Yahoo Autos In Praise of Using Your Car to Unplug
THOREAU WENT TO THE WOODS to live deliberately. Last winter, I went to the woods because there was snow in the mountains and a Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro test truck in my driveway. I am no Thoreau, but I am also only so much of a putz: When adventure appears, you give chase, courageous.
Plus, there was a giant pile of dirty clothes in my bedroom and I was scared of it.
Our house was built without a laundry room or a basement, so dirty laundry lives next to my bed, in a ziggurat of plastic baskets. My wife, Adrienne, calls this abomination Mount Clothesmore. The words leave her mouth in the same way you imagine Winston Churchill discussing the Luftwaffe. The name arose because the pile is monumental-we have small kids and are perpetually behind on laundry. The title may also exist because I occasionally shape hillocks of used socks into the faces of American presidents, then place our spaniel on them and triumphantly sing John Philip Sousa marches. (Oddly, as a canine-calming strategy, this procedure is crap. In a possibly related bit of trivia, I know every cymbal hit in "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by heart.)
I digress. On the day in question, the laundry mountain was larger than usual. Despite having nothing planned for the day, I chose to ignore it, ejecting into the Toyota. I also chose to pawn the kids off on my parents, so Adrienne could come with.
"This truck is tall," she said, climbing in.
"Toyota Racing Development," I said, steely eyed. "Is this an off-road package?"
"It is." I then made gorilla noises and drove over a nearby sidewalk, as if that proved something.
"Ah," Adrienne said, in a tone that reflected, among other things, the reality of living with the kind of person who sings patriotic marches at dogs.
"Ah what?" "As in, ah, it's going to be one of those days."
I thought I saw her reach for the door. Only by the time I heard the word "days," we were headed for the highway, doors locked. Because again, I am only so much of a putz.
Hours later, we were several thousand feet high, in the mountains east of our house, and deep into a network of unplowed fire roads. The Tacoma was up to its frame rails in powder. All four wheels were spinning.
I grinned over at Adrienne. "We're stuck." "Did you do this on purpose?"
"Almost definitely."
I opened the door and jumped into knee-deep white.
There's something reliably excellent about bailing from civilization in winter. A snowy forest is so unlike the ceaseless beat of real life, your brain just automatically idles for a bit.
She climbed into the truck. "Is this an off-road package?" I then made gorilla noises and drove over a sidewalk, as if that proved something.
And dredges up memories. Walking around the Toyota, I was reminded of my friend Jason Cammisa. Jason used to work at R&T but is now with Motor Trend as an editor, YouTube host, and precision driver. In the car-magazine world, precision driving means big, smoky slides for the camera, in machines you don't own and aren't allowed to crash. Jason is one of the best-smooth, natural, better car control than a lot of pro racers. Years ago, I asked him where he learned the trade. Before journalism, he said, he had a stressful IT job in Pittsburgh. During blizzards, as a kind of release, he would burn whole nights in nearby mountains, teaching himself to drift.
Standing next to the Tacoma, that conversation came flooding back, verbatim. I started thinking about how we cope with stress and responsibility. I stared into the trees and felt a burgeoning epiphany. As if on cue, the overcast sky began to thin, and rays of sun poked between the clouds.
Somewhere in my head, a breaker tripped. The whole situation seemed too perfect, too engineered to teach me something. It sounded not entirely unpleasant, but also tiresome, like laundry. For maybe the first time in my life, I decided to try ignoring the urge to learn something through introspection.
My blood pressure dropped. I climbed back into the Toyota feeling slightly guilty but also great. The kind of great where you hear the phone ringing, and it might be important, but you turn up the stereo anyway, because the song is just that fantastic.
Adrienne raised an eyebrow. "What were you doing out there?" I told her. Then I told her I had given up on thinking for at least a day or two. She asked if maybe that wasn't . . . kind of stupid.
"That's the point," I said.
I rocked the truck between reverse and drive to free it. It worked, and then we drifted back down the mountain. At home that week, I drank too much beer. I wish I could tell you that the ignored laundry also lowered blood pressure, but it didn't. We paid the price for weeks. Folding underwear became my only hobby.
But that was all months ago. To be honest, I had forgotten about it until yesterday, when our washing machine conked out halfway through a load. Dead agitator. Parts won't be in for weeks. When it broke, I kept pressing the start button, captured by quiet panic. Clothesmore grows larger by the day; it now sits amid a mildly ominous air of chickens coming home to roost. I'm probably supposed to recite some wisdom here about karma, or not using cars to run from your problems. The situation seems to demand introspection.
Or I could get back in a car.
Which would probably be stupid. Just taking the keys for a moment.
I swear. Don't wait up.
Sam Smith is an editor at large for R&T. His brain idles regularly.
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