I miss the Dodge Medivan.

Well, I should say it’s not really a Medivan, but it flowed better than saying “Dodge Wheelchair Accessible Conversion Van with Lift.”  I should also say that I miss vehicles in general, or I will. The last few days have  been wrought with errand running and all of it on foot. I actually do enjoy walking and biking a lot; and I’m so happy for the transit system here and how central everything is, but, man, could I use me some van loving to take off the edge a bit.

My good friend Megan McClellan and her husband, Brian, let me use their van for a few weeks before the move over here which turned out to be invaluable in the move out of our condo. I rode so high off the ground that when I drove our regular car it felt like riding a Big Wheel. It had some power to it, too.

All this to say, I know I will miss the luxury of a vehicle. Mostly to get out of the city. When I lived in NYC for a  season I really ached to get out, but I was stuck with no car and no money for a train. And even if I did have money for a train it wouldn’t have let me off on the back roads deep in a forest to get lost in. I could have always jumped, I guess.

Besides the horrible gas mileage(13mpg!!!) a vehicle like that Dodge calls to me. I like to get up and go so if I don’t have to put up a tent, great! In fact, on my road trips I always sleep in my car even if it takes a few nights to get used to it. A quick brush of the teeth and water on the face and back on the weather-beaten roads.

 Road  trips seem like a distinctly American thing. Our relatively cheap oil and cars. Even though it will be best for our environment that road trips, as we know them, will probably be a thing of the past soon, it is sad. Maybe if a decent solar powered car with advanced gyroscopic technology came along, but I can’t imagine an electric car making it through the Canadian Rockies. Maybe pilgrimages will become a thing again.

But here I am, without a car. No trunk. No sunroof. No backseat. No insurance, either, which is flipping awesome. I guess I can always rent a car… But that takes planning and sometimes I just need to go. This his does make me think of Hemingway’s short story Big, Two-Hearted River(parts 1 & 2). If I recall correctly the war-beaten Nick gets off a train, walks though a burneddown town and along the river where he finds a pine needle bed. That was set in the U.S., but I bet I could find something like that over here. Gotta look for where the tracks cross the green on the map!