OldTroubador's blog post - The Journey - repost

It has been said that the joy is in the journey, not the destination. I have come to appreciate that sentiment more each day.
The trucking business is based on origins and destinations. That is the nature of the xxxxx. But as a driver, the journey is as important, if not more so. Each day reveals new wonders to me as I travel the highways and byways of this great land of ours.
So far, in the three years I have spent behind the wheel, I have traveled through 43 of the 48 continental United States. I have not yet had the pleasure of driving through Rhode Island, North and South Dakota, Montana, nor Washington. There are a couple of states I have been through only once or twice. Most of my work has been done east of the Great Plains.
Of those states I have been through, I can honestly say that every one of them has something to recommend. Some may only have a few miles, say along the coastline. Others, the whole state is a cause of wonder. I have crawled up and over mountain passes in the Rockies, barreled through the deserts of the southwest, fought traffic in the great cities of our country and been nearly everywhere in between. Although the images are burned forever in the recesses of my mind, there are far too many to commit to this short treatise. Let it be said, though, that I have seen the purple mountains majesty, the amber waves of grain, the spacious skies and the fruited plains that we all sang about in grade school.
Many states were a revelation. Take Oklahoma for instance. I always thought that Oklahoma was nothing more than oil fields and burnt over cattle pastures. In my mind, it was a state that was flat and featureless. Such is not the case. Although its mountains will never match the grandeur of the Rockies or the Smokies, its hills are breathtaking in their own right. Long and fairly steep, they rise from the plains with no preamble. Some are bald, some are tree covered, but all are bold in their defiance of conventional wisdom.
What brought forth this outpouring was my most recent trip along I-40 from Amarillo, TX to the Los Angeles basin in California. I have always enjoyed this trip. Every turn, every hill reveals new sights to behold. The panorama is ever-changing. Along this route, I travel from the cap rock country of Texas with its endless cattle lands through New Mexico and Arizona. New Mexico is another startling state. It truly is a land of enchantment. The terrain is like nowhere else. The red rock cliffs, the malpais region covered in lava domes, the arroyos coursing across the land like rough scars in the skin. At times, all this and more is visible in one long sweeping glance. And on the horizon lie the Rockies, teasing and taunting in their greatness for hours before I finally reach them.
How small is man when compared to the immensity that is this land. Every time I travel through here, I marvel at the pioneers in their covered wagons pulled by plodding oxen and mules. What I can traverse in ten or fifteen minutes was a full day of travel for those intrepid souls. My biggest worry is running out of coffee. They had to contend with hostile natives and an even more hostile environment; everything they needed they brought with them or did without. Or they died. Every terrain feature was an obstacle that had to be conquered. There were no bridges across the arroyos; there were no gently graded highways over the mountain passes. No Motel 6, no truck stops, there were none of the modern conveniences to ease their way. All they had was determination, sweat, and the distant mountains that hung on the horizon, mocking their efforts. (As a brief aside, to get a great idea of the trials of the pioneers, check out the movie The Big Trail, an early John Wayne western. Although the story line leaves something to be desired at times, the depiction of what the early wagon trains had to go through is superb.)
Not all the states elicit this kind of introspection. Mostly, there are the treasures that I find as I travel along. The states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are studded with these gems. As I leave the interstate and take to the state highways, they are revealed. Small farming communities anchored by a whitewashed or brick church, small towns with an honest town square and local stores where service is a way of life, not a buzzword.
The state of Tennessee is another jewel, one of my favorites. The highway snakes up and down heavily forested hills, the valleys home to some of the most beautiful rivers one can imagine. Some of these rivers pass under the highway five or six times before taking their leave, each time possessing a new look; sandy flat shores, steep cuts through the rocks – the river has the same name each time, but a new face. Anchoring the state of Tennessee is the Gorge - a canyon that the force of the Pigeon River has carved through the Smoky Mountains. Even though the drive through there is demanding, the sheer overpowering beauty of running along the river bottom surrounded by cliffs towering hundreds of feet overhead fills me with wonder.
Then there is West Virginia, a state so mountainous that if one could grab it by the edges and stretch it out flat, it would be bigger than even Texas. A state that, although small, takes the best part of a day to cross (and the driver better be well rested before tackling it too). Yet a state that is a flawless emerald, richly green and sparkling.
Along the east coast, there is more to life than the I-95 corridor. Taking to the back roads opens whole new worlds to enjoy. Dodge moose and bear in New Hampshire and Vermont, cruise through the forests and cold mountain lakes of New York, all these and more are there to experience. Travel through the old towns of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York and discover buildings erected in the 1670’s. Tour Virginia and the Carolinas and witness battlefields from three wars - the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War of colonial America to the killing grounds of the Civil War, often in the same place.
The United States is there for all the senses. Unplug your earphones, turn off your computer, disable the GPS and look around next time you are traveling. Run along the Gulf Coast and taste the salt on your lips and smell the shrimp boiling from Key West, Florida to Corpus Christi, Texas. Go to New York City and smell the chestnuts roasting on every street corner, watch an osprey dive into the Missouri River, listen to a string of locomotives labor up Cajon Pass, feel the cool breeze coming off the Adirondack Mountains. Marvel in the journey and the destination will be upon you too soon.