Driving paid miles means a discipline with attention not given easily to others. Luckily, the men in my family (professional occupations) had deduced much of what was important about long distance driving well before I was big enough to lean over the front seat from the back as a boy. Multi-week family vacations across the whole of North America by car enabled observation of a highly skilled driver -- my father -- and his wilingness to point out what was happening . . or what was
about to happen.
From WWI onwards, ownership of a car in the US meant one had the ability to be places at ones choosing, unlike others. An advantage. Then, with the proliferation of all-weather roads, one had need to keep said car reliable. Outside of driving skills, much of this boiled down -- for me -- was that even with an old car (literally) it must still be in good enough shape to, if the request was made, one could be in California 2,000-miles away in a few days. Nearly non-stop driving, but with each mile accumulating weighted value via careful contingency planning.
As a result (and, now, beyond mechanical/service skills) one learns to plan for eventualities.
When my car breaks versus
if it becomes disabled. What is my alternative, where is service to be found? In elder days this was the accumulation of not only maps, but atlases with other descriptive overlays, not simply political boundaries: aircraft sectional charts, railroad and bus schedules/routes, topographcal maps, and, in a minor way, utility easements. After all, if one has promised to be in a certain place at a certain time, to arrive on the minute is to be late. Accidents, road construction, etc, all give need to -- in todays parlance -- maintain a large database, easily accessed. One needs to understand the geography through which one is traveling.
All of this leads to
trip planning as with
this post regarding how to conceptualize most miles over a set pace. The military considers this as: men, in place, on time, and ready for action. It assumes that no lag for rest or food will be needed at journey's end. Etc. One can predict to within a few minutes how close or far one is from schedule when ON DUTY - DRIVING as the federally-required truck drivers logbook records time.
In other words it will take the amateur quite some hours to plan each days legs to fit a schedule over several days up to around a week assuming no route stops on a partial or full continental run. All the times and distances must coalesce. Planning over several evenings and more
just to set each leg. That has no account for the genuinely interesting possibilites of any road which can be the result of a life's readings over any set of subjects imaginable.
For the civilian
and the hypermiler it removes "the scenery" as an unfolding passive television-like distraction, and is an aid to mindfulness.
Be here, now. As FE is about expanded awareness and the use of fine motor skills one thereby avoids the hypnosis to which some react by driving all too fast (more mental than actual despite the travel speed) or stopping innumerable times for they have no real reference for the experience of long drives. It is tremendous physical discipline, first.
My mother read a great deal months ahead in preparation for these trips over the long summer breaks from school. So one could expect that Phi Beta Kappa level muted somewhat for children on the aforesaid geography, plus geology, zoology, occasionally ornithology and most of all, history. No square foot of land lacks for history.
Sounds to me trying to increase the level of
distraction via audio inputs is the opposite of what is being asked. I cannot drive the same road three days running and not observe differences of color, activity, light and revealed distances. Not a week goes by that any road doesn't show differences in the road surface, alone.
Take it for granted that a big truck driver has to earn every foot of every road. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Above are a lifetimes worth of engagement by category for the road traveller. Biography, natural science, military history, anthropology and the rest would figure highly were I traversing ancestral lands. Ditch the childrens music and play, instead, an even slightly familiar opera in full. Sophistication is your friend over a long day. Tickle the mind, not the gonads.
Learn to lay out the route and the stops. Use each trip leg to let the mindfulness of a sailor with one weather-eye casting about to also read the waves and the winds of imagi-nation. An overall conceptual set of trip planning habits pays dividends. Most of all, remember that we may rue not having done a better job if we are ever cast out from
The Paradise of Happy Motoring.
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