C.L. Stegall

One of my dreams of the last decade or so has been to take a trip along the his­toric Route 66, head straight up to Okla­homa City and turn west to Cal­i­for­nia. To see those old quiet stretches of road and make stops in the small towns that dot the land­scape of the once-heavily trod­den west­ern trail is to be truly free in a world where that word fails to sig­nify all that it once did.

I sup­pose I’ve always had a wanderer’s soul. I love trav­el­ing the roads of this coun­try. I have no prob­lem set­ting my sights on a dis­tant des­ti­na­tion and just head­ing out, look­ing to encounter what­ever adven­ture may lay in store.

It all began when I was a child, ten or eleven years old; my mother wound up divorced and fol­low­ing a man she prob­a­bly thought she loved. I’ll skip my opin­ion on that pre­sump­tion for the time being. She dragged along her four kids (of which I was the old­est) on that lit­tle jour­ney of self-depreciation. Nev­er­the­less, all of the trav­el­ing bred in me a love of the open road and a feel­ing of com­fort on those long stretches of black­top and open spaces.

When I joined the mil­i­tary in the mid-eighties, I really had no idea that it would only fuel my wan­der­lust. I’ve trav­eled the West­ern Hemi­sphere from Alaska to South Amer­ica. I’ve loved every minute of it. (Although the very task of fly­ing I find a bit of a pain… I would much rather drive, myself.)

The Route 66 trip will be part of my plan for a future “vaca­tion”, I’m cer­tain. The part I look for­ward to most is the New Mex­ico stretch, from Glen­rio to Manuelito; all that quiet road, those lit­tle byways that ren­der a small pic­ture of what this coun­try used to be: wild and free. Away from civ­i­liza­tion as we’ve come to know it, you can taste a lit­tle of that free­dom that once drove the set­tlers west toward the Pacific. You can breathe deeply the air unpol­luted with the addi­tives spit into the atmos­phere as byprod­ucts of indus­tri­al­iza­tion and “progress.”

Three or fours days of travel to set your heart as ease, to strip away the wor­ries and con­cerns of mod­ern life and sim­ply escape into a feel­ing of open­ness and care­free free­dom – doesn’t that sound deli­cious? Doesn’t that sound like the life we were meant to lead?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not cer­tain I could sur­vive more than a week with­out my lap­top. But, still. I would love to slip away into that world as it was for just a lit­tle while and feel that sense of every­thing “impor­tant” drop­ping away from me like the muck of the day slip­ping away in the shower. Let it slide away down the drain and leave me lighter for the loss, please.

I remem­ber the trip some friends and I took once I got out of the mil­i­tary back 1995. We lived in Orlando, Florida and my best friend, Jason, was from San Diego. He was head­ing back there and I thought, “Hey, some­place I’ve never been. Why not?” We all packed up and headed west. The trip remains one of my favorite mem­o­ries. Those long stretches of road with the win­dows down and the music play­ing, lost in what­ever thoughts we might have been hav­ing at the time. I had left all that I knew behind me and this was a new adven­ture. The feel­ing of exhil­a­ra­tion, of pure free­dom to make of my life what­ever I could was like a damned drug, I kid you not. It was amazing.

So, yes, I long for that feel­ing again. Will I ever come close?  Prob­a­bly not.  Life changes. You either change with it or you get lost in what was with­out a clue as to what could be. I under­stand this. How­ever, that doesn’t mean we can’t search for a lit­tle taste of those past emo­tions, those feel­ings of weight­less expec­ta­tion. The search itself can be an adven­ture in itself. What’s bet­ter is if you can search with some­one along for the ride with you. That can make it so much bet­ter. To share that with some­one you love, that can lift the emo­tion to an all new level and make you dizzy with excite­ment for what is yet to come. Like a drug. Free­dom. Shared.

I’ll be plan­ning my Route 66 trip within the next year or so.  Com­pany is welcome.

What do you think? Up for a road trip? Even if you are only there in spirit, free­dom shared is like cur­rency in life. Let’s go buy some happiness!