Lesson 2: The Cross-Country Road Trip That Was Sparked by the Coronavirus Outbreak

First stop was Ohio and then came Kansas right before good ole’ Colorado. We had done this exact drive before back in December, just in reverse. Back then, what seems like ages ago, we were so scared thinking about the snow we’d have to traverse over to cross from Oregon to Colorado that we never imagined a more frightening idea could hold us back.

The Reason For Travel

I’ve always enjoyed the open road and I thought it was because I loved the adventure and the idea of a new and undiscovered destination. During the 10 hour drives between Ohio, Kansas, and Colorado, I had A LOT of time to think. Personally, there may be no better place to think then when driving down the open road. It becomes so meditative after a certain point of your tires hitting the road and the golden rows of corn stretched out for miles.

There is both so little and yet so much to see. That’s the innate beauty of being both suspended in your vehicle for hundreds of miles and moving forward. You’re bound to see a change in your environment. You see the change of neighborhoods, cultures, industries, and beliefs.

We all travel for a number of reasons and this time, for us, we were traveling with a mission in mind. Get to the west coast. Don’t get stuck in the middle.

As a recovering east coast driver (and I know most of you know what I mean 😉 and an immunologist I vowed that increasing my stress about anything else, in even the slightest bit, was going to put my immune system into overdrive during our 6 days drive across the country. So I vowed to keep my stress down so that I didn’t get sick along our journey. Because, if either of us did, it would mean a domino effect of repercussions that we couldn’t afford.

Life Has This Way Of…

Over the years, as I’ve worked hard on my own spiritual growth I’ve noticed that life has a certain way of throwing in front of you an obstacle that matches exactly what you’re working on. What you may be struggling with. For example, if you are working on a new dietary regime all of a sudden there are more snacks in your office. If you are working on your addiction to nicotine, something triggering happens and you’re forced to decide what you will do.

As I mentioned in part 1 of this article series, my fiance and I had chosen to listen to Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now during our drive. The monotone nature of the majority of our drive was the perfect place for us to soak in the teachings of this brilliant man and maybe, even apply them.

I felt a deep connection to his approach to life situations and the idea that we get too attached to the life situations that we don’t notice our Life, that which is always ever-present. He teaches that instead of being in the present moment and appreciating the now, we tend to be in our thoughts, thinking of the now. Projecting a skewed version of it through our own individual perceptions.

I pondered these ideas deeply as we drove and I chewed on my trail mix, post sanitizing my hands an extra time. I began to realize and recognize once more how inadequately our society prepares us for life. And by that, I mean the present moment.

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The media industry is fueled by the perpetual notion that you don’t have enough and need more. Our entire society is fueled by this insatiable and uncontrollable desire for more. Our governments and businesses are all geared towards the fact that people will not stop wanting more. But, that’s the caveat. See, to be “happy”, or ultimately content, you merely need to be present.

But the instant you even think this, your ego, as mine, will begin to rebel because our egos live on the promises of tomorrow and the fears of the past. The ego doesn’t survive in the present moment because it’s not often needed. By ego, I am referring to Tolle’s definition of the unconscious mind that controls 99% of how our society functions. How we make decisions, how we live and how we breathe even.

In times of chaos and deep widespread fear, such as these, we cannot risk living unconsciously because the risks are greater. Being so stressed that you can’t think straight will likely lead you to touch your face after riding the subway.

Being so stressed and worried about your health or that of your family that you forget to sanitize your hands when you get in the car, that’s coming from moving through the world unconsciously. In “zombie mode”.

The spread of disease is bad, but the spread of fear fueled by chronic negative stimulation and exaggeration can be just as deadly. In a world where we can no longer trust where we get our news or the leaders of our government, we have to discern for ourselves what the best step of action to take.

What Being Prepared REALLY Means

If you were asked to say the first images that come to your mind for “being prepared” I bet most would include an image of some packed bags since we so often jump straight into preparing for some physical change or move.

For the first time in my life, I truly understood what it meant to be prepared on an inner spiritual level. To be prepared for when shit hits the fan.

