Road trip. Wild fish in wild places. Instagram wet dreams. Early starts, strong coffee, a comfortable motor, good music. These are essentials. Heated seats are a plus.
Road trip. Forward planning. Leave the house with the minimum of fuss. Gear loaded the night before, phone charged, sat nav dialled in, alarm set (although I never need one). Clothes set out for 4am, food is prepped and ready to go. Change of clothes in case I fall in. Arse wipe. Permit. Plastic.
Road trip. Pre-dawn scraping off ice from the windscreen, foxes in headlights, market forces - no milk floats.
Road trip. To all points of the compass. There-and-back-in-a-day missions, three hundred round miles in a trip. I've been known to drive in my waders with rods already rigged. It's not as bad as it sounds. Longer journeys = overnight stays.
Road trip. A mile on the outbound journey = two coming home. Anticipation eats the miles, tiredness stretches the monotony. A fishing buddy comes in handy right now. On solo trips I play tricks on myself. Keep awake, open the windows but the mind can wander. Am I more likely to have a road accident because I am covering big miles? Or do we live in a random wrong-time-wrong-place universe? Do all those unknown misses in time and space add up to invite misfortune or do they never count at all? A miss is as good as a mile but when your time's up your time's up.
Road trip. Riding on air, 30lbs per square inch separating you from oblivion. It's weird when you think - if your bladder is empty and your fuel tank is full you can leave your drive and arrive without your feet ever touching the ground in between.
Road trip. Outbound, the future is unwritten and painted with optimism. Homebound the journey is buoyed up by success or dragged down with the gravity of cold wet blank. Either way the next road trip is already forming as I turn for home.
The road goes ever on.
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