The gas gauge was sinking below half, and I was beginning to feel uneasy. I should have filled up at the station we had passed along the way. Was this what came of ignoring my own travel rule: whenever the gauge dropped below half, refill at the first gas station I saw? In my experience, most roads in the country had a gas station every 30 to 40 miles, so I had not worried much. This time, it looked as though I was going to pay for that complacency.
At long last, in the town of Pittsburg, I reached Route 27 and found a gas station. Filling the tank was satisfying enough to make me feel full without a meal. “Oh, well—if we don’t get there today, we can get there tomorrow.” The confidence that had deserted me began to return. Fortunately, in Mount Pleasant we were able to get onto Interstate 30.
Looking at the map afterward, I realized the distance had not been all that great. Because it was an unfamiliar road I was driving for the first time, it had felt longer, and I had frightened myself. The country is vast, and Texas is enormous. Nothing serious had happened, but I was reminded of an obvious lesson: on a journey this long, needless bravado in an unfamiliar place can invite danger.
We had found the main highway, but now I was worried about finding somewhere to sleep that evening. I had expected to spend about two nights on the way to Atlanta, yet I could not find a campground. I had let my guard down, assuming something would turn up along the way instead of making arrangements beforehand. Later, I discovered there had been a campground about an hour off the freeway. Perhaps I had been too tense to notice; I had simply passed it by. In the end, we checked into an inn near Texarkana, the first city in Arkansas at the Texas border.
Once in the room, I unfolded the map of the entire country I had received from AAA, and another debate began in my head. I was no longer in the mood for Little Rock or Nashville. Was it worth making such a long loop just to see a little more? All I wanted was to reach Atlanta quickly, catch up with the former colleague waiting there, and then hurry on to Washington, D.C., to see my granddaughter.
We had not driven far, but it had been the most nerve-racking day of the trip so far. “When you travel, you’re bound to have a day like this,” I told myself. Even so, my whole body ached, and I had no appetite. We still had to eat. At a sandwich shop nearby, we chose one large sandwich and split it, half for my wife and half for me.