Something's Gonna Crush You

Six hours on the Pennsylvania Turnpike will make you grateful to arrive just about anywhere, I think. Six hours isn't a long trip, but it's a narrow one, between hills I call mountains and mountains Coloradans call hills, and it stops and it starts and it reminds you that there's no room to pull over, because: DANGER FALLING ROCK. Personally, I've never seen one, but the government-issued signs say they'll come careening down those slopes onto the highway that's been carved out-- just wait and they'll come. That official yellow diamond looks pretty menacing to me.

If it isn't falling rock that crushes you on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, it's bound to be your too-tight seatbelt, or the luggage that's piled in the seat next to you and topples over onto your lap when a sharp curve gets taken too quickly, or if nothing else, your generalized anxiety disorder. Something's gonna crush you on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I can't say right now what it'll be. I just know that when you get to wherever you are going, it won't really matter where it is. You'll be glad, and remember you've got lungs for about two seconds, and then tell yourself that your t'ai chi class was bullshit, like just about everything else. Still, I know you won't totally believe it, because those first gulps of air when you tumble out of the car into Ohio, or wherever else you ended up, will be some sort of breathing exercise. I'm not really an authority, you understand, but I hear these kinds of practices are the only way to decompress from whatever crushed you on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, so it's an awfully good thing that you know about them, and that they come naturally to you.

Photo Credit: Historical Photographs of Ray's Hill, circa 1940