A Million Miles and Counting: A Story Behind Every Mile - Paperback

by Gloria Jean Hansen (Author)

I love driving. I have driven since I was six, and learned on the old Farmall tractor from childhood days in rural Northern Ontario. We never had a car growing up; I swore when I grew up, I would drive somewhere every day. My happiest place is behind the wheel. Home nursing gave me that perk, and every patient I visited turned out another story, names never used and situations slightly changed to assure privacy for participants.

My mother lived a thousand miles across the province from us, so in order to ensure my little ones knew their grandmother well, we often dropped everything and headed for 'Grandma's'. Each of those road trips was a story in itself. Something of note would happen every time we set out on such a journey. For instance, my daughter and I were at one time both nursing new babies (and THAT is yet another book). Between the uprooted schedule we both maintained for our babies, we did not take into consideration that our nerves would get the best of us. I recall my daughter saying she was headed for the river bank halfway to our destination and don't bother coming to get her. I could keep both babes since it was obvious she knew nothing about mothering. I swear I don't recall questioning her parenting, but to this day she claims I did. Loudly. Could have been something to do with the fact my last baby was born when I was 45, not much left in the patience locker.

I am an obsessive fisherman. My fishing rod is always in the trunk. I would travel out of my way for one little cast to see if fish are biting at a nearby lakeshore, or I would jump into my boat and be gone for hours, sometimes days after the big catch. Those lake trips added many miles to my log of distance and stories.

I also play music in a bluegrass band with my daughter. We log many, many miles gong to festivals, practices and local and regional musical events. I have always had a rather large vehicle to contain in the early years kids and all their quilts and cuddle toys and sippy cups and anything else they snuck on board. Later years I had to carry medical supplies, briefcases, office supplies, and the like for work, then instruments and sound equipment for the festival circuit, and a front seat filled with coffee maker and a sizeable cooler for the many meals I had to consume while driving.

At all times I carried a clipboard and attached pen to record the noteworthy things that happened on my various trips. Those clipboards filled quickly. In later years it was a laptop and/or tablet and cell phone gracing my passenger seat. Since my nursing career began in the early seventies, and motherhood as well, and musician matters all my life, plus the fishing and the snow machine miles, you can imagine I had ample grist for this 'Million Miles' mill. The book is filled with my life on the road, a memoir.