The Smell of Chocolate on Northern Winds

"Do you like it? Taking your home with you wherever you will go?"

"Yeah, why not? Your way must be harder, each time having to make a new home from scratch."

"Well, maybe this time I'll get it right."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe I'll stay."

"What?"

"Don't you ever think about belonging somewhere?"

"The price is too high. You end up caring what people expect of you. No."

"Is that so terrible? Having people expect something of you?"

- Chocolat, film, 2000

#ThursdayTravels: On Driving Around and Around and Around

Days late, most definitely dollars short, but here's my #ThursdayTravels...

I grew up in a car. Driving to school. Driving to Chinese school. Driving to the outlets. Driving to San Francisco, Sacramento, and everything in between. Nothing beats being lulled to sleep by a fast moving car after a long adventure, with streetlights streaming behind my eyelids, or keeping my eyes opening just long enough to watch the Enjoy Coco Cola billboard lights cycle through, fill up, and empty again, before getting bathed in the harsh yellow lights of the lower span of the Bay Bridge....

Nothing, except being in the driver seat, that is. I was prepared to fight tooth and nail to get my learner's permit the second I turned fifteen and a half (because fifteen is still young enough to count the years in terms of months). I was surprised when my parents gave in so early. Should have known it was too good to be true, because it would be more than another year until they let me actually take the test, and another two years before they would let me behind the wheel....

But once I got into that seat, I never really left. College was both far enough away to warrant a car, and close enough that frequent excursions home for fresh laundry and free groceries made me a regular road warrior. I never questioned how I knew where I was going, because I had been on those roads as long as I could remember.

I knew the multiple side streets to get back to my house, to go to Chinatown, to get on the Bay Bridge in case of traffic, and what times of the day to take Frontage Road (answer: pretty much always, because who doesn't want the salty air blowing in, windows down, fog rolling in, and the familiar sight of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges across the Berkeley Marina?)

Had to pull off and park while driving down Frontage Road along the Berkeley Marina. Probably one of my last California sunsets for a while, so I stayed until the last rays.

Moving to a new city means new roads to avoid, new back roads to discover, and of course, the inevitability of getting lost. I remember once the ease in which I navigated back the random short merges and multiple bridges to our apartment in Pittsburgh, and my roommate turned to me in awe, and asked "How do you know where you are going?"

Google, baby. Google. But in a time before such crazy things like "smart" phones and when GPS was still a spy function in Enemy of the State, Map Quest reigned, and I printed step-by step directions. I also remember this crazy thing they mentioned in history class called an "atlas..."

It's absolutely hilarious to me the duality of personalities, who I am in America, on foot, and in a car, compared to who I am when I travel abroad to different countries, where I navigate via my notebook of scribbles of addresses and half-formed beginnings of adventures and a free or cheap tourist map.

This Thursday, in search of a Restaurant Week lunch locale, I drove almost an hour to Ashburn, VA, to Ford's Fish Stack. I read the menu, and had lobstah stuck on my mind...

Maine Lobster Roll. Ford's Fish Shack, Ashburn, Va. Restaurant Week Entree, Lobster rolls served 2 ways, Connecticut and Maine, with fries and slaw. Worth the drive? Only as part of the day, not as the reason.

After 5 months in DC, I'm still learning the roads and the laws of the land. Keep in mind, I have to learn 3 sets: District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland. The lessons I did learn the hard way include speed traps and parking enforcement... Damn remote cameras.

This week's lessons involve that there are multiple parkways, greenways, and beltways in the area, and there is always traffic, no matter what time of day. Since I never fully understand when Interstate 66 is HOV only (which I learned, HOV is High Occupancy Vehicle, and for us West Coasters, that's the carpool lane), I just avoid it, except after midnight (yes, sometimes I drive around when I can't sleep, or if I'm coming back from watching meteors).

The main lesson from this trip is the fun of driving on a toll road that leads to Dulles airport, but not really, and the joy of multiple toll entry/exit lanes, which may or may not have cost me over $10 in tolls... Virginia State Route 267, ladies and gentlemen. Read the Wiki on it, and get a migraine, or be like me, and suck it up and keep driving.

There's that moment of panic whenever I miss the exit and my GPS yells at me (note to self, change the voice to a more pleasant one. Does Morgan Freeman give directions?), and my ETA is increased and it eats into my buffer time. There's no wondrous feeling of adventure as I barreling down a two-lane road that has no turn out, no life, no bathroom, and worse, no signal. But then suddenly "in a quarter mile, turn left" chirps out at me, and the trip is back on. "Your destination is on the right."

