Roads are amazing - poured concrete stretched as far as the eye can see, trucks whizzing along, white lines leading into the horizon.
Like many other things, I have taken roads for granted. They are there and they work. Whatever.
But having just spent hours - 24, to be exact - in a tiny Chevy Aveo with three other people, my eyes have been opened.
I understand airplanes, they make sense to me. I get the idea of being able to be transported in the sky from one place to another. Destinations can be drastically different and arriving at another place does not come as too much of a surprise after the process of check-in and security and immigration and boarding and waiting and flying.
No, it is not too shocking to end up somewhere completely different than where you began after you have been through all that.
But when a one-day road trip can take you from cold, grey winter to toasty, humid beaches, it is a little bit difficult to comprehend. This past week, a few friends and I packed up a little rental car and drove from freezing minus-one Chicago, Illinois to beautiful 29-degree Miami, Florida. This is a lesson in reality, to watch how the country changes as you transition along the highway.
Interstate highways connect this nation, generic roads like grey ribbon over 75,000 km across this beautiful land we call America. A quick zip through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia lead us to our final destination of Miami, home of sun and surf and the host of the annual Art Basel festival, which was our official purpose of travel.
Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Lamborghinis line the streets, cruising past five-star hotel after five-star hotel, the art world all migrated to sunny FLA to see the latest and greatest on the market this season. The streets are lined with the promise of money and the beach front's posh hotels are booked solid.
We manage to get a room at a local hotel-type establishment, close to the action. There may or may not have been blood stains on the carpet and a cast of questionable characters coming through the doors. I am amazed at my own ability of compromise by staying there.
Welcome to Miami. We may have been too exhausted (and impoverished) after the marathon drive down to party Miami-style, unless you call falling asleep while sitting up and holding a giant slice of pizza a party. I haven't crashed like that since I was a baby, falling into my Pablum from sheer exhaustion.
Still, the experience of driving from cold to warm and spending a few precious days away from the stress of real life was priceless. Those images of endless roads and highway signs, layered with the bright lights and inspiring art in Miami, will be flashing across my inward eye for a long, long time.
The road back was far less miraculous and after the second 24 hour drive in the Aveo, nothing was more beautiful than the sight of my own bed, stacked with blankets for a cold and still Chicago night.
Naomi Yorke is a Port Coquitlam student who lived in Shanghai, China for four years, writing about her experiences twice a month for The Tri-City News. She now lives in Chicago, where she's attending art school, and continues her column.
