Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 17, 1993                   TAG: 9305170264
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Monty S. Leitch
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ON THE ROAD; WHO KNOWS WHERE?

Once, I never hesitated to drive for the sake of driving. Wandering from this road to that, without a map, along creek banks, through hollows, up ridges. Marveling at what beauty and mystery snuggle into every hidden pocket.

In the past 20 years, however, I've seldom meandered away an afternoon just for the sake of meandering. I've told myself that this is an ecological decision; that by sticking to the known routes, the necessary trips, I've saved the world a little from my automobile's pollution.

But that's not true. I've not been wandering because wandering is so risky.

Where are you going? When will you get there? What's the next step? Where will this lead?

The wanderer answers each question, "I don't know." The wanderer trusts that the journey will provide its own destination. The wanderer risks, confident there's no waste in wasting time, positive one can't get lost when the destination's revealed rather than reached.

Some years back I had a job for which I was required to fill out weekly progress reports: goals and objectives, steps taken to date. I was a whiz at this. Every incremental move toward success recorded and checked off. On any day I could tell you where I was going, when I'd get there, and where this all would lead.

For a long time after I'd left that job, I kept those progress reports. They were so neat! So reassuring! Documentary evidence that I'd not been, as I'd suspected during those long and draining days, wasting my time.

Meandering, of course, provides no such assurance. Time wanders by along with the houses you've never seen before, the great misty vistas of row after row of ridges, the sudden splendid expanse of river, lacy with riffles. The rewards lie not at the end - Look how far I've come! - but all along the way.

Last week I set out to explore the route the Tour DuPont would follow from Christiansburg down to Galax. I drove south along Virginia 693, knowing that sooner or later I'd reach Virginia 100 (I had a sort of a map). But how far would I go? When would I get there? Would I even know "there" when I reached it?

I carried a thrilling edge of fear throughout that trip. I'd started late in the day. The roads were wet from occasional hard thunderstorms. And I - the whiz kid with progress reports, the goal-oriented planner, the eminently organized - didn't quite know where I was going.

Childress, Snowville, Hiwassee, Allisonia, Sylvatus. That's where I was going, if it even matters. I crested ridges from which the view took my breath away. I dropped into hair-pinned hollows, where the last light of the day seemed as green as the overhanging trees. Mist fairies danced across the grass and the road in front of me. A massive arch of tree-lined stone along New River made me stop the car. Such beauty! Everywhere! Why didn't I know this before?

Because knowing it required traveling without a map. Required meandering, wandering, purposeless time-spinning, a thrilling edge of fear. Because knowing it required faith that the journey itself is the point.

I came home and threw away all those old progress reports.

\ AUTHOR Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.