Our group consisted of my daughter and son-in-law with their son, not to speak of my wife. We left home at 5 in the morning. To save time, we wanted to finish at least one of the sights out of four we had planned to see in New York well before we checked into the hotel in New Jersey. Our next day’s pit stop was at our relative’s house near Philadelphia for a sleepover. My son-in-law’s car was hardly three months old, and it cruised smoothly on the well-paved East Coast roads. Our itinerary Included the imposing Niagara Falls after our stay at Four Points by Sheraton overnight.
Back in India, I traveled for not more than an hour at the most on the roads. This was because I found trains safer than roads for transit. I put the blame on bad weather, poor upkeep and irresponsible road use for my fear of the roads. Also, I was not growing younger any more, to be enticed by adrenaline pumped up due to road rage like in my prime. Well, now in another nation and hemisphere, after a few miles down the highway, for the first time I began getting nervous and fidgety while seated in the front seat.
Unfortunately, on my mobile, maybe for the heck of it, I searched the net for an app to find my current altitude on the road. Duly I installed one from several. Promptly the App told me that we were at 1000 feet. above the sea level. Being a heart patient for over 22 years, I knew I must still be breathing oxygen on the unfolding forest route. We stopped for the gas. Next, we were cruising at 65 miles on the turnpike/highway. Now, my new app flashed: 2000 feet above sea level.
I asked my daughter if we were at the foot of any mountain range. She conveyed her ignorance about altitudes in this part of the USA. Yet, she assured me that Niagara could not be any higher than 1000 ft. My wife asked me not to worry my head about the height of the intervening hills or mountains due to my obsession of avoiding heights only for a possible fall in the oxygen levels. On the other hand, I had no acrophobia, or say, I had perfect head for heights to boast. She parroted my daughter’s prophesy that anyways we would be at a comfortable altitude at the destination, namely Niagara, that would be okay for my dear heart. She added by way of putting me down that we were after all not going into the outer space.
Before we started on our extended stay in the USA, my partner insisted that I, should not google any place and route on my mobile because she needed to have some nascent, raw and firsthand experience of all the places we were going. Therefore, I got over my usual itch to look anything up on the internet and take the printouts of the maps and note the historicity of places for the record.
As our car climbed up, I saw my app started reading 4000 feet.I told my son-in-law who was at the wheel that I wondered it must be okay for heart patients like me until we reached a level of 8000 feet, and I didn't think we should be climbing till such heights here. Lo, the app now flashed 7000 ft. and it was still counting. As an afterthought, my-son-in law took an exit on the highway for refreshments. We ate some food stuff and drank coffee. He was already showing concern on his face for me, although I said I was good.
Despite my protests, he asked a group of tourists at the restroom if the road ahead could get any higher. They confirmed in the negative, and said that there should not be any problem we were fearing. When we were back on the road, my son-in-law was stealing a fidgety glance at my face to check how tense I was as well as the luminous face of my smart watch to check if my pulse rate was showing normal. Seeing all this Tamasha, my daughter in the backseat forced me to hand over my cell phone and smartwatch to her, since she was afraid her husband would get unnecessarily get jittery and otherwise distracted from his driving as I was verbalizing my fears about the high altitude readings which could as well be wrong.
I clarified to her meekly that I was only surprised at the app showing rather high altitudes even when the weather outside was not cold and people did not freeze on the roads, and my pulse too was ticking normally.
Though I assured I was not panicking but only wondering at that strange app, my intermittent burps coming from my gut resounded in the car and thus giving away my anxiety. My wife expressed her wish to return to Boston. My son-in-law almost complied.
I told everyone in the car that now that I didn't have my cell phone and smartwatch I was unable to know the altitudes we were passing by. Half an hour later, my daughter announced that she just downloaded a new and correct app for altitudes and that we were only at 1500 ft. above the sea level. She confirmed that what I downloaded earlier was a wrong app, which was actually for the bikers displaying a biker's cumulative altitude achieved so far and hence the readings showed up to 7000 feet and beyond which were not the real-time altitudes.
As our car climbed up, I saw my app started reading 4000 feet.I told my son-in-law who was at the wheel that I wondered it must be okay for heart patients like me until we reached a level of 8000 feet, and I didn't think we should be climbing till such heights here. Lo, the app now flashed 7000 ft. and it was still counting. As an afterthought, my-son-in law took an exit on the highway for refreshments. We ate some food stuff and drank coffee. He was already showing concern on his face for me, although I said I was good.
Despite my protests, he asked a group of tourists at the restroom if the road ahead could get any higher. They confirmed in the negative, and said that there should not be any problem we were fearing. When we were back on the road, my son-in-law was stealing a fidgety glance at my face to check how tense I was as well as the luminous face of my smart watch to check if my pulse rate was showing normal. Seeing all this Tamasha, my daughter in the backseat forced me to hand over my cell phone and smartwatch to her, since she was afraid her husband would get unnecessarily get jittery and otherwise distracted from his driving as I was verbalizing my fears about the high altitude readings which could as well be wrong.
I clarified to her meekly that I was only surprised at the app showing rather high altitudes even when the weather outside was not cold and people did not freeze on the roads, and my pulse too was ticking normally.
Though I assured I was not panicking but only wondering at that strange app, my intermittent burps coming from my gut resounded in the car and thus giving away my anxiety. My wife expressed her wish to return to Boston. My son-in-law almost complied.
I told everyone in the car that now that I didn't have my cell phone and smartwatch I was unable to know the altitudes we were passing by. Half an hour later, my daughter announced that she just downloaded a new and correct app for altitudes and that we were only at 1500 ft. above the sea level. She confirmed that what I downloaded earlier was a wrong app, which was actually for the bikers displaying a biker's cumulative altitude achieved so far and hence the readings showed up to 7000 feet and beyond which were not the real-time altitudes.
I thanked her for her sound logic which cleared my altitude conundrum. My anxiety over the past two hours was pointless and that led to some undue confusion and concern in my fellow passengers. Our 1st grader grandson exclaimed at one point, "Mom, for how long would grandparents be living with us, scared the way they are?”
From then on, during the rest of the 3-hour journey, I was whistling and playing with my grandson. No more belches or even halts at every other exit on highways to use restrooms out of confusion and incidentally to get acclimatized for the imaginary high altitudes. For once, I did not feel my body pains or discomforts for sitting so long in the confines of a car, even after such a long journey, particularly for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment