Road Trippin’ that is.

About a week ago, my parents helped me load all my worldly possessions into a U-Haul. Well, half a U-Haul. Half of the tiniest U-Haul available. It made my lazy muscles happy that there wasn’t much to load and unload, but it also made me weary to think that I’m starting over. From scratch. Again.

This is the biggest suitcase I’ve ever traveled with. I’m glad it’s on wheels.

Well, not exactly from scratch. My parents let me raid their cupboards for things like tea towels and a coffee pot. And I inherited a lovely family chair…which I’ll never get to sit in.

Back off. Find your own chair.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Catticus didn’t discover the chair until after the road trip was over. And this post is about the road trip, so let’s get back to it, shall we? After the truck was loaded and farewell hugs and kisses exchanged, I headed west.

Even though I was listening for the alarming sounds of shattering glass or splintering wood at every bump in the road, the vast expanse of highway was as exhilarating as always. The troublesome worries about starting over fled, and were replaced by the alert serenity that comes with a good, long drive. 

Okay, so I took this picture from the bus…but it’s the same road. 

For the first time in a long time I wasn’t thinking about what I needed to buy, what I needed to do, or whether or not I’d just made the BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. Instead, I found myself feeling like I was completely in the present moment. I started tilting my head in a slow, magnanimous nod at every car or truck that passed, as if to say, “You may proceed.” And when they pulled back in ahead of me, and neither one of us were in a ditch, I would nod again as if to say, “Well done, fellow Asphalt Wanderer.”

It was peaceful, and almost perfect. The weather was lovely, traffic was light, and the view from the driver’s seat was magnificent, but the music was … terrible.

Normally, I would have a perfect selection of road trip tunes to help compliment the experience. But with a defunct iPod battery and no plug-in options in the U-Haul, I was at the mercy of local radio stations. Local radio stations in a sparsely populated stretch of Canada. Sometimes, I was at the mercy of a single local radio station. Like the one out of Medicine Hat that was only 5 hours in to it’s celebrated 100-hour country music marathon. 

And yet, somehow it fit. I was heading west. On my way to Cowtown. Just in time for a world-famous Stampede. A little bit of optimistic country twang seemed appropriate as I drove past fields of grazing cattle. As evening approached and I pulled over to spend the night in a hotel, I had started to think that the radio might actually be welcoming me to my new adventure. 

At least, that’s what I thought until I hit the road again the next morning. When I pulled back onto the highway, I smiled at the sight of empty lanes stretching ahead of me for as far I could see. I flicked on the radio, almost looking forward to a plucky country tune. Instead, I was blasted with AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. 

Highway to Hell?

Maybe the radio really was trying to tell me that I’d made the BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. 

Impossible. I might not be a brilliant theologian, but I’m pretty sure Hell doesn’t smell like sunshine, sweet prairie grass and grasshopper farts. 

Because that’s what Alberta smells like. And I love it. 

Who knows, maybe this province will make a country girl out of me after all.