Mind Games
When doing something routine or mundane, do you ever catch yourself playing a mind game to make the chore easier to tolerate? I do. It may be something as simple as counting the stairs every time you walk up them or knowing how many rows you will need to mow to finish the lawn. Numbers can be a great companion, and milestones bring a sense of proper place and accomplishment to the errand.
A few hours ago, I completed another 408 mile solo journey from New Jersey to our log cabin here in West Virginia. When I travel with City Girl, there are always interesting conversations to pass the time. But alone, I need to occupy my mind, lest I become drowsy. And traveling in total darkness, as I did last night, doesn’t leave scenery as an option to draw my interest.
I began my trip at 7pm (okay, actually 6:58). I play CD’s as I drive, so I started off with my usual Andy Williams “Super Hits”, beginning with ‘Moon River’. It normally takes me one hour, five minutes to get to the Delaware Memorial Bridge. I was right on the mark. Now in on I-95 in Delaware, I played Rod Stewart’s “Great American Classics”, including ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. The CD finished in Maryland, where I changed to “The Best of the Glenn Miller Orchestra”, featuring ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’.
I’m singing and humming tunes and find that I’ve knocked off 200 miles in exactly three hours. At 220 miles, I stop to refuel at the same all-night mini-mart I always stop at. Duke Ellington’s “Greatest Hits”, with ‘Satin Doll’, was setting the mood. I know I’ve got 188 miles left, so I’ve passed the magical halfway plateau, a psychological barrier.
On to Virginia via I-81, a place where I got a speeding ticket last October. I’ve learned to go slow in Shenandoah County, near Woodstock, where the state police have nothing constructive to do other than bag speeders and generate revenue. I go through this time with a fusion jazz CD from the early ’70s, Chick Corea’s Return to Forever “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy”. If I can’t go fast, at least I can have fast music. I’ll show them.
At Harrisonburg, the home of James Madison University, I leave the interstate. It’s small, winding state highways the rest of the way to Green Bank, West Virginia, site of our log cabin. Even though I have 88 more miles to go and it will take one hour, 40 minutes, I always feel like I’m almost home at this point. It’s time for the John Denver CD, starring ‘Country Roads’. I’m in the mood.
I climb over Shenandoah Mountain and I’m in West Virginia. I drop into the valley and the hamlet of Brandywine, then climb over South Fork Mountain. Descending into Franklin, the Pendleton County seat, this is the only “real” town I’ll see in WV. Then it’s up over North Mountain, the third of four 3,500+ foot high mountains I must scale. I plunge into tiny Circleville, knowing there’s just one more mountain range to climb. Soon, a behemoth brown sign with white letters, “Monongahela National Forest”, announces my entrance into familiar territory, my backyard so to speak.
At the top of Allegheny Mountain, I spot an old friend, “Entering Pocahontas County” the road sign proclaims. “Yes!”, I think, “I’m home”. The stars are shining in the clear night sky. Deer cross the road in front of me on three different occasions, ushering their “hello, welcome back”. The CD from the motion picture “A Prairie Home Companion” seems a fitting finale. Garrison Keillor is a master of imparting that warm, fuzzy feeling through comedy and down home music.
At 1:24 am, after 6 hours and 26 minutes travel time, I pull into my driveway and cruise up the hill to the log cabin. I hear the neighbor’s donkey (or is it a mule or burro?) braying, a sheep bleeting with its baritone voice, and an owl hooting in the distance. It’s nice to be back … and it wasn’t such a long trip. It’s merely mind over matter.
- Mountain Man