The Road Goes Ever On

On Display Collaboration

The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. --J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

The week before we leave for our annual summer vacation in Maine is probably the most hectic week of our year. Tab usually ends up working late a few days to make up for the time that he will be away from his job. Sometime during that week he has to get the Thule cartop carrier installed on the minivan, which involves driving to his mother's house a half hour away, where the Thule is stored. He also performs the necessary car maintenance, checking the oil and the air pressure in the tires, cleaning the windows, and topping off the gas the night before we leave.

Tab packs Daniel's clothing and his own; I pack my stuff and the twins'. Tab assembles whatever camera equipment he's bringing, while I sort through toys and books and decide which few items the boys can't live without for a week.

Then there's the shopping for snack food for the trip: juice boxes, grapes, a block of Havarti cheese and crackers, cookies, and Twizzlers (strawberry licorice) for Tab, who can't drive any distance without them. A day or two before our trip, I go to the farmer's market to pick up summer sausage and twelve or fifteen pounds of Jersey tomatoes for the Maine folks.

Somewhere in that week, Tab and I also have to find time for at least one major fight with each other. It's become a pre-trip tradition.

Despite our sincere promises that this year we're going to bed at a decent time, Tab and I are inevitably up late the night before the trip. There are always last minute things to do: toiletries and vitamins to pack, dinner dishes to wash, the refrigerator to clean, bagels to butter for our breakfast on the road and peanut butter sandwiches to make for lunch, the electric cooler to plug in, and the water jug to fill. It is close to midnight by the time we get to bed.

The alarm rings at 3:45 a.m., all too soon. I carry the luggage out into the dark street to Tab, who is standing on a stepladder loading our stuff into the cartop carrier. An hour later, sleepy, pajama-clad children ensconced in their car seats, we are on our way.

Once we are en route to Maine, I begin to relax. The tensions of the past week slowly drain away; everything that had to be done is done, and whatever didn't get done no longer matters.

Traveling, especially distance driving, is an altered state. Suspended between departure and arrival, neither here nor there, I feel productive just sitting still in the passenger seat, watching the mile markers and signs tick by. Welcome to New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine! I look out the window at my fellow passengers, hundreds of people in the cars around us, all bound on their own journeys. I wonder where they are headed and if they are enjoying their trips as much as I am mine.

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