Nighttime

It's scary driving at night. Well, let me augment that by saying it's scary driving at night when you've been driving all day and now you're in a random location in the middle of god knows where heading towards an ultimately unknown location that's 2,500 miles away from home.
I had my first moment of panic heading north on I-35 coming out of Des Moines, Iowa. The last dwindling photons of the daylight had recently been absolved and now all I could see was the oblong pattern of my headlights that shown on the dark grey surface of the road. I thought: I've been driving for twelve hours at an average speed of 70 miles an hour through four states towards a small town south of St. Paul where I might get to sleep on my sister's floor. I'm in the middle of nowhere and it would take a long time to turn around and go back to the comfort of my home. When the thought hit me my chest tightened, I could feel my face go pale, and my knuckles turned white as I gripped the steering wheel. This feeling... I hadn't felt it in a long time. Fear.
Graduating from college last May had certainly provided me with an uneasiness, maybe even a fear, about the future: what am I going to do now, how will I pay my student loans, where will I live, etc., but what I was feeling right now was something much different. It was primal, almost. It felt so real, and I felt so alive.
Soon the feeling subsided and Jesse took over operating the machine on wheels.

After parting ways with my traveling compadre in Grand Rapids I was now alone to drive eastward.