A few years ago I undertook what some would consider the great American road trip, driving 7,500 miles in 5 weeks in a big circle across the US. I started in Salt Lake City and went east, then south and then back to Salt Lake to finish. It wasn't until then that I understood a short story I read in the September 1981 edition of Fantasy and Science Fiction by John Kessel called "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!" which posits a dark future where the sum total of American self worth is measured by the highway miles that each driver completes travelling a world composed entirely of interstates. Travelling one day between Rapid City South Dakota and Des Moines Iowa I clocked up 800 miles (about 1290 Kilometres) in about 14 hours on the interstates including some sightseeing stops in Badlands National Park. For years I related anecdotes of that mammoth day in my hired Subaru Legacy thinking that in the country where the highway is king I would never equal that monster journey.

Until I moved to Adelaide.

Yesterday I set out from Sydney at 4:30 am and for the next 15 1/2 hours proceeded westwards to Adelaide, covering about 1350km in the process. I think I lost my love affair with the open road at about hour 15 yesterday when, with a pounding headache, squinting through insects from 3 states into the setting sun and vague from staring at the white lines for far too long, I attempted to negotiate the steep descent on the South East Freeway down the Adelaide Hills back home. I made it safely (Praise God!) but I couldn't help thinking I was just a little crazy. Still, I mentioned it to quite a few people at work today to show what a hard core long distance driver I was. Madness.

What is it about the male of the species that causes us to take silly risks and endure hardship for the sake of a casual boast?


posted by Peter at 7:35 PM

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