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// Road Trip! 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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February 1

Peggy still wasn't back when I woke up, so I was happy for her although it felt a little bit lonely in our room without her there.

I decided that since I'd gotten in a good flight last night, I was gonna trot around the neighborhood a little bit, and I'd get back in plenty of time for class, so I stretched out and then when I got outside I stretched again and then bounded through the snow towards the road instead of taking the sidewalk, 'cause it was more fun.

I went west along Academy Street, and then I remembered as I got to where it curved to the right that if I followed the curve around, the road took me to Grove Street, which had a big dip in it.  So when I got to the top of the dip, instead of following the sidewalk, I flew straight across.  I had to be a little bit careful, because the electricity wires dipped down to follow the road, and I didn't want to crash into them and get tangled up.

When I got to the other side, I decided to turn around and do it again, just for fun, but this time I glided down the hill and used my momentum to get most of the way back up.  I could have flown the rest of the way to the top, but I landed instead and trotted up to the top and then I went back across Arlington street to Academy Street and then back to my dorm.

I hadn't exercised enough to get very lathered, so it didn't take me too long to shower, and then I went back to my room and after I'd dried off and groomed myself, I wrote a little bit in my journal before I went to breakfast.

Peggy wasn't at breakfast and I hoped that she hadn't had so much fun that she forgot about class.

The professor was kind of distracted in Climate Science class, 'cause he'd spent all weekend thinking about the cloud I'd brought down, and he tried to teach us the lesson he'd planned but everyone could tell that he was a little bit distracted and he kept looking at me, which was kinda embarrassing.  And then at the end of class he finally decided to spend the last few minutes asking me some questions about clouds. They were really basic questions, but humans don't really know that stuff, like knowing that a lot of storm clouds have electricity in them from the sky, and if you touch them you can get zapped when you touch the ground again.

Peggy was at lunch, and she was in a really good mood.  I got there a little bit early 'cause the climate science professor had forgotten to give us any homework, and it was really nice to just sit around together and not feel rushed at all over our meal. Sometimes I feel like if I'm taking too much time at lunch, I might miss my next class, or I'm wasting time when I should be doing homework.

In Equestrian class today, Meghan invited me on a road trip! That's something humans do: since they have cars, they drive them places to go see things.

She said that Lisa and Becky were going, and that they thought I'd like to go with them, too. It would give me a chance to see some of the country, and that it was for an important cultural event.

I thought she was kind of stringing me along, like you might wiggle a lure in front of a fish to make sure that it got the point, but truth be told, I was sold as soon as she invited me. I didn't really care where we were going, or what we were going to see. Besides learning, we were supposed to explore new things and I could explore a lot further in a car than I could on hoof or wing.

But of course there was a catch. We'd be leaving after dinner tonight, and I'd have to miss class tomorrow. 

I'd have to skip class. Like a bad pony.

So I told her that I wasn't sure, and maybe it was something that could be postponed until the weekend, and she said no, it had to happen today. She told me that it was an important part of human weather forecasting: tomorrow was called Groundhog Day, and that the people of Pennsylvania (which is a state) relied on a groundhog to tell them when winter would end.

Well, that got my interest right back. Even the climate science professor had mentioned it in class. So I told her that I would have to call my poetry professor and make sure it was all right, and she said that she understood, and if I wanted to come, I had to be at their room by 7pm sharp, and to bring whatever I needed for a two-day trip.

I wrote a computer letter to Conrad Hillberry, and he said that it was okay if I missed class; he said that he was young once, too, and while he would miss my glowing presence in class, he knew that I would make the most of the experience. And then he asked if the mood struck, if I might write him a poem about it!

I hadn't expected him to be so supportive! So I told Peggy where I was going, and I packed what I thought I might need, which wasn't very much, and she suggested that I could take my portable telephone with me as well, and to make sure that I had some money too and be careful and to call her whenever I had time and have fun and then I nuzzled her goodbye and headed out of the dorm.

Then I turned back and got my poetry book, in case I had time to read it in the car. I didn't know how long the trip would take.

It didn't take us too long to make our way to Becky's car (neither Meghan nor Lisa have one). It's a bright red Focus, which she called a station wagon.

