sleep-driving

So I set a new personal record yesterday for catatonic driving, also known as sleep-driving.

My previous best was driving about 70 miles. That was in 1989, and took about an hour and a half. That seems long by today's standards, but back then the speed limit was 55 mph (and involved a short jaunt through one small town with a couple of stop lights).

Yesterday, after being up all night Thursday, I had a 14-hour drive ahead of me with zero allowance to pull over at any point and rest.

I do remember the first three hours of the trip. For the next eight and a half hours the only time I was coherent was when I was talking on the phone with a few folks, which was approximately an hour and a half.

According to Mapquest this span of the trip was 560 miles. So it appears I trumped my previous sleep-driving best by about eightfold.

Nothing worked to stay awake, and boy do I mean nothing. I tried focusing on the car in front of me, focusing on cars on the horizon, driving with the windows down. All these seemed to work when I first tried them--I discovered they didn't upon hitting the rumble strips or snapping to momentary attention while straddling the white line of the lanes.

You know it's bad when even the most reliable thing in the book, the trusty and reliable ol' sunflower seed eating routine, fails miserably.

This is a trip I've made around 80 times in the last two and a half years. I know all the exits along the way by memory, and use them as landmarks to help make the trip go faster. As in "okay, there's A, which means I'm an hour away from B". It's a routine which helps break the trip down into bite-size chunks. The thing is, on this trip I didn't see the landmarks I always see between Memphis and Buffalo...because of the sleep-driving. There was no "oh, here's such-n-such. That means I'm only an hour from xyz". I did pass by all the very familiar locales and landmarks, I just don't recall them.

This is really interesting, too, because there are several places on Interstates 30 and 40 where the road makes uncharacteristic 90 degree bends (as far as interstate roads are concerned). Two of these are at exits 78 and 116 on I-30 in Arkansas. Another is at mile 157 on I-30 in Texas. These are places where the otherwise generally-straight interstate makes a distinct turn. I was on the phone with a friend during the Texas one, and remember it. I don't recall either one in Arkansas at all.

So this sleep-driving, I've discovered, is an art form. You do it pretty well if you: (a) don't die, (b) don't run off the road, (c) don't hit any concrete barrier in construction zones, (d) don't side-swipe another vehicle, (e) don't get pulled over by a policeman or (f) don't get honked at or given the one-finger-peace-sign by other drivers.

It's funny. Numerous times when I snapped out of catatonia I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a pack of cars hanging behind me cautiously. As in "this dude is weaving, I don't know if I should/can pass him". I would then move over to occupy one lane (instead of the two I found myself in), the cars would see I was back in one lane, pass me, and we were all once again heading on our merry way.

I figured I was doing this sleep-driving thing pretty well, cause none of the people who then dared to pass me gave me dirty looks or fingers. Maybe they were too nervous, or too busy praying or occupied with both hands on their steering wheel, to do so...

At any rate, I didn't get any shaken fists come my way. That I could see, that is--maybe I was already back in Comatose Land before realizing any gestures being given. And if anyone did call 911 to report "a guy all over the road", well, all I can say is the police must have been disinterested or preoccupied in getting out there.

This is why I say there is an art form to this thing. There is a lot that can not go well, so if you get through without any of them happening, well, wouldn't that be considered artistic? Either that or skillful--somethin'. It's akin to that maze board game you played as a kid, where you tried to maneuver the little silver ball through the maze without it falling into any of the many holes along the way. You worked both the north-south and east-west tilt knobs as best you could. It was pretty easy at first, downright difficult toward the end. If you made it all the way through, wow.

This is not something I intend to do with regularity, mind you. However, I can now add it to a list of other things I've done while driving through the years, reading books and watching movies among them. Definitely a top five.