The flatlands of south Richmond gave way to the long, low mounds of I-95 on the way to Tysons Corner as it started raining and didn't stop until I pulled into my hotel. From Chesterfield to Tysons is a drive I've made a hundred times before, so no surprises there.
Just north of Tysons and the I-495/Rte. 7 exchange, a traffic jam due to a vehicle collision in the right center lane (of four) slowed time to a crawl. I'd made it over halfway up the state, right to the hump and the state line, in about two hours. The next mile and a half took 20 minutes to clear by itself. By the time I exited left for my next interstate, I was hungry and in desperate need of a bathroom.
I finally pulled over in Gaithersburg, MD, at about 8:15 and turned north. Had I gone the other way, I would've immediately seen an upper-middle class seafood restaurant but the highway sign said that route was a highway with only southbound exits so I was pressed north towards a run-down part of town and another fast food meal.
Back on the road, the suburbs came fewer and further in between. Rural areas with ages-old warehouse and general store signs were peppered along the countryside. Every 30 or so miles I saw one large, brand new building - some deteriorating township's final effort to bring in business, I imagined.
I don't mind taking road trips, for whatever purpose. I like driving alone in the car and turning up music, or with my wife and daughter and talking about matters of no lasting import. Unfortunately, my lower lumbar has been getting worse this last year, since we had the baby, so slouching in the driver's seat reminds me every 20 minutes or so that I should be sitting up straighter. I also never mastered comfortably keeping my foot on the gas for three to four hours on end, which sent aches moaning up through my right leg. Finally, I've been rolling over onto my left shoulder in my sleep for the last month and holding the baby in my left arm almost exclusively since she was born, and this bad practice has led to Tendonitis. If I move my arm more than a bit, it shoots a pain along my shoulder and into my bicep.
I practiced leaving my left arm slack, sitting up straight and changing my right foot position every few minutes for almost six hours while the car was a fingertip tracing a gentle caress up America's cheekbone.
Mount St. Mary's College looked dark and lovely since dusk had surrendered to the black of night. The number of streetlights and house lights waned a bit and I started seeing patches of no lights at all. The lights in the neighborhoods and towns along the highway were becoming less uniform and more vertically graded. After I crossed into Pennsylvania, the last city on the way to Frackville was Harrisburg. It looked to be about half of Richmond's skyline, with a beautiful domed capitol building and several business skyscrapers.
I've driven through Chattanooga, and I'm no stranger to the concept of exiting three times to stay on the highway on which I started, and Pennsylvania was no exception. I think I exited at I-83 to stay on I-83 at least once - a two-lane highway branching off from a three-lane exit to a state route.
Then everything went dark. All around the car. For a half hour, I saw nothing but the road in front of me. The panic came in waves, then. Nothing strong enough to call a "panic attack," but I could feel my tarred heart pumping fast, my throat drying up. I think the more poorly kept buildings on my 70 mph journey into the unknown reminds me of the six days I lived in Montana, on a subconscious level, and I find myself gripping the wheel a bit more tightly and looking forward to going home. Traffic dissipated and often I was the only car in sight, despite being on another interstate. About 40 miles from the exit for Frackville, the fog rolled in and trapped the beams from oncoming brights in a thick cloud. It was then that I saw the mountainous range I'd found myself among.
Every mile closer to the hotel I drove, the fog thickened. No matter how loudly I pummeled my ears with prog-metal, it still felt like too quiet of a night. By the time I turned off I-81N at exit 124B, I could barely see the lines in the road. But I checked into my hotel room at Granny's Motel in Frackville and Ashleigh should be here by noon. I wasn't incredibly thrilled by my room's lack of ice, central heating and bathroom soap or shampoo, but every time I get in a huff about a motel I'm reminded of my uncle once making fun of one of our relatives, saying "Oh please; his idea of 'roughing it' is staying at a Ramada," so I try to keep my dumb fuckin' mouth shut.
However, despite a hiccup or two, I'm excited to get DisasterLand's first site researched starting tomorrow. Of course the irony is not lost on me at all that part of me wishes I were at home taking care of the baby but instead I've come to research and document people who only want to be left alone, but in the end it will smooth out to some extent. We're here until sometime Monday, depending on what we can find in Centralia and its two nearest libraries. If and only if we can cover everything we need and pack up by noon Monday, my final battle will be to race home in time to beat DC's mass exodus heading south at Tysons Corner at 3 or 4.
Stay tuned. And like I said in that last post, which didn't format for shit, keep your eyes open for live updates in the field from me and Ashleigh tomorrow and Sunday on my Tumblr account at http://thisjobiskillingyou.tumblr.com
Thanks.
