Driving Mr. Barkley

I have a commute that takes several hours, though I don't have to do it every day. That commute involves working out of more than one location, two very divergent cities,   But I have a large, reliable American made truck, lots of music and usually a furry companion for the drive.

Sometimes there's miscellaneous cargo of the squirrel, and not so squirrely variety in one of the vehicles.

Often it's dark as I leave, which is actually my favorite time to head out. It gives me another night in my own bed, and I miss the worst of the traffic.  At 4:30  roads are mostly vacant, the sky nothing more than the thin deceptive perception of safety.

So I make sure the doors are locked, my firearm is handy and the road ahead clear. Then the night succumbs to day, and everything quickens, the traffic, my pulse, as light spreads over the road like water. Soon it's day and from the vantage point of a vehicle that sits up high I can see all sorts of things. 

Over the last few months I've snapped a few photos along the drive.   The photos aren't great as 80% of them are from the point and shoot in the glove box in case of accident and yes, I need to wash my windows.  But it's fun to look back on some of the trips, "bed hair" and all.

The doggie gaze equivalent of "Mom - What the. . . .?"

This truck probably cost more than some of the houses just west of here.  You could have performed surgery off most of its surfaces.  The driver apparently very proud of it, wants you to know who is driving it by the giant day glo orange name across the back window.   At first I thought his name was "Tarzan".  Either I'm getting nearsighted or I REALLY need to clean these windows..

Driving through the freeway stretch  of Gary (which is normally done at twice the speed of sound, the cops not even wanting to pull any one over on that particular  stretch), I saw what appeared to be the bat mobile.  At least the Batmobile Gary style. 

The young man driving it was probably the best driver on the road, in and out of lanes discretely and expertly, yet not being stupid (unlike Vlad the Impala that tried to kill me several times).  I'm not sure what that hood ornament is.

On this same stretch of road, another trip, there was a vehicle for which I didn't get a picture as the traffic was to heavy to be distracted by a camera. There was a couple extra antennas on it.. One looked like it was Elmer-Glued on. It looked too new to be a Grand Marquis de Sade, more likely a later model Crown Vic, but the shape and color was such that hundreds of drivers in the past had likely slowed down in its presence.

The driver, as well, was all in black, (though I'd have bet someone a beer he was wearing Multicam BDU pants) with a black baseball type hat, ear piece in his ear, muscled arms clenched on the wheel. In the back window, another black ball cap, this one with 3 letters indicating a squirrel type employer. At this point I started to grin, knowing a bit about such headwear. I can tell you one does NOT put them in the back window of their car. They're worn for a specific purpose and it's not advertising.

But what our Mall Ninja failed to realize, that despite the old police shaped spiffy car with the extra antenna or two, the clothing, the hat he bought on the net, and "the look", one thing just screamed "mall ninja!"

The yellow triangle in the window that said "Baby on Board".

I did get a picture of this. . .

Camouflage submarine?

Even with a state that's about as hilly as Saskatchewan, I still don't get more than 18 miles to the gallon.  But I bet I get more than this guy, driving a truck that  appears to be made out of four separate vehicles with a camper that appears to be attached with Velcro. I kept my distance in case the wind picked up.

And, in an off the freeway foray to get gas in a safe area,  I saw this. Fifteen miles per gallon in hot pink.   I'd tint my windows too if my SUV was that color.

I laugh though, as I take the photo, figuring there's probably some hippies in a car with Greenpeace stickers, spotting the Bat Truck with it's American flag and gun stickers and trying to get a photo of the strange women in  a baseball hat - "Look!  A conservative!" (Hey, at least on a bad hair day they weren't shouting "Look!  Rush Limbaugh!)  Still It's all what makes the landscape of America interesting.

There are quite a few drives though, where the cars are mundane, the landscape clouded with shadow and the camera stays still.  Such are the mornings I look at the light coming up in the sky, shooting upward in the darkness like the upward floating tresses of a drowned maiden sleeping in a motionless sea, I wish I could capture that.  I also know that the cheap little camera in the vehicle, in motion, never captures it, that moment or the words in my head and I go back to my coffee and the thump of the miles.

I keep an eye on the weather as well, high winds not being a big concern in my vehicle, but definitely affecting other drivers I'd just as soon stay out of the way off.  I keep the radio tuned to the local alerts, and there is always the weather cow, one of the first pit stops on the journey. It's not the cheapest gas around, but the place is frequented by most of the local LEO's.  It's more country than city and the bathrooms are spotless (unlike the ones up by Crown Point where I think they lock the gas station bathrooms to keep people from sneaking in and cleaning them). 

 Weather cow says it's windy with a chance of flurries

 Weather cow says it's sunny.

Weather cow says it's raining.

Look Mom !  A trailer full of tractors!

He can sometimes be a pest, but  I miss him when I'm cruising without him for work, driving some big Chevy Subdivision of a vehicle, logging miles between light and dark, the clock on the dash only changing the minutes, it seems, when I look away, the slight of hand of time that shapes us all.  

With or without him, it's all worth the trip.