The Call of the Open Road

As the wild winter storms wind down and slushy piles gather on our driveways, kids shake off the blahs and get springy in their steps. They become puddle jumpers on their way home from school – it can’t be avoided, so we encourage them, and maybe take a little leap of our own.

Some of my favourite photos from my son Adrian’s childhood are of him on the go, running and jumping over and into puddles. I captured him mid-splash on several occasions. Something about the warmer temperatures makes you feel like rushing forward into new adventures. As Adrian grew, his adventures became more about after-school bike rides, or lingering in the schoolyard to throw some hoops, or practising rail slides in the scooter park. And now, with a driver’s licence, he’s heard the call of the open road.

I also loved the open road at his age, ready to take on new adventures, towns and cities. You start to compile a mental road map – first of local destinations, the wicked winding of the Forks of the Credit and Hockley roads, sneaky corners and dead ends for getting up to who knows what. Then bigger, faster roads – other towns burgeoning into cities, trips to Toronto, so different from where you grew up and so much more exotic.

The mental maps crystalize, and eventually you can make the Highway 10 route south, to 410, to 401, to 427, to the Gardiner Expressway – smoothly and at cruising speed. The CN Tower rises into full glorious view and for the small-town kid in us, the sexy, electric skyline can feel scary and alluring all at once.

And after that? The extended road trip.

Illustration by Shelagh Armstrong

Some of my first road trips were with friends and my now-husband, Derrick. With friends, cross-border shopping in the ’90s was the best. We bought Chuck Taylors at sports stores for a fraction of the price, saw Niagara Falls from the U.S. side, and drove with the music blaring.

I drove with Derrick to Virginia to discover the history of the area. We drove back via Washington to visit The Capitol, see the White House and Arlington Cemetery, where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had just been laid to rest alongside former President Kennedy. We watched the tiny eternal flame flicker and the flags flap above us in the quiet calm. What we didn’t know that day, when we made the decision to drive home straight through, was that in the hours ahead we would meet a wild storm on the hilly roads of Pennsylvania.

The rain started lashing as the sun went down. The Pennsylvania hills loomed to the left and right of us, and the highway was narrowed by pylons where construction crews had cut away the shoulders. The rain pounded down harder. We couldn’t drown out the sounds of the deluge as we anxiously shifted side to side in the rivers of water. Transport trucks in front, behind, and to the side of us met with more than a few unlucky animals trying to escape the hills as the mud, rocks and debris poured down.

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With shallow breath, I gripped the handle above my head in the passenger seat. We were stuck – no exits, nowhere to pull over, and no slowing down as transports ten times our size bore down. A shift too far to the left and we would drop into construction pits. With my fight-or-flight response at peak level, I screamed that we needed to stop; we were going to be killed! My husband lashed out. He yelled at me to “Be quiet! Be quiet! Be quiet!” so he could concentrate. I started to cry in earnest.

Needless to say, the romance of our road trip had evaporated. I buried my head and cried it out for an hour until the storm finally began to let up and the sun peeked over the horizon. We crossed the border in silence. We took the highway home in silence. We said one word to each other, “Goodbye,” and stayed in silence for days.

Over the years, the adventure has become part of our shared history, and in hindsight we’re still glad we made the trip. I took other road trips with my friend Ingrid down to the southern states and we had fun times together. There were no storms to battle, and we shared the long hours of driving, making the best of Interstate rest stops and our meagre budget until we hit the ocean.

This past winter, having had the luck to do some driving around California, Adrian declared he wanted to take a road trip on his own, with some buddies, to drive right across the U.S. It’s far – over 4,000 kilometres from here to southern California. When the day comes, I know I’ll be scared as he heads out the door, but I also know the call of the road and the thrill he’ll feel as he expands his own mental maps and memories.