A Memorial Day Moment
By Tamara LeeWhen I was a kid, long weekends were book-ended by spending hours in the belly of an RV or in the backseat of a car, heading. We sometimes headed to visit family, but usually we headed into the Interior of BC.
It’s during those hours of travel, I think, that I became a writer. First, I started off as a dreamer then I started scribbling those imaginings down in little Duotang notebooks.
Long weekends still make me a bit nostalgic, even though now I rarely travel during them, the highways and campsites too super-clogged for me to entirely relax.
Besides, in a way the most pleasurable part of long weekend travel, of any car or train travel really, remains the getting-there part. The part when I get to stare out the window, think or not-think, and dream up stuff.
Hope everyone had a great weekend.
(Image credit: ANOXLOU)
posted by TJL | 11:40 am
6 Comments:
I've always enjoyed the road leading out of town, where the promise of memorable days ahead makes even the pit stops along the way feel magical, like mini-vacations, really. Is it just me? I love those pit stops.
Oh, yes. Pit stops are the best. In the US, it was always the rest areas; in Canada, it was Husky truck stops. Something about communing with other travellers, too.
For me it was drives to the cottage. We'd fill our trunk with food and as we climbed into Cottage Country I knew I'd be able to swim and play with the frogs endlessly.
The mosquitoes, black flies and deer flies gave me badges of holiday honour to come home with.
Our dog would start wining as we arrived at the cottage drive and he'd burst from the door full of hope.
Freedom, even he knew it...it was freedom, pure and simple.
We're all so eager to get our licenses because car trips were so exciting as kids. Now I frigging hate my car. It's a big expensive responsibility that's going to die on me soon.
I love riding in the car or a plane or train for the very reason you site, Tamara: to be alone with my thoughts, granted the legitimacy of being able to stare out the window.
There *is* definitely that element of freedom, I agree Jacqueline. Not being a driver (and by the sounds of it, Andrew may be a non-driver soon) I'm lucky I never have to disrupt my daydreaminess for much more than being a good shot-gun. The plane though, Tricia, is not my idea of fun. I am still an anxious flyer.
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