These initial months of learning the roads far from my well traveled roads tear me up inside. There's the joy of driving through a green, tree laden Baltimore-Washington Beltway, learning the curves in the road, or knowing that the Ferris Wheel at the National Harbor will be lit up to my left as I'm on 495 South... Yet, the mild panic of not being about to cut into the left lane to avoid the "exit only" coming up in 500 feet because you forget yet again while crossing Memorial Bridge back into the city.

Then, forced to take the exit as far as it goes, I take a breath and continue straight. I know I live in the North East sector of the city, and this exit will take me North, so by virtue, if I just keep right turns east, and left turns north, I'll make it home, GPS be damned. And as luck would have it, I'll end up driving by a magnificent monument I have yet to see, and the sudden awe makes the panic all worth it...

Hello, Supreme Court. So that's where you are....

Like in life, one day I'll know where I'm going and how to get there without directions.

Until then, okay Google, how do I get to.....?

#ThursdayTravels, Solo Traveling, and Meteors

Every so often, I get a thought stuck in my head. I read a snippet, a phrase, that sparks my imagination and sense of adventure, and I just can't get it out of  my head how utterly awesome that must be to do. Then I find out that no one has done it before/the metro doesn't go there. Or that no one wants to do it with me, or that their schedule doesn't permit it, yadiyadiyah...

I have let a lot of adventures go by the wayside, because I couldn't find anyone to join me. Sharing the experience is sometimes as important as the experience, and social convection dictates that weirdo who came alone to dinner/concert/the most romantic place on earth is a sad lonely soul...

Well, no more.

This will the inaugural post of #Thursdaytravels, as a way to keep me in line with adventuring, with or without you, and to regularly write. Regularity can be a great thing amid spontaneity, so consider this my fiber.

So back to the thoughts that get stuck....

When I started listening to one of my favorite bands, Explosions in the Sky, I was struck by how wondrous I felt, and always thought they would be the perfect soundtrack to stargaze to. Blasting First Breath After Coma from the car speakers as I cuddle under the stars with my perfect partner-in-crime, and just feel the universe.

*Record scratches*

This city girl wasn't raised to spend time outdoors at night. So, camping is a totally foreign concept, and an irrational fear of bears and not being near flushing toilets, as well as not having someone to show me the ropes, largely kept me away from fulfilling my Into the Wild dreams.

I will say that the last 10 years of travels and adventures have eased me more into to nature, despite my nurturing, but when the Perseid's came around yesterday, I was still desperately searching for a more weathered soul to go out into the middle of nowhere to watch the meteors streak across the sky with me. And if not an outdoor expert, just another soul. Nevermind their level of comfort in nature, I just needed someone to outrun in case there really was a bear...

As luck would have it,  no souls were available, but I wasn't going to miss such perfect conditions to see the stars. And then truly, as luck would have it, the kind folks at Shenandoah National Park invited us mere mortals to lay down in their fields, without having to camp, and just take in the shower.

120 miles and 2 1/2 hours later, I found myself laying my sleeping bag on a dirt path in Big Meadows, where I laid, stunned at realizing that I was seeing the Milky Way for the first time. Headphones in, stars out, and the show began.

Remember the Windows 95 screensaver, Starfields? Yup, it was pretty much that.

Please play the song, and in a different tab, starfields, at the same time. Or find a different video of actual shooting stars. Then you might get a fraction of what it was I was feeling.

Ok I lied. You won't get any of it. The cicadas, or the cool breeze, the drool collecting on the side of my mouth as it hung open in sheer awe. The feeling of being so small and insignificant, at the same time, a oneness with the universe. These feelings that can't be talked about in everyday life, with normal everyday people who never look up, who never leave, who never do things alone, who never travel. So I may not have shared this experience with anyone intentionally, but there was a field full of people who did see the same thing I did, which gives me hope.

Holding on to this feeling as long as I can. Until next Thursday, at least.

"Travel only with thy equals or thy betters. If there are none, travel alone." -The Dhammapada

*No pictures available, because I couldn't do it justice. Okay fine, it's because I don't know how to actually take pictures beyond what I'm eating... But it's on my list. That and get a selfie stick as I continue my solo travels?