Is 700 Miles Too Far to Drive in One Day?

Is 700 miles too far to drive in one day? On the first day of my California spiritual journey, I drove 720 miles. I left Fort Collins at 7 a.m. and rolled into Denver to the tune of John Major playing Jimi Hendrix’s “Bold as Love” and I felt pretty good for the first three or four hours.

Feeling a Little Amelia Erhart?

By the time I reached Vail, around mile 200, I was still feeling okay. But I was thinking about Amelia Earhart and her flight around the world. I was soloing, like her, although in a car with many other people on the same road … but on the other hand I was really solo. No Fred Noonan as navigator. And I could have used one. I had to pull over at times and check how much farther, where was the nearest gasoline. I have plenty of navigational tools on the dash — the speedometer, tachometer, gas gauge, engine temperature, clock, miles of fuel remaining, compass, outside temperature, altitude. I wasn’t lonely, exactly. But I was aware of being alone. I worried about running out of gas, getting on the wrong road, or getting a flat tire.

Crossing the Colorado with Florence Williams in Mind

I crossed the Colorado river on the east side of the Colorado/Utah border and realized I wouldn’t see “our” river again until I returned from California. It meandered its green-brown way south, its waters to be pilfered by California before it reached Mexico.

This strip of the river was where fellow divorce’ Florence Williams took her two week solo rafting trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, in her book Heartbreak, in which she discussed the awfulness of being abandoned by her husband of 25 years. I looked down at the river and imagined her there, going on her own spiritual journey, her own attempt to leave pain behind.

Ultimately Williams would do all kinds of things — therapy, drugs, and finally a practice of awe — to try to heal. I consider her a fellow traveled, though our methods are different.

Grand Junction and Joline

I drove through Grand Junction and headed out to the desert, talking to Joline on the phone, and I stopped briefly to take pictures of the rock formations of the San Rafael Swell, a group of red and white rocks between Arches National Park and Moab.

After I hung up with Joline, the whole solo driving for hundreds and hundreds of miles thing began to feel like a lot. I was fine as I drove through the redrock desert until when I got to the place where I-70 and I-15 meet. I drove through a landscape dotted with small cattle farms and metal sheds. Distant mountains dusted with snow looked like loaves of sugar. And I began to feel that blurring vision and staring eyes feeling that means you’re getting too tired to drive. I was still over a hundred miles away from my AirBnB in St. George. I couldn’t possibly keep driving.

So I looked for a rest stop. No dice. Shaking my legs back and forth, knocking my knees together, opening the windows, didn’t work either. Why had I done this ultra-long drive? I *knew* or should have known it was too much. I should have at least gotten a Starbucks coffee at the shop in Grand Junction. Now, I blinked and realized I actually hadn’t looked at the road, really, for several seconds. Danger.

To Tired to Drive

Although ending up like Amelia Earhart wasn’t likely with my highway driving task, you never know and I didn’t want to push my luck. Anyway, I simply couldn’t drive any more. For a second I wondered what I would do if I couldn’t make it to the (already paid for) AirBnB. There weren’t any hotels in this strip of road, not anywhere.

Pulling over was the only way. Fortuitously I saw the high-in-the-sky green and red gas price sign that meant a service stop. I drove in. It was a Maverick station. I didn’t think you’re allowed to sleep in a Maverick parking lot but I didn’t care. I just drove around to the side and parked the car next to a young guy wearing a seed cap sitting in a white jeep.

Sleep By Any Means Necessary

I wondered if he would think I was weird for parking next to him and sleeping. I wondered how long I was going to sleep. But exhaustion had killed social shame. Following rules, no. This was it. If someone tried to stop me from sleeping I would explain. I closed my eyes. And that blessed moment when sleep washes over you and everything releases, like you fall into a mystical pillow and the lights go out, came upon me. Bam. In two seconds.

A half hour later I woke up and … like magic … I looked around, alert. The Jeep guy was gone, I’d never even heard him start up the engine. But I was awake again! Well, there was no time to lose. I got back on the road and joined at the pace of traffic (80 miles per hour). When I saw St George–the outskirts were a combination of trailer parks and mini-mansions perched on the tops of mesas — I followed the cell phone map. At twilight St. George Avenue was full of chicken and sandwich joints and doughnut shops and the architecture was a combination of Spanish colonial (Utah was actually once part of Mexico) and Cars Southwestern. As I drove, I wondered “what if the AirBnB is weird, feels unsafe, what if the host is crazy … what if I can’t find the parking spot, the door, the refrigerator … “

A Restored Victorian

Then I saw the house on the corner. A restored Victorian, it was made of orange stone and there were flowers. A beautiful flock of hens was in the back yard, carefully tended in a enclosed coop. Everything as it should be — the lock code, the parking as described, a spot for my bike as the host had offered.

I do admit for the last two or three hours of the drive I was wondering “wasn’t there some way to avoid quite *this* much driving? Wasn’t there some way … why do I always do this?” But you know, there wasn’t an alternative. There’s was nothing out there between Grand Junction and St. George. And I reflected on this, as well. You want to be all that, drive by yourself to California on spring break, there might be some fear, discomfort, extra charges. Whatever.

And anyway, where ever you go, there you are. Whether you’re on a beach in Hawaii or sitting in a car watching the painted desert go by, that is your day. You can make the most of it or you can complain.

I choose to make the most of it. And the good thing is, tomorrow, I only have to drive 500 miles. Or so.

P.S. All You Need is Love?

I choose to relish my solving of the problem of being sleepy, to pat myself on the back for making a really good salami sandwich, and for having a meditative conversation with Joline about her plans for the next year or two. And I just watched this video of Bold as Love and John Mayer says that what you need in this life is love … and then he does the solo.

Really, it could hardly have been a better day. And more will be revealed.