East/West

I think a lot about the difference between driving east and driving west.

I’ll often describe what I’m doing on a trip as “driving west.” West is out, east is back. West is the trip unfolding, expanding; east is eventually contracting to re-enter the real world. West is the midwest as appetizer and then wham! The Rockies and the basin and range and the great Southwest, and finally over the last mountains to the Pacific (the Pacific Coast Highway, if I’m lucky) and Randall and Lily. East is also through all that great landscape, but then the final two days are familiar and flat. Driving east is after all the visiting is over.

When I took the furniture out to California in January, it was a west without an east; I flew back home. I missed having a second half, but it was a real “driving west” experience. This trip is all east, with no west. The Tesla made up for that to a great extent, but east is east.

Time zones contribute to this. Going west, you get an hour back almost every day, to do whatever you want with. It’s like a reward. Going east, an hour is taken from you, and the trip seems longer – is longer! You think you’re making good time, and suddenly it’s an hour later.

So I like west. I’d never give up east, but it’s got it’s own character and suffers from being the trip home, meaning the trip’s going to be over soon, and the search for an excuse to drive west again begins anew.