The Toll of Roads

In 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Marion Ravenwood becomes frustrated with Indiana Jones when he complains that it hurts everywhere she touches him. “Where doesn’t it hurt?” she asks, and the infamous archeologist is able to come up with four locations: his elbow, his right temple, his eyeball, and finally, his lips.

I’m in worse shape than Dr. Jones. In addition to my feet, ankles, thighs, butt, abdomen, ribs, back, shoulders, and neck all hurting, my eyes aren’t all that good, my elbow is aching, and my lips are chapped — and I didn’t even get chased by a giant boulder or a tribe of angry natives. All I did was walk around Washington D.C. for a few days with bunch of electronics strapped to my back, and drive 1,400 miles in two days to get back home.

What hurts the most are my shoulders, both from carrying around my backpack and holding on to a steering wheel for two days straight. On Friday, I left D.C. and drove to Hurricane, West Virginia, where I met up with John and Aaron from the Amigos Podcast and hung out for several hours before continuing on toward Lexington, Kentucky. The good news was I covered around 500 miles on Friday; the bad news was, if I wanted to complete the drive in two days (which I did), that left me approximately 900 miles on Saturday to drive.

Ugh.

I had loosely planned on stopping by the 1984 Arcade in Springfield, Missouri and Arkadia Retrocade in Fayetteville, Arkansas, but as the miles piled on my will to do anything but continue moving closer to home waned.

Both the padding in my ten year old driver’s seat and my forty-two-year-old booty aren’t what they used to be. Halfway through day two I found myself making more and more stops at highway truck stops, adding gas to the tank when it was still half full and stretching those muscles that weren’t cramping. My shoulder ached so much that I could no longer raise my arm above my head. My neck creaked and popped no matter which way it turned. My tailbone begged for mercy as I piled pillows under my bum to make the pain bearable. At each stop I began to hobble like a penguin as I tried to make things stop hurting. The single step up back into my truck seemed higher after each brief break.

I pulled into my driveway around 10pm on Saturday and left my truck full of clothes, empty cans of Monster energy drink, and fast food garbage. Even though I did little more than sit around and moan on Sunday, as of this morning, I’m still not feeling great. The muscles in my shoulder continue to pop every time I raise my left arm to rub my temples. My thighs hurt when I stand and more when I sit. Every time I turn my head, my neck sounds like aluminum foil crinkling. It’s going to take me a few more days to get over this one, and I am wondering if my days of 12+ hours in a car driving across America aren’t limited (or over).