Speeding on a Sunday Afternoon

I said I wasn’t going to do it, but I must. I’m indulging in my inner anorak and I’m bringing cars into the equation. But don’t worry, I’ll not bore you with brake horsepower figures or acceleration times; I’ll not even mention my undying love for AMG tuned SLKs or the fantastic Gallardo Balboni.

No, I’m going to talk about my 11 year old Jeep Cherokee. More specifically, I’m going to talk about the amazing afternoon I had in it.

You see, last week I wrote about that little bit of magic that likes to hide in common, everyday things. This week I found a spark of magic that I had forgotten about over the winter. It was phenomenally nice outside on Sunday, my ideal weather. I had gone shopping in the next town over and decided that on the way back I should take the back road.

It is called River Road and there’s a stretch between that town and mine that is perfection. I don’t know when it was originally paved, but I don’t think it’s been touched since then. It is a winding, twisting ribbon of driving fun.

Fate had to have been on my side that afternoon. The windows were down, there was no traffic and, as the white lines of city maintenance disappeared, T. Rex came on my player. I floored it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to tell you that there is nothing quite like driving very quickly on a road you know very well. And there you have it. In that 20 some mile stretch of road, I had found some magic. In those few minutes of driving, I didn’t care that I had work the next day or that I had bills to pay. I had no cares in the world; there was only me, my Jeep, an empty road, and T. Rex.

I will probably never get to drive an F430 down the Stelvio Pass, but for an afternoon, I came pretty close. That, in my book, is magical.