Four years ago…

…the last big cross-country drive. This would be the last voyage of Danny – Arlington to Alabama to Silicon Valley. Well over 3000 miles to drive in the heat of July, from my old life to my new.

In retrospect, after all the stress and strain of the final months in DC, it was ideal. I had about a dozen cigars – lovely parting gifts from the crew at my old shop – and there were 12-packs of soda in cans for $2 each in the grocery store in my hometown, so I loaded up – and my little cooler could be filled with ice every morning. So there I was, all day every day, flying down the interstate keeping pace with the wife’s car in front of me. (Usually. We have a mildly differing philosophy on convoy tactics.) Cigar smoldering in one hand, ice-cold Buffalo Rock ginger ale between the seats, new XM radio playing everything from Outkast to Jefferson Starship to the Pixies to the Doors to “A Secretary Is Not A Toy” to BBC World Service for 4 hours at a stretch. Sunlight gleaming off the blue lenses of the wireframe shades, arm slowly baking to well-done on the windowsill, the wind whipping right through me.

(And a good thing too – turns out the thermostat was broken and the fan assembly wasn’t kicking in, so all I had to keep the engine from boiling over was a steady stream of fresh air on the intake. Which was problematic, say, stuck in rush-hour traffic in Denver where they barely have air to begin with. Taking a car with 190,000 miles on a cross-country joyride may not have been the smartest thing I ever did.)

We got to drive what will someday be I-22 across Mississippi, and I hope they have the sense to keep the billboards off it, because it is gorgeous. We stayed in the Peabody in Memphis, we saw the ducks, we ate in B.B. King’s club, and we rolled out of town on the 50th anniversary of the day Elvis Presley recorded “That’s All Right Mama.” We stood on the banks of the Big Muddy at New Madrid and read about what a real earthquake can do to you (and everyone else in a 500-mile radius). We stayed in the Bob Dole-Arlen Specter Suite at the AmericInn Suites in Russell, Kansas, with real live tornadoes visible out the drivers-side window in the worst thunderstorm I’ve seen in a decade. We stopped at every Dairy Queen between Hannibal, MO and Wamsutter, WY. We saw friends and relatives and took great advantage of the opportunity to couch-surf, and a good thing too – I had no idea when I would find a job. (As it turns out, it only took about three weeks before I started one, for which I was profoundly grateful.)

Well, I wanted a new beginning and a fresh start. Interesting to see how things have progressed.

BTW, secret code message to the Rifles of the EUS: after a week of Special Forces, I am now getting ready to go floor by floor and obtain Reports from the Underground. The rest of the administrators are trying to figure out how I covered twice the systems in half the time, and they don’t seem to be satisfied with the explanation that I “went all Mowbray on that ass.”