Remembering how the car works

[Katherine .]

After last week’s trip I recognized a pattern: My backpacking brain is sometimes mystified by car controls upon return to the car. Anyone else experience this?

It’s secondary stuff, not basic steering, stopping, accelerating. Last summer it was the headlights. I was convinced something was wrong with them, but I was merely mixed up about what was parking/normal/brights.

This time it was the child-safe window locking mechanism. I rolled down some of the windows to air out the car then couldn’t get them up again. I figured: “OK, given that this worked a minute ago and I was just out of civilization for five days, chances are this is backpacking brain, not a sudden serious electrical problem with the car.” So I drove with the windows open for 15 minutes, pulled over, then it all made sense again.

Similar stories? Tips for returning to the world of machine controls?

[Matthew / BPL]

I drive really, really slowly after a long trip.

[Jerry Adams]

It gets worse as I get older

[Ken Thompson]

Glad I don’t drive a variety of vehicles these days. Always some weirdness.

[Katherine .]

Jerry— Having to pump my own gas when crossing over from OR into WA is another recurring car/backpacking challenge for me. Nothing catastrophic, but had to stop the pump on the way back cause I quickly realized I was filling with the $$$ ultra premium (more intuitive button above the nozzle) instead of the normal unleaded. Or the time I had to find a different station cause the sun was hitting the screen in such a way you couldn’t see a thing on it. Half the time there’s some little something like that for me.

[Erik G]

For me it’s also a speed thing, and it gets proportionally worse the longer the hike. When my wife and I did the BSL, we could hardly drive out of Road’s End after the hike, just because 20 mph seemed WAY too fast. :) I also tend to assume all cars have clutch pedals, and have brief moments of panic when I’m driving automatics. But that’s not limited to post-backpacking lol

[David Thomas]

When we were backpacking in NZ, it become kind of a ritual for the kids to all chime in “Drive on the left” at the start of each driving day.  It helped.

Mostly, I remember how to drive a car.  But the porcelain throne in the house?  I tend to forget we have several and start eyeing trees in the yard for a private spot.

[Doug Coe]

I still have the “Oh, this feels way too fast!” syndrome too after a hiking trip. But just driving a car at all used to feel a bit odd after days in the backcountry—less so now as I often go all week without driving in town.

[Miner]

Buy a GM vehicle as the headlights have automatically turned on since the 90’s.  Due to having driven for 30+ years, I don’t normally have a brain freeze when it comes to driving after a trip. But after longer trips such as my PCT thru-hike I definitely was driving slower and less aggressive as others mentioned.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I have a similar problem in early winter trying to remember all my backcountry gear and avalanche vocabulary.

I think it’s a matter of being conditioned to one frame of reference and having to suddenly switch to another much different one. But thankfully the brain is pretty flexible, as recent research has shown.

[Rex Sanders]

A similar experience years ago …

Spent an intense week guiding a 10-foot raft with tiny, leaky tubes nicknamed Flipper down the Middle Fork Salmon River in Idaho with moderately high water. Learned to skirt as close as possible to the big rocks in rapids to avoid flipping in the big waves.

Takeout is at the end of 45 miles of dirt road.

Was most of the way down that road before realizing I was driving as close as possible to the rocks in the road, without hitting them.

New habits die hard?

— Rex

[Steven Paris]

Where’d you go, Katherine?

[Katherine .]

Took the son, now 10, up Hoh River Valley in ONP. He carried all his stuff in my Ohm and put in a 10+ mile day. Taking the daughter to MRNP (Indian Bar) in a few weeks. Hope you’re well Steven!

[Lester Moore]

After a week-long trip, it takes a few minutes to get used to the “high” speed and the clutch. Even more remarkable is how incredibly cushy and pampering the interior and especially the seat feel.

[George F]

On my thru hike, sleeping in a different place every night, I never woke up confused. When I got home, for about a month afterwards, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and not know where I was.

[Nick Gatel]

I never forget how the car works. Nowadays I can’t remember where I parked it.

[BlackHatGuy]

“Nowadays I can’t remember where I parked it.”

I actually have an app on my phone for that. True story.

[Ralph Burgess]

I never forget stuff like this.  Constantly alert, brain as sharp as a tack.

What were we talking about again?   Has anyone seen my glasses?

[Nick Gatel]

I actually have an app on my phone for that. True story.

I don’t doubt it. A few years ago we met Joyce’s childhood best friend and her husband in Vegas. Had dinner and walked around the strip. They had parked their rental car in the huge MGM parking structure. The next day they told us it had taken them 2 or 3 hours to find the car.

I had a similar experience. I was traveling and had rented a white Ford Taurus. I had a luncheon meeting in a restaurant in a huge shopping center. The luncheon ran longer than expected and it was going to be a tight schedule to get to the airport in time to catch me flight home. I didn’t remember exactly where I parked, and when I started looking for the car I found the parking had dozens of white Taurus cars parked all over the place. The panic button on the key fob helped me locate it.

Modern problems!!

[jimmyjam]

I have trouble figuring out how to change stations on my jeep’s radio. The radio is 2013, the jeep 1995, no problem figuring out anything on the jeep because it’s got nothing to figure out. Manual, no A/C, radio, that’s it.

[Author]

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