or the remnants of an industrial town (Textiles, Mills, Mining?). It seems like it might be both, and the gloominess of the weather combined with the late hour does the town no favors.

My phone dies and I’m immensely happy that I memorized the last few directions. Even plugged in, the combination of music and maps pulls more battery power than my car can provide.