Working as a filmmaker and writer, and having insatiable wanderlust, I’m pretty blessed that I am able to work from anywhere. There is no better way to escape the Texas August triple digits than to work from my parents’ rural Wisconsin lake house. This will be the fifth consecutive summer that I’ve managed to pull this off.
At first light this morning, Yoda and I piled into Princess Leia the Prius to start our cross country road trip. We both love the open road, and for the first hour Yoda sat on his bed in the back and stared out the windows. Unfortunately, the first hour was about all either of us enjoyed today. I had a wonderful lazy scenic road trip planned through Louisiana and Arkansas. Yet with weather warnings of heat index values reaching 110 in the south this weekend, I decided yesterday afternoon to abort that itinerary and instead just head straight north. When it gets this hot, it’s next to impossible to keep the back of the car cool, even with window shades and a battery operated fan that I’ve rigged up for Yoda. So my plan is to leave every morning by 7am and drive on the Interstate until no later than 2pm. This isn’t how I like to road trip. I prefer to take my time driving on country roads and state highways. Those are the places where you are more apt to experience the heartbeat of the towns you pass through.
Instead, we found ourselves in bottleneck traffic for hours today due to construction on I-35 from Austin to Fort Worth. Given the scorching temperatures, my bathroom breaks involved me sprinting from and back to the car because it heats up so quickly, leaving Yoda panting miserably as he waits for me to get back. The temperature also is preventing anything resembling a dog walk. Yoda gets it. He does his business immediately and then bolts right back to the car.
So now I sit in our Oklahoma hotel room trying to entertain Yoda with his rope toy and contemplating what I should do for dinner. Instead of finding a cute restaurant with a dog-friendly outdoor patio, I’ll likely just grab an avocado salad from Subway to eat in my air-conditioned room. I try to avoid fast food at all costs, and Subway is sadly the only somewhat-healthy option nearby.
All this said, I’ve spent enough time on the road over the past five years to know that some days are better than others. Just like with life, tomorrow is another day. I can’t wait to see what adventures the road brings tomorrow, Interstate and all…
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