I took the first leg, driving to Indianapolis. We owned the road for 2 hours until the rest of the Midwest started the day. It was a pretty boring drive, but we were energized with enough adrenaline to make even the familiar 80 miles to Chicago seem fresh.
The car was geek heaven, with our laptops, cell phones, GPS, and digital cameras. The GPS took a little while to figure out, but soon we were zipping through the menus and plotting our course through Indy, Nashville, Chattanooga, and finally to Atlanta. At first we looked at the screen every 5 minutes, watching the miles click down.
Jason took over in Indianapolis through to Nashville. I was going to read, as is my wont on long car rides, but felt that would be rude since it was just the two of us in the car. So I kept the CD's going ("Aw, you brought sleepy music, didn't you?" he said when he flipped through the disc case) and kept an eye on the GPS and the maps and tried to remember the last time I'd driven through Nashville.
It was 4 years ago and I was working at the Saturn plant for a GM distributor. They sent us down and rented us cars. I used to know the freeway system really well, but was unable to disinter the info from my memory banks. That summer I had felt really independent since it was my first time earning real money and being sent on business trips. We felt pretty independent on this trip too, even though we were using my parents' car, the family credit card for gas, and headed to free lodging. I felt grown up because when I was a little kid, I couldn't help out driving on family road trips. I just stayed in back, reading or playing with toys. Now I had half the entire responsibility of making good time, watching for cops, not killing us both, etc.