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The drive from Kansas City, KS to Colorado has to be one of my favorite long-term drives by far. It definitely doesn’t get pointers for being the most beautiful, but it is smooth, straight, and easy. And when you’re doing 10+hrs of driving for a week, sometimes you need a bit of a break. A moment to cruise.

It was quite empty on the road when we left in the morning to get an early start and perhaps, we could even pick up the U-haul trailer in advance. We had both our text and email confirmations that our trailer was to be ready for pick up the next day in the morning. Although the location was switched on us, as it often is with these things, it was relatively close enough to the storage unit that we didn’t mind. Plus, it’s not like we could do anything to change it.

I had tried calling the pick-up location to check that our trailer would be delivered because this was not our first rodeo with U-haul reservations. When we finally got ahold of the pickup location store owner, he informed us that the U-haul trailer we reserved was no longer on his list. What did this mean? Well, we had to guess as much as you are now as you read this because we got no confirmation of this.

No one from U-haul called or emailed or texted us to tell us our trailer was not being dropped off anymore. Actually, after finding this mind-numbing information out as I was driving, I couldn’t believe what was happening.

My greatest fear during this trip: that something would happen to the trailer reservation. Fuck. It was here. And we were 1.5 hours away from our hotel. So what to do… call U-haul of course.

Their initial response after prolonged hold periods of stress-induced anxiety was that we would get a $50 refund if we wanted to cancel (FYI, it costs way more to rent a trailer). Or if we wanted to we could drive an additional 2 hours into the mountains of Colorado to pick up what was apparently the only trailer left in the goddamn state.

I couldn’t understand how this could happen. I was livid and my body turned rigid with anger, frustration, anxiety, resentment, and fear. I didn’t know how to feel. Or how to act. Luckily, I was behind the wheel and driving down the highway so I could distract myself with the road, the sky and the passing cars —wow, how different everything looked just a few minutes ago I thought.

I am blessed in many ways, and one major way is with my fiance. He can be thanked in entirety for the events that occurred soon after. He has a way with people, when it comes to business, and is a great communicator even when stressed so somehow, after talking for what seemed like an eternity on the phone with the U-haul representative, he managed to reach the humanness in him that finally helped us out. I thought to contact the previous renter to see what their status was on the delivery of the trailer, and the rep told us he would try.

We were driving into Denver, with no trailer, a storage unit that was expiring tomorrow night, and a second car that needed to be serviced after shocking back to life from a dead battery. We had someone on the other end of a company that couldn’t be trusted, yet we needed to trust. It was a paradox. And we had to respond. But how?

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I instantly knew that if I reacted as usual, if I followed old reactive patterns of freaking out and adding more stress into the equation by losing myself, I was choosing to be ignorant. I’d been listening to Eckhart Tolle for 3 days straight now, so there was no excuse for me to choose the ignorant path. I had to choose a new way. The “not react stressed in a stressful scenario” way. Which can be expanded to the “not react stressed in a stressful scenario when you’re driving cross country during a pandemic and you have no trailer to move your stuff tomorrow” way. Also, our hotel, the night before, informed us when we called that they didn’t know if they’d be open the next day so that was a nice way to wrap up our previous night.

All I could do, all I had the energy and know-how to do at that moment was just accept it. And keep repeating to myself that everything will work it’s way out. It always does. Somehow. Good or bad. But either way, I wouldn’t have any control over it. U-haul would. Oh, yea, and the universe of course.

I Need To See It To Believe It

We drove into the hotel parking lot in Colorado and grabbed the belongings we believed we needed for the night before heading in. We hadn’t heard back from the customer rep and it was almost 5pm when their office would close. I recall walking into the hotel and putting all our refrigerated groceries down, recognizing how silly it was to get a place without a kitchen during the only time we’d be getting groceries.

I was sitting on the couch when it was time to call the rep back. I had been calm the entire drive from downtown Denver to the hotel, at least from the outside. I was practicing being present and not thinking about the what if’s of tomorrow. I remember sitting and a sense of knowing would creep up. A voice inside said, that this was all a big misunderstanding. It will all work out and tomorrow we will be picking it up.

The rep picked up on the other end and told Evan that they found the previous renter. That the trailer would be dropped off today and we could pick it up tomorrow. It was all fixed. It was ok. Right?

