She Road Trips

When the locals ask “But…why are you here”? You know you’ve strayed from the road most traveled. ‘Here’ was Saltilo, Mississippi; a brief stop on the magnificent and surprising Natchez Trace Parkway that winds 444miles from Nashville to Natchez. I hadn’t planned to drive the Natchez Trace and whilst lazy planning often provides room for the inconvenient & frustrating, it also thrusts you into the wonderfully unexpected.

After weeks of driving the interstate on the East coast the Trace, a sleek road built on an ancient Native American trade route, is blissfully calm and packed with historical sites. Granted, most of these sites involve staring at a mound of grass, but that still beats the mania and dull grey of the highway. It may not have the breathtaking views of the Skyline Drive through Shenandoah or be as glamorous as the Pacific Coast 101 but something about this road clutches at my heart; like all good treasure I want to shout aloud its unending virtues and at the same time clasp it surreptitiously to myself.

It is perfection to drive, the road ebbs and curves through emerald forest and as dusk turns the sky a soft pink and the once lush green surroundings stand in stark silhouette, like the painted backdrop to an early Technicolor film, there is not another car in sight. The last of the sunlight eases away and the van’s front beams catch my evening companions for the first time; little jade pinpricks that flash in the air like miniature camera bulbs.

Fireflies!

I’ve never seen any before.

At first there are just a few hovering and quivering at the side of the road but soon the route is flanked by thousands of them skimming the grass verge or spiralling upwards into the black; the more adventurous making it high above the road to blink like distant spaceships – or perhaps they are distant spaceships. Suddenly, presented with this unendingly bewitching sight, anything is possible.

My head spins with them and for a dizzying moment the full impact of this trip hits me square in the chest for the first time – I’m driving across the USA by myself. Determined ignorance lapses, the mental map rapidly zooms out and San Francisco is still another 3,700miles away. In one overwhelming second my veins course with panic, pride, fear, excitement, nausea & anticipation all ignited and soothed by these tiny creatures trembling at the roadside; each emotion roots me to this moment of wonder on the Natchez Trace. Yes, I’m ‘here’ and I couldn’t be more fortunate.