2009

I've actually started some sort of retrospective of 2009 several times already. After all, it was my first full year on the truck with Beth, and my plan was to list a bunch of the crazy things that I saw and grumble about the "off year" I had health-wise, and basically bitch about '09 being a good year to put behind us all. And, I may still do that at some point this month.

Then, I got to thinking that really isn't what 2009 was all about. 2009 was the year that the forty-eight Continental United States became my office (actually forty-seven states - I still haven't been to South Dakota), and despite a few health issues, what I'll really remember are things like:

• Driving through the middle of downtown Milford, Massachusetts when the Christmas/New Year lights were still up, several inches of snow still blanketing everything, and feeling like I had driven into a Currier & Ives painting
• Crossing the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey into upper Manhattan at three o'clock in the morning and looking off to the right to see The City under full moonlight
• Driving along and listening to an African-American being sworn in as President of the United States
• Having a death-grip on the steering wheel as I drove between Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming, above the 8,000-ft. level in a blowing snowstorm, and still thinking it was strikingly beautiful in dangerous sort of way
  
• Sitting on a clear Sunday morning at a rest area on I-5 in Northern California and watching the sun rise above Mount Shasta
• Watching rain fall on the Mojave Desert
• Sitting at a truck stop in El Paso and looking out across the Rio Grande River at Mountains in Mexico
• Crossing the Mississippi River at a dozen or more different locations - from St. Paul to Southern Louisiana - and being awed by its power each time
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Blowing a few dollars at a casino in Miami and one in Tacoma
• Driving through Manchester, NH, less than 24-hours after a 14-in snowfall, and begin amazed at how smoothly traffic was moving
• Looking down at the thermometer on the truck while passing through Rockford, IL, and seeing the readout at -24 degrees
• Pulling a 70-ft. long tractor-trailer rig right out onto the pier at the Hampton Naval Yard, and feeling very small sitting within 50 yards of the USS George H. W. Bush Aircraft Carrier
• Driving through eastern Missouri and Arkansas and seeing mile after mile of an extraordinarily beautiful and incredibly destructive ice storm
  
• Stumbling onto Painted Canyon in North Dakota - I never knew it was there and I can't wait to see it again 
• Once again sitting at waters' edge on Sugden Lake on the 4th of July watching fireworks with family and friends I've had for life
  

• Listening to the Tigers play important baseball games late in September
• Tracking alongside the Columbia River Gorge for over 75 miles as it forms a spectacular border between Washington and Oregon

• Traveling east on I-70 through the canyons of Utah thinking it may well be the most awe-inspiring stretch of road in America 
  
• Waking up most every morning wondering what I was going to get to see or do that day for the very first time
  

All things considered, 2009 was a good year now that I think about it.  If 2010 even comes close, I'll be a pretty lucky guy.