I drove from Butte Montana to Thetford Vermont this week. Alone with boxes of M2B:) books, cds, guitars, microphones, boom stands, a sound system AND SATELLITE RADIO. I think satellite radio was invented for people driving across the country. So much music, commercial free, to accompany the trek across the fruited plains. Montana sort of cried out for contemporary country. South Dakota screamed for classic rock. Minnesota, for some reason, was devoted to the comedy channel. Illinois: soul music from the sixties and seventies. Chicago: the blues…duh!!! Indiana: ESPN (to find out what’s wrong with Notre Dame football). Ohio: Singer/songwriters (Batdorf grew up in Ohio) Pennsylvania: Big bands (hoping to hear Glenn Miller’s Pennsylvania 6-5000) New York…the Sinatra Station…another duh. Connecticut cried out for sixties greatest hits, Massacusettes-NPR. New Hampshire…political talk and Vermont: silence.
I slept well in rest areas nestled between big semi-trucks and occassionally creepy looking folks in really old SAABs. I marvelled at the landscape and got emotionally patriotic crossing my country. I love this place I live. Really, really love it. Love the manicured corn and soy fields, love the silos, love the villages, love cattle ranges, love the helpfulness in the midwest, the directness of the east coast, the sounds of the dialects, the quality of the roads. I found M2B:) moments every hour of every day of the drive.
I got some great counsel from a trucker I met on my journey. He told me to make sure I went the speed limit so I’d be able to look out the window and soak in the greatness of America.
I did.
2 Comments
Yeah, well Connecticut would.
And I know what you mean – it’s not like traveling across Europe and changing countries as you change cultures – you travel world to world to world when you cross this country – but you get to speak almost the same language and use the same money everywhere. Sea, mountains, plains, cities, villages, wide spaces, canyons made of cement and steel.
You covered it!
Hubby totally agrees with you about satellite radio! His only request for Christmas to give him a lifetime subscription.
Oh, then he said that would be perfect for me for Christmas too! HA! Like I don’t see through it–he is in my car sometimes too but I have all the Michael McLean music ever made, almost!
Yep, we spend a great deal of time on the road too…glad it was not in January or Feb!!
We do have an absolutely beautiful, breath taking country God blessed us with! Wise counsel to slow down and do the limit to soak it all in, not just in the car but in life too!