I felt a wave of relief set in. Body parts I didn’t even realize were being clenched released and I fell back onto the couch feeling into my exhaustion. They actually managed to pull through. Somewhere deep inside the massive company were real people and someone actually managed to care. We were eternally grateful. Tomorrow we’d have the trailer for sure.

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The next morning, I went to service my car after having a brand new battery installed and it was a beautiful sunny day. Things seemed to be running rather normally as though nothing ominous was happening. I was smiling on my drive to Home Depot to pick up some tape and extra moving boxes feeling like this trip may go without a hitch after all.

Then I checked my phone and saw six missed called from Evan. Shit.

The trailer wasn’t there. And it wasn’t going to be there. It was 11:30am the day we were planning on moving our things from storage. Our last day of storage, may I remind? The next day we planned to drive to Idaho, and there was no other plan C in place.

I couldn’t understand how a company could be run so poorly and get away with such utter incompetence in the modern world and be functioning. I mean, someone else should really start renting trailers.

The situation wasn’t all bleak, thank god. There was a bit of hope left. The owner of the original pickup location was planning on going to the main Uhaul center to pick up a truck today. This place also just happened to have a trailer that was all fixed up and serviced.

This was going to be our trailer. If it got to us. All we had to do was wait for the owner to call us when he left to pick it up and when he got it. I had little faith left in me and I needed to see the trailer to believe we had one.

This was our only option outside of getting a box truck and platform for my car. The two parts were in different locations and the cost was way too high. What did we have to lose?

I laid in bed staring at the ceiling as Evan led a meeting on a small hotel desk on the other side of the room partition. I wondered about the voice in my head yesterday and how utterly calm it was about things working out. I didn’t know why. But it knew. It was all a deep inner knowing if I can describe it in any way at all.

I focused on my breath and began to think of the things I was grateful for. It really works for those of you wondering. In so many different scenarios it does help lift you up a bit. As I began to feel better a knowing within me made me look at the clock and I thought, I bet we will get a call in an hour with them saying our trailer is in. I decided to trust it because I had no choice. I couldn’t afford to stress my body out more than it already had been for weeks.

After his call, my fiance joined me to watch Netflix and away the hour flew. Without noticing the time that passed, we decided to take a nap since we were still waiting. As soon as we laid down, but before we got too comfortable a phone call came through.

It was the owner telling us the trailer would be at their store in 15 min. Give us 30 minutes, Evan said right before he hung up the phone.

It wasn’t until Evan pulled through the gate and I saw the big hunk of metal, staring at it like a long lost lover, that I knew we had the trailer. It was ours, it was hooked up to our car, and we were ready to go. It was time to pack.

After 2 and half hours of tetris-like assembling by my darling partner, we were able to fit everything in right up to the door. We sold all our furniture in a whirlwind of events two days prior to our flight to Prague back in the fall so we didn’t have that much. I decided to celebrate by ordering some salads from Panera to pick up. I’ve never walked into a store that was more creepily deserted than this Panera. There was absolutely no one in sight. Anywhere. Yet all the cookies and muffins were up on display and my food was labeled and placed on the to-go shelf. I had almost begun to think that elves were now being hired to fill in the gaps during the coronavirus outbreaks when I heard a murmur on my way out. Humans worked here after all, and one was sitting in a booth at the back.

It was March 17th and the numbers hadn’t exploded yet in the midwest. Two more days of driving were left but they were also the hardest because now we were each driving the entire length. No more halvesies. We had no idea what was in store for us as we hungrily devoured our Panera salads while watching Netflix in our hotel room. It began to rain outside our window and the sky greyed over. I recalled the previous 24 hours and the rollercoaster of emotions that it took me on. From hearing the panic of relatives through the other end of the phone to the disappearing trailer and potentially open hotel. I was feeling ok through this storm of events and I could only thank myself for choosing presence over worry when it was the last thing I wanted to do.

Tomorrow we were headed to Idaho. 10 hours on the road would turn to 12 hours of driving through heavy rain, sleet, hail, snow, and sunshine. We didn’t know this going to sleep which helped us in the morning when we awoke to a dark grey and rainy day.

Continue with part 3.

Didn’t read part one? Check it out here!