Sara Takes the Wheel

Overheard on a recent family vacation:

You see, kids, this is why Mommy and Daddy work. Mommy has high anxiety, and Daddy just doesn't give a care about things. If you put the two of us together, there's a balance.

Coming home from Joshua Tree, we stopped to fuel up the truck outside of Quartzsite, Arizona, and Brian asked if I wanted to drive for a bit. He said I-10 would be an easy drive and would be good practice. He assured me we could pull off and switch again before we made it to Phoenix during rush hour. 

Seeing as I had just finished my sandwich and he hadn't eaten his yet, I agreed. So I got behind the wheel and asked him what I needed to know. He told me to hit the TOW button, take the corners wider than normal, and, "You probably won't even need to turn the steering wheel once you get on the highway." Sounded easy enough, yet with white knuckles I put my hands on the wheel and eased my foot down on the gas pedal.

Yeah, I wasn't relaxed at all. But I did okay. When I wasn't staring straight ahead, I was glancing in my side mirrors to make sure I was centered between the solid white line on my right and the broken white line on my left. Occasionally I'd check my rearview mirror only to be terrifyingly reminded that all I could see is the black front windows of the Airstream. I followed a slow truck for quite a while before I could tell Brian thought I should pass it. So I did. Then he said I should pass the next two trucks "while you're over here." So I passed the second one. By then I was about ready to pass out from holding my breath, but I approached the third truck. He must have been going a bit faster or he was bigger or we were closer, I don't know, but I could feel the trailer starting to sway a little. When I instinctively eased off the gas, Brian exclaimed, "No, no. Hold steady on the gas!" I continued with my speed, passed the truck, and then we almost got divorced.

Okay not really, but come on. Isn't that something you would tell a new trailer-towing driver when she got in the truck and asked, "What do I need to know?"

So for the next ten minutes, we went over the rest of the information I needed to know fifteen minutes ago. And somewhere in there was the quote about anxiety levels canceling each other out. Then I carried on and waited for the moment when we could switch drivers.

Only that moment never came because before I knew it, we were in the middle of this.

It was 4:30 pm in Phoenix, and I was towing the Airstream. It was rough around The Stack. It got pretty hairy at the Broadway Curve. I clutched the wheel, checked my mirrors, and continued at the excruciatingly slow stop-and-go pace for more than an hour. Did you know that the last thing most commuters want to be behind is a Sequoia towing an Airstream? It's true, as evidenced by the amount of cars that cut in front of us. I might have grunted "I hate you" several times to either those drivers or my husband (one can't really tell), but the fact of the matter is that I drove the truck towing the Airstream for almost three hours.

There are things in life that scare us, and if we wait around for the perfect time to try them we might never get around to it. So a few days afterwards, knowing that we made it safe and sound, I am grateful that my husband threw me into that stressful situation. I still think he should have given me more helpful directions at the start, but I'm thankful he had enough confidence in me to talk me into literally taking the wheel.