Hiromi_X

My move north is more than two months away, but I've already begun planning the minutiae. Not because I'm particularly anal about planning things, but because there are few things I love more than planning for a trip.

At first, I was content to toodle around on Google maps, looking at satellite images of the places I'll be traveling through. Google is also good for instantaneously calculating distances between cities and possible stops. But I'll never be strictly a glowy screen sort of person; I have to have the thing I'm looking at right in my hands, so I bought an oversize Rand McNally atlas. Good ol' Rand McNally.

While the atlas doesn't smell as nice as I would like it to, I love feeling the texture of the paper -- slightly glossy, slightly rough -- under my finger as I trace the paths the roads take. I love reading the names of tiny towns along the way, and I like to imagine what sort of people live there. I stare fascinated at the maps of individual states and compare the amount of smooth empty space on its map versus the tangled webs and knots of highways and roads in clusters of cities. I wonder what's in those empty spaces: Trees? Grassy plains? Or perhaps surprising grotesqueries like the oil drilling things I saw while driving through north Texas? They looked like giant, frightening prehistoric dino-bird hybrids that rhythmically dipped and bowed into the earth. I make careful note of icons and borders and terrain. I like to see how many national and state parks, spots of interest, and bodies of water there are.

I've got tons of anxiety about this move. I wonder whether I can measure up in my new position. I wonder what the people there will be like. I worry about my motorcycle and getting around in a strange place. I have to find a place to live, sight unseen. But looking at maps dispels all those worries.