The Long Drive

It breaks my heart to think that I'm getting too old for this.

From the time before I had my driver's license, I've loved being behind the wheel. My father first started showing me the basics of driving at the tender age of eight, when I would sit on his lap and control the steering wheel, while his feet would take care of the gas, brake, and sometimes the clutch pedals, as we negotiated the empty parking lots of the nearby shopping centres.

Those were the days long before Sunday shopping made empty parking lots a rare commodity.

At 13, when I could finally sit in the driver's seat and handle the pedals and see over the hood of the car, I was allowed to drive on the dirt roads around our house, when we lived up in the Gatineau Hills. Sometimes, we'd return to vacant parking lots, where my father taught me skills for accident-avoidance and what I like to call "offensive driving." I think he was grooming me to be a race-car driver.

By the time I received my learner's permit and had signed up for driver's education, I knew my way around the roads. In fact, on the first day of my in-car class, after a few minutes of driving around the Sir Robert Borden High School parking lot, my driving instructor had me stop the car, when he turned to face me and asked, "How long have you been doing this?"

"Three years or so," I said.

"Okay," he said, "carry on." From that point, he didn't bother with parking-lot exercises. I spent many sessions, driving my instructor on errands.

When I bought my first car, I loved to get behind the wheel and just go. Often, I wouldn't have a destination: I would just start driving and let the car take me where it wanted to go. I would drive on county roads on the outskirts of Ottawa. I would take unmarked, winding roads around the Wakefield area, just to see what I would come upon.

One evening, I just started driving south, from home, following old Highway 16 (the Prescott Highway) and ended up at the Canada-U.S. border. When asked why I was heading into the States, I said, "I'm just going for a drive." (This was before passports were needed to cross over and long before 9/11.)

I crossed over the bridge at Ogdensburg, NY, and then headed eastward, along Highway 37, where I stopped in Waddington for a couple of photos—I always carried my camera bag and tripod in the trunk—before continuing through Massena and then crossing back into Canada at Cornwall, where I made my way to the 401 and backtracked to the Prescott Highway, returning home.

I loved to drive. Day or night.

My trusty Sunbird, Betsy.

When I had finished Journalism School and began dating a University of Ottawa student, who lived with her parents in Mississauga during the summer months, I regularly jumped in my Pontiac Sunbird and made the trek to see her, even if it was for less than 24 hours. Some of my friends from Journalism School had moved to Toronto after graduation, and I also spent weekends with them.

Once, when I was studying at Carleton University, and DW and I were in our early dating phase, we took my Sunbird down to Daytona, Florida, for spring break. I drove practically non-stop for 24 hours before we reached our destination, set up our tent at a campground, and I passed out for nearly 12 hours.

Driving through Syracuse, NY, coming back from Florida. (Yes, I'm photographing while driving... bad boy!)

Our campsite in Daytona.

Long drives have never bothered me. Until now.

Because of the pandemic, DW and I haven't felt comfortable with DD19 using public transit to travel between home and her residence, at a school in the Greater Toronto Area, and so I've made the 10-hour return trip from our driveway to her campus, and back.

The first trip was exciting because she was moving for the first time. We packed all of her belongings into our CR-V and the whole family came along for the drive, to help her move into her residence and have a proper goodbye. Because of the pandemic, we were limited in going into her residence building and we didn't want to put up in a hotel, so we drove straight home after DD19 was moved in.

Dropping off DD19 at her residence, with her sister and DW.

The long drive was no problem.

About six weeks later, I made another trek down to the GTA to pick up our daughter for the Thanksgiving long weekend. It was surprising how much we missed her, and we had a very nice visit. I picked her up on a Thursday afternoon and drove her back to residence on the following Monday. Two return trips to the GTA in four days.

A few weeks later, I returned to the GTA to bring DD19 home for her first-semester reading week. This time, I picked her up on a Friday afternoon, kept her for more than a week, and drove her back on a Sunday.

Mid-December, I was back at it, picking our kid up and bringing her home for the Christmas holiday. This time, she was home for four nearly weeks, and we spent some quality time together as a family can under a pandemic lockdown. Her time home ended early, however, when the Ontario government ordered a lockdown for all non-essential travel, and at the last minute I drove her back to the GTA and was back home a few hours before the lockdown took effect.

On the last Friday in February, I made the trip again, to bring our daughter home for her second-semester reading week. This time, because she had assignments that were due by the end of the week, she spent a great deal of her time reading and working. The week simply flew by.

But because I had noticed that the day after these 10-hour trips would leave me exhausted the day after, we made the decision to drive DD19 back to the GTA on the following Saturday, rather than Sunday (yesterday).

Long drives never bothered me. I looked forward to them. From the 15-or-so hours, through the night, out to PEI for family vacations, to the drive for a long weekend in New York City, I've loved being in the driver's seat.

But now that I'm in my mid-fifties, now that my joints get sore and my blood circulation isn't what it used to be, I'm finding these drives are taking their toll, especially when I'm returning my daughter to school, and my drives home are solo.

I've told myself that these drives are necessary: neither DW, nor DD19, nor I want our kid to put herself at risk by sitting on a train for several hours during this pandemic. DD19 keeps herself isolated from others, taking her classes online from the safety and comfort of her dorm room. Sharing a ride with her dad, who avoids people at all costs, is a safe way for her to travel. I have no regrets, no matter how tired I am when I get home, how drained of energy I feel the next day.

But I look forward to the day that the pandemic is over and we're able to cautiously be closer to strangers. This fall, not only will DD19 be returning to the GTA for her second year, but her sister may also be in Toronto for her first year (or she may be in Montreal, which would make commutes to pick up our kids more challenging).

We're considering giving DD19 our CR-V in the fall, so that she can drive, herself. Like her dad, she loves to drive and gets behind the wheel for about an hour each day to see where the vehicle takes her.

Maybe then, she'll be ready to take the long drive on her own.

Father passes the torch.