They asked me where I wanted to sit, and I said that the back was fine, so Meghan got in one side and I got in the other, and we set off down the road.

I'd never been driven around at night before, and that was kind of weird. All the businesses have big glowing signs so you can find them at night, and there are some lights above the road in towns to help you see, but once you get out on the highway, there mostly aren't any lights at all.

All cars have a pair of spotlights in the front so that you can see where you're going, and then they have smaller signal lights all around them, so that other drivers can see what you're planning to do. There were some big trucks which Meghan said were semi-trucks that had lots of lights, and they were very pretty to see. There were also police cars that had flashing red and blue lights. Those stayed at the side of the road behind other cars that had misbehaved.

Looking outside wasn't quite as exciting as I had imagined it might be, since it was dark, and after a while, the blackness outside of the window started to look mostly the same and even the big advertising signs got repetitive.

But that was offset with a lot of lively conversation inside the car. All three of the girls had all sorts of questions for me, and I had all sorts of questions for them, and so we just talked and talked.

When we were passing through a town called Dundee, Becky asked if any of us wanted to get something to eat. I wasn't really hungry; it doesn't take a lot of energy to just sit in a seat, but the other girls were, so we went to a Taco Bell! They have what is called a drive-through, so you don't even have to get out of your car to get your food (which was a bit of a disappointment; I wanted to see what the inside of a Taco Bell was like).

I got a bean and rice burrito. It was kind of difficult to eat in the car, but Meghan helped me with it. Becky ate while she was driving; her car had little recesses that the drink cups could fit in.

I was really excited when we got to Ohio. It was a new state, and at first it looked kind of the same, except that the roads had a lot more lights around them, and the pavement was much better. You also had to drive more slowly and maybe that's why the pavement was better.

Then we had to go through another drive-through and pay money to get on the Turnpike. Becky got a little slip of paper and tucked it above her visor, and we continued on our way.

Unlike in Michigan, there weren't all that many exits, and they were very far apart. I guess there aren't that many places to go in Ohio. But they did have oasises, which were really neat. We stopped at the first one, because everyone needed a bathroom break and a chance to stretch their legs, and the car needed to be fed more gas.

Gas is really stinky. I didn't like it, but it made the car go, so it was important to have.

I'd love to say that I stayed awake and alert for the whole trip, but I didn't. Not too long after we left the oasis, I started to doze off.

It wasn't just that it was past my bedtime, but the swishing noise of the wheels on the pavement and the air passing over the car, plus the slightly overheated inside all worked together to tire me out. Maybe if the windows had been down it would have been better for me (there is a little button on my door I can push to make the window go down but I can't make it go back up because I can't get my hoof under the button and Becky had to help after I accidentally pushed it). I could feel my head drooping and got that kind of funny loose feeling in my body when I'm on the edge of exhaustion. The sounds of their voices kind of rose and fell, and my eyelids were really heavy, and Meghan said it was okay if I wanted to nap, so I stretched out across the seat with my head in her lap and closed my eyes.

I never really fell fully asleep, but I drifted in and out as Becky kept on driving. Sometimes the car would make a sudden movement, and I'd wake up briefly. One time I did, Meghan was running her hand along my back, and that felt really good and I leaned into her stomach. Another time was when we stopped at another oasis, and the sudden rush of cold air into the car woke me. Becky said that we were in Pennsylvania now.

My eyes were used to the dark, and it looked a lot hillier than Ohio had been.

I looked up at the sky when we got out of the car, and my eyes were drawn to all the different stars. It wasn't anything like the Equestrian sky had been. Meghan pointed out a few constellations for me; there was the big dipper and the little dipper and that was all the ones she knew, and there was also the Milky Way, which was a whole wide band of stars. She said that that was our galaxy, and we were looking towards the center of it.

There were also moving blinking lights in the sky, and she said that those were airplanes. Like the car, they had lights on them so that they could be seen at night. I knew about those from getting my pilot's license.

I was invigorated for a little bit after stopping at the rest area—the cold air and the chance to be on my hooves for a bit woke me back up—but we weren't back in the car for all that long before I fell asleep in Meghan's lap again.